On This Day

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On this day 4th November

122 years ago the actor Forbes Murray was born he featured in Lady For A Night, The Fighting Seabees and Wings of Eagles.

110 Ian Wolf was born he was in They Were Expendable.
From IMDB

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Respected character actor whose on-screen work included everything from Shakespeare to Dick Tracy (1990) (his last film). After a long apprenticeship in the theatre, the 38-year-old Wolfe finally debuted in films in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), recreating his Broadway role. He then toiled away steadily in Hollywood for the next several decades, working as a supporting player in literally hundreds of film and TV productions well into his 90s. Though capable of a wide range of parts, Wolfe's gentle, patrician manner found him most often cast as a butler, a minister or a kindly doctor. He finally gained his greatest fame at the age of 85, effortlessly stealing scenes as Mama Carlson's doddering yet feisty butler "Hirsch" in several episodes of the MTM sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati" (1978).

1 year ago Sheree North died aged 73 she appeared in The Shootist

Regards

Arthur

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On this day 5th November

130 years ago the actor Henry Hall was born he made five pictures with John Wayne The Lonely Trail, The Lawless Nineties, Westard Ho, Paradise Canyon and The Desert Trail.

113 years ago Theodore von Eltz was born he made 205 screen and television appearances during his career and was in California Straight Ahead.
From IMDB

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Born in New Haven, Connecticut on November 5, 1893, silent screen lead Theodore Von Eltz was the son of a Yale professor and educated at Hill School at Pottstown Pennsylvania. Originally prepped to become a doctor, he decided instead to pursue acting. At age 19 he made his New York debut and soon was hitting the Broadway boards with performances in "Children of Earth" (1915), "Rio Grande" (1916) and "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals (1917). Von Eltz evolved into a dark and dashingly handsome silent film actor. Well-dressed with a trimmed mustache, he romanced a number of the silent screen's most lovely stars in both comedy and drama, including Bebe Daniels in _Speed Girl, The (1921)- and Viola Dana in Fourteenth Lover (1922), before moving into a pattern of disreputable second leads and support roles with Tiger Rose (1923), The Sporting Chance (1925), The Red Kimona (1925), The Sea Wolf (1926). He received lesser billing to a couple of animal heroes in White Fang (1925) and No Man's Law (1927).

By the advent of sound Von Eltz was firmly entrenched in character parts and was often relied upon to drum up sinister support such as his deceptive culprit in The Arizona Kid (1930); his gangster in The Red-Haired Alibi (1932); the Shirley Temple vehicle Bright Eyes (1934), in which he played Jane Withers' annoyingly vexatious father; his henchman in The Sun Never Sets (1939); and, more notably, his minor role as the blackmailing pornographer whose actions ignite the classic film noir The Big Sleep (1946). On the other hand, he could also play benevolent doctors, lawyers and servants and did so in a film career that nearly hit the 200 mark. By the late 1930's his billing had slipped considerably to the point he was frequently uncredited. A well-oiled player on radio, he voiced the part of Papa Barbour on the popular program "One Man's Family" from 1948-1949, but was later replaced. He also played on 50s TV.

Von Eltz was married twice. First wife Peggy Prior was a screenwriter for Pathe Studios. They had two children, Teddy and Lori, the latter becoming the soap actress Lori March. Following their divorce and a bitter custody feud (which he lost), he married Elizabeth Lorimar in 1932. They remained together until his death. He passed away at the Motion Picture Country Home after an extended illness and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

83 years ago Fred Carson was born he appeared as a stunt man in a number of pictures including an un-credited appearance in Fort Apache.

Regards

Arthur.

Hi

On this day 6th November

106 years ago the actor Hugh Prosser was born. He appeared in Flame of the Barbary Coast, The Fighting Seabees and Lady From Louisiana.

83 years ago the welsh actor Donald Houston was born he was in The Longest Day.

50 years ago Paul Kelly died aged 57 he was in The High & The Mighty and Island in the Sky.

46 years ago Paul Kruger died aged 65 he was in Re-Union in France.

Regards

Arthur

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On tis day 7th November

114 years ago the director Edward sedgewick was born he directed Maker of Men.

113 years ago the British actor John F Hamilton was born he was in The First Rebel.

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Arthur

Hi

On this day 8th November we have to go back over 100 year for our co-workers

129 years ago the actor Robert homans was born. He often played Judges Lawmen policemen often with an Irish accent. He was in reap the Wild Wind, They were Expendable and A Man Betrayed in the business from 1917 he appeared in 369 pictures.

124 years ago Harry Hayden was born he appeared in 262 credits including Without Reservations and also in A Man Betrayed.

104 years ago Franklin Parker was brn he made 131 screen and television appearances from 1931 and was in They Were Expendable.

Regards

Arthur

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On this day 9th November

120 years ago the comedian Ed Wynn was born he was in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

114 years ago the actor John Miljan was born, he appeared in 202 pictures included among which was Back to bataan.

88 years ago Alan Caillou was born. Imo and it is purely imo if any man deserved to have a book of his life made it is this man, I know little about him than what I have read here but compared to his exploits James Bond looks like an amateur. an adventurer an actor and a writer he appeared in 64 screen and television programes including hellfighters, and wrote books and screenplays for 20 programes including Flipper Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion and The Man From Uncle.
From IMDB

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Englishman Alan Lyle-Smythe was born in 1914. The future film and TV writer-actor trained as an actor before serving for four years with the Palestine Police in the 1930s. At the outbreak of World War II, he joined the British Army; part of their Intelligence Corps, he operated behind enemy lines in Libya and Tunisia, escaped a firing squad execution and worked with guerrillas in Yugoslavia. ("Alan Caillou" was one of Lyle-Smythe's many wartime aliases; thinking it lucky, he took it in real life.) After the war, he was a police chief in Ethiopia, a district officer in Somalia and the founder of a theatrical company in Africa. Returning to the old prefessions of acting and writing, Caillou worked in Canadian TV in the 1950s and later relocated to Hollywood, where his became a familiar name in the credits of movies and TV series.

39 years ago the actor Charles Bickford died aged 76 he was in Reap The Wild Wind.

26 years ago the actress Carmel Myres died aged 81 she was in Lady For A Night.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 10th November

121 years agho the actress Esther Dale was born she appeared in 113 pictures and tv including North To Alaska
From IMDB
[/QUOTE]Esther Dale was born on November 10, 1885 in Beaufort, South Carolina. She attended Leland and Gray Seminary in Townsend, Vermont. Later she studied music in Berlin, Germany. She had a successful career as a lieder singer. Later she was an actress in summer stock. Her husband, Arthur Beckhard was her manager. She had the title role on Broadway of Carrie Nation in 1933. This also starred James Stewart, Mildred Natwick and Joshua Logan. Her first film was Crime Without Passion (1934) in 1934. Her husband died in March 1961 and she died a few months later, after surgery, in Queen of Angels Hospital, Hollywood, California.[quote]

81 years ago the Welsh actor Richard Burton was born he was in The Longest Day
From IMDB
[quote]
Probably more frequently remembered for his turbulent personal life and multiple marriages, however Richard Burton was truly one of the great UK actors of the post WW2 period. The young Richard Jenkins was the son of a Welsh coal miner, and he received a scholarship to Oxford University to study acting and made his first stage appearance in the early 1940s.

