Stephan55

Yes, that's what I meant to say, er write. Must have been a late night. Glad you read what I meant to say. Regarding the rest, I'm with you on all that. It all seems to be about the money these days, how to get more of it while providing less, and less. Don't you just hate all the downsized (by weight) packageing these days. We are all paying more and more, for less and less.

Such venom. I confess I know very little about Charles Laughton, the man. He is an actor that in many roles I loved to "hate" such as in "Mutiny On The Bounty," and "Island of Lost Souls," etc. Though he brought incredible pathos to Quasimodo that brought tears to my eyes as a child in what I still consider the best film version of Hugo's classic, The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939). And he was instrumental in 18 year old Maureen O'Hara' first U.S. screen appearance in that film. O'Hara seems to have only good things to say about him. I also really enjoy him in his Korda biopics. Elsa Lanchester remained married to him for 33 years which may also mean that she found something endearing about the man. So he was mistakenly given writing credit for a lovely poetic tribute to the fair sex, when in fact he just recited it. No harm, no foul.

Arturo is a poet, though she may not know it, Her feet still show it, 'Cause they're "LongFellows." Somebody said that to me when I was in gradeschool and I always enjoy an opportunity to pass it on.

I know that this sounds incriminating on the surface but at the time of the filming of THE CONQUEROR (1956) cigarette smoking and tobacco consumption in the United States was at an all-time high. http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/tcrb/monographs/8/m8_2.pdf So although I have not taken the time to research it, case by case, the odds are pretty good that at least half or more of the adults involved in the production were also consumers of tobacco products. The following is taken from Skeptoid http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4238 John Wayne and the Nevada Test Site So now we come to the big one, the myth that dozens of people asked me about since the first Hollywood Myths episode came out. Supposedly, John Wayne's death from cancer was caused by his work in the Utah desert in 1954 on the 1956 Howard Hughes film The Conqueror, a movie widely regarded as Wayne's worst. The location near St. George, Utah, is notorious for being downwind from the Nevada Test Site, where a large number of atomic weapons had been detonated in prior years, and thus was the recipient of much radioactive fallout. Wayne's co-stars Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead also died of cancer; in fact, by the time People magazine checked up on all 220 cast and crew for a 1980 article, 91 of them had contracted some form of cancer, and 46 had died of cancer. People's inspiration was apparently a 1979 article in the tabloid The Star by Peter Brennan who merely speculated about the coincidence without doing any real research. It was repeated by such newspapers as the New York Post (August 6, 1979) and the Los Angeles Times (August 6, 1979). People went a step further, talking to a few experts and managing to track down the history of the cast and crew. This article was what really started the story; in fact, virtually anything you might find about this story takes its quotes directly from People. One of the most often borrowed was from an enthusiastic fallout activist, Dr. Robert Pendleton at the University of Utah, who said: With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law. But it didn't, at least not for residents of St. George, Utah, often referred to as the "downwinders", when attorneys went door-to-door in the 1970's. The Times of London reported that some 700 such lawsuits were unsuccessful. However, ten years after the People magazine article, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed and has since paid out over $1.5 billion, including many payments to people who had only to prove that they lived in certain counties during a certain time period, and had one of a list of approved diseases. Although this makes it sound like the link must have been proven, science doesn't depend on what politicians were able to convince bureaucrats to do. And what science has found, contrary to what's reported in virtually every article published on the subject, is that any link between the film crew's cancers and the atomic tests is far from confirmed. First of all, the numbers reported by People are right in the range of what we might expect to find in a random sample. According to the National Cancer Institute, in 1980 the chances of being diagnosed with a cancer sometime in your lifetime was about 41%, with mortality at 21.7%. And, right on the button, People's survey of The Conqueror's crew found a 41.4% incidence with 20.7% mortality. (These numbers make an assumption of an age group of 20-55 at the time of filming.) A 1979 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found no consistent pattern of correlation between childhood cancers and fallout exposure in the Utah counties, with the exception of leukemia. For reasons unknown, leukemia rates were about half that of the United States at large, but after the fallout period, this increased to just slightly above the normal rate. The authors were unable to correlate either leukemia or other cancers to fallout. Considering that the film crew spent only a few weeks there, instead of their whole lives like the people who were studied, it seems highly unlikely that they were affected. But we can't make that declaration for certain. The