Thursday, January 28, 2021

Cicely Tyson

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.
-Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson

December 19, 1924 – January 28, 2021



Cicely Tyson
 had a career spanning more than seven decades, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson was the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards, four Black Reel Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one Tony Award, an honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.

Having appeared in minor film and television roles early in her career, Tyson garnered widespread attention and critical acclaim for her performance as Rebecca Morgan in Sounder (1972); she was nominated for both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work in the film. Tyson's portrayal of the title role in the 1974 television film The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman won her further praise; among other accolades, the role won her two Emmy Awards and a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Tyson continued to act in film and on television in the 21st century. In 2011, she played the role of Constantine Jefferson in the award-winning film The Help. She also played the role of Ophelia Harkness in the American Broadcasting Company's legal drama How to Get Away With Murder since the show's inception in 2014, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series five times.






In addition to her screen career, Tyson appeared in various theater productions. She received a Drama Desk Award in 1962 for her Off-Broadway performance in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. Tyson also starred as Carrie Watts in the Broadway play The Trip to Bountiful, winning the Tony Award, the Outer Critics Award, and the Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2013. Tyson was named a Kennedy Center honoree in 2015. In November 2016, Tyson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor in the United States. In 2020, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.



Good Night Miss Tyson


Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Cloris Leachman

If I were to do some outlandish role, I always made sure I'd be on Johnny Carson to show that I wasn't that person that I played. I'd be myself. And so people got to know me, I think, and I think they know that I'm honest and truthful and real.
-Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman

April 30, 1926 – January 26, 2021

Cloris Leachman was an American actress and comedian, whose career spanned over seven decades. She won various accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nominated and, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most awarded actress in Emmy history. In addition, she has won an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award.


Born and raised in Des MoinesIowa, Leachman attended Northwestern University and began appearing in local plays as a teenager. After competing in the 1946 Miss America pageant, she secured a scholarship to study under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio in New York City, making her professional debut in 1948. Her breakthrough role was the nosy and cunning landlady Phyllis Lindstrom in the landmark CBS sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–75), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1974 and 1975; its spin-off, Phyllis (1975–77), earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Actress – Musical or Comedy.

In film, she appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971) as the jaded wife of a closeted schoolteacher in the 1950s; she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance, and the film is widely considered to be one of the greatest of all time. Additionally, she was part of Mel Brooks's ensemble cast, appearing in roles such as Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein (1974) and Madame Defarge in History of the World, Part I (1981).

Leachman won additional Emmys for the television film A Brand New Life (1973); the variety sketch show Cher (1975); the ABC serial The Woman Who Willed a Miracle (1983); and the television shows Promised Land (1998) and Malcolm in the Middle (2001–06). Her other notable film and television credits include The Twilight Zone (1961; 2003), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), WUSA (1970), Yesterday (1981), the English-language dub of the Studio Ghibli's Castle in the Sky (1998), Spanglish (2004), and Mrs. Harris (2005). Leachman released her autobiography in 2009, and continued to act in occasional roles.

Gute Nacht Frau Blücher

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa



Monday, January 25, 2021

This Week in Television History: January 2021 PART IV

 

January 26, 1926

John Logie Baird gave the world's first demonstration of true television before 50 scientists in an attic room in central London. 



In 1927, his television was demonstrated over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow, and he formed the Baird Television Development Company. (BTDC). In 1928, the BTDC achieved the first transatlantic television transmission between London and New York and the first transmission to a ship in mid-Atlantic. He also gave the first demonstration of both colour and stereoscopic television.

January 27, 1976

The Happy Days spin-off Laverne and Shirley, featuring two Milwaukee women who work on a brewery assembly line preimers. 

The show starred Penny Marshall, sister of producer Garry Marshall, and Cindy Williams. Fierce rivalry erupted between the two stars, and Williams left the show in 1982. The show lasted only one more season before its cancellation in 1983.

January 28, 1936

Alan Alda is born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo

A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his roles as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H and Arnold Vinick in The West Wing. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science.

January 28, 1956

Young country-rock singer Elvis Presley makes his first-ever television appearance on the TV musical-variety program Stage Show. 

Presley sang "Heartbreak Hotel," which quickly became a hit single. In total, Elvis appeared on six shows. The program was hosted by swing band leaders Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Elvis went on to appear on Ed Sullivan's immensely popular variety show, Toast of the Town, in the fall of 1956. The appearance made Elvis a household name.


January 28, 1986

Challenger explodes 

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the NASA Space Shuttle orbiterChallenger (OV-099) (mission STS-51-L) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members, which included five NASA astronauts and two Payload Specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape CanaveralFlorida, at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC). Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank.Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter.

