The man born William Joseph Patrick O'Brien in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on this date in 1899 was frequently referred to in the press as “Hollywood’s Irishman in Residence” during his lengthy motion pi ...
Happy Birthday, Joan Crawford!(Post)“Joan Crawford has passed into myth as a demented martinet whose greatest need or belief concerned padded clothes hangers,” observes author-historian David Thomson in his book The New Biographical ...
Happy Birthday, Jim Jordan!(Post)During my formative nostalgia years, my sisters and I rarely went to the movies unless there was a “G” rating attached and “Disney” mentioned somewhere in the credits. We saw all the new Disney f ...
Happy Birthday, James Cagney!(Post)When we think of the man that Orson Welles once described as “maybe the greatest actor who ever appeared in front of a camera” it’s usually as the motion picture industry’s consummate tough guy, w ...
Happy Birthday, June Foray!(Post)In 2009, Bear Manor Media published Did You Grow Up with Me, Too?: The Autobiography of June Foray. The titular performer—born June Lucille Forer in Springfield, Massachusetts on this date in 19 ...
Happy Birthday, anybody—here’s Morgan…(Post)Henry Lerner Van Ost, Jr. brashly entered this world in New York City on this date in 1915. We know him better as Henry Morgan…and it’s a good thing he was persuaded to change his name once he dec ...
Happy Birthday, Alice Faye!(Post)During the 1930s and early 1940s, actress-singer Alice Faye—born in New York City on this date in 1915—was one of 20th Century-Fox’s most bankable attractions, starring in such box office vehicles ...
Happy Birthday, Gerald Mohr!(Post)Actor Gerald Mohr—born in New York City on this date in 1914—might have gone through life more formally addressed as “Dr. Gerald Mohr” had it not been for a bout of appendicitis. You see, having gr ...
Happy Birthday, Harry Morgan!(Post)Writer Parke Levy, who became a millionaire with the creation of the TV sitcom December Bride, liked to take credit for giving character great Harry Morgan–-born Henry Bratsberg on this date in 19 ...
Happy Birthday, John McIntire!(Post)In the mid-1930s, actor-announcer John Herrick McIntire—born in Spokane, Washington on this date in 1907—decided, along with his actress wife Jeanette Nolan, to retreat from show business and take ...
Happy Birthday, Harry Von Zell!(Post)It’s now one of the best-remembered and oft-told anecdotes of radio history. A young CBS announcer born Harry Rudolph Von Zell in Indianapolis, Indiana on this date in 1906 manages to mangle the n ...
Happy Birthday, Bob Hope!(Post)We’re commemorating Memorial Day today…and it seems only fitting that the entertainer who established his legacy performing in United Service Organizations (you know it as the USO) shows for the b ...