Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thu Dec 03, 2009

ON THE NEXT ROBERT CONRAD SHOW

Loretta Swit is an American stage and television actress known for her character roles. The naturally blonde Swit is best-known for her two-time Emmy-winning portrayal of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H. Swit was born in Passaic, New Jersey. She has Polish ancestry. She studied with Gene Frankel in Manhattan and considered him her acting coach. She regularly returned to his studio to speak with aspiring actors throughout her career. Swit is also a singer who trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before entering the theater. She graduated from Pope Pius XII High School in Passaic, NJ, in 1955. In 1967, Swit toured with the national company of Any Wednesday, starring Gardner McKay. She would continue as one of the Pigeon sisters opposite Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine in a Los Angeles run of The Odd Couple. In 1975, Swit played in Same Time, Next Year on Broadway opposite Ted Bessell. She also performed on Broadway in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. From there, she played Agnes Gooch in the Las Vegas version of Mame, starring Susan Hayward and later, Celeste Holm. Most recently, Swit has toured with The Vagina Monologues. When Swit arrived in Hollywood in 1970, she performed in television shows, including Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, and Mannix. Starting in 1972, Swit played Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the television series M*A*S*H. She inherited the star-making role from actress Sally Kellerman, who portrayed Houlihan in the feature film. Swit, Alan Alda, Jamie Farr, and William Christopher stayed for all 11 seasons of the show, from 1972 to 1983. She, along with Alda, Christopher, and Farr, all had on- and off-screen chemistry with each other and spent a great deal of time together. She and Alda were the only two actors to have been on the pilot episode and the finale; she appeared in all but 11 of the total of 251 episodes. Swit received two Emmy Awards for her work on M*A*S*H. Later, she was also the first M*A*S*H star to visit South Korea, when she narrated the documentary Korea, the Forgotten War.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thu Nov 26, 2009

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

George Gordon Battle Liddy (born November 30, 1930) was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit that existed during several years of Richard Nixon's Presidency. Along with E. Howard Hunt, Liddy masterminded the first break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in 1972. The subsequent cover-up of the Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation in 1974; Liddy served four and a half years in prison for his role in the burglary. Liddy later joined with Timothy Leary for a series of comedic debates on various college campuses, and also similarly worked with Al Franken in the late 1990s. Liddy is currently a radio talk show host. His radio show as of 2009 is syndicated in 160 markets by Radio America and on both Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio stations in the United States. He has also been a guest panelist for Fox News Channel in addition to appearing in a cameo role or as a guest celebrity talent in several television shows.Bob played Liddy in the 1982 NBC Movie "Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy"

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Thu Nov 19, 2009

Bob welcomes Lindsay Wagner this week.

Lindsay Jean Wagner (born June 22) is an American actress. She is probably most widely known for her portrayal of Jaime Sommers in the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman (for which she won an Emmy award), though she has maintained a lengthy career in a variety of other film and television productions since. Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Marilyn Louise (née Thrasher) and William Nowels Wagner. When she was seven years old, her parents divorced and her mother moved with her to the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock, near Pasadena. Another move with her mother and stepfather (Ted Ball) brought her to Portland, Oregon, where she attended David Douglas High School and appeared in a number of school plays. She studied at the University of Oregon. Wagner worked as a model in Los Angeles, and gained some television experience by appearing as a hostess in Playboy After Dark. However, it was not until she contacted a friend at Universal Studios and was cast in a small part in Marcus Welby, M.D. that her acting career took off. Her appearances helped her win roles in the films Two People and The Paper Chase. Wagner played a total of four different roles on the Marcus Welby, M.D. series between 1971-75, as well as a recurring guest role in The Rockford Files. In 1975, Wagner then played Jaime Sommers, a former tennis pro who was the childhood sweetheart of Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin (played by Lee Majors). In a two-part episode entitled "The Bionic Woman", Jaime was critically injured in a skydiving accident and, at Steve's request, she was equipped with bionic limbs similar to his own (with the exception of his bionic eye, as Jaime was equipped with a bionic ear instead). Unfortunately, Jaime's body rejected her new bionics and she later died. This was intended to be Wagner's last role under her Universal contract, but public response to the character was so overwhelming that Jaime was "brought back to life" with her own spin-off series, The Bionic Woman (it was discovered that Jaime hadn't really died but had been put into cryogenic suspension until she could be cured). Like Steve, Jaime became an agent for the U.S. Government agency, the O.S.I., though, suffering from amnesia, she could not remember her love for Steve. However, the two would team up for several crossover episodes throughout the series' run. The role earned Wagner an Emmy Award for "Best Actress in a Dramatic Role" in 1977. Following the cancellation of The Bionic Woman in 1978, Wagner continued to act, predominantly in television mini-series and made-for-TV movies. These included the highly rated 1980 mini-series Scruples, as well as three made-for-TV Bionic reunion movies with Lee Majors between 1987 and 1994. Also in the 1980s, Wagner starred in two more weekly television series; Jessie (1984) and A Peaceable Kingdom (1989), though both of these were short-lived. Wagner continued to act in the 1990s and 2000s, though in less prominent roles, such as the action movie "Ricochet" (1991), Her most recent projects have included the 2005 telemovie, Thicker than Water, with Melissa Gilbert, Buckaroo: The Movie (2005), and, Four Extraordinary Women (2006). In 1987, Wagner wrote a series of books with Robert M. Klein about using acupressure to achieve results akin to a surgical facelift. Wagner was the spokesperson for Ford Motor Company. Wagner also appears in infomercials for Select Comfort's Sleep Number bed. More recently, Wagner has given seminars and workshops for her self-help therapy, "Quiet the Mind & Open the Heart", which promotes spirituality and meditation. Wagner lived with Capt. Daniel M. Yoder USAF, until he went to Vietnam. She has been married four times. From 1971–73, she was married to music publisher Allan Rider. From late 1976–79, she was married to the actor Michael Brandon. In 1981, she married stuntman Henry Kingi whom she met on the set of The Bionic Woman. Wagner had two sons with Kingi; Dorian (b. 1982) and Alex (b. 1986). She and Kingi eventually divorced. Wagner married TV producer Lawrence Mortorff in 1990, but they also divorced a couple of years later. Wagner at one time was related to Dallas star Linda Gray, as Gray's ex-husband is Ed Thrasher, who is one of Wagner's uncles. Wagner and Gray also played romantic rivals in the television movie The Two Worlds of Jenny Logan (1979). Wagner is on the board of directors of the Teen Talking Circles Project and is an active supporter of Girls Talking Circles

