Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Obit watch: May 22, 2025.

Thursday, May 22nd, 2025

Jim Irsay. NYT. ESPN.

A lover of rock and roll, Irsay spent millions of dollars collecting rare and significant guitars like Les Paul’s 1954 Gibson Black Beauty, Prince’s Yellow Cloud and David Gilmour’s famed Black Strat. Irsay also owned the manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and the original manuscript of Alcoholics Anonymous, the text that spawned the rehabilitation group. Irsay’s twin passions of music and rare collections culminated in the Jim Irsay Collection, an exhibit of Irsay’s rare items that has traveled the country, and The Jim Irsay Band, a collection of musicians who’ve traveled and played together since 2021, sometimes in conjunction with a display of The Jim Irsay Collection and sometimes in its own concert. For the past two seasons, Irsay and his band have opened the season by playing a free Colts Kickoff Concert at Lucas Oil Stadium, along with a display of the Jim Irsay Collection for Colts fans to enjoy.

George Coulam, also known as “King George”. He founded the Texas Renaissance Festival.

In 2024, the HBO docuseries “Ren Faire” focused on the festival’s succession and Coulam’s eventual retirement, highlighting the tension between his desire to find a romantic partner and his need to choose a successor. It also highlighted Coulam’s strict leadership style.
There have been ongoing legal disputes and potential sales of the festival, with a recent judge’s order in early May mandating the sale of Coulam’s properties, including the festival.

Michael McStay, British actor. Other credits include “EastEnders”, “The Persuaders!”, and “The Sweeney”.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 21, 2025.

Wednesday, May 21st, 2025

George Wendt. NYT.

Other credits that don’t involve him appearing as Norm include “Larry the Cable Guy’s Christmas Spectacular”, “Columbo: Strange Bedfellows”, and the 1986 “Twilight Zone” revival.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D – Virginia).

Vlastimil Hort, chess grandmaster. There’s a great story about Mr. Hort. Actually, there’s probably more than one, but this may be the one he’s most famous for.

In 1977, he was playing Boris Spassky in Reykjavik.

The match was a best-of-12 quarterfinal, whose winner would be one step closer to the top title in chess. After 12 games, they were tied, prompting a two-game playoff.
Then Mr. Spassky fell seriously ill. He was taken to the hospital, and his appendix was removed. According to the rules, he was entitled to three postponements of three days each. He took them all, but was still too unwell to play.
Mr. Spassky would have to forfeit, meaning Mr. Hort would advance to the semifinals.
Then Mr. Hort did something unexpected. To give Mr. Spassky a chance to continue to compete, Mr. Hort requested a three-day timeout, which was granted. It was a choice seen for decades as one of the greatest acts of sportsmanship in the history of the game, and it ended up costing Mr. Hort the match.
By the end of the timeout, Mr. Spassky could resume play, and after Games 13 and 14 were drawn, another two-game playoff was needed. In Game 15, Mr. Hort reached a winning position, but he froze. His time expired before he had made the required number of moves, thus forfeiting the game. After the next game ended in a tie, Mr. Spassky was declared the winner of the match.
Mr. Hort lost his chance to play for the world championship and never qualified again.

…

He was a popular player among his peers, with a sharp wit and a penchant for telling amusing anecdotes; he often called himself a “chess entertainer.”

Posted in Chess, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 16, 2025.

Friday, May 16th, 2025

Charles Strouse, noted Broadway composer. THR.

Mr. Strouse had more than a dozen Broadway shows to his credit and composed some of the most enduring musical theater numbers of his era: “Put On a Happy Face” and “Kids (What’s the Matter With Kids Today?)” from “Bye Bye Birdie,” which opened in 1960 and featured lyrics by his frequent collaborator Lee Adams; “But Alive” from “Applause” (1970), a musical adaptation of the movie “All About Eve” starring Lauren Bacall, with lyrics by Mr. Adams; and “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” from “Annie” (1977), with lyrics by Martin Charnin.

…

Some of Mr. Strouse’s numbers became so ubiquitous that they seemed revered and reviled by the public in equal measure. Each response in its own way was a badge of honor.
There was the time, for instance, that a stranger accosted Mr. Strouse at a party.
“If I have to hear my daughter sing ‘Tomorrow’ one more time,” he thundered, “I’m going to kill myself — and you!”

