Jack Warden

Jack Warden was born in 1920 in Newark, New Jersey. He first achieved major public recognition as one of the jury members in the 1957 classic film “12 Angry Men” which starred Henry Fonda. His other films included “Brian’s Song”,”Shampoo”, “Heaven Can Wait” and “And Justice for All”. He died in 2006 aged 86.

Tom Vallance’s obituary in “The Independent”

The actor Jack Warden, whose accolades included an Emmy award and two Oscar nominations, was one of several notable talents who came from television to the movie screen in the late Fifties, along with such directors as John Frankenheimer and Sidney Lumet, and writers such as Paddy Chayevsky and Reginald Rose.

His first major screen roles were in three exceptional films of 1957, all adapted from television plays, including Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men, written by Rose, in which he made an indelible impression as the irascible, gruff-voiced juror number seven, a gum-chewing salesman who wants a quick verdict so that he can attend a baseball match. His other films that year were Martin Ritt’s Edge of the City, written by Robert Alan Aurthur, and Delbert Mann’s The Bachelor Party, by Chayevsky.

An intense actor with a tough exterior, Warden was memorable in both films – in the first as a corrupt and bigoted dockside union official who becomes homicidal when he clashes with an army deserter (John Cassavetes) and a rebellious black dock worker (Sidney Poitier), and in the second as a book-keeper who invites office pals to a party for a friend who is about to get married. Ageing and lonely, Warden’s character puts on a brave front until breaking down in a painfully real crying scene.

Warden was later to show that he could also get laughs and he won two Oscar nominations for humorous performances, for his role as a husband in Shampoo (1975) who is easily cuckolded by hairdresser Warren Beatty because he is convinced that all hairdressers are gay, and as a perpetually flustered football coach in Heaven Can Wait (1978) aware (though incredulous) that his former protégé has been reincarnated after a fatal accident. Though critics generally found the latter a heavy- handed remake of Alexander Hall’s delightful fantasy-comedy Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941), many singled out Warden’s hilarious performance as its saving virtue. “Warden’s done it all,” said his friend the actor Jack Ging. “He’s the kind of guy that Spencer Tracy used to play.”

Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1920, he was raised in Kentucky, where he attended the DuPont Manuel High School in Louisville. At the age of 17, he was expelled for frequent fighting. Becoming a professional welter-weight prize-fighter, he had 13 fights, calling himself Johnny Costello (adopting his mother’s maiden name), but he was not notably successful. In 1938, having worked as a night-club bouncer, tugboat deckhand and lifeguard, he joined the US Navy and spent three years in China with the Yangtze River Patrol.

In 1941 he joined the Merchant Marine, but when the US entered the Second World War he switched to the Army, serving as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division. He was due to take part in the Normandy landings in 1944, but just before D-Day he broke his leg during a night-time practice jump in England. It was during the ensuing long spell in hospital that he was given a copy of Clifford Odets’ play Waiting for Lefty, which prompted him to read more plays and instilled in him the ambition to be an actor. “That year in hospital was the turning point of my life,” he said later.

He returned to active duty to take part in the Battle of the Bulge, then, on his discharge at the war’s end he studied acting on the GI Bill. He spent more than a year with the Margo Jones repertory group in Dallas, then moved to New York, where he made his television début in 1948 with parts in the prestigious drama anthology series The Philco Television Playhouse and Studio One.

He made his screen début (the first of several bit roles) in a comedy starring Gary Cooper, You’re in the Navy Now (1951), in which two other unknowns, Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson, made their first film appearances. His first credited role was in the crime drama The Man with My Face (1951), starring Barry Nelson as an accountant who is the double of a gangster, and other early films included The Frogmen (1952) and From Here to Eternity (1953, as a corporal).

From 1953 he had a recurring role for three years in the television comedy series Mr Peepers. Later he became part of television history when he starred in the first episode filmed for the cult series The Twilight Zone (though it was not the first shown). Titled “The Lonely” (1959), it starred Warden as a convicted murderer imprisoned for life alone on an asteroid. Given a robotic companion, Alicia (Jean Marsh), by the sympathetic captain of a supply ship, he falls in love with the machine and when given a pardon he refuses to leave without her until it is dramatically proven that Alicia is not flesh and blood.

From 1967 to 1969 Warden starred in a crime series, NYPD, which was shot largely on location in New York City. In 1971 he won an Emmy Award as best supporting actor for his portrayal of the real-life football coach George Halas, of the Chicago Bears, in the tragic tale Brian’s Song.

Warden made his Broadway début in a revival of Golden Boy (1952) in which John Garfield reprised his original leading performance, and he also played small roles in the Arthur Miller double-bill A View From The Bridge/A Memory of Two Mondays (1955). His only musical was the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick show The Body Beautiful (1958), but his most notable Broadway appearance came when he replaced Donald Pleasence as the star of Robert Shaw’s The Man in the Glass Booth (1969), directed by Harold Pinter.

After his breakthrough appearances in the 1957 movies, he was in constant demand for the sort of screen parts – cops, sports coaches, military men – that matched his gruff exterior, though many of his characters displayed a soft centre. He played military men in The Thin Red Line (1964) and Raid on Entebbe (1977), the brusque President in Being There (1978), a German doctor in Death on the Nile (1978), twin automobile salesmen – one good, one bad – in Used Cars (1980), Paul Newman’s law partner in The Verdict (1982), and he showed his comic flair as the senile, gun-carrying judge in the satiric . . . And Justice for All (1979), Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait and as a flustered theatre producer in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (1995).

In All The President’s Men (1976), Alan J. Pakula’s riveting account of the exposure of the Watergate scandal by the journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Warden played the Washington Post’s city editor, Harry M. Rosenfeld, who recalled that the actor spent some time watching him work, though he assured the editor that “I play a part – I don’t play you.” Rosenfeld described Warden as “a skilled performer and a splendid fellow who possessed a strong personality and yet seemed rather shy for an actor”.

Warden made over 100 movies, more recent ones including While You Were Sleeping (1995), Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995), Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Warren Beatty’s Bulworth (1998) and, his final film, a football comedy, The Replacements (2000), with Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman.

Tom Vallance

The above obituary can also be accessed online here.

Muriel Angelus was born in 1909 in London of Scottish parents. Her first movie was the silent “The Ringer” in 1928. Up until 1935 she alternated between making films and appearing on the London stage. She then went to Broadway to appear in the hit show “The Boys from Syracuse” with Eddie Albert. She then went to Hollywood where she made such films as “The Light that Failed” with Ronald Colman and Ida Lupino “The Great McGinty” directed by the great Preston Sturges with Brian Donlevy. On her marriage in 1943 she retired from acting. Muriel Angelus died at the age of 95 in 2004.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

The memories are vague when it comes to recalling this London-born leading lady, but Muriel Angelus did have her moments. She managed to appear in a few classic Broadway musical shows and Hollywood films before her early retirement in the mid-1940s. Of Scottish parentage, the former Muriel Findlay developed a sweet-voiced soprano at an early age. She made her singing debut at 12, eventually changing her name and becoming a popular music hall performer. She entered films toward the end of the silent era with The Ringer (1928), the first of three movie versions of the Edgar Wallace play. Her second film Sailor Don’t Care (1928) was important only in that she met her first husband, Scots-born actor John Stuart. Her part was excised from the film. Though in her first sound picture Night Birds (1930), she got to sing a number, most of her films did not usurp her musical talents. The sweet-natured actress who played both ingenues and ‘other woman’ roles co-starred with husband Stuart in No Exit (1930), Eve’s Fall (1930) and Hindle Wakes (1931), and appeared with British star Monty Banks in some of his farcical comedies, including My Wife’s Family (1932) and So You Won’t Talk (1935). Muriel received a career lift with the glossy musical London hit “Balalaika” and a chain of events happened with its success. It led to her securing the pivotal role of Adriana in “The Boys From Syracuse” and, in turn, a contract with Paramount Pictures. Divorced from Stuart by this time, Muriel settled in Hollywood and made her best films while there. She was touching as girlfriend to blind painter Ronald Colman in The Light That Failed (1939), a second remake of the Rudyard Kipling novel, and appeared to great advantage in Preston Sturges’ classic satire The Great McGinty (1940) as _Brian Donlevy_’s secretary. After scoring another long-running Broadway hit with “Early To Bed” in 1943, Muriel met Radio City Music Hall orchestra conductor Paul Lavalle while appearing on radio in New York and married him in 1946. She retired to raise a family in New England. They had a daughter, Suzanne, who later worked for NBC. Muriel pretty much stayed out of the limelight for the remainder of her life. She died at 95 in a Virginia nursing home in 2004, some seven years after her husband’s death.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Guardian obituary 2004

Muriel Angelus

British actor who starred in films and stage musicals, memorably singing Falling In Love With LoveRonald BerganThu 2 Sep 2004 01.36 BST

One of Rodgers and Hart’s greatest hits, Falling In Love With Love, was first sung in the 1938 Broadway production of The Boys From Syracuse by Muriel Angelus, who has died aged 95. The New York Times critic thought her portrayal of Adriana in this musical adaptation of The Comedy Of Errors “a monument to precariously controlled wifely patience”, and that she sang “with exquisite sweetness”. Unfortunately, her sweetly exquisite soprano voice was heard too seldom in a career that began at the age of 12 and ended at 33.

Born in London of Scottish parents, the blonde Muriel Angelus Findlay began singing in music halls before entering films in 1928 in the silent The Ringer, the first of three versions of the Edgar Wallace play. A year later, she was in Germany for Maskottchen, based on an operetta by Walter Bromme, in which she played “the other woman”. If the producers had waited a few months for sound, they could have included the songs.Advertisementhttps://38e84c381af680794f0905d392a93a04.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

In her first talkie, Night Birds (1930), she got to sing a number in a West End revue, in which a detective, on the trail of her fugitive boyfriend, disguises himself as a chorus boy. More serious was Hindle Wakes (1931), the first sound version of Stanley Houghton’s 1912 play, where Angelus portrayed Beatrice Farrar, the respectable fiancee of Alan Jeffcote, a Lancashire mill-owner’s son, who refuses to go away with him for a naughty weekend. Instead, he takes a mill girl, only to return to Beatrice after the girl remembers her “place”. Jeffcote was played by the Scottish-born actor John Stuart, whom Angelus married during the shooting of the film.

They then appeared together in Let’s Love And Laugh (1931), an inconsequential comedy-drama in which she was the daughter of a publisher, and he an aspiring writer. She then embarked on several farcical comedies, some directed and starring Monty Banks (Mario Bianchi), the husband of Gracie Fields, with titles such as My Wife’s Family (1932), So You Won’t Talk (1935), and Blind Spot (1932), in which she played an amnesiac, a melodrama Angelus would have wanted to forget.

· Muriel Angelus, actor, born March 10 1909; died August 22 2004

The Way Of All Flesh, poster, l-r: Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, Gladys George on poster art, 1940. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

In 1936, she starred in the Eric Maschwitz stage musical Balalaika at the Adelphi Theatre in London. Angelus was ravishing as Lydia, a ballet dancer and singer, who falls in love in Paris with an exiled Russian prince after the Bolshevik Revolution. It was the sort of thing that went down very well in the West End in the 1930s, and it ran for over a year. It led to Angelus being offered the role of Adriana in The Boys From Syracuse, and a contract with Paramount, for whom she made four prestigious films.

The first was William Wellman’s The Light That Failed (1939), the second remake of the Rudyard Kipling novel, which tells of the desperate attempt of a painter (Ronald Colman) to finish his greatest painting – of a prostitute (Ida Lupino) – before he goes blind. In a moving scene, Angelus, as the now blind artist’s girlfriend, has to hide the fact from him that the painting has been slashed by the prostitute in a jealous rage.

Of the three last films she made, all in 1940 – Safari, a studio-bound jungle melodrama with Douglas Fairbanks Jr as “the best hunter in West Africa”; The Way Of All Flesh, in which Angelus was a thieving adventuress; and The Great McGinty – the last is by far the most memorable. In this, Preston Sturges’ first feature, about a tramp (Brian Donlevy) who becomes state governor by craft and graft, Angelus played his secretary, offering to become his public wife for the sake of the “women’s vote”. Angelus triumphs as the sole character with half a conscience in one of Hollywood’s best satires.

After another success in a Broadway musical, Early To Bed (1943-44), as the madame of a bordello in pre-war Martinique, which people, for reasons known only to the librettist, keep mistaking for a girls’ school, Angelus left show business. In 1946, long divorced from Stuart, she married Paul Lavelle, the conductor of the Radio City Music Hall orchestra.

Fifteen years later, Lavelle and Angelus recorded Tribute To Rodgers And Hammerstein, in which, naturally, she sung Falling In Love With Love. She is survived by her daughter from her second marriage.

Harold Russell was born in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1914. He moved with his family to the U.S. in 1933. He served in the Army in World War Two and lost both of his hands in conflict. William Wyler cast him in a film about returning soldiers “The Best Year of Our Lives” in 1946 and he won an Oscar for his affecting performance opposite Cathy O’Donnell. His only other film was “Inside Moves” in 1980. He died in 2002 at the age of 88.

His “Guardian” obituary:

Brave actor whose artificial hands helped him win two Oscars

Ronald Bergan

Wednesday 6 February 2002 02.46 GMT

The ironic title of William Wyler’s multiple Oscar-winning film, The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), refers to the fact that many servicemen had “the best years of their lives” in wartime. The picture focused on three second world war veterans returning to civilian life with severe disabilities. One of them, Homer Parrish, a young sailor, has had both hands, lost in combat, replaced with articulated hooks. The fact that Homer was played by Harold Russell, whose own hands were amputated after a wartime injury – and replaced with steel hooks – added to the poignancy of the performance.

As Homer, the boyish-looking Russell, who has died aged 88, revealed remarkable dexterity – he lifts a cigarette from a pack with his prosthetics, strikes a match and lights his companions’ cigarettes. “Boy, you ought to see me open a bottle of beer,” he boasts.

But he expresses fear and uncertainty about returning to his girlfriend. “I can dial telephones, I can drive a car, I can even put nickels in the jukebox. But Wilma’s only a kid. She’s never seen anything like these hooks.” As his friend remarks, “The navy couldn’t train him to put his arms around his girl to stroke her hair.”

In the justly celebrated sequence of Homer’s homecoming, he stands with his hands by his sides as Wilma hugs him. After overcoming many obstacles, the couple get married; she clasping his right hook during the ceremony, he skillfully sliding the ring onto her finger.

The role won Russell two Oscars, one for best supporting actor and a special second for “bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures”, making him the only person in academy history to win two awards for the same role. In August 1992, he created controversy by auctioning the best supporting actor statuette for $60,500 to an anonymous buyer, claiming that he needed the money for his wife’s medical bills. In response to criticism, he said: “My wife’s health is much more important than sentimental reasons.”

Russell, who was born in Nova Scotia, but moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, was working in a food market when Pearl Harbour was bombed. “I made a rush to the recruiting office, not out of patriotism but because I thought of myself a failure,” he explained in his autobiography, Victory In My Hands (1949). He became a demolition expert, and it was while teaching recruits that a defective fuse detonated TNT that he was holding. After choosing steel hooks rather than plastic hands, he became so adept at using them that he featured in a US army training film, Diary Of A Sergeant, made for soldiers who had lost both hands.

Wyler saw the film and, although Russell had no lines, cast him in The Best Years of Our Lives. Russell, who was then attending business school at Boston University, got $250 a week, and $100 a week for living expenses. After the movie became a box-office hit, the producer Sam Goldwyn gave him a weekly bonus of $120 for a year, asking that he make promotional tours. On Wyler’s advice, he then went back to college, “because there wasn’t much call for a guy with no hands in the motion picture industry”.

After graduating, Russell started a public relations business, but spent most of his time campaigning for the disabled, his main message being, “It’s not what you lost, but what you have left and how you use it.” He would joke that he could pick up anything with his hands except “a dinner cheque”.

In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Russell as vice chairman of the presidential committee on employment of disabled people. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson made him chairman, and Richard Nixon reappointed him. He briefly returned to acting, in Inside Moves (1980), about disabled people who meet in a bar to help each other, and in Dogtown (1997), where he played a cigar-store owner and war veteran. He also appeared in the Vietnam war television series, China Beach.

He is survived by a son and a daughter.

· Harold Russell, actor and campaigner, born January 14 1914; died January 29 2002

The above “Guardian” obituart can also be accessed online here.

Mary Ann Mobley was born in 1939 in Mississippi. She was Miss America of 1959. She starred opposite Elvis Presley in two movies in 1965, “Girl Happy” and “Harum Scarum”. Gay Collins was born in 1938 in Venice, California. His film debut was in 1962 in “The Pigeon that took Rome” with Charlton Heston and Elsa Martinelli. His other films include “Angel in my Pocket” and “Killer Fish”. He and Mary Ann Mobley had been married since 1967. He died in 2012 aged 74.

“MailOnline” obituary:

Legendary TV actor and presenter, Gary Collins, has died.

The star passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning at the age of 74, and his death was said to be from natural causes.

The tragedy took place just before 1am at Biloxi Regional Medical Center in the American state of Missouri, according Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove.

He married former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley in 1967 and the couple – who separated last year although remained wedded – had one child together, Mary Clancy Collins, Senior Vice President of Development for MGM Television.

He was previously married to Susan Peterson with whom he had two other children, Guy William Collins and Melissa ‘Mimi’ Collins.

The master of ceremonies for the Miss America Pageant from 1985-1989 is also known for having appeared on episodes of programmes such as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, Alice, The Love Boat and Police Story.

Collins also hosted the talk show Hour Magazine from 1980-1988.

IMDB entry on Mary Ann Mobley:

Born on February 17, 1939 in Biloxi, Mississippi, Mary Ann Mobley is one of the few Miss Americas to have true success as an actress or television personality (the others areBarnaby Jones (1973) beauty Lee Meriwether, television hostess Phyllis George, Consumer advocate/game show panelist Bess Myerson and Eraser (1996) heroineVanessa Williams). After serving as Miss America 1959, Mobley soon became a sought-after guest star in episodic television of the 1960s, appearing on many hit series of that era – Perry Mason (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964),The Virginian (1962), to name a few. Her most important contribution to 1960s popular culture, though, was appearing opposite Elvis Presley in two films – Harum Scarum (1965) and Girl Happy (1965). Her success in film led to a 1965 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer, an award she shared with Mia Farrow and Celia Milius. She also starred in a number of other B-movies of the 1960s, such as Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) andFor Singles Only (1968).

Her television and film output decreased in the 1970s as she raised her daughter, Clancy Collins White, with her husband, Gary Collins. During that decade, her television appearances were mostly guest roles on series such as the iconic series Love, American Style (1969), Fantasy Island (1977), The Love Boat (1977) and the game show Match Game 73 (1973), on which she was a frequent panelist alongside such other famous wiseacres as Betty White, Brett Somers, Patti Deutsch and Charles Nelson Reilly. She and Collins also appeared a number of times performing death-defying high-wire acts and other athletic, outrageous stunts on the annual television event Circus of the Stars(1977).

