RIP Joyce Gordon

RIP Joyce Gordon

Joyce Gordon, Actress and First Woman SAG Branch President, Dead at 90

Pop Culture

By Daniel S. Levine

February 29, 2020

Commercial and voiceover actress Joyce Gordon, who was the first woman to serve as the president of a Screen Actors Guild branch, died late Friday. She was 90 years old. Her death was announced by SAG-AFTRA Saturday.

"Joyce was everything you could want in a SAG-AFTRA member and leader: intelligent, talented, unceasingly dedicated to her fellow performers, and a warm and generous friend," SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement. "Her stature as a pitchwoman and voiceover talent was indispensable in convincing the advertising industry to take seriously the concerns of commercial performers in the early days of that contract. Our hearts go out to Joyce’s family."

Gordon was born in Des Moines, Iowa in March 1929 and grew up in Chicago. She moved to New York at 19 years old, and began making appearances on radio and early live television programs. During the 1950s, she set multiple "firsts," becoming the first woman to do network promos and the first woman announcer at a political convention on network television. She was reportedly the first woman to appear on television wearing glasses. She was even featured in a 1960 Broadcasting magazine article titled "The TV Girl Who Wears Glasses" and was on the cover of TV Guide.

During the days of live television, she appeared in commercials that aired during The Jack Paar Show, Hugh Downs and The Price Is Right. A whole chapter of Alice Whitfield's 1992 book about the voiceover industry, Take It From The Top, was devoted to Gordon.

Gordon also played dramatic roles, appearing on live television shows at the beginning of her career. She also used her voiceover skills for English dubs of classic movies when the practice was still common in the U.S. She was most famously the voice of Claudia Cardinale in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West. She also appeared as a judge in episodes of Law & Order late in life.

Gordon was also active in SAG. In 1959, when actor Howard Keel was SAG's president, she was among the first 12 branch members on the National Board, and the only woman in the group. In 1966, she became the president of the New York SAG branch. Later, she was a SAG-AFTRA Motion Picture Player Welfare Fund trustee and supported the merger of SAG and the American Federation of Television and Radio Arts.

"We are deeply saddened by Joyce’s passing," SAG-AFTRA Health Plan and SAG-Producers Pension Plan Chief Executive Officer Michael Estrada said in a statement. "She was a passionate and committed trustee for over three decades and worked tirelessly on behalf of our participants. We extend our deepest condolences to her family and friends."

"I am deeply grieved at the loss of my dear friend and colleague of nearly 40 years. Joyce was a tremendous advocate for our union, its members and especially actors and their families," SAG-AFTRA Foundation Treasurer, SAG-AFTRA Motion Picture Players Welfare Fund Chairman and former SAG New York Branch President Maureen Donnelly added. "She was one of the creators of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Scholarship in honor of Jack Dales providing crucial financial support to members and their children pursuing an education. Joyce was a passionate advocate for New York members in her work as a trustee for MPPWF."

Gordon is survived by her son, daughter, grandson and sister. She was married for over 50 years to actor Bernard Grant, who died in 2004.

GORDON, Joyce

Born: 3/25/1929, Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.

Died: 2/28/2020, U.S.A.

Joyce Gordon’s westerns – voice actress:

For a Few Dollars More – 1965 [English voice of Mara Krup]

Once Upon a Time in the West – 1968 [English voice of Claudia Cardinale]

RIP Chanin Hale

Los Angeles Times

February 29, 2020

September 3, 1938 - January 30, 2020 Chanin Hale was a small town girl from Dayton, Ohio, who moved to New York in 1955 right out of high school to pursue a career on the stage. In New York she toured in the revue High Time, performed in The Gazebo, Come Blow Your Horn, Bus Stop and Little Mary Sunshine. In 1963, while appearing in a production at UCLA, she was discovered by Jack Albertson who introduced her to Red Skelton. He appreciated her excellent pantomime skills and she became a regular on the show for the next seven years. Other television work includes appearances on Death Valley Days, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hondo, The Donna Reed Show, The Danny Kaye Show, The Beverly Hillbillies and several episodes of Dragnet. Film appearances include Gunn, Will Penny and the Night They Raided Minsky's. She also had a small role in Blue Hawaii staring Elvis. Chanin went on several USO tours, becoming a favorite of the soldiers when a photo of her posing as Eve in a homemade costume appeared in the New York Daily News. In 1986 she married Richard Bradshaw, who shared her love of exotic travel and had a sense of humor to match his. They spent more than 35 wonderful years together, traveling extensively to exotic locales, entertaining friends and enjoying each other's company. Eventually, Chanin declared that "if you've seen one rain forest you've seen them all" and they traveled to more civilized locations. The two of them started a great conversation that didn't end until she passed away. Her beloved Richard followed her two weeks later on what would have been their 34th wedding anniversary. She is survived by her stepdaughters, Linda, Barbara and Victoria Bradshaw.

