Final thoughts, as Jerry Springer used to say, on Jerry Springer. When the news broke Thursday that the 79-year-old former syndicated TV host had died of cancer, requests came in from CTV News (see that report with Marcia MacMillan here), CP24, NewsTalk 1010 (listen to that conversation with Jim Richards here) and CHML. They all
Harry Belafonte made a lasting impression a dozen years ago on a visit before Television Critics Association reporters. The activist/singer, one of the last Black Civil Rights icons of the 1960s, passed away Tuesday, April 25. He was 96. Back in July of 2011, he stood out as a towering figure from a golden age
Len Goodman, for many years the head judge on Dancing with the Stars, has gone to the big ballroom in the sky. He passed away Sunday, April 23rd, just a few days shy of his 79th birthday. As a young man, the elegant Goodman was an apprentice welder for a famous British shipbuilding company. In
Robert Blake, who died March 9 of heart disease at the age of 89, almost didn’t get to be Baretta. The gritty cop series, which ran on ABC from 1975-78, began a season earlier when it was called Toma. That series was based on a real-life New Jersey police officer named David Toma, who was
You could not cover television in Canada for the past 40 years without encountering the great Gordon Pinsent. Thank God. Pinsent, who died in his sleep Feb. 25 at 92, was a towering figure in film and television. In his native Newfoundland, he was much more than that. I was out in St. John’s, Nfld.,
I never, ever watch The Masked Singer but last week I was flipping around and paused long enough to see the prime time broadcast TV highlight of the year — TV legend Dick Van Dyke unmasked! The 97-year-old Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner became the oldest and most decorated Masked Singer participant ever. The judges
Richard Belzer is primarily known to TV viewers as Detective John Munch. And no wonder. He played the sardonic cop character for 23 seasons on 11 different shows across six different networks. The two main shows were Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but Belzer also played Munch on
Charles Kimbrough looked like a local news anchor. He had the hair and the tight smile and looked good in a suit in that middle-aged white man tradition found on Eyewitness newscasts in dozens of North American TV markets. His ten season stint on Murphy Brown as anchorman Jim Dial cemented that impression. The series,