…

He wrote scores for films as well, including “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s” (1968. For television, he composed the music for “Those Were the Days,” the opening theme of Norman Lear’s groundbreaking sitcom “All in the Family,” with lyrics by Mr. Adams. (It is Mr. Strouse’s piano playing that is heard on the soundtrack as Archie and Edith Bunker sing the song on camera.)

…

Not all of Mr. Strouse’s ventures were successful. “Bring Back Birdie,” a 1981 sequel, closed on Broadway after four performances. Two “Annie” sequels, “Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge” and “Annie Warbucks,” closed out of town before reaching Broadway. The 1991 musical “Nick & Nora,” with a book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr. and a cast featuring Barry Bostwick and Joanna Gleason as Dashiell Hammett’s detectives Nick and Nora Charles, played just nine Broadway performances.

…

“When I was a 6-year-old girl, I only based my opinion on people from how they made me feel and how they treated me. When I first met Charles Strouse, I was 100 percent enamored with him,” Danielle Brisebois, who played Molly in the original production, said. “His warm smile and his soulful eyes … He was always encouraging, thoughtful and kind. I had no idea I was in the presence of a legend!”

…

“Everybody has flops,” he said. “When I teach, the students say, ‘How can you work three or four years on a show … and it flops? How do you recover from that?’ The only answer is, you’ve done your best, it didn’t work, what’s next?”

Posted in 1970s, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 15, 2025.

Thursday, May 15th, 2025

Joe Don Baker. Damn.

THR. He was in a lot of good stuff: “Charley Varrick”, “Golden Needles”, “The F.B.I.”, “Lancer”…

He was also in a lot of crap: “Leonard Part 6”, “Final Justice”, and, of course…

Joan O’Brien, actress. Other credits include “Bus Stop” (the series), “Rawhide”, “The Alamo” (the good one, with John Wayne), and “Perry Mason”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | 3 Comments »

Obit watch: May 9, 2025.

Friday, May 9th, 2025

For the historical record: David H. Souter, former Supreme Court justice. WP (archived).

James Foley, director. The Saturday Movie Group has seen “Glengarry Glen Ross” and I thought it was pretty good. Other credits include “At Close Range” and “After Dark, My Sweet”.

“Rescue: HI-Surf”, the lifeguard series on one of the broadcast networks. I never saw an episode, just promos. But it looked a lot like a version of “Baywatch” that took itself way too seriously.

Also among the dead: “Lopez vs. Lopez” and “Night Court”. I greatly admire John Larroquette. But I also greatly admired Harry Anderson, and I just couldn’t see watching a “Night Court” without him.

“The Real Housewives New York City”. Between Pope Leo XIV and this being cancelled, I think it’s been a good week.

Posted in Law, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: May 5, 2025.

Monday, May 5th, 2025

Charley Scalies, actor. Other credits include “12 Monkeys” (the movie), “Homicide: Life on the Street”, and “Law and Order” (also “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”).

This one is for friend of the blog Dave: Will Hutchins, actor. He was a guest on some Westerns in the 1960s and even had his own show, which I’d never heard of, “Sugarfoot”. Other credits include “Perry Mason”, “The New Perry Mason”, “The Horror at 37,000 Feet”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, and “The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington”.

Posted in Obits, TV | 3 Comments »

Obit watch: May 2, 2025.

Friday, May 2nd, 2025

Ruth Buzzi. NYT (archived).

Other credits include “Night Gallery”, “Emergency”, “Medical Center” (“Ruth Buzzi and Don RIckles portray two comically depressive characters who fall in love at Medical Center.”), and, of course…

I missed this, but: Ted Kotcheff passed away on April 10th. NYT (archived).

He refused to direct the first, “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (1985), because of the violence that the character unleashes.
“I read the script, and I said, ‘In the first film he doesn’t kill anybody,’” he told Filmmaker magazine in 2016. “In this film he kills 74 people.’”

Other credits include “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?”, “Fun with Dick and Jane” (the 1977 one), and “North Dallas Forty”.

Odile de Vasselot passed away on April 21st. She was 103.