HALE, Chanin (Marilyn Victoria Chanine Hale)

Born: 9/3/1938, Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A.

Died: 1/30/2020, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Chanin Hale’s westerns – actress:

The Legend of Jesse James (TV) - 1965

The Wild Wild West (TV) – 1966 (Flo)

Will Penny – 1967 (girl)

Death Valley Days – 1967 (Flora)

Hondo (TV) – 1967 (Carrot Top)

Sheriff Who (TV) – 1967 (Flossie)

Bonanza (TV) – 1969, 1970 (Lily, Flora)

Gunsmokr (TV) – 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 (woman, Verna, Sally, apple pie lady)

RIP Claudette Nevins

Los Angeles Times

February 27, 2020

April 10, 1937 - February 20, 2020 Actor, mother, grandmother, sister. Died in hospice Thursday, February 20, 2020, at her home in Los Angeles. Claudette was born in Pennsylvania in 1937, was raised in Brooklyn, and remained a quintessential New Yorker all her life. She attended The High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan and New York University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She never stopped learning and thinking. She was a voracious reader, loved attending the theater, movies, art exhibits and generally taking in all life had to offer. Her great loves were her family-her children Jessica and Sabrina, their husbands James and Adam, her grandchildren, Julia and Joshua Dabney, Miles, Isaiah and Ada Griffin, her sister, Dr. Harriette Kaley, and nephew, David Kaley, both of New York. She was predeceased by her husband Benjamin and her parents, Anna Lander Weintraub and Joseph Weintraub. Claudette's acting career spanned six decades and included roles on Broadway, regional theater, national companies, numerous television shows, voiceovers and commercials. Her website (www.claudettenevins.com) displays an actress whose beauty went hand in hand with a major intelligence, impressive range and immense talent. Competent in everything she touched, Claudette was funny, strong-willed, awesomely disciplined, relentless in her pursuit of excellence. A staunch feminist, she also actively supported several philanthropies and kept herself and those around her on their toes about their civic and personal responsibilities to the world. Starting from very humble origins, Claudette grew herself into an elegant, articulate, gorgeous woman who was universally admired. She was dazzling. She will be endlessly missed. A memorial service in her honor will be held in the TaNaCH Chapel at Mount Sinai Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, on Monday, March 2nd at 10:00 AM.

NEVINS, Claudette (Claudette Weintraub)

Born: 4/10/1937, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 2/20/2020, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Claudette Nevins’ westerns – actress:

Mrs. Sundance (TV) – 1974 (Mary Lant)

The Young Riders (TV) – 1991 (sister)

RIP Don McManus

Donald Leslie McManus
August 30, 1932 - February 24, 2020

The Globe

February 27, 2020

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our dear friend Don McManus in his 88th year at Michael Garron Hospital. Predeceased by his wife, the late Marie Pendleton. Don will be sorely missed by his many good friends in the performing arts community including Walt Mitze of Mt. Vernon, NY, Richard Liss, Gary Relyea, Racheal McCaig and Lianne Ritchie and Jackie Ritchie. Don was a brilliant raconteur engaging everyone with his stories and anecdotes no matter how evocative they might be. A devoted cat and dog lover as witnessed by anyone walking by his house with their beloved pet, he was the heart of his community of Leslieville which would honour him with a street celebration on his birthday every year. Don had a very successful 60 year career as an actor and singer, starting in 1950 in his hometown of Vancouver. He went on to perform operatic bass roles for 20 years with The Canadian Opera Company and performed on stages across Canada including at the Royal Alex, Rainbow Stage, Charlottetown Festival as well as in Australia and Britain. When necessity called, he was pressed into service as a conductor, stage manager, technical director, set designer and constructor, company manager and director - he was a true man of the theatre. In his early years, Don performed in many live productions on the CBC network and later in a variety of roles in film and television. To anyone who has known him, Don was larger than life. His generosity to his friends knew no bounds and he leaves behind wonderful memories for all. A Celebration of Life will be held in the Spring.

