jim henson

(A brief preamble: I was already thinking of our friend Gilligan and his blog, Retrospace, as I started preparations for this post, and that was before Gil was kind enough to bestow a Great Read Award upon ILTS this past Wednesday. The award's emblem of honor is posted towards the bottom of the lovely brown sidebar, big blushing thanks are extended to Mr. G, and this post is dedicated to him.)

This two-page article ran in the July, 1966 issue of TV Radio Mirror.

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- Click here to view a super-sized image of page 1 in a new window.

- Click here to view a super-sized image of page 2 in a new window.

Actress Tina Louise and Radio & TV Talk Show Host Les Crane were married in Beverly Hills on Sunday, April 3rd, 1966.

In the early 1960s, Les Crane had hosted a late-night radio talk show in San Francisco, where he often stirred up controversy with his
left-wing liberal views and confrontational interview style.
In 1963, Crane took his show to New York City and to late-night television.

His big west coast movie career mentioned in the magazine article didn't go much beyond his supporting role in the film adaptation of Norman Mailer's
An American Dream.

By 1966, via her role as 'the movie star' on TV's Gilligan's Island,
Tina Louise had rocketed to a level of fame she'd not reached after fifteen years as a pin-up model, nightclub singer, and film & stage actress, though she was discomforted by the notion of being type-cast by her 'Ginger' portrayal.

When the sitcom was cancelled in 1967, she was quick in her attempts to distance herself from the role.

In the photo below, ▼ the newlyweds pose with Tina's co-star castaways...

...Though significant in his absence from the photo is 'The Professor', Russell Johnson.

What bit of behind-the-scenes intrigue can we infer from his not being present? Does it lend anything to the various sordid debates about the characters and cast of Gilligan's Island?

I prefer to believe that perhaps Russell Johnson was behind the camera, snapping the photograph with a camera he'd built out of a coconut shell and some beach glass.

At the time of the wedding, (Les Crane's third - - or perhaps fourth - - marriage) the tail end of the second season of Gilligan's Island was airing on Thursday nights, and presumably the cast was busy with production for the sitcom's third season episodes.

CBS then moved the show to Monday evenings, and cancelled the the series at the end of the third season.

Tina Louise had several TV and film appearances after 'getting off the island', often seeking out 'grittier' or more serious roles.

Les Crane returned to talk radio in Los Angeles in 1968.



Perhaps Crane's most often-noted achievement was his Grammy award-winning 1971 spoken-word recording of the prose poem (and popular
dorm-room poster) 'Desiderata'.

- Follow the link to
Richie Unterberger's liner notes to a re-release of the Les Crane LP that included his 'one-hit wonder' Top-10 single.

Tina Louise and Les Crane were divorced in 1974, the same year their daughter, Caprice Crane was born.
Not bad for a Hollywood marriage of that era.

Tina Louise never appeared in any of the Gilligan's Island TV movie reunions, though she's taken part in a few 'cast reunion' talk show appearances.

In the 1980's, Les Crane had great success after moving into the software industry, founding a company that made inter-active games and typing tutorials for PCs. He died in 2008, at age 74.

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I've added just a few more old girlie mag cover scans to a big batch that I posted at Flickr almost a year ago...

- Please follow this link to my flickr set:
A 'Cover Gallery' of 1950s and '60s
Men's Magazines!
(50 images)

These late 1950s cover images allow the predominantly late '60s set to skew just a little earlier.

It's fun to see the relatively subtle (and tasteful) designs and color palette in the earlier covers give way to the kooky kraziness of the
High Sixties...

...Enjoy!


































































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Follow this link to my flickr set:
A 'Cover Gallery' of 1950s and '60s Men's Magazines!
(50 images)

When this photo feature appeared in the March, 1954 issue of Pageant Magazine, Danish comedian / pianist Victor Borge was a just a few months in to his 2½-year run of 849 performances on Broadway with his one-man show, Comedy In Music.

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In 'Smörgås Borge', photographer Martin Iger captured Mr. Borge's visual reactions to various queries.

Seems like Mr. Iger may have drawn some influence from Philippe Halsman's 'The Frenchman', a 1949 book using a similar concept for portraits of French film star Fernandel.

(Follow link to the previously posted 'Two Special Faces Photographed: Fernandel reacts for Philippe Halsman, Anna Russell on Positive Stinking')





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There is a wealth of Borge material available online, including plenty of video clips from various appearances throughout his long career.

- Follow link to a favorite, in which Borge discusses composing.

- Go to the Wikipedia entry for assorted links and tribute sites.

