25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Robert Shaw

October 25, 2019

Robert Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship ever awarded to a conductor, the Alice M. Ditson Conductor’s Award for Service to American Music; the George Peabody Medal for outstanding contributions to music in America, the Gold Baton Award of the American Symphony Orchestra League for “distinguished service to music and the arts, the American National Medal of Arts, France’s Officier des Arts et des Lettres, England’s Gramophone Award, and was a 1991 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

Shaw was born in Red Bluff, California. In 1941, he founded the Collegiate Chorale, a group notable in its day for its racial integration. In 1945, the group performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the NBC Symphony and Arturo Toscanini, who famously remarked, “In Robert Shaw I have at last found the maestro I have been looking for.” Shaw continued to prepare choirs for Toscanini until March 1954, when they sang in Te Deum by Verdi and the prologue to Mefistofele by Boito. Shaw’s choirs participated in the NBC broadcast performances of three Verdi operas: Aida, Falstaff and A Masked Ball. They can be seen on the home videos of the telecasts of Aida and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Shaw himself took a bow at the end of the Beethoven telecast.

He went on to found the Robert Shaw Chorale in 1949, a group which produced numerous recordings on RCA Records up until his appointment in Atlanta. The Chorale visited 30 countries in tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Shaw was named music director of the San Diego Symphony in 1953 and served in that post for four years. Only after his San Diego tenure did he become an apprentice again, studying the art of conducting with George Szell and serving as his assistant at the Cleveland Orchestra for eleven seasons. He also took over the fledgling Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and fine-tuned it into one of the finest all-volunteer choral ensembles sponsored by an American symphony orchestra. From 1967-1988 he was music director and conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In 1970, he founded the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and worked to recreate the success he had had for Cleveland in preparing them for performances and recordings with their namesake symphony orchestra.

After stepping down from his Atlanta post in 1988, Shaw continued to conduct the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as its Music Director Emeritus and Conductor Laureate, was a regular guest conductor with other orchestras including Cleveland, and taught in a series of summer festivals and week-long Carnegie Hall workshops for choral conductors and singers.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Robert Rossen

October 25, 2019

Robert Rossen was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. After writing and directing for the stage, Rossen moved to Hollywood in 1937. His film career spanned almost three decades. Rossen was twice nominated for an Academy Award for best director and once for best adapted screenplay, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for All the King’s Men. Rossen was twice called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in 1951 and in 1953. He exercised his Fifth Amendment rights at his first appearance, refusing to state whether he had ever been a Communist. As a result he was unofficially blacklisted by the Hollywood studio bosses. At his second appearance he named 57 people as current or former Communists and was removed from the unofficial blacklist. He returned to filmmaking, although his last film so disillusioned him that he did not work for the last three years of his life.

Robert Rossen, originally known as Robert Rosen, was born on March 16, 1908, and raised on the lower East side of New York City. His father was a Russian-Jewish immigrant rabbi. As a youth Rossen attended New York University, hustled pool and fought some prizefights.

He started his theatrical career as a director and playwright in stock and off-Broadway productions.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

Robert Urich

October 25, 2019

Robert Urich was an American actor. He played the starring role in the television series and Vega$. He also appeared in other television series over the years including: S.W.A.T., Soap, and The Lazarus Man, as well as in several feature films including Turk 182!, The Ice Pirates, and Magnum Force. Urich died in 2002 in Thousand Oaks, California. The actor announced in 1996 that he was suffering from synovial cell sarcoma, a rare cancer that attacks the body’s joints, he underwent several treatments to fight the cancer during the last years of his life.

Urich was of Rusyn and Slovak extraction and raised Roman Catholic in the small town of Toronto, Ohio, where he is honored with the Robert Urich Interchange leading to State Route 7. Due to the similarity in names with Toronto, Ontario, many sources list him incorrectly as being a Canadian. His second wife, Heather, actually is a Canadian from the latter city.

Urich attended Florida State University on a football scholarship. In 1968, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Radio and Television Communications. While attending, he joined Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. He went on to Michigan State University after working in Ohio to earn a master’s degree in Broadcast Research and Management.

Urich was first married to actress Barbara Rucker. He married actress Heather Menzies in 1975, and they remained married until his death in 2002. Menzies had played one of the von Trapp children, “Louisa,” in the film version of The Sound of Music. Urich and Menzies adopted three children, Ryan, Emily and Allison. Menzies also battled cancer, and is an ovarian cancer survivor. She works with the Robert and Heather Urich Fund for Sarcoma Research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Robert Sterling

October 25, 2019

Robert Sterling, born William Sterling Hart was an American film and television actor.

The son of baseball player and umpire Bill Hart, he was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a clothing salesman before pursuing an acting career.

After signing with Columbia Pictures in 1939, he changed his name to Robert Sterling to avoid confusion with silent western star William S. Hart.

