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June Walker Rogers, a singer, dancer and comedian who performed on Broadway and television and wrote several musicals and a book about how to survive in show business, has died. She was 97.

She died July 8 at her home in Westport, Connecticut, her family announced.

Born in Steubenville, Ohio, and raised in Queens, June L. Walker started dancing at age 5 and soon had a nightclub act, appearing on bills with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Prima, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield and, when he was known as the singer “Calypso Gene,” Louis Farrakhan.

After being placed in an accelerated pilot program for gifted children in the New York school system, she graduated from high school at 15. She accepted a scholarship to Columbia University but left college to make her Broadway debut in 1944 in the comedy revue Laffing Room Only, starring Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson.

The platinum blond returned...

The first episode of the fourth season of "The Twilight Zone" — titled "In His Image" — opens with a startling act of violence. Alan Talbot (George Grizzard) is approached by an evangelist while waiting at a subway station, and his simmering irritation with her triggers a strange sensation: electronic beeps zap his brain, leading him to push her on the tracks. The woman is killed by the oncoming train, and Alan flees, reappearing a while later with his fiancée Jessica (Gail Kobe) near his hometown. He seems to have no recollection of his transgression at the subway.

As series creator and host Rod Serling states in the episode's opening narration, this is just the beginning of the nightmarish hell Alan is about to experience, as he stands at the cusp of a world both real and dream-like. Alan's tale is based on Charles Beaumont's captivating short story "In His Image,...

Rochelle Oliver, who starred on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Toys in the Attic and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and taught acting at New York’s respected Hb Studio since the 1970s, has died. She was 86.

Oliver died April 13, the Hb Studio announced. “Those who knew Rochelle will know what a luminous artist, sensitive and passionate teacher she was,” it said in an Instagram post. She died two days shy of her birthday.

For the big screen, Oliver starred in the Horton Foote-written 1918 (1985) and Courtship (1987) and appeared in such other films as The Happy Hooker (1975), Paul Mazursky‘s Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), John Sayles’ Lianna (1983), An Unremarkable Life (1989), Martin Brest’s Scent of a Woman (1992) and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).

She also recurred as Judge Grace Larkin on Law & Order from 1993-03.

A protégé of Uta Hagen — who also taught for decades at Hb and...

As 2023 comes to a close, we here at JoBlo.com would like to take a moment to pay tribute to some of the people who sadly passed away this year. Our deepest respect goes out to everyone in the industry we have lost, and our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of those who died in 2023. These talented individuals will always be remembered for their impact on the world of film and television.

In Memory Of…

Earl Boen

Earl Boen died at the age of 81 on January 5th. The actor was best known as Dr. Peter Silberman in The Terminator, a role he reprised in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, making him the only other actor aside from Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in the first three movies.

Boen always wanted to inject a little more humour into his performance, but director James Cameron kept telling him no…...

Only 18 people have won the awards grand slam known as the Egot. They are (in chronological order of achievement) composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer Alan Menken, actress/producer Jennifer Hudson and actress Viola Davis.

Tour our photo gallery above for information about the 28 living people who just need an Academy Award to achieve Egot. They are: actor Andre De Shields, actress Cynthia Erivo, composer/producer Anne Garefino, actor Hugh Jackman, actor James Earl Jones, composer and producer Quincy Jones, actress Rachel Bay Jones, composer John Kander, composer Tom Kitt, composer/actress Cyndi Lauper, composer Alex Lacamoire, producer Stan Lathan, actress Katrina Lenk, actress Audra McDonald,...

Sad news today as it’s been reported that Melinda Dillon, best known for her roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and A Christmas Story, has died at the age of 83.

Melinda Dillon played Jillian Guiler in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a mother whose child is abducted by aliens. She was cast in the role just three days before filming began on the recommendation of Hal Ashby, who had directed her in Bound for Glory. Dillon’s performance would earn her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also played Ralphie’s mother in Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story, memorably telling him that he would shoot his eye out if he got a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. She received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Sydney Pollack’s Absence of Malice.

Melinda Dillon, who received supporting Oscar nominations for her turns in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice and portrayed the doting mom in the holiday perennial A Christmas Story, died Jan. 9, her family announced. She was 83.

Right out of the gate, Dillon earned a Tony nomination and Theatre World award in 1963 for her debut performance on Broadway as the childlike wife Honey in the original production of Edward Albee‘s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Later, the Arkansas native played two characters opposite David Carradine — Woody Guthrie’s first wife, Mary, and a dark-haired folk singer named Memphis Sue — in the biopic Bound for Glory (1976), directed by Hal Ashby; was a lesbian hockey wife in George Roy Hill’s Slap Shot (1977); and portrayed John Lithgow’s wife in the family film Harry and the Hendersons (1987).

Her big-screen résumé also included Norman Jewison’s F.I.S.T. (1978), as...

This mid-60s detective story has the right ingredients — a good mystery and interesting characters. David Jannsen gets to play a ‘Bosch’- style lone wolf investigator given a public thrashing for a ‘mistake’ that he knows was no mistake at all. Can a ‘bad cop’ redeem himself? The parade of mid-level guest stars — Stefanie Powers, Joan Collins, Lillian Gish, Steve Allen — may resemble a TV movie, but the tense show has a good feel for Los Angeles and the new swingin’ singles lifestyle. It might be Buzz Kulik’s best job of direction, and it has a great music score by Jerry Goldsmith.

Warning Shot

Region Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] #177

1967 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date October 26, 2022 / Available from [Imprint] / au 39.95

Starring: David Janssen, Ed Begley, Stefanie Powers, George Grizzard, Keenan Wynn, Joan Collins, Lillian Gish, Eleanor Parker, Sam Wanamaker, George Sanders, Steve Allen, Carroll O’Connor, Walter Pidgeon.

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc...

Gerald “Jerry” M. verDorn, who is best known to daytime-tv audiences for his run as Guiding Light‘s Ross, died peacefully at home on Sunday after a months-long cancer illness. He was 72.

Born in Sioux Falls, S.D., verDorn after graduating from what is now Minnesota State University Moorhead had major roles in many seasons of summer theatre and also spent a year studying at an acting academy in London.

More from TVLineLittle House on the Prairie's Hersha Parady Dead at 78Wwe Hall of Famer Terry Funk Dead at 79 - Ric Flair and Mick Foley Pay TributeAnother World's Nancy Frangione...

Only 16 people have won the awards grand slam known as the Egot. They are (in chronological order of achievement) composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and composer Alan Menken.

SEEWhich 16 people have the Egot?

Tour our photo gallery above for information about the 29 living people who just need an Academy Award to achieve Egot. They are: actor Harry Belafonte, actor Andre De Shields, actress Cynthia Erivo, composer/producer Anne Garefino, actor Hugh Jackman, actor James Earl Jones, composer and producer Quincy Jones, actress Rachel Bay Jones, composer John Kander, composer Tom Kitt, composer/actress Cyndi Lauper, composer Alex Lacamoire, producer Stan Lathan, actress Katrina Lenk, actress Audra McDonald,...

Dorothea G. Petrie, who won Emmys for producing “Love Is Never Silent” and ‘Caroline?,” died peacefully at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, her family announced. She was 95.

Petrie began her career in New York as an actress and talent agent before putting it on hold to raise four children. She ended her hiatus in 1979 by writing the story for, and producing, the CBS film “Orphan Train,” starring Jill Eikenberry. She went on to produce “Angel Dusted” starring Jean Stapleton for NBC, “License to Kill” with Denzel Washington for CBS and “Picking Up the Pieces” starring Margot Kidder for CBS.

In 1986, she won an Emmy for producing NBC’s Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation “Love is Never Silent,” which also won an Emmy for director Joseph Sargent and nominations for stars Mare Winningham and Phillis Frelich. Petrie next produced “Foxfire,” the eight-time Emmy nominated film for Hallmark and CBS.

