For generations both old and new, Judy Garland—born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota on this date in 1922—will be forever known as Dorothy Gale, the young Kansas girl who gets an oppo ...
Happy Birthday, Peter Lorre!(Post)On this date in 1904, a son was born to Alajos Löwenstein and Elvira Freischberger in an Austria-Hungarian village that is now located in present-day Slovakia. His name was László Löwenstein…but we ...
Happy Birthday, Harry Bartell!(Post)On the radio western Fort Laramie, actor Harry Bartell—born in New Orleans, LA on this date in 1913—played the part of Lieutenant Richard Sieberts, a greenhorn junior officer stationed at the outp ...
Happy Birthday, Bob Bailey!(Post)Robert Bainter Bailey was born in Toledo, OH on this date in 1913. Though some would argue he never fulfilled his ambition to become a motion picture star, old-time radio fans will trump that card ...
Happy Birthday, Marvin Miller!(Post)Though his show business career of nearly half-a-century extended to radio, TV, and motion pictures, the actor-announcer born Marvin Elliott Mueller in St. Louis, Missouri on this date in 1913 is ...
Review: The Phantom Thief (1946)(Post)Horatio “Boston Blackie” Black (Chester Morris…who later explains to a character in the film that he’s “of the Philadelphia Blackies”) returns to his humble bachelor environs to find a note from h ...
Ann Rutherford (1917-2012)(Post)It was her recurring role in M-G-M’s series of Andy Hardy films that firmly cemented Ann Rutherford’s onscreen “girl next door” persona. In many of the movies, typical teenager Andy Hardy (played by ...
Happy Birthday, Richard Denning!(Post)If I stated up front that the man who’s in our birthday spotlight today transcended his meager beginnings as a mere thespian and eventually became the governor of a state…well, you’d probably assu ...
The Never-Ending Battle for Truth, Justice and the American Way(Post)The Man of Steel made his comic book debut in Action Comics on April 18, 1938, and less than a year later (in January of 1939), the costumed superhero creation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster wou ...
Happy Birthday, Marie Wilson!(Post)The actress born Katherine Elizabeth (Marie) Wilson on this date ninety-eight years ago in Anaheim, California is an example of what show business types like to call an “overnight sensation.” And ...
Happy Birthday, Francis “Dink” Trout!(Post)In the Golden Age of Radio, actors were often called upon to play “meek” individuals—or whatever nickname you prefer: wimp, nebbish, milquetoast, etc. The gold standard for these portrayals might ...
Happy Birthday, Walter O’Keefe!(Post)If the man born Walter Michael O’Keefe in Hartford, Connecticut on this date in 1900 had pursued his ambition to join the priesthood…well, the Church’s gain would surely have been our loss. We wou ...