Can't believe Sonny didn't make the list of People Magazine's Gone Too Soon!

http://www.amazon.com/People-Gone-Remembering-Celebriti...id=1200024691&sr=8-1

Maila Nurmi, who played the original female T.V. horror host "Vampira", and also starred in Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" - passed away peacefully in her sleep at 88.

RIP, Vampira.

Not Maila! I was hoping to meet her. She lived not far from Ackerman, who told me he often saw her at the McDonalds having a cuppa.

An opportunity lost.

RIP indeed!

There was an original Vampira, who was an old silent movie actress, who introduced the horror flics on a local LA channel in the '50s. I can't remember her name , but I remember her face and the twewnties style lamp shade with the stretched nylon and fringes look from the turn of the century style, that always was in the shot with her. Vampira made it into a sexy, camp role, instead of a mysterious and forboding one.

Farewell to the one and only wonderful Johnny Grant: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/new...54864c76d2a9bd9692b6

Rough week for downtown Hollywood.

Mr. Grant led an illustrious and loving life. Quite an article, Dandy!
Does he have a star on the walk? His name sure belongs there with all of his friends and acquaintances!

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That's too bad, Doug. She seemed like an intelligent and well spoken person, would've been a good interview.

I have to make a correction, she was 86. Here's a youtube link, a short piece about her done by ABC7 in L.A. when she was 78, it has a few scenes from her horror TV show in the fifties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me9pT2Z8BqQ

Fischer vs. Spassky captured the world's attention way back when things were much simpler, I suppose. BF was an erratic (troubled) character after his moments in the spotlight. Strange how life moves the pieces on the board!

Check... and Mate!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/ap_on_re_eu/obit_fischer

Hey, Butch, speaking of when things were simpler (I'd say more innocent) Mr. Frisbee/HoolaHoop/Superball/Slip&Slide aka Richard Knerr has left this vale of tears:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/business/18knerr.html?hp

BII, ironies are endless here. Just yesterday (almost 24hrs. to the click), I Googled "Superball" because a teen in one of my classes was bouncing around a rubberband ball he had engineered. (Not during lessons - Of Course!)

So, I says, "That bounces pretty well but nothing like a 'Superball'." What?? To which I added a few boyhood stories of hard little black balls bouncing over houses and others baseball-batted hundreds of feet away.

We looked it up and all those caught up in the exchange found it quite informative. They were considering trying to get one via e-bay!

Thanks for the many hours of great fun, Mr. Kerr.
"Wham-o" indeed!

Goodnight Emily.

The night that I attended The Tonight Show way back in 1972, or so, Susan Pleschette, Carl Sagan, and Doug Henning the Magician were on the show. Now they, along with Johnnie Carson, are gone, but my being in the audience that night had nothing to do with it.

Heath Ledger, only 28 years young. He's in the Batman movie coming out later this year, playing the Joker. RIP, sweet prince.

Good one, biplane!