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Olive Sturgess, whose many acting credits through the 1950s and ’60s included numerous TV Westerns and the Roger Corman horror spoof The Raven starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson, died February 19 in Los Angeles. She was 91.

Her death was announced by her family.

Although her TV career included guest roles in such comedies as The Donna Reed Show and Petticoat Junction, her forte was the television Western, a genre that was wildly popular in the ’50s and ’60s. During those years, Sturgess made guest appearances on Cheyenne, U.S. Marshal, Sugarfoot, The Texan, Rawhide, Have Gun Will Travel, Lawman, Buckskin, Rebel, Laramie, Wagon Train, Maverick, The Rebel, Tall Man, Outlaws, Bonanza, Wide Country, Destry, and The Virginian. In 1965 she appeared in the Western feature film Requiem for a Gunfighter.

In an undated interview on the Western Clippings website, Sturgess reflected on the early days of her career.

Starz has announced the movie and TV titles that will be available on the service in January. The Starz January 2025 schedule includes the last two episodes of Outlander Season 7, setting the stage for the upcoming final season, and the U.S. premiere of The Couple Next Door.

The month also brings a diverse selection of films, including Freedom Hair, Once in a Valentine, Trim Season, Advanced Chemistry, and several other notable titles. You can also kick off the new year with the “Day of the Dinos!” marathon on New Year’s Day, featuring Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, and Jurassic World Dominion: Extended Cut.

Outlander Season 7 Part 2 Starz Highlights

Outlander Season 7 Part 2

The land the Frasers call home is changing – and they must change with it. To protect what they’ve built, the Frasers have to navigate the perils of the Revolutionary War. They learn that sometimes,...

Destry Rides Again is one of the finest westerns of James Stewart’s career, but its remake (simply titled Destry) is surprisingly an underrated gem — starring a perfectly cast Audie Murphy. From Winchester ’73 to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Stewart appeared in some of the greatest western movies ever made. He was in the sprawling ensemble of How the West Was Won and he co-starred in John Wayne’s final western, The Shootist. Released in 1939, Destry Rides Again is one of Stewart’s best contributions to the genre.

Set in the lawless town of Bottleneck, Destry Rides Again sees the mild-mannered son of a gunfighter being named sheriff. While he initially seems hopelessly ineffective, he proves to be just what the town needs. A lot of movies from that era play as stiff and slow-paced by today’s standards, but Destry Rides Again is a lively, fast-moving western adventure.

Even among the rich list of Hollywood icons throughout its history, Jimmy Stewart looms large, an actor who could seemingly do anything and do it well, from an early role as a cold-blooded killer in After the Thin Man to his crowd-favorite roles in Harvey and It's a Wonderful Life. Perhaps better than any other, Stewart effortlessly brought the sometimes quirky, often mild-mannered, and frequently more-than-they-appear-to-be characters he played to life, an actor moviegoers couldn't help but to root for. Nowhere is that more evident than in 1939's Destry Rides Again, where he plays a kindhearted lawman named Tom Jefferson Destry Jr., whose nonviolent approach to justice goes against conventional wisdom but succeeds nonetheless. The Western comedy film is among his best, with a whopping 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, one would have to be psycho to even attempt to replicate the magic Stewart brought to the role. Or at least appear in Psycho,...

The 1970s marked the end of traditional westerns and the rise of the anti-western, questioning the genre's whitewashing of U.S. history. Movies like The Cowboys, Jeremiah Johnson, and High Plains Drifter paved the way for revisionist westerns in the '70s. Films like El Topo, The Shootist, and Blazing Saddles brought fresh, innovative perspectives to the western genre in the 1970s.

With delightfully dark classics like El Topo and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the 1970s marked the end of the western genres heyday and the dawn of the anti-western. The western genre has been a staple of American cinema since the invention of filmmaking. One of the first narrative films ever made Edwin S. Porters 1903 silent movie The Great Train Robbery was a western. Seminal masterpieces like Stagecoach and Destry Rides Again established the cinematic language of the western genre in the 1930s, and westerns remained popular and prevalent throughout the 40s,...

