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Turner Classic Movies will turn 30 on April 14, 2024. That’s right: It’ll be 30 years since Ted Turner flipped the switch — flanked by Old Hollywood legends Arthur Hiller, Arlene Dahl, Jane Powell, Celeste Holm, and Van Johnson — right in the middle of Times Square to turn the network “on.”

Also with Turner that day was the man who’d become TCM’s longtime host, Robert Osborne, then just 61. A veteran columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, Osborne had become known as a close friend to many of the surviving stars of yesteryear ever since he was photographed kissing Bette Davis’s hand during a Golden Globes broadcast in the late ’70s. He’d go on to host the intros and outros for most of TCM’s primetime lineup for close to 23 years after that launch date, until he died in March 2017 at 84.

For so many TCM fans, Robert Osborne was the network.

Janet Landgard, who starred in 1968’s “The Swimmer” alongside Burt Lancaster and played Paul Petersen’s love interest for three seasons on “The Donna Reed Show,” has died. She was 75.

Petersen shared the news of co-star Landgard’s death on Facebook, noting that cancer “took her life earlier this week.” He added that Landgard was “the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had on the last three years of ‘The Donna Reed Show.’ Janet was gorgeous, inside and out… We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

Landgard was born on Dec. 2, 1947, in Pasadena, Calif. She made her onscreen debut in 1963 on “The Donna Reed Show,” playing a girl named Sabrina in one episode of the sitcom’s fifth season. She also guested on ABC’s “My Three Sons” that year.

Landgard returned to portray Jeff’s (Petersen) girlfriend Karen on 11 episodes of “The Donna Reed Show...

Janet Landgard, who played Paul Petersen’s love interest for three seasons on The Donna Reed Show and later costarred with Burt Lancaster in film drama The Swimmer, died Nov. 6 at age 75 of brain cancer, according to several friends on social media.

On Facebook, actor Petersen called her “The best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had. Janet was gorgeous, inside and out … a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence. We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

Born on Dec. 2, 1947, Landgard was raised in Pasadena and worked for the William Adrian Modeling Agency. She made her onscreen debut in 1963 on The Donna Reed Show while still in high school, playing a girl named Sabrina on a fifth-season episode. She also appeared on ABC’s My Three Sons that year.

That led to a recurring role as Petersen’s girlfriend, Karen,...

Janet Landgard, who accompanied Burt Lancaster on a portion of his bizarre tour of backyard swimming pools in the acclaimed 1968 drama The Swimmer, has died. She was 75.

Landgard died this week after a very brief bout with brain cancer, actor Paul Petersen told The Hollywood Reporter. She recurred as his love interest on the final three seasons of the ABC family comedy The Donna Reed Show.

On Facebook, Petersen called her “the best TV girlfriend my alternate ego, Jeff Stone, ever had. Janet was gorgeous, inside and out … a flawless Scandinavian beauty that literally stunned jaded Hollywood types into silence. We were always close no matter the time or distance.”

In Columbia Pictures’ The Swimmer — directed by Frank Perry and adapted by his then-wife, Eleanor Perry, from a John Cheever short story in The New Yorker — Landgard was memorable as Julie Ann Hooper, who used to babysit Ned Merrill’s...

Producers of this Monday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony have some difficult decisions to make about who to honor during the emotional In Memoriam segment. John Legend will perform “Pieces,” a new song he has written for the tribute. Kenan Thompson will host the 2022 Emmys for NBC at 8 p.m. Et; 5 p.m. Pt.

Our list below includes almost 100 people who made a strong contribution to television and have died since mid-September of 2021 following the previous Emmys ceremony. Only about 40-45 of these people will probably be in the video segment. Certain to be featured will be TV Academy Hall of Fame members actress Betty White and director Jay Sandrich.Other prominent names almost certainly chosen are: Mary Alice (acting winner), Louie Anderson (acting winner), James Caan (acting nominee), Anne Heche (acting winner), Howard Hesseman (acting nominee), William Hurt (acting nominee), Gregory Itzin (acting nominee), Ray Liotta (acting winner), Burt Metcalfe...

