Eugene Lambert: Irish Puppeteer/Performer, Dead at 81...

Eugene Lambert
(1928 - February 22, 2010)





Eugene Lambert was an Irish puppeteer, and owner of the Lambert Puppet Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Mr. Lambert and his family were the driving force behind Wanderly Wagon, RTÉ's famous children's programme that began in 1967. All of the Lambert children also worked on the show, which ran until 1982.

Born in 1928 in Sligo, Mr Lambert later moved to Monkstown in Co Dublin. He married his wife Mai, with whom he had 10 children.

As a puppeteer and ventriloquist, Lambert was long a stalwart of the Irish vaudeville scene, particularly in Dublin, although he also toured the country frequently with Mai and their children. His most common acts were with Finnegan, a mischievous storyteller, and Judge, a pensive dog.

With the rise of television in the 1960s, the Lambert puppet theatre became a fixture in Irish broadcasting. In the early 1960s, Lambert devised a puppet series for children entitled Murphy agus a Chairde ("Murphy And His Friends"). The Irish TV broadcaster RTÉ was the only station most Irish people could receive, and Murphy's adventures were soon an important part of most children's viewing.

Lambert later co-starred in the children's television series Wanderly Wagon as the mischievous and greedy "O'Brien", known for his child-like curiosity and cowardice in the face of magical events. Lambert and his family provided many regular (puppet) characters - Judge the dog, Mr Crow, Foxy Loxy, and Ssneaky Ssnake. The series also featured Irish actor Frank Kelly, who later appeared as Fr. Jack Hackett in Father Ted.

Another series created by Eugene Lambert was adapted from a children's book by Patricia Lynch, Brógeen Follows The Magic Tune. The series was a great success and won several awards internationally.

Lambert counted the late pop superstar Michael Jackson among his many fans. He once sang Happy Birthday through one of his puppets to Jackson. Jackson befriended the veteran puppeteer after playing a concert in Dublin in 1992 and visited him again with his three children on his birthday in August 2007.

Lambert was due to celebrate his 60th wedding anniversary with wife Mai this summer. He died at his home in Monkstown, Co. Dublin. He is survived by his wife and eight of their children.

RIP

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Kathryn Grayson: Actress, Dead at 88...

Kathryn Grayson
(February 9, 1922 – February 17, 2010)



Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.

She was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Hedrick family later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she was discovered singing on the empty stage of the St. Louis Municipal Opera House by a janitor, who introduced her to Frances Marshall of the Chicago Civic Opera.

Trained as an opera singer from the age of twelve, Grayson was contracted to MGM and established a career in films from the early 1940s. The actress was among the top movie musical performers of her day, starring opposite Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in 1945's Anchors Aweigh. Most of her films were musicals and after several supporting roles, she was given lead roles in such films as Show Boat (1951) with Ava Gardner and Howard Keel and Kiss Me Kate (1953). She was paired with Howard Keel and Mario Lanza in some of her films.

When movie musicals fell out of favor with film audiences, she progressed to theatre work, and appeared in several musicals, including the highly successful Camelot from 1962 until 1964. During the 1960s, she performed in several operas, including La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Orpheus in the Underworld and La traviata.

Grayson appeared on television occasionally. Her first TV appearances were in the 1950s, and she received an Emmy nomination in 1956 for her performance in the General Electric Theater episode Shadow on the Heart with John Ericson. More recently, she appeared in several episodes of Angela Lansbury's series Murder, She Wrote in the late 1980s.

In Hollywood she married twice, first to the actor John Shelton and then to the actor/singer Johnnie Johnston with whom she had one daughter, Patricia Kathryn.

Grayson died of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, California. She is survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

RIP

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Pernell Roberts: Actor, Dead at 81...

Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr.
(May 18, 1928 – January 24, 2010)






Pernell Roberts was an American stage, movie and television actor as well as singer. In addition to guest starring in over 60 television series, he was widely known for his roles as Ben Cartwright's eldest son, Adam Cartwright, on the western series Bonanza, a role he played from 1959 to 1965 — and as chief surgeon Dr. John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979-1986).

He was also widely known for his life-long activism, which included participation in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 and pressuring NBC to refrain from hiring whites to portray minority characters.

Roberts was born in Waycross, Georgia, the only child of Pernell Elvin Roberts, Sr. and Minnie (Betty) Myrtle Morgan Roberts. During his high school years, he played the horn, acted in school and church plays and sang in local USO shows — pursuing a wide range of occupations before pursuing acting. He attended, but did not graduate from, Georgia Tech. While serving for two years in the United States Marine Corps, he participated in the Marine Corps Band. He subsequently attended the University of Maryland, also without graduating.