 January 28, 1996

Jerry Seigel, creator of Superman, dies at age 81. 

Writer Seigel created Superman with artist friend Joe Shuster when they were both teenagers in the 1930s. All the major newspaper syndicates rejected the character, who was born on the doomed planet Krypton and bundled off by his parents in a space capsule to Smallville USA, where he's raised by kindly earthlings. In 1938, however, Seigel and Shuster finally landed a comic book deal, and Superman's adventures as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent moonlighting as the Man of Steel became an instant hit. The comic book spawned a newspaper strip that ran for 28 years, as well as a radio series that ran from 1940 to 1951.

The character, along with his friends cub reporter Jimmy Olson and ace newswoman Lois Lane, who never seem to penetrate Superman's Clark Kent disguise, appeared in movie serials from 1948 to 1950, and in a feature film in 1951. A popular Superman TV series ran from 1951 to 1957. Filmed on a shoestring budget, the show's special effects were limited to Superman crashing through walls, flying around, and witnessing fiery explosions. The same flying sequences were used repeatedly. Actor George Reeves was so well-known as Superman that he couldn't find other work when the series ended.

The Man of Steel reappeared on the big screen in 1978, with Christopher Reeves in the role. The hit film launched three follow-ups. In 1993, Superman appeared again in the TV comedy Lois and Clark.


Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Hank Aaron

What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron ... And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months. 

-Vin Scully

Henry Louis Aaron

February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021


Good Night Hank
Stay Tuned 
Tony Figueroa



Saturday, January 23, 2021

Larry King

I remind myself every morning: 
Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. 
So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening. 

-Larry King

Larry King
born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger

November 19, 1933 – January 23, 2021


I met Larry King a few years ago. 
He talked about the Dodgers and being the voice of one of Cinderella's step-sisters in Shrek 2 but most of the time he wanted to wanted to know about me. He was the same guy you saw on TV.

On January 2, 2021, it was revealed that Larry King had been hospitalized 10 days earlier in a Los Angeles hospital after testing positive for COVID-19. Today he died at the age of 87 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles.


Larry King was an American television host, radio host, and paid spokesman, whose work was recognized with awards including two Peabodys, an Emmy award, and 10 Cable ACE Awards.



King began as a local Florida journalist and radio interviewer in the 1950s and 1960s, and gained prominence beginning in 1978 as host of The Larry King Show, an all-night nationwide call-in radio program heard on the Mutual Broadcasting System. From 1985 to 2010, he hosted the nightly interview television program Larry King Live on CNN. From 2012 to 2020, he hosted Larry King Now aired on HuluOraTV and RT America.. He continued to host Politicking with Larry King, a weekly political talk show which aired weekly on the same two channels from 2013 until his death in 2021. King received many awards during his life, including several Cable ACE AwardsPeabody Awards and lifetime achievement awards.


After graduating high school, Larry worked to help support his mother. From an early age, he desired to work in radio broadcasting.

CBS staff announcer, whom King met by chance, suggested he go to Florida which was a growing media market with openings for inexperienced broadcasters. King went to Miami, and after initial setbacks, he gained his first job in radio. The manager of a small station, WAHR (now WMBM) in Miami Beach, hired him to clean up and perform miscellaneous tasks. When one of the station's announcers abruptly quit, King was put on the air. His first broadcast was on May 1, 1957, working as the disc jockey from 9 a.m. to noon. He also did two afternoon newscasts and a sportscast. He was paid $50 a week.

He acquired the name Larry King when the general manager claimed that Zeiger was too ethnic and difficult to remember, so minutes before airtime, Larry chose the surname King, which he got from an advertisement in the Miami Herald for King's Wholesale Liquor. Within two years, he legally changed his name to Larry King.

He began to conduct interviews on a mid-morning show for WIOD, at Pumpernik's Restaurant in Miami Beach. He would interview whoever walked in. His first interview was with a waiter at the restaurant. Two days later, singer Bobby Darin, in Miami for a concert that evening, walked into Pumpernik's having heard King's radio show; Darin became King's first celebrity interview guest.

King's Miami radio show brought him local attention. A few years later, in May 1960, he hosted Miami Undercover, airing Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m. on WPST-TV Channel 10 (now WPLG). On the show, he moderated debates on important local issues of the day.

King credits his success on local television to the assistance of comedian Jackie Gleason, whose national television variety show was being taped in Miami Beach beginning in 1964. "That show really took off because Gleason came to Miami," King said in a 1996 interview he gave when inducted into the Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. "He did that show and stayed all night with me. We stayed till five in the morning. He didn't like the set, so we broke into the general manager's office and changed the set. Gleason changed the set, he changed the lighting, and he became like a mentor of mine."




