Noticias

5 random things that happened on this day, January 3rd, in showbiz history

1897 Marion Davies born in Brooklyn. The 1930s film star is best remembered in history as the mistress of tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Multiple films have featured their relationship including current Oscar hopeful Mank (2020).

1952 Dragnet begins airing in its regular time slot Thursdays at 9:00 Pm on NBC (a couple of weeks after the pilot airs). The influential series -- which basically created the #1 tv genre, the procedural, will run for eight seasons, be relaunched in the late 1960s for another four seasons and spawn three movies. The last of those was a comedy in 1987  starring Tom Hanks just before Big served as the bridge between popular comic actor and serious actor, netting Hanks his first Oscar nod. Two short-lived one season attempts to revive Dragnet were attempted in 1989 and 2003 respectively...

When Tom Hanks jogged onto screen in his feature film debut in the 1980 slasher pic “He Knows You’re Alone,” one probably couldn’t have predicted he would go on to become one of the most successful and beloved actors of all time. Playing a psychology student who postulates about the appeal of fear, Hanks makes manages to the most of his few minutes of screen time. And even though it’s brief, you can catch some of the hallmarks of what would later become a Tom Hanks performance — charismatic but a little goofy, handsome but non-threatening, and able to make any line sound like it has a handful of meanings.

It’s been a long journey from that low-budget horror movie to two-time Academy Award-winning actor, Emmy-award winning producer and Hollywood’s Nicest Guy. On Jan. 5, the eight-time Golden Globe winner will receive the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s special honor,...

Jack Sheldon, known to children as one of the voices of “Schoolhouse Rocks” and adults as a master trumpeter who served as music director on “The Merv Griffin Show,” has died at age 88.

Sheldon was the sidekick as well as MD on Griffin’s talk show for 18 years. But his own discography as a band leader added up to more than 20 albums, starting in the late ’50s, when he was part of the west coast bebop movement, continuing through his last release in 2007.

“To all Jack Sheldon fans,” Cynthia Jimenez wrote on the musician’s Facebook page, “on behalf of my sister Dianne Jimenez [his longtime manager], sadly, Jack passed away on December 27. May he rest in peace with all the Jazz Cats in heaven!” No cause of death was given.

Sheldon’s film work included one of the renditions of “The Long Goodbye” heard in the Robert Altman movie of that name,...

Herb Ellis, an actor and director known for helping Jack Webb create the iconic TV series Dragnet, died Dec. 26 in San Gabriel, Calif. He was 97.

Born Herbert Siegel in Cleveland, Ohio on Jan. 7, 1921, Ellis was a radio actor and director. His frequent collaborations with Webb included a pilot they wrote titled Joe Friday, Room Five which later served as the foundation for the iconic TV procedural Dragnet.

For the first eight episodes of the series, which debuted in 1952, Ellis played Officer Frank Smith opposite Webb before Ben Alexander took over the role until the series ended in 1959.

In addition to Dragnet, Ellis appeared in various other radio series including Dangerous Assignment, Escape, Tales of the Texas Rangers, and The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe.

On the movie side, Ellis appeared in notable films such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing and Billy Wilder’s The Fortune Cookie.

In 1967, he returned...

Herb Ellis, a veteran character actor who helped Jack Webb create the legendary cop show Dragnet, has died. He was 97.

Ellis died Dec. 26 in San Gabriel, Calif., his daughter, Karen, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Ellis played bistro owner Wilbur on the NBC-ABC crime drama Peter Gunn, created by Blake Edwards, and was the film director in the opening scene that sees Peter Sellers create havoc on his set in Edwards' 1960 comedy, The Party (1968). He also appeared in the filmmaker's What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966).

Other notable big-screen appearances came in Stanley Kubrick's ...

Herb Ellis, a veteran character actor who helped Jack Webb create the legendary cop show Dragnet, has died. He was 97.

Ellis died Dec. 26 in San Gabriel, Calif., his daughter, Karen, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Ellis played bistro owner Wilbur on the NBC-ABC crime drama Peter Gunn, created by Blake Edwards, and was the film director in the opening scene that sees Peter Sellers create havoc on his set in Edwards' 1960 comedy, The Party (1968). He also appeared in the filmmaker's What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966).