Lindsay's Website & New CD www.opentooneness.com

Monday, November 9, 2009

Thu Nov 12, 2009

DOUGLAS BRODE -
"Shooting Stars of the Small Screen: Encyclopedia of TV Western Actors, 1946-present "
DOUGLAS BRODE is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright, film historian, and multi-award winning journalist. The author of more than thirty books on film, TV, and American popular culture, he teaches at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications. "This volume enshrines and preserves the essence of what the TV Western has always been all about." --Fess Parker, star of the Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone TV series, from the foreword Since the beginning of television, Westerns have been playing on the small screen. From the mid-1950s until the early 1960s, they were one of TV's most popular genres, with millions of viewers tuning in to such popular shows as Rawhide, Gunsmoke, and Disney's Davy Crockett. Though the cultural revolution of the later 1960s contributed to the demise of traditional Western programs, the Western never actually disappeared from TV. Instead, it took on new forms, such as the highly popular Lonesome Dove and Deadwood, while exploring the lives of characters who never before had a starring role, including anti-heroes, mountain men, farmers, Native and African Americans, Latinos, and women. Shooting Stars of the Small Screen is a comprehensive encyclopedia of more than 450 actors who received star billing or played a recurring character role in a TV Western series or a made-for-TV Western movie or miniseries from the late 1940s up to 2008. Douglas Brode covers the highlights of each actor's career, including Western movie work, if significant, to give a full sense of the actor's screen persona(s). Within the entries are discussions of scores of popular Western TV shows that explore how these programs both reflected and impacted the social world in which they aired. Brode opens the encyclopedia with a fascinating history of the TV Western that traces its roots in B Western movies, while also showing how TV Westerns developed their own unique storytelling conventions.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Thursday Nov 5, 2009

ON THE NEXT ROBERT CONRAD SHOW -

Bernard Morton "Bernie" Kopell is an American television actor who portrayed Alan-a-Dale in When Things Were Rotten, Jerry Bauman in That Girl, Siegfried in Get Smart, Louie Pallucci in The Doris Day Show, and Dr. Adam Bricker in The Love Boat. Kopell also played several characters on the hit sitcom Bewitched most notably in episode # 239, "The Warlock in the Gray Flannel Suit", as the warlock Alonzo. He played a director in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("Good-Bye George," original air date December 13, 1963). About this same time, he guest starred on Phil Silvers's unsuccessful sitcom The New Phil Silvers Show on CBS. He had a cameo as a patient in the Scrubs episode, "My Friend the Doctor", as well as an episode of the Disney Channel Original Series, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Kopell made a cameo appearance in the 2008 film adaptation of Get Smart. Recently he has been seen in television advertisements for Nasalcrom, carefully enunciating the product's name and assuring viewers "that's right, it's a spray". More recently Kopell appeared as guest start in the Monk episode "Mr. Monk and the Critic", playing Mr. Gilson, the restroom attendant. Kopell was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Pauline (née Taran) and Al Bernard Kopell.CRN's "PM SHOW with ROBERT CONRAD" reaches a national audience in excess of 5 million on Time Warner Cable, Cox Cable, Comcast Cable and radio stations and satellite operators coast to coast. A complete affiliate list is available on our web at CRNTALK.com and you may also listen there as well, as we have worldwide streaming on the web. Robert Conrad is a popular television actor and the star of, "Wild, Wild West", "Ba Ba Black Sheep", "Hawaiian Eye" , and others. He talks about his views, thoughts and career in a lively 2 hour live national radio show.