Back when Twin Peaks premiered in 1989, there were no little people speaking backwards on television. Plenty of double talk, but nothing even close to the nightmarish, fascinating world of David Lynch. The award-winning filmmaker, painter and artist passed away Jan. 15 after years of declining health due to emphysema after a lifetime of smoking.
At one point during CNN’s cocktail coverage on New Year’s Eve, Anderson Cooper sobered up long enough to salute a news network mentor and friend: Aaron Brown. Brown, 76, an award-winning ABC and CNN news anchor and journalist, died December 29 in Washington. Part of a deep bench led by Peter Jennings at ABC News
Even as the year draws to a close, 2024 keeps taking them away from us. Jimmy Carter, America’s best ex-president, died Dec. 29 at 100. Olivia Hussey, famed for director Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo & Juliet” but also a lead in the shot-in-Canada slasher flick “Black Christmas,” gone two days earlier at 73. TCM always does
I was seven-years-old when Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer first landed on television. The time was December of 1964. The Beatles had broken big on Ed Sullivan that year and men were circling the Earth. The Toronto Maple Leafs were closing in on their third-straight Stanley Cup win. After 97 years as a nation, Canada was finally about
I had to search for it, through a few battered old laptop hard drives, but I’m glad I didn’t give up. Above is a shot of Mike Duffy, one of the bright lights of the Television Critics Association press tours, in his natural setting — surrounded by adoring peers. Look how happy everyone is in
Since the dawn of television, viewers have always wanted to be amazed. One who knew this was George Joseph Kresge, Jr., a.k.a. The Amazing Keskin. Billed as a mentalist with special powers of perception, Kreskin (born in 1935 in New Jersey) was one of those amazing TV distractions that tickled viewers in the late ’60s
Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the original Peanuts gang have survived nerly 60 years in television. The original animated half-hour holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, premiered on Dec. 23, 1965. I was eight that Christmas and already a devoted Peanuts follower. I used to clip Charle’s Schultz’s comic strip out of the Toronto Star
Early last month, when I wrote about the death of Canadian talk show host Mike Bullard, it reminded me of a turning point for one of the biggest late night stars in America: Conan O’Brien. Now 61, O’Brien was 40 early in 2004 and after a decade at 12:35 a.m. secure enough in his job