Literary Pick (****)

 Sofia: Living and Loving: Her Own Story

-by A.E. Hotchner 

 

Crossbay Movie Theatre

UA Crossbay 

9411 Rockaway Boulevard, Ozone Park, NY 11417

 

 

The 1,425-seat Cross Bay Theatre opened in December 1924. Located on the corner of Rockaway and Woodhaven Boulevards, the theatre was later known as the Crossbay. It was a Randforce house and then was operated by United Artists. In the 1970s the auditorium was twinned, and in the early 1980s a third auditorium was built in space once occupied by retail stores.

The UA Crossbay closed on June 23, 2005, and the building was converted to retail. 

-Cinema Treasures

 

Literary Pick (****)

 Keep The Faith

-Faith Evans

 

Gavin MacLeod

Gavin MacLeod of 'Love Boat' and 'Mary Tyler Moore' fame dead at 90

LOS ANGELES — Gavin MacLeod, a sitcom veteran who played seaman "Happy" Haines on "McHale's Navy," Murray on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and the very different, vaguely patrician Captain Stubing on "The Love Boat," has died. He was 90.

MacLeod's nephew, Mark See, confirmed his death to Variety.

MacLeod played a relatively minor character on ABC hit "McHale's Navy," starring Ernest Borgnine, but as newswriter Murray Slaughter, he was certainly one of the stars of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," appearing in every one of the classic comedy's 168 episodes during its 1970-77 run on CBS. Murray was married to Marie (Joyce Bulifant) but was in love with Moore's Mary Richards. His desk was right next to Mary's in the WGN newsroom, so MacLeod was frequently in the shot during the sitcom, and Murray, like all the other characters, was richly developed — a hallmark of MTM shows.

MacLeod originally tried out for the part of Lou Grant, which went to Ed Asner, but claimed to be happy that he ended up playing Murray. He also auditioned for the role of Archie Bunker on "All in the Family," but of reading the script for the first time, he wrote in his memoir, "Immediately I thought, 'This is not the script for me. The character is too much of a bigot. I can't say these things.' " When Norman Lear called the actor to say that Carroll O'Connor had gotten the part, MacLeod was relieved.

The "Moore" cast — MacLeod, Asner, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Betty White and Georgia Engel (Ted Knight had died in 1986) — reminisced with Moore in 2002 on CBS' "The Mary Tyler Moore Reunion."

Asner, one of two surviving members of the cast, said Saturday that his "heart is broken."

"Gavin was my brother, my partner in crime (and food) and my comic conspirator," he wrote in a tweet. "I will see you in a bit Gavin. Tell the gang I will see them in a bit. Betty! It’s just you and me now."

My heart is broken. Gavin was my brother, my partner in crime (and food) and my comic conspirator. I will see you in a bit Gavin. Tell the gang I will see them in a bit. Betty! It’s just you and me now. pic.twitter.com/se4fwh7G1G

— Ed Asner (@TheOnlyEdAsner) May 29, 2021

MacLeod had the great fortune to roll right from one hit show to another in 1977, when "Moore" ended and ABC's "The Love Boat" began. The hourlong romantic comedy set on a cruise ship ran for 10 years. Even after the end of the voyage in 1987, the actor returned for telepic "The Love Boat: A Valentine Voyage" in 1990 and for the "Reunion" episode of rebooted series "Love Boat: The Next Wave" in 1998.

MacLeod may, indeed, hold a record for consecutive long-running series: He went straight from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (168 episodes) to "The Love Boat" (249 episodes). The actor's Captain Stubing was known for his signature salute.

The New York Times said in 2010: "Perhaps no actor has embraced a signature role the way Mr. MacLeod has with Captain Stubing. Since 'The Love Boat' went off the air, he has been a spokesman for Princess Cruises."

In a statement Saturday, the cruise line called him "our beloved global ambassador, dearest friend and treasured member of the Princess Cruises family for more than 35 years."

In 1997, the actor joined the rest of "The Love Boat" cast on "Oprah" in what was the first full cast appearance since the show was canceled. Another cast reunion occurred in 2013 on "The Talk."

MacLeod was born Allan George See in Mount Kisco, N.Y. His mother worked for Reader's Digest, while his father was an electrician who was part Chippewa. He grew up in Pleasantville, New York, and went to Ithaca College, where he studied acting and graduated in 1952. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he moved to New York City and worked at Radio City Music Hall as an usher and elevator operator while seeking work as an actor. During this time he changed his name. He lost his hair early, which proved a barrier as a young man looking for acting work, but a hairpiece solved the problem.

