HOLLYWOOD COLLECTORS SHOW

I am off to Burbank next week to do a book signing at the Hollywood Collectors Show on Feb. 15 & 16. Click here for more information. The convention will be chock full of celebrities but sadly it is lacking in 60s starlet power with only Deanna Lund, Carol Lynley, Stella Stevens, France Nuyen, Celeste Yarnall, Cynthia Meyers, and Beverly Washburn appearing.

It will be nice to catch up with Fantasy Femmes cover girl Celeste again and I have to say Drive-in Dream Girl Beverly is one of the sweetest women I ever interviewed. France on the other hand was a holy terror Batman and I will be sure to ignore her at all costs though I am sure she would not remember me.

SHUTTERED ROOM

Click here to read a fabulous piece on the eerie cult fave horror thriller The Shuttered Room (1967) starring Oliver Reed and Carol Lynley. It warms the cockles of my heart to see a college kid praise the beautiful and underrated Carol Lynley. After Bunny Lake Is Missing, this is Carol’s best performance and proves, at least to me, that she would had made a wonderful lead in Rosemary’s Baby. A film I was never crazy about due to boring Mia Farrow.

R.I.P. III

They say death comes in threes. Yet another Sixties Starlet passed away last week. Two-time Emmy winner and Tony nominee Lois Nettleton died on Jan . 18. Again not a favorite of mine, Nettleton nevertheless was a extremely talented and versatile actress (and super nice to boot per a friend of mine) who was a staple of TV movies during the late 60s through the 90s. My favorite performance of hers though was in the fluffy three-stewardesses-looking-for-romance movie Come Fly with Me (1963). Lois, (pictured at left) gives a classy performance as the level-headed one who falls in love with tycoon Karl Malden pretending to be poor while chain-smoking golddigger Dolores Hart becomes the dupe of jewelry smuggler Karl Boehm and naive Pamela Tiffin sets her marriage-minded ambitions on playboy pilot Hugh O’Brian.

I also remember Lois from the 1970 ABC Movie of the Week,Weekend of Terror where she, Carol Lynley and Jane Wyatt played nuns taken captive by thugs Robert Conrad and Lee Majors after the heiress they kidnapped accidentally dies trying to escape. They then try to pass off one of the nuns as the dead girl. I always found it odd that Carol would accept a secondary role in a TV-movie at this point in time when she was still a sort after leading lady on television.

HERE COMES BRIDGET

Click here to view a recent interview with my very first TV crush, Bridget Hanley of Here Come the Brides. As a very shy 7 year old I was just drawn to Bridget’s sweet Candy and Bobby Sherman’s shy Jeremy. They had such a wonderful chemistry. Adorable together, their tentative romance really touched me as a child. I loved the way the headstrong Candy would try to coax timid Jeremy out of his shell. To this day they are still one of my favorite TV couples of all time.

In the interview, the wonderfully droll Bridget Hanley, who has remained very active in LA theatre, shares wonderful stories about working on Here Come the Brides and her other hit series, Harper Valley PTA.