Dorothea G. Petrie, who won an Emmy award for the Hallmark drama Love is Never Silent, died at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, November 24 at age 95. Her family confirmed the death, which they said was by natural causes.

Petrie began her career in New York as an actress and talent agent before putting it on hold to raise four children. She ended her hiatus in 1979 by writing the story and producing the CBS film Orphan Train, starring Jill Eikenberry. She went on to produce Angel Dusted starring Jean Stapleton for NBC, License to Kill with a young Denzel Washington for CBS, and Picking Up the Pieces starring Margot Kidder for CBS.

In 1986, she won an Emmy for producing NBC’s Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation Love is Never Silent, which also won an Emmy for director Joseph Sargent and nominations for stars Mare Winningham and Phillis Frelich. Petrie next produced Foxfire,...

Neil Simon, the creator of such Pulitzer and Tony award-winning plays as The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park and Lost in Yonkers, has died at 91. He died last night at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City from complications from pneumonia.

Simon was a giant of popular content creation, the playwright behind works that were performed worldwide by high schools, local theater groups and Broadway, where he was dominant in the last half of the 20th century. Simon’s unparalleled career in the theater included more than thirty plays and musicals that opened on Broadway over a span of four decades.

He made his playwriting debut in 1961, with Come Blow Your Horn and concluded his Broadway run with 45 Seconds From Broadway in 2001.

“No playwright in Broadway’s long and raucous history has so dominated the boulevard as the softly astringent Simon,” wrote John Lahr in The New Yorker in 2010. “For almost half a century,...

Clifford Stevens, an influential agent on Broadway and a founding partner at Paradigm, died over the weekend in New York City, the talent agency announced. He was 82.

Stevens shepherded the careers of such actors as Colleen Dewhurst, James Earl Jones, Lauren Bacall, Andy Garcia, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Robards, Kenneth Branagh, Campbell Scott, Michael Gambon, Glenn Close, George Hearn, Len Cariou, Brian Bedford and George Grizzard and designers like Santo Loquasto and Desmond Heeley.

"Clifford will always be known as one of the great gentleman agents," Paradigm chairman and CEO Sam Gores said in a statement. "He brought insight, humor,...

Turner Classic Movies' 2017 Gay Pride film series comes to a close this evening and tomorrow morning, Thursday–Friday, June 29–30, with the presentation of seven movies, hosted by TV interviewer Dave Karger and author William J. Mann, whose books include Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines and Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969. Among tonight's movies' Lgbt connections: Edward Albee, Tony Richardson, Evelyn Waugh, Tab Hunter, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Linda Hunt, Harvey Fierstein, Rudolf Nureyev, Christopher Isherwood, Joel Grey, and Tommy Kirk. Update: Coincidentally, TCM's final 2017 Gay Pride celebration turned out to be held the evening before a couple of international events – and one non-event – demonstrated that despite noticeable progress in the last three decades, gay rights, even in the so-called “West,” still have a long way to go. In Texas, the state's – all-Republican – Supreme Court decided that married gays should be treated as separate and unequal. In...

This is as sexy as Hollywood pix got in 1960. John O'Hara's novel about class snobbery and the drive for success posits Paul Newman as a moody go-getter. In glossy soap opera fashion, his silver spoon-fed bride Joanne Woodward morphs into an unfaithful monster. Some adulterous relationships are excused and others not in this glossy, morally rigged melodrama. In other words, it's prime entertainment material. From the Terrace Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 144 min. / Ship Date January 19, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Myrna Loy, Ina Balin, Leon Ames, Elizabeth Allen, Barbara Eden, George Grizzard, Patrick O'Neal, Felix Aylmer. Cinematography Leo Tover Art Direction Maurice Ransford, Howard Richmond, Lyle R. Wheeler Film Editor Dorothy Spencer Original Music Elmer Bernstein Written by Ernest Lehman from the novel by John O'Hara Produced and directed by Mark Robson

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

1960 saw the release of...

