sixties

HE AIN’T NO SIXTIES STARLET BUT…

soap star Roscoe Born is one of my favorite actors and is one of the reasons I became a soap addict. As a newly enrolled college student with early and late afternoon classes, I stumbled upon Ryan’s Hope at 12:30pm in the fall of 1980. Not surprisingly since I love 60’s blondes, I immediately was impressed by Randall Edwards who played deceitful troublemaker Delia Reid Ryan Coleridge. A few months later Roscoe joined the cast as “reformed” mobster Joe Novack who returned to rekindle his romance with ex-wife Siobhan Ryan. But Joe was secretly still working for the mob and this storyline ala The Sopranos lasted for 2 1/2 years until Roscoe departed the show. Needless to say I was hooked. Roscoe was the bad guy you were suppose to hate but he was just so charming and handsome as Joe who really loved Siobhan but couldn’t break his ties to the mob that you couldn’t help but root for him.

Roscoe then had a shot at primetime stardom on Paper Dolls but after that was cancelled he returned to daytime as evil Mitch Laurence on One Life to Live, then back to Ryan’s Hope as Joe in the summer of 1988 to wrap up his storyline, then onward to Santa Barbara as Robert Barr, etc. Most recently he appeared on Days of Our Lives.

I knew that Roscoe could sing but never heard him. Now I have. Click below. He has a really interesting voice and the song is very catchy.

IT’S OFFICIAL

The title of former ’60s starlet Gail Gerber’s memoir, which I co-wrote woth her, is

Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember

The book should be out in late Spring 2009.

Below is Gail, my partner Ern, and me.

HERE ON GILLIGAN’S ISLE!

I have always been a big fan of Tina Louise ever since I was a kid and would watch her coo and strut as the stranded “movie star” on Gilligan’s Island. But I, like many others, was extremely annoyed with her when she refused to participate in the Gilligan’s Island reunion TV-movie in the late 70s. Though you can’t fault a working actress with a daughter to support for trying to get as much money as possible, Tina should have swallowed her pride, taken the offered cash, and done the movie for her fans. Not having her in it (Judith Baldwin took over as Ginger) damaged the movie completely. and ruined the experience for this fan.

But a few years later in the mid-eighties, the entire cast finally did reunite albeit for a charity event. See below:

STARLETS GONE MAD III

To be fair to Faye Dunaway and Diane Baker, every starlet has her moments while giving interviews. Tuesday Weld was forever publicly blaming her poor choices in her personal life and her wild behavior on her mother.

During an interview with columnist Earl Wilson, Carol Lynley called her Poseidon Adventure co-star Red Buttons the c-word and threatened to punch Shelley Winters in the nose for forgetting her name on a TV talk show.

Sue Lyon who became famous due to playing Lolita years later ranted and railed to any reporter that would listen that the movie and Hollywood ruined her life

And Yvette Mimieux in an interview with the Saturday Evening Post refused to talk about her male co-stars because she found most of them to be “egotistical, conceited and have no minds.” She then went on to add, “I like stories about me, just me.” Hmmmmm.