MARY TYLER MOORE ~ December 29, 1936, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Personal Quotes
Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you're really strangers.
There is a dark side. I tend not to be as optimistic as Mary Richards. I have an anger in me that I carry from my childhood experiences -- I expect a lot of myself and I'm not too kind to myself.
Diabetes is an all-too-personal time bomb which can go off today, tomorrow, next year, or 10 years from now - a time bomb affecting millions like me and the children here today.
I'm not an actress who can create a character. I play me.
Diets are for those who are thick and tired of it.

Eartha Kitt Dies ~ at 81 "Singer, Actress"

By POLLY ANDERSON,
AP
NEW YORK (Dec. 25) - Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.
Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday of colon cancer.

Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.
Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.
Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans less than half her age even as she neared 80.
When her book "Rejuvenate," a guide to staying physically fit, was published in 2001, Kitt was featured on the cover in a long, curve-hugging black dress with a figure that some 20-year-old women would envy. Kitt also wrote three autobiographies.
Once dubbed the "most exciting woman in the world" by Orson Welles, she spent much of her life single, though brief romances with the rich and famous peppered her younger years.
After becoming a hit singing "Montonous" in the Broadway revue "New Faces of 1952," Kitt appeared in "Mrs. Patterson" in 1954-55. (Some references say she earned a Tony nomination for "Mrs. Patterson," but only winners were publicly announced at that time.) She also made appearances in "Shinbone Alley" and "The Owl and the Pussycat."

Her first album, "RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt," came out in 1954, featuring such songs as "I Want to Be Evil," "C'est Si Bon" and the saucy gold digger's theme song "Santa Baby," which is revived on radio each Christmas.
The next year, the record company released follow-up album "That Bad Eartha," which featured "Let's Do It," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."
In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy in the category of traditional pop vocal performance for her album "Back in Business." She also had been nominated in the children's recording category for the 1969 record "Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa."
Kitt also acted in movies, playing the lead female role opposite Nat King Cole in "St. Louis Blues" in 1958 and more recently appearing in "Boomerang" and "Harriet the Spy" in the 1990s.
On television, she was the sexy Catwoman on the popular "Batman" series in 1967-68, replacing Julie Newmar who originated the role. A guest appearance on an episode of "I Spy" brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in 1966.
"Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland," she said in a 1996 Associated Press interview. "It depends so much on gadgetry and flash now. You don't have to have talent to be in the business today.
"I think we had to have something to offer, if you wanted to be recognized as worth paying for."

December 21, 1937, New York City, New York, USA

Attended Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Is the subject of an erroneous urban legend. When Vassar was a women's college, the story goes, Jane Fonda refused to wear the elegant white gloves and pearls that were the attire for the daily Tea in the Rose Parlor. When confronted, Fonda returned to the parlor wearing the gloves and the pearls, and nothing else.

Arrested and charged with drug smuggling (November 1970).
Her birth was the cause of some interruptions during her father's filming of Jezebel (1938) with Bette Davis.

She was, and still is, an exercise maven.
Mother of Troy Garity

Fonda was arrested in 1970 after allegedly kicking a cop when she was found carrying a large amount of what appeared to be pills. All charges were dropped after the pills were identified as vitamins.

Born on the same day Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) premiered.

Her father was of Italian and Dutch descent and her mother was of Irish and German descent.

Is fluent in French.
Passed on the title role in Norma Rae (1979), which won a Best Actress Oscar for its eventual star Sally Field.

She and her father Henry Fonda are the only father-daughter couple to receive Oscars for

leading roles.

A 1972 visit to Hanoi during the Vietnam war where Fonda campaigned in favor of the communist regime and the subsequent release of several photographs of her atop a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun used against American air crews earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane." As a result of her visit to Hanoi and the accompanying photographs, many Americans continue to regard Fonda with general resentment and hostility to this day.

Was offered the role of Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist (1973).

Jane now openly admits that she suffered from bulimia from age 13 to age 37. While modeling, she said she lived on cigarettes, coffee, speed, and strawberry yogurt.

Shortly after her divorce from Ted Turner, she announced she had become a born-again Christian. Speculations are that this may have played a part in their seperation, since Ted Turner has expressed highly critical opinions on religion in general.

The suicide of her socialite mother Frances Seymour Brokaw was kept from her as a teenager, and she was told that she'd died of heart failure. Household newspaper and magazine subscriptions were canceled, and the staff and student body of Fonda's high school were instructed not to discuss the incident. Fonda learned the truth months later while leafing through a movie magazine in art class.

Protested alongside fellow actresses Sally Field & Christine Lahti, and playwright Eve Ensler urging the Mexican government to re-investigate the slayings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, on the Mexico-Texas border. (February 2004)

Was nominated for Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic) for "There Was a Little Girl."

Turned down the role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).
Producer Robert Evans wanted Fonda play female lead in Chinatown (1974).
Was born double-jointed.

