Roy Disney died Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 79. It was one day–and 43 years–after his famous uncle, Walt Disney, passed away in 1966.I was fortunate to meet Roy Disney, many years ago, at the Disneyland park in California. A friend was a publicist there at the time, Lorraine Santoli, and she knew I was a
Soupy Sales was–believe it or not–a bit before my time. Growing up in Toronto in the ’60s, I was all over local kiddie shows like Professor’s Hideaway, Schnitzel House, Uncle Bobby, Kiddo the Clown, Captain Kangaroo on CBS and especially Buffalo’s Commander Tom. I should have been watching Sales, too, who was huge in Cincinnati
Friday was the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Twilight Zone. It was never a big hit but ran for 156 episodes and stands as one of the smartest and creepiest TV anthologies ever. It certainly give me the willies as a lad. It was also a proving ground not just for promising on-screen
There’s something funny about the fact that Larry Gelbart died on Sept. 11. His best work spoke to all that was right and wrong about America, no punches pulled. Gelbart, who died Friday at 81 after a brief battle with cancer, was part of that golden circle of writers who worked on Sid Caesar’s TV
My friend Gene Trindl, who passed away four years ago this month at 80, shot more covers for TV Guide than any other photographer–over 200 covers. Gene worked with them all, and as he told me back when we were collaborating on a collection of his celebrity photographs, had a couple of memorable encounters with
This poster was everywhere in the late ’70s when I was a student at the University of Toronto. At St. Mike’s college, it probably was in more dorm rooms than crucifixes. Farrah Fawcett was an icon, and her passing today at 62, following a day or two after the death of Ed McMahon, is another
In October of 2006, I headed out to the Music Hall in Toronto to see Tonight Show legend Ed McMahon. I had interviewed the veteran sidekick on the phone a few days earlier for the Toronto Sun (read that story here). He sounded excited to be coming to a place called the “Music Hall,” and
Two thousand and eight was a tough year for TV critics. Many were re-assigned or lost their jobs altogether, caught in the squeeze of higher newsprint costs, lower advertising revenues and the apparent generational shift away from daily newspapers. Roger Ebert suggested in an article a month ago that film critics–also dropping like, well, canaries–were