Other notable big-screen appearances came in Stanley Kubrick's ...

“It’s under the Big ‘W’!” A smart cop show goes all ‘Dragnet’ on a trio of criminal cases in the good old City of the Angels. To figure out who gunned down a top detective, rough tough FBI agent Broderick Crawford must get to the bottom of three separate dramas, each involving a beautiful woman. The producers know how to get attention for their show — the climactic shootout takes place under the Hollywood Sign.

Down 3 Dark Streets

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1954 / B&W / 1:75 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date April 24, 2018 / 29.99

Starring: Broderick Crawford, Ruth Roman, Martha Hyer, Marisa Pavan, Max Showalter, Kenneth Tobey, Gene Reynolds, William Johnstone, Harlan Warde, Jay Adler, Claude Akins, Suzanne Alexander, Joe Bassett, Michael Fox, John Indrisano, Milton Parsons, Stafford Repp, William Schallert, Charles Tannen.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Film Editor: Grant Whytock

Production Design: Edward (Ted) Haworth

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld, ‘The Gordons...

Back in the 1960s, the line between TV and movie stars was never more clearly defined, with actors from television seldom being able to make it on the big screen while film actors turned their noses up at the small screen. Don Knotts, however, was an exception, not only dreaming of movie stardom, but actually achieving it. In some ways, that's pretty surprising when you consider just how successful he was as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. He played the character with the understanding that series star Andy Griffith only intended to stay with it for five years, giving himself a deadline of sorts by which he needed to parlay that show's success into something bigger. Andy ended up changing his mind because of financial incentives thrown his way, while Don didn't, having been offered a five-film deal with Univeral. He chose to leave the show,...

Steven Bochco, creator of classics such as NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues that helped redefined the medium of television, has died at 74 after a long battle with leukemia.

Bochco’s series over several decades revamped the cop and legal genres and created lucrative franchises for NBC and ABC. He had most recently co-created mystery crime-drama Murder in the First, which began its run on TNT in 2014. Another TNT show he created, Raising the Bar, ran for two seasons in 2008 and 2009. Among his other credits was L.A. Law, a significant hit for NBC in the 1980s which he was working on rebooting in recent years.

As a writer and producer, Bochco popularized the notion of authorship in television, something today’s audiences take for granted during the current Golden Age. He helped make TV a sandbox for complex ideas and complicated heroes, and also repeatedly pushed the boundaries of content...

Robert Vaughn, the star of ’60s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and an actor who appeared in more than 200 TV shows and films across a 60-year career, has died. Vaughn was 83.

Vaughn’s early resume reads like an encyclopedia of influential ’50s TV shows, with single-episode appearances on everything from Dragnet to Gunsmoke to Playhouse 90. In 1960, he landed his first major film role, playing fearful veteran Lee in John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven. (He played more-or-less the same role 20 years later, for Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond The Stars, and appeared in several episodes of the Magnificent Seven TV show from the late 1990s as well.)

In 1964, Vaughn leveraged his dissatisfaction with the size of his role on NBC’s The Lieutenant into a starring series of his very own. Initially titled Solo—after Vaughn’s character, international enforcer ...

The icon-establishing performances Marilyn Monroe gave in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) are ones for the ages, touchstone works that endure because of the undeniable comic energy and desperation that sparked them from within even as the ravenous public became ever more enraptured by the surface of Monroe’s seductive image of beauty and glamour. Several generations now probably know her only from these films, or perhaps 1955’s The Seven-Year Itch, a more famous probably for the skirt-swirling pose it generated than anything in the movie itself, one of director Wilder’s sourest pictures, or her final completed film, The Misfits (1961), directed by John Huston, written by Arthur Miller and costarring Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift.

But in Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) she delivers a powerful dramatic performance as Nell, a psychologically devastated, delusional, perhaps psychotic young woman apparently on...

