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Curly Howard died at age 48 of a stroke/brain hemorrhage in 1952. He is believed to have suffered the first of several strokes in late 1944/early 1945, while he was still a member of The Three Stooges. In his last films, his deteriorating health is sadly evident onscreen, as his performances became more and more sluggish. He suffered a debilitating stroke on the set of 1947's Half-Wits Holiday and was forced to retire from the group. He spent the last years of his life in and out of hospitals and nursing homes. He didn't live long enough to see the Stooges' resurgence in popularity in the late '50s when the team's films became afterschool staples on American television stations. The team has gained millions of new fans worldwide in the decades since, with Curly being singled out as the "favorite Stooge" of most fans. He has achieved cult-like status in our culture, not on the same level as James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, but almost. And he never got to see any of it. He never knew how loved he is by an adoring public. And that to me is tragic.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Jean Harlow, one of Hollywood's earliest tragedies. Harlow died at 26 of kidney failure, thought to have been brought on by a childhood bout with scarlet fever. During Jean's last film, Saratoga, she started to feel ill and went downhill quickly. While I don't believe she was considered a full-fledged alcoholic, Jean's heavy drinking is thought to have disguised earlier kidney symptoms. When a doctor was finally brought in, she was incorrectly diagnosed with a gallbladder infection and given medication that actually may have hastened her eventual death. By the time she was correctly diagnosed by a second doctor, it was too late. Such a tragedy. During her peak, Harlow had proven herself as one of cinema's best comediennes and had developed into an excellent actress. I would have loved to have seen Jean mature into the 1940s. Perhaps she would have proven herself adept at film noir, or a melodrama. But she never got the chance.

Taylor, Andy, played by Andy Griffith

Telescopes: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise Microscopes: A Nun's Story (1959) The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)

The Hoax (2006) Cinemax 8/10 Writer Clifford Irving convinces a publishing company that he is writing the authorized biography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. I saw this when first released and watched it again, it is a fascinating and underrated film. I have always been interested in movies about liars and hoaxers, and this is based on a true story which makes it even more interesting. Richard Gere plays Irving and it is one of his best performances. Alfred Molina is Irving's nervous writer friend who is becomes Irving's partner in crime. I was fascinated by Hughes' reclusive years and always wondered what was going on at the time. This film gives a great sense of the early 1970s and how people were still being effected by the weird billionaire. There are some great fantasy sequences where Irving tells of his totally made up stories of meeting Hughes, also of scenes where he imagines he was kidnapped and beaten by Hughes' bodyguards. Marcia Gay Harden plays Gere's frustrated wife who comes in handy when trying to cash a huge advance check. Eli Wallach has one quick scene as a former associate of Hughes who has a manuscript of his dealing with him, Irving and his friend have a funny scene as they try to steal and copy it. Anyone interested in recreation of the 1970s or Howard Hughes will want to check this one out.

Thanks for pointing that out. The only glimpse you see of working class Atlantans in the movie are the "white trash Slatterys" and working gal Belle Watling. Well my city was a very important "stop" on the URR. One of the ways to signify was having a "Jocko" horse hitch with lantern in front of your house. Jocko Graves was a real person, a Revolutionary War hero that Washington paid tribute to with the familiar statue. My house has it's original Jocko and I cannot display it in front of my home. THAT's "How accurate depiction of FACTS somehow become negative."

Poole, Isolde -- Doris Day in Tunnel of Love (1958)

O'Brien, Tim - played by Steve Cochran in The Gay Senorita

Any movie which has a few smart-a** wisecrackers in it gets major kudos in my book. This brilliantly acerbic exchange between Ginger Rogers (Jean) and Kate Hepburn (Terry) in "Stage Door" is one of my favorites: Jean: When does your baggage get here?Terry: I'm expecting the bulk of it in the morning.Jean: We could leave the trunks here and sleep in the hall. There's no use crowding the trunks.Terry: I don't know what we're going to do when the wolfhounds arrive. I hope you don't mind animals.Jean: Oh, not at all. I've roomed with a great many of them before.Terry: Yes, I can see that.Jean: (after smelling Terry's ermine wrap) Fresh kill?Terry: Yes, I trapped them myself.Jean: Do you mind if I ask a personal question?Terry: Another one?Jean: Are these trunks full of bodies?Terry: (pointing to two of the trunks) Just those, but I don't intend to unpack them.Jean: Well, I was just thinking if the room got too crowded, we could live in the trunks.Terry: Yes, that's a good idea. You don't mind helping me unpack. Oh, I beg your pardon, you're not the maid, are you? What are some of your favorite wisecracks???

BD, I think, was the one who wanted to get her mother involved with Hotel. Bette wasn't big on the scripts, and she had her near-fatal strokes around the same time that greatly affected her speech, hense why she didn't return..... not to mention the big fall out with BD over the tell-all book which was largely discredited. That said, Hotel the TV show was a livelier affair than Hotel the movie. I started looking at the film, and its OK, but nothing more. Hotel the series was more fun, more floridly melodramatic, more guest stars, faster paced. They even had Liz Taylor do a guest turn once. Let's face it, Aaron Spelling's TV shows (also including Dynasty, The Colbys, Beverly Hills 90210, Charlie's Angels, The love Boat, Vega$, Hart to Hart, etc.) were hardly high art, but they are all so incredibly fun to watch largely due to their sheer unpretentiousness, well chosen casts, colorful guest stars, and sheer charm. As for these melodramas, Youngblood Hawke was very entertaining.

I'm not quite certain if Frances Gifford qualifies as being tragic but, if not, the circumstances in her life were such that she was the next thing to it. She was a beautiful actress who played jungle girls on a couple of film occasions, able to mix sexual attractiveness with a wholesome appeal, first in the 15 chapter serial Jungle Girl, followed by a role not dissimilar to that opposite Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan Triumphs. She was then hired by MGM, playing a school teacher in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, with the possibility of better opportunities for her seeming to be on the horizon. In 1947, however, she was in an automobile accident which almost killed her, sustaining a severe head fracture. Her career was sidelined because of the incident, and, as the years rolled by, there was a decline in her health, both physically and mentally. Losing her contract to MGM, Gifford had a loss of confidence in her talent after attempting comebacks in some minor films. By 1958 she was placed in a mental institution and would continue to be in and out of various ones for the next 25 years of her life. In 1983 a film journalist tracked her down, now apparently recovered, doing volunteer work in a Pasadena library. This once beautiful actress spent her final years in obscurity, dying of emphysema in 1994. Perhaps Frances Gifford's story strikes me harder than it does many others. As a young boy I frequently saw her on television in the Tarzan film, and developed a heavy crush on her. I also wondered why I didn't see this wonderful looking woman, who exuded a genuine warmth of personality in her Tarzan role, in other films.

They Drive by Night (1940) Truckers Raft and Bogart enter the diner and sit at waitress Ann Sheridan's counter. Raft: "Whaddaya got that ain't poisonous?" Later, Sheridan expresses sympathy for how much Bogart misses his wife. Raft: "I ain't got a wife." Sheridan: "That's not hard to understand."

Telescope ROAD TO MOROCCO -- stars seen through a telescope turn out to be bugs Microscope THE FUGITIVE -- Dr Kimble solves the crime with a microscope -- he learns the samples from the drug study got switched

The Ox-Bow Incident Next: Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Stewart Granger

THE LOCKET (1946) Next: Francis Ford, Dana Andrews and Anthony Quinn

More with Francis L. Sullivan: (Btw I knew his godson). Great Expectations (1934) Great Expectations (1946)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Next: Learning a Foreign Language

Zellweger, Renee

1 9 7 2

Zygmunt Malanowicz, Polish star of Roman Polanski's KNIFE IN THE WATER, dead at 83

Spawn of the North

Roman, Eddie - played by Steve Cochran in The Chase

1931

Olympic track and field-- WALK DON'T RUN THE FIRST OLYMPICS -- ATHENS 1896 UNBROKEN MCFARLAND USA (high school) Superheroes who run fast-- SUPERMAN THE FLASH Dash from THE INCREDIBLES Pietro aka Quicksilver from XMEN movies, WANDAVISION, killed in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, as I recall

The Magnificent Dope Next: Jeanette MacDonald, Ray Bolger & Reginald Gardiner

1945

American Gigolo Anthony Quinn James Coburn Lila Kedrova

MacMillan, Sally, played by Susan St. James on MacMillan and Wife

Wiseguy Next: James Coco George Furth Geraldine Brooks

Gloria Henry, TV Mom on ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 98 https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/gloria-henry-tv-mom-on-dennis-the-menace-dies-at-98/ar-BB1fiJiJ?li=BBnb2gh

Four's a Crowd (1938)

Lane, Morgan --Errol Flynn in Montana (1950)

Kowalska, Vera - played by Kay Francis in Confession

ROSCOE ARBUCKLE

I have a little Charlton Heston story. Back in the 70's I subscribed to a magazine put out by the American Film Institute then waited and waited and never received anything. Heston happened to be President of the Institute at the time so being a bit cheeky, I wrote a letter of complaint directly to him. ... "Where are my magazines" sort of thing. Not much later I received a letter on Charlton's personal stationary with a handwritten apology. And yes, the magazines started coming.

I feel he unjustly lumped too many in the same category. Not all "glorified" the lost cause, but simply(in the case of GWTW) displayed an exagerrated example of what the lifestyle of the "privileged " class was like. To say any film "glorified" any of that is to insinuate that the film makers endorsed any of it., which of course, they didn't. It seemed to me Mr. Hulbert gave creedence to something that didn't really happen. Like all the talk about "white saviors" in movies. Like in AMISTAD, claiming it too gave into the "white savior" narrative. But having seen the movie, I ask you... What were the chances of any of the slaves getting any legal assistance from any attorneys who WEREN'T white in 1840? And too, weren't many of the "stops" on the "underground railroad" the homes and farms of whites who also had abolishionist leanings? How does any accurate depiction of these FACTS somehow become negative? I came away with the feeling that Prof. Hulbert was too immersed in undeserved white guilt to objectively look at the subjects on hand. Sepiatone

Happy Easter!

"Will You Remember?" -- Maytime (1937) Next: Another song set in a springtime scene (not necessarily the words, but the scene)

WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND (1961) Next: Brian Keith, Ginger Rogers and Katherine Anderson

2.) He got the part in "A Star Is Born" after Cary Grant turned it down. He did not want to deal with all of Judy's problems.

John Barrymore

Spain, Fay

Gig Young shot and killed his live-in girlfriend then himself. Albert Salmi shot and killed his wife then himself. these 2 are not tragic figures because they committed murder. Gig Young shoulda married Shirley Jones after starring with her in A Ticklish Affair.

The New Dick Van Dyke Show Next: Barbara Eden, Fannie Flagg and Mills Watson

San Pedro Beach Bums

Jordan, Dorothy

nobody ran as much as Forrest Gump great run involving brides and boulders in Seven Chances iconic run--North by Northwest running from the start==A Hard Day's Night running with Huggies--Raising Arizona

I'm sure the word Lisa used was "sinister" instead of suspicious. But I understand. I too, am not sure of the verbatim words, but in NORTH BY NORTHWEST Grant's Thornhill tells G-man Leo G. Carroll , "I have a Mother, two ex wives and several bartenders dependent on me." Sepiatone

Those of you who had seen Hotel (1967) said that it didn't belong in the same category as Claudelle Inglish and Go Naked in the World, and you were right. Hotel must have seemed old-fashioned in the year of Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. In only a few years, stories like Hotel would have been adapted for a TV mini-series. It has the virtues of solid storytelling and competent but not flashy direction and cinematography, with plenty of drama, a little comedy, a little romance, some characters in danger, and even a sweet doggie. Carmen McRae singing and playing the piano is another plus; notice, however, how out-of-sync this choice of music is for 1967 in contrast to the use of Simon & Garfunkel in The Graduate. There are enough former movie stars for a two-part episode of Murder She Wrote. Karl Malden is fun as the key thief; Melvyn Douglas has a fine part as the aging hotel owner; Merle Oberon as the duchess nails all of her scenes; and I wish that Michael Rennie as the duke had more screen time. Richard Conte is effectively cast as a blackmailer, and Kevin McCarthy was one of the actors at this time most likely to be cast as an oily, smarmy villain. This one prays before he crushes his business rivals, an element unusual for this era. Rod Taylor as the hotel manager is handsome, masculine, and likable, as usual. Catherine Spaak, billed in the opening credits as "The Girl From Paris," is his less interesting love interest (and Kevin McCarthy's mistress). Though Spaak's first outfit, a kind of "Eloise at the Plaza Hotel grown up" look, is way off the mark, the rest of her Edith Head outfits are stunning, as are the ones designed for Merle Oberon. Especially great were the orange outfit with orange hat worn by Spaak, a fabulous blue outfit for Merle Oberon, and the plum-colored pants outfit for Spaak. I was surprised to read on Wiki that Spaak was considered a style icon in France in the 1960s and that a lot of girls imitated her hairstyle of bangs with long hair. Hotel has a subplot that involves the desegregation of the hotel, which is in New Orleans. I actually enjoyed this subplot much more than the heavy-handed, foregrounded treatments of race relations in two more popular 1967 films, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. Hotel has the retro comfort of a meal of steak, French fries, and wedge salad served in a restaurant with red banquettes. Wiki states that one of Catherine Spaak's European films is regarded as "nunsploitation." Who knew there was such as genre?