DCS: sergio franchi

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Sergio Franchi. What a melodic, romantic sounding name! It was very fitting for the Italian tenor with the robust voice and charming demeanor. Sergio Franchi! Throughout the 70s, he sang on The Ed Sullivan Show, filled the big showrooms in Las Vegas and toured the country, enchanting audiences that were mostly comprised of suburban American housewives looking to inject a little Continental excitement into their routine lives.

My mom was one of them.

My mom loved Sergio Franchi. As a teenager in the early 1940s, she was fan of big-band swing and was quite the accomplished jitterbugger. She swooned along with her contemporaries to the likes of Frank Sinatra and Eddie Fisher. She could be spotted at the famed Steel Pier in Atlantic City doing the Lindy or on the dance floor at Grossinger’s in the Catskill Mountains “cuttin’ a rug” with some guy whose name she barely knew. As long as there was music, my mom was there.

She always kept up with musical trends. She fell for Tom Jones in the 60s with his tight, high-waisted pants doing their best to contain his gyrating hips. She listened with heavy-lidded eyes to Bobby Darin and Mel Torme and Vic Damone. And then she discovered Sergio Franchi.

Sergio Franchi! Rugged, chiseled, Romanesque features. Barrel-chested and impeccably groomed — always sporting a simple and elegant tuxedo, its bow tie usually undone by song number three of his repertoire. In later years, Sergio would display a trendy perm on his previously close-cropped ‘do. His easy, but charismatic, personality and his wide smile entranced his audiences. And that voice! Magnificent, velvety tones that could handle popular tunes as easily as soaring operatic arias.

My mom never missed seeing Sergio Franchi at the Latin Casino when he came to our area. “The Latin,” as it was colloquially known, was a very popular night club that moved from its original Philadelphia location to a larger venue just over the New Jersey state line. Despite its name, The Latin Casino was not actually a casino, although it attracted the same caliber acts that played the real casinos in Las Vegas. Frank, Dean, Sammy — they all performed there on nationwide tours that stopped in and around the City of Brotherly Love. Ironically, its downfall was the introduction of casino gambling in Atlantic City, putting a clause in performer’s contracts not allowing them to appear with a certain radius of the seashore resort — a radius that included the Latin Casino. However, in its heyday, my mom would go with a girlfriend or her sister to see Sergio Franchi — but never with my father. He wasn’t interested in going anywhere — especially to see some singer who wasn’t Al Jolson. Good thing, too, because my mom was very uninhibited and I’m sure she offered her share of screams and cat-calls along with the other female members of the audience. One morning, after my mom had seen Sergio Franchi the night before, I came into our kitchen to find a red cloth napkin folded neatly on the kitchen table. My mom, with stars in her eyes, explained that Sergio had wiped his face with the napkin and handed it down to her at her stage-side table. It was as though the Lady of the Lake had touched Arthur’s shoulders with Excalibur. In later years, Serigo Franchi moved his Philadelphia area stop to the Valley Forge Music Fair, a smaller, in-the-round venue just minutes from where George Washington led troops fighting for our country’s independence. As far as my mom was concerned, they fought for her right to sit in the front row to see Sergio Franchi sing. In between songs, Sergio Franchi would address the audience, often remarking about the name of the town where the venue was located. “King of Prussia!,” he would say, his diminished, though still present Italian accent rolling the “R”. He’d gesture with his outstretched arm in a mock-majestic flourish as he repeated it “King of Prussia! I love to perform in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania!” He’d smile and the audience would giggle and sigh in unison, as though they had rehearsed.

Surprisingly, my mom owned just one Sergio Franchi album… but she played it over and over and over again. It was a 1973 RCA Records compilation imaginatively titled This is Sergio Franchi. The cover showed two sketchy drawings of the singer — a close-up and a waist-up action pose — against a very generic 70s-style design and typeface. When she could gain control of the family stereo, she would blast This is Sergio Franchi the way my brother would crank the volume on Physical Graffiti. This is Sergio Franchi earned a place in our family’s all-inclusive record collection, even if it looked out of place among the many releases by Queen, Springsteen and Elton John. (Oh, my mom listened to those, too.)

Sergio Franchi appeared on the popular morning talk show Regis and Kathie Lee in 1989. It would prove to be his final TV appearance. Afterwards, during rehearsals for a show at South Shore Music Circus in Massachusetts, Sergio Franchi collapsed on stage. He was hospitalized and the remaining dates of his summer tour were canceled. Testing revealed a brain tumor and, despite treatments including radiation, Sergio passed away in May 1990 at the age of 64.

My mom, who was fighting her own battle with cancer, was crushed when she heard the news. When she returned home from her chemotherapy sessions, she played her copy of This is Sergio Franchi until the grooves in the vinyl wore flat.

My mom passed away in October 1991.

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DCS: terry burnham

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Terry Burnham was a natural actress. She made her television debut at 6 years-old with a bit part in an installment of the anthology series Climax!, best known for introducing the James Bond tale Casino Royale. Terry appeared in small roles on I Love Lucy and The Danny Thomas Show, leading up to her most notable role. In a late Season One episode of Twilight Zone entitled “Nightmare as a Child,” Terry was suitably creepy as the younger self of star Janice Rule. Acting well beyond her years and limited experience, Terry’s performance was memorable among fans of the series and was instrumental in maintaining the malevolent tone of the episode.

Terry continued to land roles in episodic television, including five different episodes of Wagon Train playing five different characters. In between TV parts, she made the jump to motion pictures. She played Sandra Dee‘s character as a child in the 1959 remake of Imitation of Life and, later, she was cast as Bob Hope’s daughter in the 1966 mystery send-up Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! As a teen, she appeared as Cissy’s friend in two different episodes of Family Affair. In 1971, at 22, she made her final filmed appearance in the moral-leaning syndicated series Insight.

And then, Terry Burnham disappeared.

In 2010, an auction was held for the contents of a storage locker in Southern California. The high bidder found a cache of personal items — tax documents, pay stubs, letters, medical records, contracts and loads and loads of photographs. The photos were promotional in nature and depicted a cute, smiling little blond girl — Terry Burnham. Over the next few months, many of these items would pop up at area flea markets and swap meets. Leonard Lightfoot, a moderately successful character actor, bought a lot of Terry’s belongings at various flea markets. He sold the bulk of them on eBay, splitting most between two specific collectors — one in the eastern United States, the other in Australia. The domestic collector tried to contact Terry to return the items. He located her last known address — at a Compton, California trailer park — but, after many attempts, his efforts were unsuccessful. The Australian collector hung onto his purchases, among which were Terry’s birth certificate, high school diploma and graduation tassel. While sifting thorough his collection, he noticed that signatures had been cut from contracts. These had most likely been sold along the way with a photograph of the actress.

In 2013, Terry Burham passed away at the age of 64. Because she had no immediate family and a “next-of-kin” could not be located, her body became the property of the County of Los Angeles. According to LA County law, unclaimed bodies are cremated if no one comes to retrieve them within a month of death, after which the cremains are kept in the county coroner’s office for another three years. After that time, anyone who shows up and pays the $340 cremation fee can do so and take possession of the cremains. This was the fate of Terry Burham. Her cremated remains were purchased by a New York fan in hopes of giving the actress a proper, dignified burial. He set up an online fundraiser to pay for burial services in Kensico (New York) Cemetery‘s designated Actors Fund plot. This is a section set aside for actors who died without the assets to provide for a burial. Its permanent residents include John Call (who played the title role in the cult film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians) and Sammy Petrillo (notorious for his portrayal of a Jerry Lewis lookalike in the 1952 unintentional comedy Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla), among many others. This fan raised sufficient funds and Terry was laid to rest a little closer to her home. She was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Long Beach, California — five years after her death — on what would have been her 67th birthday.

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DCS: irving kanarek

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Irving Kanarek was a character. He was an aerospace engineer until his government security clearance was revoked. He pursued a law degree and was admitted to the California Bar in 1957.

In 1963, Irving represented Jimmy Lee Smith, who was arrested for kidnapping and murder. Smith’s case was chronicled in the 1973 book The Onion Field.

In 1969, Irving was the attorney for Charles Manson. LA County prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, in his account of the trial, remembered that Irving objected nine times during opening statements, despite warnings from the judge. Irving called witness Linda Kasabian “insane.” By Day Three of the trial, Irving had raised objections over 200 times. Jurors allegedly requested NoDoz to keep them awake during Irving’s long-winded — often rambling — presentations. His actions prompted Manson to physically attack him in the courtroom. Irving was jailed twice during the course of the trail for contempt of court.

Irving suffered a mental breakdown in 1989. An assessment by the California Bar resulted in Irving’s licence to practice law to be revoked. By the late 1990s, he was living in poverty and drifting among motels. Irving passed away on September 2, 2020, at age 100.

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