New Year's Eve, 2001, the first year I ever rang out the old in a warm climate. Who says I'm not connected? While on vacation in Hollywood, a friend of a friend who worked in the Paramount mailroom had arranged …

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/sep/19/53443/ He was Chicago television's answer to SCTV's 'Count' Floyd Robertson, a professional broadcaster picking up change on the side while dressed in a sub-Ben Cooper Halloween getup and telling jokes between commercial breaks on a low budget kid's horror-movie …

"I was never a gold-digger, or an Oscar-digger, or anything like that. I just had an instinct about the right sort of things that should be done in my business. So all these things just fell into place." -- Dr. …

Never so much as a rank and file member of the motion picture industry, Calvin Coolidge "Cal" Worthington's presence was felt in practically every film produced during Hollywood's golden era. At one point or another, his crass commercial spiels and …

Thank you so much for exposing us to your work, your life, even your wife. One time, I met you both and when I commented on her interesting hair color, she said that you had created it and it was …

Will Ruth Robinson Duccini or Jerry Maren be next?

As hole digger I must aver, the Phoenix coroner examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead. Margaret Pellegrini, the hip-switching Munchkin City looker with the flowerpot headdress -- and until today one of only …

Their website is no more. The final post on their Facebook page says it all: "After nearly 40 years of serving the film industry in the region, the San Diego Film Commission will close its doors today. We thank you …

Esther Williams was an odd footnote to movie history. The record-setting competitive swimmer found a place in Hollywood where, in the '40's and '50's, she left her watermark on a series of "aquamusicals". If you find today's movies lacking in …

"S.W.A.T." star and Dana Andrews' younger brother

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/may/23/46129/ Steve Forrest, movie actor, Lt. Hondo Harrelson on TV's S.W.A.T., and dependable Dana Andrews' real-life kid brother, is dead. For years I couldn't see the Forrest for the Andrews. (It must have had something to do with countless childhood …

Dr. Joyce Brothers was a celebrity in the truest sense of the word; a person famous for being famous. She rose to fame in 1955 by competing on the TV program, The $64,000 Question. Dr. Joyce originally entered the show …

Never mind the above-the-line talent: Ray Harryhausen was one of the few special visual effects creators whose name in the advertising guaranteed butts in seats. Harryhausen's Dynamation sequences, his patented brand of model animation, were the stop motion equivalent of …

My first week in San Diego, I had lunch with David Copley. I had no idea who he was at the time but later saw him in the news often, especially as he came to own the Union-Tribune. It was …

Jack Shea. The name sounded so familiar. The rest of the world probably remembers Shea's contributions to television history through the number of popular shows he directed, but why am I having such a tough time making a connection? There …

Allow me not to be the first to say, "Was Deanna Durbin still alive?" She was a huge star in her day, Universal's answer to Shirley Temple. In 1946 Deanna Durbin was the second highest paid woman in America. Bette …

God must have been in dire need of a good laugh. Someone please inform Jerry, Albert, Howard, and Joan they are free to move one rung up the ladder of living comic legends. Jonathan Winters died yesterday. He was 87. …

Woody Allen's former writing partner was 77

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/apr/11/43568/ The man responsible for many of the howls contained in three of Woody Allen's earliest and funniest movies is dead. Mickey Rose, co-author of What's Up, Tiger Lily?, Take the Money and Run, and Bananas died of cancer Sunday …

Former Chicago rival recalls Ebert before Siskbert

Where was I when Roger Ebert died? He'd have been proud. I was all alone in the Clairemont Town Square with pen in hand covering G.I. Joe Retaliation. Ebert lived to be the most influential film critic the world has …

Philadelphians remember Sally Starr as the cowgirl host of Popeye Theater, a daily after school outlet for Popeye and Clutch Cargo cartoons as well as Three Stooges shorts. The show ran from 1954 to 1971. According to the Philadelphia Enquirer, …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/jan/21/38741/ I read the news today, oh boy. Death Wish(es) director Michael Winner kept his appointment with death. Michael Winner brought me more entertainment, albeit unintentional, than just about any living director. Death Wish 3 is oxygen to my lungs! …

Pictured: Conrad Bain at the 2003 TV Land Awards. The actor who helped Woody Allen test coffins in Bananas is now being fitted for one. Conrad Bain — Maude's nemesis, Arnold's dad, and Mr. President George C. Scott's Chief of …