On Memorial Day 1931, 24 year-old driver Billy Arnold was the defending champion of the Indianapolis 500. Having competed in the annual event two previous times, Billy won the 1930 race after leading all but first two laps, the most ever by a winner. On lap 162 of the 1931 Indianapolis 500, leader Billy Arnold …
Poor Beaver Cleaver. He was a pretty nice kid, if only he didn’t give in to the misguided persuasion of idiotic Larry Mondello and two-faced liar Gilbert Bates. The antics got Beaver into a certain amount of trouble, though he usually walked away with nothing worse than a torn pair of pants or some lost lunch money. …
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This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “reverse”. “I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.” J. D. Salinger In early 2010, the longtime reclusive author passed away at his home in New Hampshire. He was 91.
Welsh actress Rachel Roberts appeared predominantly in British cinema, earning critical acclaim opposite Albert Finney in the 1960 British New Wave film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Her role in The Sporting Life, with Richard Harris, was recognized with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Rachel was regularly cast as women of questionable character, …
This week’s Illustration Friday challenge word is “dusty”. Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien performed with her brother and a friend as a singing trio. They first practiced in a field in springtime, so they settled on the name “The Springfields” for their group. Ever the tomboy, Mary earned the nickname “Dusty” from her rough style of …
At the age of eighteen, Victor Kilian began performing in vaudeville. In the 1920s, he moved on to Broadway and by the 1930s, he began a career in motion pictures as a character actor. He played minor roles but he was in demand for three decades. In 1942, playing a villain in Reap the Wild …
Brad Delp was “the nicest, most considerate guy you could ever hope to meet,” according to colleagues and those close to him. Brad was the primary singer and rhythm guitarist for the popular 70s band Boston. Boston’s 1976 eponymous debut sold seventeen million copies and featured Brad’s soaring vocals and multi-octave range on many of the …
Jean Seberg made her motion picture debut at age 19 in Otto Preminger’s unusual interpretation of George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, about Joan of Arc. Preminger’s daring casting of the unknown Jean received a huge build-up in the press, but Jean’s performance was panned by critics. Jean noted “I have two memories of St. …
Seven year-old Bridgette Andersen stole moviegoer’s hearts in her starring role as the title character in 1982’s Savannah Smiles. She followed that with the horror anthology film Nightmares in 1983, guest roles on television series like Family Ties, Remington Steel, Fantasy Island, and a TV movie playing a young Mae West. Despite a part in …
This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “chicken”. This is the first of three illustrations I’ve done for this word. Here is the second and here is the third, which I did over a year ago, but fits the theme. In 1920, a railroad worker named Arthur Perdue noticed that the farmers bringing …
