Saturday, February 26, 2022

RIP Larry Neumann Jr.

 Chicago actor Larry Neumann Jr. is dead at 62. His off-Loop roles were legion and he had many stories to tell.

 

Chicago Tribune

By Chris Jones

February 25, 2022

 

Larry Neumann Jr., a gruff, gritty Chicago actor widely regarded as quintessential, died Wednesday at the age of 62. His death was announced by his former wife of 18 years, Sandy Borglum.

Borglum said Neumann collapsed and died at his South Shore home, most likely from complications due to Type 1 diabetes.

“Larry was the hardest working man I ever knew,” Borglum said in an interview, speaking of her love for her former husband and his furious affection for his entire family. “He was lucky in that he always was able to live his life on his own terms.”

Neumann’s contributions to the Chicago theater stretched back decades and are without an obvious peer. He was mostly known as an actor, although he also served for a while as managing director of the Famous Door Theatre Company, an influential off-Loop company.

In later years, he took on a well-deserved paternalistic role with younger actors, often signing himself off as “Uncle Lar.” He was a fixture at post-show bar gatherings, pre-pandemic at least, sharing his many war stories from the off-Loop theater.

His work here dated back to the mid-1980s, when Neumann worked with Blind Parrot Productions, which performed in the back room of the Amethyst Grill and Tavern on North Broadway, and New Crimes Productions. In 1986, Neumann played the title role in “Artaud at Rodez” by Charles Marowitz, where he injected himself with a syringe on stage and was nailed into a coffin at the end; witnesses recalled him screaming and pounding on the cover as the audience made its exit.

By 1988, he was playing Iago in the Chicago Shakespeare Company production of “Othello,” opposite Shira Piven’s Desdemona.

Seminal roles over the years also included the one-man show “Judgement,” seen at Famous Door in 1995, wherein Neumann played the sole sane survivor of a group of seven Russian officers, all imprisoned, abandoned and left naked in a cell for two months. He matched that psychological intensity stage time and time again, be it as a Shakespearean tragedian or, memorably, as merely a Chestnut Seller (with issues) in the annual Goodman Theatre production of “A Christmas Carol.”

And in 1996, he even played the Dalai Lama in Eric Overmyer’s monologue, “The Dalai Lama Goes Three for Four,” replete with bald pate and saffron robe. Perhaps most remarkable of all was his performance as Richard Nickel, a Chicago photographer obsessed with saving great architecture, in the 2001 Lookingglass Theatre production of “They All Fall Down.”

Neumann was born in Sept. 1959, according to public records, and grew up in and around Chicago.

In an off-Loop world dominated by young actors with an eye on what might be ahead, Neumann was something of an anomaly. As such, given his affinity for curmudgeons and his focus on the work even at the expense of personal career development, Neumann worked constantly. Even his comic turns, as in Will Kern’s “Hellcab,” were tinged with the kind of tragedy he also found in Famous Door’s seminal production of “Ghetto.”

He was, by all accounts, one of a kind. And a candidate for the Chicago actor who did the most off-Loop shows, ever.

“There was a time when I don’t think there was a theater in Chicago where Larry hadn’t worked,” said Marc Grapey, formerly the artistic director of Famous Door. “He was part of the fabric, he was part of the landscape. He was also a true original. I know the theaters have been dark for quite a while now, but when they do come back, some key players are going to be missing.”

Survivors include Neumann’s mother, Patti, and three siblings: Cindy, Tim and Brian.

Plans for a memorial celebration, Grapey said, are pending.

 

NEUMANN, Jr., Larry

Born: 9/30/1959, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 2/23/2022, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

 

Larry Neumann’s western – actor:

Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 2000 (Detective Sills)

Friday, February 25, 2022

RIP Joni James

 

Joni James, million-selling pop singer of 1950s, dies at 91 

He Washington Post

By Adam Bernstein

2/25/2022

Joni James, a dulcet-voiced pop singer whose 1952 recording of the ballad “Why Don’t You Believe Me?” sold millions of copies and established her as a Hit Parade queen for a dozen years before she largely exited the music world, died Feb. 20 in West Palm Beach, Fla. She was 91.

Her son, Michael Acquaviva, confirmed the death but not did provide a specific cause.

