In the fall of 1964, Elizabeth Hartman was offered the leading role of Selina in A Patch of Blue, with Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters. The role won Elizabeth widespread critical acclaim and the crew at the Youngstown Ohio playhouse, where she got her start, were especially proud. Twenty-two year-old Elizabeth received an Academy Award …
Oliver Reed had no aspirations to become an actor while serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He took work as an extra in the early 1950s in mostly comedies. The more extra work he got, the more it looked like this was the career for the young Reed. He was featured in several films …
In 1998, The American Film Institute named Some Like It Hot the fourteenth greatest movie of all time. Two years later, The AFI once again honored Some Like It Hot by declaring it the number one comedy film of all time. The film’s screenwriter/director, the great Billy Wilder, was a Hollywood legend. Emigrating to the …
Continue reading ‘from my sketchbook: some like it hot (and some don’t)’ »
When I’m not doing illustrations, I am a graphic designer. I have been in the advertising/marketing/printing/publishing business for almost thirty years. Here is a recent ad I created. Click on the above image for a larger version.
It was 1978. I sat behind the wheel of my mom’s ’69 Ford Galaxie trying out my newly acquired driver’s license. Sam sat on the passenger side of the huge vinyl bench seat. We talked as I maneuvered the Galaxie down Bustleton Avenue in northeast Philadelphia, when suddenly Sam screamed “What the fuck are you …
Continue reading ‘from my sketchbook: an extra piece for Sam’ »
In 1980, a little band from Akron, Ohio called The Waitresses released the catchy novelty song “I Know What Boys Like” to relatively no recognition. The song was re-released in 1982 as the first single from the Waitresses’ debut Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful. This time, the song reached number 62 on Billboard Magazine’s Top 100. In …
In 1958, when nine-year old Connie Mierzwiak was belting out Brenda Lee songs, she actually had designs on kicking rock and roll’s ass. A little girl with a giant voice, she was signed to a recording contract and released her first album in 1971 under the name Ruby Jones. She performed regularly in her native Toledo, …
On this date, February 21, in 1958, Gerald Holtom was commissioned to design a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’ upcoming march in London against nuclear war. The march was scheduled for Easter 1958, a little over a month away. Holtom, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, combined the semaphore sign for “N” …
Remember Saturday afternoon kiddie matinees at the movies? Thank K. Gordon Murray. Murray, an entrepreneur as early as his teen years, set up a makeshift bingo game in one of his funeral director father’s cemetery tents. He took his game on the road with a carnival, eventually becoming the traveling show’s manager. In the late …
Barbara La Marr had a whirlwind, but brief, career. She began performing at an early age. She married at seventeen, the first of her five marriages. She became a screenwriter and then an actress appearing in over thirty films in six years. Barbara was given the nickname “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World”. She …