His first film appearances were in non-descript movies such as _Last Days Of Dolwyn, The (1949)_ , Waterfront (1950) and _Green Grow the Rushes (1950)_ . Then he started to get noticed by producers and audiences with his lead in My Cousin Rachel (1952) _Robe, The (1953) and _Alexander The Great (1956)_ , added to this he was also spending considerable time in stage productions, both in the UK and USA, often to splendid reviews.

The late 1950s was an exciting & inventive time in UK cinema, often referred to as the "British New Wave", and Burton was right in the thick of things, and showcased a sensational performance in _Look Back In Anger (1959)_ . He also appeared with a cavalcade of international stars in the WW2 magnum opus The Longest Day (1962), and then onto arguably his most "notorious" role as that of "Marc Antony" opposite Elizabeth Taylor in the hugely expensive Cleopatra (1963). This was, of course, the film that kick started their fiery and passionate romance (plus two marriages), and the two of them appeared in several productions over the next few years including _V.I.P.'s, The (1963)_ , The Sandpiper (1965), the dynamic _Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)_ and The Taming of the Shrew (1967). However, Burton was often better when he was off on his own giving higher caliber performances, such as those in Becket (1964), the brilliant thriller _Spy Who Came In from the Cold, The (1965)_ and alongside Clint Eastwood in the actioner Where Eagles Dare (1968).

His audience appeal began to decline somewhat during the early 1970s as fans turned to younger, more virile male stars, however Burton was superb in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), he put on a reasonable show in Raid on Rommel (1971), was over the top in Bluebeard (1972), and wildly miscast in the ludicrous The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

By 1975, quality male lead roles were definitely going to other stars, and Burton found himself appearing in some movies of dubious quality, just to pay the bills, including The Klansman (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Medusa Touch (1978). However in 1978, he appeared with fellow UK acting icons Richard Harris and Roger Moore in The Wild Geese (1978) about mercenaries in South Africa, and whilst the film had a modest initial run, over the past twenty five years it has picked up quite a cult following!

His two last great performances were as the sinister "O'Brien" in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), and in the TV mini series _"Ellis Island" (1984)_ . He passed away on August 5th, 1984 in Celigny, Switzerland from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Burton was an avid fan of Shakespeare, poetry and reading. Having once said "home is where the books are".

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IMDb mini-biography by
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Spouse
Sally Hay (3 July 1983 - 5 August 1984) (his death)
Susan Hunt (August 1976 - 1982) (divorced)
Elizabeth Taylor (10 October 1975 - 1 August 1976) (remarried/redivorced)
Elizabeth Taylor (15 March 1964 - 26 June 1974) (divorced) 1 child
Sybil Williams (5 February 1949 - 5 December 1963) (divorced) 2 children

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Trivia
He took his professional name from his schoolmaster and tutor, Philip Burton, who took the 17-year old Richard Jenkins and groomed him for success, both academically and as an actor. The two became so close, Burton attempted to adopt him as his son, but was prevented from doing so as he was too young, under the law. Nevertheless, Jenkins, who became known to the world as Richard Burton, considered Philip Burton his adopted father and honored him by taking on his surname. Years later, when Philip Burton met Elizabeth Taylor and she asked Philip Burton how he came to adopt her soon-to-be fifth (and later sixth) husband, Richard piped up, "He didn't adopt me! I adopted him!".

Father of Kate Burton.

Interred at Protestant Churchyard, Céligny, Switzerland.

Together with Peter O'Toole, he currently holds the record for the most Oscar acting nominations (7) without a single win.

Spoke Cymraeg (Welsh-language) as mother tongue.

He died on Sunday, August 5, 1984, less than a week before he was due to begin shooting Wild Geese II (1985), a sequel to his successful mercenary thriller The Wild Geese (1978), made in 1978. He was the only actor returning for the film and, as Colonel Allen Faulkner, would have led a team of crack mercenaries to spring aged Nazi Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. Burton's death caused huge problems for producer Euan Lloyd, the man behind the original The Wild Geese (1978) and its follow-up, Wild Geese II (1985). With the rest of the cast (Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera and Laurence Olivier (playing Hess)) in place, Euan Lloyd had just a handful of days to find a replacement for Burton. He selected British actor Edward Fox, who joined the cast as Alex Faulkner, Burton's brother. Burton's no-show in the film was explained by one character telling Edward Fox that they'd heard his famous warrior brother had died. The film was dedicated to Burton's memory.

He made his stage debut at Maesteg Town Hall in Wales.

Suffered from acute insomnia.

The twelfth of thirteen children, he insisted that his way out of an impoverished Welsh childhood was due not to acting, but to books; he read one a day.

Had two daughters by his first wife, Sybil Williams. Actress Kate Burton (born 1957) and Jessica (born 1961), who was diagnosed as profoundly autistic and would eventually be institutionalized.

Appointed a CBE in 1970. He collected this award on his 45th birthday with his older sister Cis, who raised him as a child, and his wife Elizabeth Taylor.

Grandfather of Morgan Ritchie.

Burton received the first retrospective of his work since his death during Bradford Film Festival 2002 - almost 18 years after his death on Sunday, August 5, 1984. Twelve films were screened, among them Look Back in Anger (1958), Becket (1964), Equus (1977) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), his final picture. The festival, which christened its Burton season Lion of the Welsh, also featured a strand on legendary unfinished films that included a clip of Burton in Laughter in the Dark (1969), a movie from which he was allegedly fired by director Tony Richardson. The picture, based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, was shut down and eventually made with Nicol Williamson in Burton's role.

Was a drinking partner of Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole until Peter O'Toole was forced to give up drinking after surgery in 1976.

Died shortly after the filming of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) was completed. He was in terrible health during filming from years of alcoholism and heavy smoking, and had to wear a neck brace during rehearsals.

He taught William Shakespeare to future actress Catherine Oxenberg when she was 13 & 14 years old. Catherine Oxenberg is now married to actor Casper Van Dien.

He was once bought a complete set of "The Everyman Library" by Elizabeth Taylor as a present.

He was on a flight to California from Mexico, when he ran into a young man interested in acting. Burton encouraged him to pursue it full time during their conversation. That young man was Kevin Costner, who promptly left his marketing job to pursue an acting career.

During World War II, he was admitted to Exeter College, Oxford to take the "University Short Course" for six months as a Royal Air Force cadet. While at Oxford in 1943-1944, he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Cadets were promised that they could return to Oxford to complete their education after the war, but he did not, instead becoming a professional actor after being demobilized in 1947. Almost thirty years later, he was invited back to Oxford to teach poetry to undergraduates for a semester.

His mother died when he was two-years old. He was taken in and raised by his older sister, Cis, and her husband in the same Port Talbot, Wales, neighborhood where fellow Welshman Anthony Hopkins later lived in as a child. "I shone in the reflection of her green-eyed, black-haired gypsy beauty," Burton said of his sister/surrogate mother.

He, Ray Milland, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones all were born within a 10-mile radius in south-western Wales.

His movie contracts contained a clause that he did not have to work on the 1st of March, St David's Day, the day honoring the patron saint of Wales.

Had to turn down the lead role of the British Consul in John Huston's adaptation of Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (1984) as he was appearing in a touring production of Noel Coward's "Private Lives" co-starring with Elizabeth Taylor. The role was subsequently played by Albert Finney, who won an Oscar nomination as Best Actor.

Was the best man at Laurence Olivier's marriage to Joan Plowright in New York City on March 17, 1961. Both were appearing on Broadway at the time, he in "Camelot" and Laurence Olivier in "Becket".

