A Day of Remembering..
Today is the day of the Oscars. Where they celebrate the new movies and the stars that are in them and the people that make them happen. We don't see the producers and few directors. We don't see all the people that make the special effects or the lighting or the camera people. But they are celebrated just the same.
Lately some of my posts have been mentioning actors that have recently passed away. And so I choose to take today to think of three actors that I had the privledge to work with in California, that also have passed away.
I never got to know them as well as I knew DeForest but I did have quality time talking with them and getting to know them . All three of them I grew to care about and always looked forward to seeing them again.
The first one is Norman Fell....
To many he was the ever funny Mr. Roper on Three's Company. I have one thing to say before I give you information on him from IMDb.com, and that is: he was just as funny in person! With only a facial change Norman could make you laugh, and he did this readily when he was in public doing an autograph show. A strange thing.. i never realized his birthday was the same day as mine (same DAY, not the same year! Though I think I feel like it) until I looked him up for the following information.
Date of birth ...24 March 1924Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Date of death .....14 December 1998Woodland Hills, California, USA. (cancer)
Norm, as his friends called him, is listed in 152 appearances in television and movies
Norman Fell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1924. He graduated from Temple University with a bachelor's degree in drama. During World War II, he was an Air Force tail gunner in the Pacific. After the war, he studied acting and obtained small parts in television and on stage. His first regular TV appearance was in the comedy series "Joe & Mabel" (1955). His best known TV role was that of Stanley Roper, the landlord in the very popular "Three's Company" (1977), which debuted in 1977, and its short lived spin-off, "The Ropers" (1979).
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The second person I am remembering today is Dan O'Herlihy. He is probably most remembered as the lizard in The Last Starfighter, named Grig
What a nice man he was. He enjoyed talking to everyone and was the proud father of Gavin O'Herlihy, who is also an actor, and another son who is an Architect.
Date of birth......1 May 1919....Wexford, Ireland Date of death .....17 February 2005Malibu, California, USA. (natural causes)
Dan was listed as being in 126 movies or television shows...The Last Starfighter (1984) .... GrigRobinson Crusoe (1954) .... Robinson Crusoe were his most popular roles.
Dan earned a degree in architecture from the National University of Ireland. Later he took minor roles at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He was spotted there by movie director Carol Reed, who cast him in "Odd Man Out".
Michael Druxman, a close friend, said he was famed for his sense of humor. He recalled him wearing his lizard costume while driving home from the studio after filming his role as a friendly reptilian alien in The Last Starfighter.
Father of actor Gavan O'Herlihy.and of architect Lorcan O'Herlihy
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The third and final actor was the one of the three that I knew best, having had the privledge of helping him at a number of shows. His name is Jonathan Harris. Jonathan had a wonderful sense of humor and would make me laugh the whole day we were together. Johnathan and his family lived in Encino, not far from where I lived. He told me once that the house he lived in was thevery house that Walt Disney had built for his daughter.
I had received a letter from Jonathan telling me he was coming to do a show here in New Jersey and he would see me in a few days.. when I went to the show he wasn't there. I heard he had gone into the hospital... and he died the next day.
Date of birth ......6 November 1914Bronx, New York, USA Date of death ......3 November 2002Encino, California, USA. (blood clot in the heart)
Born Jonathan Charasuchin in the Bronx to impoverished Russian-Jewish émigrés, Jonathan Harris worked as a box boy in a pharmacy at age 12 and later earned his pharmacy degree at Fordham University. The desire to act proved overwhelming, however, and he forsook this promising trade for the theater, shaking off his thick Bronx accent and changing his surname to one easier to pronounce. After performing in over 100 plays in stock companies nationwide, he made his Broadway bow in 1942 with "Heart of a City" and entertained WWII troops in the South Pacific.
Following his introduction to live television drama in 1948, he ventured off to Hollywood and made his film debut, co-starring with Alan Ladd and James Mason in Botany Bay (1953). However, it was TV that would make him a household name - first as Bradley Webster in "The Third Man" (1959) opposite Michael Rennie, and then the role that made him a cult icon, Dr. Zachary Smith, the dastardly, effete stowaway on "Lost in Space" (1965), with Harris easily stealing the show week after week as he botched and mangled all the good intentions of the Robinson family to get back home to Earth. Unable to top this achievement and seriously typecast as a plummy villain, the remainder of his career was spent with great relish providing voice-over work in commercials and animated cartoons.
I miss these people, there was a time they entered my life and made me happy to have had the chance to know them.
Lately some of my posts have been mentioning actors that have recently passed away. And so I choose to take today to think of three actors that I had the privledge to work with in California, that also have passed away.
I never got to know them as well as I knew DeForest but I did have quality time talking with them and getting to know them . All three of them I grew to care about and always looked forward to seeing them again.
The first one is Norman Fell....
To many he was the ever funny Mr. Roper on Three's Company. I have one thing to say before I give you information on him from IMDb.com, and that is: he was just as funny in person! With only a facial change Norman could make you laugh, and he did this readily when he was in public doing an autograph show. A strange thing.. i never realized his birthday was the same day as mine (same DAY, not the same year! Though I think I feel like it) until I looked him up for the following information.
Date of birth ...24 March 1924Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Date of death .....14 December 1998Woodland Hills, California, USA. (cancer)
Norm, as his friends called him, is listed in 152 appearances in television and movies
Norman Fell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1924. He graduated from Temple University with a bachelor's degree in drama. During World War II, he was an Air Force tail gunner in the Pacific. After the war, he studied acting and obtained small parts in television and on stage. His first regular TV appearance was in the comedy series "Joe & Mabel" (1955). His best known TV role was that of Stanley Roper, the landlord in the very popular "Three's Company" (1977), which debuted in 1977, and its short lived spin-off, "The Ropers" (1979).
==================================================
The second person I am remembering today is Dan O'Herlihy. He is probably most remembered as the lizard in The Last Starfighter, named Grig
What a nice man he was. He enjoyed talking to everyone and was the proud father of Gavin O'Herlihy, who is also an actor, and another son who is an Architect.
Date of birth......1 May 1919....Wexford, Ireland Date of death .....17 February 2005Malibu, California, USA. (natural causes)
Dan was listed as being in 126 movies or television shows...The Last Starfighter (1984) .... GrigRobinson Crusoe (1954) .... Robinson Crusoe were his most popular roles.
Dan earned a degree in architecture from the National University of Ireland. Later he took minor roles at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. He was spotted there by movie director Carol Reed, who cast him in "Odd Man Out".
Michael Druxman, a close friend, said he was famed for his sense of humor. He recalled him wearing his lizard costume while driving home from the studio after filming his role as a friendly reptilian alien in The Last Starfighter.
Father of actor Gavan O'Herlihy.and of architect Lorcan O'Herlihy
==================================================
The third and final actor was the one of the three that I knew best, having had the privledge of helping him at a number of shows. His name is Jonathan Harris. Jonathan had a wonderful sense of humor and would make me laugh the whole day we were together. Johnathan and his family lived in Encino, not far from where I lived. He told me once that the house he lived in was thevery house that Walt Disney had built for his daughter.
I had received a letter from Jonathan telling me he was coming to do a show here in New Jersey and he would see me in a few days.. when I went to the show he wasn't there. I heard he had gone into the hospital... and he died the next day.
Date of birth ......6 November 1914Bronx, New York, USA Date of death ......3 November 2002Encino, California, USA. (blood clot in the heart)
Born Jonathan Charasuchin in the Bronx to impoverished Russian-Jewish émigrés, Jonathan Harris worked as a box boy in a pharmacy at age 12 and later earned his pharmacy degree at Fordham University. The desire to act proved overwhelming, however, and he forsook this promising trade for the theater, shaking off his thick Bronx accent and changing his surname to one easier to pronounce. After performing in over 100 plays in stock companies nationwide, he made his Broadway bow in 1942 with "Heart of a City" and entertained WWII troops in the South Pacific.
Following his introduction to live television drama in 1948, he ventured off to Hollywood and made his film debut, co-starring with Alan Ladd and James Mason in Botany Bay (1953). However, it was TV that would make him a household name - first as Bradley Webster in "The Third Man" (1959) opposite Michael Rennie, and then the role that made him a cult icon, Dr. Zachary Smith, the dastardly, effete stowaway on "Lost in Space" (1965), with Harris easily stealing the show week after week as he botched and mangled all the good intentions of the Robinson family to get back home to Earth. Unable to top this achievement and seriously typecast as a plummy villain, the remainder of his career was spent with great relish providing voice-over work in commercials and animated cartoons.
I miss these people, there was a time they entered my life and made me happy to have had the chance to know them.
posted by DesLily | 2:07 PM
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