Morecambe and Wise’s partnership began in 1941 when they were each booked separately to appear in Jack Hylton’s revue, Youth Takes a Bow. War service broke up the act but they reunited by chance at the Swansea Empire Theatre in 1946 when they joined forces again. Initially appearing in music hall, they made their name in radio, transferring to television in 1954. Their show, Running Wild, was not well received and led to a damning newspaper review: “Definition of the week: TV set – the box in which they buried Morecambe and Wise.” Eric apparently carried this review around with him ever after and from then on Eric and Ernie kept a tight control over their material. In 1956 they were offered a spot in the Winifred Atwell show with material written by Johnny Speight and this was a success.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tom Jones gets the Eric and Ernie Treatment

They had a series of shows that spanned over twenty years, during which time they developed and honed their act, most notably with the original move to the BBC in 1968, where they were to be teamed with their long-term writer Eddie Braben and it is this period of their careers that is widely regarded as their “glory days”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vanessa Redgrave – Song & Dance

Morecambe and Wise’s final show together was the 1983 Christmas special for ITV. By now Morecambe was tired of the double act, and many believe that, had he lived longer, he would not have recorded another series.

Morecambe was now developing as a writer, and enjoyed appearing on chat shows and as a panellist on shows such as What’s My Line. Two months before he died, Morecambe told his wife “If I have another heart attack it will kill me, and if I do another Morecambe and Wise series, I will have another heart attack.”

Eric Morecambe died in Cheltenham General Hospital at 4am, aged 58 after appearing at a local theater and making no less than six curtain calls then collapsing in the wings.

In 1994 Wise wasn’t asked by the BBC to take part in the three-part retrospective tribute to Eric Morecambe called Bring Me Sunshine. The first episode was shown on May 14 1994, and it was hosted by Ben Elton, a huge fan of Morecambe and Wise. Elton cites the duo as a big influence on his career. Those interviewed were John Thaw, Roy Castle, Diana Rigg, Hale & Pace and Fry & Laurie.

The BBC at the time said they didn’t want “Too many talking heads”. However, Wise was invited to take part in Bring Me Sunshine: The Heart and Soul of Eric Morecambe in late 1998, but his health began to deteriorate. The programme was shown on December 23 1998. Earlier that month, Wise suffered two heart attacks within a week whilst on holiday, and had to undergo a triple heart bypass in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on 22 January, 1999. Wise was due to take part in a BBC 1 tribute to Eric Morecambe but had to withdraw due to ill health. In March 1999, he was flown back to the UK by air ambulance and taken to hospital.

Ernie Wise died from heart failure and a chest infection at the Nuffield Hospital, Wexham Street, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire on 21 March, 1999.

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]]> http://zongol.com/?feed=rss2&p=136 1 http://zongol.com/?p=108 http://zongol.com/?p=108#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:42:50 +0000 Site Owner http://zongol.com/?p=108 George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, writer, actor and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television, and radio.

Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the 20th century.

His first two films with RKO: Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, are widely considered two of the greatest ever made. His other films, including Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight, are also considered masterpieces.

Citizen Kane – How to Run a Newspaper

He was also well-known for a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds which, performed in the style of a news broadcast, reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an actual extraterrestrial invasion was in progress.

Listen to Orson Welles narrate War of the Worlds

In 1943, Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other directors’ films. He starred in the 1943 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine.
He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute Follow the Boys, in which he performed his Mercury Wonder Show magic act and sawed Marlene Dietrich in half after Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to allow Hayworth to perform.

Rita Hayworth – Mrs Welles for five years

In 1944, Welles was offered a new radio show, broadcast only in California. Orson Welles’s Almanac was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. After the success of his stand-in hosting on The Jack Benny Show, the focus was primarily on comedy.

His hosting on Jack Benny included several self-deprecating jokes and story lines about his being a “genius” and overriding any ideas advanced by other cast members. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts.

When Welles started his Mercury Wonder Show a few months later, traveling to Armed Forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took a decidedly wartime flavor. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead was left. The series was cancelled by year’s end due to poor ratings.