After a few uncredited film roles, MacLeod made his credited big screen debut in the 1958 Susan Hayward vehicle "I Want to Live," playing a police lieutenant, then played a G.I. in Gregory Peck starrer "Pork Chop Hill" the next year. His supporting role in Blake Edwards' World War II comedy "Operation Petticoat," starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis and focusing on the chaotic goings on aboard a submarine, gave the young actor a flavor of what he would be doing a few years later on "McHale's Navy." In the meantime he appeared in the 1960 thriller "Twelve Hours to Kill," which starred future "I Dream of Jeannie" star Barbara Eden; Blake Edwards' musical comedy "High Time," starring Bing Crosby and Fabian; and the critically hailed but now forgotten Korean War film "War Hunt." He also did a boatload of guest appearances on TV before his stint on "McHale's Navy."

-NBC News

Literary Pick (****)

 I Will Find You

-Joanna Connors

 

Charles Grodin (1935-2021)

Charles Grodin, Star of ‘Beethoven’ and ‘Heartbreak Kid,’ Dies at 86 

A familiar face who was especially adept at deadpan comedy, he also appeared on Broadway in “Same Time, Next Year,” wrote books and had his own talk show. 

The actor Charles Grodin with the title dog in the hit 1992 family movie “Beethoven.” “I don’t complain,” he said, “when the editor chooses my worst take because it’s the dog’s best take.”Credit...via Photofest

Charles Grodin, the versatile actor familiar from “Same Time, Next Year” on Broadway, popular movies like “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Midnight Run” and “Beethoven” and numerous television appearances, died on Tuesday at his home in Wilton, Conn. He was 86.

His son, Nicholas, said the cause was bone marrow cancer.

With a great sense of deadpan comedy and the kind of Everyman good looks that lend themselves to playing businessmen or curmudgeonly fathers, Mr. Grodin found plenty of work as a supporting player and the occasional lead. He also had his own talk show for a time in the 1990s and was a frequent guest on the talk shows of others, making 36 appearances on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and more than 40 on David Letterman’s NBC and CBS shows combined.

Mr. Grodin with his co-star, Ellen Burstyn, and his director, Gene Saks, in 1975 at the first rehearsal for the Broadway comedy “Same Time, Next Year.” The play was a hit and a turning point in Mr. Grodin’s career.Credit...Bettmann, via Getty Images

Mr. Grodin was a writer as well, with a number of plays and books to his credit. Though he never won a prestige acting award, he did win a writing Emmy for a 1977 Paul Simon television special, sharing it with Mr. Simon and six others.

Mr. Grodin, who dropped out of the University of Miami to pursue acting, had managed to land a smattering of stage and television roles when, in 1962, he received his first big break, landing a part in a Broadway comedy called “Tchin-Tchin,” which starred Anthony Quinn and Margaret Leighton.

“Walter Kerr called me impeccable,” Mr. Grodin wrote years later, recalling a review of the show that appeared in The New York Times. “It took a trip to the dictionary to understand he meant more than clean.”

 Another Broadway appearance came in 1964 in “Absence of a Cello.” Mr. Grodin’s next two Broadway credits were as a director, of “Lovers and Other Strangers” in 1968 and “Thieves” in 1974. Then, in 1975, came a breakthrough Broadway role opposite Ellen Burstyn in Bernard Slade’s “Same Time, Next Year,” a durable two-hander about a man and woman, each married to someone else, who meet once a year in the same inn room.

 

“The play needs actors of grace, depth and accomplishment, and has found them in Ellen Burstyn and Charles Grodin,” Clive Barnes wrote in a rave in The Times. “Miss Burstyn is so real, so lovely and so womanly that a man wants to hug her, and you hardly notice the exquisite finesse of her acting. It is underplaying of sheer virtuosity. Mr. Grodin is every bit her equal — a monument to male insecurity, gorgeously inept, and the kind of masculine dunderhead that every decent man aspires to be.”

The show ran for three and a half years, with an ever-changing cast; the two original stars left after seven months. Mr. Grodin by that point was in demand in Hollywood. (Ms. Burstyn reprised the role in a 1978 film adaptation, but this time opposite Alan Alda in the Grodin role.)

 Mr. Grodin had already appeared in Mike Nichols’s “Catch-22” in 1970 and had turned in one of his better-known film performances in the 1972 comic romance “The Heartbreak Kid,” in which he played a self-absorbed sporting goods salesman who marries in haste, immediately loses interest in his bride (Jeannie Berlin), and falls in love with another woman (Cybill Shepherd) on his honeymoon. (Elaine May, Mr. Nichols’s longtime comedy partner and Ms. Berlin’s mother, directed.)

 

In 1978 he had a supporting role in the Warren Beatty vehicle “Heaven Can Wait.” Another signature role was in the action comedy “Midnight Run” in 1988, in which Mr. Grodin played an accountant who has embezzled a fortune from the mob and is being pursued by a bounty hunter, played by Robert De Niro.

Though Mr. Grodin acted opposite stars like Mr. De Niro and Mr. Beatty, what may have been his best-known role found him working with a dog. The film was “Beethoven,” a family-friendly hit in 1992, and the dog was a St. Bernard. Mr. Grodin played a cranky father who did not exactly warm to the new household pet. In one memorable scene, he crawls into bed with what he thinks is his wife and is enjoying having the back of his neck licked until he realizes that the dog, not the wife, is his bedmate.

“You’ve ruined my life,” he growls at the beast. “You’ve ruined my furniture. You’ve ruined my clothes. My family likes you more than they like me. Why? All you do is drool and shed and eat.”

The next year he reprised the role in “Beethoven’s 2nd.” If he was frequently upstaged by the title character in these films, he took it in stride.

“I don’t complain when the editor chooses my worst take because it’s the dog’s best take,” he told The Kansas City Star when the sequel came out.

Charles Sidney Grodin was born on April 21, 1935, in Pittsburgh. His father, Ted, was a merchant who dealt in sewing notions, and his mother, Lena (Singer) Grodin, was a homemaker.

He grew up in Pittsburgh and tried the University of Pittsburgh, thinking he might want to be a journalist. But he soon rejected that idea.

“I imagined that someday an editor might tell me to ask someone who had lost a loved one how they felt,” he wrote in a 2011 essay for Backstage magazine. “I see that all the time on the news now. Not for me.”

He often said that the 1951 movie “A Place in the Sun,” which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, caused him to shift his focus to acting.

“It was two things,” he told the Television Academy Foundation in an oral history. “One is I think I developed an overwhelming crush on Elizabeth Taylor. And two, Montgomery Clift made acting look like, ‘Gee, well that looks pretty easy — just a guy talking.’”

 

After six months at the University of Miami, he worked at the Pittsburgh Playhouse for a year and a half, then found his way to New York. From 1956 to 1959 he studied with Uta Hagen, though he often found himself questioning her methods, which he said annoyed her.

Mr. Grodin made guest appearances on “Shane,” “The Virginian” and other 1960s TV series before landing his first significant film role, as an obstetrician, in the 1968 horror hit “Rosemary’s Baby.”

In 1976 he played an unlikable oilman in a remake of “King Kong,” with some reluctance.

“I wanted to play the love interest with Jessica Lange,” he said. “I didn’t want to be the guy responsible for the death of the most beloved animal outside of Bambi. But they wanted me for the bad guy.”

By popular demand, his character meets a gruesome end.

“The only thing they changed after the first screening, I was told, is when Kong got loose and tried to step on me and kill me and missed,” he said. “The audience was so disappointed that they had to recut it.”

Mr. Grodin showed a different side in the mid-1990s when he hosted “The Charles Grodin Show” on the cable channel CNBC.

“They brought me in there to be a humorist,” he said in the oral history, “but pretty quickly I got caught up in social issues, and the show became just as much that, if not dominantly that. Some people like it better when you’re funny, and some people prefer that you’re taking cameras up to prisons and trying to help people who shouldn’t be in prison.”

Nicholas Grodin said his father had particularly been proud of his work for the Innocence Project, the prison justice organization, and related causes, and his work for groups that help homeless people.

After his talk show ended in 1998, Mr. Grodin largely stepped away from show business for a dozen years. Then he began to take roles again, including a recurring one on “Louie,” the comedian Louis C.K.’s series.

Mr. Grodin wrote several memoirs full of anecdotes from his career, including “It Would Be So Nice if You Weren’t Here: My Journey Through Show Business” (1989) and “We’re Ready for You, Mr. Grodin: Behind the Scenes at Talk Shows, Movies and Elsewhere” (1994).

His first marriage, to Julie Ferguson, ended in divorce. In 1983 he married Elissa Durwood, who survives him, along with his son, who is from his second marriage; a daughter from his first marriage, the comedian Marion Grodin; and a granddaughter.

