Another legend passes on...
Judy Carne, actress - obituary
7 Sept.`15 | Actress who married Burt Reynolds and became the popular fall girl on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In
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Martin Milner Dies at 83; Actor Made His Name on ‘Route 66’
SEPT. 7, 2015 | Martin Milner, an actor who broke out of supporting movie roles as the quintessential clean-cut young man to achieve television stardom as one of two road-hungry bachelors in “Route 66” and later as a veteran police officer in “Adam-12,” died on Sunday at his home in Carlsbad, Calif. He was 83.
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HAL ROACH'S LITTLE RASCALS and CAROUSEL Actress Jean Darling Has Died
September 6 | BroadwayWorld has learned the sad news that former silent film star, one of the last remaining OUR GANG (aka, HAL ROACH'S LITTLE RASCALS) series regulars, as well as original Broadway CAROUSEL cast member, Jean Darling has died. She was 93.
Judy Carne, actress - obituary
7 Sept.`15 | Actress who married Burt Reynolds and became the popular fall girl on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In
Judy Carne, who has died aged 76, was a bouncy, auburn-haired British actress who won overnight fame in the 1960s as the Sock It To Me girl on the hit television show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In; she returned, albeit briefly, to the limelight in 1985 when she published an autobiography in which she told of her volatile relationship with her first husband Burt Reynolds, confessed to a string of affairs with members of both sexes and chronicled battles with drug addiction. A fairly successful television actress when she joined the cast of Laugh-in in 1968, as the Sock It To Me girl Judy Carne became the most popular person on the show for her zany, daffy, mini-skirted comic persona, continually getting doused with a bucket of water, or subjected to some other humiliation, every time she uttered the words “Sock it to me!”
Judy Carne, the 'Sock it to Me girl', waits for the inevitable bucket of water on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in
Judy Carne remained with the show for two years but left in the middle of the third series complaining that it had become “ a big, bloody bore”, though it was noted that her disenchantment coincided with the emergence of Goldie Hawn as the show’s female star. After she left Laugh-In Judy Carne became a heroin addict and her career went into a tailspin. Her problems worsened to the extent that when she published her autobiography Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside (written with the help of a former companion, Bob Merrill), one reviewer remarked that “for a person with evidently no sense of judgment about people and… no sense of internal perspective, it is noteworthy enough that [she] lived long enough to tell such a tale, much less publish it.”
The Laugh-in cast: Judy Carne on left in yellow striped dress; Goldie Horne above, centre
Judy Carne herself once observed: “I’m a 1960s flowerchild who has refused to grow up. Mature and responsible are words I don’t understand.” She was born Joyce Audrey Botterill on April 27 1939 and brought up at Kingsthorpe, near Northampton, where her parents ran a greengrocer’s shop. As a child she showed a talent for acting and dancing and went on to train at the Bush Davies Theatrical School for Girls at East Grinstead. She made her West End debut in 1956 in the revue For Amusement Only and her television debut the same year in The First Day of Spring.
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She went on to build a solid career on British television, including appearing as a panellist on Juke Box Jury and in the sit-com The Rag Trade. In 1961 she appeared in the film comedy A Pair of Briefs. Her conquests at this time, she claimed, included Vidal Sassoon, Stirling Moss and the actor Anthony Newley. “How lucky to be 18 years old and go with Vidal Sassoon. And to be with Stirling Moss at 19. What a privilege,” she recalled. Moving to the United States in the early 1960s, she was first introduced to American audiences as Heather Finch, a British exchange student, in the television comedy series Fair Exchange (1962). She went on to play the daughter of a tycoon who falls in love with a poor boy in The Baileys of Balboa (1964-5) and had a small part as a “nameless broad” found in bed with James Coburn in the film The Americanisation of Emily (1964). She also appeared in The Man from U.N.C.L.E and in the ABC sitcom Love on a Rooftop (1966-67).
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Martin Milner Dies at 83; Actor Made His Name on ‘Route 66’
SEPT. 7, 2015 | Martin Milner, an actor who broke out of supporting movie roles as the quintessential clean-cut young man to achieve television stardom as one of two road-hungry bachelors in “Route 66” and later as a veteran police officer in “Adam-12,” died on Sunday at his home in Carlsbad, Calif. He was 83.
The cause was heart failure, his wife, Judy, said. Mr. Milner, who came from a show-business family, had had a successful and highly visible run in late-1950s movies before “Route 66” came along. He was the naïve fiancé of a ruthless New York columnist’s sister in “Sweet Smell of Success”; a helpful friend of John Barrymore’s wayward daughter Diana in “Too Much, Too Soon”; a shy young reporter surrounded by murderers in “Compulsion”; and the wide-eyed boy who loses the girl to the sophisticated older man in “Marjorie Morningstar,” based on Herman Wouk’s novel.