Who will be included for the special “In Memoriam” segment for Sunday night’s Oscars 2022 ceremony? For almost all other Academy Awards productions since the 1990s, producers typically select 40-50 people from the various branches. The 2021 segment had close to 100 people in a particularly fast-paced three minutes that was not very well-received since many of them were only on screen for a second or two.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2022: In Memoriam Gallery

Previous Oscar winners from acting categories passing away since last year’s late April ceremony are Olympia Dukakis, William Hurt and Sidney Poitier. Past acting nominees include Ned Beatty, Sally Kellerman and Dean Stockwell.

Almost all of the dozens on the list below were Academy members, previous nominees/winners or both.

Louie Anderson (actor)

Ed Asner (actor)

Ned Beatty (actor)

Marilyn Bergman (composer)

Val Bisoglio (actor)

Robert Blalack (visual effects)

Peter Bogdanovich (director)

David Brenner (editor)

Leslie Bricusse (composer...

Sunday’s SAG Awards ceremony will return to its normal two-hour live format on TNT and TBS. One of the highlights each year is the special In Memoriam segment. It’s been a particularly rough year with over 100 deaths of prominent actors and actresses who were likely members of SAG/AFTRA. Show producers typically are able to include approximately 40-50 people in a tribute. The 2021 segment saluted 55 people because they had responsibility for 14 months instead of 12.

Among that group will certainly be previous SAG president Ed Asner, who was also a life achievement award recipient. That honorary award was also presented to Sidney Poitier and Betty White, who both died this past year.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2022: In Memoriam Gallery

Who else might be featured in the 2022 tribute? Look for Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis, Oscar nominees Ned Beatty, Peter Bogdanovich and Dean Stockwell, plus Emmy champs Louie Anderson, Michael Constantine, Charles Grodin,...

Arlene Dahl, who starred in the 1959 sci-fi classic Journey to the Center of the Earth and many other films along with TV roles and also was an influential beauty and astrology writer, has died. She was 96.

Her son, actor Lorenzo Lamas, posted the news on social media but did not provide details.

“Mom passed away this morning in New York,” Lamas wrote. “She was the most positive influence on my life.” See his full post below.

Dahl was born on August 11, 1925, in Minneapolis. By the time Dahl landed her signature role as Professor Carla Göteborg in Henry Levin’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, she already had appeared in more than 20 features — from 1947’s My Wild Irish Rose to 1957’s She Played with Fire. Her credits from the era also include The Bride Goes Wild — her first film under an MGM contract — The Outriders, The Diamond Queen, Inside Straight,...

Arlene Dahl, the glamorous 1950s actress who later became a beauty writer and cosmetics executive, died on Monday in New York. She was 96.

Her son, actor Lorenzo Lamas, posted on Facebook, saying, “She was the most positive influence on my life. I will remember her laughter, her joy, her dignity as she navigated the challenges that she faced. Never an ill word about anyone crossed her lips. Her ability to forgive left me speechless at times. She truly was a force of nature and as we got closer in my adult life, I leaned on her more and more as my life counselor and the person I knew that lived and loved to the fullest.”

Born in Minneapolis, Dahl started out as a model and worked in theater before coming to Hollywood in 1946. She was briefly under contract at Warner Bros., then signed with MGM.

Her first MGM film was “The Bride Goes Wild,...

Arlene Dahl, the flame-haired actress who starred in such films as My Wild Irish Rose, Slightly Scarlet and Journey to the Center of the Earth, has died. She was 96.

Dahl, who also made a career out of how to look good with a long-running newspaper column, a series of books and a company that sold beauty products, died Monday in New York, her son, Falcon Crest actor Lorenzo Lamas, announced on Facebook. “She was the most positive influence on my life,” he wrote.

A Minneapolis native with a signature beauty mark and Norwegian heritage, Dahl was married six times. Her first two husbands ...