Orson Welles in later life

Welles was politically active from the beginning of his career. He remained a man of the left throughout his life, and always defined his political orientation as “progressive.” He was a strong supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and often spoke out on radio in support of progressive politics. In particular, he was an early and outspoken critic of American racism and the practice of segregation. He campaigned heavily for Roosevelt in the 1944 election. For several years, he wrote a newspaper column on political issues and briefly toyed with running for office. In 1970, Welles narrated (but did not write) a satirical political record on the administration of President Richard Nixon entitled The Begatting of the President.

On October 10, 1985, Welles did his final interview on The Merv Griffin Show. He died just two hours later of a heart attack at his home in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, at the age of 70, the same day as Yul Brynner. Welles’s ashes were buried on the property of a long time friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez, in Ronda, Spain.

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]]> http://zongol.com/?feed=rss2&p=108 3 http://zongol.com/?p=61 http://zongol.com/?p=61#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:14:20 +0000 Site Owner http://zongol.com/?p=61 Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was an Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976.

Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated universally for his thrilling upper register. Dubbed the “Prince of tenors”, Corelli possessed handsome features and a charismatic stage presence which endeared him to audiences. He had a long and fruitful partnership with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1961 and 1975. He also appeared on the stages of most of the major opera houses in Europe and with opera companies throughout North America.

Franco Corelli sings “E Lucevan le stelle”  from Tosca (Puccini)

Corelli was born in Ancona into a family without any musical background. His father was a shipbuilder for the Italian navy and the family lived along the Adriatic Sea.Corelli loved the sea and initially decided to follow in the footsteps of his father by pursuing a degree in naval engineering at the University of Bologna. While studying there he entered a music competition under the dare of a friend who was an amateur singer. While he did not win the competition, he was encouraged by the judges to pursue a singing career and Corelli entered the Pesaro Conservatory of Music to study opera.

Corelli studied under Rita Pavoni and Arturo Melocchi but was unhappy with the results, saying these lessons basically destroyed his upper register. After this Corelli decided to become his own teacher, and referred to voice teachers as “dangerous people” and a “plague to singers”. At first he tried to turn himself into a baritone, but quickly abandoned that pursuit. He then pursued learning the tenor repertoire by imitating the style and vocal effects of the recordings of great tenors like Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Aureliano Pertile, and Beniamino Gigli.

In 1957 Corelli met soprano Loretta di Lelio when she came backstage after one of his performances at the Rome Opera House to get his autograph. They began seeing each other romantically and married in 1958. After their marriage, Loretta gave up her fledgling opera career to serve as her husband’s business manager, secretary, public relations agent, cook, and English translator. Their marriage ended upon Corelli’s death forty-five years later.

Franco Corelli- Tu lo sai (Ferrafo)

Corelli made his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on 27 January 1961 as Manrico in Il trovatore, opposite soprano Leontyne Price as Leonora who was also making her house debut at the Met that evening. He would sing to great acclaim at the Met until 1974 in roles such as Calaf (with Birgit Nilsson as Turandot), Cavaradossi, Maurizio, Ernani, Rodolfo and Edgardo. He also undertook French parts in new productions of Roméo et Juliette and Werther. He sang at a number of historic nights at the Met including: the closing gala at the old Met, the concert honoring Sir Rudolf Bing’s retirement, and Callas’s legendary comeback Tosca. His last performance at the Met was on December 28, 1974 as Calàf with Ingrid Bjoner, also singing her last performance at the Met, as Turandot. However, Corelli did tour extensively with the Metropolitan Opera in 1975, singing in performances in cities throughout the United States and in Japan.

While singing at the Met, Corelli continued to be a presence on the international stage. In 1961 he made his debut with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He returned to La Scala in 1962, for a revival of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, opposite Joan Sutherland, and that same year appeared as Manrico in a lauded production of Il Trovatore at the Salzburg Festival under Herbert von Karajan and opposite Leontyne Price, Giulietta Simionato, and Ettore Bastianini. Also in 1962 he made his first appearance with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company as Mario Cavaradossi. He returned to Philadelphia almost every year through 1971 portraying close to a dozen different roles.He made his belated debut at the Paris Opéra in 1970.

