January 5, 2009 by WW.

Veteran character actor Pat Hingle may have been best known for his portrayal of the square jawed Commissioner Gordon in the Batman series, but his repertoire was far greater than that. From an uncredited background slot in On the Waterfront, Hingle took his budding career to Broadway - and for the next 50 years he worked consistently, drawing raves and a Tony nomination for his work on the boards, and more positive words for his film and television roles - which continued right through this past year.

Pat Hingle was 84.

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December 30, 2008 by Editor.

Here’s the kind of question we didn’t anticipate getting. Hopefully, in comments, some guidance and comfort can be offered.

But one answer that’s plain: even if you leave SAG, your pension is yours to keep.

Here’s the e-mail that left us saddened, and a bit confused: 

Loved your site and know it’s value! So many changes in the wind and you are right, we need to hear all sides and the truth.

I hope you can give me an honest and informed answer to my question. I am a SAG member on honorary withdrawal due to illness. I will not get better. I will not be returning to acting. I get a small pension from SAG that helps… Social Security is not enough to live on and even with my little pension….it’s tough. Now SAG is taking membership money out of my residuals. I want to quit both Sag and Aftra and keep all my residual money. Will they stop my residuals if I am no longer a member? Will they stop my pension checks if I am no longer a member? When I call the union to ask all I get is “You don’t want to quit the Union!! Getting back in will be really hard!”. What about incurable don’t they get???

Looking forward to hearing from you …. truthfully.

(Name withheld by us)

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December 25, 2008 by Editor.

Her acting career spanned an astonishing six decades, and is a testament to the reality that talent will rise to the top. Eartha Kitt was born out of wedlock and was actually given away by her mother at age 9. But by age 15 her singing and dancing ability had taken her far from the cotton fields of South Carolina to a European tour.

Her sultry demeanor defined the role of Catwoman, but her distinctive purr but one point in an extensive repertoire. Kitt recorded, toured, appeared in shows, films and television.

Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer in New York today. She was 81.

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December 18, 2008 by admin.

I think the server wants a Christmas bonus, or something. We’re seeing outages of a minute or two at a time. Our apologies if the machine eats your comment, or causes any other inconvenience.

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December 12, 2008 by WW.

Van Johnson was a natural for the World War II boom of patriotic films. He was as all-American as you could get, and parlayed good looks and a great attitude into decades of stardom, opposite Hollywood’s leading ladies of the era, including Elizabeth Taylor, June Allyson and Esther Williams.

Johnson became known as the non-singing Sinatra, often described as one of the hearthrobs of the 40s and 50s.

He died today in New York, at age 92.

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December 7, 2008 by WW.

Gene Kelly: “That’s quite a dress you almost have on.”

Nina Foch: “Thanks.”

Gene Kelly: “What holds it up?”

Nina Foch: “Modesty.”

She was an accomplished concert pianist and artist before her first role. After a long career as a supporting actress in film working in the Columbia Pictures stable and on stage, Nina Foch joined the faculty of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where she taught for 40 years, working with many up and coming directors.

Nina died Friday at age 84.

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December 2, 2008 by WW.

He was the guy who made KHJ and other Top 40 stations into the monster machines they became, inventing the Boss Jocks format. He died, in town, of lung cancer, at age 71.

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December 1, 2008 by Editor.

One of the questions we get regularly here is a variation on “What happened to my post?”There are only a few possibilities.

1.  If you’ve posted under multiple screen names and we’ve figured that out, your post is held in moderation - meaning you can see it, we can see it, but no one else can see it. This lasts until we figure out what to do with you, or forever. We haven’t figured out a system for people in this category - most get a warning and then straighten out. Only one person hasn’t.

2. If you’ve hit “post” twice, sometimes the system gets hung up. If you saved a copy of your post and e-mail it to us, we can post it for you - but if you try to post it again, the system will give an error message saying, “You’ve already said that.”

3. If you use a word or phrase on our “banned” list, which is developed from the hundreds of spam messages that get posted, or are trying to post from an IP known for spamming us previously, the system will reject the post and will not save a copy. If you have one, e-mail it to us and we can post it…though if you really are trying to drive customers to dating sites, we probably won’t.

4. It’s always possible that we screwed up and lost your message or accidentally deleted it - or that the system screwed up and never delivered it to us. If that’s the case, please try again. 

We do not censor comments based on their politics or positions. Our only real rules on comments are simple:

Don’t libel anyone.

Don’t post under multiple screen names. 

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September 27, 2008 by WW.

We’re saddened to tell you that Paul Newman has passed away at age 83.  The New York Times described Newman as “a likable renegade, a strikingly handsome figure of animal high spirits and blue-eyed candor whose magnetism was almost impossible to resist, whether the character was Hud, Cool Hand Luke or Butch Cassidy.” 

He got his break from a tragedy, the death of James Dean. In 1956, Dean had been cast as boxer Rocky Graziano in “Somebody Up There Likes Me.”  Newman became the second choice, and his portrayal rocketed him to stardom. His last film on camera was “Road to Perdition” in 2002; two years ago he was the voice of the old champion race car “Doc” in the animated feature “Cars,” capping a six-decade long run on the big screen.

Almost by accident Newman became a philanthropist. In 1982 he decided to bottle and sell some of the salad dressing he’d made for friends. The result was Newman’s Own, a brand that expanded to everything from popcorn to spaghetti sauce, and which has donated all of its profits, estimated at $200 million, to charity.

Despite his great and obvious talent, Newman retained a bit of the actor’s insecurity, famously telling an interviewer that his epitaph could one day be, “Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.”

Newman had battled with cancer, and, sadly, today his family announced that the battle is over.

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September 16, 2008 by WW.

We note the passage of Richard Wright, the keyboard genius who was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd. Wright died of cancer at age 65.

 There’s a great tribute to him on the New York Times site.

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