Arlene Dahl, the flame-haired actress who starred in such films as My Wild Irish Rose, Slightly Scarlet and Journey to the Center of the Earth, has died. She was 96.

Dahl, who also made a career out of how to look good with a long-running newspaper column, a series of books and a company that sold beauty products, died Monday in New York, her son, Falcon Crest actor Lorenzo Lamas, announced on Facebook. “She was the most positive influence on my life,” he wrote.

A Minneapolis native with a signature beauty mark and Norwegian heritage, Dahl was married six times. Her first two husbands ...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker have raided the Columbia vault once again in search of Noir Gold from the ‘fifties. Their selection this time around has a couple of prime gems, several straight crime thrillers and domestic jeopardy tales, and also a couple of interesting Brit imports. They aren’t really ‘Noir’ either, but they’re still unexpected and different. The top title is Don Siegel’s incomparable The Lineup, but also on board is a snappy anti-commie epic by André De Toth. Get set for a lineup of impressive leading ladies: Diana Dors, Arlene Dahl, Anita Ekberg — and the great Colleen Dewhurst as a card-carrying Red!

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection Volume 3

The Shadow on the Window, The Long Haul, Pickup Alley, The Tijuana Story, She Played with Fire, The Case Against Brooklyn, The Lineup, The Crimson Kimono, Man on a String

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1957 -1960 / B&w...

In the extensive filmography of director Allan Dwan, there’s perhaps no more glorious period of his filmmaking than his DeLuxe color film noir period of the 1950’s. Following on the heels of the tawdry Slightly Scarlet, which featured red-heads Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming squaring off with John Payne, Dwan inverts the ménage a toi for The River’s Edge utilizing another red-head, Debra Paget, positioned between the amorous interests of Anthony Quinn and Ray Milland in one of his most sinister on-screen personas. Like a cross between Joseph Pevney’s Fox Fire (1955) and the classic The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), a beautiful woman finds herself indebted to her husband while languishing in a rural backwater, this time a New Mexican ranch.…...

Verily, Blu-ray 3-D is better than most theatrical 3-D! Paramount’s fourth and last 3-D production went out to theaters only in 2-D, so for all practical terms this Kino/3D Archive restoration is a depth-format premiere. Expect a kissing scene or two: lusty Fernando (¿Quién es más macho?) Lamas and demure Rhonda Fleming succumb to the sweaty allure of the tropics. He pushes the sex appeal more than she does! Together they take a 3-D trek to where the headhunters roam, into a jungle to secure a golden treasure.

Jivaro

3-D Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / 34.95

Starring: Fernando Lamas, Rhonda Fleming, Brian Keith, Lon Chaney Jr., Richard Denning, Rita Moreno, Marvin Miller, Morgan Farley, Pascual García Peña, Nestor Paiva, Gregg Barton.

Cinematography: Lionel Lindon

Film Editor: Howard Smith

Original Music: Gregory Stone

Written by Winston Miller, story by David Duncan

Produced by William H. Pine,...

Over the decades, the presenters and performers on the Academy Awards have become more diverse. And this year is no exception with Awkwafina, Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Rudolph, Amandla Stenberg, Tessa Thompson and Constance Wu already announced as presenting on the 91st annual Oscars, as well as Jennifer Hudson performing the Oscar-nominated tune “I’ll Fight” from “Rbg.”

But it was a long time coming. Let’s look back at the milestone first appearances of minority performers and presenters at Hollywood’s biggest night.

Though he was not a presenter per se, New Jersey native Cesar Romero of Cuban and Spanish heritage was featured with several writer/directors including Robert Riskin and John Huston who reminisced about their experiences in World War II at the 18th annual Academy Awards in 1946.

Puerto Rican-born Jose Ferrer, who earned a supporting actor nomination for 1948’s “Joan of Arc” appeared on the March 23, 1950 ceremony from...