Ron Moody as Fagin in 'Oliver!' based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.' Ron Moody as Fagin in Dickens musical 'Oliver!': Box office and critical hit (See previous post: "Ron Moody: 'Oliver!' Actor, Academy Award Nominee Dead at 91.") Although British made, Oliver! turned out to be an elephantine release along the lines of – exclamation point or no – Gypsy, Star!, Hello Dolly!, and other Hollywood mega-musicals from the mid'-50s to the early '70s.[1] But however bloated and conventional the final result, and a cast whose best-known name was that of director Carol Reed's nephew, Oliver Reed, Oliver! found countless fans.[2] The mostly British production became a huge financial and critical success in the U.S. at a time when star-studded mega-musicals had become perilous – at times downright disastrous – ventures.[3] Upon the American release of Oliver! in Dec. 1968, frequently acerbic The...

After months of hinting, it was finally announced in official terms that Glenn Close, the six-time Oscar nominee and multi-Emmy-winning star of Dangerous Liaisons and Damages, among many other projects, will take her first stab at Broadway in two decades in Edward Albee’s magnificent domestic dramedy A Delicate Balance, last revived in 1996 in a Tony-winning production with George Grizzard and Elaine Stritch. Aside from a guest-starring stint in the Brit import The Play What I Wrote some 10 years ago, this will be the first time Ms. Close has starred on Broadway since her Tony-winning turn as Norma Desmond in...

Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf has been an essential part of American theater - even more to the point, American culture - for over half a century. When we talk about long-ago stage productions of great plays, most of us have to imagine. In the case of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, we have something far better in the winter of 1963, a few months after the play opened, Columbia Records took the unusual step of bringing the original cast - Uta Hagen, Arthur Hill, Melinda Dillon and George Grizzard - into the studio to perform the entire play for an audio recording. It has been unavailable since the LP era, but now Masterworks Broadway proudly releases this important recording for the first time in the digital era. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfwill be available for purchase exclusively via MasterworksBroadway.com on February 18 in a limited quantity of...

Election Day is just around the corner, and depending on your view of the current state of The Republic, you can look at that day in one of two ways:

It’s a national celebration of history’s greatest, most successful democracy, demonstrating our ability to freely choose our leadership and peacefully see the baton of power passed to the next man;

Or –

It’s a national embarrassment, history’s greatest, most successful democracy squandering it’s hard-won freedoms in a campaign for leadership poisoned by oversimplification, appeals to gut-level fears rather than the intellect, claims and charges plagued by inflation, distortion, and outright falsehood, and warped and distorted by the infusion of tens of millions of dollars from vested interests.

Either way, we still have to get through the day.

So, for those of you who just want to pull the shades and wait for the noise to die down,...

Season 4 begins its run of 18 one-hour episodes with a man suffering from an identity crisis. He hears strange sounds, and, sometimes, he wants to kill people! Sounds like an average New Yorker to me ... The Twilight Zone, Episode #103: "In His Image" (original air date January 3, 1963) The Plot: Alan Talbot (George Grizzard) stands on the platform of a subway station, where he's accosted by an older woman who's all riled up about something. He tries to be polite, but she rants onward, and starts to talk about the Devil, about how the Devil's all around us, and he can't get into us if we don't stand guard against him, that kind of thing. Then she shoves a religious pamphlet...

Wonder Boys (2000) Direction: Curtis Hanson Cast: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Richard Thomas, Michael Cavadias, George Grizzard Screenplay: Steve Kloves; from Michael Chabon's novel Oscar Movies Tobey Maguire, Michael Douglas, Wonder Boys A brilliant young writer (Tobey Maguire) who happens to be both a pathological liar — probably not a coincidence — and obsessed with celebrity suicides. A flamboyant bisexual literary editor (Robert Downey Jr.) who can't tell the difference between a ten-feet-tall transvestite and a woman. A pothead English professor (Michael Douglas) with so little sense of ethics that he has the gall to be upset when his wife leaves him, even though he has been having an affair with his boss' wife. Add to that mix a pompous successful writer, an irascible "car robber" and his ditzy girlfriend, a ferocious blind dog, and Marilyn Monroe's worn-out jacket, and we have...