Was famous for his high intelligence and for being incredibly well-read. Burton was widely admired for his command and understanding of English poetry, which he taught for a term at Oxford University in the early 1970s.

His friend Laurence Olivier tried to interest him in taking over the National Theatre after his imminent retirement from the post. He declined, feeling that the board of directors had treated the great Laurence Olivier shabbily.

He once got into a contest with Robert F. Kennedy, whom he greatly admired, in which they tried to out-do the other by quoting William Shakespeare's sonnets. Both were word-perfect, and Burton was forced to "win" the contest by quoting one of the sonnets backwards.

Was a great fan of baseball, which he followed avidly when he was in America. Burton thought Pulitzer Prize-winning baseball columnist Red Smith was a brilliant writer. Burton played softball with a team from the Broadway theatre in the 1980s, despite crippling bursitis in his shoulder.

Won Broadway's 1961 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for "Camelot" as well as a Special Award in 1976. He was also twice nominated for Tony Awards as Best Actor (Dramatic): for "Time Remembered" (1954) and for "Hamlet" (1964).

He and his then wife Elizabeth Taylor were very close friends with the famous president of Yugoslavia (Serbia) Marshall Tito. They spent many vacations with him at his villa on the Yugoslavian Adriatic coast line as well as being a frequent guest at his mansion in Belgrade. He later played his close friend in the 1972 Yugoslavian film Sutjeska (1973) (The Fifth Offensive).

He was engaged to Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia (Serbia & Montenegro) between the time of his two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor. Princess Elizabeth is the mother of Catherine Oxenberg whom he later coached on acting.

In 1961 he won a Tony Award for playing King Arthur in the original production of Lerner & Loewe's (Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe' ) Broadway musical "Camelot". When the film was in pre-production in the mid-1960s Burton turned down an attractive offer to reprise the role and Richard Harris was cast as The Once & Future King. Burton subsequently appeared in the 1980 Broadway revival of the musical, which played a total of 56 performances on the Great White Way before the production went on the road. During the road tour, Burton was replaced by Richard Harris as he was debilitated by crippling bursitis of the shoulder which eventually prevented him from handling a sword. Pain-killers did not help so he dropped out of the show and he was once again "replaced" by Richard Harris in the role.

Was nominated for a 1958 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for "Time Remembered". Three years later he won a 1961 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for "Camelot", and three years after that, he was again nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his 1964 "Hamlet", which was directed by his mentor John Gielgud. Burton also received a Special Tony Award in 1976 after appearing as a replacement in "Equus". Like his friends Laurence Olivier and Peter O'Toole, Burton was an unique and utterly electrifying stage actor whom commanded the rapt attention of his audience.

Won the 1951 Theatre World Award for "The Lady's Not For Burning".

Since Elizabeth Taylor was unable to have children, she and Richard adopted a German girl as their daughter, legally naming her Maria Burton. She was born in Germany c. 1964 with a deformed jaw that was fixed while she was still a baby.

He and Elizabeth Taylor appeared together in 11 movies: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966); The V.I.P.s (1963); Under Milk Wood (1972); The Taming of the Shrew (1967); The Sandpiper (1965); Hammersmith Is Out (1972); Doctor Faustus (1967); Divorce His - Divorce Hers (1973) (TV); The Comedians (1967); Cleopatra (1963) and Boom (1968).

He was forced to drop out of the Los Angeles run of "Camelot" in 1981 when it was discovered that his entire spinal column was coated in crystallized alcohol. Doctors at the hospital couldn't understand how he had managed to entertain live audiences night after night. At first they couldn't operate because Burton was three stone underweight, so he had to remain in bed to build up his strength. His backbone was rebuilt in a delicate operation that could easily have left him paralyzed for life if something had gone wrong. Burton called his friend Richard Harris to replace him as King Arthur, and then returned to his home in Switzerland to recover.

Circa 1970, Burton's fellow Celt (and cinema superstar) Sean Connery, who had received excellent reviews for his portrayal of the doomed king in a 1960 Canadian television version of "Macbeth", hoped to launch a big-screen version of the Scottish play. Sean Connery's plans were foiled when Roman Polanski's version went into production for Hugh M. Hefner's Playboy Productions. Burton, who had won a reputation as the best "Hamlet" of his generation, was also interested in launching a film version of "Macbeth" at the same time. He had just had a great cinema success in the period piece Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), for which he won his sixth and penultimate Oscar nomination, and he told his friend Sir Laurence Olivier that he wanted to make a movie of "Macbeth" with himself as the eponymous king and his wife Elizabeth Taylor as Lady Macbeth. Burton's plans came to naught for the same reason as Sean Connery's did. A decade earlier, Sir Laurence Olivier - the greatest "Macbeth" of the 20th Century - had also failed to bring the play to the big screen. The future Lord Laurence Olivier had hoped to film his own version of the play in the late 1950s, but the failure of his movie Richard III (1955) to make back its money frustrated his plans. Producer Michael Todd, Elizabeth Taylor's third husband, told Laurence Olivier in 1958 that he likely would produce the film with Laurence Olivier as "Macbeth" and Laurence Olivier's real-life wife, Vivien Leigh, as his Lady, but that hope died in the plane crash that claimed Michael Todd's life. Thus, the famous "Macbeth" curse adversely affected three of the greatest actors of the 20th Century.

Won a Grammy in the "Best Recording for Children" category for "The Little Prince" (featuring Jonathan Winters and Billy Simpson). [1975]

His 1964 performance of "Hamlet" is the longest run of the play in Broadway history with 137 performances. It broke the record held by John Gielgud, who played the part for 132 performances and who directed Burton's Broadway production.

The producers of the film Equus (1977), who envisioned either Marlon Brando or Jack Nicholson in the role of the psychiatrist "Martin Dysart" in the film version, would only consider Burton for the role if he agreed to undertake a screen-test of sorts by playing the role on Broadway. Though considered one of the most brilliant theatre actors of his generation, Burton had not been on the professional stage in a dozen years (though he had appeared in an Oxford Undergradate Dramatic Society production of Doctor Faustus (which subsequently was filmed as Doctor Faustus (1967)) in 1966. Having suffered a slew of failures since 1970 that had undermined his bankability as a movie star, Burton agreed to take on the grueling role for a 12-week run. Though he was scheduled for his Broadway debut on a Sunday, he took over a Saturday matinée for the departing Anthony Perkins (who had received excellent notices after taking over for Anthony Hopkins, Burton's fellow Welshman who had grown up in his neighborhood in Wales and who had won a 1975 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Actor in a Play for originating Dysart on Broadway). The film producers frankly were worried that Burton's alcoholism, which had nearly killed him during the production of The Klansman (1974), had not only destroyed his powers as an actor but his stamina also. Their fears were borne out the first night when a nervous Burton stumbled during the matinée. However, by Sunday's show, with the vultures out to see a great actor brought low, Burton wowed the audience with a brilliant performance. Burton astounded theatre-goers and the critics, winning himself a Special Tony Award and the role in the film. (His run was extended another two weeks due to demand to see the legendary thespian and hell-raiser and easily could have gone on for many more weeks had Burton chosen to remain with the play.) Burton's career was recharged. The momentum of Burton's professional renaissance nearly brought him an Academy Award in 1978, but sadly, it was reckoned that the performance caught on film by director Sidney Lumet was only a pale shadow of the genius that had been on show on Broadway. (Ironically, this was the charge that had plagued Burton in his early career, that the talent, the genius, did not come through the lens to be caught on film. Burton himself said he did not learn to act on film until he co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963).) Reverting to his 1970s habit of poor film choices, such as Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and The Medusa Touch (1978) tarnished Burton's newly burnished lustre too and Richard Dreyfuss beat him for the Oscar in his seventh (and last) Oscar nomination. Although he worked steadily until his death, Burton's post-Equus (1977) career never gained any real traction and he never again was a bankable star.

