25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Bobby Driscoll

October 25, 2019

Bobby Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company’s most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South, So Dear to My Heart, and Treasure Island. He served as animation model and provided the voice for the title role in Peter Pan. In 1950, he received an Academy Juvenile Award for outstanding performance in feature films.

In the mid-1950s, Driscoll’s career began to decline, turning primarily to guest appearances on anthology TV series. He became addicted to narcotics and was sentenced to prison for drug use. After his release he focused his attention on the avant-garde art scene. In ill health from his drug use, and his funds completely depleted, he died in March 1968.

Born Robert Cletus Driscoll in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Driscoll was the only child of Cletus Driscoll, an insulation salesman, and Isabelle Kratz Driscoll, a former schoolteacher. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Des Moines, where they stayed until early 1943. When a doctor advised the father to relocate to balmy California due to pulmonary ailments he was suffering from his work-related handling of asbestos, the family moved to Los Angeles. Driscoll’s barber urged his parents to try to get the cute child into the movies, and the man’s son, an occasional actor, got him an audition at MGM for a bit role in the 1943 family drama Lost Angel, which starred up-and-coming Margaret O’Brien. While on a tour across the studio lot, five-year-old Driscoll noticed a mock-up ship and asked where the water was. The director was impressed by the boy’s curiosity and intelligence, and chose him out of forty applicants.

Driscoll’s brief, two-minute debut helped him win the role of young Al Sullivan, the youngest of the five Sullivan brothers, in the 20th Century Fox’s 1944 World War II drama The Fighting Sullivans, opposite Thomas Mitchell and Anne Baxter. With his natural acting and talent for memorizing lines at that young age, he was soon considered a new “Wonder Child”. One major studio would recommend him to another, leading to screen portrayals as the boy who could blow his whistle while standing on his head in Sunday Dinner for a Soldier, the “child brother” of Richard Arlen in The Big Bonanza, and young Percy Maxim in So Goes My Love, with Don Ameche and Myrna Loy. In addition, he had a number of smaller roles in movies such as Identity Unknown in 1945, and Mrs Susie Slagel’s, From This Day Forward, and O.S.S. with Alan Ladd, all three of which were released in 1946.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording 1 Comment Permalink

Bobby Vinton

October 25, 2019 1 Comment

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Bobby Vinton is an American pop music singer of Polish origins.

Vinton is the only child of a locally popular bandleader, Stan Vinton. At 16, Vinton formed his first band, which played clubs around the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. With the money he earned, he helped finance his college education at Duquesne University, where he studied music and graduated with a degree in musical composition. While at Duquesne, he became proficient on all of the instruments in the band: piano, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, drums and oboe.

Vinton's birthplace of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania is also the birthplace of Perry Como. His hometown named two streets, Bobby Vinton Boulevard and the shorter adjoining Bobby Vinton Drive, in his honor. Canonsburg town fathers had plans to erect a statue in his honor, but Vinton vetoed the idea noting that the $100,000 planned cost could go to far more important town needs.

After a two-year hitch in the U.S. Army, where he served as a chaplain's assistant, Vinton was signed to Epic Records in 1960 as a bandleader: "A Young Man With a Big Band." Two albums and several singles were not successful however, and with Epic ready to pull the plug, Vinton found his first hit single literally sitting in a reject pile. The song was titled "Roses Are Red ." It spent four weeks at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Arguably, his most famous song is 1963's "Blue Velvet", originally a minor hit for Tony Bennett in 1951, that also went to No.1. Twenty-three years later, David Lynch named his movie Blue Velvet after the song. In 1990, "Blue Velvet" climbed to the top of the music charts in Great Britain, after being featured in a Nivea commercial. In 1964, Vinton had two #1 hits, "There! I've Said It Again" and "Mr. Lonely". Vinton wrote "Mr. Lonely" during his service in the U.S. Army in the late 1950s where he served as a Chaplain's Assistant. The song was recorded during the same 1962 session that produced "Roses Are Red" and launched Vinton's singing career. It was released as an album track on the 1962 "Roses Are Red " LP. Despite pressure from Vinton to release it as a single, Epic instead had Buddy Greco release it and it flopped. Two years and millions of records sold later, Bobby prevailed on Epic to include "Mr. Lonely" on his "Bobby Vinton Greatest Hits" LP. Soon DJ's picked up on the song and airplay resulted in demand for a single release. "Mr. Lonely" shot up the charts in the late fall of 1964 and reached #1 on the charts on 12 December 1964. Epic then released an LP "Bobby Vinton Mr. Lonely", giving the song a unique claim to fame since it now appeared on three Bobby Vinton albums released within two years. The song has continued to spin gold for its composer in the 45 years since it hit #1. Harmony Korine named his 2007 film Mister Lonely after the latter, and it is now also the basis for Akon's hit "Lonely."