In the early 1970s, Corelli’s voice began to show some signs of wear after years of hard use in a demanding repertory. As a result, the resultant nerves surrounding performances became increasingly difficult to handle for the tenor. He made his last opera appearance as Rodolfo in 1976 in Torre del Lago at the age of 55. Corelli later said of the decision, “I felt that my voice was a little tired, a little opaque, less brilliant than before. The singer’s life cost me a great deal. I was full of apprehension and mad at everyone. I was a bundle of nerves, I wasn’t eating or sleeping.”

Franco Corelli sings La fleur from Carmen (Bizet) 

After retiring from the stage, Corelli became a popular voice teacher in New York City, somewhat ironic for a man who himself disdained voice teachers for much of his life. Corelli briefly served as mentor to America’s Got Talent finalist Donald Braswell, who has played many of the same roles as Corelli.He was briefly coaxed out of retirement out of retirement for concerts in 1980 and 1981.He died in Milan in 2003, aged 82, having suffered a stroke earlier that year. He was buried in Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale.

 With a rich and ringing dramatic tenor voice and movie-star good looks, Corelli won a wide public following from early on his career. However, while the public was enthralled with the tenor, music critics were divided, with some complaining about what they perceived as self-indulgence of phrasing and expression.

Corelli as Radames II in Aida (Verdi)

During the 1960s the anti-Corelli sentiment among critics was epitomized by Alan Rich of the The New York Herald Tribune in a 1966 article which, while acknowledged the vibrancy and white heat of his singing, considered Corelli a throwback to an earlier era when, from Mr. Rich’s perspective, musical compromises were common and stylistic refinement lacking. Rich said that, Corelli is “not employed by an opera, but employs it to serve purposes it was not meant to serve.” Also, many critics did not look favourably upon of his performances in French opera, owing to the tenor’s exotic French diction and style.However, Corelli also had his admirers among several highly respected and notable critics, including Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times, who once defended the expressive liberties taken by Corelli as possessing “its own kind of logic”.

Whatever the critics may have said, Franco Corelli was without doubt one of the finest voices of the 20th Century!

Dad’s Army tells the story of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard during the Second World War.  The platoon includes a bank manager, a chief bank clerk, a bank clerk, a butcher, a spiv, an undertaker and an ex-tailor. Initially armed only with arm-bands, they are ready to repel a possible invasion by thousands of German Wermacht troops at a moment’s notice!

Dad’s Army Main Cast

Dad’s Army lasted longer than the war itself and is a timeless, often repeated jewel in the BBC’s crown. Jimmy Perry was acting in the David Croft produced sitcom Hugh and I when he suggested the idea of a sitcom concerning those men who volunteered to be the last line of defence should the Germans invade, the Home Guard. Croft was impressed, and despite BBC misgivings that it may be disrespectful to the Home Guard, a series was commissioned. Their fears were unfounded, as there was nothing more palpable in Dad’s Army than the affection the programme makers had for the characters. For all their flaws, these men, we could rest assured, would give their lives to defend Great Britain.

 
Left to Right: Walker, Godfrey, Jones, Mainwaring & Fraiser

Based in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-On-Sea, the series used its setting for a sublime mix of character comedy and lunatic, slapstick escapades. Social mores are no more acute than in difficult times, and Dad’s Army was brilliant at exposing the flaws and anxieties of British society. Central to the show was a triumvirate of brilliant comedy characters. Captain Mainwaring was a jumped up, pompous, aspirational bank manager, reveling in the status accorded to him by his newfound rank. Sergeant Wilson was a far more laid back figure whose urbane insouciance aggravated his superior in the extreme. Corporal Jones was the local butcher, a dotty old man prone to overreaction.

 
Dad’s Army – Don’t Tell Him Pike!

The contrast between Lowe’s excellent posturing (and the ability to fall down behind a table and instantly reappear with his glasses skew-whiff), Le Mesurier’s measured, laissez-faire delivery and Dunn’s dedicated clowning ensured each character a place in comedy history. It’s a testament to the scripts that the platoon boasted illustrious actors in its ranks: admired Shakespearian Laurie was suitably apocalyptic as the cantankerous and pessimistic undertaker Frazer; noted playwright Ridley made the incontinent Godfrey; instantly loveable younger members Beck as the wily spiv Walker and Lavender as naïve mother’s boy Pike were spot on.