Roberts moved to Washington D.C. in 1950. He eventually decided to give acting a chance and supported himself as a butcher, forest ranger, and railroad riveter during the lean years while pursuing his craft.

On stage from the early 1950s, he gained experience in such productions as The Adding Machine, The Firebrand and Faith of Our Fathers before spending a couple of years performing the classics with the renowned Arena Stage Company in Washington, DC. Productions there included The Taming of the Shrew (as Petruchio), The Playboy of the Western World, The Glass Menagerie, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Twelfth Night. He made his Broadway debut in 1955 with Tonight in Samarkind and that same year won the "Best Actor" Drama Desk Award for his off-Broadway performance as Macbeth, which was immediately followed by Romeo and Juliet as Mercutio. Other Broadway plays include The Lovers (1956) with Joanne Woodward, A Clearing in the Woods (1957) with Kim Stanley, a return to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1957) and The Duchess of Malfi (1957). He returned to Broadway fifteen years later as the title role opposite Ingrid Bergman in Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1972).

Pernell then headed for Hollywood and found minor roles in films before landing the pivotal role of Ben Cartwright's oldest and best-educated son Adam in the Bonanza (1959) series in 1959. The series became the second longest-running TV western (after Gunsmoke) and the first to be filmed in color.

Many of the years after Bonanza were rocky for Roberts. He never found a solid footing in films with roles in rugged, foreign films such as Tibetana (1970) and Four Rode Out (1970), making little impression.

In 1979 he finally won another long-running series role (and an Emmy nomination) as Trapper John, M.D. (1979) in which he recreated the Wayne Rogers TV M*A*S*H (1972) role. Pernell was now heavier, bearded and pretty close to bald at this juncture. The medical drama co-starring Gregory Harrison ran seven seasons.

Retiring in the late 1990s, Roberts was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. Roberts died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Malibu, California, survived by his fourth wife Eleanor Criswell.

RIP

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FRIEL Life Remembered: Arthur Miller...

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was born on October 17, 1915 and died on February 10, 2005.

He made his name with plays which exposed the emptiness of the American dream. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include awards-winning plays such as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible.

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period during which he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was married to Marilyn Monroe.

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Ian Carmichael: Actor, Dead at 89...

Ian Carmichael, OBE
(18 June 1920 – 5 February 2010)



Ian Carmichael was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.

Carmichael was born in Hull, Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School. He was not academically inclined, preferring to lead the local dance band until the stage took his fancy and he studied for a spell at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his stage debut as a robot at the People's Palace in Mile End, East London in 1939. With the outbreak of World War II his acting career was interrupted by service with the Royal Armoured Corps, as a commissioned officer.

He portrayed serious characters in Betrayed (1954), starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner, and in The Colditz Story (1955), but he made his name playing in a series of films for the Boulting Brothers, including Private's Progress (1956), Brothers in Law (1957) and I'm All Right Jack (1959), as well as similar films for other producers, for example School for Scoundrels (1960). He also appeared in the "Pride" segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971).

During the 1960s and 1970s, he was successful on television, including the sitcom, Bachelor Father, based on the story of a real-life bachelor who took on several foster children. But it is probably his portrayals on television of PG Wodehouse's dithering Bertie Wooster and Dorothy L Sayers's elegant Lord Peter Wimsey which underlined his gifts as an exponent of the light English comedy of manners to greatest effect. Carmichael continued to act until shortly before his death.

Ian Carmichael was married twice. His first wife was Jean Pyman (Pym) McLean (1943–1983, until her death). They had two daughters, Lee and Sally. He married Kate Fenton, novelist in 1992. He had five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren

Ian Carmichael died at his home in the Esk Valley on the North York Moors, England. According to his wife, Kate, he had fallen ill over Christmas.

RIP

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Zelda Rubinstein: Actress, Dead at 76...

Zelda Rubinstein
(May 28, 1933 – January 27, 2010)




Zelda Rubinstein was an American actress and human rights activist, best known as eccentric medium Tangina Barrons in the movies Poltergeist (1982) and its sequels, Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), and Poltergeist III (1988). She also made guest appearances in the TV spin-off Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996).

Rubinstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended the University of California and the University of Pittsburgh. She stood just 4 feet 3 inches (130 cm) due to a deficiency of the anterior pituitary gland, which produces growth hormone.

Rubinstein entered the film industry comparatively late, upon returning to the United States after living in London for several years. Poltergeist was her first major film role. She remained active in film and televison from thereon, frequently portraying various psychic characters.

Rubinstein was also known for her outspoken activism for little people and and was an early and public activist raising awareness of Aids-related diseases.

On December 29, 2009, it was reported that, after a month-long stay at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, her close companion and her family made the decision to take Rubinstein off life support due to both kidney and lung failure. Rubinstein died at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles.

RIP

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