‘3rd Dimension!’ ‘Technicolor!’ Paramount underwent a difficult post-production learning curve getting this early entry in the 3-D craze out the door and into waiting theaters. Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl decorate the colonial-era costume drama, injecting some heat into their frisky wrestling match meet-cute love scene. Rip those bodices!

Sangaree

3-D Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1953 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 94 min. / Street Date October 16, 2018 / 34.95

Starring: Fernando Lamas, Arlene Dahl, Patricia Medina, Francis L. Sullivan, Charles Korvin, Tom Drake, John Sutton, Willard Parker.

Cinematography: W. Wallace Kelley, Lionel Lindon

Film Editor: Howard A. Smith

3-D Blu-ray restoration: 3-D Film Archive

Original Music: Lucien Cailliet

Written by David Duncan, Frank L. Moss, from the novel by Frank Slaughter

Produced by William H. Pine, William C. Thomas

Directed by Edward Ludwig

Producers William H. Pine and William C. Thomas turned out profitable Paramount product for fifteen years, although few of their shows were accorded artistic accolades.

By Darren Allison

When it comes to good adventure stories, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) will arguably feature among the very best. It is one of those films that continue to delight audiences both old and new. In terms of elements it seems to tick all the boxes. At its heart, there is a fine, good natured yet entirely gripping story. A wondrous subterranean vista provides the viewer with monsters, vast underground oceans, villains and plenty of cliff-hanger moments of suspense.

It was perhaps a well-timed stroke of luck that some of the stories penned by Jules Verne were entering a period of public domain status. Two of Verne's adapted novels were to feature James Mason. Disney's adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) starred Kirk Douglas as a 19th-century whaler and Mason as Nemo, captain of the story’s legendary submarine, the Nautilus. Five years later, Journey to the Center of the Earth...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Tuesday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best show currently on TV?” can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: What is the worst show you’ve ever reviewed? Why was it so bad? Did you waver over the grade or rating you gave it?

Daniel Fienberg (@TheFienPrint), The Hollywood Reporter

I’ve compared “Mixology” to contracting TV herpes, “Fuller House” to exhuming a bloating, gaseous corpse and called “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders” the perfect xenophobic TV show for Trump’s America. Still, there’s little doubt that no show has ever made me so irate for its mere misguided existence than a little show called “H8r” on The CW. If you don’t remember “H8r” the premise was this: Mario Lopez drives his F-list celebrity...

Germany's Explosive Media company has a serious itch for American westerns, and they have a trio of new releases. One is a minor Hollywood classic with major graces, from the late 1950s. A second sees an American producer based in England filming in Italy with a rising international star, and for the third an established American star goes European  to stay in the game. The best thing for Yankee buyers? The discs are Region-free.

Gunman's Walk, Land Raiders, A Man Called Sledge Three Westerns from Explosive Media Blu-ray Separate Releases 1958-1970 / Color Starring Van Heflin, Tab Hunter; George Maharis, Telly Savalas; James Garner

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The majority of American studios now choose not to market their libraries for digital disc, and license them out instead. Collectors unwilling to settle for whatever's on Netflix or concerned about the permanence of Cloud Cinema, find themselves increasingly tempted by discs from Europe,...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

Show business' brightest stars memorialized one of their own yesterday, at A Tribute to Polly Bergen, at the American Airlines Theatre 227 W. 42nd Street. An Emmy Award-winning actress and singer, Ms. Bergen's career spanned more than six decades in films, TV, Broadway musicals and concerts. She passed away from natural causes September 20 at age 84. A Tribute to Polly Bergen, produced by Rex Reed and Michael Alden with creative consultant Deborah Grace Winer, celebrated her life and career with a star studded lineup of participants. They included Christine Andreas, Harry Belafonte, Arlene Dahl, Raul Esparza, Michael Feinstein, Gregory Harrison, Judith Ivey, Chris Matthews, Phyllis Newman, Kelli O'Hara and cast members from the 2001 revival of Follies.