During this period, WIOD gave King further exposure as a color commentator for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, during their 1970 season and most of their 1971 season. However, he was dismissed by both WIOD and television station WTVJ as a late-night radio host and sports commentator as of December 20, 1971, when he was arrested after being accused of grand larceny by a former business partner, Louis Wolfson. Other staffers covered the Dolphins' games into their 24–3 loss to Dallas in Super Bowl VI. King also lost his weekly column at the Miami Beach Sun newspaper. The charges were dropped. Eventually, King was rehired by WIOD. For several years during the 1970s, he hosted a sports talk-show called "Sports-a-la-King" that featured guests and callers.

On January 30, 1978, King went national on a nightly Mutual Broadcasting System coast-to-coast broadcast, inheriting the talk show slot that had begun with Herb Jepko in 1975, then followed by "Long John" Nebel in 1977, until his illness and death the following year. King's Mutual show rapidly developed a devoted audience.

The program was broadcast live Monday through Friday from midnight to 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time. King would interview a guest for the first 90 minutes, with callers asking questions that continued the interview for another 90 minutes. At 3 a.m., the Open Phone America segment began, where he allowed callers to discuss any topic they pleased with him, until the end of the program, when he expressed his own political opinions. Many stations in the western time zones carried the Open Phone America portion of the show live, followed by the guest interview on tape delay.

Some of King's regular callers used pseudonyms or were given nicknames by King, such as "The Numbers Guy", "The Chair", "The Portland Laugher", "The Miami Derelict", and "The Scandal Scooper". The show was successful, starting with relatively few affiliates and eventually growing to more than 500. King hosted the show until stepping down in 1994. King occasionally entertained the audience by telling amusing stories from his youth or early broadcasting career.

For its final year, the show was moved to afternoons. After King stepped down, Mutual gave the afternoon slot to David Brenner and Mutual's affiliates were given the option of carrying the audio of King's new CNN evening television program. After Westwood One dissolved Mutual in 1999, the radio simulcast of the CNN show continued until December 31, 2009.

On June 29, 2010, King announced that after 25 years, he would be stepping down as the show's host. However, he stated that he would remain with CNN to host occasional specials. The announcement came in the wake of speculation that CNN had approached Piers Morgan, the British television personality and journalist, as King's primetime replacement, which was confirmed that September.

The final edition of Larry King Live aired on December 16, 2010. The show concluded with his last thoughts and a thank you to his audience for watching and supporting him over the years. The concluding words of Larry King on the show were, "I... I, I don't know what to say except to you, my audience, thank you. And instead of goodbye, how about so long."

On February 17, 2012, CNN announced that he would no longer host specials.

In March 2012, King co-founded Ora TV, a production company, with Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim. On January 16, 2013, Ora TV celebrated their 100th episode of Larry King Now. In September 2017, King stated that he had no intention of ever retiring and expected to host his programs until he died.

Ora TV signed a multi-year deal with Hulu to exclusively carry King's new talk-oriented web series, Larry King Now, beginning July 17. On October 23, 2012, King hosted the third-party presidential debate on Ora TV, featuring Jill SteinRocky AndersonVirgil Goode, and Gary Johnson.

In May 2013, the Russian-owned RT America network announced that they struck a deal with Ora TV to host the Larry King Now show on its network. King said in an advertisement on RT America: "I would rather ask questions to people in positions of power, instead of speaking on their behalf." The show continued to be available on Hulu.com and Ora.tv. The following month, RT America began airing Larry King's new Thursday evening political talk show Politicking with Larry King, beginning with a discussion between Representative Aaron Schock (R, Illinois), Democratic Political Strategist Peter Fenn and Politico's Deputy Managing Editor Rachel Smolkin about Edward Snowden's leak scandal that revealed secret NSA surveillance programs.

When criticized for doing business with a Russian-owned TV network in 2014, King responded, "I don't work for RT", commenting that his podcasts, Larry King Now and Politicking, are licensed for a fee to RT America by New York-based Ora TV. "It’s a deal made between the companies... They just license our shows. If they took something out, I would never do it. It would be bad if they tried to edit out things. I wouldn’t put up with it."


Good Night Larry. I really enjoyed talking to you.


Stayed Tuned 

Tony Figueroa


Your Mental Sorbet: Wonderbug - The Big Game - The Krofft Supershow

 

Donald Howard Sutton 

April 2, 1945 – January 18, 2021


Here is another
that we could use to momentarily forget about those
things that leave a bad taste in our mouths

Good Night Mr. Sutton 

Image result for wash your hands gif


Stay Tuned and Wash Your Hands 


Tony Figueroa