Fifty years ago this week, reality connected like a left hook. I was still in Grade school when the “Fight of the Century” took place, on March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was a one-of-a-kind battle between two undefeated champions — Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Boxing was huge 50
Twenty years ago, when I was still a fairly new recruit as The Toronto Sun’s TV columnist, I wrote about my childhood hero — Kiddo the Clown. The name will mean little to anyone reading this who is not in their sixties, but Kiddo, played by a man named Trevor Evans, was the biggest star
“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.” Fred Allen said it back in the 1950s. The great radio wit was already fed up with remakes. For every I Love Lucy there were already a dozen imitations. Now we are well into another re-booting revival. Just this week it was confirmed by the new streaming service
Christopher Plummer, the talented stage and screen star best known for playing opposite Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music,” died Friday at his home in Connecticut. The cause of death was a blow to the head as the result of a fall. He was 91. He’s the only Canadian so far to have won
It’s getting to the point where I don’t want to even open my phone in the morning in order to avoid seeing who passed away in the night. Talk about Groundhog Day. Every time Wiarton Willie sees his shadow eight more celebrities die. Yesterday came news that Dustin Diamond, who played Screech on Saved by
You type a lot of obits these days when you work the TV beat. This one hits home harder than most — Jim Bawden. It was Bawden’s TV column I read in the Toronto Star back when I was in high school and college. He covered the medium in print for 40 years (including an
I am a little obsessed with a show called The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. That was the reason why, one year ago following a Television Critics Association press tour session, I followed Cicely Tyson out into the hall. Way back in the late ’60s, the distinguished actress was a guest star on an early episode
In 2015, PBS aired a Pioneers of Television special saluting Mary Tyler Moore. Much of the special, of course, centred on Moore’s seminal sitcom of the early- to mid-’70s. The series was designed around Moore but the early seasons featured a trio of top TV performers: Moore as “make it on her own” career girl