25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording 6 Comments Permalink

Destiny’s Child

October 25, 2019 6 Comments

Destiny’s Child was an American R&B girl group comprising lead singer Beyoncé Knowles alongside Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams. Formed in 1997 in Houston, Texas, Destiny’s Child members began their musical endeavors in their pre-teens under the name Girls’ Tyme, comprising Knowles, Rowland, LaTavia Roberson and LeToya Luckett. After years of performing underground, they signed to Columbia Records and changed their name. Destiny’s Child was launched into mainstream recognition following the release of their best-selling second album, The Writing’s on the Wall, which contained the number-one singles “Bills, Bills, Bills” and “Say My Name”.

Despite critical and commercial success, the group was plagued by internal conflict and legal turmoil, as Roberson and Luckett attempted to split off the group’s manager Mathew Knowles. They were soon replaced with Williams and Farrah Franklin; however, in 2000, Franklin also parted with the group, leaving them as a trio. Their third album, Survivor, which contains themes the public interpreted as a channel to the group’s experience, contains the worldwide hits “Independent Women”, “Survivor” and “Bootylicious”. In 2002, Destiny’s Child announced a hiatus, allowing its members to attain individual success. They re-united with 2004’s Destiny Fulfilled, and a year later during their world tour, announced that the group would disband and its members would pursue solo careers.

Throughout their career, the group released four studio albums and achieved four US number-one singles. They had sold over 40 million records worldwide as a group, 50 million including their solo album sales before their disbandment, becoming one of the best-selling recording artists in the U.S. Billboard magazine ranks the group as one of the greatest musical trios of all time, and inducted the group in 2008 into the All time Hot 100 Artist at 68th place. In 2005, the World Music Awards recognized them as the World’s Best-selling female group of all time.

In 1990, Beyoncé Knowles met rapper LaTavia Roberson while in an audition for a girl group. Based in Houston, Texas, they were joined to a group that performed rapping and dancing. Kelly Rowland, who relocated to Knowles’ house because of family issues, joined them in 1991. Originally named Girl’s Tyme, they were eventually cut down to six members including Támar Davis and sisters Nikki and Nina Taylor. With Knowles and Rowland, Girl’s Tyme attracted nationwide attention: west-coast R&B producer Arne Frager flew to Houston to see them. He brought them to his studio, The Plant Recording Studios, in Northern California, with focus on Knowles’ vocals because Frager thought she had personality and the ability to sing. With efforts to sign Girl’s Tyme to a major record deal, Frager’s strategy was to debut the group in Star Search, the biggest talent show on national TV at the time. However, they lost the competition because, according to Knowles, their choice of song was wrong; they were actually rapping instead of singing.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Debbie Allen

October 25, 2019

Deborrah Kaye Debbie Allen is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, television director, television producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She is perhaps best known for her work on the 1982 musical-drama television series Fame, where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series' principal choreographer. She is the younger sister of actress/singer Phylicia Rash?d.

Allen was born in Houston, Texas, the youngest of three children to orthodontist Andrew Arthur Allen Sr. and Vivian Allen, a poet and museum art director.

She went on to earn a B.A. degree in classical Greek literature, speech, and theater from Howard University. She holds honoris causa Doctors from Howard and the North Carolina School for the Arts. She currently teaches young dancers. She also taught choreography to former L.A. Laker dancer-turned-singer, Paula Abdul. Her daughter, Vivian Nixon, played Kalimba in the Broadway production of Hot Feet. She graduated from Jack Yates Senior high school.

Debbie Allen made her Broadway debut in the chorus of Purlie. Allen also created the role of Beneatha in the Tony

25 Oct 2019
Live Performance, Motion Pictures Permalink

Debbie Reynolds

October 25, 2019

Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer who was an MGM contract star. She is also a collector of movie memorabilia.

Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. and Raymond Francis Reynolds, who was a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Reynolds was a Girl Scout and a troop leader. Her family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939, and she was raised in a strict Nazarene faith. At age 16, while a student at Burbank's John Burroughs High School, Reynolds won the Miss Burbank Beauty Contest, a contract with Warner Brothers, and acquired her new first name.

Debbie Reynolds regularly appeared in movie musicals during the 1950s and had several hit records during the period. Her song "Aba Daba Honeymoon" was a top-three hit in 1951. Her most high-profile film role was in Singin' in the Rain as Kathy Selden. In Bundle of Joy she appeared with her then-husband, Eddie Fisher.

Her recording of the song "Tammy" earned her a gold record, and was the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957. It was number one for five weeks on the Billboard pop charts. In the movie she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Deborah Kerr

October 25, 2019

Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish stage, television and film actress. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture, The King and I, and she was also the recipient of honorary Academy, BAFTA and Cannes Film Festival awards.

She was nominated six times for an Academy Award as Best Actress but never won. In 1994, however, she was cited by the Academy for a film career that always represented “perfection, discipline and elegance”. Her films include The King and I, An Affair to Remember, From Here to Eternity, Quo Vadis, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and Separate Tables.

