June Walker Rogers, a singer, dancer and comedian who performed on Broadway and television and wrote several musicals and a book about how to survive in show business, has died. She was 97.
She died July 8 at her home in Westport, Connecticut, her family announced.
Born in Steubenville, Ohio, and raised in Queens, June L. Walker started dancing at age 5 and soon had a nightclub act, appearing on bills with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Prima, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield and, when he was known as the singer “Calypso Gene,” Louis Farrakhan.
After being placed in an accelerated pilot program for gifted children in the New York school system, she graduated from high school at 15. She accepted a scholarship to Columbia University but left college to make her Broadway debut in 1944 in the comedy revue Laffing Room Only, starring Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson.
The platinum blond returned...
She died July 8 at her home in Westport, Connecticut, her family announced.
Born in Steubenville, Ohio, and raised in Queens, June L. Walker started dancing at age 5 and soon had a nightclub act, appearing on bills with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Prima, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield and, when he was known as the singer “Calypso Gene,” Louis Farrakhan.
After being placed in an accelerated pilot program for gifted children in the New York school system, she graduated from high school at 15. She accepted a scholarship to Columbia University but left college to make her Broadway debut in 1944 in the comedy revue Laffing Room Only, starring Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson.
The platinum blond returned...
- 8/3/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Bill Hayes, the actor and singer who with his real-life wife, Susan Seaforth Hayes, starred on NBC’s Days of Our Lives as the beloved first couple of daytime television, died Friday in Los Angeles, a rep from the show told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 98.
Before he was known as a soap opera legend, Hayes was a regular on Sid Caesar‘s famed live TV variety program Your Show of Shows, and in 1955 he had the No. 1 song in America, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”
He also partnered in a nightclub act with future Brady Bunch star Florence Henderson; they were known as “The Singing Sweethearts” and sang about Oldsmobiles on TV commercials, many of them performed live.
Hayes joined Days of Our Lives to play con artist/lounge singer Doug Williams in February 1970. Seaforth Hayes, who portrayed the spoiled heiress Julie Olsen Banning Anderson Williams, had joined the show 15 months earlier.
Before he was known as a soap opera legend, Hayes was a regular on Sid Caesar‘s famed live TV variety program Your Show of Shows, and in 1955 he had the No. 1 song in America, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”
He also partnered in a nightclub act with future Brady Bunch star Florence Henderson; they were known as “The Singing Sweethearts” and sang about Oldsmobiles on TV commercials, many of them performed live.
Hayes joined Days of Our Lives to play con artist/lounge singer Doug Williams in February 1970. Seaforth Hayes, who portrayed the spoiled heiress Julie Olsen Banning Anderson Williams, had joined the show 15 months earlier.
- 1/13/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mark Harrison May 19, 2017
From the currently playing Their Finest to the likes of Bowfinger and Boogie Nights, we salute the movies about making movies...
If you haven't caught up yet, Their Finest is currently playing in UK cinemas and it's a gorgeous little love letter to perseverance through storytelling, set against the backdrop of a film production office at the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Based on Lissa Evans' novel, Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy play characters whose access to the film industry has been contingent on the global crisis that takes other young men away from such trifling matters, and it's a real joy to watch.
Among other things, the film got us thinking about other films about making films. We're not talking about documentaries, even though Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, may be the greatest film about...
From the currently playing Their Finest to the likes of Bowfinger and Boogie Nights, we salute the movies about making movies...
If you haven't caught up yet, Their Finest is currently playing in UK cinemas and it's a gorgeous little love letter to perseverance through storytelling, set against the backdrop of a film production office at the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Based on Lissa Evans' novel, Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy play characters whose access to the film industry has been contingent on the global crisis that takes other young men away from such trifling matters, and it's a real joy to watch.
Among other things, the film got us thinking about other films about making films. We're not talking about documentaries, even though Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, may be the greatest film about...
