Based on his excellence in high school, Kevin Peter Hall was awarded a basketball scholarship to George Washington University. At 7′ 2″, Kevin dominated the game, but despite his athletic prowess, he decided his major would be theatrical arts.

After abandoning a brief basketball career in Venezuela, Kevin landed his first role in the 1979 horror film Prophecy.  Under special effects make-up that concealed his face but enhanced his imposing frame, he was featured in two more films, the 1980 sci-fi thriller Without Warning  and the early Tom Hanks sword-and-sorcery TV-movie Mazes and Monsters.  Kevin guest starred on episodic television including Night Court  (in a comedic turn opposite 6′ 8″ cast regular Richard Moll) and The Dukes of Hazzard.  He was part of an ensemble cast of the short-lived series Misfits of Science.  He returned to the big screen as the title character battling Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator.  Kevin followed that again as the title character bigfoot in Harry and the Hendersons,  another role showcasing his impressive height.

For two years, Kevin had a recurring role on the sitcom 227.  While working on the show, he met actress Alaina Reed. Alaina, who played the good-natured Rose Lee Holloway, had previously played Gordon’s sister Olivia on Sesame Street  for over a dozen years. In 1988, the couple were married on the show and  in real life.

In 1990, Kevin was involved in a serious car accident and required a blood transfusion. At the hospital, he received blood contaminated with the HIV virus. With his immune system compromised, Kevin died from pneumonia several months later. He was 35 years old.

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Seventeen-year old Germaine Hélène Irène Lefebvre was riding in a carriage in Paris when she was spotted by a fashion photographer. With a little encouragement, she used that chance meeting to kick off a career as a model for the likes of Givenchy and Christian Dior. She changed her name to the mysterious Capucine (French for the flower nasturtium ). While modeling, she met fellow model (and future actress) Audrey Hepburn. The two remained life-long friends.

In 1949, Capucine made her film debut in the French-produced Rendez-vous de Juillet. On the set, she met actor Pierre Trabaud and the two were married the next year — a marriage that would last only six months before ending in divorce. Soon Capucine was signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures and made her English-speaking film debut in 1960’s Song Without End,  a biopic of composer Franz Liszt. She followed that with the John Wayne comedy-Western North to Alaska.  After a few forgettable melodramas, she returned to comedy, landing the role of Lady Simone (wife of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau) in The Pink Panther.  Capucine reprised the role in several sequels, including the critically-panned Trail of the Pink Panther  in which Sellers’ scenes were culled from outtakes from previous films. (Sellers had died before production on the film had begun.) She also appeared as part of an all-star cast in 1965’s Woody Allen acting debut What’s New Pussycat?,  which was Allen’s screenwriting debut as well.

Capucine moved to Switzerland in the early 1960s and continued to make films in predominantly in Europe, with the occasional appearance on American episodic television. While working on the French film The Lion,  she began a two-year affair with married actor William Holden.

In March 1990, an ill Capucine, battling depression, jumped to her death from the eighth-story window of her Swiss apartment. She was 62.

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In 1963, The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. As a result of the takeover, employee morale plummeted. Freelance artist Harvey Ross Ball was hired to create something as a confidence builder for distribution among the distraught employees. Harvey’s creation would be plastered everywhere — cards, posters and buttons. Harvey set to work and, in the short span of ten minutes, he created the smiley face.

State Mutual launched a “friendship” campaign. Smiley face buttons were handed out to encourage a cheerful attitude among employees when dealing with customers in person and on the phone. The campaign was so popular that, by 1971, over fifty million buttons were circulated.

Harvey’s son Charles said of his father, “He was not driven by money. He would often say ‘Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time’.” Harvey never had his design trademarked or copyrighted. He was paid $45 for his work.