In the 1980s, she starred as stepmother “Maggie McKinney” in the final season ofDiff’rent Strokes (1978), appeared in a recurring role as alcoholism counselor “Dr. Beth Everdene” on the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and continued to pop-up as a guest star on series like Hotel (1983) and Matt Houston (1982) and game shows likeThe Hollywood Squares (1965) and Body Language (1984). She also acted as her husband’s frequent guest co-host on his successful talk shows Hour Magazine (1980) andThe Home Show (1988), as well as on installments of the Miss America Pageant. In the 1990s, she made guest appearances on the sitcoms Designing Women (1986), Hearts Afire (1992), Hardball (1994) and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1996). She and Collins were also hosts of an oft-run late 1990s television infomercial for “SelectComfort”, a specialty bed product. Also during the 1990s, she toured in the popular play, “Love Letters”, with her husband, and performed a cabaret act at the Cinegrill in Hollywood.

Mary Ann and other “Match Game”/”Hollywood Squares” regulars of the 1970s and 1980s (such as Charo, Nipsey Russell, Paul Lynde and Jo Anne Worley) were riotously spoofed on Saturday Night Live (1975) in a 2002 game show sketch called “Super Buzzers” withTina Fey playing Mary Ann. Mary Ann and her husband soon got a chance to demonstrate their own good humor, appearing as themselves in a satiric infomercial parody on the Showtime series Dead Like Me (2003) in 2003 (the fake infomercial was for a no-effort bodytoning contraption – which spontaneously com-busts!).

– IMDb Mini Biography By: blackie-

June Haver was born in 1926 in Rock Island, Illinois. She made her movie debut in the delightful “Home in Indiana” in 1944. Her other films included “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”, “The Dolly Sisters” with Betty Grable and “Look for the Silver Lining”. Disillusioned with Hollywood in 1953 she entered a convent intending to become a nun. However she left after some months. She did not return to acting but after a few years she married actor Fred MacMurray. She died in 2005.

“Guardian” obituary by Ronald Bergan:

Oh, You Beautiful Doll was the pre-feminist song and film title that best described the pretty, dimpled, petite (5ft 2in) blonde June Haver, who has died aged 79. Haver was in the long line of 20th Century Fox blondes: she had a pleasant singing voice and could keep up with the fancy steps of Gene Nelson, Dan Dailey and Ray Bolger. At one time, she was dubbed “Hollywood’s sweetest star”, and was known to be of such a sunny disposition that her friends asked her to “cheer down” on occasions.

She was also perfectly in tune with the rather bland, escapist, Technicolor 1940s Fox musicals. There was much more drama in her life than in any of her films.

Born Beverly Jean Stovenour in Rock Island, Illinois, she took “Haver” from her stepfather. Her typical stage mother had her performing at six. Five years later she had her own radio show, at 13 she was singing with big bands.

After moving to California with her mother, Haver debuted in four musical shorts at Universal, one of which, Trumpet Serenade (1942) was with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra. Then Fox offered her a contract. Her first feature appearance was as a hat-check girl in Busby Berkeley’s kitschy Alice Faye musical The Gang’s All Here (1943). She was then cast with two other newcomers, Jeanne Crain and Lon McCallister (obituary, July 9) in Home In Indiana (1944), losing out to Jeanne for Lon’s affections, though he seemed more interested in horses than girls.

Unable to coax Alice Faye out of retirement, Fox gave Haver, only 19, the role of Betty Grable’s younger sister in The Dolly Sisters (1945), a fictionalised account of the turn-of-the-century vaudeville siblings. Although the original duo were brunettes, Fox offered the public two blondes for the price of one. Less brassy than Grable, who uncharacteristically clashed offscreen with her younger rival, Haver went on to replay the Grable roles of a few years earlier such as The Daughter Of Rosie O’Grady (1950), a semi-sequel to Sweet Rosie O’Grady (1943).

Haver also starred in several fanciful biopics, including Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1944), I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now (1946) and Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949), and as Broadway star Marilyn Miller in Look For The Silver Lining (1949), at Warner Bros. In all of them, she was as enchanting as the material allowed.

In 1947 Haver married trumpeter Jimmy Zito, whom she had met when he was in Ted Fio Rio’s band seven years earlier. She later called the marriage “the biggest mistake of my life”, and they separated after three months, getting divorced the following year. It was particularly traumatic as she had recently converted to Catholicism. But she picked up her film career, continuing into the 1950s with I’ll Get By (1950) and The Girl Next Door (1953), two other apt Haver titles.

