Twenty-three year old Jon-Erik Hexum took his college diploma and his good looks and headed to New York City to persue an acting career. He took a job cleaning apartments until he struck gold — and it paid off. Jon-Erik met Bob LeMond, John Travolta’s manager. LeMond saw real acting potential in Jon-Erik and urging him to …
Johnny Ace sat backstage at Houston’s City Auditorium on Christmas Day 1954, taking a short break between sets. In just two whirlwind years, Johnny had gone from stumbling into the vocalist role in B.B. King’s band to a string of eight consecutive hits on Duke Records. And now, as part of the touring company supporting …
In 1960, Life Magazine graced its cover with a photo of a pretty 23-year-old budding actress named Ina Balin, accompanied by the teasing headline “An Early Look at a Star-To-Be.” By that time, young Ina had received critical acclaim for her performance on Broadway in A Majority of One and she starred alongside Anthony Quinn in …
Roy Lichtenstein. Hustler. Conman. Huckster. Salesman. Marketer. Artist. Bratatat!
Twenty years before Marilyn Monroe‘s big-screen debut, there was Jean Harlow. No one dreamed the frail and sickly Harlean Carpenter from Kansas City. Missouri would blossom into the world famous “Blonde Bombshell.” The actress, who as a child who fought off scarlet fever and meningitis, caught the attention of eccentric director Howard Hughes and she was …
Berinthia Berenson was born into a privileged, aristocratic family in the upper-class Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. Her father was an American diplomat. Her mother was Countess Maria-Luisa Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor, but was better known as socialite Gogo Schiaparelli. Berinthia, or “Berry,” as her family called her, was also a descendant of prominent fashion …
Remember those dreaded visits to the doctor’s office when you were a kid? The only pleasant aspect of that terribly sterile and unwelcoming waiting room was the few cheerful moment spent perusing the latest issue of Highlights for Children. Remember the lessons we learned from the antics of Goofus and Gallant? Remember the endearing, if …
Dean Martin was a lot of things. Singer. Actor. Variety show host. Comedian. Womanizer. But, one thing Dean Martin was not. Lush.
WFMZ, a local affiliate just outside of Philadelphia, picked up MeTV, the syndicated retro television network that presents programming exclusively from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, around the same time that Meredith Viera stepped down as co-host of The Today Show on NBC. When the insipid and unwatchable Ann Curry took over Meredith’s duties, I …
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Evelyn Ankers was born in Chile to British parents. Once her family moved back to England, young Evelyn was bitten by the acting bug. She took in small parts in British films, including The Bells of St. Mary’s with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in 1937. Evelyn left England at the start of World War …
