25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Dan Avey

October 25, 2019

Dan Avey was a radio personality and newscaster who worked for over 30 years in the Los Angeles area and received more than 30 major journalism awards including 15 Golden Mikes.

Avey died from cancer at Cedars Sinai on August 15, 2010. He had been fighting the disease for five years, including during much of his stay at KABC.

Avey started his radio career at KXLY in Spokane, Washington during his freshman year in college. From 1972 to 1976, he served as the analyst on Los Angeles Kings broadcasts, where he originally was paired with Jiggs McDonald, and later with Roy Storey and Bob Miller, who like Avey has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1976, he started at all-news KFWB, and in 1978 he also had a short stint at KWIZ in Santa Ana. In 1986, he left KFWB when he was hired by KFI to join Gary Owens’ new morning show. Avey later became the newsman for Geoff Edwards’ midday talk show at KFI. When Edwards left the station in March 1989, Avey and two other people associated with the show were fired a few days later, and Avey returned to KFWB where he worked for the next twelve years.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Dan Duryea

October 25, 2019

Dan Duryea was an American actor of film, stage and television. Duryea graduated from Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the Sphinx Head Society. He made his name on Broadway in the play Dead End, followed by The Little Foxes, in which he played the dishonest and not particularly bright weakling Leo Hubbard. He moved to Hollywood in 1940 to appear in the film version in the same role.

He established himself in films playing similar secondary roles as the foil, usually as a weak or annoyingly immature character, in movies such as The Pride of the Yankees. As his career progressed throughout the 1940s he began to carve a niche as a violent, yet sexy, bad guy in a number of film noirs. In so doing he established a significant female following and, over time, something of a cult status. His work in this era included Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window, Criss Cross, Black Angel and Too Late for Tears.

From the 1950s, Duryea was more often seen in Westerns, most notably his charismatic villain in Winchester ’73. Other memorable work in the latter part of his career included Thunder Bay, The Burglar, The Flight of the Phoenix, and the primetime soap opera Peyton Place. He also appeared in one of the first Twilight Zone episodes in 1959 as a drunken former gunfighter in “Mr. Denton on Doomsday,” written by Rod Serling. He guest starred on NBC’s anthology series The Barbara Stanwyck Show. In 1963, Duryea appeared as Dr. Ben Lorrigan in the episode “Why Am I Grown So Cold” on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour.

Duryea was far removed from many of the characters he played in the course of his career. He was married for thirty-five years to his wife, Helen, who preceded him in death on January 21, 1967. The couple had two sons: Peter, who worked for a time as an actor, and Richard.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Dan Haggerty

October 25, 2019

Dan Haggerty is an American actor, best known for the title role in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.

He was born in Hollywood, growing up amid the Southern California bodybuilding lifestyle. Online biographies and newspapers suggest that he was born Gene Jajonski in Pound, WI. He had early roles in Muscle Beach Party and the Elvis Presley film Girl Happy. His ease in working with animals got him work as a trainer and handler for Walt Disney films, and he found work as a stuntman on the Ron Ely’s TV show Tarzan.

Haggerty was a free spirit, living in the Malibu Canyons with his animals while making his own furniture and clothing. He also worked as a set builder on films. He appeared briefly in David Carradine’s film, Americana. He provided a fighting dog for the film, played the role of the dog’s trainer and worked on the set design and the actual restoration of the main focus of the film, a broken down carousel.He worked on the motorcycles featured in the film Easy Rider, and had a bit part as a “hippie” in the movie. He showed up in several low-budget biker films of the era as both a supporting player and stuntman before being tapped to play the outdoorsman in the independent film The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. The picture was a surprise hit and spun off into a popular TV series that made Haggerty a household name. He also starred in the 1989 film “Spirit of the Eagle”.

His fame was fleeting, however, as a well-publicized drug arrest and motorcycle crash kept him from work. He appeared often during the late 1980s in the direct-to-video boom, but by the early 1990s devoted his energies to the Studio City restaurant “Haggerty’s Bistro” and marketing his own barbecue sauce. He continued to work as both an actor and infomercial spokesman.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Dane Clark

October 25, 2019

Dane Clark was an American film actor who was known for playing, as he labeled himself, “Joe Average”.