Ms. de Vasselot (pronounced de-VASS-euh-low) was one of thousands of young Frenchwomen and men who quietly went to war against the Germans invaders after the country’s defeat in 1940 during the Battle of France. She began modestly, chalking the Lorraine Cross, adopted by General de Gaulle as a symbol of the Resistance, on walls and tearing down the propaganda posters of the Germans and their French Vichy-regime confederates. By the war’s end, she was going on dangerous nocturnal missions.

…

Her chance came, she said, when a friend put her in touch with a member of a Resistance group known as the Zero network, in June 1943. (Other accounts offer a different chronology.) She was asked to deliver Resistance mail and newspapers to network members in Toulouse, taking the night train on Friday and returning the next day.

…

By the end of the year, arrests had made it dangerous to work with the Zero network. Ms. de Vasselot joined another group, known as the Comet network, and for two months, until early 1944, walked through mud and swamps at the Belgian front, meeting up with Allied airmen and parachutists, giving them money and forged papers, and accompanying them to France, where they could make their way to neutral Spain.

…

She rejoined the Zero network that summer, as the allies were creeping their way toward Paris, and was sent on new missions throughout France.

Bobby Torre, maître d’ at J.G. Melon. This is one of those “questionable notability” ones – a NYC bar guy? – but it is also the kind of obit the paper of record does well, and is kind of fun.

When he was on the job at Melon’s, leaning by the entry on a bar stool a little too tall for him, glasses pushed up on his head and a pencil behind his ear, Mr. Torre would chat you up while you waited for a table and your burger with cottage fries.
Something would remind him of a saloon regular nicknamed Ronda Lasagna. That produced tales of a place he called “the Yankee Stadium of belly dancers.” From there, his mind would travel to a gay bar known as “the Wrinkle Room,” where “every guy with a trick said it was their nephew,” as he recalled. (Mr. Torre had run a mob-connected gay bar himself at one point.)

…

In his heyday there, he could charm rowdy patrons into a bear hug. But he was also capable of pinning a purse snatcher against the bathroom door until officers from the 19th Precinct arrived.
His fervor extended to his Roman Catholic faith. Mr. O’Neill sometimes had to ask Mr. Torre to stop blessing everyone at the bar. But without his religiosity, it is hard to imagine Mr. Torre performing his acts of kindness so cherished by customers.
He covered checks. He made hundreds of annual birthday calls. Melon’s is near several hospitals, and he would spend hours sitting with the ill, relatives of the ill and new mourners. That patient sympathy, offered alongside free cheeseburgers and fries, became part of stories told and retold by families who visited Melon’s during a crisis.

…

Mr. Torre also claimed to be an expert in martial arts. Michael Burrell, a former Melon’s bartender, recalled ribbing him: “Yeah, Bob, you’re a black belt.”
In fact, Mr. Valenti confirmed, his uncle studied not only jiu-jitsu, but also judo, Wing Chun kung fu and hapkido.

Posted in 1970s, Heroism, History, Movies, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: April 30, 2025.

Wednesday, April 30th, 2025

David Horowitz, noted conservative commentator. Twitter X. NYT. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Priscilla Pointer, actress. Other credits include “Blue Velvet”, “C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud”, “Quincy, M.E.”, “McCloud”, and “Mrs. Columbo”.

Andrew Gross, thriller writer. He may have been best known for the books he wrote with James Patterson.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Movies, Obits, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 28, 2025.

Monday, April 28th, 2025

David Paton, big damn hero, died on April 3rd. He was 94.

I take blindness kind of personally. Dr. Paton was a prominent ophthalmologist. In the early 1970s, he started thinking about blindness in developing countries: there were a lot of folks, he believed, that were losing their eyesight because of things that could be prevented or treated. But how to get doctors and training to the developing world?

He considered shipping trunks of equipment — almost the way a circus would — but that presented logistical challenges. He pondered the possibility of using a medical ship like the one that the humanitarian group Project Hope sent around the world. That was too slow for him.
“Shortly after the first moon landing in 1969, thinking big was becoming a reality,” Dr. Paton wrote.
And then a moonshot idea struck him: “Could an aircraft be the answer? A large enough aircraft could be converted into an operating theater, a teaching classroom and all the necessary facilities.”