Jimmy Stewart's career in Westerns showcased his versatility as an actor, portraying both stoic pacifists and smoldering lawmen. His military service in WWII influenced the dark and complex roles he took on in Western films, bringing depth and thoughtfulness to the genre. Stewart's performances in Westerns like "Destry Rides Again" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" solidified his status as a Western legend, with his charm and range making him a standout among his contemporaries.

While he's known for dramas like It's A Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, James "Jimmy" Stewart built quite a career in Westerns playing righteous heroes and complicated antagonists in the American West. With his gentle drawl and everyman reliability, Jimmy Stewart could embody stoic pacifists as easily as he could smoldering lawmen and protective homesteaders. In 1939, the same year he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor...

Before James Stewart became one of the most beloved stars in Hollywood history, he was -- believe it or not -- a struggling contract player at MGM. During the golden age of cinema, the small-town boy from Pennsylvania had found his way to Los Angeles, where he was churning out films as part of the studio system. It wasn't until Stewart stunned audiences with his turn as Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra's 1939 comedy-drama "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" that his star seriously began to rise.

Considering how much work Stewart put into the part, the praise he received was well-deserved. Aside from breaking his rule regarding rushes for the great Capra, the actor also ingested mercury dichloride to give himself a sore throat and make his performance in the famous 24-hour filibuster scene more believable. Amazingly, after wrapping the movie, Stewart was far from "licked," as Senator Smith would say.

Lori Nelson, the 1950s starlet who was kidnapped by an amphibious monster in Revenge of the Creature and portrayed Barbara Stanwyck’s younger daughter in Douglas Sirk’s All I Desire, has died. She was 87.

Nelson had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years and died Sunday at her home in the Porter Ranch section of Los Angeles, her daughter Jennifer Mann said.

In Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952) and Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955), Nelson played Rosie Kettle, one of the daughters of the characters played by Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride in the Universal series of films.

Nelson also made her mark in I Died a Thousand Times (1955), a remake of the Humphrey Bogart classic High Sierra in which she portrayed the club-footed love interest of Jack Palance’s crook; Pardners (1956), working opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in their penultimate film together...

Destry Rides Again

Blu ray

Criterion

1939 / 1.33:1/ 95 min.

Starring Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart

Cinematography by Hal Mohr

Directed by George Marshall

America’s favorite boy next door meets the Weimar Republic’s preeminent vamp in George Marshall’s Destry Rides Again. James Stewart plays Tom Destry, the self-effacing straight-shooter who cleans up a lawless backwater burg without firing a shot – almost. Marlene Dietrich is Frenchy, a world-weary chanteuse who rules the roost at the town’s only waterhole, the Last Chance saloon. Their relationship is more heated than the volatile town itself but after the final punch is thrown their bond is deeper than any typical Hollywood romance.

Marshall’s comic horse opera was released by Universal in 1939 and like so many of that studio’s horror films of the era, it opens with a slow pan over a moonlit graveyard with more than its fair share of tombstones. Instead...

George Marshall’s classic comedy Western Destry Rides Again finally gets its due with its inclusion in the esteemed Criterion Collection. A notable entry in the filmography of its director and lead stars, it was one of the first notable genre hybrids, the success of which would generate a legion of evolving formulaic successors.

Notably, this was the first time Jimmy Stewart would star in a Western, a genre he would return to in the 1950s with several Anthony Mann collaborations. The jack-of-all-trades Marshall would also return to the genre, directing a segment of the classic How the West Was Won (1962) and also remade the title in 1954 as Destry, starring Audie Murphy.…...

Daring American stuntman who often doubled for Tony Curtis and starred in the TV series The High Chaparral

Among the many unsung heroes of film history are those individuals who make actors seem more athletic and daring than they could possibly be. Although the raison d'etre of his profession is invisibility, the stuntman and stunts co-ordinator Robert Hoy, who has died of cancer aged 82, was one of the few whose name and face have emerged from anonymity.

As well as enjoying a long career as a stuntman – he continued into his 60s – Hoy, an expert horseman, appeared in more than 150 films and television series in small parts. One of his largest roles was the ranch-hand Joe Butler in 62 episodes of The High Chaparral from 1967 to 1971. With his thick black moustache, dark hair and sideboards, and invariably wearing a blue shirt, Hoy made Butler into a hard-riding, hard-fighting, hard-drinking masculine figure,...