In addition to being honored with a Special Tony Award in 1976 for his triumphant return to Broadway after 12 years in Equus (1977), he was nominated three times for a Tony, winning once, in 1961 for Best Actor in a Musical for "Camelot". His other nominations were in 1958 (for Best Actor in Play) for "Time Remembered" and in 1964 (for Best Actor in Play) for Hamlet (1964/I).

After his second wife Elizabeth Taylor's close friend Montgomery Clift died before shooting began on Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), Burton briefly considered taking over the vacated role of the closeted homosexual Major Weldon Penderton that had been slated for Montgomery Clift. Though Burton would later play homosexual parts in Staircase (1969) and Villain (1971), it was thought that he would not be a good fit for the role of an American soldier. The part subsequently went to Marlon Brando, who gave what critics now believe was one of his greatest performances. Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor became friends, giving Burton a chance to socialize with America's greatest actor.

Was actively pursued for the role of "The Pilot" in the proposed film of The Little Prince (1974). Burton had had a huge success on Broadway with Lerner & Lowe's (Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe) Camelot (1967), but had turned down that film as he did The Little Prince (1974). The role of "The Pilot" subsequently was played by Richard Kiley.

According to Melvyn Bragg's biography (that was based on Burton's own diaries) in 1959, he turned down an offer of $350,000 (approximately $2.25 million in 2005 terms) to star as "Christ" in Nicholas Ray's remake of King of Kings (1961) due to superstition. A Welsh-Irish drunkard had read the palms of Burton and some friends, including Dylan Thomas, who were performing poetry on B.B.C. Radio's "Third Programme" and were waiting for show-time in a local pub. The drunk predicted the friends' deaths, which in the case of Dylan Thomas, was accurate. After two other friends died within their prescribed time frames, Burton (who had been told he would die at the age of 33) decided to take the year 1959 off so as not to tempt fate. Although he thought Nicholas Ray might make a good film and was keen to shoot on location in Spain, Burton, who already was a millionaire and did not need the money, turned the offer down. For the same reason, he also turned down the role played by Audie Murphy in John Huston's The Unforgiven (1960), which was shot in Durango, Mexico.

Planned on going back to the stage to appear in William Shakespeare's "Richard III" and "King Lear". His staging of "Richard III" would have been based on the ideas of his step-father, Philip Burton, to bring together all of William Shakespeare's dramatization of Richard, Duke of Glouster (later Richard III) from the "Henry VI" trilogy. Burton had planned on visiting his step-father in Florida in early 1985 to work on the project.

Loved to do crossword puzzles and was dismayed that American newspapers' crosswords were more geared towards encyclopedic information rather than puns and wordplay.

At the time of his death in 1984, he was slated to reprise his role as Colonel Allen Faulkner in Wild Geese II (1985) and had signed on to star as the English journalist Thomas Fowler in a remake of Graham Greene's The Quiet American (1958). Wild Geese II (1985) went ahead with Edward Fox taking over his part (the film is dedicated to Burton), but the production of "The Quiet American" was canceled.

According to his long-time friend Brook Williams, the son of the man who had given Burton his first professional break Emlyn Williams, Burton turned down a role in The Sea Wolves: The Last Charge of the Calcutta Light Horse in 1980, which reunited The Wild Geese (1978) director Andrew V. McLaglen, screenwriter Reginald Rose and co-star Roger Moore. The Wild Geese (1978) had been a big hit (Burton was always popular and a box office draw in military roles) and Andrew V. McLaglen had directed Burton's post-The Wild Geese (1978) film Steiner - Das eiserne Kreuz, 2. Teil (1979), but Burton turned it down. Brook Williams believed that Burton's third wife, Susan Hunt, didn't want Burton away on a lark with his old friends (and drinking companions) as he was in frail health and battling alcoholism at the time.

His divorce from third wife Susan Hunt, whom he was married to from 1976 to 1982, entailed a settlement of $1 million (approximately $2 million in 2005 terms) and a house he owned in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (his first house in Puerto Vallarta was lost to second wife Elizabeth Taylor during his first divorce from her).

Frankly told the press that he appeared in the movies Steiner - Das eiserne Kreuz, 2. Teil (1979), Circle of Two (1980) and Lovespell (1981) (generally considered by critics to be three of his worse films, all of them critical and box office disasters that eroded the reputation he had recently fought back to reclaim with his appearance on stage and screen in Equus (1977)) for the money. Burton, who had effectively been cleaned out financially by his two divorces from second wife Elizabeth Taylor, was paid $750,000 for each picture (approximately $2.25 million in 2005 terms). Conversely, he was willing to appear in Absolution (1978) at the same time for one-sixth his fee as he believed in the project very strongly.

Burton and 'Warren Mitchell (I)' were Royal Air Force cadets together at Oxford in 1944. Upon meeting Burton, Warren Mitchell, who was Jewish, was enraged by Burton's contention that Jews controlled London's commercial theatre. Warren Mitchell admonished him, saying they were fighting a war against that sort of thing. Thought he first thought Burton was very anti-semitic (Burton later became renowned for being ANTI-anti-semitic, taking pride in the fact that one of his fore-bearers likely was Jewish; his second wife Elizabeth Taylor was a convert to Judaism, and his beloved step-daughter Liza Todd Burton, the natural daughter of Elizabeth Taylor and third husband Michael Todd, was Jewish), Warren Mitchell and Burton became friends after they got to know one another. In the years 1944-47, when both were demobilized, they were stationed together at times in Canada and back in England. Later, they appeared together in _Spy Who Came In from the Cold, The (1965)_ .

In 1969, Richard Burton bought his second wife Elizabeth Taylor one of the world's largest diamonds from the jeweller Cartier after losing an auction for the 69-carat, pear-shaped stone to the jeweller, which was won with a $1 million bid. Aristotle Onassis also failed in his bid to win the diamond, which he intended to give his wife Jacqueline Kennedy. The rough diamond that would yield the prized stone weighed 244 carats and was found in 1966 at South Africa's Premier mine. Harry Winston cut and polished the diamond, which was put up for auction in 1969. Burton purchased the diamond from Cartier the next day for $1,069,000 (approximately $6 million in 2005 dollars) to give to Elizabeth Taylor. The small premium Cartier charged Burton was in recognition of the great publicity the jewellery garnered from selling the stone, which was dubbed the "Burton-Cartier Diamond", to the then-"world's most famous couple". Ten years later, the twice-divorced-from-Burton Elizabeth Taylor herself auctioned off the "Burton-Taylor Diamond" to fund a hospital in Botswana. The last recorded sale of the "Burton-Taylor Diamond" was in 1979 for nearly $3,000,000 to an anonymous buyer in Saudi Arabia. The ring was the centre of the classic "Here's Lucy" (1968) episode "Lucy Meets the Burtons" in 1970, in which Lucy Carter, played by Lucille Ball, gets the famous ring stuck on her finger. The actual ring was used and the episode was the highest rated episode of the very popular series.