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman

Happy 9oth Birthday to a legend! Roger Corman has directed more than 50 low-budget drive-in classics, produced and/or distributed 450 more, and helped the careers of hundreds of young people breaking into the industry. A partial list: Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Irvin Kershner, Monte Hellman, Peter Bogdanovich, Gail Ann Hurd, James Cameron, Jonathan Kaplan, Joe Dante, Robert Towne. Considering Corman’s own films, Jonathan Demme has stated. “Roger is arguably the greatest independent filmmaker the American film industry has seen and probably ever will see.” And he’s still going strong, currently producing the upcoming actioner Death Race 2050. We Are Movie Geeks has taken a look at Corman’s career and here are what we think are the ten best films that he has directed:

Honorable Mention. The Premature Burial

The Premature Burial (1962) is the ‘odd man out’ among the...

Martin Milner, the actor known for his roles on the TV series “Route 66” and “Adam-12,” passed away Sunday. He was 83. Milner was born in Detroit in 1931, but moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he quickly took up acting. His first part was the role of John Day in 1947’s “Life With Father,” according to his official IMDb page. Milner appeared in various roles across film and television before landing the part of Stephen Banner on several episodes of the popular police drama “Dragnet.” Also Read: Curt Hecht, Weather Channel Executive, Dead at 47 His big break, however, came.

Martin Milner, a veteran actor known for work on TV dramas such as Adam-12 and Route 66, has died, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirms to People. Milner died at his home in L.A. Sunday at the age of 83.

Milner made his big-screen debut in 1947's Life With Father, in which he played John Day, son to William Powell's fiery patriarch Clarence Day. He went on to appear in John Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima in 1949 and Operation Pacific in 1951, before transitioning to TV with several appearances in the classic police procedural Dragnet beginning...

Veteran TV actor Martin Milner, best known for his starring roles in Adam-12 and Route 66, has died. He was 83.

After launching his career in such war-themed films Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949), Operation Pacific (1951) and Halls Of Montezuma (1951), Milner began his gradual transition to the small screen with a recurring role in Dragnet and guest stints on Wagon Train and The Twilight Zone.

In 1960, he scored his big break opposite George Maharis in Route 66, which ran for four seasons and nearly 120 episodes on CBS. He followed that up with a co-starring role NBC’s long-running cop drama Adam-12.

Milner...

This week, Entourage fans get to watch the boys bring their brand of Hollywood bro-ishness to the big screen, nearly four years after the TV series aired its final episode. Of course, it's far from the first cinematic adaptation of a TV series, but in this age of reboot upon reboot, it's notable that this one has migrated to the silver screen intact – it's a movie "sequel" featuring the same actors and characters as the original TV show.

Here's a short history of the many other TV shows that have continued their stories in the form of theatrical films.

Dragnet...

Film Nerd 2.0 has become one of the things I am most closely identified with, which is fine by me. I think there is real value in talking about how we introduce media to our children, and there's absolutely value in talking about how that media affects them. It wasn't a column that I consciously set out to create, though. It just sort of gradually became clear that it was something I wanted to write, and the turning point, the moment of actual creation, was all because of "Star Trek." For Toshi, the 2009 film was not just his entry point to "Star Trek," but also his entry point to movies in general. When I took him to the theater to see the film, he stood the entire time, and he didn't want to be touched or spoken to or distracted in any way. He was fascinated, and he had a million questions afterwards.

Los Angeles – The actor who created one of the greatest pop-culture characters in TV and film history has passed away. Leonard Nimoy will always be known for the role of Mr. Spock, science officer for the USS Enterprise of the “Star Trek” TV and film series. He died of pulmonary disease on Feb. 27, 2015, according to his wife Susan. He was 83.

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock in ‘Star Trek’ (2009)

Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

The legacy of “Star Trek” had much to do with Nimoy’s approach to the character of Spock. The backstory of the half-human, half-Vulcan character was one of logic over conflict, yet his character could always be relied on when situations got confrontational. For three seasons in the 1960s and in rerun heaven, the voyage of the Starship Enterprise captivated viewers and was resurrected in a highly popular film series. Nimoy also was a photographer, director, writer and...

