“Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl but she doesn’t have a lot to say.” So wrote Paul McCartney way back in 1969, as heard in a lick of music tucked in the final grooves of The Beatles’ album Abbey Road. The Queen’s 70-year reign spanned from well before Beatlemania through Brexit. With the passing of
Attention anyone who remembers or is simply curious about the early days of television: don’t miss this sneak peek at “Kinecon at Cinecon.” The annual screening of rare kinescopes from the 1940’s and ’50s — the days before videotape — is part of Cinecon, the classic film festival held over the Labour Day weekend in
Tempus fugit, as my dad used to say. News of the passing of Olivia Newton-John has me thinking of how time does fly. The British-born, Australian-raised songstress was a big star back when I was in high school, with a string of easy listening hits including “I Honestly Love You,” “Please Mister Please,” and “Have
In the summer of 2010, Nichelle Nichols was one of the featured guests at a session of the Television Critics Association press tour. She was there as one of the “Pioneers of Television,” a PBS series that saluted older stars. Nichols, who passed away July 30 at 89, was joined at the session by Martin
Did you celebrate George Jetson’s birthday Sunday? There were various Internet reports — so it must be true — that the cartoon character was born on July 31, 2022. There is some logic behind the birth announcement. The Jetsons, a follow up to Hanna-Barbera’s pre-historic animated hit The Flintstones, premiered on ABC in 1962. The
Did Tony Dow really have to die twice? The Leave it to Beaver star was first reported dead Tuesday, but that premature message was quickly retracted. Dow clung to one more day before officially succumbing to cancer on Wednesday, July 27. He was 77. It is easy to forgive his wife Lauren for that first
Many of the TV icons I grew up with are dropping like flies. Poor Tony Dow, for example. The Leave it to Beaver brother clings to life after already being declared dead in many premature on-line reports. It’s wonderful, then, to celebrate the impressive and productive longevity of Norman Lear. The producers of such shows
I’ve interviewed hundreds of TV and movie stars. Only one treated me to a full-throated, operatic aria: Paul Sorvino. The New York native, famed for playing gangsters or cops in film (“Goodfellas”) and television (the original Law & Order), passed away July 25 at 83. In 2017, me and a few other reporters met Sorvino