Turned down the role of Bonnie Parker, then played by Faye Dunaway, in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Living in France at the time, she did not want to relocate to the U.S. for the part.
In 1984, her wealth, generated from acting, producing, and fitness videos was estimated at $50 million.

Announced that she became a Christian (2001).

Her aerobics video "Jane Fonda's Workout" sold 17 million copies, making it the best-selling home video ever and her an icon of this form of exercises (1982).

Considers They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) as a turning point in her career.

Danced ballet until she broke her foot in her 40s.

Personal Quotes
Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution.
I was terrified when I turned 30. I was pregnant and had the mumps and Faye Dunaway was just coming out in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). I thought, 'Oh my God, I'll never work again. I'm old!'
"Acting with [Laurence] Harvey is like acting by yourself - only worse." - Jane Fonda on her 1962 film Walk on the Wild Side
"It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanised such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless." [expressing regret at her support for the Viet Cong]
I, a Socialist, think we should strive toward a Socialist society, all the way to Communism.
"If you understood what Communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that one day we would become Communist." (speaking to students at the University of Michigan in 1970)
People think actresses find public speaking easy, and it's not easy at all; we're used to hiding behind masks.
[accepting her father's Oscar for On Golden Pond]: "I'll bet when he heard it just now he said 'Hey ain't I lucky?' As if luck had anything to do with it."
The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter ... sitting on an enemy aircraft gun (in North Vietnam) was a betrayal...The largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine.
I would have given up acting in a minute. I didn't like how it set me apart from other people.
When I start down a path that I know is the right path, I go with all of me.
I'm a very brave person. I can go to North Vietnam, I can challenge my government, but I can't challenge the man I'm with if means I'm going to end up alone.
It's hard to imagine a happy ending to the US-led war in Iraq. What's it going to mean for stability as a nation, for terrorism, for the economy I can't imagine. I think the entire world is going to be united against us.
Ted [Turner] needs someone to be there 100 percent of the time. He thinks that's love. It's not love. It's babysitting.
I wanted to do a tour like I did during the Vietnam War, a tour of the country. But then Cindy Sheehan filled in the gap, and she is better at this than I am. I carry too much baggage.
When I left the West Coast I was a liberal. When I landed in New York I was a revolutionary.

PATTY DUKE ~ Born on December 14, 1946 in Elmhurst, New York

Born on December 14, 1946 in Elmhurst, New York, as Anna Marie Duke. Her acting career began when she was introduced to her brother Ray Duke's managers, John and Ethel Ross. Soon after, Anna Marie became Patty, the actress. Patty started off in commercials, a few movies and some bit parts. Her first big, memorable role came when she was chosen to portray the blind and deaf Helen Keller in the Broadway version of "The Miracle Worker". The play lasted almost two years, from October 19, 1959 - July 1, 1961 (Patty left on May, 1961). In 1962, The Miracle Worker (1962) became a movie and Patty won an Academy Award for best supporting actress. She was 16 years old, making her the youngest person ever to win an Oscar. She then starred in her own sitcom titled "The Patty Duke Show" (1963). It lasted for three seasons and Patty was nominated for an Emmy. In 1965 she starred in the movie Billie (1965). It was a success and was the first movie ever sold to a television network. That same year she married director Harry Falk. Their marriage lasted four years. She then starred in Valley of the Dolls (1967), which was a financial but not a critical success. In 1969 she secured a part in an independent film called Me, Natalie (1969). The film was a box-office flop but she won her second Golden Globe Award for her performance in it. In 1976 she won her second Emmy award for the highly successful mini-series "Captains and the Kings" (1976). Other successful TV films followed. She received two Emmy nominations in 1978 for A Family Upside Down (1978) (TV) and Having Babies III (1978) (TV). She then won her third Emmy in the 1979 TV movie version of The Miracle Worker (1979) (TV), this time portraying Annie Sullivan. In 1982 she was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness. In 1984 she became President of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). In 1986, she married Michael Pierce, a drill sergeant whom she met while preparing for a role in the TV movie A Time to Triumph (1986) (TV). In 1987 she wrote her autobiography "Call Me Anna". In 1989 she and Mike adopted a baby, who they named Kevin. Her autobiography became a TV movie in 1990, with Patty playing herself from her 30s onward. In 1992 she wrote her second book, "A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depression Illness". Anna Marie Duke has had a long and successful career, winning three Emmys. She is a mother, a political advocate for issues such as the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), AIDS and nuclear disarmament, all despite having Manic-Depression. She has proven her strength as an actress and as a person.

She was the youngest actress at the time (12) to have her name above the marquee title on Broadway ("The Miracle Worker") and the youngest ever (16) to have a TV series bearing her name ("The Patty Duke Show" (1963)).