- Be sure to visit The Victor Borge Collection at Internet Archive. They've gathered over two dozen fine audio recordings to enjoy, including excerpts from Comedy In Music, and his famous routines 'Inflationary Language' and 'Phonetic Punctuation'.

- For further related facial studies on this blog, follow links to:
The previously mentioned Fernandel and Anna Russell post, and
'Zero Mostel's Face, Zero Mostel's Life'

Another early 1970s photo-feature (below) from the pages of the Brit movie magazine Film And Filming, this time from the March, 1971 issue.

The film is 'Percy', a racy & ribald comedy fairly typical of the era, starring Hywel Bennett as the recipient of the
first-ever penis transplant.

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Co-starring Denholm Elliott, Elke Sommer and Britt Ekland, 'Percy' was for many years a notable curiosity, known primarily for its soundtrack by The Kinks, their final album recorded for the Pye record label.













As of this writing, you can hear a few of those Kinks soundtrack selections at YouTube;
-God's Children
-The Way Love Used To Be
-Animals In The Zoo
(You may also be able to find the rest of the album here.)

Both the soundtrack and the film itself were out-of-print rarities for many years, and so became much sought-after, each in their own way - - though in the case of the film itself, the general consensus has been that maybe it's best to remain curious, rather than actually viewing the thing...

- Follow links to read essays about the film at The Auteurs and at Mondo Digital.

- Photos of the film's cast can be seen at The Actors Compendium .

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Regardless of any of Percy's shortcomings, it didn't deter the filmmakers from coming back with a sequel, 'Percy's Progress' (a.k.a. 'It's Not the Size That Counts'), in 1974.

Hywel Bennett bowed out the second time around, but Elke Sommer and Denholm Elliott were back to reprise their roles, joined by no less than Vincent Price and Barry 'Dame Edna' Humphries.

The magazine articles below spotlighted a pair of British films that have largely remained underappreciated in the many years since their release.

The two-part gritty Rock & Roll fable helped to propel actor / singer David Essex to super-stardom in the U.K.

Released in 1973 and set in the late 1950s and early '60s (and featuring plenty of great period music), 'That'll Be The Day' tells the story of young
Jim McClain, who yearns for a glamorous life beyond the dead-end existence in which he lives.

The movie co-starred Ringo Starr (looking just right in Teddy Boy finery) as Jim's friend, Mike.
Also featured in the cast were 'genuine' musicians, singer Billy Fury and The Who's Keith Moon.

David Essex had his breakout success as a stage performer in 1971, when he starred in the London cast production of 'Godspell'.

During production of 'That'll Be The Day', Essex wrote his song 'Rock On', envisioning it for use in the film's soundtrack. After the song was rejected for the movie, he recorded and released a version that became a huge chart hit.
'Rock On' subsequently was added to the end credits of the American release of 'That'll Be The Day'.

The magazine piece below ▼ appeared in the May, 1973 issue of Films and Filming.
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In the 1974 sequel, 'Stardust', McClain's
Rock & Roll dreams are realized in the late 1960s and early '70s, but the accompanying hazards of fame and excess cause his life to implode.

Ringo Starr opted out of the second film, the role of Mike (now McClain's manager) taken over by British pop star Adam Faith.

Keith Moon returned to reprise his role, and performed on the soundtrack as a member of
The Stray Cats, McClain's band in the film.
Also appearing and performing in the band was Dave Edmunds, who'd had his earliest solo hits a couple of years prior, following his departure from Love Sculpture.
Edmunds' efforts in the film and on the soundtrack helped lead him further into his career as a record producer.
In a curious coincidence, Edmunds would go on to produce the first singles and albums by the 'other' Stray Cats, Brian Setzer's rockabilly revival group, in the early '80s.

Edmunds also spins some good stories about the perils of 'being taken under Keith Moon's wing' during production.

Read an interview;
'Dave Edmunds on Keith Moon' at Tony Fletcher's iJamming!

The magazine piece below ▼ appeared in the October, 1974 issue of Films and Filming.

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Actress Blythe Danner had been performing on stage for about five years when the magazine article below appeared in the March, 1970 issue of Show magazine. She was just turning 27.
At the time she was receiving much acclaim for her Broadway debut in 'Butterflies Are Free', which had premiered the previous Fall.

She was still a newlywed, having married producer/director Bruce Paltrow on December 14, 1969 (see photo below), before he'd made the transition from theater to TV and film.

