Showing posts with label Superman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Superman. Show all posts

December 2, 2020

Christopher Reeve articles/mentions

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mentions:    
David Prowse, the greatest villain of all time  
Superman II ~ Margot Kidder picture disc
           
     
     
     
date & photographer unknown 
     
     
     
      
     















May 5, 2020

Meco (Domenico Monardo) articles/mentions

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Casablanca Records      
Patrick Gleeson's Star Wars 
       
    
      
       
    
      
            

Meco - 1978
Superman album cover detail
   
       














August 6, 2019

Lucille Ball ~ I love Lucy & her madcap adventures

















Today, August 6, 2019, is the birthday of Lucille Ball who starred, with her Cuban, English-destroying husband, Desi Arnaz, . . . 

 

. . . in the groundbreaking I Love Lucy sitcom which ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the CBS network.      
         
                
  

She was born Lucille Désirée Ball on August 6, 1911, in Jamestown, New York. She left home at the age of fifteen to study drama in New York City and began her early entertainment career with stints as a model and Goldwyn Girl. As well as a comedian, she was an actress, model, entertainment studio executive and producer. She was the star of the self-produced sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy, and Life with Lucy, as well as comedy television specials aired under the title The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.           

Her career began in 1929 when she was a model. Shortly thereafter, she began her performing career on Broadway using the stage names Diane Belmont and Dianne Belmont. She began her film debut in 1933 as a contract player for RKO Radio Pictures. She became known as the “Queen of the B’s” for her numerous roles in B-movies. She appeared in more than 75 films.        

In 1951, Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, launched a comedy television series, I Love Lucy, based on their own lives. The show pioneered technical aspects of a comedy show, using three cameras, a set, and a live audience. It was also the first time a visibly pregnant woman was seen on television. 
                 

Cast members from left, standing: 


Through the years I have watched episodes over and over but have never gotten tired of them; the show is dated in look but the situations are everyday human life which never grow old. There are so many episodes that I love: doing the Vitameatavegamin commercial, in the chocolate factory with Ethel, stomping grapes in Italy, Lucy and Superman. I could go on forever.        

"Lucy and Superman" - January 14, 1957 


Her talents extended beyond the realm of comedy, she became the first female studio head in Hollywood. As president of Desilu Productions, she broke the glass ceiling for women executives in the film and television industry and her shows live on in syndication.       

Ball went on to garner thirteen Emmy nominations and four Emmy Awards for her work. In 1986, she received a Kennedy Center Honor for her contributions to the world of entertainment. In 1989, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  

On April 18, 1989, Ball complained of chest pains at her home in Beverly Hills and was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was diagnosed with dissecting aortic aneurysm and underwent an eight-hour aortic transplant. Shortly after dawn on April 26, Ball awoke with severe back pains then lost consciousness; she died at 5:47 a.m. PDT at the age of 77. Doctors determined that Ball had succumbed to a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm not directly related to her upper aneurysm and surgery. Ball had been a heavy smoker most of her life, increasing her risk of abdominal aneurysm.          
          
       
         
       
Viewfinder link:
             
Lucille Ball           
    
Net links:       
       
Huff Post ~ Why Lucille Ball Was More Revolutionary Than You Think    
Everything Lucy        
Lucy on the radio      
   
    
YouTube links:            
           
I Love Lucy ~        
          The Chocolate Factory    
          Stomping Grapes         
          Vitameatavegamin      
Du Barry Was a Lady        
Jitterbug Bite                
Inside Story on the death of Lucille Ball   
   
   
       
      
date & photographer unknown



Happy birthday, Lucy, 
& thanks for decades of guffaws!

       
        
                 
Styrous® ~ Tuesday, August 6, 2017     







May 19, 2017

John Williams ~ A Soundtrack King

John Towner Williams was born on February 8, 1932. His career spans over six decades and he has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history, to many of the highest-grossing films of all time, including Jaws, the Star Wars series, Superman, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones series, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, the first two Home Alone movies, and the first three Harry Potter films.              
     
Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and 23 Grammy Awards. He has had 50 Academy Award nominations. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams' score to 1977's Star Wars as the greatest American film score of all time. The soundtrack to Star Wars was additionally preserved by the Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry, for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl's Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. Williams composed the score for eight movies in the Top 20 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office.         
    
Williams's style has been described as a form of neoromanticism, inspired by the late 19th century's large-scale orchestral music, in the style of Tchaikovsky or Richard Wagner compositions and their concept of leitmotif, that inspired his film music predecessors. He composed music for various television programs in the 1960s: the pilot episode of Gilligan's Island, Bachelor Father (1959-1960), the Kraft Suspense Theatre, Lost in Space (1965–68), The Time Tunnel (1966–67), and Land of the Giants (the last three created by TV producer, Irwin Allen). 
     
Williams has written many concert pieces, including a symphony; a Concerto for Horn written for Dale Clevenger, the Principal Hornist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; a Concerto for Clarinet written for Michele Zukovsky (the Principal Clarinetist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic) in 1991; a sinfonietta for wind ensemble; a cello concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood in 1994; concertos for the flute and violin recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra; and a trumpet concerto, which was premiered by The Cleveland Orchestra and their principal trumpet player, Michael Sachs, in September 1996.      
 
His bassoon concerto, The Five Sacred Trees, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic and principal bassoon player Judith LeClair in 1995, was recorded for Sony Classical by Williams with LeClair and the London Symphony Orchestra. Williams was the subject of an hour-long documentary for the BBC in 1980, and was featured in a report on 20/20 in 1983.      
      
From 1980–93, Williams succeeded Arthur Fiedler as the Boston Pops Orchestra's Principal Conductor. His arrival as the Pops' new leader in the spring of 1980 allowed him to devote part of the Pops' first PBS broadcast of the season to presenting his new compositions for The Empire Strikes Back.     
    
Williams almost ended his tenure with the Pops in 1984. Some players hissed while sight-reading a new Williams composition in rehearsal; Williams abruptly left the session and turned in his resignation. He initially cited mounting conflicts with his film composing schedule, but later admitted a perceived lack of discipline in, and respect from, the Pops' ranks, culminating in this latest instance. After entreaties by the management and personal apologies from the musicians, Williams withdrew his resignation and continued as principal conductor for nine more years. In 1995, he was succeeded by Keith Lockhart, the former associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.
     
Williams is now the Pops' Laureate Conductor, thus maintaining his affiliation with its parent, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). Williams leads the Pops on several occasions each year, particularly during their Holiday Pops season and typically for a week of concerts in May. He conducts an annual Film Night at both Boston Symphony Hall and Tanglewood.




  
John Williams Net links:             
          
  Website            
  Discography               
  Concert works    
  Awards      
          
YouTube links:        
         
  Concerto for Horn  
  Concerto for Clarinet        
  Cello Concerto      
  Concerto For Flute And Violin      
  Concerto for Trumpet   
  Sinfonietta for Wind Ensemble   
  The Five Sacred Trees    
         
            
Styrous® ~ Friday May 19, 2017