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Harold John "Hal" Smith (August 24, 1916 – January 28, 1994) was an American character actor and voice-over artist. Smith is best known as Otis Campbell, the town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show and was the voice of many characters in animated cartoon shorts. He is also known to radio listeners as John Avery Whittaker on Adventures in Odyssey.
Early life
He was born in Petoskey, Michigan. Smith spent a significant part of his early years living in Massena, New York and graduated from the Massena High School class of 1936. His mother was a seamstress, and his father worked at the local Aluminum Company Of America. He later worked as a disc jockey and voice talent for WIBX Radio in Utica, New York from 1936-1943. After serving in the Special Services of World War II, he traveled to Hollywood and appeared in many television shows such as I Married Joan, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Red Skelton Show.[1]
Career
Screen actor
His most famous on screen character was Otis Campbell, the town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show during most of the series run from 1960 to 1968. He would often comically let himself into his regular jail cell using the key which was stored within reach of the two comfortable jail rooms. Hal Smith was the opposite of his character. According to longtime friends Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, he did not drink in real life. Otis Campbell stopped appearing in the show towards the end of the series due to concerns by the show's sponsors over the portrayal of excessive drinking. Smith appeared as Calver Weems in the Don Knotts comedy, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken in 1966, playing essentially the same town drunk character as Otis Campbell.
Hal Smith did play Otis Campbell one more time in the 1986 TV movie Return to Mayberry. In the TV movie, Otis is the town's ice cream truck driver and is reported to have been "sober for years." Smith later used his Otis Campbell character in commercial spots for the Mothers Against Drunk Driving organization and appeared as Otis in Alan Jackson's "Don't Rock the Juke Box" music video.
He also had a morning children's show at television station KTLA called The Pancake Man, sponsored by The International House of Pancakes during the late 1960s. He reprised the Pancake Man role as "Kartoon King" in an episode of The Brady Bunch in 1971 called "The Winner."
Voice actor
Smith did much work in Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the 1970s, and in the early 1960s, he voiced Taurus, the Scots-accented mechanic of the spaceship Starduster for the series Space Angel. According to the book: Space Patrol, missions of daring in the name of early television "It's rumored that Gene Roddenberry was a huge fan of the show and patterned Star Trek's engineer, 'Mr Scott,' after McCloud's Scottish sidekick, 'Taurus.'" He is also mentioned in the ending credits of Hong Kong Phooey. In 1977, he was the voice of Grandpa Josiah in the cartoon TV special, Halloween Is Grinch Night. He was very active with voices in 1980s. He was Sludge in the Smurfs television series and Goofy in Mickey's Christmas Carol. For Disney's DuckTales and Super Ducktales he was the voice of Scrooge McDuck's rival Flintheart Glomgold and absent-minded scientist Gyro Gearloose.
Smith also voiced the Disney cartoon character Goofy after Pinto Colvig died and also provided the voice of Owl and Winnie-the-Pooh in many of the Winnie the Pooh shorts and feature films. In the 1960s, he was one of the most sought after voice actors in Hollywood. He provided the voices for many characters in Davey and Goliath. From 1960 to 1961, he was the voice of Elmer Fudd after Arthur Q. Bryan died. In 1963 he voiced Dr. Todd Goodheart, Belly Laguna and Dr. Von Upp in the Funny Company cartoon series. From 1964 to 1966, he was the voice of Yappee in the Hanna Barbera cartoon shorts Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey. He was also the voice of Cosmo Creeps and Mr. Bluestone the Great/Phantom, in Scooby Doo, Where are You?
In 1983, he reprised his role as Owl and voiced Winnie The Pooh in the Disney Channel's Welcome to Pooh Corner television series to replace longtime actor Sterling Holloway. In 1988's, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh TV series, Jim Cummings took over as Pooh with Tigger (same voice actor as The Tasmanian Devil on Looney Tunes) while Smith again played Owl. The two voice actors sometimes rotated the voice of Winnie the Pooh. In 1991, Smith provided the voice of Philippe the horse in the 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast.
Starting in 1987 he was the voice of the main character John Avery Whittaker on the Focus on the Family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey. He was responsible for much of the cast joining the show after he signed on, and he continued recording episodes until a few weeks before his death, even while his health deteriorated. Additionally, he voiced dozens of other characters during the over 250 episodes he participated in.