data we have for the film crew is totally inadequate. Most crucial factors are unknown, like age, age of incidence, types of cancer, heredity, dose-response, and other risk factors each may have had — like John Wayne's smoking of five packs a day. And, of course, "cancer" is not one disease; it is hundreds of different diseases. Plus there's an obvious alternate explanation: The cast and crew simply got old in those intervening decades. What about Dr. Pendleton's gloomy remarks? In an email to researcher Dylan Jim Esson, a colleague of Pendleton's, Lynn Anspaugh, said that Pendleton's reported comments were uncharacteristic and she thought they were more likely the result of media sensationalism. According to her analysis of the fallout readings from the time and place of The Conqueror's filming, she calculated that the crew received no more than 1 to 4 millirems of radiation, which was less than normal background levels. Pendleton himself had recorded high levels of radiation only when a fallout cloud was directly overhead the day following a test, and normal at other times. The most recent tests had been more than a year prior to the filming, so Anspaugh's calculations are not surprising. From all the data we have, it was perfectly safe for the film crew, and their reported cancer histories show no unusual ill effects. So there we have it, another line of evidence that Hollywood myths are all just a part of the show. Please let it continue, for as the early writer Wilson Mizner once said, "In Hollywood they almost made a great picture, but they caught it in time." So while I would like to be able to blame all those deaths on nuclear testing, the hard facts just don't fully support it. At best it would be conjecture for me to make that kind of a correlation with the data that I currently have access to. But I can still have my unconfirmed suspicions. Here is an example of what I mean. In July 1991 I was enroute back to Alaska after a visit to Southern California. I overnighted in a rest area near Dunsmuir, in Northern Calif., just upstream from Lake Shasta. The next morning I stopped at the town for breakfast and everything was closed up. The "warning" signs on the windows reminded me of being in an NBC environment. Leaving town I saw that a train had derailed with tanker cars dumping thousands of gallons of "herbicide," and looking down at the river near the town I saw this putrid green colored liquid mess flowing instead of water. There were belly-up fish and dead animals (wild and domestic) lying around. I drove to where the river entered the lake and saw this green colored stream flowing miles out into Shasta from the mouth of the river. This occurred when another California drought was going on and Lake Shasta was at it's lowest level in decades. It is also a source of water via aquaducts for Southern California. Here is what Wiki has to say about it. On the night of July 14, 1991, a Southern Pacific train derailed into the upper Sacramento River at a horseshoe curve of track known as the Cantara Loop, upstream from Dunsmuir. Several cars made contact with the water, including a tank car. On the morning of July 15, it became apparent that the tank car had ruptured and spilled its entire contents into the river - approximately 19,000 gallons of a soil fumigant - metam sodium. Ultimately, over a million fish, and tens of thousands of amphibians and crayfish were killed. Millions of aquatic invertebrates, including insects and mollusks, which form the basis of the river’s ecosystem, were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of willows, alders, and cottonwoods eventually died. Many more were severely injured. The chemical plume left a 41-mile wake of destruction, from the spill site to the entry point of the river into Shasta Lake.[6] The accident still ranks as the largest hazardous chemical spill in California history.[7] So when I inquired with the EPA about this I was told that by the time the contaminated water reached human faucets hundreds of miles away that the "dilution" factor would have rendered the toxins to "acceptable (according to legal regulation) levels". Everything is dose and exposure related: how much, how many times, over how long. So we are exposed to and consume toxins daily. Over time there is an accumulation effect that, depending on other contributing factors such as age, lifestyle, state of health and immunity, etc., may or may not cause or contribute to illness and disease, such as cancer. But, even though a high dose of such a carcinogen may have a huge, albeit belated, detrimental effect on a persons health, maybe decades after the incident, it would be next to impossible to "prove" that a persons illness or cancer was "caused" by or "related to that particular incident. Hence, no long term liability for the Southern Pacific or the chemical manufacturer, or anyone involved in the 1991 incident. I personally know of communities whose well systems have some unacceptable levels of contamination of benzene, heavy metals and other carconogenic toxins. When three of seven local community wells were found to be contaminated, rather than shut those wells down, the city decided to "mix" the contaminated water with the uncontaminated water until the dilution factor reduced the toxins to a legal, "acceptable" level, per regulation guidelines. So practically everyone in that community drank a little legal poison. When children, or elderly, or compromised individuals become sick, there are so many potential causes that too often these types of contributing factors are never even considered, let alone, factored into the equation.