In 1941, Sterling went to MGM. He worked steadily as a supporting player for several years. After serving in World War II as an Army Air Force flight instructor, he returned to Hollywood, but by the end of the decade, his film career had faltered. He did, however, play the non-singing role of Steve Baker, opposite Ava Gardner as Julie, in the hit MGM 1951 film version of Show Boat.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Robert Vaughn

October 25, 2019

In memory of Walk of Famer Robert Vaughn, flowers were placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday, November 11, 2016 at 1 p.m. PST. The star in category of Motion Pictures is located at 6633 Hollywood Boulevard. “To the magnificent Robert Vaughn, RIP” Ana Martinez, Producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Robert Francis Vaughn, PhD, is an American actor noted for stage, film and television work. He is perhaps best known as suave spy Napoleon Solo in the 1960s series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

Vaughn was born in New York City to showbiz parents Marcella Frances, a stage actress, and Gerald Walter Vaughn, a radio actor. He was raised in an Irish Catholic family, living with his grandparents in while his mother traveled. He attended North High School and later enrolled in the University of Minnesota as a journalism major. He quit after a year and moved to with his mother. He enrolled in Los Angeles City College, then transferred to Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences, where he earned a Master's degree in theater. Continuing his higher education even through his successful acting career, Vaughn earned a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Southern California, in 1970. In 1972, he published his dissertation as the book Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting.

Vaughn made his television debut on the November 21, 1955 "Black Friday" episode of the American TV series Medic, the first of more than two hundred episodic roles by mid-2000. He appeared with Virginia Christine in the episode "The Twisted Road", the story of a troubled brother-sister relationship which results in the murder of a young woman, of the western syndicated series, Frontier Doctor, starring Rex Allen in the title role.

His first film appearance was as an uncredited extra in The Ten Commandments, playing a golden calf idolater and also visible in a scene in a chariot behind that of Yul Brynner. Vaughn's first credited movie role came the following year in the Western Hell's Crossroads, in which he played the real-life Bob Ford, the killer of outlaw Jesse James. After being seen by Burt Lancaster in Calder Willingham's play End as a Man, Vaughn was signed to a contract with Lancaster's film company and was to have played the Steve Dallas role in The Sweet Smell of Success but was drafted into the Army before he could begin the film.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Robert Taylor

October 25, 2019

Robert Taylor was an American film and television actor.

Born Spangler Arlington Brugh in Filley, Nebraska, he was the son of Ruth Adaline and Spangler Andrew Brugh, who was a farmer turned doctor. As a teenager, he was a track star and played the cello in his high school orchestra. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Doane College to study music.

While at Doane, he took cello lessons from Professor E. Gray, a man whom he admired and idolized. After Professor Gray announced he was accepting a new position at Pomona College in Los Angeles, Brugh moved to California and enrolled at Pomona. He joined the campus theatre group and was eventually spotted by an MGM talent scout in 1932 after production of Journey’s End.

After Brugh signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $35 a week, his name was changed to Robert Taylor. He made his film debut in the 1934 comedy, Handy Andy, opposite Will Rogers. After appearing in a few small roles, he appeared in one of his first leading roles in Magnificent Obsession, with Irene Dunne. This was followed by Camille, opposite Greta Garbo.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Robert Mitchum

October 25, 2019

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s.

Mitchum was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut into a Methodist family. His mother, Ann Harriet, was a Norwegian immigrant and sea captain’s daughter, and his father, James Thomas Mitchum, was a shipyard and railroad worker. A sister, Annette, was born in 1913. James Mitchum was crushed to death in a railyard accident in Charleston, South Carolina in February 1919, when his son was less than 2 years old. After his death, Ann Mitchum was awarded a government pension, and soon realized she was pregnant. She returned to her family in Connecticut, and married a former British Army major who helped her care for the children. In September 1919 a second son, John, was born. When all of the children were old enough to attend school, Ann found employment as a linotype operator for the Bridgeport Post.

Throughout Mitchum’s childhood, he was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief. When he was 12, his mother sent Mitchum to live with his grandparents in Felton, Delaware, where he was promptly expelled from his middle school for scuffling with a principal. A year later, in 1930, he moved in with his older sister, in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. After being expelled from Haaran High School, he left his sister and traveled throughout the country on railroad cars, taking a number of jobs including as a ditch-digger for the Civilian Conservation Corps and as a professional boxer. He experienced numerous adventures during his years as one of the Depression era’s “wild boys of the road.” At age 14 in Savannah, Georgia, he was arrested for vagrancy and put on a local chain gang. By Mitchum’s own account, he escaped and returned to his family in Delaware. It was during this time, while recovering from injuries that nearly lost him a leg, that he met the woman he would marry, a teenaged Dorothy Spence. He soon went back on the road, eventually riding the rails to California.

