Category Archives: The Big Screen

Zsa Zsa Gabor was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite. Her sisters were actresses Eva and Magda Gabor.

Gabor began her stage career in Vienna and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936.^[1] She emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with “European flair and style” and was considered to have a personality that “exuded charm and grace”. Her first film role was a supporting role in Lovely to Look At. She later acted in We’re Not Married! and played one of her few leading roles in the John Huston-directed film, Moulin Rouge (1952). Huston would later describe her as a “creditable” actress.

Outside of her acting career, Gabor was known for her extravagant Hollywood lifestyle, glamorous personality, and her many marriages. In total, Gabor had nine husbands, including hotel magnate Conrad Hilton and actor George Sanders.

In April 2016, Gabor expressed her wish to move back to Hungary during 2017 and live out the rest of her life there. Her husband stated he was determined to make her wish come true and intended to arrange for “a big party in the summer” to celebrate the actress’ 100th birthday, after which she would return to Budapest.

Sadly, Miss Gabor has died just short of her 100th birthday of a heart attack.

Wikipedia Article

Bernard Fox (born Bernard Lawson, May 11, 1927 – December 14, 2016) was a Welsh film and television actor, known for his roles as Dr. Bombay in Bewitched, the naïve, bumbling Colonel Crittendon in Hogan’s Heroes, Archibald Gracie IV in Titanic, and as Captain Winston Havlock in The Mummy has died. He was 89.

Harlan Boll, a spokesman for Fox’s family, said he died Wednesday of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital.

The Welsh-born actor’s extensive, wide-ranging film and TV credits included “The Mummy,” “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo,” “The Dyke Van Dyke Show,” “McHale’s Navy” and “Columbo.”

He appeared in both 1997’s “Titanic,” playing Col. Archibald Gracie, and in a 1958 movie about the ship tragedy, “A Night to Remember.”

On “Hogan’s Heroes,” he played the incompetent Crittendon, a Royal Air Force group captain referred to as the colonel.

He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline; daughter Amanda; daughter-in-law Lisa, and two grandchildren. Another daughter, Valerie, died in 2006, Boll said.

Robert Francis Vaughn (November 22, 1932 – November 11, 2016)

Robert Vaughn, who starred as the  suave spy Napoleon Solo on the NBC series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. from 1964-68, died today of acute leukemia.  He was 83.

Wikipedia Link

Gene Wilder (June 11, 1933 – August 29, 2016)

Gene Wilder has died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease.  He was 83.

Willy Wonka has found his golden ticket.

Jerome Silberman, known professionally as Gene Wilder, was an American stage and screen comic actor, screenwriter, film director, and author.

Wilder began his career on stage, and made his screen debut in the TV-series Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1962. Although his first film role was portraying a hostage in the 1967 motion picture Bonnie and Clyde,^[1] Wilder’s first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This was the first in a series of collaborations with writer/director Mel Brooks, including 1974’s Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, which Wilder co-wrote, garnering the pair an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wilder is known for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and for his four films with Richard Pryor: Silver Streak (1976), Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), and Another You (1991).^[1] Wilder directed and wrote several of his own films, including The Woman in Red (1984).

Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka (1971)