…

In 1980, Mr. Trippe helped persuade Edward Carlson, the chief executive of United Airlines, to donate a DC-8 jet. The United States Agency for International Development contributed $1.25 million to convert the plane into a hospital with an operating room, a recovery area and a classroom equipped with televisions, so local medical workers could watch surgeries.

This was the birth of Orbis International.

…the organization is on its third plane, an MD-10 donated by Federal Express.
From 2014 to 2023, Orbis performed more than 621,000 surgeries and procedures, according to its most recent annual report, and offered more than 424,000 training sessions to doctors, nurses and other providers.

David Thomas, of Pere Ubu and Rocket From the Tombs, and a good Cleveland boy.

Lar Park Lincoln, actress. Other credits include “Space: Above and Beyond”, “House II: The Second Story”, and “Murder, She Wrote”.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 25, 2025.

Friday, April 25th, 2025

Lawrence sent over an obit for Steve McMichael, legendary Chicago Bear.

Though somewhat small for a defensive lineman at 6 feet 2 inches and 270 pounds, McMichael possessed immense strength and slippery quickness. He starred on a defense that included three other future Hall of Famers: the defensive ends Hampton and Dent and the linebacker Mike Singletary. He played in 191 consecutive games for the Bears and 12 more in the playoffs, a franchise record.

…

McMichael reveled in an exaggerated, untamed persona. His nicknames included Ming the Merciless, after the tyrant in “Flash Gordon,” and Mongo, after the dimwitted ruffian who punches out a horse in the Mel Brooks comedy “Blazing Saddles.”

Lulu Roman, perhaps most famous for “Hee Haw”.

Roman appeared on the first episode of CBS’ Hee Haw in June 1969 and on the last one, with the show in syndication, in June 1993. During its impressive run, she reinvented herself as a gospel singer, and she would release more than a dozen albums, perform in concert and record with the likes of Dolly Parton. (Watch and hear her sing “Crazy” here).

IMDB.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Bagatelle (#133)

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025

My Personal Top Ten List of Wikipedia Lists

10. “List of stoffs”. How can you not like a list with a name like that? Also, as you know, Bob, I’m both a bit of a plane geek and a military history geek. And as you also know, Bob, the famous ME-163 ran on T-Stoff and Z-Stoff (in the A variant) or C-Stoff (in the B and C variants.) (At least, I think that’s the case. The Wikipedia article is a little confusing.)

(I’ve been thinking about doing a Kickstarter for another million-dollar idea: a small rocket engine that attaches to a snowboard and runs on T-Stoff and Z-Stoff, maybe about the size of an old Apollo RCS motor. Why take the lift when you can rocket up the slope and board back down? And why just board back down when you can rocketboard back down? Think of the extreme fun!)

(No, I haven’t done the math on this. Yet.)

9. “List of lists of lists”. “This is a list of articles that are lists of list articles on the English Wikipedia. In other words, each of the articles linked here is an index to multiple lists on a topic. Some of the linked articles are themselves lists of lists of lists.” So do we need a “Lists of lists of lists of lists” entry?

8. “List of animals awarded human credentials”. This one would be higher on the list if it wasn’t just cats and dogs (well, except for one chicken and one goldfish). Really, is there nobody out there who has obtained a diploma for their sloth or slow loris? (And if the answer is “No, there isn’t” I sense a great need. Senator Shoshana, I’ve never met you and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe, about diplomas for sloths?) Honorable mention: “Non-human electoral candidates”.

7. “List of helicopter prison escapes“. I guess this is mostly personal nostalgia. When I was (mumble mumble) years old, “Breakout” was released. I thought a movie about a prison break by helicopter was incredibly cool. I never actually it in theaters because my parents wouldn’t let me watch PG-rated movies. I still haven’t seen it, and in retrospect it was probably a mediocre Bronson action film, But: Robert Duvall! John Huston! Randy Quaid! And it’s available on blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

Setting aside my personal nostalgia, this is still a good list. I’ve written before about the crazy Garrett Brock Trapnell story, but that’s not the only good one. “I told him it was our Minister of Defence leaving.” “The 3-passenger helicopter was so overloaded with 5 occupants that it barely cleared the fence, while flying away in a hail of gunfire that injured one guard.” “One of the skids caught on the razor wire, causing the helicopter to catapult over the fence and crash into the prison grounds.” Is it just me, or do there seem to be a disproportionate number of helicopter escapes in France and Canada?