In the pre-Beatles era, Ms. James flourished as a petite, raven-haired musical star whose warm, plaintive and slightly husky vocals — often backed by lush string arrangements — were favorably compared to those of better-known contemporaries such as Doris Day and Connie Francis.

Ms. James was 21 when “Why Don’t You Believe Me?” became a No. 1 hit. Her other signature recordings included a version of Hank Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” as well as “Have You Heard,” “How Important Can It Be?” “There Goes My Heart,” “Mama, Don’t Cry at My Wedding” and “Little Things Mean a Lot.”

Her 1960 album “Joni James at Carnegie Hall,” featuring a symphony and chorus conducted by her then-husband and musical director, Anthony “Tony” Acquaviva, was another commercial success and included jazz-pop standards such as “When I Grow Too Old to Dream” and “Let There Be Love.” Lindsay Planer, a critic for AllMusic.com, praised the “maturity and refined elegance in her delivery,” setting her apart from other teen idols of the ponytail pop era.

Ms. James, who developed a fan base as far away as the Philippines through overseas tours, told the Associated Press in 1960 that she navigated a musical path through the surging appeal of rock with a simple philosophy: “Sing for the 20-year-olds, the 30-year-olds and the 50-year-olds. Forget the 12-year-olds, because they’ll soon forget you.”

Giovanna Carmella Babbo was born in Chicago on Sept. 22, 1930, one of six children raised by a widowed mother during the Depression. She was a dancer in her youth and began babysitting, modeling undergarments and icing cakes in a bakery to pay her way to New York to study ballet.

She also sang at fraternal clubs and in talent contests and said she was astonished by the warm audience reaction to her voice, which she had considered inferior to her dancing ability.

“Singing was something we grew up with,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m Italian. Italians breathe and Italians sing. There was always music around the house, but when I thought of real singers, I thought of Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday and Doris Day and Hank Williams. I was just little Joni. ... I always felt I had to work hard to be good enough. I had to tell the story and pour everything into a song ... my heart, my soul, my guts.”

After she performed on singer Johnnie Ray’s popular TV show, reportedly as a last-minute substitute, a deluge of fan letters drew the attention of the show’s sponsor, an appliance merchandiser. A representative with the advertiser then steered her to MGM Records, which signed her in 1952. Her single “Why Don’t You Believe Me?” stayed on the charts for weeks and established her as an overnight recording star.

She never again generated the level of commercial fervor that greeted that debut single, but she maintained a steady output of pop songs for the next dozen years before mostly dropping out of the business, except for periodic concert and nightclub engagements, and appearances at U.S. military posts overseas. Acquaviva, whom she had wed in 1956, developed a severe case of diabetes, and by 1964 she was needed to care for him and their two children.

“I became the nurse and the Italian mother,” Ms. James told the Times. “I wanted to be near my family. Besides, I couldn’t possibly turn away from Tony. He was in a wheelchair for years. They were going to amputate his leg at one point because of gangrene, but we saved it. I used to bathe the leg six times a day.”

Ms. James mounted a comeback after Acquaviva’s death in 1986, including engagements at Carnegie Hall. She also oversaw the remastering and rereleasing of many of her early recordings, which she and Acquaviva had the foresight to buy from MGM soon after her early retirement.

In 1997, Ms. James married Bernard “Ben” A. Schriever, a retired Air Force general who helped develop the intercontinental ballistic missile program. They had long been social acquaintances on the West Palm Beach social scene, and he had been among the first to encourage her return to singing. “I was a bent-wing sparrow, and he pushed me to come back,” she told the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune.

Schriever died in 2005. In addition to her son, of Alabama, survivors include her daughter, Angela Kwoka of Florida; two brothers; two sisters; and two grandchildren.

As Ms. James revived her career — she stopped performing about 15 years ago — she said she was greeted by audiences as a long-lost friend or with curious stares (“It is either ‘Joni, where have you been?’ or ‘Joni who?’ ”). But she told the Tribune that she never had any intention of adapting to an updated repertoire.

“I resent rock-and-roll because it only tells one half,” she said. “All they have is rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, which is great. But when you fall in love and want to be romantic, you still need that gorgeous melody.”

“I can’t live without singing,” she added, “because I love music, and how can you live without love?”

