In the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina—as seen on the popular situation comedy The Andy Griffith Show—the locus of the town’s goings-on was usually the humble barber shop run by garrulo ...
Happy Birthday, Jeff Corey!(Post)In May of 2017, the memoirs of character actor Jeff Corey—born Arthur Zwerling in Brooklyn on this date in 1914—were published to much critical acclaim. Written with his daughter Emily, Improvisi ...
Happy Birthday, Sir John Gielgud!(Post)Sir John Gielgud made his cinematic debut in a 1924 silent film, Who is the Man? Yet the celebrated actor, born in South Kensington, London on this date in 1904, really didn’t commit to a movie c ...
Happy Birthday, J. Scott Smart!(Post)While two of the radio programs based on characters created by author Dashiell Hammett—The Adventures of the Thin Man and The Adventures of Sam Spade—were adapted from his novels, The Fat Man was ...
Happy Birthday, Howard Culver!(Post)In the summer of 1949, with CBS working on the idea for what would eventually become Gunsmoke, an audition was recorded (“Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye”) that starred Howard Brasfield Culver—born ...
Happy Birthday, Hanley Stafford!(Post)The actor who achieved his greatest fame on radio as the best foil Fanny Brice’s Baby Snooks could ever wish for was born on this date in 1899 as Alfred John Austin. His birthplace of Hanley in St ...
Happy Birthday, Raymond Chandler!(Post)For all his success in the literary world, and then later in Hollywood, author Raymond Thornton Chandler was a lonely man. He lived the life of a recluse; he left no surviving wife or children up ...
Happy Birthday, Phil Harris!(Post)The man who let audiences know what he liked about the South was born in Linton, Indiana on this date in 1904. Whenever wife Alice Faye would jokingly refer to him as “Wonga” on their popular radi ...
Happy Birthday, Art Carney!(Post)No one could have possibly seen it coming. On the night of April 8, 1975, as the live telecast of the 47th Academy Awards was calling it a wrap for the evening, the Best Actor Oscar was handed ou ...
Happy Birthday, Jerry Lewis!(Post)August 20, 2017 was for many fans of comedy a day to weep…not laugh. The man born Joseph Levitch (though other sources report his name as Jerome) in Newark, NJ on this date in 1926 had left this ...
Happy Birthday, Gertrude Warner!(Post)In his invaluable reference book The Great Radio Soap Operas, author Jim Cox opines that Gertrude “Trudy” Warner—born in Hartford, Connecticut on this day in 1917—“may have played the leads or fem ...
Happy Birthday, Sheldon Leonard!(Post)Nowadays, the concept of the “hyphenate” is fairly common in Hollywood—the word is used to describe anyone in show business who wears various hats: actor, writer, producer, director, etc. The most ...