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Thelma Todd, Hollywood’s “Ice Cream Blond”, was most famous for the comedy short subjects she made for producer Hal Roach starring opposite Laurel and Hardy. She appeared with the Marx Brothers in their classic Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. One of Hollywood’s original “party girls,” Thelma was in a tumultuous marriage with gangster Pat DiCicco. Many nights with DiCicco ended with drunken brawls. Thelma divorced DiCicco and found comfort in the arms of director Roland West. West offered salvation with companionship, drugs and liquor. With West’s guidance, Thelma opened Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Cafe, a seaside restaurant in Pacific Palisades. The restaurant gained popularity among Hollywood’s elite, as well as tourists, and was very successful.

In 1934, Thelma began an affair with another gangster, Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Luciano kept Thelma supplied with amphetamines, hoping to persuade her to allow him the use of a room at her restaurant for a secret gambling den. She flatly refused. “Over my dead body!,” she said. “That can be arranged.,” Luciano replied.

On December 14, 1935, Thelma met comedian Stanley Lupino and his daughter, actress Ida, at Cafe Trocadero in Hollywood. Before she left the luxurious apartment she shared with Roland West, he told her to “be in by 2 a.m. or I’ll lock you out.” Their apartment was situated at the top of a long narrow staircase above the restaurant.

On Monday morning, December 16, May Whitehead, Thelma’s maid, came as scheduled, to clean the apartment. When May climbed the stairs, she saw the garage door slightly ajar. May looked inside and found Thelma dead, slumped over the steering wheel of her Packard convertible. An investigation yielded a smeared hand-print (not Thelma’s) on the car’s door. A death certificate was issued with the cause as “accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.” It appeared  that Thelma has passed out in the closed garage with the engine running. However, there was blood on her dress from a wound. Several people close to her believed she had been the target of an extortion plot and she was murdered. Thelma’s body was cremated, so a thorough autopsy was not possible. A definitive conclusion was never determined and Thelma Todd’s death, at the age of 29, remains one of Hollywood’s greatest mysteries.

A prophetic footnote to the story… In Monkey Business,  Groucho Marx quips to Thelma: “You’re a woman who’s been getting nothing but dirty breaks. Well, we can clean and tighten your brakes, but you’ll have to stay in the garage all night.”

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British-born Rod Hull moved to Australia in the early 1960s and got a job as a lighting technician on Sydney’s Channel 9 Network. Soon, he was appearing as Constable Clot, a popular daydreaming character on daytime television aimed at children. At the request of the show’s producer, Rod began performing with an ingenious emu puppet. Rod’s hand and arm became the emu’s head and elongated neck, while a false arm extending from Rod’s jacket appeared to wrap around the giant bird’s torso. Rod perfected his interaction with the emu character so well that it looked as though the puppet was actually alive — and out of control. On numerous television and nightclub appearances, the emu would wreak all sorts of destructive havoc while poor Rod tried — helplessly and unsuccessfully — to maintain composure and keep the beast restrained. The effect was convincing — and hysterical.

Rod returned to his native England. He was a guest on many television programs, including the popular Michael Parkinson interview show, where, again, Rod attempted to corral the emu as it attacked both set and host. The audience was in stitches, as was Parkinson. Crossing the ocean, Rod was a semi-regular on The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show,  a Saturday morning variety show for kids. He famously appeared on The Tonight Show,  where he ignored producer’s warnings and “allowed” the emu to attack Johnny Carson and guest comedian Richard Pryor, who was fresh from recent surgery.

As the 80s became the 90s, Rod’s popularity diminished and his television appearances were less frequent. A British documentary, Rod Hull: A Bird in the Hand,  revealed that Rod resented the puppet. He felt that, despite overwhelming but brief success, the emu held him back from pursuing other areas of show business.

In March 1999, Rod was watching a championship football match at his home in Southeastern England. He climbed up on the roof to adjust an antenna to improve reception, when he slipped and crashed through the roof of an adjoining greenhouse. He was pronounced dead at a hospital, having sustained severe skull and chest injuries. Rod was 63.

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