McMANUS, Don (Donald Leslie McManus)

Born: 8/30/1932, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Died: 2/24/2020, Leslieville, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Don McManus’ s – actor:

The Campbells (TV) – 1988 (Angus McQuay)

Bordertown (TV) – 1990 (photographer)

RIP Lee Phillip Bell

TV Pioneer Lee Phillip Bell Passes Away

Soap Opera Digest

February 26, 2020

Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Lee Phillip Bell passed away on February 25, 2020 at age 91, according to her children, William James Bell, Bradley Phillip Bell and Lauralee Bell Martin. “Our mother was a loving and supportive wife, mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement. “Gracious and kind, she enriched the lives of all who knew her. We will miss her tremendously.” Born in Chicago, Illinois on June 9, 1928, Bell was co-creator, along with her late husband William J. Bell, of Y&R in 1973 and B&B in 1987.  Bell’s career as a broadcast journalist began in Chicago, where she hosted and produced her own show THE LEE PHILLIP SHOW, for CBS TV for over 30 years. A pioneer in the evolution of the afternoon talk show format, Bell was a trailblazer in the exploration of timely social issues and concerns.  Additionally, she produced and narrated numerous award-winning specials and documentaries covering social concerns such as foster children, the subject of rape, children and divorce, and babies born to women in prison, to name a few. Bell interviewed heads of state such as Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan; film actors Judy Garland, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Lewis; musicians such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles; television and stage stars such as Lucille Ball, Jack Benny and Oprah Winfrey; and many other politicians, authors, journalists, fashion designers and rock stars. She was awarded 16 regional (Chicago) Emmy awards and numerous Golden Mike awards. Bell is also the recipient of the Alfred I. Dupont/Columbia University Award for the special, THE RAPE OF PAULETTE, the first program in Chicago to explore the issue. In 1977, she was the first woman to receive the coveted Governors Award from the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.  In 1980, she was named “Person of the Year” by the Broadcast Advertising Club of Chicago and the “Outstanding Woman in Communications” by the Chicago YMCA.  She also received the Salvation Army’s William Booth Award for her distinguished career in communications and social service. Bell won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series as co-creator of The Young and the Restless in 1975 and was recipient of the Daytime Emmys’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. In addition to her children, Lee Phillip Bell is survived by her daughters-in-law Maria Arena Bell and Ambassador Colleen Bell, her son-in-law Scott Martin and eight grandchildren. 

BELL, Lee Phillip (Lorely June Phillip)

Born: 6/9/1928, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 2/25/2020, Beverly Hills, California, U.S.A.

Lee Phillip Bell’s western – actress:

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1964 (Mrs. Bell)

RIP Ben Cooper

Ben Cooper, Actor in 'Johnny Guitar' and Lots of Other Westerns, Dies at 86

Fast on the draw, he also was in 'Gunfight at Comanche Creek,' 'Support Your Local Gunfighter' and 'The Fall Guy.'

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

2/26/2020

Ben Cooper, who portrayed the bandit Turkey Ralston in the Joan Crawford drama Johnny Guitar, just one of his many appearances in Westerns on television and the big screen, has died. He was 86.

Cooper died Monday after a long illness in Memphis, Tennessee, his nephew, Pete Searls, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The boyish Cooper also worked opposite Audie Murphy in Gunfight at Comanche Creek (1963) and Arizona Raiders (1965), and stood out in Rebel in Town (1956), Duel at Apache Wells (1957), Waco (1966), Roy Orbison's The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967), Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) and One More Train to Rob (1971).

He also was on Gunsmoke three times as well as on Bonanza, Tales of Wells Fargo, Wagon Train, The Rifleman, Death Valley Days and a 1961 Civil War-set episode of The Twilight Zone.

"They let me play cowboy, and they paid me [for it]," Cooper recalled in an undated interview filmed for the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine, California. "I'd ridden horses, I got my own horse when I was 12. I used to jump him bareback. I didn't know they had stuntmen; I'd watch a movie and then practice on my horse until I could do [the stunt.]"

He said he also practiced his fast draw for 90 minutes a day for four years.

In Johnny Guitar (1954), directed by Nicholas Ray and filmed in Sedona, Arizona, Cooper rode the same horse that carried Alan Ladd in Shane. His character, in a gang with Ernest Borgnine, Royal Dano and Scott Brady, meets his demise at the end of a rope.

More recently, Cooper had recurring roles as district attorney Alexander Waverly on Claude Akins' The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo and as the director on Lee Majors' The Fall Guy.

Born Sept. 30, 1933, in Hartford, Connecticut, Cooper joined Life With Father on Broadway in March 1942. The classic period comedy ran for more than seven years, long enough for him to play two of the family's four sons, Harlan (for 15 months) and Whitney (for 21 months).

Asked how he got the gig, Cooper said, "I was the right size, I looked right, I was very polite and I knew the whole [script]," he said. "It was that simple." 