Mr. Spock himself, the legendary Leonard Nimoy, has passed away at the age of 83 according to The New York Times.

The actor's wife Susan Bay Nimoy has reportedly confirmed that he died earlier today at his home in the Bel-Air area of Los Angeles as a result of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nimoy was hospitalized earlier this week.

Nimoy began his work on TV in the 1950s with shows like "Dragnet" and "Sea Hunt" before finding himself in his most iconic role as the Vulcan character Spock in the original "Star Trek" 1960s TV series.

Nimoy played the role across three seasons of that show, guest-starred on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and appeared in eight of the twelve "Star Trek" films to have been produced so far. He went on to further work on the screen and stage including the original "Mission: Impossible" series to hosting and narrating documentaries and video games.

Leonard Nimoy, who gained legions of fans for his portrayal of Spock in the original Star Trek TV series, has passed away at the age of 83. The actor died earlier today at his home in the Bel-Air area of Los Angeles, with his wife Susan Bay Nimoy confirming that he passed away from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Leonard Nimoy announced earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with the disease, which he attributed to several years of smoking, a habit which he had quit several decades ago. He was hospitalized earlier this week.

Leonard Nimoy was born on March 26, 1931 in Boston, Massachussetts to Ukrakinan-Jewish immigrants Dora and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. He made his acting debut at the age of 20 in the 1951 film Queen For a Day, and had several guest-starring spots on shows such as Dragnet and Sea Hunt before he was cast as Spock...

Wilton Schiller, who co-produced the climactic final season of the ABC drama The Fugitive, including the series finale in 1967 that attracted more than 78 million viewers and shattered television records, has died. He was 95. Schiller, who also wrote episodes of that show as well as for other series including The Adventures of Superman, Leave It to Beaver, Lassie, Adam-12 and Dragnet, died peacefully at his home in Studio City on Sunday, said his wife of 39 years, writer-producer Patricia Payne Schiller. In “The Judgment Part II,” which aired on Aug. 29, 1967, and was

read more...

The tough guy starred in the sci-fi classic "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" and played Det. Al Corassa on TV's "Cagney & Lacey."

Paul Mantee, a burly, tough-guy actor who starred in the 1964 sci-fi cult classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars and on TV's Cagney & Lacey as Det. Al Corassa, has died. He was 82.

A longtime resident of Malibu who wrote columns for the local newspaper, Mantee played the health inspector on a 1994 episode of Seinfeld, "The Pie;" had a recurring role as Commander Clayton on Hunter, the police drama that starred Fred Dryer; and appeared as Cornell, a henchman for Catwoman who disguises himself as Batman to frame the Caped Crusader for a robbery in a 1967 storyline that saw the villainess go back to college.

Mantee died Nov. 7, The Malibu Times reported.

In Paramount's Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Byron Haskin’s adaptation of the Daniel Defoe novel, Mantee has top billing, playing the shipwrecked Cmdr.

Joe Conley, best known for playing the kindly storekeeper Ike Godsey on the popular TV series The Waltons, died on Sunday. He was 85. News of the veteran actor's death was confirmed by his wife, Louise, who told the Los Angeles Times that her husband had dementia and passed away at a care facility in Newbury Park, Calif. Conley began playing Godsey in 1972 and remained with the hit CBS program until it ended in 1981. He also appeared in all six of the show's reunion movies that were made following its run. The Buffalo, N.Y., native began his acting career in the 1950s and appeared on several TV series prior to The Waltons including Mister Ed, Lassie, Make Room for Daddy, Dragnet, Dennis the Menace,...

Them!

Directed by Gordon Douglas

Written by Ted Sherdeman

1954, USA

In that filled-to-bursting canon of 1950s science fiction cinema, movies range from true film classics – like the Hawksian The Thing from Another World (1951), and that alarm bell about human desensitization, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – to cheapie craptasmagoriums like Beginning of the End (1957 – giant grasshoppers crawling over photographs of downtown Chicago), and It Conquered the World (1956 – “It” being an alien that looks like a devil-faced carrot with lobster claws). I’d go as far as to say the consensus is probably there’s just a few of the former, and a whole stinking pile of the latter. But scattered (thinly, I’d have to say) between those poles are movies neither classic nor crap, but made with enough craftsmanship to be eminently and repeatably watchable. You know: just good, damned fun! One of my faves from that group: Them! (1954).