 
Dad’s Army Theme Tune

Despite the backdrop of conflict, most of the platoon’s problems were home grown, notably from jobsworth ARP warden Hodges (Pertwee, usually called upon to fall in a river and seethe with frustration) and the vicar and his verger. Croft and Perry seemed to cover all comedy bases in a single episode: there were high levels of farce mixed in with brilliantly, subtly observed characters and catchphrases galore (”Stupid boy”, “Don’t panic!”, “We’re doomed” and “D’you think that’s wise sir?”).

 
Dad’s Army – End Credits 

Out of one of the gravest moments in this country’s history, Croft, Perry and their peerless cast produced one of the most celebratory but least mawkish comedies of all time. As long as there are fans of comedy, there will be fans of the Dad’s Army.

Cast

Arthur Lowe Capt – George Mainwaring
John Le Mesurier – Sgt Arthur Wilson
Clive Dunn – L-Cpl Jack Jones
John Laurie – Pvt James Frazer
Arnold Ridley – Pvt Charles Godfrey
James Beck – Pvt Joe Walker
Ian Lavender – Pvt Frank Pike
Bill Pertwee – Air Raid Warden William Hodges
Frank Williams – The Vicar: The Reverend Timothy Farthing
Edward Sinclair – The Verger: Maurice Yeatman Janet
Davies – Mrs Mavis Pike
Pamela Cundell – Mrs Fox
Queenie Watts – Mrs Edna Peters
Colin Bean – Pvt Sponge

Crew
Jimmy Perry – writer
David Croft – writer
Harold Snoad – director
Bob Spiers – director

Norman Wisdom was born in the Marylebone district of London. His parents were Frederick, a chauffeur, and Maud Wisdom (née Targett), a dressmaker who often worked for West End theatres. The couple married in Marylebone in 1912.Norman Wisdom’s elder brother, Fred, was born in 1913. The family resided at 91 Fernhead Road, London W9, where they slept in one room.

At the outbreak of World War II Wisdom was sent to work in a communications centre in a command bunker in London where he connected telephone calls from war leaders to the prime minister. He met Winston Churchill on several occasions when asked for updates on incoming calls. He then joined the Royal Corps of Signals and performed a similar function with a military unit based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

After a charity concert at the Cheltenham Town Hall, actor Rex Harrison came backstage and urged him to become a professional entertainer. Leaving the Army in 1946, Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the age of 31, and his rise to the top was phenomenally fast.

Initially the straight man to the magician David Nixon, he had adopted the suit that would remain his trademark; tweed flat cap askew, with peak turned up; a suit at least two sizes too tight; a crumpled collar and a mangled tie. This character known as “the Gump” was to dominate Wisdom’s film career. A West End star within two years, he made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. Charlie Chaplin called Wisdom his “favourite clown”.

Norman singing ‘Give Me a Night in June’ from the film
Follow a Star (1959)

Wisdom made a series of low-budget star-vehicle comedies for the Rank Organisation, beginning with Trouble in Store in 1953. This film earned him a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film in 1954. Their cheerful, unpretentious appeal make them the direct descendants of the films made a generation earlier by George Formby. Never highly thought of by the critics, they were very popular with domestic audiences and Wisdom’s films were among Britain’s biggest box office successes of their day, and were successful in some unlikely overseas markets, helping Rank stay afloat financially when their more expensive film projects were unsuccessful.

Classic Norman Wisdom from ‘The Early Bird’ (1965)

The films usually involved the Gump character—Norman Pitkin—in some manual occupation, in which he is barely competent and in a junior position to a straight man, often played by Edward Chapman—Mr Grimsdale. They benefited from Wisdom’s capacity for physical slapstick comedy and his skill at creating a sense of the character’s helplessness. The series often contained a romantic subplot; the Gump’s inevitable awkwardness with women is a characteristic shared with the earlier Formby vehicles.

Norman Wisdom singing “I Like to Put on Records’
from the film ‘Trouble in Store’ (1957)

Despite a move to filming in colour, by the mid-1960s Wisdom’s commercial film appeal was in eclipse. The obvious incongruity of a fifty-year old man playing the Prime Minister’s grandson in Press for Time (1966) counted against him; Wisdom’s age was inaccurately reported for many years.

Wisdom married his second wife Freda Isobel Simpson, a dancer in October 1947; they had two children: Nicholas (born 1953) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1968, and Wisdom was granted full custody of the children. Freda Wisdom died in Brighton in 1992.

Wisdom is a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion F.C.. He enjoys golf and is a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. Popular in the Isle of Man, he lived for 27 years in a house in Andreas named Ballylough (Manx for “House of Laughs”).

A lover of cars, he owned a 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, until his age and failing mental health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness to drive test, and they were sold in September 2005. A supporter of various charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for the Manx girl group Twisted Angels for their single LA, in support of local charity Project 21.

In mid-2006, after he suffered an irregular heart rhythm, Wisdom was flown by helicopter to hospital in Liverpool and after a few days was fitted with a heart pacemaker.

In August 2007, newspapers of the Daily Mail group and the Isle of Man Newspapers reported that Sir Norman was in the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla, where he had been resident from 12 July 2007. On the release of Expresso to DVD in the same month, BBC News confirmed that Wisdom lived in a care home, due to him suffering from vascular dementia.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Norman Wisdom in his care home

It was also reported that his children had secured full power of attorney over his affairs, and having sold off his flat in Epsom, Surrey, were now in the process of selling his Isle of Man home to raise money to fund his longer term care. In an exclusive interview on 27 August 2007 with the News of the World, journalists were given access to Wisdom’s room at the home.

He claimed to be happy and content in a routine which his family and carers considered kept him safe in spite of the memory losses associated with his condition. On 16 January 2008, BBC2 aired Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4, a documentary highlighting the dilemma of coping with an aging parent. In a spoken trailer on BBC Radio 5 Live for the programme and in later publicity interviews undertaken by his family, it was stated that Wisdom’s memory loss is now so severe that he no longer recognises himself in his own films.

Norman Wisdom was my childhood and I would run for miles home when one of his films was on TV. A kind and gentle funny man from a lost era of Innocence. God bless you Norman!

In 1970, Croce met the classically trained pianist/guitarist, singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen from Trenton, New Jersey through Joe Salviuolo (aka Sal Joseph). Salviuolo was best friends with Jim when they attended Villanova University together, and Salviuolo later discovered Maury when he was teaching at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.

Sal, along with Tommy West and Terry Cashman, brought this duo together in the Cashman and West production office in New York City. Initially, Croce backed Muehleisen on guitar at his gigs. But in time, their musical strengths led them each to new heights. Muehleisen’s ethereal and inspired guitar leads became the perfect accompaniment to Croce’s down-to-earth music.

Jim Croce live at a BBC recording

In 1972, Croce signed to a three-record deal with ABC Records releasing You Don’t Mess Around with Jim and Life & Times in the same year. The singles “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”, “Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)”, and “Time in a Bottle” (written for his unborn son, A. J. Croce) helped the former album reach #1 on the charts in 1974. Croce’s biggest single, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”, hit #1 on the American charts in the summer of 1973, selling two million copies.

Croce, 30, and Muehleisen, 24, died in a small commercial plane crash on September 20, 1973, shortly before his ABC single, I Got a Name was to be released. The album of the same title was released on December 1, 1973. With his then busy touring schedule, (largely due to the recent success of “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”) Croce had only finished recording the album eight days before his death. The posthumous release included three hits, “I Got a Name”, “Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues”, and “I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song”. Three months after his death, the song “Time in a Bottle”, originally released on Croce’s first album the year before, became a #1 hit single (the third posthumous chart-topping song of the Rock Era following Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” and “Me and Bobby McGee” by Janis Joplin). Both the song “Time in a Bottle” and the You Don’t Mess Around with Jim album cover were featured in the ABC-TV movie “She Lives!”,[7] which aired on September 12, 1973. The movie was responsible for thousands of telephone calls to radio stations across the country the next day, with everyone wanting to know ‘who sang that song?’ eventually propelling the obscure album track to #1. Jim lived long enough to hear of the public’s curiosity about the song, although it was not released as a single until a few weeks later.

A bit of a tear jerker, shows Jim and Ingrid Croce  Playing with
their son A.J. and other home movie clips set to Time in a Bottle!

Croce had just completed a concert in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and was flying to Sherman, Texas. The pilot and all passengers (Croce; Muehleisen; Croce’s booking agent Kenneth D. Cortose; George Stevens, the comic who was the show’s warm-up act; and Dennis Rast, another passenger) were killed instantly at 10:45 PM EDT on September 20, 1973, less than an hour after the end of Croce’s last concert.

Upon takeoff, the Beechcraft E18 plane did not gain enough altitude to clear a pecan tree at the end of the runway, which investigators said was the only tree for hundreds of yards. The official report from the NTSB hints that the charter pilot, Robert Newton Elliott, who had severe coronary artery disease and had run a portion of the three miles to the airport from a motel, may have suffered a heart attack, causing him to crash into the trees on a clear runway with excellent visibility. A later investigation placed sole blame for the accident on pilot error.

Croce was laid to rest in Haym Salomon Memorial Park, East Whiteland Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania even though he had recently relocated to San Diego.

Despite his purported inability to perform conjuring tricks, Cooper was a member of The Magic Circle. Famed for his red fez, his appearance was large and lumbering at 6 feet 4 inches (1.9 m) and more than 15 stone (210 lb; 95 kg) in weight.

Tommy Cooper, his magic tricks and simple style of humor!

Cooper rapidly became a top-liner in variety with his turn as the conjuror whose tricks never succeeded, but it was his television work that catapulted him to national recognition. After his debut on the BBC talent show New to You in March 1948, he soon started starring in his own shows, and was popular with audiences for four decades, most notably through his work with London Weekend Television from 1968 to 1972 and with Thames Television from 1973 to 1980.

Cooper was a heavy drinker and smoker, and experienced a decline in health during the late 1970s, suffering a heart attack in 1977 while in Rome, where he was performing a show. However, just three months later he was back on television in Night Out at the London Casino. By 1980, though, his drinking meant that Thames Television would not give him another starring series, and Cooper’s Half Hour was his last.

He did continue to guest on other television shows, however, and worked with Eric Sykes on two Thames productions in 1982: The Eric Sykes 1990 Show and It’s Your Move.

On 15 April 1984, Cooper collapsed from a heart attack in front of millions of television viewers, midway through his act on the live London Weekend Television variety show Live From Her Majesty’s. A glamourous assistant had helped him put on a cloak for his sketch, where someone (on this evening it was host Jimmy Tarbuck) was hiding behind the curtain waiting to pass him different props which he would then appear to pull from inside his gown. The assistant smiled at him as he collapsed, believing that it was a joke.

Likewise, the audience laughed as he fell, until it became apparent he was seriously ill. At this point the show’s director, Alasdair MacMillan, cued the orchestra to play music for an unscripted commercial break (noticeable by several seconds of blank screen whilst LWT’s master control contacted regional stations to start transmitting advertisements)and Jimmy Tarbuck’s manager tried to pull Cooper back through the curtains, where he was given CPR.

For legal  and medical reasons, Cooper’s body could not be removed from the stage except by paramedics or the police. It was decided to continue with the show. Dustin Gee and Les Dennis were the act that had to follow Tommy Cooper, and other stars proceeded to present their acts in the limited space in front of the stage. For a long time, a rumour circulated that the size 13 feet from his 6-foot 4 frame protruded underneath the curtains.

While the show continued, efforts were being made backstage to revive Cooper, not made easier by the darkness. It was not until a second commercial break that ambulancemen were able to move his body to Westminster Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Some Cooperisms

• Went to the paper shop – it had blown away.
• I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn’t find any.
• I bought some HP sauce the other day. It’s costing me 6p a month for the next 2 years.
• Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.
• Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks.  They charged one and let the other one off.
• A woman told her doctor, ‘I’ve got a bad back. ‘The doctor said, ‘It’s old age.’  The woman said, ‘I want a second opinion. ‘The doctor says, ‘OK. you’re ugly as well.’
• A man walked into the doctor’s, The doctor said ‘I haven’t seen you in a long time’
  The man replied, ‘I know I’ve been ill’.
• A man walked into the doctor’s, he said ‘I’ve hurt my arm in several places’.
  The doctor said ‘well don’t go there any more’.
• I’m on a whiskey diet. I’ve lost three days already.
• Went to the corner shop – bought 4 corners
• I went to the doctors the other day and I said, ‘have you got anything for wind’,
  so he gave me a kite.
• I went to the Doctors the other day, and he said, ‘Go to Bournemouth, it’s great for ‘flu.
  So I went, and I got it.’
• I was in the attic the other day with the wife. Damp and dusty………but she’s great with the kids!

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]]> http://zongol.com/?feed=rss2&p=29 1 http://zongol.com/?p=19 http://zongol.com/?p=19#comments Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:15:31 +0000 Site Owner http://zongol.com/?p=19 Mario Lanza (January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an Italian American tenor and Hollywood movie star who enjoyed success in the late 1940s and 1950s.

His lirico spinto tenor voice was considered by his admirers to rival that of Enrico Caruso, whom Lanza portrayed in the 1951 film The Great Caruso. Compared with Caruso, however, his operatic career was negligible. Lanza sang a wide variety of music throughout his career, ranging from operatic arias to the popular songs of the day. While his highly emotional style was not universally praised by critics, he was immensely popular and his many recordings are still prized today. He died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 38 and was entombed in Holy Cross Cemetery.

Lanza’s short career covered opera, radio, concerts, recordings, and motion pictures. He was the first artist for RCA Victor Red Seal to receive a gold disc. He was also the first artist to sell two and half million albums. A highly influential artist, Lanza has been credited with inspiring successive generations of opera singers, including Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Leo Nucci and José Carreras, as well as singers with seemingly different backgrounds and influences, his RCA Victor label-mate Elvis Presley being the most notable example.

In 1994, tenor José Carreras paid tribute to Lanza in a worldwide concert tour, saying of him, “If I’m an opera singer, it’s thanks to Mario Lanza.” Carreras’ colleague Plácido Domingo echoed these comments in a 2009 CBS interview when he stated that, “Lanza’s passion and the way his voice sounds are what made me sing opera. I actually owe my love for opera thanks to a kid from Philadelphia.”

A immense talent taken from us so early in life!

Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis was a childhood vaudevillian, and became internationally famous for his performances on Broadway and Las Vegas, as a recording artist, television and film star, and the only black member of Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack”.

Sammy was an excellent all round performer
and a master of tap dancing

Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis was a childhood vaudevillian, and became internationally famous for his performances on Broadway and Las Vegas, as a recording artist, television and film star, and the only black member of Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack”.

At the age of three Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and “uncle” as the Will Mastin Trio, toured nationally, and after military service, returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a well received nightclub performance at Ciro’s after the 1951 Academy Awards, with the trio, became an recording artist, and made his first film performances later that decade. Losing his left eye in a car accident in 1954, he converted to Judaism and appeared in the first Rat Pack movie, “Ocean’s Eleven” in 1960. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956’s “Mr Wonderful”, Davis returned to the stage in 1964’s “Golden Boy”. Davis’ career slowed in the late sixties, but he scored a hit record with “The Candy Man”, in 1972, and became a star attraction in Las Vegas.

He was an excellent singer with a great delivery!
Sammy sang from the heart!

As an African-American and Hispanic, Davis was the victim of racism throughout his life, and was a large financial supporter of various civil rights causes. Davis had a complex relationship with the black community, and attracted criticism after physically embracing Richard Nixon in 1970.

After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before dying of throat cancer in 1990. Davis died heavily in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of complicated legal battles.

Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for his television performances. He was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sammy Davis Jr, the little man that did everything… God bless him!