Hugh O’Brian had the ability to take dead aim — even at himself. I met TV’s Wyatt Earp eight years ago at one of those Hollywood autograph shows where TV celebrities from yesterday gather in a hotel in Los Angeles to sign autographs. Some of them are there to please their fans. Some just really
Nineteen Seventy-four was a pretty cool year to be 17. Bobby Hull was setting a record pace in goal scoring in the WHA. Girls wore bras that did up in the front. Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder were making the laugh-out-loud funniest movies of the past 5o years. Both “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” came out
Used to be famous people died in threes but nowadays the obits never stop. Here are three familiar faces who made you watch for years, even if you never knew their names. Jack Riley pretty much stole every scene he was in for six seasons on The Bob Newhart Show. The Cleveland native died last Friday
Poor Hector Elizondo. Now what is he going to do? I thought of Elizondo first when I heard the news last week that Marshall, who’d had a series of strokes very recently, had passed away. He was 81. Back in 2007, CBS held a TCA press tour party outdoors. I got talking to Elizondo at
You don’t expect to run into Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen at Disneyland but that’s exactly where I found them in 1985. That was 30 years ago, then 30 years after The Adventures of Superman wrapped. Noel Neill played scoop-happy reporter Lane opposite George Reeves as Superman/Clark Kent and Jack Larson as cub reporter Jimmy Olsen. She died earlier
If they were saluting TV players instead of film stars, Ann Morgan Guilbert would fit right in on that TCM segment “What a Character!” The Minnesota-native, who died earlier this week at 87, made a career stealing scenes–especially back on the series she is most remembered for, The Dick Van Dyke Show. It is worth
I only had one encounter with the great Gordie Howe and while it was indirect, it was a beaut. “Mr. Hockey” died Friday at 88. In June of ’93, Mike Norris, then the sportswriter at TV Guide Canada, invited me along to join him at the opening of the newly relocated Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
When people ask, as they occasionally do, who is the biggest star I ever met, I only ever have one answer: Muhammad Ali. “The Greatest” died Friday in Scottsdale Arizona. He was 74. Growing up as I did in the ’60s, there was no bigger hero than Ali. He was mesmerizing in the ring, floating and