A...

Hot Fuzz and Star Trek's Simon Pegg might be headed to the small screen in Frank Darabont's TNT series, L.A. Noir. If he ends up taking the role, he will join Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead) who was recently confirmed as the star of the series, as well as Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes). I would love to see Pegg in this series. He's such a likeable actor, and I hope he takes it on.

The story follows Joe Teague (Bernthal), Los Angeles cop that examines corruption in the Lapd and ties between police and underworld figures such as Captain William Parker (Neil McDonough) and mobster Mickey Cohen in the 1940s and '50s. Ventimiglia plays a former marine who served with Teague during WWII, who became a lawyer that was groomed to be a master "fixer" for the mob. There's no word on who Pegg would play in the series,...

Woody Harrelson's outing as a dirty cop joins a long tradition of films, novels and TV drawing on the violent history of Los Angeles' police force

In the scorching drama Rampart, Woody Harrelson takes to his role as Dave Brown, dirty Lapd cop, like a starving man to a groaning banquet table. Co-written by director Oren Moverman and James Ellroy, Rampart, named after the infamous division that imploded under allegations of massive corruption, is set in 1999, the year that scandal unfolded. Brown is more "bent for the job" than "bent for himself", but his excesses make front-page news after he's filmed brutally beating a suspect, Rodney King-style.

The movie chronicles the personal apocalypse of a man whose lucky streak is running out, who chugs scotch in his squad car; maintains dual households with two ex-wives (Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche), sisters by whom he has a kid apiece...

Director Frank Darabont, who awesomely brought The Walking Dead to TV, has now teamed up with the TNT network to adapt the John Buntin book L.A. Noir into a TV series. I think it sucks that Darabont ended up getting fired from The Walking Dead, but it's great to see that he's going to keep doing TV. This L.A Noir could be an amazing project and end up becoming a incredible series! There's no doubt Darabont is going to do an incredible job with this story.

The story is set in the 1940's and '50s, and the show will "examine the conflict between the often corrupt Los Angeles Police Department -- and its leader, Chief William Parker -- and underworld figures such as Mickey Cohen." Sounds like this show falls in right in line with the Ruben Fleischer-directed movie Gangster Squad. I enjoy reading history of the world of Los Angeles,...

Veteran actor Sid Melton has died of pneumonia. He was 94.

The Golden Girls star passed away on 2 November in Burbank, California, reports Variety.com.

Melton began his career in the 1940s, starring in movies including film noir classic Body and Soul and the musical On the Town.

He moved to TV roles in 1954, and racked up credits in shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Rhoda, Major Dad, Dragnet, The Andy Griffith Show and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.

His TV career picked up in the 1990s as he appeared on sitcoms Make Room for Daddy, Blossom, Green Acres and Golden Girls.

Melton also tried his hand at directing, stepping behind the camera for Bad Girls Don't Cry in 1965 as well as ...And Call Me in the Morning in 1999.

Eve Brent, best remembered for playing Jane twice opposite Gordon Scott's Tarzan, died August 27 of "natural causes" at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley in Sun Valley, Calif. She was either 81 or 82. Initially billed as either Jean Lewis or Jean Ann Lewis, Eve Brent's show business career in films and on television lasted nearly six decades. The Houston-born actress appeared in about three dozen movies, ranging from a small part in Bruno VeSota's crime drama Female Jungle (1955), featuring Lawrence Tierney and Jayne Mansfield, to playing Cate Blanchett's grandmother in David Fincher's Oscar nominated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). Almost invariably in small supporting roles or bit parts, Brent could also be seen in the Jean Simmons vehicle The Happy Ending (1969), George Seaton's all-star blockbuster Airport (1970), the Charles Bronson Western The White Buffalo (1976), Frank Darabont's 1999 Best Picture Oscar nominee The Green Mile ("a lovely experience,...