Clark was born Bernard Zanville in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a sporting goods store owner.

He graduated from Cornell University and earned a law degree at St. John’s University School of Law in Queens, New York. During the Great Depression, he worked as a boxer, baseball player, construction worker, and model.

Modeling brought him in contact with people in the arts. He gradually perceived them to be snobbish, with their talk of the “theatah”, and “I decided it give it a try myself, just to show them anyone could do it.”

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio, Recording Permalink

Danny Kaye

October 25, 2019

Danny Kaye was an American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian.

Born David Daniel Kaminsky to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn named Jacob Kaminsky and Clara Kaminsky, Kaye became one of the world’s best-known comedians. He spent his early youth attending Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn, before moving to Thomas Jefferson High School, but he never graduated. He learned his trade in his teenage years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt.

Danny Kaye made his film debut in a 1935 comedy short titled Moon Over Manhattan. In 1937 he signed with New York?based Educational Pictures for a series of two-reel comedies. Kaye usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson or Imogene Coca. The Kaye series ended abruptly when the studio shut down permanently in 1938.

Kaye scored a personal triumph in 1941, in the hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark. His show-stopping number was “Tchaikovsky”, by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, in which he sang the names of a whole string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Creighton Hale

October 25, 2019

Creighton Hale was an Irish-born American movie actor who worked in the silent film era.

While starring in Charles Frohman’s Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company. His first movie was The Exploits of Elaine in 1914.

Since he rise to stardom, Hale starred in hit films such as Way Down East, Orphans of the Storm, and The Cat and the Canary.

In 1923, he starred in an early pornographic “stag” film On the Beach. In the film, three nude women agree to have sex with him, but only through a hole in the fence.

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

Cristina Saralegui

October 25, 2019

Cristina Saralegui or simply Cristina is a Cuban American journalist, actress and talk show host, well-known for hosting the Spanish-language eponymous show, Cristina.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Saralegui fled with her family to Miami in 1960 at the age of 12. Saralegui and her family lived on Key Biscayne, where she also attended school.

After graduating from Academy of the Assumption in 1966, Saralegui was a student at the University of Miami. In 1973 she began an internship at the magazine Vanidades, where she taught herself to write Spanish, as she had nearly all of her formal schooling in the United States and only functioned in Spanish at the oral level. Saralegui eventually worked her way up to editor of the Spanish version of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1979. She led Spanish Cosmopolitan through most of the 1980s.

In 1989, Saralegui decided to transfer her journalism success to television, launching a Miami-based Spanish-language talk show, El Show de Cristina to Univisión.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording Permalink

Crosby, Stills & Nash

October 25, 2019

Crosby, Stills & Nash is a folk rock supergroup made up of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, also known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when joined by occasional fourth member Neil Young. They are noted for their intricate vocal harmonies, often tumultuous interpersonal relationships, political activism, and lasting influence on music and culture. All four members of CSNY have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, though Young's multiple inductions were for work not involving the group.

Initially formed by the trio of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, the genesis of the group lies in two 1960s rock bands, The Byrds and The Hollies, and the demise of a third, Buffalo Springfield. Friction existed between David Crosby and his bandmates in the Byrds, and he was dismissed from the Byrds in the autumn of 1967.

By early 1968, Buffalo Springfield had also disintegrated over personal issues, and after aiding in putting together the band?s final album, Stephen Stills found himself unemployed by the summer. He and Crosby began meeting informally and jamming, the results of one encounter in Florida on Crosby?s schooner being the song ?Wooden Ships,? composed in collaboration with another guest, Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane.

Graham Nash had been introduced to Crosby when the Byrds had toured the UK in 1966, and when the Hollies ventured to California in 1968, Nash resumed his acquaintance with Crosby. At a party in July 1968 at Cass Elliot's house, Nash asked Stills and Crosby to repeat their performance of a new song by Stills, ?You Don't Have To Cry,? with Nash improvising a second harmony part. The vocals gelled, and the three realized that they had a unique vocal chemistry.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Crystal Gayle

October 25, 2019

Songbird Crystal Gayle was honored with the 2,390th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Leron Gubler, President and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce presided over the ceremony. Guests included Tanya Tucker, Wink Martindale, Kate Linder, Jennifer Elise Cox, George Chakiris, and Crystal's sister, recording artist Peggy Sue Wright.

1515 Vine Street on October 2, 2009.

BIOGRAPHY

Crystal Gayle was born Brenda Gail Webb in Paintsville, Kentucky on January 9, 1951. When she was four years old her family moved to Wabash, Indiana. Inspired by sister Loretta Lynn's career, she decided to learn to play the guitar and she sang in her brothers' country bands. Crystal encapsulates everything the dazzling qualities of her name imply — although that name came to her in quite an unusual fashion. "Crystal" was suggested by Brenda Gail Webb's older sister, Loretta Lynn. Knowing there was already a 'Brenda Lee' currently successful in the music industry, Loretta selected the name 'Crystal' for her younger sibling when she began recording.

Country, folk, pop, rock 'n roll, Broadway show tunes, gospel…all found an equal place in her heart when growing up as the youngest of eight children. As her beloved sister Loretta so aptly put it, Crystal, too, was a "coal miner's daughter" before she was a platinum- selling singer and a world-class entertainer.

While still in school, she signed her first recording contract. Her debut single, "I've Cried the Blue Right Out of My Eyes," was written by Loretta and reached the Top 25 on the national country music charts. Three more singles were released over the next three years, all making an impact with radio and listeners.

Her first album project began a roll-out of smash singles to come. "Wrong Road Again," (her first of many hit singles with producer Allen Reynolds) became her debut Top 10 record. "I'll Get Over You" became her first #1 single. By her fourth album, "We Must Believe in Magic," Crystal Gayle became the first female artist in country music history to achieve platinum album sales. Driving the engine of the album was the song that was to become her enduring career signature song: "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue."

"Brown Eyes" opened the world's eyes to Crystal Gayle. She became a familiar name in households, grand and small, from Louisville to Leningrad. The glamour and the mystique of the Crystal Gayle phenomena made her an instantly "in-demand" artist. From symphony halls to Carnegie Hall, from the best-kept stages in Las Vegas to the prestige of the London Palladium, one word — "Crystal" — crossed musical genres and oceans.

In the late '70s, Crystal was the star of her own one hour prime-time specials on CBS television — specials that earned the praise of audiences and critics alike. Crystal's CBS specials were followed by an equally groundbreaking HBO concert special viewed by millions. The ensuing years saw Crystal host a Christmas special from Sweden, and a variety special taped in Finland. Chic, hip and cool, with a romantic mane of hair, Crystal's television specials and myriad guest-appearances on specials and talk shows solidified her stardom. She appeared in Bob Hope's historic NBC-TV Special "On the Road to China." She was seen hosting the "American Music Awards" and the "Academy Of Country Music Awards." She swept through tours — and repeat tours — of the U.S. Japan, England, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Holland, Australia and the Far East.

Her hit list of platinum and gold was to be matched only by her awards and accolades. CMA's "Female Vocalist of the Year," for two consecutive years, she became a Grammy Award Winner for "Best Female Vocal Performance," thanks to her beloved "Brown Eyes" – a song that she has never grown tired of singing. Crystal swept the Academy Of Country Music Awards for three of their "Top Female Vocalist" statuettes. As her music and her career path widened to mainstream audiences, so did her accolades. She is the recipient of three "American Music Awards," voted by the nation as America's "Favorite Female Artist."

Crystal's most recent projects, "Crystal Gayle Sings The Heart & Soul of Hoagy Carmichael" and "All My Tomorrows," allow Crystal to explore collections of American standards. Songs such as "Stardust," "Skylark," "Cry Me a River," "Sentimental Journey," "It Had to Be You" and "Smile" reach the heights their songwriters' must have dreamed of when piped through the beautiful chords of Crystal Gayle.

Generous with her time and talents, Crystal has become involved with many charities. She garnered the initial "Celebration of Light Award" in recognition of her humanitarian efforts. Crystal recorded the official theme song for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and served thrice as co-host for the Arthritis telethon. Fittingly, the "Celebration of Light Award" was Waterford Crystal.