Smith was also very active working in television commercials as various characters. He provided on screen promoting for 3 Musketeers, United Van Lines, Hickory Farms, Toyota, Green Giant, General Mills, Mattel, Pizza Hut, Chicken of the Sea tuna, Ivory soap, Doctor Ross dog food, Pioneer Chicken, Bell Telephone Company, and hundreds of other companies.
Personal life
Smith was a long-time active member of Westwood Hills Congregational Church in Los Angeles. He is entombed at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.
References
1.^ Michaud, John D. III, ed (2004) [2004]. More than Otis: No Bull! A Salute to Hollywood Actor Hal J. Smith (1st edition ed.). Massena, New York: Stubbs Printing.
On January 27, 1984, Michael Jackson and other members of the Jacksons filmed a Pepsi Cola commercial, overseen by executive Phil Dusenberry, from ad agency BBDO and Pepsi's Worldwide Creative Director, Alan Pottasch at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. In front of a full house of fans during a simulated concert, pyrotechnics accidentally set Jackson's hair on fire. He suffered second-degree burns to his scalp. Jackson underwent treatment to hide the scars on his scalp, and he also had his third rhinoplasty shortly thereafter. Jackson never recovered from this injury.
Shrine Auditorium
Pepsi settled out of court, and Jackson donated his $1.5 million settlement to the Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, California, which now has a "Michael Jackson Burn Center" in honor of his donation. Dusenberry later recounted the episode in his memoir, Then We Set His Hair on Fire: Insights and Accidents from a Hall of Fame Career in Advertising.
Lady Charles Cavendish (September 10, 1896 – January 25, 1981),[1] better known as Adele Astaire, was an American dancer and entertainer. She was Fred Astaire's elder sister. Her birthdate was often given as 1897 or 1898, but the 1900 U.S. census showed her birth year as 1896.
Life and career
Adele was born Adele Marie Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Johanna "Ann" (née Geilus), an American-born Lutheran of German descent, and Frederic "Fritz" Emanuel Austerlitz (September, 1868–1924), an Austrian Roman Catholic brewer of Jewish descent from Vienna. Adele became an Episcopalian, like her younger brother.
In 1905 Adele Astaire had a successful vaudeville act with her younger brother, Fred Astaire. They developed it into a celebrated adult career on Broadway and on the London stage. Adele was the bigger star of the two during their time performing together, and she was a special favorite of Great Britain's royalty.
On May 9, 1932, after a successful stint with Fred in the revue The Band Wagon (1931) on Broadway, Adele Astaire retired from the stage to marry Lord Charles Arthur Francis Cavendish (August 29, 1905–March 23, 1944), the second son of the 9th Duke of Devonshire,[2] and moved to Ireland, where they lived at Lismore Castle. She had three children, a daughter in 1933 and twin sons in 1935, each of whom died soon after birth. By this marriage she was properly styled Lady Charles Cavendish and would have been called Lady Charles in social circumstances.
On April 20, 1947, Adele Cavendish married her second husband, Col. Kingman Douglass, an American investment banker and Air Force officer who was an assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He died in 1971.
After Fred Astaire's success in Hollywood, Adele gave serious consideration in 1935 to making a musical film there. She visited Hollywood and appeared in January 1936 on the Music Variety Show, but she admitted to feeling intimidated by her brother's reputation. During their partnership, Fred, whose perfectionism earned him the nickname "Moaning Minnie" from her, had always been the dominant creative force.
In 1937 Adele began filming in England with Jack Buchanan and Maurice Chevalier but withdrew after two days. She later recalled: "Oh boy, if my brother Fred sees this--I'm gone". There is no known film record of Adele performing (aside from a clip lasting a few seconds), but she made eight recordings, all duets with Fred.
Unlike her brother, Adele was extremely gregarious[3] and took great delight in shocking friends and strangers alike.[4]
Adele Astaire died of a stroke in Tucson, Arizona, aged 84. Built in 1905, the Gottlieb Storz Mansion in Omaha includes the "Adele and Fred Astaire Ballroom" on the top floor, which is the only memorial to their Omaha roots.[5]
At the suggestion of Roddy McDowall, Astaire donated her papers and memorabilia—amounting to several trunks of material—to the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.[6]
Adele Astaire is buried at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth in Los Angeles County.
Notes
1.^ "NNDB: Adele Astaire". Notable Names Database.
2.^ her brother-in-law Edward Cavendish died in unusual circumstances.
3.^ Mercedes de Acosta claimed to have a brief lesbian relationship with Adele, but, if true, it is believed that it was more of a bisexual 'fling' than her orientation, as no other reports of such relationships have ever surfaced.
4.^ According to the memoirs of Richard McKenzie (husband of Fred's daughter, Ava), Adele, aka Dellie, was playing Scrabble with her brother when he noticed that she had started a word with the letters C-U-N. He protested at what appeared to be an emerging vulgarity, though Adele later told Ava, "I could have been spelling anything! Like cunnilingus".
5.^ Wishart, D.J. (2004) Encyclopedia of the Great Plains University of Nebraska Pres. p 259.
6.^ Satchell, Tim (1987). Astaire - The biography. London: Hutchinson. pp. 226. ISBN 0-09-173736-2.
References
R. McKenzie: Turn Left at the Black Cow, Roberts Reinhardt Publishers 1997 (ISBN 1-57098-205-8)
John Mueller: Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, (ISBN 0-394-51654-0)
The Astaire Family Papers, The Howard Gotleib Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934) is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy's object.
Conviction and penalty phase
On January 25, 1971, guilty verdicts were returned against the four defendants on each of the twenty-seven separate counts against them. Not far into the trial's penalty phase, the jurors saw, at last, the defense that Manson — in the prosecution's view — had planned to present. Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified the murders had been conceived as "copycat" versions of the Hinman murder, for which Atkins now took credit. The killings, they said, were intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil, by resembling the crime for which he had been jailed. This plan had supposedly been the work of, and carried out under the guidance of, not Manson, but someone allegedly in love with Beausoleil—Linda Kasabian. Among the narrative's weak points was the inability of Atkins to explain why, as she was maintaining, she had written "political piggy" at the Hinman house in the first place.
Midway through the penalty phase, Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard to a fork; he told the press, "I am the Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head." In what the prosecution regarded as belated recognition on their part that imitation of Manson only proved his domination, the female defendants refrained from shaving their heads until the jurors retired to weigh the state's request for the death penalty.
The effort to exonerate Manson via the "copycat" scenario failed. On March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all four defendants on all counts. On April 19, 1971, Judge Older sentenced the four to death.
On the day the verdicts recommending the death penalty were returned, news came that the badly decomposed body of Ronald Hughes had been found wedged between two boulders in Ventura County. It was rumored, although never proven, that Hughes was murdered by the Family, possibly because he had stood up to Manson and refused to allow Van Houten to take the stand and absolve Manson of the crimes. Though he might have perished in flooding, Family member Sandra Good stated that Hughes was "the first of the retaliation murders."
Manson's death sentence was automatically commuted to life imprisonment when a 1972 decision by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state's death penalty. California's eventual reestablishment of capital punishment did not affect Manson, who is currently incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison.
Christopher Shannon "Chris" Penn (October 10, 1965 – January 24, 2006) was an American film and television actor known for his roles in such films as The Wild Life, Reservoir Dogs, Footloose, True Romance, All the Right Moves, Mulholland Falls, and Pale Rider.
Biography
Personal life
Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Leo Penn, an actor and director, and Eileen Ryan (née Annucci), an actress. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Russia,[1] and his mother was a Roman Catholic of Italian and Irish descent.[2] According to Penn's mother, Leo Penn may have had distant Spanish ancestry, as the family's surname was originally "Piñón".[2] He had two older brothers, actor Sean Penn, and musician Michael Penn.
Penn never married, but from 1993 to 1999 he dated and lived with Filipino-American model Steffiana de la Cruz.
Career
Penn started acting at the age of 12 at the Loft Studio and made his film debut in 1979’s Charlie and the Talking Buzzard starring Christopher Hanks. In 1983, he was featured in Francis Ford Coppola’s youth drama Rumble Fish and appeared in the high school football drama All the Right Moves as a soon-to-be high school father and the best friend of Tom Cruise's character. He also appeared in the hit dance movie Footloose in 1984; played a villain in the Clint Eastwood western Pale Rider (1985); and co-starred with his brother, Sean Penn, and mother Eileen Ryan in At Close Range (1986).