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman

Celebrated producer and director Roger Corman will be in St. Louis this weekend to help kick off the Vincentennial Vincent Price Film Festival. We Are Movie Geeks has decided to take a look at the directing career of the man known as .King of the B.s’, a Hollywood legend who.s discovered so much talent and gave so many future directors and actors their starts, that he has to be considered a one-man movie industry. Since we just posted the Top Ten Best of Vincent Price last week and included three of the eight Corman/Price collaborations in that list, we decided to leave off the films he made with Price this week and focus on other films that he directed. Roger Corman will be at the Hi-Pointe Theater at 1005 McCausland Ave. in St. Louis on Saturday May 21 to speak...

In what is absolutely the strangest, and saddest, story I've reported lately, the mummified body of actress, singer and pinup model Yvette Vickers has been found in her Benedict Canyon home. It is expected she died of natural causes.

Apparently, Vickers, who appeared in 1950s cult faves such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Attack of the Giant Leeches, died a year ago at age 82, but no one realized it until a concerned neighbor, Susan Savage, noticed her mail piling up last week. Savage then forced open a barricaded front gate, scaled a hillside, climbed through a broken window and pushed past piles of "clothes, junk mail and letters" to reach her, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Vickers was discovered by filmmaker Billy Wilder, who gave her a small role in the classic Sunset Boulevard. She snagged a few decent films such as Hud, opposite Paul Newman,...

Trekkies are celebrating a second birthday this week as original Enterprise crew member Leonard Nimoy turned 80 yesterday, March 26th. William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek, passed the same milestone on Tuesday.

Nimoy was born in Boston in 1931. He began his acting career as a child and after serving the Army reserves, he returned, making the rounds in early TV series like Dragnet, Bonanza and Get Smart. Nimoy and Shatner worked together for the first time in 1964 on an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., playing opposing secret agents in the Cold War.

Unlike Shatner, Nimoy was cast in the original Star Trek pilot and retained his role on the second pilot. Nimoy played Mr. Spock in all 79 episodes from 1966-1969. He received ...

Click to continue reading Live Long: Leonard Nimoy, Aka Mr. Spock, Turns 80 Years Old...

Veteran actress Anne Diamond Brownstone has died at the age of 87.

The star passed away on 29 January at her home in Manhattan, New York. She died of natural causes, according to Variety.

Brownstone shot to fame with radio appearances in shows opposite stars including John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, while she also appeared on stage with Robert Redford and Alan Oppenheimer among others.

She also enjoyed stints on the small screen in programmes including Dragnet and The Nurses.

Brownstone is survived by two sons and a daughter, actress Diana Brownstone. Her husband, actor/director Joseph Brownstone, died in 1970.

Filed under: Reality-Free, TV News

Len Lesser, best-known to TV fans as Uncle Leo on 'Seinfeld,' has died.

Lesser died from pneumonia in Burbank, CA. He was 88.

He had a very long television career, making his first appearance on a 1949 -- yes, 1949! -- episode of 'Studio One.' During the course of his 60-year career he appeared in such shows as 'Dragnet,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' 'Gunsmoke,' 'Mike Hammer' (the 50s version), 'Playhouse 90,' 'The Jack Benny Program,' 'The Untouchables,' 'The Outer Limits,' 'The Wild, Wild West,' 'Get Smart,' 'Boy Meets World,' 'ER,' 'Cold Case' and dozens of others.

 

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Pasadena - Forget the AFI Top 10 list of Best TV shows. Why should care about TV since they are the American Film Institute? This is kind like the American Diabetic Prevention Society’s Top 10 Favorite Sugary Candy Bars list. Or Bravo’s Top 10 Hunting Shows. Or Madd’s Best 10 Drinks to Mess You Up. Or Charlie Sheen’s Top 10 Things You Can Do Without Involving Hookers and Blow. If they care about TV that much, shouldn’t they be the Aftvi? But they are a pack of List Whores over at AFI with their 100 Years a 100 Stupid Lists press releases.

Why does critic or critic group have to tell you the Best or Worst of the Year? Party Favors is proud to announce the Meh Awards for the 10 TV shows that didn’t work for me in 2010. They weren’t the most pathetic things on TV, but made me lose interest in watching them.

Celebrated American actor and radio announcer Arthur 'Art' Gilmore has died, aged 98. Gilmore a World War II veteran, died of natural causes on September 25 in Irvine, California.

He started his lengthy career as a U.S. radio announcer for hit shows including "Amos 'n' Andy", "The Sears Radio Theater" and "Red Ryder", before turning his attentions to TV and film. On the small screen, he lent his voice to programs including "The George Gobel Show", "An Evening With Fred Astaire" and "Highway Patrol". He also appeared on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Waltons" and "Dragnet".

His film career took off in the 1950s and '60s, when his voice could be heard in trailers and documentaries including "It's a Wonderful Life", "Rear Window", "Vertigo", "War of the Worlds", "Bye Bye Birdie" and "White Christmas".

Gilmore served as the national president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists...

American film, TV and voice actor Kip King has died, aged 72.

King, born Jerome C. Kattan, passed away on 15 July after a long illness. Further details surrounding his cause of death were not released as WENN went to press.

He was an original member of The Groundlings comedy troupe but was best known for providing the voice of Tailor Smurf in the hit U.S. 1980s animated series The Smurfs.

He also voiced TV characters including Shecky in The Biskitts and Ronald Sandler in Charlie & Company.

Other TV credits included guest appearances on Dragnet, The Bill Cosby Show, Reno 911, Saturday Night Live and Bollywood Hero.

He is survived by his son, comedian Chris Kattan.

Corey Allen, who fatally challenged James Dean to a "chicken race" in the 1955 film classic "Rebel Without a Cause" before embarking on a career as a prolific TV director, died June 27 of natural causes in Hollywood, two days before his 76th birthday.

With the May 29 death of his longtime friend Dennis Hopper, Allen was briefly the last surviving member of the "Rebel" main cast. He played Buzz Gunderson, one of the pic's antagonistic tough guys in a leather jacket.

Allen collected an Emmy Award for a 1983 episode of "Hill Street Blues" after being nominated for another series episode two years earlier. He earned a CableACE award in 1984 for an episode of "Paper Chase" and received DGA TV noms for his work on "The Streets of San Francisco" and "Hill Street Blues."

As an actor, the ruggedly handsome Cleveland native also appeared in 1958 films "Darby's Rangers" and "Party Girl" (also directed...

HollywoodNews.com: Sergeant Joe Friday and his hard-nosed partner Bill Gannon from the classic crime drama Dragnet, starring master storyteller Jack Webb and Emmy(r)-winner Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H*) hit the streets of Los Angeles in the name of law and order, to protect and to serve when Dragnet 1968: Season 2 arrives on DVD for the first time July 6, 2010 from Shout! Factory and the NBC Universal Television, DVD, Music and Consumer Products Group. Brimming with all 28 memorable episodes from this groundbreaking police drama, the 6-dvd box set is packed with special bonus content that includes Dragnet 1966 pilot movie, vintage Dragnet 1969 trailer, featurette Jack Webb – The Man Behind Badge 714, plus a commemorative booklet. A must-have for aficionados of crime, mystery classics and TV-dvd collectors, Dragnet 1968: Season 2 DVD set is priced to own at $44.99 Srp.

The community landscape is littered daily by juvenile delinquency,...

The actor Fess Parker, who has died aged 85, was a quintessential westerner, a tall, rugged, Texas-born athlete turned actor, famous for his portrayals of two frontiersmen, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, as well as sheriffs, cowboys and ranchers. He greatly appreciated the commercial success of these two title roles, and himself became a substantial businessman.

