Stanley Donen, who I have seen described as “one of the last Golden Age directors”, and certainly one of the greats. THR.
“On the Town”, “Singin’ in the Rain”, “Charade”, “Funny Face”, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, “Damn Yankees”, “Bedazzled”. What a life.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)
Also by way of THR: Morgan Woodward. Interesting career: he did a lot of stuff. Oddly, not “Mannix”, but 19 episodes of “Gunsmoke”, “Hill Street Blues”, “Bonanza”, “Bearcats!”, two episodes of “Star Trek: Original Recipe” (“on which he was the first victim of Mr. Spock’s telepathic ‘Vulcan mind meld.'”), “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp”…
…and “Boss Godfrey” (the guy with the mirrored sunglasses) in “Cool Hand Luke”.
Speaking of “Star Trek”, we caught the last three or so minutes of “The Naked Time” last night while waiting for “Kolchak”. Now, I’m not a big “Trek” fan, but for some reason, I got to wondering what John D.F. Black (who wrote that episode) was up to.
Turns out he passed away in late November without my noticing. Google does not turn up an obit in the NYT or any of the papers I usually frequent, though it looks like THR ran one that I (and everyone I know) missed.
I knew that he was one of the more highly regarded “Trek” writers. I did not know that he’d co-written the screenplay for the original “Shaft” with Ernest Tidyman. He also did TV work for, among other shows, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, “Hawaii Five-O”…and, yes, he wrote an episode of “Mannix” (“A Day Filled with Shadows”: he shares the writing credit with Cliff Gould).