He acted in more than 3,000 radio shows, attended Columbia University and worked on live television before making his movie debut with an uncredited part in the film noir Side Street (1950), directed by Anthony Mann.

Around a stint in the U.S. Army, he appeared in such other movies as Woman They Almost Lynched (1953), The Outcast (1954), Burt Lancaster's The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Eternal Sea (1955), The Last Command (1955), A Strange Adventure (1956) and Outlaw's Son (1957).

Cooper also appeared four times on Perry Mason and on The Time Tunnel, Adam-12, Mannix, Dallas and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

Survivors include his daughter, Pamela, and her family and his sister, Bunny.

COOPER, Ben (Benjamin Austin Cooper Jr.)

Born: 9/30/1933, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A.

Died: 2/24/2020, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.

Ben Cooper’s westerns – actor:

A Perilous Journey – 1953 (Sam)

The Woman They Almost Lynched - 1953 (Jesse James)

Hells Outpost – 1954 (Alec Bacchione)

Johnny Guitar - 1954 (Turkey Ralston)

The Outcast – 1954 (The Kid)

The Last Command – 1955 (Jeb Lacey)

Rebel in Town – 1956 (Gray Mason)

Zane Grey Theater (TV) 1956, 1959, 1960 (Clint Harding, Sam Duskin Jr., Darryl Thompson, Sandy)

Duel at Apache Wells – 1957 (Johnny Shattuck)

Outlaws Son – 1957 (Jeff Blaine)

The Command (TV) – 1958 (Lt. Cohill)

Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) – 1959 (Matthew Land)

Wichita Town (TV) – 1959 (Tom Warren)

Wagon Train (TV) – 1959, 1960 (Tom Tuckett, Steve Campden II)

Bonanza (TV) – 1960, 1961 (Sam Kirby, Johnny Lightly)

Johnny Ringo (TV) – 1960 (Reno brother)

Stagecoach West (TV) – 1960 (Jeremy Boone)

The Westerner (TV) – 1960 (Cal Davis)

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1961, 1965 (Pitt Campbell, Breck Taylor)

The Rifleman (TV) – 1961 (Simon Lee)

Laramie (TV) – 1962 (Sandy Catlin, Johnny Hartley)

Gunfight at Comanche Creek – 1963 (Carter)

The Raiders – 1963 (Tom King)

Rawhide (TV) – 1964 (Clell Miller)

Arizona Raiders – 1965 (Willie Martin)

Waco – 1966 (Scotty Moore)

The Fastest Guitar Alive – 1967 (Rink)

Death Valley Days (TV) – 1969 (Jason Tugwell)

Red Tomahawk – 1967 (Lieutenant Drake)

The Virginian (TV) 1970 (Jason)

One More Train to Rob – 1971 (deputy)

Kung Fu (TV) – 1974 (Goodnight)

Support Your Local Gunfighter – 1975 (Colorado)

Lightning Jack – 1994 (shopkeeper in bank)

RIP Baby Peggy

Baby Peggy, Child Star of Silent Films, Dies at 101

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes
February 24, 2020

Before Shirley Temple, she was the young queen of Hollywood, earning $1 million a year, but her movie career did not last long.

Diana Serra Cary, the silent film sensation known as Baby Peggy whose career in Hollywood came to a crashing halt when she was the ripe old age of six, has died. She was 101.

Cary, who from 1921 through 1924 appeared in as many as 150 short films and a handful of popular features, died Monday in Gustine, Calif., according to Rena Kiehn of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.

Without uttering a word onscreen, the emotive child actress with the distinctive bob haircut starred as Little Red Riding Hood in 1922 in a short film of the same name and in Hansel and Gretel (1923) in another short; took part in a bullfight in Carmen Jr. (1924); escaped from a burning building in The Darling of New York (1923); and ran a lighthouse in the heart-tugging Captain January (1924).

Most of her films have been lost; many were destroyed in a raging fire that consumed the old Century Film Co. studios in 1926.

Her father was Jack Montgomery, a cowboy who brought the family to Hollywood from San Diego when he heard the film industry was in need of horse-riding stuntmen. When his wife took their two daughters to the Century lot on Sunset Boulevard, 19-month-old Peggy-Jean Montgomery was “discovered” by a director who was looking for a tot to pair with the canine star Brownie the Wonder Dog.

Montgomery got his daughter a deal to do a film for $7.50 a day — just what he was making for doubling for Western star Tom Mix — and she appeared with the terrier in the 1921 shorts Playmates, Brownie’s Little Venus and Brownie’s Baby Doll.