 

JAMES, Joni (Giovanna Carmella Babbo)

Born: 9/22/1930, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 2/20/2022, West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A

 

Joni James’ western – singer:

The Maverick Queen – 1956 [sings title song]

Thursday, February 24, 2022

RIP Sally Kellerman

 

Sally Kellerman, Hot Lips Houlihan in ‘M*A*S*H,’ Dies at 84

The Oscar-nominated actress and singer also starred in 'Back to School' opposite Rodney Dangerfield and on 'Maron.'

 

 

The Hollywood Reporter

By Cheryl Cheng

February 24, 2022

Sally Kellerman, the husky-voiced actress known for her Oscar-nominated portrayal of U.S. Army Maj. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H, has died. She was 84.

Kellerman, who also sang and had a Grand Funk Railroad tune written for her, died Thursday morning at an assisted care facility in Woodland Hills after a battle with dementia, her son, Jack Krane, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native Californian, Kellerman had a memorable role in the third Star Trek episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” in which she portrayed Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, a human Starfleet officer aboard the USS Enterprise. When Dehner sacrifices her life, her dying words to Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) are, “I’m sorry … you can’t know what it’s like to … be almost a god.”

And in the comedy Back to School (1986), Kellerman was wonderful as the free-spirited college literature professor Diane Turner, the love interest of Rodney Dangerfield’s obnoxious rags-to-riches businessman, Thornton Melon.

“This is my one brag in life: The director [Alan Metter] said he felt that I helped make Rodney human, believable in a relationship. Because I just had to love him and be sincere about it,” Kellerman said in 2016 on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. (She played Maron’s eccentric mom on his IFC comedy.)

Kellerman also noted that when fans encountered her in public, they either yelled, “Hey, Hot Lips!,” or recited a classic Dangerfield line from Back to School: “Call me sometime when you got no class.”

Kellerman had appeared in guest-starring stints on many TV shows of the 1960s, including The Outer Limits, 12 O’Clock High, Ben Casey, That Girl and Mannix, when she won the role of the by-the-books Houlihan in M*A*S*H, an adaptation of Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel about Army surgeons saving lives during the Korean War.

One of her more famous scenes in the movie came when she is embarrassingly pranked in the shower. Kellerman had never been nude onscreen, so Altman devised distractions for the shot, she said.

“When I looked up, there was [actor] Gary Burghoff stark naked standing in front of me,” she recalled in 2016. “The next take, [Altman] had Tamara Horrocks — she was the more amply endowed nurse — without her shirt on. … So I attribute my Academy Award nomination to the people who made my mouth hang open.”

Regarding the humiliation her character endured, Kellerman said: “I loved Bob, but he was a real male chauvinist, probably the worst. I’m kidding. Sort of kidding. But I think that [torment] really saved Hot Lips. She grew up after that. She’d been so uptight, so rigid, no sense of humor — and after all that went down, she started having a really good time, a real life.”

In a 2013 interview, Kellerman remembered that when the M*A*S*H crew was watching the dailies, Altman told her, “You’re going to get nominated for an Oscar for this one, Sally.” She wound up losing to the sentimental favorite that year, Helen Hayes of Airport.

She and Altman also collaborated on the features Brewster McCloud (1970), The Player (1992) and Pret-a-Porter (1994) and on a 1997 episode of Gun, an ABC anthology series that he executive produced. Kellerman, though, squandered another opportunity to work with the famed director.

After she had an ill-fated rendezvous with Alan Arkin in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972), directed by Gene Saks, “Bob called me one day at home,” she recalled in her 2013 memoir, Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life. “‘Sally, do you want to be in my picture after next?’ he asked. ‘Only if it’s a good part,’ I said.

“He hung up on me. Bob was as stubborn and arrogant as I was at the time, but the sad thing is that I cheated myself out of working with someone I loved so much, someone who made acting both fun and easy and who trusted his actors. Stars would line up to work for nothing for Bob Altman.”

She added, “Oh, the Altman film I turned down? Nashville. In that part I would have been able to sing. Bad choice.”

Sally Claire Kellerman was born on June 2, 1937, in Long Beach, California. Her mother was a piano teacher and her father an executive for Shell Oil. “I came out of the womb singing and acting,” she said.

While attending Hollywood High School, Kellerman starred in a production of Meet Me in St. Louis and submitted a demo to jazz impresario Norman Granz. He offered her a recording contract at Verve, but, just 18, she turned it down.

“I was young and scared at the time,” she said. “I had very little self-esteem, and I had already started this acting class. This class, taught by Jeff Corey, really gave me the chance to grow up.” (Classmates included Jack Nicholson, James Coburn and Robert Blake.)

In 1957, Kellerman made her film debut in the Samuel Z. Arkoff crime drama Reform School Girl, then appeared regularly on television and in several plays, including The Marriage Go-Round and Call Me by My Rightful Name.

She had a role in a 1966 stage production of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, starring Richard Chamberlain and Mary Tyler Moore, but the show was closed in previews before it made it to Broadway when producer David Merrick said he did not want to “subject the drama critics and the public to an excruciatingly boring evening.”

Still, all of her experience to that point emboldened her as she auditioned for Altman.

“Before M*A*S*H, I was ready to take any kind of chance,” Kellerman said. “I went out for the Lieutenant Dish part, which was bigger. But I happened to be wearing lipstick, and while I was talking a mile a minute, producer Ingo Preminger kept muttering in his German accent, ‘Hot Lips!’ … [Altman] yelled ‘Hot Lips’ too.”

The film and Hooker’s novel, of course, also inspired the CBS series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972-83. Nearly all of the characters from the movie were recast, including Hot Lips, portrayed on TV by Loretta Swit, who won two Emmys and was nominated for her work on 10 of the show’s 11 seasons. (Burghoff did reprise his role as Walter “Radar” O’Reilly.)

Altman said that he disliked the show “because [it] was the opposite of my main reason for making this film — and this was to talk about a foreign war, an Asian war, that was going on at the time. And to perpetuate that every Sunday night — and no matter what platitudes they say about their little messages and everything — the basic image and message is that the brown people with the narrow eyes are the enemy. And so I think that series was quite a racist thin

Kellerman’s film résumé also included The Boston Strangler (1968), The April Fools (1969), Slither (1973) opposite James Caan, the Charles Jarrott-directed Lost Horizon (1973), Welcome to L.A. (1976) with Harvey Keitel and Sissy Spacek, The Big Bus (1976), Foxes (1980), Blake Edwards’ That’s Life! (1986), All’s Fair (1989) and Boynton Beach Club (2005).

On the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, she played Constance Bingham, an elderly woman confined to a wheelchair, and landed a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2015.

Kellerman eventually did pursue a singing career and in 1972 released her first album, Roll With the Feelin’.

“I love acting … but my fantasy is to have a couple of babies and make an album a year, and maybe a picture a year, too,” she said in 1973. “I don’t want to not do either one.”

Around that time, Kellerman dated Grand Funk Railroad singer-guitarist Mark Farner, who wrote the 1976 pop song “Sally” about her. Her second album, Sally, was released in 2009.

Kellerman also did voiceover work in commercials — most famously for Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing — and for such animated films as The Mouse and His Child (1977), Happily Ever After (1990) and Delgo (2008).

Kellerman wed writer-director Rick Edelstein (Starsky & Hutch) in December 1970, but the marriage was troubled from the start. “We’ve fought every day since we’ve met,” she said years ago, “and sometimes I wondered whether my wedding dress would be black with red splotches.” They divorced in 1972.

In 1980, she married the late producer Jonathan D. Krane (Look Who’s Talking, Face/Off), and they adopted twins, Jack and Hannah, who died in 2016.

KELLERMAN, Sally (Sally Clare Kellerman)

Born: 6/2/1937, Long Beach, California, U.S.A.

Died: 3/24/2022, Woodland Hills, California, U.S.A.

 

Sally Kellerman’s westerns – composer, actress, singer:

Cheyenne (TV) – 1962 (Lottie Durango) [singer]

The Legend of Jesse James (TV) – 1966 (Kate Mason)

A Man Called Shenandoah (TV) – 1966 (Philomena Bartlett)

Bonanza (TV) – 1966, 1970 (Kathleen Walker, Lotta Crabtree)

Dundee and the Culhane (TV) – 1967 (Cynthia)

Centennial (TV) – 1978, 1979 (Lisa Bockweiss)

September Gun (TV) – 1983 (Mama Queen)

Tall Tales & Legends (TV) – 1986 (Lucy)