Show business' brightest stars memorialized one of their own yesterday, at A Tribute to Polly Bergen, at the American Airlines Theatre 227 W. 42nd Street. An Emmy Award-winning actress and singer, Ms. Bergen's career spanned more than six decades in films, TV, Broadway musicals and concerts. She passed away from natural causes September 20 at age 84. A Tribute to Polly Bergen, produced by Rex Reed and Michael Alden with creative consultant Deborah Grace Winer, celebrated her life and career with a star studded lineup of participants. They included Christine Andreas, Harry Belafonte, Arlene Dahl, Raul Esparza, Michael Feinstein, Gregory Harrison, Judith Ivey, Chris Matthews, Phyllis Newman, Kelli O'Hara and cast members from the 2001 revival of Follies.

Show business' brightest stars memorialized one of their own yesterday, at A Tribute to Polly Bergen, at the American Airlines Theatre 227 W. 42nd Street. An Emmy Award-winning actress and singer, Ms. Bergen's career spanned more than six decades in films, TV, Broadway musicals and concerts. She passed away from natural causes September 20 at age 84. A Tribute to Polly Bergen, produced by Rex Reed and Michael Alden with creative consultant Deborah Grace Winer, celebrated her life and career with a star studded lineup of participants. They included Christine Andreas, Harry Belafonte, Arlene Dahl, Raul Esparza, Michael Feinstein, Gregory Harrison, Judith Ivey, Chris Matthews, Phyllis Newman, Kelli O'Hara and cast members from the 2001 revival of Follies.

Lorcan Otway, owner of the legendary New York theater, starts off the festivities.

 

Actress Arlene Dahl ("Journey to the Center of the Earth") introduces Alan Cumming.

 

Alan prepares to be "immortalized" in cement for the theater's walk of fame.

 

On Monday night, Cinema Retro was invited to attend a private party in honor of actor Alan Cumming at New York's legendary and quirky Theatre 80 St. Marks on St. Marks Place. The venue has its own mini "walk of fame" that dates back many decades. The Theatre/bar also houses the Museum of the American Gangster, as it once had a sordid history that included a gangland rubout. Alan Cumming graciously signed the cement block, having been introduced by the theater's owner Lorcan Otway and actress Arlene Dahl. After the party, everyone thundered to the famed bar, where plenty of good brews and live Irish music (and Irish whiskey) rounded out the evening.

Last night at his home Tommy Tunehosted a cocktail party the one and only Carol Channing welcoming her back to NYC. Ms. Channing was toasted and honored by guests including Tyne Daly, Donna McKechnie, Lucie Arnaz, Lorna Luft, Brooke Shields, Liliane Montevecchi, Robert Klein, Michael Riedel, Frank Dilella, Arlene Dahl, Peter Glebo, Wayne Gmitter, Jim Caruso, Bruce Vilanch, Chris Dilella Jamie deRoy, Richard Skipper and more. Cinderella's Laure Osnes and her husband Nathan Johnson serenaded Ms. Channing with Before the Parade Passes By.

Fred MacMurray movies: ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ Fred MacMurray is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" today, Thursday, August 7, 2013. Although perhaps best remembered as the insufferable All-American Dad on the long-running TV show My Three Sons and in several highly popular Disney movies from 1959 to 1967, e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Boy Voyage!, MacMurray was immeasurably more interesting as the All-American Jerk. (Photo: Fred MacMurray ca. 1940.) Someone once wrote that Fred MacMurray would have been an ideal choice to star in a biopic of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon. Who knows, the (coincidentally Republican) MacMurray might have given Anthony Hopkins a run for his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. After all, MacMurray’s most admired movie performances are those in which he plays a scheming, conniving asshole: Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), in which he’s seduced by Barbara Stanwyck, and Wilder...

