25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

Richard Mulligan

October 25, 2019

Richard Mulligan was an American television and film actor.

He was born in New York City, the younger brother of director Robert Mulligan. After attending Columbia University, Mulligan began working in theatre, making his debut as a stage manager and performer on Broadway in All the Way Home in 1960. Additional theatre credits included A Thousand Clowns, Never Too Late, Hogan’s Goat, and Thieves.

Mulligan starred with Mariette Hartley in the 1966-67 season comedy series The Hero, in which he played TV star Sam Garret, who in turn starred on a fictional series as Jed Clayton, U.S. Marshal. The Hero lasted only 16 episodes. Another notable TV appearance was on the I Dream of Jeannie episode “Around the World in 80 Blinks”, as a navy commander accompanying Maj. Nelson on a mission.

Mulligan’s most notable film role was as General Custer in Little Big Man, whom he portrayed as a borderline psychotic. Other film roles included the disaster movie spoof The Big Bus and he appeared in the movie Teachers as a mental patient mistaken for a substitute teacher whose pupils learn more from than the actual teachers.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Richard Wallace

October 25, 2019

Richard Wallace was an American film director.

In 1926, Wallace began directing feature-length films. He began working in the editing department at Mack Sennett Studios in the early 1930s. He later moved on to rival Hal Roach Studios where he began directing two-reel films, some of which he collaborated with Stan Laurel.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Rick Dees

October 25, 2019

Rigdon Osmond “Rick” Dees III is an American comedic performer, entertainer, and radio personality, best known for his internationally syndicated radio show The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Countdown and for the novelty song “Disco Duck.” He is a People’s Choice Award recipient, a Grammy-nominated performing artist, and Broadcast Hall of Fame inductee. He wrote two songs that appear in the film Saturday Night Fever, plus performed the title song for the film Meatballs. Dees is also co-founder of the E.W. Scripps television network, FINE LIVING, and is the former host of the Rick Dees Morning Show at Movin’ 93-9 FM in Los Angeles.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Dees was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. He graduated from Greensboro’s Grimsley High School, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor?s Degree in Radio, TV and Motion Pictures.

Dees began his radio career at WGBG, a Greensboro radio station, while still in high school. He worked in various radio stations throughout the southeastern United States, including WSGN in Birmingham, Alabama.

His introduction to the international entertainment arena began while working at WMPS-AM in Memphis, Tennessee, during the disco craze of the late 1970s when he wrote and recorded “Disco Duck”, the award-winning hit that sold more than six million copies. The song can be heard in the movie Saturday Night Fever in a brief scene in which a group of older people were learning to “move their feet to the disco beat”. While this platinum recording earned him a People’s Choice Award, and the BMI Award for record sales in one year, Dees was expressly forbidden from playing the song on the air by station management. He was later fired on-the-spot for talking about the song on the air one morning?the station manager claimed conflict of interest. After a short hiatus, he went on to WHBQ-AM, also in Memphis, where ratings quickly soared following his arrival.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Richard Thorpe

October 25, 2019

Richard Thorpe was an American film director.

Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and onstage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred and eighty films. The first full length motion picture he directed for MGM was Last of the Pagans starring Ray Mala. After directing The Last Challenge in 1967, he retired from the film industry. He died in Palm Springs, California in 1991.

Thorpe is also known as the original director of The Wizard of Oz. He was fired after two weeks of shooting, because it was felt that his scenes did not have the right air of fantasy about them. Thorpe notoriously gave Judy Garland a blonde wig and cutesy “baby-doll” makeup that made her look like a girl in her late teens rather than an innocent Kansas farm girl of about thirteen. Both makeup and wig were discarded at the suggestion of George Cukor, who was brought in temporarily. Stills from Thorpe’s work on the film survive today.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Richard Widmark

October 25, 2019

Richard Widmark was an American actor of films, stage, radio and television.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death. Early in his career Widmark specialized in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in films noir, but he later branched out into more heroic leading and support roles in westerns, mainstream dramas and horror films, among others.

At his death, Widmark was the earliest surviving Oscar nominee in the Supporting Actor category, and one of only two left from the 1940s. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Richard Weedt Widmark was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota, the son of Ethel Mae and Carl H. Widmark. His father was of Swedish descent and his mother of English and Scottish ancestry. Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and also lived in Henry, Illinois for a short time, moving frequently because of his father’s work as a traveling salesman. He attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting and also taught acting after he graduated.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Richard Webb

October 25, 2019

Richard Webb was a film, television and radio actor. He was born in Bloomington, Illinois.

He appeared in more than fifty films, including many westerns and films noir including Out of the Past, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, I Was a Communist for the FBI and Carson City. Today, he may be best remembered as the star of the 1950s TV series Captain Midnight, based on a long-running radio program of the same name. In 1958, he guest starred as agent James Foster in Bruce Gordon’s short-lived docudrama about the Cold War, Behind Closed Doors.

In 1954, Webb played the notorious gunfighter John Wesley Hardin in an episode of Jim Davis’s Stories of the Century western anthology. The segment shows Hardin shooting two Indians in the back, gunning down a sheriff in a saloon, and finally being outgunned himself by an El Paso officer attempting to arrest Hardin, then a lawyer, on a new murder warrant, possibly his 41st or 45th killing.