George Maharis, left, and Martin Milner, co-stars on "Route 66," which ran from 1960 to 1964.
But “Route 66” gave him top billing — or a share of it, alongside George Maharis — beginning in 1960. The two were cast as single men in their 20s driving from town to town and state to state in a shiny Corvette convertible trying to find themselves. The series, in which Mr. Milner’s character was both the nice guy and the rich kid (it was his car), was a ratings hit and ran four seasons on CBS. The series often tackled serious social issues, and its guest stars included major Hollywood names like Joan Crawford, Rod Steiger and Boris Karloff, as well as future notables like Robert Redford and Martin Sheen.
Mr. Milner returned to series television four years later, this time as an experienced (but still baby-faced) Los Angeles police officer, in Jack Webb’s drama “Adam-12” (ABC, 1968-75). He had met Webb when both were in the cast of the 1950 war film “Halls of Montezuma,” and had appeared in six episodes of Webb’s series “Dragnet” in the early days of his television career. Mr. Milner had no illusions about his place in the Hollywood firmament and seemed not to be particularly concerned about it. “The really big stars have a drive that made them into superstars,” he said in an interview with The Toronto Star in 1994. “They can’t turn it off when they have that success. I certainly was not driven by a great dedication that made me succeed or else.” He wondered aloud if that made him a bum. Then he added, “It’s terrible, but it’s true.”
Martin Milner in "Adam-12."
Martin Sam Milner was born in Detroit on Dec. 28, 1931. His father, Sam, was a film distributor, and his mother, Mildred, known professionally as Jerre Martin, was a dancer with the Paramount Theater circuit. The family soon moved to Seattle and then to Los Angeles, where Martin’s movie career began in his early teens. He made his film debut in “Life With Father” (1947), as the second eldest of the redhead children of William Powell and Irene Dunne. (Mr. Milner came by his red hair, and freckles, naturally.) Soon afterward, he received a diagnosis of polio, at the height of the epidemic, but he was able to return to the screen two years later, with John Wayne in “Sands of Iwo Jima” (1949). Mr. Milner served in the Army from 1952 to 1954, stationed in California, directing training films and appearing in touring shows, and he attended the University of Southern California for a year. He married Judith Beth Jones in 1957, and they had four children.
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HAL ROACH'S LITTLE RASCALS and CAROUSEL Actress Jean Darling Has Died
September 6 | BroadwayWorld has learned the sad news that former silent film star, one of the last remaining OUR GANG (aka, HAL ROACH'S LITTLE RASCALS) series regulars, as well as original Broadway CAROUSEL cast member, Jean Darling has died. She was 93.
Born Dorothy Jean LeVake, her name was legally changed to Jean Darling when she was five months old, a few days after her mother and father split. She began in movies at six months old as a freelance baby. She got her break in 1926 when she passed a screen test and was accepted for a part in Hal Roach's Our Gang series. Darling appeared in 46 silents and six talkies with Our Gang during this period.
She continued to appear in films after leaving the gang, including an appearance in Laurel & Hardy's adaptation of Babes in Toyland (uncredited) and as the young Jane in Jane Eyre, both in 1934. A round of stage and radio shows followed. Stage shows involved up to seven performances a day. It was a punishing schedule for a fourteen-year-old, and that was not taking into account her educational studies. Darling began to study singing, and in 1940 she was given a scholarship by the New York Municipal Opera Association. She turned down an offer to play alongside Mickey Rooney in one of the MGM Andy Hardy movies. Her role as Carrie helped her with parts for radio and TV in the 1950s and Jean hosted her own television show for NBC in New York City, A Date with Jean Darling. Her daily TV show for women, The Singing Knit-Witch, was aired on KHJ-TV in Hollywood.
Her latest work includes a humorous silent comedy short entitled, The Butler's Tale. The 2013 film is reminiscent and styled after the silent films of the early 20th Century. Jean Darling married Reuben Bowen (aka Kajar the Magician); they had one son, Roy. Reuben Bowen died of cancer on August 22, 1980. She never not remarried. Since 1974, Darling lived in Dublin, Ireland, where she wrote mystery stories and has had over 50 short stories published in the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Whispers. More recently she has been staying with her son in Rodgau, Germany. As "Aunty Poppy", she reads stories, which she wrote herself, on RTÉ radio and TV. She has also written plays for radio and has worked as a journalist.
HAL ROACH'S LITTLE RASCALS and CAROUSEL Actress Jean Darling Has Died
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