from my sketchbook: karen lancaume

Karen Bach had just finished studying communications and business when she married a DJ from her native Lyon, France. At her husband’s insistence, she began appearing in adult films in an effort to help alleviate the couple’s debts. Using the name “Karen Lancaume” (a play on the renowned French cosmetic company), she made over 40 …

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from my sketchbook: barney doyle

A heart ailment forced 53 year-old Barney Doyle into an early retirement. A life long New York Giants fan, he would now be able to attend more games. On Independence Day 1950, Barney went to an early Mass, had a quick breakfast and picked up a friend’s son, Otto Flaig, to make good on a …

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from my sketchbook: karyn kupcinet

Karyn Kupcinet, the daughter of popular Chicago columnist Irv Kupcinet, was a young and aspiring actress. She was given access to producers thorough her father’s connections. Using the name “Tammy Windsor”, she landed a small role in the campy Roger Corman original Little Shop of Horrors.  In 1961, she was offered a small role in …

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from my sketchbook: klaus nomi

He would have you believe that he landed on this planet from some far off galaxy, but in reality, Klaus Nomi was born in Germany (on planet Earth) in 1944. In his youth, he worked as an usher at the Deutsche Oper in West Berlin where he’d entertain the other ushers and the maintenance staff …

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from my sketchbook: joseph kearns

Character actor Joseph Kearns began his career in the heyday of radio in the unlikely role of a pipe organ player. He soon was performing regularly on radio programs like I Married Joan, December Bride, Burns and Allen, Sam Spade and many others. He was the mysterious announcer “The Man in Black” on the radio …

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from my sketchbook: dorothy dell

Dorothy Dell aspired to fame from the time she was a child. She won a “Beautiful Baby” contest in her native Hattiesburg, Mississippi at one year old and continued to enter and win others throughout her childhood. In high school in Louisiana, she made friends with Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton, another aspiring actress. The pair became known …

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from my sketchbook: lorene yarnell

After meeting while filming the Sid and Marty Krofft special Fol-de-Rol  in 1972, tap dancer Lorene Yarnell married mime Robert Shields in a flamboyant, but silent ceremony in San Francisco’s Union Square. Soon, the duo were cast as regular performers on The Mac Davis Show  and later, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.  They performed …

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Monday Artday: villain, part 1

This week’s Monday Artday challenge word is “villain”.  Here is the first of two illustrations for this suggestion. (Here is the second.) She spent her entire screen time in “The Wizard of Oz” tormenting Dorothy Gale. Whether it was in her role as Miss Almira Gulch, the wealthy but crotchety landowner who takes Dorothy’s beloved …

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from my sketchbook: geli raubal

After her husband passed away at the age of 31, desperate and destitute Angela Raubal took her three children and sought refuge with her half-brother. Angela became his housekeeper and he allowed her family to move into his home in the Bavarian Alps in Obersalzberg, Germany. Angela’s half-brother took an unnatural affection to Angela’s youngest …

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