I subscribe to the theory that says you're a product of all your experiences. And I am finally, most of the time, happy with the product. I now think it is OK to be Patty Duke.

DIONNE WARWICK December 12, 1940, East Orange, New Jersey

Personal Quotes
My self-imposed mandate is to be the voice for the voiceless.
My songs are like my children. I love every single one of them.

FRANK SINATRA December 12, 1915, Hoboken, New Jersey, ~ 14 May 1998, Los Angeles, California

Growing up on the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, made Frank Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four then with Harry James, then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers - the young women and girls who were his fans - becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, striking box-office gold early on with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945), a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film against intolerance, The House I Live In (1946). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength-to-strength on record, on stage and on screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato. Record sales dwindled in the early 1950s and although Sinatra continued to act, now, appearing in more dramatic fare such as Meet Danny Wilson (1951), a vocal cord haemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, winning the coveted role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a deranged assassin in Suddenly (1954) and arguably a career best performance and Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in the powerful drama The Man With the Golden Arm (1955). Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, he was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the 1960s Sinatra became mildly prolific as a producer bringing such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1963) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) to the big screen. Lighter roles along side Rat Pack buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's 11 (1960), however, Sinatra alternated such projects with more stern offerings, namely The Manchurian Candidate, arguably Sinatra's finest picture, and his directorial debut, None But the Brave, which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), one again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and in Germany. That same year he starred as private investigator Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968) a film daring for its time and a major box office success. After appearing in the comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) Sinatra refrained from acting for a further seven years until producing the made-for-TV movie Contract on Cherry Street (1977). Based on the novel by William J. Rosenberg, this fable of vigilante cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980) once again playing a New York detective with a moving, understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum P.I. in 1987 as a retired detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter in an episode entitled Laura.IMDb Mini Biography By: David Montgomery

Rita Moreno ~ December 11, 1931, Humacao, Puerto Rico

American actress Rita Moreno has managed to have a thriving career for the better part of six decades despite the institutional racism that has plagued the entertainment industry, particularly the anti-Hispanic bias that stereotyped Hispanic women as "spitfires" and sexpots. Moreno, one of the very few (and very first) performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy, was born born Rosita Dolores Alverío in in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931. She moved to New York City in 1937 along with her mother, where she began a professional career before she was a teenager. The 11-year-old Rosita got her first movie experience dubbing Spanish-language versions of American films. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 11, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, co-starring with Arthur Keegan and the young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost 20 years, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. It would take her nearly as long to break through the forces of institutional racism and become the first Hispanic to win an Academy Award.

President George W. Bush & Barbra Streisand embrace - and it's like buttah

BY BILL HUTCHINSON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, December 8th 2008, 4:00 AM
Sachs/Pool
Singer Barbra Streisand once described Bush as "an alien sent here to destroy the Earth."

President Bush gingerly embraced one of his biggest bashers last night, bestowing a Kennedy Center Honor on Barbra Streisand.
The two-time Academy Award winner, who once described Bush as "an alien sent here to destroy the Earth," seemed genuinely touched by the nation's top artsy accolade.
"Art transcends politics this weekend," said the Brooklyn-born actress and singer.
Streisand, a Democratic stalwart, has publicly raged that Bush stole the 2000 election and mishandled the Iraq war.
But she played nice Sunday when she was greeted by Bush at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for a reception before the show at the Kennedy Performing Arts Center.
"Everything went so smooth," said country singer George Jones, another recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor.
Streisand couldn't resist revealing her true feelings when asked if she would have preferred Barack Obama as the President hosting last night's event.
"That would have been lovely," said Streisand, quickly adding, "or [Bill] Clinton."
On the day of Obama's election, Streisand wrote on her Web site: "November 5th... what a day... a new day... finally [the Rev. Martin Luther King's] words ring true. I am so proud of our country."
George Stevens Jr., who created the honors for art and culture 31 years ago, said he wasn't worried about a dustup between Streisand and Bush.
Bush had in the past "graciously honored" critics such as Robert Redford and Ruby Dee without incident.
Other honorees were Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman, choreographer Twyla Tharp and Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who.
The event, set to air Dec. 30 on CBS, featured performers from New York, Nashville, and Hollywood saluting the honorees, who sat with the President and First Lady Laura Bush.
The young singer-songwriter Ne-Yo sang Streisand's 1965 hit "Lover, Come Back to Me."
"Barbra Streisand is the epitome of emotion in music," he said. "You feel every word."
whutchinson@nydailynews.com

Agnes Robertson Moorehead~(December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974

Agnes Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974) was an American actress.
Although she appeared in more than 70 films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than 30 years, Moorehead is probably most widely known to modern audiences for her role as the witch Endora in the television series Bewitched. While rarely playing leads in films, Moorehead's skill at character development and range earned her one Emmy Award and two Golden Globe awards in addition to four Academy Awards and six Emmy Award nominations. Moorehead's transition to television won acclaim for drama and comedy. She could play many different types, but often portrayed haughty, arrogant characters.

Fonda Names The Date For Broadway Return

4 December 2008 5:32 PM, PST From wenn.com See recent WENN news
Jane Fonda will return to the Broadway stage for a 15-week run in Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations in February.
It will mark her first performance on the New York stage in 46 years - she appeared in Strange Interlude in 1963.
The actress will open on 9 March at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Previews begin in February.

LIZA'S AT THE PALACE...! After Party

Michele Lee, Liza Minnelli and Sandra Bernhard

Eugene Louis Faccuito aka Liza's dance teacher Luigi and Liza Minnelli

Retna Ltd & BroadwayWorld.com, represented by: http://www.retna.com/.

Madonna poses seductively on a chair while holding a leg in the Louis Vuitton advert for which she was reportedly paid £6.5 million

The raunchy pictures were taken by Steven Meisel who shot Madonna's controversial 1992 book Sex

By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 5:05 PM on 04th December 2008

Madonna shows that she’s losing none of her sex appeal with age in a stunning ad for Louis Vuitton.
The 50-year-old singer has been pictured sporting unsightly bulging veins - a result of her rigorous exercise regime - in recent months.
But there are no prominent veins in sight as she poses seductively on a chair while holding a leg up - wearing fishnet tights, a tailored jacket and stilettos in the sexy shoot.
The newly-divorced star is said to have commanded a £6.5million fee for the campaign.

Photographer Steven Meisel, who shot Madonna's controversial 1992 book Sex, worked with her on the promotion.
Yesterday Madonna returned to Argentina twelve years after playing the country’s former first lady Eva Peron.

She arrived in Buenos Aires for the Latin America leg of her world tour with her three children and a huge entourage including 200 dancers, technicians and crew members.
Today she announced that she would be postponing the first of four shows in Buenos Aires.

Civil Rights Music Icon Odetta Dies

AP
posted: 40 MINUTES AGO
WASHINGTON (Dec. 2) - Odetta, the deep-voiced folk singer whose ballads and songs became for many a soundtrack to the American civil rights movement, has died at age 77, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
The Times cited Odetta's manager, Doug Yeager, as saying she died of a heart attack. It did not give a time or place of death.

Odetta Holmes, born in Birmingham, Alabama, on Dec. 31, 1930, told the Times in a 2007 interview that the music of the Great Depression, particularly the prison songs and work songs from the fields of the deep South, helped shape her musical life.
While she recorded several albums and sang at New York's Carnegie Hall, among other prominent venues, Odetta is perhaps best remembered by most Americans for her brief performance at the August 1963 march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement at which she sang the song "O Freedom."
The Times said Rosa Parks, the woman who launched the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, was once asked which songs meant the most to her. "All the songs Odetta sings," was Parks' reply.
Odetta, who moved from Alabama to Los Angeles with her mother in 1937, earned a music degree from Los Angeles City College. But she told the Times her training in classical music and musical theater "was a nice exercise, but it had nothing to do with my life."
She said she found her true voice by listening to blues, jazz and folk music from the African-American and Anglo-American traditions.
Odetta began singing professionally in a West Coast production of the musical "Finian's Rainbow," but said she found a stronger calling in the coffee shops and nightclubs of San Francisco.
Her first solo album, "Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues," influenced another American folk legend -- Bob Dylan. "The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta," Dylan said in a 1978 interview with Playboy magazine.
In that album, Dylan said he heard "something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record," which included "Mule Skinner," "Jack of Diamonds" and "Water Boy."
In the early days of the civil rights movement, Odetta said her songs channelled "the fury and frustration that I had growing up" in segregated America. The many benefits she headlined helped underwrite the movement's work.
While Odetta's career cooled and her performances and recordings became fewer after the late 1960s, she retained her vocal and dramatic power even late in life. "Odetta's voice is still a force of nature," critic James Reed of the Boston Globe wrote of a December 2006 performance.
She remained "a majestic figure in American music, a direct gateway to bygone generations that feel so foreign today," Reed wrote.

Tina Turner recycles that famous flesh-revealing Mad Max dress at the age of 69

The best is back: Three decades after starring in Mad max, right, Tina Turner recycled her iconic costume, left, as she appeared onstage in New York

Lady in red: Tina gives a storming performance in concert at Madison Square Gardens, New York

By Lizzie Smith Last updated at 1:07 PM on 02nd December 2008

It's nearly three decades since Tina Turner starred alongside Mel Gibson in Mad Max.
And as she approaches her 70th birthday than what better way to show she's still got what it takes than to pull on her old costume.
Tina appeared onstage at Madison Square Gardens in New York last night in a modern interpretation of her chainmail outfit in the iconic Eighties film.

And although this wasn't the original outfit it certainly showed off the 69-year-old's age-defying body to best effect.
The lurex costume showed slightly less of Tina's chest than the original, which she wore in the 1985 film Beyond Thunderdome.
Singer Tina belted her way through the concert in a series of fabulous outfits.

These included a short red sparkling mini dress with a plunging neckline, and a long red gown which revealed her still-shapely pins.
Four decades and 70 millions records after Tina found fame she is still working hard.
Last night's performance was part of a tour which will see her playing arenas across Europe and North America until April next year.

Happy Birthday ~ " The Divine Miss M " BETTE MIDLER

Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress and comedian, also known (as her informal stage name) as The Divine Miss M. During her career, she has won four Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards. She is currently performing a new concert show, The Showgirl Must Go On, live five nights a week as one of the current headliners at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (together with Cher and Elton John).

M I L K "The Movie Of The Year!"

Geraldine Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987)

Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987) was an American actress. Although starring in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater.

Page was born in Kirksville, Missouri. She attended the Goodman Theatre Dramatic School in Chicago and studied acting with Uta Hagen in New York. She began appearing in stock at the age of seventeen.

Page was a trained method actor and worked closely with Lee Strasberg.

Page gave celebrated performances in films as well as her work on Broadway. Her film debut was in Out of the Night (1947). Her role in Hondo, garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In all, despite her relatively small filmography, Page received eight Academy Award nominations. She finally won the Oscar in 1986 for a wonderful performance in The Trip to Bountiful, which was based on a play by Horton Foote. Had she not won for Trip to Bountiful, she would have held the record for most nominations without a single win. When she won (F. Murray Abraham, upon opening the envelope, exclaimed "I consider this woman the greatest actress in the English language"), she received a standing ovation from the audience. She was surprised by her win (she openly talked about being a seven-time Oscar loser), and took a while to get to the stage to accept the award because she had taken off her shoes while sitting in the audience. She had not expected to win, and her feet were sore.

Today's Birthday's ~ GOLDIE & MARLO...

GOLDIE 63 MARLO 71

Madonna and Guy strike deal...

For richer: Madonna seen at a charity gala in New York last night as it emerged she and guy Ritchie have agreed a divorce settlement.
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:10 PM on 20th November 2008

Madonna and Guy Ritchie have reached agreement on their divorce - with the British film director refusing to take a penny of the pop star’s cash, it has emerged.
An announcement could come by the end of the month, a source close to the negotiations tells London's Evening Standard.

Another report, in The Times, claimed that notice of a decree nisi would be posted in the Registry of the Family Division in London within twenty-four hours.

Madonna, who attended a charity gala in New York last night looking much younger than her fifty years , will walk away from the eight-year marriage with her fortune, estimated at £300m, intact.

LANA TURNER~The Bad and The Beautiful

One time "Sweater Girl" Lana Turner led a tempestuous life filled as much with torment and heartache as it was with glamour and romance.