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Bonita Granville

October 25, 2019

Bonita Granville was an American film actress and television producer.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage. Over the next couple of years she played uncredited supporting roles in such films as Little Women and Anne of Green Gables before playing the role of Mary in the film adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour. Renamed These Three, it told the story of three adults who find their lives almost destroyed by the malicious lies of an attention-seeking child. For her role as that child, Granville was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Despite this success, and although she continued to work, the next few years brought her few opportunities to build her career.

In 1938, she starred as the saucy mischievous daughter in the multi-Academy Awards nominated hit comedy film Merrily We Live and as girl detective Nancy Drew in the hit film Nancy Drew, Detective. The Nancy Drew film success led to Granville reprising the role in three sequels from 1938 to 1939, including Nancy Drew, Reporter. As a young adult, she was once again cast in supporting roles, often in prestigious films such as Now, Voyager, as well as two Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney, Andy Hardy’s Blonde Trouble and Love Laughs at Andy Hardy. She is also remembered for her starring role in the World War II anti-Nazism film Hitler’s Children. Her career began to fade by the mid-1940s.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Bonnie Raitt

October 25, 2019

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter, born in Burbank, California. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including “Nick of Time”, “Something to Talk About”, “Love Sneakin’ Up on You”, and the slow ballad “I Can’t Make You Love Me”. Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist.

Raitt, the daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt and his first wife, pianist Marjorie Haydock, began playing guitar at an early age, something few of her high school female friends did. Later she would become famous for her bottleneck-style guitar playing. “I had played a little at school and at camp”, she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. The camp Raitt refers to is Camp Regis-Applejack, located in the heart of the Adirondacks.

In 1967, Raitt entered Harvard’s Radcliffe College as a freshman, majoring in African Studies. “My plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism”, Raitt recalled. “I wanted to help undo the damage that Western colonialism had done to native cultures around the world. Cambridge was a hotbed of this kind of thinking, and I was thrilled.”

One day, Raitt was told by a friend that blues promoter Dick Waterman was giving an interview at WHRB, Harvard’s college radio station. An important figure in the blues revival of the 1960s, Waterman was also a resident of Cambridge. Raitt went to see Waterman, and the two soon became friends, “much to the chagrin of my parents, who didn’t expect their freshman daughter to be running around with 65-year-old bluesmen,” recalled Raitt. “I was amazed by his passion for the music and the integrity with which he managed the musicians.”

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Boris Karloff

October 25, 2019

Boris Karloff, whose real name was William Henry Pratt, was an English-born actor who emigrated to Canada in the 1910s. Karloff performed in a variety of contexts throughout his career, but is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster in the 1931 film Frankenstein, 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, and 1939 film Son of Frankenstein. His popularity following Frankenstein in the early 1930s was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as “Karloff” or, on some movie posters, “Karloff the Uncanny”.

Karloff was born at 36 Forest Hill Road, East Dulwich, London, SE22, England, where a blue plaque can now be seen. His parents were Edward John Pratt, Jr. and Eliza Sarah Millard. His paternal grandparents were Edward John Pratt, an Anglo-Indian, and Eliza Julia Pratt, a sister of Anna Leonowens The two sisters were also of Anglo-Indian heritage.

Karloff was brought up in Enfield. He was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother’s death was raised by his elder siblings. He later attended Enfield Grammar School before moving to Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors’ School, Northwood, and went on to attend King’s College London where he studied to go into the consular service. He dropped out in 1909 and worked as a farm labourer and did various odd jobs until he happened into acting. His brother, Sir John Thomas Pratt, became a distinguished British diplomat. Karloff was bow-legged, had a lisp, and stuttered as a young boy. He conquered his stutter, but not his lisp, which was noticeable all through his career.

