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Jean Veloz, the innovative Lindy Hop dancer who dazzled in Swing Fever and other Hollywood musicals of the 1940s, has died. She was 98.

Veloz died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles, her friend, agent and manager Rusty Frank told The Hollywood Reporter. Frank co-produced the 2010 event A Tribute to the Groovie Movie, which celebrated Veloz and her contribution to dance.

“Jean innovated a style of swing dance that was admired around the world,” Frank said. “It was silky smooth and greatly contrasted the more jitterbug style prevalent during the 1930s-’40s.”

Generations of dancers idolized her.

In MGM’s Swing Fever (1943), Veloz whirled with servicemen portrayed by Lennie Smith and Don Gallagher in the high-octane number “One Girl and Two Boys,” accompanied by Kay Kyser’s band and sandwiched between Marilyn Maxwell’s singing.

She also did the jitterbug in Where Are Your Children? (1943), starring Jackie Cooper; danced with...

Coleen Gray in 'The Sleeping City' with Richard Conte. Coleen Gray after Fox: B Westerns and films noirs (See previous post: “Coleen Gray Actress: From Red River to Film Noir 'Good Girls'.”) Regarding the demise of her Fox career (the year after her divorce from Rod Amateau), Coleen Gray would recall for Confessions of a Scream Queen author Matt Beckoff: I thought that was the end of the world and that I was a total failure. I was a mass of insecurity and depended on agents. … Whether it was an 'A' picture or a 'B' picture didn't bother me. It could be a Western movie, a sci-fi film. A job was a job. You did the best with the script that you had. Fox had dropped Gray at a time of dramatic upheavals in the American film industry: fast-dwindling box office receipts as a result of competition from television,...

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

Eleanor Parker: Actress Wasted in ‘Valentino,’ brilliant in abortion-themed crime drama ‘Detective Story’ (photo: Eleanor Parker ca. 1955) (See previous post: "Eleanor Parker Dead at 91: ‘The Sound of Music’ Actress.") Eleanor Parker’s three 1950 releases were her last ones for Warner Bros. The following year, she starred in Columbia’s critical and box office flop Valentino, with Anthony Dexter as silent film idol Rudolph Valentino and Parker as a mix of Alice Terry (Valentino’s leading lady in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Conquering Power), Agnes Ayres (Valentino’s leading lady in The Sheik), and Hollywood bullshit. As an aside: Alice Terry wasn’t at all pleased with Valentino. Eleanor Parker wasn’t the problem; Terry was angry because Parker’s character, "Joan Carlisle" aka "Sarah Gray," is shown becoming involved with Valentino both before and after Terry’s marriage to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse director Rex Ingram,...

Eleanor Parker 2013 movie series continues today (photo: Eleanor Parker in Detective Story) Palm Springs resident Eleanor Parker is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Thus, eight more Eleanor Parker movies will be shown this evening on TCM. Parker turns 91 on Wednesday, June 26. (See also: “Eleanor Parker Today.”) Eleanor Parker received her second Best Actress Academy Award nomination for William Wyler’s crime drama Detective Story (1951). The movie itself feels dated, partly because of several melodramatic plot developments, and partly because of Kirk Douglas’ excessive theatricality as the detective whose story is told. Parker, however, is excellent as Douglas’ wife, though her role is subordinate to his. Just about as good is Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Lee Grant, whose career would be derailed by the anti-Red hysteria of the ’50s. Grant would make her comeback in the ’70s, eventually winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her...

There are Star Wars people, and Star Trek people. Some people dig Bugs Bunny; others love Mickey Mouse. There’s DC folks, and those who Make Theirs Marvel. There’s the “boxers” crowd…and the “briefs” bunch. Red states. Blue states. You may have heated debates over any (or none) of these ways of seeing the world, but most of the time, the stakes of these discussions aren’t as very high as they might initially seem.

There are those who think humanity is worth preserving, and those who believe we ought to self-destruct our way back into a feral wasteland. That’s the discussion that takes place in Irwin Allen’s first live-action feature film, The Story of Mankind.

And that discussion is a hoot and a half!

Readers of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and devotees of Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen...