With a sketchy background story involving a family lineage link to Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, Maila Nurmi moved from her native Massachusetts to New York to pursue an acting career. While seeking her “big break,” the striking and statuesque Maila posed for pin-up photos as well as for artists like Antonio Vargas and the notorious …
Everett Sloane was bitten by the acting bug in elementary school. But it wasn’t until a salary cut as a runner on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange prompted Everett to pursue acting as a career. His initial role as sidekick to title character Bulldog Drummond led to thousands of roles in radio. …
Tanya Roberts enjoyed a pretty successful career. Sure, she wasn’t a huge star and not even a household name, but she was more successful than a bunch of other starry-eyed hopeful actresses that you never heard of. Tanya began as a model, appearing as a pretty accompaniment to the products in commercials for toothpaste and …
In the summer of 1979, director Ruggero Deodato took a small crew and a group of Italian and American actors to an Amazon rainforest near Leticia, Colombia. Principal production began for what would become one of the most controversial films in movie history, the notorious Cannibal Holocaust. Ruggero was no stranger to over-the-top gore. His …
As a pre-teen, pretty Diane McBain started her career modeling for print as well as in television commercials. She was signed to Warner Brothers Studios as a contract player and made her acting debut in 1955 at the age of 17 in an episode of the TV Western Maverick opposite James Garner. She went on …
For five years now, I have been participating in the year-end Faces of Death Drawing Project. This online gathering of artists from all over the world honors those of notoriety who have passed on during the previous year. So, this is right up my alley! My first year, I drew actor-dancer Ken Berry. The next …
I will not pretend that Doyle Hamm wasn’t a piece of shit. He was. He was also a human being. Born on Valentines Day in 1957, Doyle’s father and six older brothers had all served prison terms for multiple crimes. Doyle, himself, struggled in school ― dropping out in the ninth grade and turning to …
‘Cause when the loving starts and the lights go down,And there’s not another living soul around,You woo me until the sun comes up,And you say that you love me.
I only remember Maria Ouspenskaya from two movies — Universal’s 1941 horror classic The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr. and its sort-of sequel Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man two years later. The diminutive actress played the same role in both films. She was the mysterious “Maleva,” an omniscient Gypsy woman who explains to poor …
After making her stage debut in Pittsburgh at the age of 17, Myrna J. Darby moved to New York City. She won a beauty contest that was sponsored by a newspaper. Showbiz impresario Florenz Ziegfeld saw Myrna’s photograph and hired her to appear in his 1926 production No Foolin’ on Broadway. The following year, Myrna …