Webb played Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney on — “Court Martial”

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Richard Pryor

October 25, 2019

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III was an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful, vulgar and profane language, as well as racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style. He is widely regarded as one of the most important stand-up comedians: Jerry Seinfeld called Pryor "The Picasso of our profession"; Bob Newhart has called Pryor "the seminal comedian of the last 50 years."

His body of work includes the concert movies and recordings Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin', That Nigger's Crazy, .Is It Something I Said?, Bicentennial Nigger, Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip, and Richard Pryor: Here and Now. He also starred in numerous films as an actor, such as Superman III and "The Toy" but was usually in comedies such as Silver Streak, and occasionally in dramatic roles, such as Paul Schrader's film Blue Collar. He collaborated on many projects with actor Gene Wilder.

Pryor won an Emmy Award in 1973, and five Grammy Awards in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982. In 1974, he also won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award.

Pryor is listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Richard Dreyfuss

October 25, 2019

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Stakeout, Always, What About Bob?, and Mr. Holland’s Opus.

Dreyfuss won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1977 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated in 1995 for Mr. Holland’s Opus. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries categories.

Dreyfuss was born Richard Stephen Dreyfus in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist. Dreyfuss is Jewish and his surname is of Yiddish origin, believed to originate in the German city of Trier, which had a large Jewish population in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Latin name for the city was “Treveris”, of which Dreyfuss is a variant. He commented that he “grew up thinking that Alfred Dreyfus and are of the same family.” His family moved to California when he was nine.

Dreyfuss’s acting career began during his youth at the Beverly Hills Jewish Center. He debuted in the TV production In Mama’s House when he was fifteen. He attended the San Fernando Valley State College for a year. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and worked in alternate service for two years as a clerk in a Los Angeles hospital. During this time, he acted in a few small TV roles on shows like Peyton Place, Gidget, Bewitched and The Big Valley. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he also performed on stage on Broadway, off-Broadway, repertory, and improvisational theater.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Richard Dix

October 25, 2019

Richard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.

Born Ernst Carlton Brimmer on July 18, 1893, in St. Paul, Minnesota. There he was educated, and at the desires of his father, studied to be a surgeon. His obvious acting talent in his school dramatic club led him to leading roles in most of the school plays. At 6′ 0″ and 180 pounds, Dix excelled in sports, especially football and baseball. These skills would serve him well in the vigorous film roles he would go on to play. After a year at the University of Minnesota he took a position at a bank, spending his evenings training for the stage. His professional start was with a local stock company, and this led to similar work in New York City. The death of his father left him with a mother and sister to support. He went to Los Angeles, became leading man for the Morosco Stock Company and his success there got him a contract with Paramount Pictures.

After his move to Hollywood, where he began a career in Western movies. One of the few actors to successfully bridge the transition from silent films to talkies, Dix’s best-remembered early role was in Cecil B. Demille’s silent version of The Ten Commandments. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1931 for his performance as Yancey Cravat in Cimarron, in which he shared top-billing with Irene Dunne. Cimarron, based on the popular novel by Edna Ferber, took the Best Picture award. Dix starred in another RKO adventure, The Lost Squadron.

A memorable role for Dix was in the 1935 British futuristic film The Tunnel. An original poster for this film was catalogued with an estimated value of between $2000 – $3000 by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas in the Summer of 2006. Dix starred in The Great Jasper and Blind Alibi in the late 1930s. His popular RKO Radio Pictures co-star in Blind Alibi was Ace the Wonder Dog. Dix’s human co-stars were Whitney Bourne, Eduardo Ciannelli; the film was directed by Lew Landers.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television 4 Comments Permalink

Richard Denning

October 25, 2019 4 Comments

Richard Denning, was an American actor who starred in such movies as Creature from the Black Lagoon and An Affair to Remember, and on radio with Lucille Ball as her husband George Cooper in My Favorite Husband, the forerunner of television’s I Love Lucy, for which Denning was replaced by Ball’s real-life husband, Desi Arnaz.

Denning was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger, Jr. in Poughkeepsie, New York. He became an actor, best-known for his recurring role as Governor of Hawaii Paul Jameson in the CBS series Hawaii Five-O. He also starred as the title character in the detective series Michael Shayne and shared title billing with Barbara Britton in the detective series Mr. and Mrs. North. He appeared three times on the ABC anthology series Crossroads.

According to Denning, after his interrupting his career to enlist in the military during World War II, upon his return he experienced a full 18 months before Paramount Pictures put him back to work. During that time period, Denning and his famiy lived in a mobile home that he alternately parked at Malibu and Palm Springs. His period of unemployment ended when he was hired to star on the radio opposite Lucille Ball in My Favorite Husband.

Denning was already retired and living on the island of Maui with his wife, when producer Leonard Freeman telephoned him with an offer to appear as the Governor in the new series Hawaii Five-O. Freeman guaranteed Denning five-hour days and a four-day work week in order to snag him.