Esther Williams: ‘Pools and Smiles’ formula grows stale [See previous post: "Esther Williams: Swimwear MGM Musical Star Dies."] By the early ’50s, Louis B. Mayer had been ousted from the studio he had helped to found, having been replaced by Dore Schary. Whether or not a coincidence, with the exception of Million Dollar Mermaid, the Esther Williams movies of the ’50s — e.g., The Duchess of Idaho, Skirts Ahoy! (stolen by Vivian Blaine in a supporting role), Dangerous When Wet, Easy to Love — lacked the luster of those released in the previous decade, despite more prestigious directors (George Sidney, Charles Walters, Robert Z. Leonard) and the usual co-stars (Van Johnson, Red Skelton, Howard Keel). (Photo: Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid.) Not surprisingly, although MGM’s color musicals would remain in vogue a few more years, Esther Williams and the studio parted ways following George Sidney’s tired-looking Jupiter’s Darling (1956), with Williams and Howard Keel (as Hannibal) fooling around in ancient times.

The silver screen has long boasted many great beauties, but only one was ever worthy of the title "America's Mermaid." Esther Williams, MGM's great synchronized swimming star and box-office attraction of the '40s and '50s, died. She was 91. The star's publicist Harlan Boll told the Associated Press she died in her sleep Thursday. Relatively removed from the public eye since the publication of her 1999 memoir, The Million Dollar Mermaid, Williams suffered some health setbacks in the past several years. In 2001, she fractured her ankle (which then became infected, necessitating the use of a walker) after a spill down...

Above: Calendar Girl (1947) / Pearl of the South Pacific (1955) / Frontier Marshal (1939)

Last October, my co-editor David Phelps and I released our first self-published e-book out into the world. It was entitled William A. Wellman: A Dossier, and after the somewhat life-changing experience we had discovering Wellman's films during his Film Forum retrospective, we were happy to have discovered a format that would allow us to curate, create, and share an anthology of criticism centered on Wellman's work.

After the release, David and I found ourselves contemplating what to do next, and our thoughts soon brought us back to a night when we screened Allan Dwan's Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), a Western unlike any Western we had seen. A movie that on paper is a simple genre exercise about a vengeful woman trying to regain her land and cattle but in practice is about how different people and events fill...

A spirited damsel in distress and a familiar face in postwar Hollywood films

Although the actor Patricia Medina, who has died aged 92, had a cut-glass English accent, her voluptuous Latin looks often prevented her from playing English characters. As her name suggests, she was half-Spanish, born in Liverpool, the daughter of a Spanish father – a lawyer and former opera singer – and an English mother.

Medina, who appeared in more than 50 feature films, many of them costume dramas, was seldom called upon to display much acting ability, though she was an unusually spirited damsel in distress. However, she used the one chance she had to work with a director of magnitude, Orson Welles, in Mr Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report, 1955), to show what she was capable of. As Mily, in this breathless, globetrotting film, she is an earthy nightclub dancer who attempts to seduce the amnesiac billionaire Welles. It was...

A terrible thing happened to the Hollywood legacy of Argentine Fernando Lamas, and his Norwegian stunner actress wife Arlene Dahl. Together, these two talented, beautiful people made a gorgeous kid in 1958, Lorenzo, who has followed his parents' footsteps. Like a teabag that has been used more than once, the weakened brew nets a barely registered aroma and flavor of its original strength. Same thing has happened to the distilled-down Lamas' family genes, who unlike the Barrymores, have become a tasteless, tan, embarrassment that would most likely make the late Fernando cringe to witness it. Welcome to the worst of the worst, the latest E! reality series that takes a family and follows them around in scripted, dramatized...

Rosanna Scotto is quick as a whippet. Speaking at the Lighthouse benefit, the Fox 5 anchor forgot someone's name and couldn't find it in her notes, so she smiled sweetly, "I'm having a Jeanine Pirro moment." Pirro is the prosecutor turned TV judge whose amnesia at a press conference helped doom her '06 race for state attorney general. Lighthouse vice-chair Joel Mounty, who won the bidding for a watch from Jacob & Co., honored Fox TV general manager Lew Leone, then saluted Michelle Paterson as "a woman who knows a thing or two about blindness." The...

The Loews Theatre in Jersey City, New Jersey, will be hosting two very special screenings in the restored movie palace this weekend. On Friday evening, director Anthony Harvey will be in attendance to discuss his Oscar-winning classic The Lion in Winter starring Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole and - in their big screen debuts - Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton. Mr. Harvey will be interviewed by film historian Foster Hirsch and will participate in a Q&A session following the film. On Saturday, the Loews will have a rare big screen showing of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Actress Arlene Dahl, who co-starred with James Mason and Pat Boone in the classic sci-fi film, will be in attendance. There will be an optional reception and "meet and greet" with Ms. Dahl prior to the film. The Loews is only minutes from midtown Manhattan. For full details, click here...

Michael Feinstein's Salute to the Stars of MGM scheduled for Thursday, March 26 adds Jane Russell with Arlene Dahl and host Robert Osborne (Turner Classic Movies) for a joyous tribute to the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals and the stars that made them great. Due to scheduling conflicts Vic Damone will not be able to attend this performance. Tickets to the 7:30 show are $50-$80.

Though Sunday at Noir City, the audience was advised to save its prayers. Eddie Muller took to the Castro stage to briefly recap the success of the previous night’s Arlene Dahl tribute, an event which Dahl admitted to Muller was one of the most thrilling nights of her career. “Coming from a woman who’s slept with Fernando Lamas,” Muller quipped, “that’s really something!”

On January 30, 1925, America’s foremost cave explorer Floyd Collins was trapped in a cave called Sand Cave, Kentucky. Though only 55 feet below ground and 150 feet from the cave’s entrance, Collins was pinned by a 25-pound rock in a particular way that he couldn’t move either himself or the rock. An intrepid journalist from the Louisville Courier by the name of William Burke “Skeets” Miller became the nation’s conduit to Floyd Collins. Miller was the only one speaking to Collins while he lay trapped underground,...

Along with discussing TCM’s upcoming “31 Days of Oscar” and reminiscing on Arlene Dahl, Robert Osborne and I talked about Ernest Borgnine, with whom he recently taped an interview for TCM’s “Private Screenings”, which will premiere on Monday, January 26, 2009, 5:00Pm (Pt), followed by a four-film tribute. Borgnine, a venerable 92-year-old, is the oldest living Academy Award®-winning actor, now that Charlton Heston has passed away. Osborne and I exchanged a few comments regarding this Hollywood legend and then a few hours later I was offered the chance to share a few minutes with Ernie as well.

* * * Robert Osborne: [Ernie] may be matched with Olivia DeHaviland because she’s 92 as well. Jennifer Jones, I believe, is a couple of years younger. I must say that—knowing both of them—Borgnine and Olivia, is that they are both examples of how great it can be to live that long if you have good genes.

It’s that time. Deadline. Time to swallow down your bitter cup of joe to go. Time to stoke up a Camel straight and rake the rim of your fedora. Time to straighten the seams on your nylons and add yet more scarlet to your pursed lips. Time to load the revolver with bullets and to slip the switchblade in your handbag. Time to choke in the boldface headlines of page one of The Noir City Sentinel before heading out into a world that’s incorrigibly corrupt and where a chump knows that even change doesn’t come free. Not that the newspaper really warns you about anything new that you have to face once you leave your railroad apartment; it’s just a mirror, after all, reflecting a psychotic world escaped and still at large, full of criminals, kingpins and hoods, molls and voluptuous dames limned with lamé and seductive danger.

'Sometimes People tell me I should go into politics, but I'm not interested. We've got enough boobs in the White House. Peo ple would ask about foreign af fairs, and I'd say, 'What's wrong with American men?' Then they'd ask about global warming, and I'd say 'When my globes get warm, I just take off my sweater!' "

This is Dolly Parton, unchangeable at age 62 and still going strong all over the world.

Martin, the concierge of the famed Connaught Hotel in London, tele phoned Casey Ribicoff this week (she is the widow of Abe Ribicoff,...