Ha! I likewise hate the incessant upgrade mania of MS. They have had two outstanding Operating Systems in recent years, XP and Win 7. Both were/are exceptionately stable. Unfortunetly they no longer support XP. And when I purchased a new laptop recently I opted for Win 7 Pro because of both the stability and the backward compatability feature with XP. As far as Win 8 and 8.1, and 10, .... I'll lay off for as long as possible. Also used to be you could purchase an MS office suite and use it on several PC's, now they want you to "lease" it per PC for a year at a time. I don't trust MS anymore than they and Mac said we should trust Big-Blue. In fact they have become the all intrusive "Big Brother" that they warned us about. I suppose I really need to go to a Lennox OS, but many of my old programs (which I still use) are only MS compatible. And I refuse to repurchase those old software programs just for a new OS (even if they are available) so long as I can make do with what I already have. What primarily motivates me to upgrade is when a program comes out that I feel I "need" that requires hardware that my old system cannot support. Aside from that if I can keep a functional PC running for a decade (or longer) by replacing or adding components, I'd rather go that route. Anyway, enough of that rant for awhile. I really appreciate the depth of your last post. That is how I prefer to learn about what works and doesn't, by sharing and listening (and reading) what others have to say about the things they've tried. So thank you very much for your elaboration.

Ha! And Milland claimed that having his hair curled for that movie was the reason he lost his hair!

I'm aware of several of the actors and crew involved in THE CONQUEROR, and the association with the radioactive fallout from being "downwind" from some testing at the time. Though that no doubt wasn't healthy, it's also hard to refute that all of those associated personalities affected with cancer were also quite heavy smokers. An ill-refutable, and in this case no-longer controversial, known carcinogen. And cigarettes don't just cause lung cancer, but also many other forms of CA as well, including types of stomach and intestinal CA. The lungs are a common primary site for tobacco smoking related cancer (and a secondary site for most other types of CA), because of their vasculature, many distant secondary (and primary) cancers erupt there with the same signature, meaning they may have started in one tissue but the same cells will show up in other tissues. Likewise, most cancers that begin outside of the lung will eventually metastasise to the lung. So while we may never know what contributory affect filming THE CONQUEROR had on the demise of Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendariz, director Dick Powell, and the like, we do know that they all could have, and more than likely did die from smoking related cancer.

LOL, Loved that story Dargo. Very fine tribute thread to an American icon fxreyman. I remember thinking in the 1960's that when John Wayne and Bob Hope pass it will truly be the end of an era. Perhaps their passing didn't have as dramatic a cultural effect as I had anticipated, but it truly did have sorrowful impact on the loyal fans that grew up with them. Wayne was a father figure for me, and military "inexperience" aside, he most definitely impacted my life. When I was living in Alaska I had a friend and mentor there who was quite fond of saying, "He'll do." when either myself or somebody else behaved in a positive manner. He was a big guy himself, and quite a Wayne fan. I have little to add to all of the Wayne titles previously mentioned, except I also like watching him in THE BIG TRAIL (1930), for contrasting a very young leading man Wayne with the Wayne that he eventually became. Also, in DeMille's REAP THE WILD WIND (1942), love Wayne & Milland in that fight with a giant squid, and overall great casting and chemistry. Likewise WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (1948), love those underwater scenes, and the magic between him and Gail Russell. And Wayne looked good in buckskin again in THE FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN (1949), plus a chance to see Oliver Hardy as a non-comical side-kick (felt a bit sorry for his horse though). Again at the helm in THE SEA CHASE (1955), this time with Lana Turner by his side. Great finale. Loved the comedic humor in NORTH TO ALASKA (1960) and HATARI (1962). And Duke duke'n it up with Lee Marvin again in DONOVAN'S REEF (1963), and O'Hara, again, in McCLINTOCK (1963). I remember going to see THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965) primarily because Wayne was supposedly in it. Well, I must have blinked because I don't remember seeing him, but I did hear his distinctive voice saying, "Truly this man was a son of god," his only line in the entire movie. But aside from his last film, THE SHOOTEST (1976), the one that still moves me to this day is THE COWBOYS (1972). Waynes father figure demise in that film really shook me, and for a long time after I "hated" Bruce Dern. So many, many, memorable John Wayne films. His characters really did make him appear "bigger-than-life" and "indestructable." I suppose though, if I had to pick a single Wayne film as an all-time personal favorite, that I still will stop to watch whenever its on, would be THE SEARCHERS (1956). BTW, one of Wayne's signature lines from that film, "That'll be the day." influenced the great Buddy Holly to write a famous song. Once again, great thread. Each title mentioned has brought back a string of memories...

That's their way of "marrying" you to their service and to keep people from recording programs off-the-air. That is one reason why I own my own HD DVR. Magnavox is currently the only one available stateside that has it's own tuner. Can be had from Walmart online or Amazon. http://www.walmart.com/ip/36246088?reviews_limit=5&adid=1500000000000038762490&veh=eml Also, the components are easily replaceable. In fact, if you're careful, you can open up those rental boxes and replace the HD in it with a new one (1-2 TB), and keep doing so as they fill up. You can also record live TV on your computer using a screen capture program like FRAPs or Bandicam and then edit later. VLC multimedia player is Freeware that allows viewing (and listening) to all manner of media, and it's easy to hook a PC to a big screen TV and view from there. But the simplest route would be what MovieCollectorOH suggests. Although I've had some audio/video synch playback issues using Hauppauge tuner encoders. But that was using Vista 32bit (3.5 Gb RAM limitation), haven't tried it yet with Win 7 Pro 64bit and plenty of RAM. That may make a difference?

Okay, I'm struggling with this as I have an upload limit of 756.41KB And since I can't upload the excerpted scene (way too big) I had a slide-show prepared of the entire scene but it's still 79.1 MB Well, I've played with this enough and can't get it small enough, so I'll just upload a few quick snaps of Tor from the movie REGISTERED NURSE. "Tor in 1934." edit: Though I uploaded the pics in order, they posted out of sequence, but they're numbered and captioned so you can figure out the order. Wow, quite a change in Tor's appearance in 17 years (1934-1951) THE LEMON DROP KID Edit: Deleted several images to recover upload space

Apparently it was complete. Registered Nurse (1934) 63 min (TCM said 62 but was really 63 min, and Wikipedia said original run time was 63 min) (recorded 5/6/2015 from TCM) Produced by: Samuel Bischoff (uncrediteed), First National - Vitaphone pictures Directed by: Robert Florey Screenplay By: Lillie Hayward, Peter Milne, Arthur Greville Collins Based on the play By: Florence Johns, Wilton Lackaye, Jr. Music by: Heinz Roemheld (uncredited), Leo F. Forbstein (dir.) Vitaphone Orchestra Brief synapse: After her husband goes mad, a nurse fights off the advances of two amorous doctors. While quarreling over their failed marriage, Sylvia (Bebe Daniels) and Jim Benton (Gordon Westcott) get into a car accident that leaves Jim gravely injured. Sylvia returns to her nursing job at a hospital where she is admired by both Dr. Hedwig (Lyle Talbot) and Dr. Connolly (John Halliday). When Connolly declares his love for her, Sylvia reveals that she's married and that the accident has made her husband insane. Then, to her amazement, Jim arrives at the hospital seeking a surgical cure. Cast: Bebe Daniels, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, Irene Franklin, Sidney Toler, Gordon Westcott, Mina Gombell, Beulah Bondi, Vince Barnett, Phillip Reed, Mayo Methot, Ed Gargan, Uncredited Cast: Louise Beavers (Flo - Sadie's Maid), Harry Ekezian (El Humid the Bone Crushing Turk), Tor Johnson (Sonnevich the Terrible Bulgarian), Milton Kibbee (Male Nurse), Dennis O'Keefe (intern), Kitty McHugh (Switchboard Operator), Lottie Williams (Unconscious Patient), Had I not read that Tor Johnson was Sonnevich the Terrible Bulgarian, in this movie, I would not have recognized him. There is this comical scene where two professional wrestlers - Tor and Harry Ekezian (El Humid the Bone Crushing Turk) go to the hospital to visit their promoter, Sidney Toler, who is recuperating there. When they get to the front desk Tor talks to the receptionist and shows her a news flyer that has a picture of Sonnevich the Terrible Bulgarian on it and says "That's me." Tor has a full head of hair and is not really a bad looking fellow, nothing like his Ed Wood image at all. So Tor and Harry go to Toler's room and bring him a little flower. Toler makes a snide comment and Tor explains he needs some time off because his girlfriend lives in this town. Then Tor and Harry get into a knock-down wrestling match in his room over "who is not an American" accusations. It is reminescent of the three stooges, only there's only two of them. So they both end up in the hospital battered, bruised and bandaged, and find themselves sharing the same room.

Of course quality is another factor. If one is content with 480 or 720 i, and has the time, etc. then off screen recording is probably an economical route to go. But having an HD DVD or BlueRay of your favorite program will deliver far better quality, depending on the level of your monitor. One thing to note though, is that ALL important video should have a back-up, be it on a drive, or disc. As music CDs and especially poor quality DVDs will degrade over time. One can maximize the life of their media of course by proper handling and storage. One cannot always count on being able to repurchase a favorite book, or video, as they do sometimes go out of print. There are still several old VHS tapes that I own that have never even made it to DVD, yet. May never. So if I can't back-up those tapes (for whatever reason) I handle the originals with "kid" gloves.

Aside from keeping at least two back-up copies, stored in two separate "safe" locations, so if/when your user drive "goes bad" for whatever reason, one can make a fresh copy on a new drive. (BTW this is a good rule of thumb for all important hard copy documents, except you would want your designated "trusted" POA (and maybe your caregiver/healthcare provider, depending on...) to have access to whatever they need in an emergency). Regarding radiation such as X & gamma, a good bunker would probably do fine so long as temp and humidity was under control. That is what the government uses some of our old salt mines for. For home or reasonable portability, if one really wants to safeguard against most everyday occurances, a lead lined carry case or box should do the trick. A rule of thumb for lead is 1cm (0.4") thickness will halve the intensity of such radiation. Though heavy, it requires far thinner (and less bulky) laminates to acheive a desired level of "protection" with lead than say steel, concrete, dirt, or wood. But if/when the S-H-I-T really hits the fan, preserving my videos will be one of my least concerns.

The are software programs available (some freeware with limitations, and some for purchase with fewer limitations) that allow one to "capture" whatever is on their screen, either as a still or in a video format. There are other programs that allow one to convert the files from one type to another (i.e. a bmp image to a jpeg, or an AVI video file to an MPEG, etc). And there are other programs that allow additional editing, such as adding "chapters," titles, and what-not, and lastly there is software that allow various media viewing, and also burning to a media disk (CD, DVD, BlueRay, or a portable flash or hard drive). So if one wants something bad enough, and is willing to make the investment in time and resources, one can record practically anything off the net. But with TCM, it's easiest to just use an HD video recorder, so long as the signal is not corrupted (or interrupted) by your provider.

Don't know yet, I watched a couple of the films that I had recorded that day but not that one. I will have to have a good look at it now just for Tor's sake, before I clear the DVR for something else. I'll make another post here and let you know.

Nice to hear how consistent he's been. Maybe he's always been the gregarious type. Some are not. But Mr. Borgnine seemed to genuinely enjoy people, and appreciated that they would take time out to say hi and acknowledge him. Even a kid. I found him treating me the same as he did the adults talking with him. He was a very likeable guy.

I do likewise. I also do not log in unless I have something to comment about. But I do enjoy it when I have the time to look at comments others have posted on these boards. I once found myself wanting to comment negatively about someone who frequently makes condescending posts on these boards, but restrained myself from doing so. Some people thrive on negativity. I've found the "Ignor" button to be the most powerful tool available here. When one uses it they have sentenced the ubiquitous "offender" to oblivion. They no longer count or matter, they are denied that which upon they seem to thrive... attention. They are in a sense, shunned. Of course if they are of the insensitive type they may have no idea that they are being ignored, they just cease receiving responses. For some it does not matter, they just continue on, posting to themselves, fishing for any reply they can get. But at least it won't be from me. I've only chosen to do this a couple of times in all the years I've been here, but it has proven to be far more effective, and satisfying, than getting into a flame war with someone, thereby reducing yourself to their level. A wise person once told me that "when you wrestle with a pig you both end up with mud on your face." Anyway, regarding post counts and views, I see them in practically every board I've ever visited. I suppose they have a useful function for those who maintain the boards in monitoring activity, though there are those personalities who get caught up with counts and numbers way beyond their personal merit. When I'm seeking technical information I expect one with great expertise on the subject to have a lot of replies posted to those asking questions, but on these "general discussion" boards, they are not that useful for me, except in making it easy to identify persons who perhaps have way too much time on their hands, IMHO Of course there are persons whom are homebound, and others that are quite remote. So posting for them may be one of the few forms of socialization available.

