I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson. Read the full "Pre-ramble"
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| Miguel José FerrerFebruary 7, 1955 – January 19, 2017 |
Film buffs know Tippi Hedren as the star of the classic Alfred Hitchcock films The Birds and Marnie—an experience that, in many respects, was both the opportunity of a lifetime and a nightmare come true. While the story of Tippi’s complicated relationship with Hitchcock has been told countless times by other people, it’s never been told by Tippi herself… until now.
Also joining us this week will be America’s Master Mimic, Rich Little, the man who has impersonated the voices of countless showbiz figures and politicians over the past six decades. Since Inauguration Day is soon upon us, and given that Rich is known for his impersonations of the past ten sitting U.S. presidents, we’ll ask if he’ll be working Donald Trump into his repertoire anytime soon. We’ll also learn the difference between an impressionist and an impersonator, how Rich takes an actor’s approach to mastering voices, and how he nearly made his national TV debut without any pants. Rich Little will join us near the end of our first hour. 
Rich Little recently completed principal photography on Futurama: The Movie, in which he plays the voice of Richard Nixon's reanimated head. His new book, Little by Little: People I’ve Known and Been, features stories and anecdotes about thirty of the most famous people that Rich has impersonated over the years, including George Burns, Jack Benny, Ed Sullivan, James Stewart, Dean Martin, Robert Goulet, Richard Nixon, Orson Welles, John Huston and John Wayne. The book also includes charcoal sketches of each celebrity that Rich discusses in the book—all done by Rich Little himself—plus about 100 photographs, many of which are in color.  |
As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,
the more that fact and legend become intertwined. It's hard to say where the truth really lies.
January 17, 1922
Betty Marion White is born.
Actress, comedian, presenter, singer, author and
television personality. In 2013, the Guinness
World Records awarded White with
having the longest television career for a female entertainer.
To contemporary audiences, White is best known for her television
roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The
Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls. Since the death of co-star Rue McClanahan in 2010, she is the only surviving Golden Girl. She
currently stars as Elka Ostrovsky in the TV Land sitcom Hot in
Cleveland for which she has won
two consecutive Screen
Actors Guild Awards.
She also hosted
NBCs practical-joke show Betty White's Off Their Rockers which resulted in two Emmy nominations.
Regarded as a television pioneer for being one of the
first women in television to have creative control in front of and behind the
camera, White has gone on to win six Emmy Awards (five for acting), receiving 20 Emmy nominations over
her career, including being the first woman to receive an Emmy for game show hosting (for the short-lived Just Men!) and is the only woman to have won an Emmy in all
performing comedic categories.
In May 2010, White became the oldest person to guest-host Saturday
Night Live, for which she
received a Primetime
Emmy Award. White also holds the
record for longest span between Emmy nominations for performances—her first was
in 1951 and her most recent was in 2012, a span of 61 years—and has become the
oldest nominee as of 2013, aged 91. The actress is also the oldest winner of a
competitive Grammy Award, which she won in 2012.
Due to her legacy and continued success within the
entertainment industry The American Comedy Awards, The Screen Actor Guild and
the British Academy of Film and Television Arts have all awarded White with
Lifetime achievement awards recognizing her contribution to television.
She has made regular appearances on the game shows Password and Match Game and played recurring roles on Mama's Family, Boston Legal, The
Bold and the Beautiful, That '70s Show, and Community.
January 19, 1957
Philadelphia comedian, Ernie Kovacs, did a half-hour
TV show without saying a single word of dialogue.
Silent Show was an American half-hour television comedy
special created by and starring Ernie
Kovacs. It was broadcast in the United States on the NBC network in
1957. It was selected by the United States as the only television program
screened at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. Kovacs
restaged and expanded the "Eugene" sketch for the ABC network in 1961.
January 22, 1947
The first
television station west of the Mississippi River goes on the air.
The station was KTLA-TV in Hollywood. The station
began broadcasting at 8:30 p.m. from a converted garage. When the first Emmy
Awards were handed out two years later, KTLA swept the awards for its original
programming.
January 22, 1972
Emergency! premieres
Emergency!, produced by Dragnet star and producer Jack
Webb, premieres, featuring the same semidocumentary style popularized by Webb's
earlier police drama. Emergency was based on the paramedic program that started
in Los Angeles, California in 1969. Senator Alan Cranston actually praised the
show for informing the public about the value of funding such programs!
The show focused on the adventures of paramedics Roy DeSoto and Johnny Gage. The show, which ran from 1972 to 1977, foreshadowed later hits like E.R., with its interwoven comic and serious subplots.
Julie
London was married to fellow Emergency cast member Bobby Troup. In an earlier
marriage, London was married to Jack Webb. Bobby Troup was a bandleader before
becoming an actor.
January 22, 1987
PhilDonahue became the first talk show host to tape a show from inside the SovietUnion. The
shows were shown later in the year.
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| Dick Gautier October 30, 1931 - January 13, 2017 |
Rick Lenz has been acting on Broadway, film and TV since 1965, working with the likes of Peter Sellers, Walter Matthau, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury, Richard Boone, Jill Clayburgh, Tyne Daly, Blythe Danner, Alan Alda and John Wayne. Among his best known roles, he played Goldie Hawn’s boyfriend in Cactus Flower, the obsequious journalist in The Shootist, and Police Chief Oliver Stamp on Hec Ramsey. Rick has also been a successful playwright for more three decades, including The Epic of Buster Friend, which began at the American Shakespeare Theatre and was subsequently produced by PBS, and Felony Audition, which was once performed by Sharon Gless and John Ritter at the Playwright Kitchen’s Ensemble.