- 5/3/2017
- Den of Geek
First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings and first Best Actress Oscar winner Janet Gaynor on TCM (photo: Emil Jannings in 'The Last Command') First Best Actor Academy Award winner Emil Jannings in The Last Command, first Best Actress Academy Award winner Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, and sisters Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge are a few of the silent era performers featured this evening on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its Silent Monday presentations. Starting at 5 p.m. Pt / 8 p.m. Et on November 17, 2014, get ready to check out several of the biggest movie stars of the 1920s. Following the Jean Negulesco-directed 1943 musical short Hit Parade of the Gay Nineties -- believe me, even the most rabid anti-gay bigot will be able to enjoy this one -- TCM will be showing Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928) one of the two movies that earned...
- 11/18/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
WWE.com
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wasn’t just given the moniker “The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment” because it sounded cool. Whether in the ring or on the mic, he lived up the name every time he was in front of a crowd. The Rock has treated us fans to some of the most memorable moments professional wrestling has ever seen.
His legendary rivalry with Steve Austin, the Rock n’ Sock Connection which gave us “This is your life, Rock”, his run as the Corporate Champion and virtually everything he was ever a part of was entertaining.
The third generation star clearly had the business in his blood. He’s one of the three biggest stars the industry has ever seen, alongside Austin and Hulk Hogan, and he’s used the tools that made him such a gifted performer in the squared circle to carve out a successful place among Hollywood’s elite,...
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wasn’t just given the moniker “The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment” because it sounded cool. Whether in the ring or on the mic, he lived up the name every time he was in front of a crowd. The Rock has treated us fans to some of the most memorable moments professional wrestling has ever seen.
His legendary rivalry with Steve Austin, the Rock n’ Sock Connection which gave us “This is your life, Rock”, his run as the Corporate Champion and virtually everything he was ever a part of was entertaining.
The third generation star clearly had the business in his blood. He’s one of the three biggest stars the industry has ever seen, alongside Austin and Hulk Hogan, and he’s used the tools that made him such a gifted performer in the squared circle to carve out a successful place among Hollywood’s elite,...
- 7/3/2014
- by Brad Hamilton
- Obsessed with Film
Heavyweight boxer, James Bond stuntman and bodyguard to Hollywood stars
The abiding memory that millions around the world will have of Nosher Powell, who has died aged 84, is of him fighting in vain to save his aeroplane after it had been attacked by a seagull in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965). Gert Fröbe may have been the German officer in charge of the plane but it was Powell who, as the stuntman and double, ended up in the water.
Powell's first appearance as a stuntman was in Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944). He also had small roles in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948) and Cosh Boy (1953), with Joan Collins. In 1952 he was a boxer in Emergency Call, in which he fought the former world champion Freddie Mills. Powell had a decent if not outstanding boxing career himself, reaching No 3 in the British heavyweight rankings.
George Frederick Bernard Powell was born in Camberwell,...
The abiding memory that millions around the world will have of Nosher Powell, who has died aged 84, is of him fighting in vain to save his aeroplane after it had been attacked by a seagull in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965). Gert Fröbe may have been the German officer in charge of the plane but it was Powell who, as the stuntman and double, ended up in the water.
Powell's first appearance as a stuntman was in Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944). He also had small roles in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948) and Cosh Boy (1953), with Joan Collins. In 1952 he was a boxer in Emergency Call, in which he fought the former world champion Freddie Mills. Powell had a decent if not outstanding boxing career himself, reaching No 3 in the British heavyweight rankings.
George Frederick Bernard Powell was born in Camberwell,...
- 4/26/2013
- by James Morton
- The Guardian - Film News
Cinema Circus is clearly a product of the great, yet under-reported MGM peyote-poisoning of 1937—how else to explain its baffling, surreal, Technicolor, grotesque yet undeniable existence? It is a chilling documentary record of some things that were performed in front of a camera, once upon a time.
A man in a gruesome Joe E. Brown mask is helped from his leering false-face, revealing another leering false face, that of Lee Tracy, who attempts to justify what we are about to see as the realisation of a long-cherished dream, although the exorcism of a recurring nightmare would be at least as plausible.
Big top performers will trot out their tricks in brief visual bits, watched by earnestly faking-it movie "stars," few now recalled in the contemporary pantheon: Olsen & Johnson, the Ritz Brothers, Leo Carillo...
Meanwhile, more hideous outsized masks are sported, embodying movie stars too authentically famous to be roped into...
A man in a gruesome Joe E. Brown mask is helped from his leering false-face, revealing another leering false face, that of Lee Tracy, who attempts to justify what we are about to see as the realisation of a long-cherished dream, although the exorcism of a recurring nightmare would be at least as plausible.
Big top performers will trot out their tricks in brief visual bits, watched by earnestly faking-it movie "stars," few now recalled in the contemporary pantheon: Olsen & Johnson, the Ritz Brothers, Leo Carillo...
Meanwhile, more hideous outsized masks are sported, embodying movie stars too authentically famous to be roped into...
- 4/19/2012
- MUBI
The annual pop culture extravaganza returns when WWE WrestleMania Xxvii explodes onto triple-dvd and triple-disc Blu ray from 4th July 2011. Obsessed With Film have teamed up with Silvervision to give three copies away of the grand-daddy of them all to our Owf readers.
From Snoop Dogg to the Jersey Shore’s Snooki, Keri Hilson to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, WWE WrestleMania Xxvii brings together the biggest names from the world of music, television and Hollywood for the can’t-miss Sports Entertainment event of the year. Hosted by The Great One, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, this promises to be the most electrifying WrestleMania in history.
In his first match since returning from injury, “The King of Kings” Triple H sets out to do what no man has ever accomplished – defeat the Undertaker on “The Grandest Stage of Them All”. This epic confrontation between two of Sports Entertainment’s biggest icons is...
From Snoop Dogg to the Jersey Shore’s Snooki, Keri Hilson to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, WWE WrestleMania Xxvii brings together the biggest names from the world of music, television and Hollywood for the can’t-miss Sports Entertainment event of the year. Hosted by The Great One, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, this promises to be the most electrifying WrestleMania in history.
In his first match since returning from injury, “The King of Kings” Triple H sets out to do what no man has ever accomplished – defeat the Undertaker on “The Grandest Stage of Them All”. This epic confrontation between two of Sports Entertainment’s biggest icons is...
- 6/23/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
I was saddened to learn this morning that Betty Garrett, the great star of stage, screen, and TV, passed away yesterday at the age of 94 after suffering an aortic aneurysm.
Garrett was one of those rare people — like, say, Jack Valenti — who happened to be a witness to and/or participant in a remarkably high number of historic events of the 20th century. She was a member of Orson Welles’s famed Mercury Theatre company, and was with him on the night that he shook up America with his infamous radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” (1938); she was Frank Sinatra’s leading lady in two of the earliest great M-g-m musical-comedies, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (1949) and “On the Town” (1949); her career was greatly hurt by the Hollywood Red Scare after her husband, the Oscar nominated actor Larry Parks, refused to name names before the House Committee...
Garrett was one of those rare people — like, say, Jack Valenti — who happened to be a witness to and/or participant in a remarkably high number of historic events of the 20th century. She was a member of Orson Welles’s famed Mercury Theatre company, and was with him on the night that he shook up America with his infamous radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” (1938); she was Frank Sinatra’s leading lady in two of the earliest great M-g-m musical-comedies, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (1949) and “On the Town” (1949); her career was greatly hurt by the Hollywood Red Scare after her husband, the Oscar nominated actor Larry Parks, refused to name names before the House Committee...
- 2/13/2011
- by Scott Feinberg
- Scott Feinberg
Bob May, best known as The Robot on the 1960s television series Lost in Space, has died. He was 69.
May passed away Sunday of congestive heart failure at a Lancaster, Calif., hospital, his daughter, Deborah May, said.
A veteran actor and stuntman, May was the grandson of vaudeville comedian Chic Johnson, who recruited a 2-year-old May to appear in his comedy revue Hellzapoppin.
After following in his grandfather's vaudeville footsteps, May eventually broke out in numerous television series, including ...
Read More >...
May passed away Sunday of congestive heart failure at a Lancaster, Calif., hospital, his daughter, Deborah May, said.
A veteran actor and stuntman, May was the grandson of vaudeville comedian Chic Johnson, who recruited a 2-year-old May to appear in his comedy revue Hellzapoppin.
After following in his grandfather's vaudeville footsteps, May eventually broke out in numerous television series, including ...
Read More >...
- 1/19/2009
- by Joyce Eng
- TVGuide - Breaking News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.