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The Emmy Awards grew up on March 7, 1955. For the first time, the ceremony was broadcast nationally on NBC. Steve Allen, the star of “The Tonight Show,” was the host of the 7th annual awards honoring the best of 1954 programming which was telecast from the Moulin Rouge nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.

One of the seminal live dramas of the 1950’s, Reginald Rose’s searing “12 Angry Men,” which aired on CBS “Studio One,” earned the most Emmys that evening winning with three. The taut drama about a jury of a dozen men decided the fate of a young man accused of murder starred Robert Cummings, Franchot Tone, Edward Arnold and Walter Abel. For years, only an incomplete kinescope of the show, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated 1957 film, existed.

Finally, a complete copy of the show was discovered in 2003. Rose told me in a 1997 L.A. Times interview that he came up...

Jack Bannon, who portrayed the amiable assistant city editor Art Donovan on the acclaimed CBS drama Lou Grant, has died. He was 77.

Bannon died Wednesday in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, according to a report in The Spokesman-Review. He had lived in the town with his wife, actress Ellen Travolta — the older sister of John Travolta — since 1995.

Bannon's parents were actors. His mother, Bea Benaderet, received two Emmy nominations for her work on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, portrayed Kate Bradley on Petticoat Junction and Green Acres and was the voice of Betty Rubble...

Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...

Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...

(Cbr) TV Urban Legend: B.A. Baracus never actually said “I pity the fool” on The A-Team. "The A-Team" was a fascinating hit TV series in that it was absurd even for the era in which it aired (1983-1987). The cartoon violence on the program was evident when, in the first episode, a jeep carrying soldiers pursuing the team flips over spectacularly and crashes (it’s an impressive enough shot that it was used in the opening credits for pretty much the entire run). Voiceovers, of course, quickly assure viewers that both the driver and passenger were fine after the crash. That was "The A-Team" in a nutshell: spectacular violence but people almost never actually got hurt, despite the A-Team’s extensive use of explosives and automatic weapons. "The A-Team" was about a team of soldiers who were wrongly convicted of a crime they didn’t commit in the...

Remember when George Burns and Gracie Allen used to plug Carnation Evaporated Milk in live TV ads during their 1950s TV series The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show? Of course you don’t! But live ads using show cast members, in character and on set, did not used to be “news” — much less a scoop in the New York Times‘ business section. And, 60 years from now, when a future generation is watching on their glasses a live broadcast of some happy-zombie-family comedy starring some Hollywood It Couple, replete with product promotions by the happy zombies, they will think back to today’s Nyt report (“Commercials to Go Live With Show Cast Members”) about the airing of two whole live ads during the live season debuts of TV Land‘s Hot In Cleveland and The Soul Man, and think “How quaint.” The cast of Hot In Cleveland — Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves,...

Actor Richard Crenna, the Emmy Award-winning television actor who also made a name for himself in movies as Sylvester Stallone's commanding officer in the Rambo films, died Friday of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles; he was 76. Crenna started his career in radio and television, appearing on the Burns And Allen radio show and later in two popular TV series, Our Miss Brooks and The Real McCoys. Crenna began pursuing a film career in the mid-`60s, appearing in The Sand Pebbles, Marooned and Wait Until Dark. After toiling in B-movies throughout the `70s, he made a resurgence with 1981's Body Heat, playing the duped husband of Kathleen Turner, and appeared a year later as Col. Samuel Trautman in First Blood, playing mentor to Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo, returning for the two hugely successful Rambo sequels. He also appeared in 1984's The Flamingo Kid, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, and spoofed his Rambo character in 1993's Hot Shots! Part Deux. Crenna continued working in television through the 90s, most recently appearing in the drama Judging Amy opposite Tyne Daly. Crenna is survived by his wife, Penni, and three children. --Prepared by IMDb staff...