It’s both an honor — and another indicator I’ve been doing this a long time — to find myself a go-to obit guy. This year, it seems, every day or two, another entertainer from my youth passes away. Bewitched‘s Dr. Bombay — Welsh actor Bernard Fox — was paged for good Wednesday at 89. That was a day
You never want to hear about anyone dying at 69, and I can’t imagine the heartache his 19-year-old son Carter experienced watching his dad being stricken right before his eyes. There is something so Canadian, however, about Alan Thicke meeting his end on a Burbank, Ca., hockey rink. Thirty years ago, Alan Thicke was one of the biggest stars
“Oh Rob! They’ve colorized The Dick Van Dyke Show!” Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET/PT, two newly-colorized episodes of the classic sitcom will premiere on CBS. Purists may pass, but if the process is anywhere near as good as the I Love Lucy episodes CBS has been presenting in December the past few years, fans
In 1985, TV critics held the first Television Critics Awards. Handing out engraved plaques — “hastily designed at Trophy World” recalled one of the first TCA presidents, Ed Bark — had been a contentious move for the group. Several scribes were wary of creating something that could grow into that ultimate horror — another televised awards show.
Ron Glass was often, to borrow a phrase used to describe Reggie Jackson when he was with the Yankees, the straw that stirred the drink on the classic ABC sitcom Barney Miller (1974 – 82). A gifted character actor, he passed away Saturday at the age of 71. Glass added a little edge to one of
Here’s a strange bit of TV trivia: Florence Henderson was born on Valentine’s Day and died on Thanksgiving Day. The actress packed a lot into the 82 years in between. Best known for her five-year run on The Brady Bunch, Henderson died Thursday in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack. She was 82. Her death was
It was no accident that Corner Gas co-stars Janet Wright and Eric Petersen had such good chemistry. The two knew each other since they were both 18. “She’s from Saskatoon, I went to school there,” Peterson told me a few years ago in Rouleau, Sask., on the set of “Corner Gas: The Movie.” “I knew
I spent a lovely afternoon five years ago with the great Dave Broadfoot. The comedian, who died Tuesday at 90, was the guy who came before; as in before SCTV, before The Kids in the Hall, before even the comedy troupe he was most often associated with, The Royal Canadian Air Farce. I met Broadfoot after