The Walt Disney Studio was the first in Hollywood to move wholeheartedly into television, and had the bright idea of combining three episodes of the Davy Crockett series Parker had made for them in 1954 into a feature. The result, Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955), spawned the craze for "racoon-fur" hats and became a box-office hit on the back of its singalong theme - Bill Hayes's recording of The Ballad of Davy Crockett topped the charts for three months,...

Fess Parker, who starred as the racoon-skinned Davy Crockett in "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier," becoming a lifelong star to young Baby Boomers, has died of natural causes, according to reports. He was 85.

Parker also delighted young viewers with his performances in "Old Yeller" and "Daniel Boone." In more recent years, he attained a second stardom as a winery owner of the sprawling Doubletree resort along beachfront Santa Barbara, Calif., and the Wine Country Inn & Spa in Los Olivos, Calif.

He was hugely popular among kids in the late 1950s, starring in such Disney films as "The Great Locomotive Chase," "Westward Ho the Wagons!" and "The Light in the Forest." He was named a Disney legend in 1991.

His appeal peaked with the nationwide Davy Crockett craze as little tykes bought the coon-skinned caps and belted out the popular refrains of "Davy Crockett." He went on to star in...

By Wrap Staff

Composer Nathan Scott, who scored such television classics as "The Untouchables" and "Dragnet," died Saturday at his Los Angeles home. He was 94.

The cause was age-related illness.

In a career that spanned four decades,  Scott also composed music for "The Twilight Zone," "Rawhide," "My Three Sons," and "Have Gun Will Travel." His influence was felt most directly on "Lassie," the long run...

Hollywood composer Nathan Scott, who scored TV classics including Lassie and Dragnet, has died.

The musician passed away from natural causes on 27 February at his home in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 94.

Scott began his career in radio, before landing a job as a composer for film studio Republic Pictures, where he orchestrated several scores, including 1948 John Wayne movie Wake of the Red Witch.

He notched up several TV credits, arranging music for Dragnet, Rawhide, My Three Sons and The Untouchables, among others.

Scott is survived by his son Tom, a Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, as well as his second wife, a daughter and two grandkids, according to Variety.com.

In format, the '50s cop drama M Squad was more or less a clone of its long-running predecessor Dragnet, only set in Chicago instead of Los Angeles. Over the course of each 25-minute episode, dogged police detective Lee Marvin would pursue every lead and clue until he solved a crime, all while narrating his steps for the television audience. Even more than Dragnet, M Squad's earnestness and slangy tough-talk served as the model for the '80s cop-show spoof Police Squad!, right down to the brassy score and the protagonist named "Frank." M Squad was as square as an LP jacket, and just about as old-fashioned. But it was also more action-packed and gritty than the average TV procedural of its era. M Squad was like one long docu-realist film noir, carved up into 117 episodes over three years. Every one of those episodes is now available on M Squad:.

Actor and voiceover artist Tim Rooney, son of Mickey Rooney, has died. He was 59. Rooney died on September 23 in Hemet, California after a five-year battle with the muscle disease dermatomyositis. He was the second son of the veteran actor and his wife, singer Betty Jane Rase, who performed as BJ Baker. As a child, Rooney had polio, which left him paralyzed for two years, but he eventually recovered. He was chosen as one of the original Mouseketeers for the Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, but never appeared on the show after being fired after getting into mischief in the Disney paint shop. His later career included parts in Riot On Sunset Strip and Village Of The Giants. He appeared on TV shows including Dragnet, Bewitched, Petticoat Junction and Gidget and did voiceover work for cartoons including The Jetsons and Mr. T.

Byron Morrow, a veteran character actor in television and films whose distinguished look often led him to be cast as a top military officer, police chief or judge died on May 11. He was 94. The actor died at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, his family announced last week. Morrow was born in Chicago, Illinois and his early career included stints as a model, puppeteer and radio announcer. He briefly played semi-professional basketball in a US Midwest barnstorming league that included the original Harlem Globetrotters. Morrow moved to Hollywood in the late 1930s and appeared in nearly two dozen major movies including Johnny Got His Gun. He also appeared in numerous television series, including episodes of Star Trek, Dragnet, Dallas, Perry Mason, Get Smart and Vegas.