Marlon Brando became quite friendly with Burton's wife Elizabeth Taylor while shooting Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). Marlon Brando agreed to pick up her Best Actress Award for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) from the New York Film Critics Circle. When Marlon Brando made his appearance at the NYFCC Award ceremony at Sardi's on January 29, 1967, he hectored the critics, querying them as to why they hadn't recognized Elizabeth Taylor before. He then flew to Dahomey, Africa where Elizabeth Taylor was shooting The Comedians (1967) with Burton to personally deliver the award, a development Burton thought odd. Later in the 1960s, Marlon Brando' socialised with the Burtons, visiting them on their famous yacht the Kalizma, while they plied the Mediterreanean. Marlon Brando's ex-wife Anna Kashfi, in her book "Brando for Breakfast" (1979), claimed that Marlon Brando and Burton got into a fist-fight aboard the yacht, probably over Elizabeth Taylor, but nothing of the incident appears in Burton's voluminous diaries. In his diaries, Burton found Marlon Brando to be quite intelligent but believed he suffered, like Elizabeth Taylor did, from becoming too famous too early in his life and believed their affinity for one another was based on this. (Both Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando would later befriend Michael Jackson, another superstar-cum-legend who had become too famous too soon.) Burton recognized Marlon Brando as a great actor, but felt he would have been more suited to silent films due to the deficiency in his voice (the famous "mumble"). As a silent film star, Burton believed Marlon Brando would have been the greatest motion picture actor ever.

According to Burton's diaries, when he and 'Elizabeth Taylor (I)' appeared on the "Here's Lucy" (1968) (episode: "Lucy Meets the Burtons"), he was appalled by the tedium of shooting the show. He found Lucille Ball's meticulous professionalism to be ludicrous as he felt it was out of place on a TV show. Lucy was entirely focused on making the show work, and Burton -- who thought it would be a lark -- didn't have any fun on the set. He was quite impressed by Ball's co-star Gale Gordon, but was dismayed that Lucy, personally, directed him to play his "part" -- which was himself, after all -- very broad so that he was shouting. When he did shout, she told him that he was finally playing comedy as it should be played. The episode featured Lucy meeting Burton, who was fleeing the press and hid in her office, and then Liz, and putting on Liz's 69-carat, pear-shaped stone diamond, which became stuck to her her finger.

Recorded his sessions for the Jeff Wayne's musical version of "The War of the Worlds" in two afternoon sessions in New York between film making.

Following the release of The Robe (1953), his first Hollywood production, the critics would accuse Burton of being a wooden film actor, a charge that would stay with him throughout his career. It was not until The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) that critics would be unanimous in their praise of his performance, yet after an excellent five years his mastery of film technique had seemingly deserted him and much of his later work, such as Villain (1971) and Equus (1977), would be dismissed by many as overacting.

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Personal quotes
"When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk."

Cable from Laurence Olivier to Richard Burton at the height of the Cleopatra (1963) scandal: "Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?" Burton replied: "Both."

"I've done the most awful rubbish in order to have somewhere to go in the morning."

"My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn't drink alcohol was not to be tolerated. I grew up in that belief."

[On adultery, in 1963]: "The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore."

"I've played the lot: a homosexual, a sadistic gangster, kings, princes, a saint, the lot. All that's left is a Carry On film. My last ambition."

"I have to think hard to name an interesting man who does not drink."

"Perhaps most actors are latent homosexuals and we cover it with drink. I was once a homosexual, but it didn't work."

"I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it's rather an attractive image."

"You may be as vicious about me as you please. You will only do me justice."

When asked why he refused to see his performance in Cleopatra (1963): "Well, I don't want to kill myself."

"The only thing in life is language. Not love. Not anything else."

"All I wanted to do was to live, pick up a new Jag, and act at the Old Vic."

"All great art comes from people who are either ugly or have a terrible inferiority complex. I know no one who is beautiful and produces art."

[About Elizabeth Taylor]: "Elizabeth has great worries about becoming a cripple because her feet sometimes have no feeling in them. She asked if I would stop loving her if she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. I told her that I didn't care if her legs, bum and bosoms fell off and her teeth turned yellow. And she went bald. I love that woman so much sometimes that I cannot believe my luck. She has given me so much."

[About his love of reading]: "Home is where the books are."

[About being hired to play Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963)]: "Well, I suppose I must don a breastplate once more to play opposite Miss Tits."

[On Elizabeth Taylor]: "I might run from her for a thousand years and she is still my baby child. Our love is so furious that we burn each other out."

[On Elizabeth Taylor]: "At thirty-four she is an extremely beautiful woman, lavishly endowed by nature with a few flaws in the masterpiece: She has an insipid double chin, her legs are too short and she has a slight potbelly. She has a wonderful bosom, though."

"A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles."

"Richard Burton is now my epitaph, my cross, my title, my image. I have achieved a kind of diabolical fame. It has nothing to do with my talents as an actor. That counts for little now. I am the diabolically famous Richard Burton."

"An actor is something less than a man, while an actress is something more than a woman."

"Certainly most movie executives were making love to the starlets. But then, so were most of us actors."

"I was up to, I'm told, because, of course, you don't remember if you drink that much, about two-and-a-half to three bottles of hard liquor a day. Fascinating idea, of course, drink on that scale. It's rather nice to have gone through it and to have survived." (1974)

"The most astonishingly self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen." - On Elizabeth Taylor

"If I had his talent, I'd drop Shakespeare tomorrow." - On Frankie Howerd

"I believe in this film absolutely. It is a kick against the system." - On Staircase (1969)

[quote]

50 years ago the actor Jack Clifford died he appeared in Reap the Wild Wind and King of the Pecos.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

A day late but on this day 11th November a day of rememberance for the dead in two World Wars and other more modern engagements:-

98 years ago the English actor John Robertson was born he played Admiral Ramsey in The Longest Day.

27 the composer Dimitri Tiomkin died aged 85.
From IMDB

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Dimitri Tiomkin's mother, Marie (nee Tartakovsky), was a piano and music teacher, so it is not difficult to understand where the desire to follow a career in music had its origin. He was accepted as a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied piano under Felix Blumenfeld and Isabelle Vengerova. He appeared on Russian stages as a child pianist prodigy and continued to develop into a virtuoso performer on the instrument. He also studied composition under the conservatory's director, the noted composer Alexander Glazunov. This was the period of the avant garde culture, and like other young artists in Europe he had his bohemian hangout-this was a café called the Homeless Dog. There he could be seen with others of the conservatory, including two friends: Serge Prokofiev and dancer Mikhail Fokine. There he also gained exposure and a keen interest in American popular music, including the works of Irving Berlin, ragtime, blues, and early jazz. Tiomkin started his music career as a piano accompanist for Russian and French silent films in St. Petersburgs movie houses. He also provided classical piano accompaniment for the ballerina Thamar Karsavina, whose touring included army posts. He also did improvised piano pieces for the performances by the comedian Max Linder. But with the turmoil through World War I and the Russian Revolution, he decided his future lay else where. He boarded a freighter and went to Germany in 1921. His father, a physician (who had worked with the famous German biochemist Paul Ehrlich), had moved to Berlin with Tiomkin's stepmother. There Dimitri studied with Hugo Leichenstritt; Egon Petri, and Ferruccio Busoni. By 1922, he was well known for his concert appearances in Germany, often with the Berlin Philharmonic. Among his repertoire were pieces written for him. He also concertized in France. But the lure of America came early. He came both to concertize and immigrate to the United States in 1925. On the tour he met and subsequently married the dancer/choreographer Albertina Rasch. He also met composers already familiar to him: George Gershwin; Richard Rodgers, and Jerome Kern. Tiomkin made return concert trips to Europe into the late 1920s and was an important means of introducing the works of Gershwin to Europe. He gave the French premiere of Gershwin's "Concerto in F" at the famed 'L'Opera de Paris'. MGM offered Albertina Rasch a position as an assistant choreographer for some musical films in 1930. Tiomkin was with her, and Metro offered him a contract as well to score, mostly ballet music, for five films (1930-31). He also scored for a Universal film. But this rather unsatisfying experiencing brought a return to concerts in New York City and composing some ballet music for his wife's dance work. He continued to experiment with writing American popular music and song. He received a further American musical experience with Broadway exposure for some of his compositions by the Shuberts and Flo Ziegfeld. He followed them by trying to produce his own play "Keeping Expenses Down", but it failed, and Tiomkin once again returned to Hollywood in 1933.