She Will Be Preserved In Memory As She Was On celluloid: a platinum archetype of the silky-voiced siren, a luminous sex goddess whose looks could melt a monk's resolve. The Sweater Girl, they called her. In fact, Lana Turner spent four decades making 54 films, playing every variety of girl-good, bad, sometimes heartless, but never less than glamorous. Even off screen, she looked every inch the movie diva. "She never appeared in public," recalls Van Johnson, her costar in 1945's Weekend at the Waldorf, "unless she was beautifully coiffed and dressed exquisitely."
And yet "she never played The Star," says Hope Lange, who was a 19-year-old ingénue when she met Turner, then 36, on the set of 1957's Peyton Place. "She had no sense of self-importance. There wasn't an ounce of condescension to her." Despite her indelible portrayal of the icy adulteress in 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice, "she was the opposite of her hard-boiled image," Says Terri Garr, who in 1980 worked with Turner on her last film, the never-released Witches' Brew. "She was very sweet; a gracious, genteel, lovely woman."
And surprisingly shy. Publicist John Springer recalls how, just before Turner was scheduled to reminisce about her career in front of an audience at New York City's Town Hall in 1975, "we literally had to push her onstage. At first she was trembling and barely able to speak, but the audience absolutely adored her. By the end, "adds Springer, "she was as bright and funny as could be."
Her life, however, was filled with sadness and pain. She had seven failed marriages, three miscarriages, two abortions and a suicide attempt. More vividly remembered than any of her movies perhaps, is the great scandal in which she played a leading role. In 1958, the actress's 14 year old daughter, Cheryl, fatally stabbed Turner's gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, in Turner's Beverly Hills home.
Lana somehow managed to survive it all. What finished her finally, was throat cancer; a heavy smoker, she died on June 29 at aged 74 in her two bedroom condo in L.A. with her maid of forty-four years Carmen Cruz by her side. Eve since her diagnosis in 1992, Turner had lived reclusively, leaving her high-rise only for her radiation treatments. Until the end, she kept up her facials and manicures and insisted that a hairdresser come twice a week. But there had been few public sightings. As one recent biographer quotes her, "I want my fans to remember me as I was."
But who was that, really? She was born Julia Jean Turner on February 8, 1921 in the mining town of Wallace Idaho, the daughter of Mildred Frances Cowan, who at 15 had eloped with 24 year-old John Virgil, a gambler and bootlegger. When Julia was 9, Virgil was murdered after a big win in a crap game. "The shock I suffered then may be a valid excuse for me now," she said many years later. "It may explain things I myself do not understood."
In 1935, when Julia was 14, she and her mother moved to L.A. (Mildred's respiratory problems mandated the shift to a drier climate.) A year later, Julia, then a student at Hollywood High School, decided to cut classes one day and dashed across the street to grab a coke at the Top Hat Cafe-not Schwab's Drugstore, as Hollywood legend has it. She was spotted by Billy Wilkerson, the influential publisher of the Hollywood Reporter. Wilkerson introduced her to Zeppo Marx (of Marx Brothers fame), who was running his own casting agency. Zeppo, in turn, sent her to director Mervyn LeRoy, who had been looking for a special girl-someone with box sex appeal and innocence, he said- to cast in a thriller called They Won't Forget. No one who saw it did.
The sight of the voluptuous 15-year-old in a tight skirt and clingy knits drew so many wolf whistles at a screening that an embarrassed Turner and her mortified mother slunk outside to a waiting taxi. (Turner was proud, however, of her new screen name-Lana-which according to her 1982 autobiography, she dreamed up herself after rejecting LeRoy's choices: Leonore or Lurlene.)
While some critics belittled Turner's talent, all agreed on one thing. "In any posture," said TIME, "Lana suggests she looking up from a pillow."
For a woman who made a living promising carnal bliss, "sex was never important to me," she wrote in her memoirs. The preliminaries though, were another matter. From her earliest days as a $100-per-week MGM contract player, she was known as Hollywood's Nightclub Queen and partied until dawn with escorts including Robert Stack and Fernando Lamas at Ciro's and the Trocadero. Mickey Rooney, who had starred with Turner in 1938's Love Finds Andy Hardy, claimed her as conquest. Later, armies of men of men would shower her with lavish gifts. But the man she called "the great love of her life" was Tyrone Power, who romanced her in the late 1940's. However they never wed.
Other suitors did become husbands. Turner tied the knot 7 times in 29 years. Her first marriage, to bandleader Artie Shaw in 1940, lasted less than six months. In 1942 she wed Stephan Crane, a gambler turned restaurateur-only to learn five months later, that he was not yet divorced from his first wife. He and Turner wed legally in 1943, five months before their only child, Cheryl Christina Crane was born. A year later though, Lana sued for divorce. In 1948, balding, overweight multimillionaire Henry J. (Bob) Topping finally won her over when he plopped a 15-carat engagement ring in her martini. But his alcoholism and philandering became too much to bear: She slashed her wrist in 1951 after suing him for divorce. Husband number 4, onetime Tarzan Lex Barker, sexually abused 10-year-old Cheryl. When Turner found out about it in 1957, she gave him 20 minutes to clear out. (In 1973, when Barker dropped dead of a heart attack on a Manhattan street, she dryly inquired, "What took him so long?") In her 1982 memoir, she reflected, "Somewhere there was a pattern, something in me that made me choose takers over and over again."
But none of Lana's romances was a bigger train wreck than her fling with Johnny Stompanato, a minor hood and crony of gangster Mickey Cohen. On Good Friday, April 4, 1958, Cheryl overheard Stompanato threatening to kill her mother during a domestic dispute. The girl grabbed an eight-inch kitchen knife and flung open the door to Turner's room. "I thought she hit him in the stomach," Lana later testified. "They came together and then they parted. I never saw the blade." His kidney and aorta punctured, Stompanato choked, gurgled and died. For days, gawkers cruised past Turner's lavish Beverly Hills Home. District Attorney William B. McKesson declined to charge Cheryl for the crime, noting that she had never had a true home "either with her mother or father." Although Lana retained legal custody, a court ordered Cheryl to live with her grandmother Mildred. But Cheryl continued to have emotional problems, and at 17 she began a 10-month stay at a mental hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. Now a successful business woman, Cheryl reconciled with her mother in 1981. "Our old strained relationship began to turn into one of friendship and understanding," Cheryl wrote in her 1988 memoir, Detour: A Hollywood Story.
Ironically, Lana's biggest hit, Ross Hunter's Imitation of Life (1959), tells the story of an actress who sacrifices her daughter's affection for her career. The movie made more money for Universal than any previous film in the studio's history.
But that and Madame X in 1966 were among Turner's last career high points. In the 70's she toured briefly with several stage productions, played haughty Jacqueline Perrault in the CBS prime time serial Falcon Crest and even touted a chain of Lana Turner Mini spas.
In 1983 she officially retired and lived quietly for the next nine years. Then in1992, word began to circulate that she was undergoing radiation treatments for throat cancer that had spread to her jaw and her lungs. True to form, on her birthday two years ago she told friends-in a hoarse whisper-that she was "completely recovered." It was a final fitting performance from the redoubtable star. For Lana Turner in the words of her former manager, Taylor Pero, lived by only three precepts: Image before truth, facade rather than fact, and pride over all."