Her career really soared after she started working with director Alfred J. Goulding.

“He had been a child actor. No wonder I loved him,” she recalled in a 2011 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “He had all kinds of knowledge about how to work with children. In one film [1923’s The Kid Reporter], I played a reporter, and he said you are going to have to wear a monocle in one eye and you have to learn how to wear it. It was quite a trick. He worked so patiently with me. That year we worked together we turned out the best comedies.”

In the Universal feature The Darling of New York, her character has to escape from a burning room (the prop men had doused the set with real kerosene), and the kid faced real danger when a storm hit during the filming of Captain January. (That movie was remade in 1936, with Shirley Temple as the star.)

After some screenings of her films, Baby Peggy would work on stage and treat the audience to a few jokes. Gimbels modeled a doll after her, and she appeared at the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt.

She later said that she was making $1 million a year and worth $4 million at age 10 — but her parents weren’t saving any of her earnings.

“They had a house in Beverly Hills before I was 3,” she told the Times. “Then we had a house in Laurel Canyon. Then we had a Duesenberg car that was $30,000. … But they thought Hollywood was forever.”

The Last Living Silent Star: Child Actress Baby Peggy Made the Equivalent of $14M a Movie and Lost It All

However, when her disciplinarian father quarreled one too many times with producers, Baby Peggy was blackballed in Hollywood. Then, she said, a relative who was involved with her production company stole all their money, leaving the family destitute.

She tried to keep her career going in vaudeville and then returned to Hollywood. But with the talkies now in fashion, the studios were not interested in a silent-film actress, and she was only an extra in her last film, Having Wonderful Time (1938).

Her father, meanwhile, went back to stunt work, and she married actor Gordon Ayres. They divorced after a decade, and she became a bookseller. Later, she gave herself the new name Diana Serra, remarried and worked as a magazine writer and journalist.

In the 1970s, Cary wrote books about early cowboy films and former Hollywood child stars. Her autobiography, Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy?, was published in 1996, and she was the subject of a 2012 documentary, Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room, directed by Vera Iwerebor.

The Motion Picture & Television Fund Country Home offered her a room, but she decided to stay to remain in Gustine. Hollywood is "not my cup of tea," she told THR in February 2015.

Survivors include her son, Mark, and granddaughter, Stephanie. Her husband of 48 years, artist Robert Cary, died in 2003, and her sister, Louise, died in 2005.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to be made to a GoFundMe account to help cover outstanding medical expenses.

Baby Peggy (Peggy-Jean Montgomery)

Born: 10/29/1918, San Diego, California, U.S.A.

Died: 2/24/2020, Gustine, California, U.S.A.

Baby Peggy’s westerns – actress:

Peg o’ the Mounted – 1924 (Peg)

Broncho Billy and the Bandit’s Secret – 2015 (The Movie Star)

RIP Bob Cobert

Bob Cobert, ‘Dark Shadows’ and ‘Winds of War’ Composer, Dies at 95

Variety

By Jon Burlingame

February 24, 2020

Bob Cobert, the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated composer of television’s “Dark Shadows” and “The Winds of War,” died of pneumonia Feb. 19, in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 95.

Cobert’s themes for the 1960s Gothic horror soap “Dark Shadows” – “great spook music,” he once called it – were his most popular compositions, and “Quentin’s Theme” (for the character played by David Selby) became a top 10 hit in 1969 as recorded by the Charles Randolph Grean Sound, earning a Grammy nomination as Best Instrumental Theme.

The “Dark Shadows” score, the first daytime soap to generate a best-selling soundtrack album, cemented Cobert’s partnership with the series’ creator-producer Dan Curtis, who continued to employ Cobert on nearly all of his television and film projects for the next four decades.

They did three features and more than two dozen television films together. Their largest-scale project was “The Winds of War,” the 18-hour 1983 miniseries based on Herman Wouk’s World War II novel, and its 1988-89 sequel, the 30-hour “War and Remembrance,” which brought Cobert an Emmy nomination for original score.

Curtis’s penchant for producing successful horror projects led to other memorable Cobert scores including his detective jazz for Darren McGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak in the hugely popular “The Night Stalker” (1972) and its sequel “The Night Strangler” (1973); a Romanian music-box treatment for Jack Palance in “Dracula” (1974); and a terrifying theme for the notorious Zuni doll menacing Karen Black in “Trilogy of Terror” (1975).

