Actor for The Masses

 

Dennis Patrick (1918-2002) was an American character actor in television with more than 1,800 guest and recurring roles. It would have been difficult to not spot him in the sixties and seventies. But his name remained "uncredited" to most viewers. During his forty-five-year career, he was cast in recurring roles on several series, among the more notable were sixty-five appearances on Dark Shadows: The Vampire Curse (1967-70), Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1977), and Dallas (1979-84). With leading man looks, his versatility was unmatched, though he had frequent turns as an unscrupulous businessman. Patrick appeared in a handful of films, his last being The Air Up There as Father O'Hara (1994).

A comprehensive list of his acting credits can be found HERE 

Sweet on Connie

Starting in 1943, the Lockheed Corporation began manufacturing the triple-tailed Constellation series. It was the first pressurized-cabin civil airliner series to go into widespread use. Its pressurized cabin enabled commercial passengers to fly well above most bad weather for the first time, thus significantly improving the general safety and ease of air travel. TWA was a major airline client. The "Connie" wing was similar to the Lockheed P-38 Lightning in design, differing mostly in size. The triple tail design allowed the aircraft to fit into existing hangars. Several different models of the Constellation series were produced, although all featured the distinctive dolphin-shaped fuselage. The stretched L-1049 Super Constellation first flew in 1951. The C-69 Constellation transport was the first of many military variants. The C-69 was a key player during the Berlin and Biafran airlifts. Constellation production ended in 1958. In recent years, the few airworthy examples of the L-1049 have dwindled down to one in Australia.

Richard Kimble's Brief Encounters

 

Hired by a construction crew boss, Jack Klugman, Janssen recognizes a falsely accused young man needs defending for the assault on Klugman's wife, Elizabeth Allen. 

Terror at Highpoint, 1963
Guest stars: Jack Klugman, Elizabeth Allen, James Best

A Noted Television Theme

 

John Scott (1930-), is an English film composer and music conductor. Scott toured and recorded with some of the best-known British bands of the 1960s. Playing flute, he led a jazz quintet, quartet, and trio during the same era. He played for Henry Mancini and was a principal saxophonist in John Barry's soundtrack to the James Bond film Goldfinger. Since then, Scott has composed more than 100 film and television productions.

His theme for the 1978 ITC Entertainment series, Return of The Saint, was the last of the action/adventure television series produced by ITC. It was broadcast in the US late-night Fridays on CBS. The theme is a contemporary, rousing, upbeat orchestral composition with an interesting melody. The 24-episode series starred Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar, the independently wealthy, somewhat mysterious man of action.

Hear Here!

Word Origins

*HOITY-TOITY     

This phrase has been classically used in mock indignation about someone's assumed superior importance or otherwise as an inside joke. Some three centuries ago, hoity described a person who indulged in hoiting, an obsolete word, acting like a hoyden. The toity was added just for rhyme, as scurry to rhyme with hurry in hurry-scurry. The variant, highty-tighty, arose from mispronunciation, from the same change in vowel sound that, in the seventeenth century, caused oil to be pronounced “ile”, boil as “bile”, and join as “jine.” You can thank me later.

Note: Monty Woolley, above, is perhaps a classic example of a hoity-toity character in The Man Who Came to Dinner, 1942.

*Inspired by Charles Funk (1881–1957)

This is Jim Rockford

 

Jim? It's Eddie. You were right about Sweet Talk in the 7th --- he breezed in, paid $7,250. But I didn't get your bet down...

Jim's answering machine: 

Foul On The First Play, 1976; written by Stephen Cannell
Guest star: Lou Gossett, Jr.

A World Record for Hypoxia

 

On this day in 1979, Sabrina Patricia Jackintell established a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record and Soaring Society of America National Record for Absolute Altitude. The duration of the flight was 3 hours, 18 minutes. Flying her Grob G102 Astir CS glider from the Black Forest Gliderport, north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, she soared to an altitude of 41,460 feet over Pikes Peak. This record still stands.

  
When conditions are right, the wind creates a powerful updraft called a mountain wave. Pilots from every walk of life came to Black Forest for a fun week or weekend of soaring. At Jacintell's altitude, at the edge of the stratosphere, temperatures can drop to lower than -60° Fahrenheit. Hypothermia is a life-threatening danger, in addition to the risk of hypoxia. Gliders don’t have heaters, and in order to keep the canopy from frosting over, pilots keep the air vent open, allowing outside air to blow in. She suffered from hypoxia on the record-breaking flight and a subsequent flight. Fortunately, she fully recovered in about 24 hours.

Actor and Teacher

 

Cliff Osmond (Clifford Osman Ebrahim 1937-2012) was an American character actor, screenwriter, and drama teacher. He appeared in a few films, most notably in four Billy Wilder comedies, but he was most visible from his over 100 appearances on television. Though few knew his name. A veteran acting teacher in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and nationwide, he also operated his own scene study studios for decades while conducting seminars throughout the US.

Osmond was active in television from 1962 to 1996. His first small-screen appearance was in The Rifleman playing a vengeful blind man. That same year he was cast in "The Gift", an episode of The Twilight Zone. He later appeared on six episodes of Gunsmoke and he played a lieutenant and personal aide to an Indian Princess on Have Gun -- Will Travel. The 6' 5" actor was in countless dramas and comedies from the Sixties to the Eighties, typically as a heavy, a sheriff, or a slow-witted strongman. Given his facial features and command of dialects, there were few ethnic characters he could not play.

The Ra-Da-Da-Da-Da Song

Chanson D'Amour (French for Song of Love) is a popular song written by American film composer, Wayne Shanklin. His harmonious song with its catchy, hushed, "ra-da-da-da-da" phrase, was first recorded by the American husband and wife singing duo, Art and Dotty Todd in 1958. The Era Records hit reached the Top Ten in the UK and the US and was their biggest hit just as rock 'n roll was soon dominating the pop charts. They lip-synced the song on American Bandstand for fans. That same year, The Fontane Sisters trio recorded a successful competing version for Era Records. The Todds recording used additional voices or vocal tracks while the Fontane's was strictly 3-part harmony. The song was a standard for the famous French singer, Edith Piaf. By 1977, The Manhattan Transfer recorded their version with Janis Siegel singing the melody in a perfect rendition of Piaf's unmistakable voice. It was the group's most widespread international success. 

The two 1958 recordings:

Art and Dotty Todd

The Fontane Sisters

The Dependable Fallback Host

 

Bill Cullen (1920-1990) was an American radio and television personality whose career spanned five decades. His biggest claim to fame was as a game show host for twenty-three shows, earning him the nickname "Dean of Game Show Hosts." Cullen's broadcasting career began in 1939 in Pittsburgh as a disc jockey and play-by-play announcer for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pittsburgh Hornets. After serving in the Civil Air Patrol as an instructor and patrol aircraft pilot during World War II, Cullen got his first television game show, Winner Take All, in 1952.

The witty busy Bill was on the network's list as their fallback guy. When no one could think of someone new, they typically went with the engaging personality of Cullen. In the mid-Fifties, he hosted Name That Tune, and from 1956 to 1965 he hosted the initial daytime and primetime versions of The Price Is Right. For three seasons he hosted Eye Guess, beginning in 1966. The show spawned a board game version, as well. Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, he hosted some new generations of game shows, most of which had a short life. Cullen was certainly a household face, appearing as a guest on countless game shows including popular shows like The Cross-Wits, Password, Pyramid, and Match Game. But most famously as a panelist on I've Got a Secret from 1952 to 1967, and To Tell the Truth from 1969 to 1978.

Note: Cullen contracted polio when he was 18 months old. That long-term disability plus injuries sustained in a serious motor vehicle accident in 1937, made it difficult for him to walk or stand for extended periods. The game show directors took great care and limited his standing or walking. Few peers knew of his disability at the time and nearly every television viewer ever noticed.

A Television Transition

The new television medium offered a career shift for some movie character actors. Many were kept busy, becoming a household face if not a name.

Richard Erdman (1925-2019) was an American character actor appearing in more than 160 films and television productions, mostly in supporting roles. Known for his expressive face, he was adept at drama or comedy. He kept busy as a voice artist for a number of animated shows later in his career. Starting out with Warner Bros in the mid-Forties in uncredited roles, the Enid, Oklahoma native later made an early impact opposite Dick Powell in Cry Danger (1951), tapping into his talent for delivering dry quips. This led to a few minor military roles, most notably in Stalag 17 (1953). That same year, he was a co-pilot in, The Steel Lady which concerns a crew that crash lands in the Sahara desert.

Though appearing in a few films through the Sixties, his mainstay became the small screen, often as humorous or quirky individuals. Erdman played a garage mechanic in sync with a corrupt administration's small town, in a 1958 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, The Crooked Road. In a 1963 The Twilight Zone episode, A Kind of a Stopwatch, (above) he famously played an obnoxious blow-hard who is given a timepiece that can halt time. He guest-starred in a wide variety of popular shows, among them were six appearances on Perry Mason, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Dream of Jeannie, The Beverly Hillbillies, That Girl, The Six Million Dollar Man, One Day at a Time, Lou Grant, Quincy, M.E., Cheers, and Murder, She Wrote. Near the end of his career, Erdman gained renewed fame with his fifty-three appearances as Leonard in the comedy series Community (2009–2015).

Three Crosses at The Little Big Horn

 

There were a number of entertaining westerns co-produced by Harry Joe Brown and Randolph Scott. The Tall T, Decision at Sundown, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station are among the best. Scott is perfectly cast in these low-budget westerns. Despite some historical inaccuracies, not the least of which is period-correct apparel, they are enjoyable thanks to Scott's screen presence. One of his weaker entries in their partnership, however, was 1956's, 7th Cavalry. 

With its slow pace and talky script, the film never reaches much of a climax and lacks believability on several fronts. Acknowledging Hollywood's common practice, Scott's character never historically existed though he is surrounded by historically accurate individuals. Glaring is that Scott's character was a close friend and supporter of George A. Custer. But without a doubt, the most unforgivable error is the three times the real Randolph Scott's mispronunciation of the 7th Calvary, not 7th Cavalry. The two words could not be more diametrically opposed. Obviously, no one was aware of the Biblical location or bothered to retake the scenes. 

World Wide Web Infancy

 

On this day in 1935, The March of Time was launched in over 500 theaters. Each entry in the series was either 20 or 30 minutes of current world events. Westbrook Van Voorhis, who hosted the radio program, served as narrator of the film series. The series was an immediate success that enabled audiences to travel around the globe. Because of its high production costs—estimated at fifty grand per episode, released at the rate of about one episode per month—the series was a money loser. However, it remained in production for six years beyond the cancellation of the radio show (1931-1945) on which it was based. The American short film series was sponsored by Time Inc.

Richard Kimble's Brief Encounters

 

Working as a stock clerk, Kimble witnesses his boss's manslaughter of an associate, and the doctor's anonymous phone call is misinterpreted by his wife as blackmail. She contacts the store detective to resolve the issue, who eventually has questions for Kimble.

Glass Tightrope, 1963

Guest stars Leslie Nielson, Edward Binns