Sunday, July 22, 2012

 

"Hurray for Hollywood?" Maybe Not.


No Business Like Show Business……Really?

It’s a saying and a song, “There’s no business like show business.”

I can still hear Ethel Merman belting it out in one of the first movies my parents took me to, a movie of the same name. Sometimes I hear myself say it when watching a movie on TV, like while recently eyeing a nude sex scene with Sandra Bullock in a film from 1993. The guy got paid to do that with her? Wow!

Although there surely is no business like show business, some people prefer it that way. I mean, they had their fill of show biz and got out. Imagine.

A few days ago, I watched the 1958 “South Pacific,” one of the few musicals I like to watch. There are two young actors in that film whom you may recall.

One is John Kerr, who had a big role as Lt. Joe Cable. Kerr was becoming a well known actor in film and TV when he had enough. At age 39, he passed the California bar exam after attending UCLA law school. He spent the rest of his working years as a Beverly Hills lawyer.

The other actor is beautiful France Nuyen, who plays Liat, Cable’s love interest. Nuyen was in many films and television shows, but in 1986, she left the business. She earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology and became a counselor for abused women and children.
 
Some people understand that there is more to life than Hollywood glamour.
Both former actors are still alive, having survived Tinsel Town. Good for them.

Tuesday, July 03, 2012

 

The Bad Good Old Days

It was thirty-four years ago, a long time. But when it happened, it was like something out of the 1930s. It was like the famous St. Valentines Day massacre in Chicago, which I know happened because I saw it re-enacted on The Untouchables.  It was the Black Friars Massacre in Boston, where five men were gunned down in the late hours in the basement of a club, known as Blackfriars. They were all grouped together and shot in the head with two different guns, a .12 gauge shotgun and a .25 automatic. One man was Jack Kelly, a former television investigative reporter.  Be careful, Hank Phillipi Ryan.

One investigator with the FBI Organized Crime Unit was John Connolly, who now has a long term address in Florida at a Federal prison.  You see, he was a dirty cop, who informed for Whitey Bulger. Ain't that a kick!

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