Soon after this article ran, Danner won a Tony Award for 'Butterflies Are Free', on April 19th, 1970.
The show finally closed on July 2nd, 1972, after 1128 performances.

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Yes, magazines are curious things, and so were the 1970s.
Ms. Danner's rationale for avoiding nude scenes stands on the same page as a photo of her standing in her underwear.

Her 'upcoming film debut' mentioned in the article - - an adaptation of Walker Percy's 'The Moviegoer' - - never happened. The production fell through, and the film was never made.

During that time she had a few appearances in some
made-for-TV productions, and then made her film debut in 1972 in a dramatic thriller, 'To Kill a Clown', in which Alan Alda played a crazed Vietnam vet.

Having seen Blythe Danner on TV and in many films over the years, it's hard not to enjoy watching her.
She shines in meaty roles in high-quality productions, and she typically transcends the material she's given in the lesser ones.

Her prolific career has remained fairly well divided between stage, film and television over the years, though these days it seems like she's best known for being Gwyneth Paltrow's Mom.

Her husband, Bruce Paltrow, passed away in 2002.

- See also:
Blythe Danner listed at IMDb

When the article below ran in the May, 1948 issue of Radio and TV Mirror magazine, actor Howard Duff (1913 - 1990) had been portraying detective Sam Spade in a weekly radio series for a couple of years.

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His popularity in that role would propel him further into a long career in films and TV in the 1950s and beyond.



Click here to enlarge page one of this article and read the text.

Follow links to continue reading the article in a new window:
- Part 2
- Part 3

'The Adventures of Sam Spade' premiered on radio in june of 1946, airing on Friday nights on the ABC network.

The hard-boiled detective's creator, mystery author Dashiell Hammett was marginally involved in the radio production, at least at the beginning.

With the relatively unknown Duff in the lead role, the series quickly caught on, and soon moved to a more prominent spot on Sunday evenings, now airing on CBS. It shifted networks again in 1949, moving over to NBC.

In 1950, both Howard Duff and Dashiell Hammett found their names appearing in 'Red Channels', the Hollywood Blacklisting-era pamphlet that listed entertainment industry professionals with supposed Communist ties.

Howard Duff was soon able to clear his name, but not before the Sam Spade show was brought to a sudden demise. The series would be revived for a final season, but without Howard Duff, and minus Dashiel Hammett's name.
This left Duff free to pursue more movie work, which led to several kick-ass film noir roles in the '50s, among other performances.

Following his "tempestuous" late 1940s relationship with actress Ava Gardner (between her marriages to Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra, and somewhere amidst her relationship with Howard Hughes) Duff married actress/filmmaker Ida Lupino in 1951.


Episodes of 'The Adventures of Sam Spade' featuring Howard Duff can be heard online at a couple of 'Old Time Radio' locations:

-The Internet Archive has a couple of good stashes of episodes.

- The OTR.Network has a nice selection too, using Real Player and featuring sound quality that is perhaps a bit more consistent.

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These illustrations appeared in the October, 1949 issue of Liberty magazine, accompanying that month's featured 'condensed book'.

Most of artist
Tom Sinnickson's cartoony panels are lighthearted and playful (and delightfully incongruous when divorced from the main text), but the 'cover' and a couple of others effectively carry a darker feeling.








In the 1950s, Sinnickson illustrations turned up in many popular children's books, including some picture-book editions of various Wizard Of Oz stories for younger readers , 'A Child's Book of Planes', 'The Five Jolly Brothers', and several adaptations of older Raggedy Ann stories, all published by
Wonder Books.

Any other info you can share about Tom Sinnickson and his artwork is most welcome.
Please leave a comment or drop an e-mail.

'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living' was first published in
1948, written by American lecturer and pioneering
'self-help' author
Dale Carnegie. ▶

It was a
follow-up to his immensely popular book, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', first published in 1936.

Those curious can read Carnegie's own summary to this book by following this link,
or one may click over to Google Books for
a preview of the current revised edition.

Cartoonist
Charles Addams was 20 years old in 1932, when his work first appeared in the pages of
The New Yorker.

His macabre cartoons were still running there on a regular basis when this article appeared in the September 13th, 1976 issue of People Magazine, and did so up until his death in 1988 - - and beyond.

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Consider this article a companion to the previously-posted 'Charles Addams: Master of the Macabre', an earlier magazine 'profile' from 1953 that appeared her almost a year ago.

Follow link to that piece for further background links, photos and more info about the three wives of Charles Addams.

See also:
Several great vintage Addams cartoons are on display over at Hairy Green Eyeball.


















































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