Although the Scottish pronunciation of her surname, is closer to a phonetic reading of the name, when she was being promoted as a Hollywood actress it was made clear that her surname should be pronounced the same as “car”. In order to avoid confusion over pronunciation, Louis B. Mayer of MGM billed her as “Kerr rhymes with Star!”

Kerr was born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer in a private nursing home in Glasgow, Scotland, the only daughter of Kathleen Rose and Capt. Arthur Charles Kerr-Trimmer, a World War I veteran pilot who later became a naval architect and civil engineer. Directly after her birth she spent the first three years of her life in the nearby town of Helensburgh, where her parents lived with Deborah’s grandparents in a house on West King Street. Kerr had a younger brother, Edward, who became a journalist and died in a ‘road-rage’ incident in 2004.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

DeForest Kelley

October 25, 2019

Jackson DeForest Kelley was an American actor known for his iconic roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy of the USS Enterprise in the television and film series Star Trek.

Kelley was born in Toccoa, Georgia, the son of Clora and Ernest David Kelley, who was a Baptist minister. DeForest was named after the pioneering electronics engineer Lee De Forest. Kelley was delivered in their home by his uncle, a prominent local physician. He grew up in the Atlanta area and was a 1938 graduate of Decatur Boys High in Decatur, Georgia. As a child, he sang in the church choir, where he discovered that he enjoyed singing and was good at it. Eventually, this led to solos and an appearance on the radio station WSB AM in Atlanta, Georgia. As a result of his radio work, he won an engagement with Lew Forbes and his orchestra at the Paramount Theater. Kelley had an older brother, Ernest Casey Kelley.

Kelley served in World War II as an enlisted man in the United States Army Air Forces between March 10, 1943, and January 28, 1946. After an extended stay at Long Beach, California, Kelley decided to pursue an acting career and relocate to southern California, living for a time with his uncle, Casey. He worked as an usher in a local theater in order to earn enough money for the move. Kelley received encouragement from his mother about this career goal, but his father disliked the idea. While in California, Kelley was spotted by a Paramount Pictures scout while doing a United States Navy training film.

The first movie of Kelley’s acting career was the feature film Fear in the Night. The low-budget movie was a blockbuster hit, bringing him to the attention of a national audience. His next role, in Variety Girl, established him as a leading actor. A few years later, Kelley and his wife, Carolyn, decided to move to New York City. He found work on stage and on live television, but after three years in New York, the Kelleys returned to Hollywood. In California, he received a role in an installment of You Are There, anchored by Walter Cronkite. He played ranch owner Bob Kitteridge in the 1949 episode Legion of Old Timers of the TV series The Lone Ranger. This led to an appearance in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral as Morgan Earp. This role was a source for three movie offers. He also appeared in episodes of the TV series , Boots and Saddles, Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater, Death Valley Days, Lawman and many others. He appeared in a 1962 episode of Route 66, 1800 Days to Justice.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Del Moore

October 25, 2019

Del Moore was a comedian, a television and movie actor, and a radio announcer.

Born Marion Delbridge Moore in Pensacola, Florida, he began his career in radio before moving to television. In 1952, he appeared in the first of several So You Want To. . . Warner Bros. comedy shorts with George O’Hanlon. He co-starred in the early television comedy Life with Elizabeth with Betty White. A good friend of Jack Webb, with whom he had served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, Moore appeared in many episodes of Dragnet and Adam-12. For several years in the late 1950s he hosted a daily children’s program opposite Willy the Wolf on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles.

Moore played supporting roles in several Jerry Lewis films, including The Big Mouth and The Patsy. He made his feature film debut in Lewis’ Cinderfella in 1960 and was the university president in 1963’s The Nutty Professor. He was also in the 1967 teen film Catalina Caper, which later appeared as an “experiment” in a 1990 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Moore died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Encino, California in 1970 at the age of 54. survived by his wife, Gayle, daughters Laura and Lesli and son from a former marriage, Del Jr. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Delbert Mann

October 25, 2019

Delbert Martin Mann, Jr. was an American television and film director. He won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Directing for the film Marty. It was the first Best Picture winner to be based on a television program, being adapted from a 1953 teleplay of the same name which he had also directed. Mann is also the only director other than Billy Wilder and Roman Polanski to win an Oscar for his direction and a Cannes Palme d’Or for the same film. From 1967 to 1971, he was president of the Directors Guild of America.

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

Della Reese

October 25, 2019

In memory of actress and Walk of Famer Della Reese, flowers were placed on her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, November 20, 2017 at 1:00 PM PST. The star in category of Television is located at 7060 Hollywood Blvd. “Always an angel Della! Rest in peace.” 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.

Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese, is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You Know?" In her four decades of acting, she later gained a whole new generation of fans, in the 1990s, playing Tess, the leading role on the television show Touched by an Angel. In the late 1960s, she hosted her own talk show, Della, which ran for 297 episodes. In more recent times, she became an ordained New Thought minister in the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles, California.

Reese was born Deloreese Patricia Early in Detroit, Michigan to African American steelworker, Richard Thaddeus Early, and Nellie Mitchelle, a Native American cook. Deloreese's mother also had several older children, before her birth, all of whom didn't live with her, hence, she was an only child. At only six years old, she began singing in church. From this experience, she became an avid Gospel singer. As a young lady of the 1940s, on the weekends, she and her mother would go to the movies, independently, to watch the likes of: Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Lena Horne, each of whom had portrayed glamourous lives on-screen. After each movie, she would act out the scenes taken from every single film. In 1944, she began her career directing the young people's choir, after she'd nurtured acting plus her obvious musical talent. She was often chosen on radio, as a regular singer. At the age of thirteen, she was hired to sing with Mahalia Jackson's Gospel group. Upon entering Detroit's popular Cass Technical High School. At Cass Tech, she was a brilliant, no-nonsense student. She also continued with her touring with Jackson. With higher grades, she was the first in her family to graduate from high school in 1947, at only 15. Afterwards, she formed her own gospel group called the Meditation Singers. However, due in part to the death of her mother, and her father's serious illness, Reese had to interrupt her schooling at Wayne State University to help support her family. Faithful to the memory of Deloreese's memory of her mother, she also moved out of her father's house, due to her feuding with her father, who had a new girlfriend. She then took on odd jobs such as: truck driver, dental receptionist, even elevator operator, after 1949.

Early soon performed in clubs, she also realized that she didn't have a choice other than to shortened her name from Deloreese Early to the more clearly Della Reese, knowing that it was too big for one's club marquee.

Reese was discovered by the Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Reese's big break came when she won a contest, which gave her a week to sing at Detroit's well-known and talked-about Flame Show bar. Reese remained there for eight weeks. Although her roots were in Gospel music, she now was being exposed to and influenced by such great jazz artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. In 1953, she signed a recording contract with Jubilee Records, for which she recorded six albums. Later that same year, she also joined the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra. Her first recordings for Jubilee were songs such as "In the Still of the Night," "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," and "Time After Time." Although the EP didn't enter the charts, it sold 500,000 copies, and the songs were later included on the 1959 album "And That Reminds Me."

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Delmer Daves

October 25, 2019

Delmer Daves was an American screenwriter, director, and producer.

Born in San Francisco, Delmer Daves first pursued a career as a lawyer. While attending Stanford University he became interested in the burgeoning film industry, first working as a prop boy on the 1923 western The Covered Wagon and serving as a technical advisor on a number of films. After finishing his education in law, he continued his career in Hollywood.

After moving to Hollywood in 1928, he began his career as a screenwriter, his first credit being the “talkie” comedy So This Is College released by MGM. Through the 1930s he made a name as a successful screenplay and story writer, while moonlighting as an actor in bit parts and uncredited roles. He penned the successful Dick Powell musicals Dames, Flirtation Walk, and Page Miss Glory between 1934 and 1935. Daves largest successes of the period, however, came with 1936’s The Petrified Forest and Love Affair. Almost twenty years later Leo McCarey, director of Love Affair, would helm the nearly identical An Affair to Remember using Daves’ script.

Daves made his directorial debut in the Cary Grant wartime adventure Destination Tokyo in 1943. Over the course of Daves’ twenty-two year career, Daves cultivated an unpretentious style, taking a relaxed approach to filming and letting the actors and screenplay drive the film. His most notable films include Dark Passage, which utilized a first-person approach to great effect, the critically acclaimed Broken Arrow, the taut western 3:10 to Yuma the cold war drama Never Let Me Go, and the melodramatic A Summer Place. Daves garnered a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for his work on 1958’s Cowboy. Spencer’s Mountain, which he wrote, directed, and produced, was based upon Earl Hamner’s auto-biographical novel of the same name, and served as the basis for the popular television series The Waltons.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

Dennis Day

October 25, 2019

Dennis Day born Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty, was an Irish-American singer and radio, television and film personality.

Day was born and raised in New York City, the second of five children born to Irish immigrants Patrick McNulty and Mary McNulty. His father was a stationary engineer. Day graduated from Cathedral Preparatory Seminary in New York City, and attended Manhattan College in the Bronx, where he sang in the glee club.

Day appeared for the first time on Jack Benny’s radio show on October 8, 1939, taking the place of another famed tenor, Kenny Baker. He remained associated with Benny’s radio and television programs until Benny’s death in 1974. He was introduced as a young, naive boy singer ? a character he kept through his whole career. His first song was “Goodnight My Beautiful”.

Besides singing, Dennis Day was an excellent mimic. He did many imitations on the Benny program of various noted celebrities of the era, such as Ronald Colman, Jimmy Durante, and James Stewart.