Tiomkin was not impressed with the studio system from his first foray. When he came back, it was as his own man. He made it his priority to freelance with the studios rather than accept a multi-picture contract. He became something of a crusader for the Hollywood musician-pushing for better pay and residuals for them. Though MGM was the first to be reacquainted with his services, Tiomkin next turned to Paramount for the daffy Alice in Wonderland (1933), a good example of his further dictum to do music for films that inspired him. As an Eastern European, he liked brass in his larger efforts, but he was also becoming thoroughly versed in the musical subtleties of America and integrated it into traditional European forms. His interest in the musical form resulted in his next score, for the operetta Naughty Marietta (1935), one of the popular musicals that teamed Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Like the early days of contemporary Hollywood composers, he did his fair share of stock music arranging as late as some sporadic assignments into the 1950s. But he was inspired to compose by a great variety of American films and gave the public music they liked. Among his most successful partnerships was that with director Frank Capra, starting with Lost Horizon (1937) - the year Tiomkin became an American citizen. The association lasted through three more famous films, culminating with It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

But there was a falling out over various artistic elements during the filming and the friendship ended. He still had some time for music outside the studio but did not make his public conducting debut until 1938 with the LA Philharmonic. During the war years he provided a rousing array of music for films dealing with the war effort and from there ventured into all manner of music for screen subjects. And they were a spectrum: mystery and horror - for Universal, even a taste of that for small time Monogram - and lots of adventure and drama of all sorts. He wrote the enchanting score, intricately worked around Debussy's "Girl with the Flaxen Hair", for the haunting Portrait of Jennie (1948) and the energetic martial themes for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). He scored three films for 'Alfred Hitchcock' , perhaps the most inventive being for the tension-building Strangers on a Train (1951) with its out-of-control carousel finale. He also began work in that exclusively American genre, the western with its top directors. Two of his earliest successes were the original music for Duel in the Sun (1946) by King Vidor and Red River (1948) by Howard Hawks' , one more in the long line of western hits for 'John Wayne' , who had Tiomkin's touch on five more movies into the 1960s. Tiomkin added a song to a western score - actually to any of his scores - for the first time for the obscure Trail to Mexico (1946). Interestingly, the western score and songs became Tiomkin's especial mode of film expression. And though High Noon (1952) with the famous song "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin" is most associated with him in westerns, he pioneered away from the sagebrush motifs that stuck to westerns in the 1950s (why did every cowboy have to wear a vest in those?) with his horn and lush string orchestra sound for Howard Hawks' _The Big Sky (1952)_ and even more so for the powerful The Unforgiven (1960) by 'John Huston' . The majority of his big screen song credits was for western themes and totalled some twenty-five songs. The most songs composed for one movie was six for Friendly Persuasion (1956).

Tiomkin had plenty of opportunities to dramatize his effective use of brass in such famous films as: Giant (1956), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), and The Guns of Navarone (1961). He was nominated twenty-two times for the Oscar and won four times for his music. But he did not neglect the potential of the small screen - television. He wrote music and theme songs for several TV series, most notably for Clint Eastwood's first oater "Rawhide" (1959-1966). He was also enlisted to write the music for the cutting edge western "The Wild Wild West" (1965) but by then Tiomkin's western thematic and melodic ideas were in reruns. His "The Ballad of Jim West" was judged out of step-like Davy Crockett - with a new era. The producers went with the syncopated electric guitar and brass of Richard Markowitz. But Dimitri Tiomkin had endeared himself to America and won a hallowed place in the pantheon of the most prolific composers in American film history.

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Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 12th November

87 years ago Ray Kellog was born he was director of photography on The Green Berets.
From IMDB

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Was known for his special effects work in the 1950s mostly with 20th Century-Fox, including Marilyn Monroe films.

During World War II Kellogg was a cameraman in the US Army, and one of his assignments was to cover the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Much of the footage familiar from documentaries of those trials was shot by him

Regards

Arthur

Hi

Sorry to have missed the last couple of days but I have only just got back into UKafter spending a few dsys on a Mini \cruise to Spain with my wife.
So here goes:-

On this day 16th November

126 years ago the actor Bruce Mitchell was born he appeared in minor roles in 132 pictures including Conflict.

120 years ago Jack Kenney was born he notched up 125 screen appearances and was in Wyoming Outlaw, In Old Oklahoma and his final picture - an un-credited role in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

[ATTACH]1083]

25 years ago William Holden died aged 63 one of my favourite actors his death was tragic.
From IMDB

Quote

William Holden came from a wealthy family (the Beedles) that moved to Pasadena, California, when he was three. His father was an industrial chemist and his mother a teacher. In 1937, while studying chemistry at Pasadena Junior College, he was signed to a film contract by Paramount. His first starring role was as a young man torn between the violin and boxing in Golden Boy (1939). From then on he was typecast as the boy-next-door.

After returning from World War II military service, he got two very important roles: Joe Gillis, the gigolo, in Sunset Blvd. (1950), and the tutor in Born Yesterday (1950). These were followed by his Oscar-winning role as the cynical sergeant in Stalag 17 (1953). He stayed popular through the 1950s, appearing in such films as Picnic (1955). He spent much of his later time as co-owner of the Mount Kenya Safari Club, dividing his time between Africa and Switzerland.

13 years ago the actor Ken Renard died aged 87 he was in True Grit.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 17th November. It is a quarter to four in the afternoon the rain is tipping down and its almost dark.

but:-

107 years ago the sound recording engineeer Douglas Shearer was born, he was the sound director on They Were Expendable.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 18th November

121 years ago the director Tenny Wright was born originally a producer he directed a few pictures among which were The Telegraph Trail and The Big Stampede.

28 years ago the actress Myrtle Odette died aged 80 she only made 29 pictures and was in The fighting Kentuckian.
From IMDB

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Owned and operated a popular restaurant in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Married at one time to Bob Adams (d. 1948), one of the singing duo "The Two Bobs", an American novelty team which traveled to England in 1912 and started a new rage for ragtime, introducing such songs as "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Casey Jones". The Ivor Novello revue "Tabs" (1918), which starred Odette and Beatrice Lillie in London, included some of Bob Adams' music. Among his novelty songs are "Not Because Your Hair is Curly" and "The Burning of Frisco Town" (both 1906) and "Oh! You Candy Kid" (1909).

24 years ago the actor Forbes murray died aged 98 between 1936 and 1962 he appeared in 251 pictures and included among these were minor roles in Wings of Eagles, They Were Expendable and The Fighting Seabees.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 19th November

122 years ago Perry Ivins was born he appeared in Red River Range.

104 years ago two stalwats of the B films were born:
Richard Alexander appeared in 268 pictureas among which were The Fighting Kentuckian, In Old Oklahoma and Reap the Wild Wind.

Trevor Bardette was not quite so prolificc notching up 219 credits including Dark Command, Three Faces West and Tycoon.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 20th November

115 years ago the actor Reginald Denny was born he appeared in Seven Sinners

[ATTACH]1098]

From IMDB

Quote

Sometime in the early 1930s, Denny was between scenes on a movie set when he met a neighborhood boy who was trying to fly a bulky gas-powered model plane. When he tried to help by making an adjustment on the machine, Denny succeeded only in wrecking it. But this launched his infatuation with model aviation, and his new hobby grew into Reginald Denny Industries, maker of model plane kits.

When the U.S. Army began hunting for a better and safer way to train anti-aircraft gunners than using targets towed by piloted planes, Denny and his associates Walter Righter and Paul Whittier began work on a radio-controlled target drone, and their third prototype won them an Army contract. Radioplane was formed in 1940, and during WWII produced nearly 15,000 target drones (the RP-5A) for the Army. Radioplane was later purchased by Northrop in 1952.

91 years ago Bill Daniel was born The Brother of Price Daniel the overnor of texas he supplied many items needed to make The Alamo and played one of the Colonels in the film. Judging on his performance Duke might have been better going to Woolworths.

88 years ago the actor Steve Barclay was born, he only appeared in 31 credits screen and TV including they Were Expendable.

23 years ago the actor Marcel Dalio died aged 83 he was in Donovan's Reef
From IMDB

Quote

Sunday, November the 20th is the anniversary of Marcel Dalio's death in 1983. It was the end of a serendipitous life. You know him. He was a citizen of the world. Born Israel Moshe Blauschild, in Paris, in 1900, he became a much sought-after character actor. His lovely animated face with its great expressive eyes became familiar across Europe. He appeared in Jean Renoir's idiosyncratic Rules of the Game, and Grand Illusion, arguably the greatest of all films. True to his Frenchman's heart, he married the very young, breathtaking beauty Madeleine LeBeau. He worked with von Stroheim and Pierre Chenal. He had it all.

But then the Germans crushed Poland, swept across Belgium and pressed on toward Paris. He waited until the last possible moment and finally, with the sound of artillery clearly audible, with Madeleine, fled in a borrowed car to Orleans and then, in a freight train, to Bordeaux and finally to Portugal. In Lisbon, they bribed a crooked immigration official and were surreptitiously given two visas for Chile. But on arriving in Mexico City, it was discovered the visas were rank forgeries. Facing deportation, Marcel and Madeleine found themselves making application for political asylum with virtually every country in the western hemisphere. Weeks passed until Canada finally issued them temporary visas and they left for Montreal.

Meanwhile, France had fallen and, in the process of subjugating the country, the Germans had found some publicity stills of Dalio. A series of posters were produced and were then displayed throughout the city with the caption 'a typical Jew' so that citizens could more easily report anyone suspected of unrepentant Jewishness. The madness continued. 'Entree des artistes', a popular film, was ordered re-edited so that Dalio's scenes could be deleted and re-shot with another, non-Jewish, actor.

After a short time, friends in the film industry arranged for them to arrive in Hollywood. Nearly broke, Marcel was immediately put to work in a string of largely forgettable films. Madeleine, a budding actress in her own right, was ironically cast in 'Hold Back the Dawn', a vehicle for Charles Boyer with a plot driven by the efforts of an émigré (Boyer) trying desperately to cross into the United States from Mexico. But the real irony was waiting at Warner Brothers.

In early 1942, Jack Warner was driving production of a film based on a one act play, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's' but had no screenplay. What he had was a mishmash of treatments loosely based on the play and two previous movies. But he had a projected release date and a commitment to his distributors to have a movie for that time slot and little else. Warner Brothers started to wing it.

Shooting started without a screenplay and little plot. Principal players were cast and a director hired but casting calls for supporting roles and bit players continued and sometime in the early spring Marcel Dalio and Madeleine LeBeau were cast as, respectively, a croupier and a romantic entanglement for the male lead. Veteran screen-writers were hired to produce a running screenplay, sometimes delivering pages of dialogue one day, for scenes to be shot the following day. No one knew exactly where the plot would go or how the story would turn out. No one was sure of the ending. And, of course, they produced a classic, perhaps the finest American movie.

They produced a screenplay of multiple genres, rich with characterizations, perfectly in tune with the unfolding events in Europe and loaded with talent from top to bottom. Oh, and they changed the title to 'Casablanca'.

It is so well known, that many lines of long-memorized dialogue have passed into the slang idiom. 'We'll always have Paris', 'I was misinformed', 'Here's looking at you, kid', ' I am shocked! Shocked! To find that there's gambling going on in here!', 'Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship', 'Oh he's just like any other man, only more so', 'I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one', 'Round up the usual suspects', and, of course, the oft quoted, apocryphal, 'Play it again, Sam'.

Madeleine LeBeau plays Yvonne, the jilted lover of Humphrey Bogart, who is seen drowning her sorrows at the bar early in the film and who later, to get back at Rick and looking for solace takes up with a German officer finding only self-hatred. She is luminous.

And when Claude Rains delivers the signature line, 'I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that there's gambling going on in here!' the croupier, Emil, played by Marcel Dalio, approaches from the roulette table and says simply, 'Your winnings, sir.' It is a delicious moment ripe with scripted irony, one among many in this film, but one made all the more so, knowing where Dalio came from and what he and his wife had endured to arrive at that line.

Alas, they separated and divorced the next year, both going on to long successful careers. Dalio never remarried.

Late in his career, when Mike Nichols was looking for a vaguely familiar face to deliver a long and worldly, near-monologue in Catch-22, he turned to Dalio. Faced with a hopelessly idealistic young American pilot, Dalio, as simply 'old man in whore house', in tight close-up, delivers a discourse on practical people faced with impractical circumstances, of the virtues of expedience in the face of amorality . Using his wonderful plastic features, now beginning to sag, in a voice full of melancholy, the old man reassures the young man that regardless of what 'grand themes' may be afoot in the world, in the end, little matters but survival.
________________________________________
He fled Paris in 1940 just ahead of the German invasion, eventually reaching Lisbon with his wife, where they obtained visas to Chile, but on reaching Mexico they learned that these were forgeries. They eventually obtained temporary Canadian passports and ended up in the US.
With his wife, he fled France ahead of the invading Germans who used his portrait on posters as representative of "a typical Jew."

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And on the same day the Oriental actor Richard Loo died aged 80 he was in Operation Pacific and back to Bataan
From IMDB

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One of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s, Richard Loo was most often stereotyped as the Japanese enemy flier, spy or interrogator during the Second World War. Chinese by ancestry and Hawaiian by birth, Loo spent his youth in Hawaii, then moved to California as a teenager. He attended the University of California and attempted a career in business. However, the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression forced him to start over. He became involved with amateur, then professional, theater companies and in 1931 made his first film. Like most Asian actors in non-Asian countries, he played primarily small, stereotypical roles, though he rose quickly to familiarity, if not fame, in a number of fine films. His features led him to be a favorite movie villain, and the coming of World War II gave him greater prominence in roles as vicious Japanese soldiers in successful pictures such as The Purple Heart (1944) and God Is My Co-Pilot (1945). He had a rare heroic role as a weary Japanese-American soldier in the Korean War drama The Steel Helmet (1951), but spent far too much of his career in later years performing stock roles. His wife, Bessie Loo, was a well-known Hollywood agent.

Regards

Arthur

Hi Jay

Yes your probably right.

However on this day 21 November

122 years ago the actor Bob Burns was born he appeared in 308 pictures and worked with John Wayne playing farmers and townspeople in Angel and the Badman, Dakota, Three Faces West Wyoming Outlaw Three Texas Steers The Lonely Trail The Lawless Nineties Lawless Range Paradise Canyon Westward Ho, and The Telegraph Trail.

94 years ago the actress Do
Dorothy Granger was born she was in A Lady Takes A Chance, Words and Music and In Old California

87 years ago the director Paul Bogart was born he made Cancel My Reservation

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 22nd November

131 years ago the actress Elizabeth Patterson was born. She appeared in Words & Music.
From IMDB

Quote

A dainty but nevertheless feisty character actress, southern-bred Elizabeth Patterson started her career over her strict parent's objections and became a member of Chicago's Ben Greet Players, performing Shakespeare at the turn of the century. This followed college at Martin College where she studied music, elocution and English, and post-graduate work at Columbia Institute in Columbia, Tennessee. She eventually traveled in stock tours and moved to Broadway where she was seen throughtout the 20s. By the time she moved into films, she was 51 years of age. Known for her drab, careworn, dressed-down appearances, she played small-town relatives, avid gossips, steadfast country women, pernickety townfolk and other prickly pear types with great frequency, while adding greatly to the atmosphere of such films as A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Doctor Bull (1933), So Red the Rose (1935), Remember the Night (1940), Tobacco Road (1941), Hail the Conquering Hero (1941), and Out of the Blue (1948). It was in the 50s, however, that she became a familiar household face as Lucille Ball's fragile, elderly neighbor and part-time babysitter, Mrs. Trumball, on the "I Love Lucy" series. Elizabeth died in 1966 of pneumonia at age 91.

126 years ago Edwin Stanley was born he appeared in A Man Betrayed
From IMDB

Quote

Edwin Stanley was a bespectacled, white haired, distinguished-looking actor who was trained in live theater and who, except a few silent pictures, stayed in that medium until he reached the age of 51. In 1932, he made his screen debut in talking pictures in "Virtue". Thereafter, Stanley appeared in over 200 movies, specializing in officials such as doctors, lawyers, judges, producers, etc. Stanley appeared in several serials, including those featuring Dick Tracy and Flash Gordon. Stanley worked up until his death in 1944

121 years ago the actor Steve Clemente was born he had a bit part in Stagecoach.

109 years ago Harry Wilson was born. He appeared in Baby Face, The Wake of the Red Witch, How The West Was Won & The Greatest Story Ever Told.

6 years ago the French actor Christian Marquand died aged 73 he was in The Longest Day.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 23rd November

93 years ago the author Maurice Zolotow was born he of course wrote Shooting Star.

21 years ago the actress Nina Quatero died aged 77 she appeared with John Wayne in Arizona The Man from Monteray and her final film A Lady Takes A Chance.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this Day 24t November

94 years ago the screenwriter Garson Kanin was born he helped write (although un-credited) A Lady Takes A Chance.
From IMDB

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Garson Kanin has worked as an actor on stage, as a director on Broadway and in Hollywood, but his best known work is as a writer. During the Great Depression, he dropped out of high school to help support his family working as a musician, and later as a comedian. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1932-1933. He briefly worked as an actor on Broadway following his studies, but then worked as an assistant to the Broadway director, George Abbot. In 1937, he joined Samuel Goldwyns staff but left after a year when he had not been given any directing assignments. He was signed by RKO and there directed such films as The Great Man Votes (1939), and Tom Dick and Harry (1941). Already he was frustrated by the lack of control he had over his films under the studio system. When he was drafted during World War II, he made documentary films for the War Information and Emergency Manpower offices. One of them, co-directed by Carol Reed, The True Glory (1945), won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. During the war years, Kanin began writing stories and plays as well. After the war, he directed his play "Born Yesterday" on Broadway, which he lated adapted for the screen. He and his wife, Ruth Gordon, collaborated on 4 screenplays, including Adam's Rib (1949), and Pat and Mike (1952). They stopped working on scripts together for the sake of their marriage after 1952. In 1979, they co-wrote one more, the TV film Hardhat and Legs (1980) (TV). Kanin and Gordon were never under contract by any studio as writers. They wrote the scripts on their own and sold them to interested Hollywood studios.

1 years ago the actor Pat Morita died aged 73 he was in Cancel My Reservation.
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Abundantly busy and much loved Asian-American actor who became an on-screen hero to millions of adults and kids alike as the wise and wonderful Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984), the sparkling Noriyuki Morita was back again dishing out Eastern philosophy and martial arts lessons for The Karate Kid, Part II (1986) and The Karate Kid, Part III (1989), and even for The Next Karate Kid (1994).

63 years ago the actor Frank Sheriden died aged 74 he appeared in Conflict.

85 years ago Oliver Hardy married Myrtle Reese.

78 years ago Reginal Denny married Betsy Lee.

Regards

Arthur

Hi

On this day 25th November

102 years ago the writer Laurence Stallings was born he did the filmography for She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Three Godfathers.
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Stallings was a Marine Captain who lost his leg fighting in WWI, and wrote "What Price Glory" about his deep anti-war feelings. The spirit of the play is subverted in the film adaptations

105 years ago The actor and stuntman Ted Mapes was born. He appeared in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Lady From Louisiana
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Ted Mapes was born on a Nebraska wheat ranch. His father, John H. Mapes, also had cattle, horses and mules. When Ted was in his 20s he traveled west to California, where he worked driving a truck in the Signal Hills oil fields near Long Beach, then a moving van for a Los Angeles company. While moving John Barrymore's baggage and equipment from the United Artists studios to Barrymore's home, Ted met a "grip" boss, Alex Hume. That meeting led to Ted's first film job as a grip boss on The Taming of the Shrew (1929). He was later head grip on Tom Mix's last picture, The Miracle Rider (1935), and on The Phantom Empire (1935), in which Gene Autry had his first starring role. Ted had bit parts in many movies, primarily westerns. He appeared in at least 13 serials produced by Republic Pictures. He was also a top stuntman, and doubled Charles Starrett, Bruce Bennett and others. Ted bore a striking resemblance to Gary Cooper and doubled for Cooper in 17 films, beginning with Sergeant York (1941) and including Along Came Jones (1945), The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), Saratoga Trunk (1945), Unconquered (1947) and Blowing Wild (1953). He also doubled James Stewart in films from Broken Arrow (1950) through Bandolero! (1968). After retiring from acting in 1969, Ted worked for the American Humane Association as an advisor on films in which animals were used, such as Ben (1972) and Willard (1971). Ted was inducted into The Hollywood Stuntmen's Hall of Fame on September 18, 1978.

86 years ago Ricardo Montalban was born, he appeared in The Train Robbers. Happy Birthday Ricardo.

26 years ago the actress Jacqueling Dalya died aged 62 she also appeared in Lady From Louisiana.

Regards

Arthur