Zeta-Jones goes blonde as Lana Turner! (rumored)

Catherine Zeta-Jones will soon find out if blondes have more fun when she takes on the role of Hollywood bombshell Lana Turner.
The 38-year-old star has been cast as Turner in the upcoming movie Stompanato, about the actress' stormy relationship with Los Angeles underworld figure Johnny Stompanato, who was stabbed and killed by Turner's 14-year-old daughter.
Zeta-Jones has played brunettes throughout her career, and admits it was a little weird to see herself as a blonde.
While the script is still in development, Zeta-Jones said she was looking forward to discussing the role with her father-in-law, Kirk Douglas, who starred with Turner in the 1952 film The Bad and The Beautiful.

Stompanato (2010)

Writers:Sebastian Gutierrez (writer)David Webb Peoples (writer)Release Date:2010 (USA)
Genre:Crime Drama
Plot:Lana Turner and Johnny were sweethearts--until the day in 1958 when the screen queen's daughter, Cheryl, stabbed the hot-tempered gangland figure before he could make an exit from her mom's Beverly Hills bedroom.
Cast

Catherine Zeta-Jones
As Lana Turner (rumored)

Rock Hudson (November 17, 1925 – October 2, 1985)

Rock Hudson (November 17, 1925 – October 2, 1985) was an American film and television actor, recognised as a romantic leading man during the 1960s and 1970s. Hudson was voted Star of the Year, Favorite Leading Man, and similar titles by numerous movie magazines and was unquestionably one of the most popular and well-known movie stars of the time. He completed nearly 70 motion pictures and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned over four decades. Hudson was also one of the first major Hollywood celebrities to die from an AIDS related illness.

While Hudson's career was blooming, he was struggling to keep his personal life out of the headlines. Throughout his career, he epitomized wholesome manliness, and in 1955, after several male lovers, he married his agent's secretary Phyllis Gates. The news was made known by all the major gossip magazines. One magazine story, headlined "When Day Is Done, Heaven Is Waiting," quoted Hudson as saying, "When I count my blessings, my marriage tops the list." The union lasted three years. Gates filed for divorce in April 1958, charging mental cruelty. Hudson did not contest the divorce, and Gates received an alimony of US$250 a week for 10 years.

In Gates' 1987 autobiography My Husband, Rock Hudson, the book she wrote with veteran Hollywood chronicler Bob Thomas, Gates insists she dated Hudson for several months and lived with him for two months before his surprise marriage proposal. She claims to have married Hudson out of love and not, as it was later purported, to stave off a major exposure of Hudson's sexual orientation. However, after her death from lung cancer in January 2006, some informants reportedly stated that she was actually a lesbian who married Hudson for his money, knowing from the beginning of their relationship that he was gay.She never remarried.

According to the 1986 biography, Rock Hudson: His Story, by Hudson and Sara Davidson, Rock was good friends with American novelist Armistead Maupin and a few of Hudson's lovers were: Jack Coates (born 1944); Hollywood publicist Tom Clark (1933 - 1995), who also later published a memoir about Hudson, Rock Hudson: Friend of Mine; and Marc Christian, who later won a suit against the Hudson estate.

The book, The Thin Thirty, by Shannon Ragland, chronicles Hudson's involvement in a 1962 sex scandal at the University of Kentucky involving the football team. Ragland writes that Jim Barnett, a local low-level promoter, engaged in prostitution with members of the team, and that Hudson was one of Barnett's customers.

A popular urban legend states that Hudson married Jim Nabors in the 1970s. While Hudson was closeted at the time, the two never had anything beyond a friendship. The legend was originated with a group of "middle-aged homosexuals who live in Huntington Beach", as Hudson put it, sending out joke invitations to "the marriage of Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors". Despite the obvious impossibility of such an event, the "Rock-Pyle Wedding" was taken seriously by some. As a result of the false rumor, Nabors and Hudson never spoke to each other again.

Get a Load of Rob Marshall's 'Nine'!

By: Brad Brevet Friday, November 7, 2008

The first photo from the set of Rob Marshall's musical Nine has just arrived and it is impressive! The picture you see above is just the center piece to the atmopsheric and smoky jazz vibe given off by the complete full-size image which you can see right here.
Nine stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, and Sophia Loren, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson and Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson. The film is based on the Tony Award Winning Broadway musical and inspired by Fellini's classic film 8 1/2 telling the story of Guido (Day-Lewis) a film director stuck in neutral as he tries to make a film while haunted by the demands of all the women in his life, including a wife, mistress and even his deceased mother.
The film is being shot in England at Shepperton Studios, and in Italy on location and at Cinecitta Studios in Rome and is set for a limited release on September 9, 2009.