I agree with you. I have been reluctant to adopt the newest technologies until I feel that the bugs are worked out and an acceptable standard has been established. I held out a long time before going the way of DVDs, and just now am beginning to adopt some HD & BluRay. As far as "Cloud" storeage anything goes, which is just access to somebody elses servers, I refuse to trust or allow anyone sole custody of anything I value. And I certainly do not want to voluntarily place myself at the mercy of any on-line service or institution for material that I wish to remain secure and private, anymore than I am now forced to do so. However, I have "lost" my personal hardcopy library (and other possessions), while trying to "store" them when out-of-country. And I've found that trying to lug all my "stuff" around, along with a now quite large media collection, to be impractical. In as much as I loved my records, many years ago I converted my LPs and 45s to cassette, and then went from cassette to CD. So as much as I love my hardcopy, VHS & DVD video, and CD music collections I've been converting most of my audio, video and paper media to digital in recent years, just so I can retain relative convenient access. I can carry hundreds of movies and thousands of books and songs on a single, large capacity compact hard drive. Music sounds good with external speakers. The videos can be viewed on either a portable PC or a big-screen TV, as available, and I can act as my own "Cloud" and keep an ereader full of hundreds of easily accessed favorites. None-of-this replaces the enjoyment or ease of having a hard copy book in hand, and one is "married" to electricity and the limitations of each technology, but I have found that this "compromise" allows me, for the most part, to "have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too." Plus I can reburn back to CD & DVD if I so choose. Sadly, though, digital is the most friable, transient and possesses the least longevity of any of the preceding technologies. When adequately maintained, paper can last perhaps for centuries, a good quality record, CD, or DVD has the potential of lasting perhaps a hundred years if stored properly. But digital can vanish with a click, or from a burst of unshielded electrons. Lord knows what will be available to watch or play this "old" technology in the decades to come. VHS players can still be had, but phonograph players are now pretty much relics. Technology changes so rapidly these days that who can say what the future will bring. So aside from having a few extra DVD players around, I am realizing that most likely nothing of this kind that I enjoy and possess today will likely long out-live me.

This was just on TCM last month with a day of films dedicated to nurses. I happened to record it.

A few more memories... Was watching Ann Sheridan last night and was reminded of a time when I saw her on the set of "Pistol's & Petticoats" back in Summer of 1966. My mom had an older friend who was the mother of actor Gary Vinson. I think my mom had a crush on Vinson, who was a very good looking young man, with a promising career at the time. He played a sailor named "Christy" in "McHale's Navy." It wasn't a big part, but he was a regular cast member. Another time I got a chance to watch some of the filming of one episode of McHales and then was introduced by Gary to some of the cast members as a "friend of his family." I remembered Joe Flynn from seeing him in a few older movies, and Tim Conway, but this was several years before he appeared on Carol Burnett, & his own show, so he was new to me. But the nicest and most gracious was Ernest Borgnine. He was very energetic, both on set and off, outgoing and approachable, and quite friendly to me. Unfortunetly at the time, I didn't fully appreciate who he was. Up till then I'd only seen him in a few movies, and only really remembered him in JUBAL with Glenn Ford, which I'd seen on TV. Anyway, McHales was wrapping up and Gary was getting his own show. Actually it was Ann Sheridan's show, as she was the centerpiece star. Gary played this bumbling sheriff, and the episode that was filming was one with Lon ("Long") Chaney, Jr., who was playing an indian (again), and Jay Silverheels, who I'd met once before with Clayton Moore. After the filming Gary took me back stage to meet Ann. She was still in costume and make-up, and seemed very nice. But what struck me at the time was that she was such a little, delicate appearing woman, and she appeared tired and kind of worn out. Again, I wasn't able to relate to the history and greatness of the actress in front of me at the time, which is really sad, when I look back upon it. Who I really wanted to talk to was Lon Chaney, as he was my heroe from playing the Wolfman and I was a big horror movie freak at the time, though I had no idea of his lineage then either. I was kind of dissappointed that when we left Ann Sheridan, Lon Chaney had already gone home, so I didn't get to meet him. Gary said we'd do it again, another time and he'd be sure to introduce me to Lon then. Once the show aired it had great reviews, and Gary thought it would be a step-up to bigger things, but within a few months Ann died, and the show was cancelled shortly after. Ann Sheridan was a heavy smoker and had throat cancer. She was only 51 when she died. Lon ("Long") Chaney, Jr. was another heavy smoker, and (like his father) he lost the use of his voice before passing away in 1973. He was only 67. Years later I heard about the accusations against Gary, and my mom denied that any of it was true, but then she was biased. Regardless, the pressure must have been greater than he could bear and Vinson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1984. He was only 47. For DarkBlue On a lighter note, when I was a little kid, like your "nanny" I used to think Lon was "Long" Chaney, and that is how I spelled and pronounced his name. Except I spelled his last name as "Chainy"