After her divorce, Haver planned to marry a dentist, John Duzik, but he died of haemophilia. A few years later, she announced she was retiring – to become a nun. This decision coincided with the more explicit scripts coming into Hollywood, as well as her poor romantic luck. She was a novice at Sisters of Charity convent in Kansas for just seven months, citing “health reasons” as she quit, to take up interior decoration.

In 1954, she met the recently widowed Fred MacMurray, with whom she had appeared in Where Do We Go From Here? 10 years earlier. They married and adopted twin girls, who survive her. The marriage lasted until MacMurray’s death in 1991.

· June Haver (Beverly Jean Stovenour), actor, born June 10 1926; died July 4 2005

The above “Guardian” obituary can be accessed also here.

In her heyday June Allyson seemed just about the nicest thing on two legs.

June Allyson was born in 1917 in The Bronx, New York. She starred in many MGM musicals during the 1940’s including “Thousands Cheer”, “Music for Millions, Good News” and “Words and Music”. She also acted in dramas such as “The Three Musketeers” and “Little Women”.

Her career highpoint was opposite James Stewart in “The Glenn Miller Story” in 1953. She was long married to Dick Powell. June Allyson died in 2006 at the age of 88.

June Allyson obituary in “The Guardian” in 2006.

Hollywood star June Allyson, who has died aged 88, was the screen embodiment of sweetness and light, whether enlivening MGM movies in the 1940s with her sunny personality or playing the faithful, lip-quivering wife in the 1950s. In a less cynical age than today, audiences found her irresistible, particularly when she was teamed up as James Stewart’s wife, patiently waiting for him to return home: in The Stratton Story (1949), The Glenn Miller Story (1954) and Strategic Air Command (1955).

When Allyson was cast against type – as, for example, José Ferrer’s shrewish wife in The Shrike (1955) – 90% of the audience at a preview wrote on their cards that they would never accept her in a wicked role.

As a result, the film ending was re-shot with the character seeing the error of her ways, though it was not enough to appease the fans and the film flopped. After that she returned to more exemplary uxorial roles.

In her first three musicals, Allyson had to be content with speciality numbers, among them In a Little Spanish Town, sung with Gloria DeHaven in Thousands Cheer (1943), and Treat Me Rough, in Girl Crazy (1943), which also involved violently throwing Mickey Rooney around. The following year, she got her first top billing, in Two Girls and a Sailor (with DeHaven and Van Johnson), the movie that established her girl-next-door persona and gave her a historic jazz number, Young Man with a Horn, with trumpeter Harry James.

Allyson was born Ella Geisman in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of a building superintendent. Because of a bad fall at the age of eight, she was forced to wear a back brace for four years. She then took up swimming and dancing lessons to strengthen her limbs, and was soon good enough to enter dance competitions. “I used to cut school to go and see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” she recalled. “I would brag that I could dance as well as them, so when an ad appeared in the papers for dancers, my friends dared me to audition.” Years later she missed her chance to star opposite Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951) because she was pregnant.

While still a teenager Allyson got work in the chorus of nightclub shows, on Broadway and in a few short films, the first of which was Swing for Sale (1937). In 1940 she understudied Betty Hutton in Two for the Show. When Hutton contracted measles, Allyson took over for a few performances and was seen by producer George Abbott, who put her in Best Foot Forward, which earned her a part in the 1943 movie version and an MGM contract.

This was followed by Music for Millions (1945) and Two Sisters from Boston (1946), in both of which she played the responsible older sister to Margaret O’Brien and Kathryn Grayson, respectively. She made notable guest appearances in two biopics, singing the Jerome Kern title song of Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and Rogers and Hart’s Thou Swell, dwarfed between the rangy Blackburn twins in Words and Music (1947). By far her best role in a musical – and possibly her best film – was as a college girl in Charles Walters’ campus caper Good News (1947), teaching Peter Lawford in The French Lesson and smiling through the dance finale, The Varsity Drag. She was also effective in such non-musicals as High Barbaree (1947), opposite Van Johnson, and as Constance to Gene Kelly’s D’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (1948).

Allyson admitted to liking Louis B Mayer (a rare claim) because “my own father died when I was six months old, and I looked on him as a father”. None the less, in 1949, when she told him she was going to marry Dick Powell, a twice-divorced man 13 years her senior, Mayer threatened to suspend her, a position he moderated only when Allyson asked him to give her away at the wedding. In spite of that he would not loan her out to play the title role in All About Eve (1950) at 20th Century Fox.

Allyson co-starred with her new husband twice in 1950, in The Reformer and the Redhead and Right Cross, neither of which provided as many sparks as her work with James Stewart. After Strategic Air Command she looked up at the sky again in The McConnell Story (1955), as husband Alan Ladd tested jets, and exuded wifely support to Cornel Wilde in A Woman’s World (1954) and William Holden in Executive Suite (1954).