Death
Penn was found dead in his Santa Monica condominium on January 24, 2006, at the age of 40. Although Penn had used multiple drugs in the past, an autopsy performed by a Los Angeles County medical examiner revealed the primary cause of death was "nonspecific cardiomyopathy" (heart disease), with the prescription drug promethazine with codeine and an enlarged heart being possible contributing circumstances. Sean Penn has said publicly in a TV interview on Larry King Live that his brother probably died because of his weight.[3]
There is conflicting information about Chris Penn's age at the time of death, with some obituaries giving 1962 as his year of birth.[4] His mother indicated that his date of birth was October 10, 1965, in the book about one of his brothers, Sean Penn: His Life and Times by Richard T. Kelly (2004).
Penn is interred next to his father Leo in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Filmography
Charlie and the Talking Buzzard (1979)
All The Right Moves (1983)
Rumble Fish (1983)
The Wild Life (1984)
Footloose (1984)
Pale Rider (1985)
At Close Range (1986)
Made in USA (1987)
Return from the River Kwai (1989)
Best of the Best (1989)
Mobsters (1991)
Future Kick (1991)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Leather Jackets (1992)
Best of the Best 2 (1993)
The Pickle (1993)
Beethoven’s 2nd (1993)
Josh and S.A.M. (1993)
The Music of Chance (1993)
True Romance (1993)
Short Cuts (1993)
Imaginary Crimes (1994)
Fist of the North Star (1995)
Sacred Cargo (1995)
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Under the Hula Moon (1995)
Dead Mans Walk (1996
Mulholland Falls (1996)
The Funeral (1996)
The Boys Club (1997)
Papertrail (1997) (a.k.a. Trail of a Serial Killer)
Deceiver (1997)
One Tough Cop (1998)
Rush Hour (1998)
Family Attraction (1998)
Cement (1999)
The Florentine (1999)
Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000)
American Pie 2 (2001) {as Stifler's Dad in a deleted storyline}
Corky Romano (2001)
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Redemption (2002)
Stealing Harvard (2002)
Masked and Anonymous (2003)
Shelter Island (2003)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (voice of Eddie Pulaski) (2004)
Starsky and Hutch (2004)
After the Sunset (2004)
Pauly Shore is Dead (2004)
The Darwin Awards (2006)
King of Sorrow (2006)
Holly (2006)
Aftermath (2010)
References
1.^ Jews Flop in Big Oscar Award Wins. Jewish Journal.com. March 5, 2004.
2.^ Kelly, Richard T. Sean Penn: His Life and Times. Canongate U.S. 2004. 3.^ "Sean Penn: Chris's Weight Killed Him". People.com.
4.^ "Reservoir Dogs' Penn found dead". BBC News. 25 January 2006.
Louis Feinberg (October 5, 1902 – January 24, 1975), known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American comedian and actor, who is best known as a member of the comedy act The Three Stooges.
Early life
Fine was born to a Jewish family as Louis Feinberg[1] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the corner of 3rd and South Streets. The building there is now a restaurant which is called Jon's Bar and Grill - "the birth place of Larry Fine," but is not actually the building in which he was born. His father, Joseph Feinberg (who was Russian-Jewish), and mother, Fanny Lieberman, owned a watch repair and jewelry shop. When Larry was a child he burned his arm with some acid that his father used to test whether or not gold was real. Mistaking it for a cool drink Larry had the bottle to his lips when his father noticed and slapped it from his hand, splashing his forearm with acid. Later Larry received violin training to help strengthen his damaged muscles and this skill would be observed in many of the Stooges' films. He became quite proficient on the instrument, and his parents wanted to send him to a European music conservatory, but the outbreak of World War I prevented him from going. In scenes where all three are playing fiddles, only Larry is actually playing his instrument; the others are pantomiming. To further strengthen his arm, Larry took up boxing as a teenager. He fought and won one professional bout. His career as a pugilist was stopped by his father, who was opposed to Larry's fighting in public.[1]
Flora ("Flo") Jean Hyman (July 31, 1954 in Inglewood, California – January 24, 1986 in Japan) was an American volleyball player and Olympic silver medalist. She died during a volleyball match in Japan, as a result of Marfan syndrome.