In 1909, Pratt travelled to Canada and some time later changed his professional name to “Boris Karloff”. Some have theorized that he took the stage name from a mad scientist character in the novel The Drums of Jeopardy called “Boris Karlov”. However, the novel was not published until 1920, at least eight years after Karloff had been using the name on stage and in silent films. Another possible influence was thought to be a character in the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy novel H.R.H. The Rider which features a “Prince Boris of Karlova”, but as the novel was not published until 1915, the influence may be backward, that Burroughs saw Karloff in a play and adapted the name for the character. Karloff always claimed he chose the first name “Boris” because it sounded foreign and exotic, and that “Karloff” was a family name. However, his daughter Sara Karloff publicly denied any knowledge of Slavic forebears, “Karloff” or otherwise. One reason for the name change was to prevent embarrassment to his family. Whether or not his brothers actually considered young William the “black sheep of the family” for having become an actor, Karloff himself apparently worried they did feel that way. He did not reunite with his family again until 1933, when he went back to England to make The Ghoul, extremely worried that his siblings would disapprove of his new, macabre claim to world fame. Instead, his elder brothers jostled for position around their “baby” brother and happily posed for publicity photographs with him.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Brian Aherne

October 25, 2019

Brian Aherne was a British actor of both stage and screen, who found success in Hollywood.

He was born William Brian de Lacy Aherne in King’s Norton, Worcestershire, the son of William de Lacy Aherne by his spouse Louise née Thomas. Educated at Edgbaston, Birmingham, he had also carried out some early stage training at Italia Conti Academy in London and had some child roles before completing his education at Malvern College. He first appeared on the stage in Birmingham with the Pilgrim Players, on April 5, 1910, in Fifinella; and made his first appearance on the London stage at the Garrick Theatre, December 26, 1913, in Where the Rainbow Ends, a fairy play by Clifford Mills and John Ramsey, with music by Roger Quilter, which ran at various theatres for over 25 years.

He then studied with a view to becoming an architect, but, having had considerable amateur experience in Birmingham, and with the Liverpool Green Room Club, he obtained an engagement under Robert Courtneidge, and appeared at London’s Savoy Theatre, opening on December 26, 1923, as Jack O’Hara in a revival of Paddy the Next Best Thing, the play by W. Gayer-Mackay and Robert Ord. He then toured with Violet Vanbrugh as Hugo in The Flame, and appeared at the London Playhouse in May 1924 as Langford in Leon Gordon’s White Cargo, in which he played all through 1924-5. In 1926 he accompanied Dion Boucicault Jr. to Australia, where he appeared in several plays by J. M. Barrie: as Valentine Brown in the comedy Quality Street, John Shand in the comedy What Every Woman Knows, Crichton in The Admirable Crichton, Simon and Harry in Mary Rose; and Willocks in Aren’t We All? another comedy by Frederick Lonsdale.

Aherne reappeared in London at the Strand in March 1927 again as Langford in White Cargo and continued on the London stage in a succession of plays until late 1930 when he went to America, making his first appearance on the New York stage at the Empire Theatre in New York on February 9, 1931, playing Robert Browning in Rudolph Besier’s play The Barretts of Wimpole Street opposite Katharine Cornell. Cornell and Aherne remained lifelong friends and he played in many of her subsequent productions. He was back in London in 1934 but returned that year to New York, where he appeared in December at the Martin Beck Theatre as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, with Katharine Cornell. He continued his stage appearances during his film career, which he commenced in 1924 in silent film.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording Permalink

Brian Beirne

October 25, 2019

See the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Ceremony announcement
 

Brian Beirne was a radio DJ for KRTH-FM aka K-EARTH 101 in Southern California. He is known as "Mr. Rock N' Roll", which is his registered trademark and is considered one of the foremost historians on Rock N' Roll. Beirne's Los Angeles career lasted almost three decades, representing the longest continuous stint in FM radio history. Beirne was the voice of K-EARTH 101 during the RKO days and reached legendary status as a top-rating midday personality in the Los Angeles market for 27 years – a record-setting achievement in FM radio. His radio career has spanned 40 years which included San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, and Sacramento among others, and he continues to host and produce Rock and Roll shows around the country. Beirne retired from KRTH-FM on December 15, 2004.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Bob Newhart

October 25, 2019

George Robert Newhart, known professionally as, Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart is best known for playing psychologist Dr. Robert “Bob” Hartley on the 1970s sitcom The Bob Newhart Show and as innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s sitcom Newhart.

Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22, and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under. One of his most recent roles is the library head Judson in The Librarian.

Newhart was born in Oak Park, Illinois and raised on the west side of Chicago. His parents were Julia Pauline, a housewife of Irish descent, and George David Newhart, a part-owner of a plumbing and heating-supply business, who was Irish and German. Newhart has three sisters, Virginia, Mary Joan, and Pauline.

He was educated at Roman Catholic schools in the area, including St. Catherine of Sienna grammar school in Oak Park, and attended St. Ignatius College Prep, where he graduated in 1947. He then enrolled at Loyola University of Chicago where he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in business management.