Jim Bailey Is Judy Garland - Live In Concert

Herbst Theatre - San FranciscoSaturday, December 20, 2008 at 8:00 PMWorld-renowned artist, Jim Bailey, live in concertaccompanied by a full orchestra, performs his highly acclaimed tribute to the world's greatest entertainer-Judy Garland.Celebrating 40 years in a career that has taken him from Carnegie Hall to the London Palladium to over 80 television and film appearances, Mr Bailey continues to enthrall audiences with his stunning visual and vocal mastery.Accompanied by a full orchestra, Jim will perform the most well known songs from the Garland repertoire, including "The Trolley Song", "Swanee", "Old Man River","The Man That Got Away", to name just a few, plus special selections to commemorate the holiday season.This appearance celebrates the 40th year anniversary of when, in 1968, Jim Bailey, at the beginning of his career, was joined on a Los Angeles stage by Garland herself and sang "Bye Bye Blackbird" as a duet. This was the beginning of a close friendship which endured until Garland's death a year later.The London Times noted "He defies disbelief".The Boston Globe stated "He is an inspiration; the next best thing to Garland herself"."One of the most astonishing acts to ever tread the boards..."

This Event has only one Performance which is open for Sale.
Automatic Redirect to the Performance Detail Screen.
If you don't get redirected within the next 10 seconds, click here.


Jim Bailey Is Judy Garland - Live In Concert
Saturday 12/20/20088:00 pm
Herbst TheatreSan Francisco, CA

Me and Rita ~ Patrick O Sanchez

Patrick & Tony meet the divine Rita Moreno!
Patrick as Liberace!



HI Kids,
Last night I saw Rita Moreno's cabaret show and it was fabulous. She looks great sounds great and is great. Here is a picture she took with my partner Tony and I. I also added some Halloween pics of me as Liberace.
~ Patrick O Sanchez

Grief-stricken: Angelina Jolie stars as Christine Collins in Clint Eastwood's new film Changeling. In 1928,son went missing and was never seen again

By GLENYS ROBERTS...She was a devoted mother, hard-working, determined and tough. Then, one spring morning, Christine Collins kissed her little child goodbye (leaving him under the eye of neighbours), before returning in the evening to an empty house. Her beloved son had vanished without a trace.
A continent-wide hunt was launched and a shocked nation was kept agog by a string of leads - only for their hopes to be cruelly dashed as each clue led to a dead end.
The child was never seen again, the mother was heartbroken and the community was left divided by suspicion and mistrust. It is all the more powerful because it is based on a horrific true story.

RITA MORENO~San Francisco's Premiere Night Club "Little Tributes" Rrazz Room Debut! Through Sunday, November 23 ONLY!

For those of you think RITA MORENO is ageless, the lady herself begs to differ, as she freely admits to being about to turn 77 next month. Nonetheless, anyone who catches her 90-minute act at the RRAZZ ROOM will still find it hard to believe.

MUSIC REVIEW: Moreno"stellar Rrazz showcase, by David Wiegand, Chonicle Staff Writer in SFGate...Nov 7, 2008.

SALLY FIELD TURNS 62...we really like her!

Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American two-time Academy Award-winning actress. She is also a three-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Golden Globe Award winner who became a household name at age 20 as Sister Bertrille in the 1960s sitcom The Flying Nun. She has won two Oscars, for Norma Rae in 1979, and for Places in the Heart in 1984.
More recently, Field stars as Nora Holden Walker on the ABC hit drama Brothers & Sisters, as the Walker family matriarch.

Oprah Winfrey and other big stars join the Obama celebrations.

VIVIEN LEIGH (November ~5~ 1913 ~ July~8~ 1967.

Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967), was an English actress. She won two Academy Awards for playing "southern belles": Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End.
She was a prolific stage performer, frequently in collaboration with her husband, Laurence Olivier, who directed her in several of her roles. During her thirty-year stage career, she played parts that ranged from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth.
Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress, but ill health proved to be her greatest obstacle. Affected by bipolar disorder for most of her adult life, she gained a reputation for being a difficult person to work with, and her career went through periods of decline. She was further weakened by recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, with which she was first diagnosed in the mid-1940s. She and Olivier divorced in 1960, and Leigh worked sporadically in film and theatre until her death from tuberculosis, in 1967.

Obama Wins Presidency ~ The 44th President of The Unided States

WASHINGTON (Nov. 4) - Barack Obama was elected the nation's first black president Tuesday night in a historic triumph that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself.
The 47-year-old Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his victory by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hardfought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa.