You're Soaking In It

The television landscape had a staple for many decades. It was a woman loved by millions who was able to give sell you her product without making herself annoying. This woman was Jan Miner but she was known to you and I as Madge the Manicurist. Her famous phrase "You're Soaking in it." was heard world wide for over 30 years.

Jan Miner was born and raised in Boston, MA and studied acting with Lee Strasberg. She worked for years on radio at one time she played Della Street on the radio version of Perry Mason. It was television that really brought her fame as sassy manicurist Madge who soaked her clients fingers in Palmolive dish liquid. She may well have been the first manicurist many people ever saw.
She did other work over the years acting in movies such as the Lenny Bruce Biopic. playing Bruce's mother opposite Dustin Hoffman.
Jan Miner died after a period of failing heath in 2004. 

Carla Laemmle dies at 104

One of the last surviving actors from the silent movie era Carla Laemmle has died in Los Angeles at the age of 104. Ms Laemmle was the niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle. Her uncle convinced his brother and family to move to Los Angeles in 1921. They settled into a home near the studio in what is now Universal City. Ms Laemmle went into the family business working as a dancer and an actress. She was cast in the Silent Classic "Phantom of the Opera" as well as "Dracula" where she had the first spoken line of the now classic Universal horror movie. She worked steadily through out the 1930's. She then made her living as a night club dancer. She did make a return to the screen in 2010 in the film "Pool Party" and is in a film slted to come out later this year.

Adieu Ralph Monroe

Mary Grace Canfield has died. If you don't know who she is then you didn't watch "Green Acres" or 1960's or 1970's television she was a character actress fixture. Her most notable character was Ralph Monroe one of the Monroe Brothers in the surreal world that was Hooterville. This was a world where a woman named Ralph could be a brother but still a woman. Ralph was always looking for love and eventually found a man and his name was Evelyn. The world of Hooterville was enchanting and magical. A place anything could happen and the fourth wall was fluid. Everyone was in on the joke and that is waht made it funny.
Thanks for being a part of one of the best written television shows in TV history Mary Grace Canfield,

The Baroness has Died

Actress Eleanor Parker has died  today. She was 91 years old. Although she was in over 80 movies and was known as the woman with a thousand faces she will always be rememberd a the jilted scheming Baroness in "TheSound of Music" Parker worked with everyone and was in some amazing movies but her performance as the icy Baroness with her heart set on Baron Van Trapp in "The Sound of Music" willmke her immortal!Married 4 times Eleanor Parker died in her Palm Springs home.

Everybody's Housekeeper

The zaftig character actress Reta Shaw will always be remembered as the sassy or bossy housekeeper. Reta Shaw was born in Maine in 1912 and she studied acting at the Leland Powers School of Acting in Boston. Her career as an actress started in New York where she performed in musical comedies on Broadway. Shaw was in the original casts of "The Pajama Game", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Annie Get Your Gun". She also appeared in movies like "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" and "Escape to Witch Mountain" . Shaw was one of the Banks' servants in "Mary Poppins". It was on television that she really made her mark. She was almost always cast as the housekeeper or meddlesome neighbor. On the TV show "Bewitched" Ms. Shaw played Samantha's Aunt Hagatha. It was the role of Martha, the housekeeper on "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" that she will be most remembered for.
Reta Shaw died in 1982 she was 69 years old.

99 is 80

One of the most influential style icons form the 1960's was agent 99. Barbara Feldon portrayed 99 for five years on one of the most revered off all 60's sitcoms "Get Smart". As 99 Barbara Feldon made being a spy both cool and very stylish.
Barbara Feldon was born Barbara Anne Hall in Pittsburgh in 1933. That makes 99 80years old this year! She studied drama at what is now Carnegie Mellon University graduating in 1955. She moved to New York and started her career as a model. She made a name for herself in 1957 by winning the grand prize on the now infamous television quiz show "The $64,000 Question". Her category was William Shakespeare. She took her winnings from the show and invested along with her then husband Lucien Verdoux-Feldon in an art gallery. It was during this period she was finding lots of work as a model and really caught the public's eye in an ad for "Top Brass" a men's hair care product. In the ad she was lying on a fur rug and talked to the men watching calling them "Tigers".

Her career started to pick up some speed leading to guest parts on television shows like "Flipper", "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in" and "Man From Uncle". Buck Henry saw her and wrote the role of 99 with her in mind when he was creating "Get Smart". Barbara Feldon is 5'10" tall so Don Adams was too sure about working with her at first but he was finally convinced she was perfect. During the five year run of the show she worked either bare foot or stooped to make Adams' height less noticeable.
After "Get Smart" was cancelled Ms Feldon had a few roles in films most notably "Fitzwilly" with Dick Van Dyke and "Smile" a send up of beauty pageants. She also worked as a voice over actress. She also appeared in the 1989 made for television movie "Get Smart, Again!" along with making guest appearances on shows like "Cheers" and "Mad About You".
While she was making Get Smart Ms Feldon divorced her first husband and shortly thereafter married Get Smart producer Burt Nodella. They were married for 12 years. When that relationship ended she moved back to New York. While living in New York she wrote a book titled "Living Alone and Loving It" and acted in off Broadway shows. She is now quoted as saying she is "no longer interested in acting".
She may be 80 but she will forever be 99.

Florence Stanley

Florence Stanley has one of those faces that is hard to forget. The character actress had a long and varied career with Broadway, movies, and television performances. One of her best known performances is that of the long suffering Bernice Fish the wife of Phil Fish from the sitcom "Barney Miller" and its spin off "Fish".
Florence Stanley was born in Chicago in 1924 with the name Florence Schwartz. Her career started in the 1940's. In the 1950's she appeared in several live television productions. On stage Ms. Stanley appeared in "Clytemnestra" and "The Glass Menagerie" She took over the role of Yenta the matchmaker in "Fiddler of the Roof" from Bea Arthur performing in over 2,000 Broadway performances. One of her other great successes was in Neil Simon's "Prisoner of Second Avenue".
In film Ms. Stanley appeared in "Up the Down Staircase" with Sandy Dennis, Jean Stapleton and Bud Cort as well as "The Day of the Dolphin".
In the 1970's Florence Stanley was once again on television co-starring in the short run sitcom "Joe and Sons". It was while making Joe and Sons she was cast in one of her most famous roles that of Bernice on an episode of "Barney Miller". She played the long suffering wife of Fish played by Abe Vigoda. The producers of Barney Miller then created the spin off "Fish" with Vigoda and Stanley playing the roles of Fish and Bernice as foster parents of a group of mixed race kids. The series ran for two seasons. Ms. Stanley was later cast in the sitcom "My Two Dads" as Judge Margaret Wilbur a family court judge and curmudgeon. She also appeared of "Family Guy" as the voice of Thelma Griffin. She was replaced by Phyllis Diller after her death.
Florence Stanley died in 2003 from complications of a stroke.

Nora (Dodo) Denney

If you were a kid in the 1970's you know the face of Nora (Dodo) Denney. Dodo Denney was Mrs. Teevee the elementary school teacher mother of Mike Teevee in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". She played the sort of know it all mother of TV obsessed Mike who does not enjoy her trip to the Wonka factory. 
Dodo Denney was a comic character actress and through out the 1960's and 70's she appeared on scores of television shows like "Green Acres", "Bewitched" and "Get Smart". Her career started out in Kansas City, MO where she was Marilyn the Witch a hostess of horror movies. She moved to Los Angeles in the 60's and started acting in sitcoms and then made for TV Movies. It was in 1971 when she got the role in Willy Wonka only after the producers first choice Jean Stapleton couldn't take the role as she was signed to "All in the Family".
Dodo was married to Alan Denney a successful art director and greeting card designer. She had two sons John and Dix Denney the founders of the seminal LA punk rock band The Weirdos.
After her husband died she retired to the Lake Arrowhead area and became an expert gardener. Nora Dodo Denney died in November of 2005 in her home. She was 78 at the time of her death.

Daisy Moses

You know her and you know you love her. Her name was Irene Ryan and she was a tour de force in American theater. Who was Irene Ryan? Unless you are a musical theater fanatic you know her by her most famous character's name Daisy Moses. What you don't know the name Daisy Moses? Perhaps you know her by her character's better known name; Granny. Yes Daisy Moses was commonly known as Granny Clampett. She moved to the hills, Beverly, that is.
Irene Ryan did have a life and a career before she embodied Granny. She was a Broadway star and that is where she died. Irene Ryan was a star of "Pippin" when it was making its first run on Broadway. She actually died while doing "Pippin". Yes, Granny was a Broadway star. She had been in the business for years before she became Granny.

Born Irene Noblette in El Paso, Texas in 1902 she made her stage debut in San Francisco at the age of 11 singing "Pretty Baby" in an amateur contest. Irene married actor-comedian Tim Ryan at the age of 20. They formed a vaudeville act. Their's was a "Dumb Dora" act billed as Tim & Irene. They toured the country and made several short subject films in the 1930's. In 1942 the couple divorced and Irene started touring with Bob Hope. She married again to a man named Harold Knox. In the 40's and 50's she worked in movies and did some television. Irene Ryan worked on the TV show "The Real McCoys" with Walter Brennan. It was in 1962 she was cast as Daisy Moses the mother-in-law of Jed Clampett and became a star. She was nominated for Emmy Awards in 1963 and 1964. When the series was cancelled as part of the "rural purge" Irene Ryan moved onto Broadway. Cast in Bob Fosse's "Pippin" she won a Tony award.
Irene Ryan had a stroke while working on "Pippin" and died shortly after in 1973. She is immotalized by the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship given by the Kennedy Center America College Theater Festival.

She was the Definition of Feisty

She was the feistiest of the feisty old ladies! Judith Lowry played old ladies because she was one one. Her most memorable role was that of Mother Dexter on the 70's sitcom "Phyllis". Lowry was the voice of reason to Cloris Leachman's Phyllis threatening to break Phyliss' knees at times with a baseball bat.
Born 1890 Lowry was an actress who played smaller roles but gave up her career to raise her children until the 1940's when she went back to work. She started out doing small old lady roles and eventually became a sitcom star in her 80's. Lowry appeared in films as well as television. She was in "Valley of the Dolls" and "Cold Turkey" as well as appearing on Broadway in "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds"
Her last role was that of Mother Dexter on "Phyllis" and her last appearence was in the episode "Mother Dexter's Wedding" where her character married actor Burt Mustin's characeter. It was the last television appearence for both actors as they died after filming. Judith Lowry died in 1976 at the age of 86 just before her wedding episode aired.

She was a V-A-M-P...Vamp!

Theda Bara was the original goth girl and one of the biggest silent film stars. Bara made over 40 films between the years 1914 and 1926. One of the most beloved and reviled women of her time Theda Bara was evil, depraved and wildly popular. She never made a film after sound was introduced and that was her decision. The majority of Bara's films no longer exist due to a Fox warehouse fire in 1936 but her influence survives to this day. If there had been no Theda Bara there would be no Siouxsie Sioux or Marilyn Manson.

Born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1885 or 1895 or whatever her press agent said Bara was the child of Jewish immigrants who believed in her dream of becoming an actress. Bara and her family moved to New York in order for her to succeed as an actress. Small roles on Broadway eventually lead her from the stage to the screen. Her first role was an minuscule role in "The Stain" in 1914. Her next role was a starring role as "The Vamp" in 1915's "A Fool There Was". A vamp was a slang term for vampire but not the blood sucking vampire of Bram Stoker but a vampire who stole the heart and sole of a man for her own pleasure and fully under her control. Vamps were bad women and loved for the villainy and revered for their sexuality. They were the pre-suffrage flappers. They were women in control of their own destiny but doomed because of it. Theda Bara was the queen of the vamps and always will be. Fox studio was built on Theda Bara's back. Her movies proved to be so popular Fox pumped them out one after another. Her box office draw also supplied Theda Bara with a very good income. She was as big a draw as Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. Her vamp character was her bed and butter but it was also her downfall. When Bara tried near the end of her career to play non-vamp roles she was not anywhere near as popular. In an effort to escape the type casting she had fallen into her last role was in a Hal Roach comedy. She was never able to get away from her sex symbol image. She was after all the first sex symbol.
Bara did perform on stage for a while until she married the director Charles Brabin. After her marriage she and her husband settled into a Beverly Hills home and Bara became a noted socialite. Theda Bara was able to become more than "just a movie person" and entered Los Angeles' elite and closed "Society".
For many years after her retirement Bara was rumored to be making a comeback but none of those comebacks ever materialized. Theda Bara and her husband also had a long and apparently happy marriage. Bara died in 1955 from stomach cancer.

Our Rose

 

She will always be remembered as "Our Rose" the youngest sister of Hyacinth Bucket on the BBC's "Keeping Up Appearances" but Mary Millar was more than a tart. She was an actress who became famous for playing a tart. Born in Sheffield to actor parents Millar didn't plan to be an actress; she wanted to become a stable hand because of her love of animals. Mary couldn't keep away from the stage and made her professional appearance in a in a Pantomime in 1952. Her first television appearance was in a 1950's program called "Those Were The Days". Millar appeared in many stage shows throughout the 1960's as well as television. She was the understudy for Julie Andrews in the 1960 production of Camelot. Her biggest Westend success was in Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Phantom of the Opera" as Madame Giry. Her voice is recorded on the original Westend soundtrack.

Millar was in her mid-fifties when she was given the chance to audition for the character of Rose on "Keeping Up Appearances". The character of Rose was orignally played by Shirley Stelfox. Millar rode the tubeto her auditon in a mini-skirt she specifally bought for "Rose".
While performing as Rose she also appeared in the Westend production on "Beauty and the Beast" as Mrs. Potts. She recorded the soundtrack shortly be fore her death. Mary Millar died in 1998 from ovarian cancer at the age of 62. The week after her death the last episode of "Keeping Up Appearances" was aired dedicated to Millar.

Rose, the tart that men loved and loved men will be how she will ultimately remembered. Always ready for love's next adventure Rose lived in the council flat with her older sister Daisy and Daisy's husband Onslow and demented father. She may not have lived the kind of life that her eldest sister prefered but Rose was loved as was Mary Millar.

Marion Lorne Made Dithering An Art

Marion Lorne is every one's favorite dithery aunt. In fact she was Aunt Clara on "Bewitched". She may have been born in 1883, 1885 or 1888 (she was a bit vague) in Wilke Barre, Pennsylvania.

Marion Lorne made her stage premier in 1905. She performed for decades on Broadway and in London's West End. See studied acting at American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was married to playwright Walter Hackett until his death in 1944. Marion appeared in many of his plays in the 20's and 30's they founded the White Hall Theater. It was during her time in England she started perfecting her eccentric and dithery persona. Upon her husband's death Marion returned to the US and starred in "Harvey" on Broadway and then made her film debut in 1951.

Her first film was Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train". Her role was the flighty and out of touch mother of the villain. Her next film role wasn't until 1967 when she played Miss DeWitte in "The Graduate".
Television was Ms Lorne's true path to fame. Her first role was as Mrs. Gurney, a confused English teacher, on Mr. Peepers with Wally Cox. Marion went on to co-star in another sitcom called "Sally" in the late 50's.

Her next role was the role for "witch" she will be will be remembered, Aunt Clara. Aunt Clara was a bumbling witch who's powers were faltering. Clara would enter threw chimneys, walk into walls or find herself materialized in a closet. She was a well meaning and beloved character, one can't help but love Aunt Clara. One of the character's eccentricities was her door knob collection, inspired by Marion's real life collection of over one thousand door knobs.
Aunt Clara was Marion Lorne's last role. Marion Lorne died of a heat attack in 1968 during her fifth season in "Bewitched". Her role was not re-cast as only Marion Lorne could be Aunt Clara.

Kathleen Freeman Professional Battle Axe

You may not know her name but you certainly know her face. She is Kathleen Freeman. A character actress who appeared in scores of films and TV Ms Freeman worked steadily in Hollywood for decades. Her forte was comedy usually playing a nurse, maid or overbearing nosy neighbor. Jerry Lewis loved her and used Ms. Freeman in eleven of his films. When Kathleen Freeman wasn't acting in TV shows and movies she taught acting in her studio in Studio City.
Born in Chicago in 1919 to vaudevillian parents. She made her first stage appearance at the age of two dancing in her parents act. After briefly studying music at UCLA Ms Freeman became a full time actress in 1946. Besides her roles in the Jerry Lewis films she had many other film roles including "Singing in the Rain", "Myra Breckinridge", "The Fly" and "The Blues Brothers" where she played Sister Mary Stigmata aka The Penguin. Ms Freeman was a friend of Lucille Ball who cast her five times in various roles on her television series.
Freeman always the face you knew but the name you didn't was once approached by a fan, who said to her, "I do not know who you are or what you did, but you were wonderful!" Freeman roared with laughter and hoped someday to use that line as a title of her memoires. In 1999 Ms Freeman performed a one woman show at the Stella Adler Theater in Hollywood titled "Are you Somebody?"
She was always the consummate actress, a pro. Her last performance was in the Broadway production of "The Full Monty". Ms Freeman died of lung cancer at the age of 82. She was survived by her long time companion Helen Ramsey.