Their features included two based on the “Dark Shadows” series (“House of Dark Shadows” in 1970 and “Night of Dark Shadows” in 1971) and the Bette Davis haunted-house tale “Burnt Offerings” in 1976. Their other 1970s collaborations, all for television, included the high-rated Depression-era FBI dramas “Melvin Purvis, G-Man” and “Kansas City Massacre” in 1974-75 and the Western “Last Ride of the Dalton Gang” in 1979.

Curtis, in notes for a 2000 Varèse Sarabande collection of Cobert themes, wrote: “Bob has worked with me on nearly every picture I have made and has never failed me. It’s almost as if he could read my mind. People throw around this word too lightly, but in this case I am more than justified in using it: Bob Cobert is a true genius. He can write any kind of score and write it brilliantly.”

Robert Cobert was born October 26, 1924 in Brooklyn. He studied composition and conducting at New York’s Juilliard School during the war years and later studied composition at Columbia University with well-known classical composer Henry Cowell. During the ’40s, he also played clarinet and saxophone at such famous venues as the Stork Club and the Copacabana.

In the 1950s, his pop songs were recorded by such artists as Freddy Martin and Frances Wayne; his folk opera “Frankie and Johnny” and orchestral “Mediterranean Suite” were released on records. But television beckoned in 1960, as producer David Susskind hired Cobert to score such literary adaptations as “The Scarlet Pimpernel” and “The Heiress” and the short-lived CBS horror anthology “Way Out.”

The New York-based composer also enjoyed great success with game-show themes including “Password,” “To Tell the Truth” and “The Price Is Right” in the 1960s and the long-running “$100,000 Pyramid” in the 1980s. His other daytime TV credits included “The Doctors” soap and a “CBS Afternoon Playhouse,” “I Think I’m Having a Baby,” for which he received a 1981 Daytime Emmy nomination.

The “Dark Shadows” phenomenon, spurred by the introduction of vampire-as-tragic-figure Barnabas Collins in 1967, earned Cobert his greatest fame. “Quentin’s Theme,” introduced as a turn-of-the-century gramophone recording, was recorded by numerous artists including Henry Mancini and earned a special BMI citation for more than 100 million radio broadcasts.

Cobert’s final score was for the 2005 Showtime film “Our Fathers,” based on the Catholic church sex scandal. In retirement, he remained popular on the “Dark Shadows” fan circuit, making several appearances at conventions; and he composed and recorded a “Requiem for Helen” in memory of his late wife. He also taught film composition at the University of Southern California.

Survivors include his children William, Holly and Suzy; and six grandchildren.

COBERT, Bob (Robert Cobert)

Born: 10/26/1924, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 2/19/2020, Palm Springs, California, U.S.A.

Bob Cobert’s westerns – composer:

The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang (TV) – 1979

Bonanza: The Next Generation (TV) - 1988

RIP Juan Ramón Molina

Panorama Audio Visual.com

2/25/2020

Special effects supervisor Juan Ramón Molina dies

Nominated on up to 18 occasions, Molina won the Goya for the best special effects in 1997, 2002 and 2014.

Panorama Audio Visual.com

2/25/2020

The film industry dismisses at 69 years of age one of the reference names in the creation of special effects: Juan Ramón Molina. Throughout fifty years as a professional, he knew how to realize the ideas embodied in the script of productions both in cinema, as in television and advertising.

At the head of Molina Special Effects, Juan Ramón Molina led a human and professional team that has worked in more than four hundred productions.

In 1997, he won the Goya Award for best special effects by Airbag , from Juanma Bajo Ulloa; in 2002 for the film 800 bullets , by Álex de la Iglesia; and in 2014, under the same direction, by Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi.

In addition to achieving these Goyas, Molina was nominated on up to 18 occasions for his effects in works such as Don Juan my dear ghost, The Letters of Alou, The Invisible Child, The Hour of the Brave, Marian Year, Perfect Crime, Romasanta the Hunt for The Beast, Therapy, The Keys of Independence, Savior, May Blood, My Great Night or Losing the East.

The company continues today by the hand of his son, Juan Ramón Molina.

MOLINA, Juan Ramón

Born:1951, Spain

Died: 2/?/2020, Spain

Juan Ramón Molina’s westerns – Special Effects:

Straight to Hell – 1987

Here Comes Condemor – 1996

A Dollar for the Dead (TV) – 1998

Winnetous Rückkehr (TV) - 1998

800 Bullets – 2002

The Sister Brothers - 2018

RIP Ron Haddrick

Obituary: Ron Haddrick

Television.AU

February 13, 2020

Actor Ron Haddrick, star of Australian stage, film and television, has died at the age of 90.

Born in Adelaide in 1929, his career began at the Tivoli Theatre in Adelaide in the 1940s. He was then successful in joining the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (now the Royal Shakespeare Company) and worked overseas with names like Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft and Michael Redgrave.

He returned to Australia in 1959 and went on to work for nearly every major theatre company. He also starred in radio dramas, movies and television. One of his first TV roles was as Adam Suisse in the children’s science-fiction series The Stranger — which only recently has been released on ABC iView, more than 50 years since it was last broadcast.

Other television credits included Divorce Court, Contrabandits, The Godfathers, Matlock Police, Homicide, The Lost Islands, A Country Practice, Mother And Son, Home And Away, Water Rats, All Saints, Cloudstreet and Rake.

In 2012 he received the Equity Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2013 he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia medal.

HADDRICK, Ron (Ronald Norman Haddrick)

Born: 4/9/1929, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Born: 2/11/2020, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Ron Haddrick’s westerns – actor, voice actor:

Hiawatha – 1988 [voice]

Quigley Down Under – 1990 (Grimmelman)

RIP José Mojica Marins

Filmmaker José Mojica Marins, Zé do Caixão, dies at 83

Actor was 83 years old and died of bronchopneumonia

Pioneer of horror cinema in Brazil and one of the most respected names of the genre abroad, filmmaker José Mojica Marins, Coffin Joe, died this Wednesday afternoon (19), in São Paulo. At the age of 83, he was admitted to the Sancta Maggiore hospital due to bronchial pneumonia since 28 January. His death was confirmed by his daughter Liz Marins to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Born on March 13, 1936, on a Friday, in the capital of São Paulo, Mojica was considered more than one of the references of Brazilian horror cinema. He was also a cinematographic guerrilla, having financed most of his films with his own resources and never abandoning his style - full of blood and sex and thin on budget.

He debuted in a feature film 1958 with A Sina do Aventureiro, and followed behind the camera until the 1964 classic At Midnight I Will Take Your Soul.

The film, now a cult of world horror, would present the foundations of Mojica's cinema and would serve as a debut for his maximum creation, the priceless Coffin Joe, or Coffin Joe, for the international audience and market.

With long nails and wearing a cape and top hat, Coffin Joe would appear in over a dozen films, always played by Mojica and capable of the greatest atrocities in the search for the companion who would generate the perfect child. The last was Encarnação do Demônio, from 2008, with a Coffin Joe already with gray beards, but with the same appetite for guts and beautiful women.

Marginal to the extreme, Mojica also embarked on pornochanchadas (A Virgem eo Macão, 1974, or How to Comfort Widows, 1976) and explicit porn (The Fifth Dimension of Sex, 1984, 24 Hours of Explicit Sex, 1985), counting more than 50 feature films. In the 1990s, he was discovered by horror film fans in the US and Europe and was invited to independent festivals - now under the nickname Coffin Joe. Internationalized, he became a reference in pop culture, especially among heavy rock musicians, such as Rob Zombie, Sepultura, The Cramps and even the Ramones - who presented him with a leather jacket signed by the four members.

After becoming a cult abroad, he started to make pointers in national films and TV productions. He participated in the comedies Ed Mort (1997) and Um Show de Verão (2004) and in the infamous series As Aventuras de Tiazinha (1999). As Zé do Caixão, he presented programs on TV Bandeirantes, Record and, currently, on Canal Brasil, with the talk show O Estranho Mundo by Zé do Caixão - title of a 1968 film.

In recent years, the filmmaker had faced health problems. In 2014, he spent three months in the Instituto do Coração (Incor), in São Paulo. When he was discharged, the hospital informed him that he would need to continue with cardiac follow-up in an outpatient clinic and receive treatment for chronic renal failure in a specialized clinic.

In 2016, Mojica was honored by the Gramado Film Festival with the Eduardo Abelin trophy. At the time, he was prevented from traveling to the Serra Gaúcha by medical orders. Her daughter Liz Marins received the honor on her behalf.

According to the G1 portal, the wake should take place at the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS).

MARINS, José Mojica

Born: 3/13/1936, São Paulo, Brazil

Died: 2/19/2020, São Paulo, Brazil

José Mojica Marins’ westerns – producer, director, writer, actor:

Adventurers Fate – 1958 (Gregorio) [producer, writer]

D'Gajão Mata para Vingar – 1972 [director, writer]

RIP Sonja Ziemann

"THE BLACK FOREST GIRL" DIED IN MUNICH AT THE AGE OF 94

Sonja Ziemann is dead

BILD

By Lena Zander and Daniel Cremer

February 18, 2020

Munich - a piece of the perfect world has died with her.

The "Black Forest Girl" made Sonja Ziemann the first cinema star in the young Federal Republic in 1950. It was the first home grown film, it was the first post-war film to be shot in color.

Monday, the woman who made the Black Forest Bollenhut world famous, died in a retirement home in Munich, Sonja Ziemann had just turned 94.

Her own world was not as healthy as on the screen, her second husband, the Polish writer Marek Hłasko († 34), died shortly after their divorce in 1969 from an overdose of sleeping pills.

Pierre, her son from her first marriage, died of a spinal cord tumor in 1970 at the age of 16. Her third husband, actor Charles Regnier (87, "The Will of Dr. Mabuse") died in 2001 of a stroke.

"My friends kept catching me after all these blows of fate. But in the end the soul cannot be repaired," said Ziemann once in an interview.

Ziemann was able to do more than home grown films (she dropped out of school at the age of 14 to start dancing). In 1959 she played in the famous war film "Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben". The daughter of a tax consultant had also made a name for herself internationally.

In 1969 she played alongside Keir Dullea (84) and Lilli Palmer († 72) in "The Prolonged Life of the Marquis de Sade".

In 1997 she gave up acting, in 2006 she was once again a guest of Ziemann on Reinhold Beckmann's ARD talk show.

No exact information is known about the circumstances of her death. A staff member of the senior citizen's center in which the actress last lived told BILD: "We can't say anything about that."

Her former agent Verena Nielsen told BILD: "At the end of her life, she totally retired. Her hearing was bad, but she tried anyway to enjoy her retirement. A young man took care of her."

By the way, Ziemann never made her peace with the Black Forest girl.

ZIEMAN, Sonja (Alice Toni Selma Ziemann)

Born: 2/8/1926, Eichwalde bei Berlin, Germany

Died: 2/17/2020, Munich, Bavaria, Germany

Sonja Zieman’s western – actress:

Texas Serenade – 1958 (Sylvia)

RIP Flavio Bucci

Actor Flavio Bucci dies

Played criminal 'priest' in Il Marchese del Grillo

ANSA

February 18, 2020

Rome, February 18 - Popular Italian actor Flavio Bucci has died at the age of 72, the mayor of Fiumicino near Rome said Tuesday.

    Mayor Esterino Montino called Bucci "the great actor known for the (TV) character of (sculptor) Antonio Ligabue and dozens of films including Il Marchese Del Grillo", where in the beloved Alberto Sordi classic he plays a self-styled criminal 'priest'.

    Sources said Bucci died of a heart attack.

    Born in Turin in 1947, Bucci began his screen acting career in 1971. As well as for the Marchese del Grillo, he is known for movie roles such as Daniel, the blind pianist, in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977), and Blackie in Aldo Lado's Night Train Murders (1975). His other movie appearances include The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971), Property Is No Longer a Theft (1973), To Love the Damned (1980), The Homeless One (1981), Dream of a Summer Night (1983), The Two Lives of Mattia Pascal (1985) and Il Divo (2008).

BUCCI, Flavio

Born: 5/25/1947, Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Died: 2/18/2020, Passoscuro, Lazio, Italy

Flavio Bucci’s western – actor:

Tex and the Lord of the Deep – 1985 (Kanas)

RIP Kellye Nakahara

'M*A*S*H' Star Kellye Nakahara Dead at 72

TMZ
2/17/2020

Kellye Nakahara, who played Lieutenant Nurse Kellye on "M*A*S*H," has died ... TMZ has learned.

Kellye died Sunday after a short battle with cancer. Her family was with her when she died at the family home in Pasadena ... this according to a family member. We're told she went peacefully.

Kellye, who was born on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, actually moved to San Francisco as a young adult not to pursue acting but rather a career in art.

She was on "M*A*S*H" for the entire run of the show. In case you didn't know ... "M*A*S*H" was considered one of the best shows ever produced on TV. It still lives in reruns and syndication.

She also appeared in the films, "Clue" in 1985 and "Black Day Blue Night."

She married David Wallett in 1968 and they had 2 kids. She also has 2 grandchildren.

Kellye was an accomplished artist who was awesome with watercolors. She loved making Xmas ornaments and one even hung in the White House. She and her husband were active supporters of the Ronald McDonald House.

Kellye was 72. RIP.

NAKAHARA, Kellye

Born: 12/10/1950, Oahu, Hawaii

Died: 2/16/2020, Pasadena, Calikfornia, U.S.A.

Kellye Nakahara’s western – actress:

Little House on the Prairie – 1982 (Japanese woman)