 

A 1985 anecdote Mr. Grodin related on Mr. Letterman’s show was typical of the breath of fresh, if offbeat, air he brought to those appearances. He told Mr. Letterman that he had been gratified when, walking through the lobby on his way to the studio, the crowd that had lined up to get into the show burst into applause.

“I turned around to smile,” he said, “and they weren’t applauding me. There was a duck in a tuxedo walking by, and they were applauding the duck.

“But,” he added, “for the moment that I thought they were applauding me, it was a lovely, lovely moment.”

He offered no explanation for the presence of the duck.

-NYT

 

Stephan’s Folly

What words? Plush, lavish, regal, colorful … epic! This 1965 Palm Springs time capsule home — which was redecorated in glamorous 1969 style by the home’s second owner Jack Stephan, “Plumber to the Stars” — is currently listed for sale by Matthew Reader of Paul Kaplan Group. Almost all of the home’s 1969 decor and furnishings remain intact. Back in 1969, the interior redesign cost $150,000 – that’s a whopping $968,321 today! You will be amazed, we promise — thanks to the 23 photos, courtesy Lance Gerber of Lance Gerber Studio.

Jack Stephan founded his first business, Jack Stephan Plumbing & Heating, in 1946, and Adee Plumbing & Heating in 1949. The company is still in business, run by two of his sons. By the time he bought the house and redecorated it in 1969, his business must have been booming, because the decorators working on this house seem to have been given a blank check. Even so, Jack Stephan seems to have been bemused by his own extravagance and dubbed his estate “Stephan’s Folly.”

• Jack Stephan died in 2014. He was such a memorable fixture, the Los Angeles Times wrote a lengthy obituary here.
• Kinda sorta reminds us of our 2014 story about the 1962 time capsule house of Mel Brown — Furniture King of Los Angeles.

 And the “Adee Do!” in our headline? That’s from Stephan’s local TV commercials. What a hoot! NOTE: That’s actor Wally Sherwin in the commercial, not Mr. Stephan.

This house — it’s fantastique! From the listing:

• Price: $879,000
• Year built: 1965
• Square footage: 3,250
• Bedrooms: 3
• Bathrooms: 5

This grand 3,250 square foot estate style home is a showcase of design and Palm Springs style. This exceptional mid-century property was designed by architect Robert Lewis and constructed in 1965, and it is located in Deepwell Estates, one of the most desirable neighborhoods in South Palm Springs. This impressive home was made for entertaining, and it is rich in local history. Deepwell had many celebrity residents, and Loretta Young, Julie London, Jack Webb, Eva Gabor, Liberace, and Elizabeth Taylor all lived on Manzanita at one time.

The current incredible interior was designed and installed in 1971 [note, Matthew says further research indicates: 1969], and every surface has been meticulously maintained and preserved. The home was the 2015 recipient of the PS ModCom’s prestigious Residential Preservation Award.

This special home is centered around a kidney-shaped pool, and it features a sunken living room, curved wet bar, three bedrooms, den (or 4th bedroom), five bathrooms, pool cabana room, and an oversized garage for classic cars.

 

Stephan’s Folly has been so extraordinarily preserved that the Palm Springs Modern Committee just awarded its current owner of the home — Ross A. Klein — with a Residential Preservation Award. Realtor Matthew Reader, who sold the house to Klein, made the presentation and shared his introductory speech. It includes more background information (edited a bit by us for use here):

Adee do! Those words were drilled into pop-culture posterity thanks to Jack Stephan, a flamboyant entrepreneur with a flair for marketing who founded two of the region’s most heavily advertised plumbing companies in Southern California: Adee and Stephan’s Heating and Plumbing.

This fabulous residence, constructed in 1965, was designed by Robert Lewis & Associates. Originally built for Dr. & Mrs. Sanford Ehrens, it was later purchased by “Plumber to the Stars” Jack Stephan in 1969, who gave it the name Stephan’s Folly. Mr. Stephan founded Jack Stephan Plumbing & Heating in 1946, and Adee Plumbing & Heating in 1949. He passed away in 2014 at the age of 96 and left the home to his third wife of forty-five years, Barbara.

Ross purchased the home sight unseen after he was encouraged by yours truly of The Paul Kaplan Group. I was literally face-timing Ross from the house. He said it was love at first sight.

 Ross says he was inspired to buy the house because of the history of the previous owners and the exquisitely maintained period interior decor and custom furnishings. The house has amazing color theory and is a stunning example of early 70s design. It feels like an immersive piece of art. There are 16 different types of wallpaper and fabric cohabitating in perfect harmony from red to orange, and pink to fuchsia. Every lampshade and light bulb is spec’d to match the light fixture.

 The Stephans were incredibly social and many great card games and parties of Palm Springs luminaries were hosted at the house.  Mrs. Stephan was very generous in leaving many period accessories in the home from books and games, and cards and shufflers, to the Jean Naté and chafing trays for guests!  In keeping with his attention-grabbing advertising style, Stephan drove Rolls-Royces and maintained a flashy wardrobe, including mega-carat diamonds and suits in his favorite color, red.

 The interior is almost entirely original. In fact, the only items not original to the design are some of the appliances that were replaced over time. The house was the epitome of chic luxury and Palm Springs style.

 Every piece of furniture was custom designed, with many pieces featuring hand-applied gold leaf. There are matching fixtures in 23 karat gold, and up-to-date modern luxuries like electric drapes, a movie screen, 12 carousel 8-Track Player, and NuTone Sound System. There is even a professional salon hair dryer.

In contrast, the exterior is much more restrained than the interior. While the house was always “please, no smoking,” guests were given gold leafed wooden matchboxes inscribed with “Stephan’s Folly.”

On the phone with Matthew Reader, Pam discussed how to categorize the home’s interior design. How about: Arabian Nights meets Moroccan meets Hollywood Regency Taken As Far As it Can Go meets…. Steak House?! Indeed, Matthew says that everytime he goes into the house he immediately starts craving a steak, a baked potato and a Manhattan. “Even at eight o’clock in the morning,” he laughed. He underscores that inside, smoking was never allowed — the house does not feel musty or old. Pam declares that this home may not really be a “time capsule” — it’s a “time machine.”

Reader also told us that it’s believed that the interior redesign in 1969 cost $150,000. We went over to the online CPI Inflation calculator and that translated to nearly a million dollars ($968,321) today. That said, we don’t think you could even replicate these interiors today — some of these materials would be very difficult, and expensive, to find!

 Suffice to say: We love it. Fingers crossed the new buyers do, too, and don’t change a thing.
-Retro Renovation

Literary Pick (****)

You Get So Alone At Time That It Just Makes Sense

-Charles Bukowski

Olympia Dukakis Dies: ‘Moonstruck’ Oscar Winner Was 89

The beloved screen and stage actress passed away on Saturday morning, as confirmed by her brother Apollo Dukakis.

 

Beloved screen and stage actress Olympia Dukakis died May 1 at the age of 89. The news of the Oscar winner’s passing was shared by her brother, Apollo Dukakis, on Facebook. “My beloved sister, Olympia Dukakis, passed away this morning in New York City. After many months of failing health she is finally at peace and with her Louis,” Apollo wrote. Her husband, actor Louis Zorich, died in 2018 at the age of 93.

Olympia Dukakis starred in more than 130 stage productions, as well as more than 60 films and 50 television series. She won her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1988 for her role in “Moonstruck” as Rose Castorini. She won a Golden Globe for the film as well, and received Emmy Award nominations for “Lucky Day” (1991), “More Tales of the City” (1998), and “Joan of Arc” (1999). She released an autobiography, “Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress,” in 2003. Last year, a feature-length documentary about her life, titled “Olympia,” was also released in the U.S.

 

Her other film credits include “Steel Magnolias,” “Away from Her,” “In the Land of Women,” “Working Girl,” “The Cemetery Club,” “Look Who’s Talking Now,” “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” “7 Chinese Brothers,” and many more. She also starred in the TV series “Tales of the City,” “Switch,” “Forgive Me,” “Bored to Death,” “Center of the Universe,” and “Search for Tomorrow.”

At a Sarasota Film Festival tribute in 2016, Dukakis talked about the influential role director Norman Jewison’s “Moonstruck” had on her life as an actress, and how the film made her a star in her late 50s. She said up until that point in her career, “My daughter was going to college on credit cards. I was doing every TV movie I could get my hands on. My husband had been in a terrible accident and for five years he didn’t work. I was hustling. It was not a pretty picture.” Dukakis said that during filming, Jewison predicted that she would win an Academy Award for “Moonstruck.” But Dukakis said she wasn’t stirred by the sentiment. “Only out of respect, I didn’t say, ‘You’re an idiot,’ ” she said. “Win an Academy Award for playing Rose? I don’t think so. And it turned out that he was right.”

Along with her film honors, she won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1963 for her Off-Broadway performance in Bertolt Brecht’s “Man Equals Man.”

-Indie Wire