Hyman was the second of eight children. She was always the tallest in her grade, and as a child, Hyman was self-conscious about her rapid growth and height, but her mother taught her to be proud of it. Hyman's parents were tall. Her father was 6'1" (1.85 m) tall and her mother 5'11" (1.80 m), but Flo was to outgrow both of them. She stood six feet tall (1.83m) on her 12th birthday and her final adult height, which she reached by her 17th birthday, was just over 6' 5" (1.96 m).
Education
Hyman graduated from Morningside High School in Inglewood, California and then attended El Camino College for one year before transferring to the University of Houston as that school's first female scholarship athlete. She did not complete her final year, focusing her attention on her volleyball career. Hyman said she would graduate once her volleyball career was over and that "You can go to school when you're 60. You're only young once, and you can only do this once."
Contribution to volleyball
"I had to learn to be honest with myself. I had to recognize my pain threshold. When I hit the floor, I have to realize it's not as if I broke a bone. Pushing yourself over the barrier is a habit. I know I can do it and try something else crazy. If you want to win the war, you've got to pay the price."
By 1974, Hyman was a member of the US volleyball team, but the team did not play in the 1980 Olympic Games due to the boycott of the Moscow games. Hyman played in the 1981 World Cup and the 1982 World Championship, when the USA won the bronze medal. A speciality of Hyman was the "Flying Clutchman," a fast, hard-impacting volleyball spike that travels at 110 mph (180 km/h). It was perfected under Dr. Gideon Ariel, a former 1960 and 1964 Olympic shot putter in Coto de Caza, California. At the 1984 Olympics, Hyman, by now both the tallest and oldest member of the team, led the USA to the silver medal, beaten by China in the final. The United States had defeated them earlier in the tournament.
Death
After the Olympics, Hyman moved to Japan, where she played for the Daiei team. In the summer of 1986, she intended to return to the United States permanently, but never got the chance to do so. On January 24, 1986, Hyman collapsed while sitting on the sidelines after being substituted out in a game against Hitachi. She told her team to keep fighting, then moments later slid to the floor and died.
At first, the cause of her death was stated to be a heart attack, but an autopsy carried out in Culver City, California, six days after her death, at the request of her family, discovered that she had a very healthy heart. Instead, Flo Hyman's death was due to an aortic dissection resulting from previously undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, a relatively common genetic disorder that affects more than 1 in 5,000 people.[1] Apart from her height, near-sightedness, very long arms and large hands, she showed few other physical symptoms. Hyman's sneaker size was a USA size 12, (Size 11 UK). There was a three week old blood clot around the tear, indicating that an earlier rip in the same spot had already begun to heal when the fatal second rupture occurred in her aorta.[2]
Doctors later discovered Hyman's brother had Marfan's Syndrome as well, and he underwent open heart surgery afterwards. Experts believed Hyman was lucky to have survived as long as she did, playing a physically explosive sport such as volleyball. She is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood California.
Achievements
Three times All American
World Cup Competition, top six players of 1981
Best Hitter, World Cup Competition 1981
Bronze medal in the 1982 World Championship Peru
Silver medal in the 1984 US Olympics
Sports Illustrated November 29, 1999 #69 on greatest woman athletes of the century
The Flo Hyman Memorial Award is named in her honor.
In 1985, Flo Hyman appeared in a film entitled Order of the Black Eagle, in which she portrayed a knife-wielding mercenary named Spike.[3]
The National Girls and Women in Sports Day (NGWSD), is celebrated in all 50 states with a variety of activities, to remember and honor Flo Hyman. It was created and is supported by Girls Incorporated, Girls Scouts of the USA, the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport, the Women's Sports Foundation and the YWCA of the U.S.A.[4]
References
1.^ http://www.marfan.org/marfan/2280/About-Marfan-Syndrome|National Marfan Foundation
2.^ http://www.volleyhall.org/hyman.html
3.^ Flo Hyman at the Internet Movie Database
4.^ http://www.aahperd.org/nagws/programs/ngwsd/History.cfm
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