The record for most helicopter escapes goes to convicted murderer Pascal Payet, who has used helicopters to escape from prisons in 2001, 2003, and most recently 2007.

6. “List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience response“. Everyone knows about “The Rite of Spring” (or thinks they know: I would really love to find a good reliable history of what actually happened the night of the premiere). But there are other great moments in this entry. Some of them even involve artists I like. “One woman walked down the aisle and repeatedly banged her head on the front of the stage, wailing ‘Stop, stop, I confess.'” “Artist Man Ray reportedly punched a man in the nose, Marcel Duchamp began hurling obscenities at a fellow audience member, and Erik Satie was heard shouting, ‘What precision! What precision!'”. “…Futurists led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti fighting members of the audience in the stalls.” (Futurism! There’s a rabbit hole for you.)

5. “List of sausages“. As you know, Bob, I am somewhat food obsessed. There are a bunch of Wikipedia food lists I could probably pick, but I happen to be fond of sausages. I wonder how hard it would be to organize a sausage tour of Germany? (I’d include Volkswagen currywurst in that tour, but I’m not if VW would let a tourist group eat in their canteen.) Also, I’m wondering if there’s any way to get Noumboulo in the US…

4. “List of Latin phrases”. Because sometimes in business it is useful to be able to toss out a reference like “alea iacta est” or “fiat justitia ruat caelum” and see who picks up on it. Honorable mention: “Glossary of French expressions in English“. I don’t have as many opportunities to use any of these, except “pour encourager les autres“.

3. “List of winless seasons”. Yes, this does include the NFL, and yes, the 2008 Lions and the 2017 Cleveland Browns are on the list. But there’s more to it than just the NFL. Have you ever wondered if a cricket team has lost all of their matches in a season? What about rugby? Or “association football”? (“In the 2010–11 Ukrainian Second League (3rd tier on the Ukrainian pyramid), FC Veres Rivne lost all 14 out of 22 scheduled games before being expelled from the league due to failure of payment of league dues; in addition, they also did not score a single goal at home.” Now that’s a mark to strive for.)

2. “List of canceled Las Vegas casinos”. I’ve linked to this before, but it is still a favorite of mine. Honorable mention: “List of Atlantic City casinos that never opened”.

And at number one on the hit parade…

1. “List of television series canceled after one episode”. Not only is this a subject near and dear to my heart (epic failure) but I love the way this list is organized: “Canceled before the first episode finished airing”, “Canceled after two episodes, seen back-to-back on premiere night”, “Special cases”, and etc.

Posted in Bagatelle, Food, Geek, History, Music, Planes, Travel, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: April 16, 2025.

Wednesday, April 16th, 2025

Wink Martindale. NYT (archived).

Martindale said he became interested in hosting a TV game show in 1965 when he learned that Password‘s Allen Ludden would “go in two days a week and tape five shows one day and five shows the next and the other five days play golf. I went to my agent and said, ‘How about sending me on a game-show hosting interview?’”
He eventually landed at NBC’s What’s That Song? (billed as Win Martindale) and worked for a year on that, the first of the 20 game shows that he hosted (only Bill Cullen did more). He was on Tic-Tac-Dough for a decade, did two shows for producer Chuck Barris (How’s Your Mother-in-Law? and Dream Girl of ’67) and produced game shows as well.

Another one that would have got past me if it wasn’t for “The Rap Sheet” (and I haven’t seen an obit anywhere else): Peter Lovesey, one of the great British crime writers.

Wikipedia:

He was also one of the world’s leading track and field statisticians.

Interesting, as his first novel (which was re-issued in a 50th anniversary edition late last year), Wobble To Death, is a Victorian era murder mystery…set against a speed walking marathon.

In addition to the scope of his unparalleled crime fiction career, Peter Lovesey will be remembered by his many grieving friends as the paragon of decency, compassion, loyalty, self-discipline, and pride in good work—in short, a human example of what it means to live a good life.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 14, 2025.

Monday, April 14th, 2025

Mario Vargas Llosa.

Mr. Vargas Llosa was never fully enamored, however, by his contemporaries’ magical realism. And he was disillusioned with Fidel Castro’s persecution of dissidents in Cuba, breaking from the leftist ideology that held sway for decades over many writers in Latin America.
He charted his own path as a conservative, often divisive political thinker and as a novelist who transformed episodes from his personal life into books that reverberated far beyond the borders of his native country.
His dabbling in politics ultimately led to a run for the presidency in 1990. That race allowed him to champion the free-market causes he espoused, including the privatization of state enterprises and reducing inflation through government spending cuts and layoffs of the bloated civil service.
He led polls for much of the race, but was roundly defeated by Alberto Fujimori, then a little-known agronomist of Japanese descent who later adopted many of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s policies.

Jean Marsh, actress. NYT. Other credits include the good “Hawaii Five-O”, “The Eagle Has Landed”, and “See China and Die”.

Posted in Books, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 3, 2025.

Thursday, April 3rd, 2025

I was busy traveling in elephants yesterday. By the time we got in, got unpacked (do you know how long it takes to unpack an elephant?) and got something to eat…it was late.

So: Val Kilmer, for the historical record. NYT. THR.

Not much to say, really, except that I think both “Heat” and “Tombstone” are pretty good movies. I actually like “Tombstone” better than “My Darling Clementine” (which we watched last week) on the OK Corral movie front.

Charlotte Webb has passed away at 101.

Ms. Webb was one of the last surviving Bletchley Park codebreakers.

Ms. Webb, known as Betty, was 18 when she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, and was assigned to work at the base in Buckinghamshire where Bletchley Park was located. From 1941 to 1945, she helped in the decryption of German messages, and also worked on Japanese signals.
In 2015, Ms. Webb was appointed as Member of the Order of the British Empire and in 2021 she was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious honor.

Sian Barbara Allen, actress.

Other credits include “Sword of Justice”, “The Rockford Files”, “The F.B.I.”, “O’Hara, U.S. Treasury”, and “The Bold Ones: The Lawyers”.

Lawrence sent over an obit for Patty Maloney. Other credits include one of the spinoffs of a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Trapper John, M.D.”, and voice work in the 1978 “Lord of the Rings”.

Posted in 1970s, History, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 30, 2025.

Sunday, March 30th, 2025

Sgt. Joe Harris (United States Army – ret.) has passed away. He was 108, and is believed to have been the oldest surviving paratrooper.

Mr. Harris was a member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed the Triple Nickles (the word was deliberately misspelled) after their unit designation and the three buffalo nickels that formed their insignia.
He had enlisted in the Army in 1941, and he volunteered to join the 555th soon after it was formed in 1943. The Army was still rigidly segregated, and most Black service members served in support roles; the battalion was designed as an early step toward the military’s eventual desegregation.
It never served overseas. Instead, in 1945 it was transferred from its base in North Carolina to rural Oregon as part of a confidential program known as Operation Firefly.

The Triple Nickles were assigned to parachute in and fight fires started by Japanese balloon bombs.

Mr. Harris and his unit became the front line in fighting the blazes. Jumping from C-47 cargo planes, they wore leather football helmets with wire-mesh face masks and carried a brace of firefighting tools, including the Pulaski, a specialized tool that combines an ax and an adze.
They were trained to aim for trees, to avoid landing in dangerously rugged territory. Among their gear was a 50-foot rope that they would use to drop to the ground after getting snared in branches.
Mr. Harris performed 72 jumps, fighting fires started by the bombs as well as by lightning and other natural causes. He was honorably discharged in late 1945. The Army was desegregated in 1947, and the 555th was incorporated into the 82nd Airborne Division.

Richard Chamberlain. THR. IMDB.

Bruce Glover. Other credits include the 1973 “Walking Tall”, “Bearcats!”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

Richard Norton, “Actor, Martial Arts Expert, Trainer and Stuntman”. Other credits include “Gymkata”, “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and “Road House 2: Last Call”.

Posted in Heroism, History, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »