Sid Haig made a career out of playing slimy henchmen, seedy heavies and unsavory criminals. Dissatisfied with the path his career was taking, he decided to retire from acting in 1992, opting to become a certified hypnotherapist. During his hiatus, he received a script for an upcoming film. He would play a mysterious gangster who presided over a crime syndicate. Sid passed on the role, expecting the low budget of the project to be more of what made him leave show business in the first place. The role, “Marcellus Wallace,”  went to actor Ving Rhames and the film, Pulp Fiction, went on to be a huge hit.

Soon, he was convinced by rock musician-turned-director Rob Zombie to appear in his upcoming gorefest House of 1000 Corpses. Sid took the role of demented clown “Captain Spaulding.” It revived Sid’s career and paved the way for his status as horror film icon. He reprised the role in the sequel The Devil’s Rejects.

I met Sid at a horror film convention and found him to be the polar opposite of his on-screen persona. He was kind, gentle, soft-spoken and articulate.

In September 2019, Sid suffered a fall at his home. During his hospital recuperation, he developed a lung infection and passed away at the age of 80. He had just completed filming the second sequel to House of 1000 Corpses and was working on Hanukkah, a comedic-toned slasher film that would prove to be his last.

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Imogen Hassall was born into a creative family. Her grandfather, mother and aunt were all illustrators. Her father was a poet and lyricist. She claimed, at various times, that her godfather was prominent Welsh composer  Ivor Novello. Other times, she said it was British composer Sir William Walton, with whom her father often collaborated. These claims were disputed by the families of both men.

Imogen enrolled in ballet school and then in drama classes. After a small role on the British stage, she landed parts in popular television series in the 1960s, including The Saint and The Avengers. In 1967, she was cast in the adventure film The Long Duel with Yul Brynner. In 1970, she landed the role for which she gained the most attention. She played a strong-willed cave girl in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. 

Imogen became a fixture in the British tabloids. Although her screen roles diminished, she became one of the first people who became famous for “being famous” (like Zsa Zsa Gabor and The Kardashians). The press often ran photos of Imogen in bikinis and other revealing fashions, earning her the nickname “The Countess of Cleavage.”

She married twice. She gave birth to a daughter who sadly passed away four days after birth. In her second marriage, she suffered a traumatic miscarriage.

In late November 1980, Imogen was scheduled to join a friend for a vacation in Mombasa. When she failed to show up, her friend became concerned. Imogen was found dead in her Wimbledon home. She had overdosed on the barbiturate Tuinal. She was 38.

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In the summer of 1973, while attending the funeral of Clarence White, a musical colleague and member of the country-rock band The Kentucky Colonels, Gram Parsons, the singer-songwriter-guitarist who was influential in the “alt-country genre,” instructed his friend and manager Phil Kaufman to cremate his body at Joshua Tree National Park when his time came. He wanted his ashes spread at the Cap Rock site at the park, which was a favorite spot of the singer. Little did he know that time would come just a few months later. In September, Gram Parsons overdosed on morphine and alcohol in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn.

In a series of clumsy, ill-conceived incidents, Kaufman intercepted Gram’s body at the Los Angeles Airport (in a stolen hearse) and drove it back to Joshua Tree to fulfill the singer’s last wishes. However, nearby campers reported the heavy smoke from the make-shift “cremation.” The remains were retrieved and Phil was arrested a few days later. He was fined $750 for the theft of the coffin. (At the time, there were no laws on the books regarding the theft of a corpse.) What was left of Gram’s body was returned to his stepfather for a burial in New Orleans, which was later revealed to be an ulterior motive in order to lay claim to Gram’s chunk of a family inheritance.

When I was doing research for this story, I stumbled upon a number of reviews on Trip Advisor for the Joshua Tree Inn, which is still in operation. The hacienda-style hotel is situated on a desolate stretch of Twentynine Palms Highway in the Mojave Desert, just north of Palm Springs and offers homey accommodations for visitors to the national park, as well as rock and roll curiosity seekers. The infamous Room 8 is available for those who need a personal connection to Gram Parsons. The room is marked with a guitar-shaped sculpture outside. The interior, however, is completely redecorated, save for a large mirror that management notes: “where Gram Parsons saw the last glimpse of himself.” How eerie.

The Trip Advisor website is a source of valuable information, in addition to being unintentionally entertaining. Personally, I love to browse the “terrible” reviews* given to hotels by angry guests looking for an outlet to vent their frustrations of a “less than satisfactory” lodging experience. A few years ago, while searching for a hotel in Anaheim, California, I read a review for a particular establishment that, along with the usual complaints about cleanliness and service, claimed the place was haunted. I began to read the current reviews for the Joshua Tree Inn, narrowing the criteria to only those in the “Terrible” category. The filter yielded twelve reviews. As I read, I noticed that a member of the hotel’s staff had left a response to nearly every review, addressing the concerns and complaints noted in each. While the hotel doesn’t have the capability to remove a bad review, it is offered a platform for rebuttal and clarification.

In 2012, a disgruntled traveler from Atlanta, Georgia levied a “terrible” review against the Joshua Tree Inn. They began their assessment by saying that they should have opted to stay at the Holiday Inn Express down the street. Then, they laid into the place, complaining about the out-of-date decor and the “brick-hard” mattress that also squeaked. They mentioned the paper-thin walls, allowing guests to hear everything that was going on in adjoining rooms. They went on to gripe about the thermostat, the bathroom lighting and even the complementary breakfast, which they described as “a half jug of milk and some old bagels.” They did, however, praise the landscaping, specifically the lovely and fragrant lilacs that are planted throughout the property. On the whole, the review was scathing. Although there are 134 “Excellent” reviews, one would think twice about staying at the Joshua Tree Inn after reading this.

A month after the Atlanta traveler unleashed his venomous diatribe, “jtinn,” identified as the Joshua Tree Inn’s “Guest Relations Manager,” offered this reply:

Mistaken identity. Review is not of the Joshua Tree Inn. We do not have bagels or jugs of milk, or lilacs, or noisey [sic] beds There is no Holiday Inn Express down the road. Nor have we had a couple from Atlanta, Ga. in April or anytime this year.
Clearly you have confused us with an inn in 29 Palms.

The 29 Palms Inn is 16 miles away from the Joshua Tree Inn. It is also a hacienda-style hotel with a big, identifying sign out front. It has a similar variety of good and bad reviews on Trip Advisor. Maybe the folks from Atlanta were taking their “Gram Parsons” pilgrimage a bit too seriously and dipped into the hallucinogenics.

* Trip Advisor has five categories of user ratings: Excellent, Good, Average, Poor and Terrible.

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He was a bird and a grouch and we will miss him.

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Dallas McKennon was one of the most prolific actors you never heard of. He was featured in a slew of uncredited roles going back to the 1940s. Dallas was a recurring character in the TV action series Daniel Boone starring Fess Parker. He was featured in a number of Westerns, including Death Valley Days, Wagon Train and The Big Valley. However, Dallas had a long and fruitful career as an in-demand voice actor. He provided the voices for dozens of beloved animated characters including Gumby, both Archie Andrews and his befuddled school principal Mr. Weatherby, Courageous Cat and Scrooge McDuck on an early Disney record. Dallas gave voice to hundreds of other background characters in animation for film and television, as well as Audio-Animatronics in Disney theme parks, including the “safety spiel” in “Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,” laughing hyenas in “It’s A Small World” Mountain and Benjamin Franklin in “The American Adventure” attraction in Epcot.

A laugh that he recorded for the 1955 Disney animated film Lady and the Tramp was recycled numerous times in video games featuring the character Crash Bandicoot.

Dallas retired in 1995 and passed away in 2009 at the age of 89… his voice living on.

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Michael J. Pollard enjoyed a long and prolific career as a character actor, appearing in quirky roles on television and in movies. His most recognizable role was as “C.W. Moss” in the 1968 film Bonnie and Clyde. The role earned Michael an Oscar nomination.

In 1990, actor-director Warren Beatty, Michael’s co-star in Bonnie and Clyde, offered him the role of sound expert “Bug Bailey” in the comic-strip homage Dick Tracy. The film was filled with big name Hollywood actors — Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, James Caan, Dick Van Dyke, Dustin Hoffman — all appearing under a ton of theatrical make-up to mimic the outrageous faces of the original drawings in the popular comic. Beatty felt that Michael J. Pollard’s facial features were so cartoon-y on their own, that the actor appeared with no additional make-up.

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