Ahhh Hibi, There's been many a late night on Hollywood, Sunset and Santa Monica Blvds (and all streets in between in Hollywood), when people were too tired, or in too big a hurry, to even look for a tree, if one was available. If your not a patron of the establishments on the Blvds they will NOT let you use their comode, and if your walking you may be in trouble if can't hold it long enough. I remember many a time dodging a stream heading down hill and looked up to see a pretty, well dressed girl squatting on the sidewalk, just a few feet from passing traffic, both mobile and pedestrian. Sometimes when you gotta go, you just got to go! In Europe you'd be in touble without a Euro or two in your pocket to pay for the use of a toilet, but at least they'd let you use them. And in Amsterdam they found some pretty creative ways of dealing with people peeing in public places.

Bingo! Falcons Rule! Rrraaahhh!!! Yeah, I guess TRW owns all of that now. So, which of the other three South Bay High Schools did you attend? Mira Costa, Redondo, or Torrance? Yes, I remember that short. May have even recorded it for my collection. That would be Mandalay Beach they were on. I'm a little surprized you made no comment on why a bunch of high school kids would always carry binoculars when visiting Zuma.... I presume you know.

Around that time I was in Hawthorne and coming out of a drivers refresher class to avoid having a black mark against me for what I considered a minor infraction (I made what was called a "California Stop" meaning I slowed down enough to make sure there was no cross traffic, without coming to a complete stop at a "Stop Sign." But I was seen by a police officer and ticketed). Right next door to "drivers school" was this 2nd rate hotel with a pool, and who should I see but Erik's partner David Soul getting out of the pool. I remember wondering at the time "why is he in Hawthorne, and at that hotel, of all the better places I thought he could be." I didn't look around for Erik, but now I'm wondering if he may have been hanging out there some where as well, instead of in school, where he should have been...

Granted, "Dutch treat" is splitting the bill, but I have heard the expression "Dutch" being used just opposite to being in troble. i.e. Are we "Dutch" now? meaning are we square, or even, or okay. Also, is that Dutch? meaning is that good or okay, or fair, as a fair deal. I've never heard the negative connotation that you imply, either on screen or in my life. Do you remember where you heard it used that way?

When I was a kid I picked up on some of the jargon used by Eddie G., and others... 2 bits (a quarter), as in quarter of a dollar I knew what this meant as a kid, but it never made sense to me until I did some research on it. Per Wikipedia: In the United States, the bit is equal to one eighth of a dollar or 12 1⁄2 cents. In the U.S., the "bit" as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the Spanish dollar, also known as "piece of eight", which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. One eighth of a dollar or one silver real was one "bit". With the adoption of the decimal U.S. currency in 1794, there was no a longer a U.S. coin worth 1⁄8 of a dollar but "two bits" remained in the language with the meaning of one quarter dollar, "four bits" half dollar, etc. Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit. (The picayune, which was originally 1⁄2 real or 1⁄2 bit (6 1⁄4¢), was similarly transferred to the US 5¢-piece.) Greenback (generally $1.00) refers to paper currency (printed in green on one side) issued by the United States during the American Civil War. buck ($1.00) Fin ($5.00) also called a "Fiver" or a "snapper" C, C-note, clam ($100) G, Grand ($1,000) Everythings "Jake" or "Square" as in a "square deal." Also heard the expression "Dutch" in a similar sense, as are we dutch now (meaning even, or square). I know that "slip a Mickey" was short for "Mickey Finn" but where did Mickey Finn come from? "old bucket," as in "rust bucket," could refer to anything wore out. "Bought the farm," as in "he bought the farm." I know what it means but what are the roots? Getting a kick out of this thread