Curiously, Allyson appeared in more remakes than any other star in cinema history, and inevitably suffered by comparison with those who previously took the roles. Exceptions could be made for Good News, in the Bessie Love part, and in The Opposite Sex (1955), the musical remake of The Women, in which she was less anaemic than Norma Shearer. She was a spunky Jo in Little Women (1949); the runaway heiress in You Can’t Run Away from It (1956), a lame musical directed by Powell; the rich girl falling for her butler in My Man Godfrey (1957); and an American tourist involved in a doomed affair in Munich in the soppy Interlude (1957). But although she gave a good account of herself in all of them, she could not obliterate the memory of Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard and Irene Dunne.

During their 18-year marriage Allyson and Powell had several public breakups, but were reconciled before his death from cancer in 1963. Allyson soon remarried, though it lasted barely a year. Her third marriage, in 1976 to dentist David Ashrow, lasted until her death.

Nine years after retiring in 1963, she returned to the screen in They Only Kill Their Masters, a whodunit in which she delighted in playing a bitter murderess, the sort of role she would never have been allowed to take on in her younger days. She appeared in only one other film, Blackout (1978), as a woman terrorised by criminals during a power failure in New York.

Visiting England in 1985 to plug the reissue of The Glenn Miller Story, Allyson looked almost the same as in those MGM musicals. When asked why she gave up show business, she said that the only roles she was being offered were as psychologically disturbed older women wanting younger men. She is survived by her husband, her son and her daughter.

· June Allyson (Eleanor Geisman), actor, born October 7 1917; died July 8 2006

This article can also be accessed online here.

Harold Gould was born in 1923 in Schenectady, New York. He was originally a teacher before becoming an actor. His film debut came in “Two for the Seesaw” with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. His other films include “The Yellow Canary” with Pat Boone, “The Satan Bug” with George Maharis and Anne Francis and “Harper”. His biggest success though was on television where he played the father of Valer Harper in the classic TV series “Rhoda”. Harold Gould died in 2010.

Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:

Harold Gould, who has died aged 86, was categorised as a character actor, usually a euphemism for an actor who did not quite make it to the top. But it would be more accurate to describe him as a supporting actor who made invaluable contributions to innumerable television shows and dozens of films. The elegantly dressed Gould, with his grey hair and natty moustache, “supported” many a star, often in the roles of kindly uncles, fathers and husbands as well as doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, rabbis and teachers.

The five times Emmy-nominated Gould was probably most widely known as Martin Morgenstern, Valerie Harper’s handsome smoothie father in Rhoda (1974-78), and the college professor widower who courts Rose (Betty White) in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1985-92). In the latter, Gould played Miles Webber, a mild-mannered man who turns out to have been an accountant for the mafia, much to Rose’s surprise and excitement.

In 20 episodes of Rhoda, Gould had to put up with the kvetching of Rhoda’s pushy mother Ida (Nancy Walker), while lending his daughter a sympathetic ear. In one episode, The Marty Morgan Story (1976), he touchingly confesses to Rhoda that he no longer loves Ida, and retains a secret ambition to be a bar-room pianist.

From a very early age, Gould’s ambition was to become an actor. He was born Harold Vernon Goldstein in Schenectady, New York. After serving in France as a gunner in the army during the second world war, Gould studied theatre, gaining a PhD from Cornell University, where he taught drama, speech and literature from 1948 to 1953.

After a few more years of teaching drama, Gould decided, in his late 30s, to practise what he taught and take up acting. “All of my colleagues would say: ‘What are you doing? You’re crazy to leave teaching.’ I had to take the leap.”

After various roles off-Broadway, he started to get work on television, the medium which was to be his mainstay. From 1961, Gould popped up in almost every TV series one could name, but he had to wait 11 years before he was given a featured role. This was the first appearance of Martin Morgenstern, in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1972), of which Rhoda was one of the spin-offs.

At this time Gould also appeared in a pilot for the TV series Happy Days, playing the role of Richie Cunningham’s father, Howard. A theatrical commitment prevented Gould from resuming the role when the series was commissioned. Tom Bosley was hired to play the character in the series, which ran from 1974 to 1984.

Instead, Gould appeared in dozens of TV movies, notably, in 1980, The Scarlett O’Hara War and The Silent Lovers, in both of which he played the MGM boss Louis B Mayer. In 1986, in Mrs Delafield Wants to Marry, he played a Jewish doctor whom Katharine Hepburn wishes to marry despite her children’s objections. A splendid chemistry was created between the two leads, with Gould doing more than just supporting his legendary co-star.

At the same time, Gould took supporting roles in several features, the most notable being the Oscar-winner The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in which he played a conman-gambler called Kid Twist. He makes a superb entrance into a gambling den, where his beautifully cut suit, homburg hat and grey kid gloves are strikingly contrasted with the other customers. At the finale, Gould is in on a great scam to deprive Robert Shaw’s Doyle Lonnegan of half a million dollars at a phony betting shop.

Among many comic cameos, Gould played a jealous lover who challenges a cowardly Woody Allen to a duel in the latter’s Love and Death (1975). Gould: “If you so much as come near the countess, I’ll see that you never see the light of day again.” Allen: “If a man said that to me, I’d break his neck.” Gould: “I am a man.” Allen: “Well, I mean a much shorter man.” The following year he played Engulf, a movie executive of Engulf and Devour (a sly reference to Gulf and Western), in Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie.

In his 70s, Gould appeared in films as different as the prison drama Killer: A Journal of Murder (1996) and the Robin Williams comedy Patch Adams (1998). In recent years, he gracefully moved into grandfather roles in films such as Stuart Little (1999), The Master of Disguise (2002), Freaky Friday (2003) and Nobody’s Perfect (2004).

Gould is survived by his wife, Lea, whom he married in 1950, a daughter, Deborah, and two sons, Joshua and Lowell.

• Harold Gould (Harold Vernon Goldstein), actor, born 10 December 1923; died 11 September 2010

The above “Guardian” obituary can be accessed online here.

Ken Scott was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. He made his movie debut in 1956 in “Three Brave Men”. His other films include “The Way to the Gold” with Jeffrey Hunter, “This Earth is Mine” and “Desire in the Dust”. He died in 1986.

Joanna Cassidy was born in 1945 in New Jersey. She was featured in the 1976 film “Stay Hungary” and went on star in “Blade Runner” in 1982, “Under Fire” and “The Fourth Protocol”.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

The very lovely, vivacious and smart-looking Joanna Cassidy was born in Camden, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Haddonfield, a borough located in Camden County. She grew up in a creative environment as the daughter and granddaughter of artists. At an early age she engaged in painting and sculpture and went on to major in art at Syracuse University in New York. During her time there she married Kennard C. Kobrin in 1964, a doctor in residency, and found work as a fashion model to help work his way to a degree. The couple eventually moved to San Francisco, where her husband set up a psychiatric practice; Joanna continued modeling and gave birth to a son and daughter. Following their divorce ten years later, she decided to move to Los Angeles in a bid for an acting career.

In between modeling chores and occasional commercial gigs, the reddish-haired beauty found minor, decorative work as an actress in such action fare as Steve McQueen‘s thrillerBullitt (1968), the Jason Robards drama Fools (1970), The Laughing Policeman (1973) starring Walter Matthau and The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall. Her first co-starring role came opposite George C. Scott in the offbeat comedy caper Bank Shot (1974).

Television became an important medium for her in the late 1970s, with guest parts on all the popular shows of the time, both comedic and dramatic, including Dallas (1978).Trapper John, M.D. (1979), Taxi (1978), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Charlie’s Angels(1976), Lou Grant (1977) and a recurring role on Falcon Crest (1981). A regular on the sketch/variety show Shields and Yarnell (1977), which showcased the popular mime couple, Joanna languished in three failed series attempts–The Roller Girls (1978), 240-Robert (1979) and The Family Tree (1983)–before hitting the jackpot with the sitcomBuffalo Bill (1983) opposite Dabney Coleman, in which she finally had the opportunity to demonstrate her flair for offbeat comedy. The show became that’s season’s critical darling, with Coleman playing a vain, sexist, obnoxious talk show host (a variation of his popular Nine to Five (1980) film character) and Joanna received a Golden Globe for her resourceful portrayal of Jo Jo White, the director of his show and romantic foil for Coleman, who stood toe-to-toe with his antics.

The 1980s also brought about positive, critical reception for Joanna on film as well, especially in a number of showy portrayals, notably her snake-dancing replicant in the futuristic sci-fi thriller Blade Runner (1982), her radio journalist involved with Nick Nolteand Ed Harris in the political drama Under Fire (1983) and her co-starring role in a wacky triangle with Bob Hoskins and a hyperkinetic hare in the highly ambitious part toon/part fantasy film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Back on the TV front she was seen in recurring roles on L.A. Law (1986), Diagnosis Murder (1993), The District (2000) andBoston Legal (2004).

Since then Joanna has juggled a number of quality film and TV assignments, a definitive highlight being her Emmy-nominated recurring role as a quirky, capricious mother/psychiatrist in the cult cable series Six Feet Under (2001). More recently she has taken part in more controversial film work that contain stronger social themes such asAnthrax (2001), a Canadian political thriller whose storyline feeds on the fear of terrorism; The Virgin of Juarez (2006), which chronicled the murders of hundreds of Mexican women; and the gay-themed pictures Kiss the Bride (2007) and Anderson’s Cross(2010).

Off-camera Joanna is devoted to her art (painting, sculpting) and is a dedicated animal activist as well as golfer and antique collector. She presently resides in the Los Angeles area with her dogs.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net