Mitchum arrived in Long Beach, California, in 1936, staying again with his sister Julie. Soon the rest of the Mitchum family joined them in Long Beach. During this time he worked as a ghostwriter for astrologer Carroll Righter. It was sister Julie who convinced him to join the local theater guild with her. In his years with the Players Guild of Long Beach, he made a living as a stagehand and occasional bit player in company productions. He also wrote several short pieces which were performed by the guild. According to Lee Server’s biography, Mitchum put a talent for poetry to work writing song lyrics and monologues for his sister Julie’s nightclub performances. In 1940 he returned East to marry Dorothy, taking her back to California. He remained a footloose character until the birth of their first child, Jim, nicknamed Josh. Robert then got a steady job as a machine operator with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.

25 Oct 2019
Recording Permalink

Robert Merrill

October 25, 2019

Robert Merrill was an American operatic baritone.

Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, to tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife Lillian, née Balaban, immigrants from Warsaw, Poland.

His mother claimed to have had an operatic and concert career in Poland and encouraged her son to have early voice training: he had a tendency to stutter, which disappeared when singing. Merrill was inspired to pursue professional singing lessons when he saw the baritone Richard Bonelli singing Count Di Luna in a performance of Il Trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera, and paid for them with money earned as a semi-professional pitcher.

In his early radio appearances as a crooner he was sometimes billed as Merrill Miller. While singing at bar mitzvahs and weddings and Borscht Belt resorts, he met an agent, Moe Gale, who found him work at Radio City Music Hall and with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. With Toscanini conducting, he eventually sang in two of the maestro’s NBC broadcasts of famous operas, La traviata, and Un ballo in maschera. Both of those broadcasts were eventually released on both LP and CD. His ranking as an important NBC performer is evidenced by his inclusion in NBC’s 1947 promotional book, NBC Parade of Stars: As Heard Over Your Favorite NBC Station, displaying Sam Berman’s caricatures of leading NBC personalities.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Robert Montgomery

October 25, 2019

Robert Montgomery was an American actor and director.

Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery Jr. in Beacon, New York, then known as “Fishkill Landing”, the son of Mary Weed and Henry Montgomery, Sr. His early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was president of the New York Rubber Company. When his father committed suicide in 1922 by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, the family’s fortune was gone.

Montgomery went to New York City to try his hand at writing and acting. He established a stage career, and became popular enough to turn down an offer to appear opposite Vilma Bánky in the film This Is Heaven. Sharing a stage with George Cukor gave him an in to Hollywood, where, in 1929, he debuted in So This Is College. Montgomery entered the moving picture industry during the revolution of the talkies, which made it more difficult to impress the studio. One writer claimed that Montgomery was able to establish himself because he “proceeded with confidence, agreeable with everyone, eager and willing to take suggestions.” During the production of So This Is College, he learned from and questioned crew members from several departments, including sound men, electricians, set designers, cameramen an film editors. In a later interview, he confessed that “it showed that making a motion picture is a great co-operative project.”

So This Is College gained him several attention as Hollywood’s latest newcomer, and he was put in one production after another, with his popularity growing steadily. He initially played exclusively in comedy roles, but portrayed a character in his first drama film in The Big House. The studio was initially reluctant to assign him in such a role, until “his earnestness, and his convincing arguments, with demonstrations of how he would play the character” won him the assignment. From The Big House on, he was in constant demand. Appearing as Greta Garbo’s romantic interest in Inspiration started him toward stardom with a rush. Norma Shearer chose him to star opposite her in The Divorcee, Strangers May Kiss, and Private Lives, which led to stardom on a high rank. During this time, Montgomery appeared in the first filmed version of When Ladies Meet .

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Robert Fuller

October 25, 2019

Robert Fuller is an American former television actor and current rancher. In his five decades of television, he's best known for starring roles on the popular 1960s western series Laramie as Jess Harper, and Wagon Train as Cooper Smith, as well as his work for his lead role, Dr. Kelly Brackett, in the popular 1970s medical drama Emergency!, opposite his best friends Julie London and her husband Bobby Troup.

An only child, Fuller was born Buddy Lee in Troy, New York, to Betty Simpson, a dance instructor. Prior to Lee's birth, Simpson married Robert Simpson, Sr., a Naval Academy officer. The family moved to Key West, Florida, where Lee took the name of his parents, becoming Robert Simpson, Jr.. The early highlights of Simpson's life were acting and dancing, and after graduating from the Miami Military Academy in 1952, he traveled to Hollywood with his family, where Fuller's first job was a stunt man. He also worked at the prestigious Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Upon establishing his acting career, he changed his name to "Robert Fuller."

Fuller's first small role was 1952's Above and Beyond. This part led to landing in a few small roles such as I Love Melvin. In 1953, he again had another minor part in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which starred Marilyn Monroe, but Fuller's career came to an abrupt halt when he was drafted into the military. He did a tour of duty in Korea, and came back in 1955.

Fuller had considered another career, but at his parents' suggestion, he attended Richard Boone's acting classes, under the tutelage of Sanford Meisner at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, and reconsidered.