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This page will be devoted to silly pictures, some of which I'll rotate from the home page. This first picture, incidentally, shows a scene cut from the film
The Wild Ones.
I was originally cast in the part that went to Lee Marvin, but Marlon Brando had me kicked off the set when he saw that I was dressed exactly the same as he was. That hardly seemed fair, since we were supposed to be in the same biker gang.
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Do you know the story of how Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch)
was burned during the filming of
The Wizard of Oz
? Something similar happened to me when I was making
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
I was cast as the Yankee. Duirng the shooting of the scene in which the Yankee was about to be burned at the stake, some idiot actually lit the wood while I was strapped to a pole. As you can imagine, I got really hot. Fortunately, I wasn't burned badly, but I had to drop out of the production. After Bing Crosby replaced me, they turned the movie into a musical. Damned shame, if you ask me. It would have been a much different (and better) film if I had been able to finish it. This is a story you won't find in the history books.
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Some of us do need stinkin' badges.
While other young people were burning their draft cards, protesting against the government, and tuning out, I never lost my patriotism. In 1970 I paid a call on President Trixon and asked him to give me a narcotics officer badge so I could do my bit in the war against drugs.
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Busman's holiday.
During the early '50s, I did a pilot for a new TV series, but it didn't get picked up, so I went back to college. It was a stupid idea anyway--something about a bus driver living in a squalid New York apartment. Later my agent called and told me to beat it down to the studio because that show was going to do another pilot. I told him to forget about it. The show never would have caught on. What do I know, though? I never watched much TV in those days. When I told my roommate, Jackie about the call, he gave me a funny look and left. I haven't seen him since. I wonder what became of him.
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Seam me up, Scotty!
Who doesn't love the original
Star Trek
series? I sure do! One of the things I've most enjoyed about watching old reruns is seeing how fast the show's vision of the future got old. For example, how about those uniforms they wear in the 23rd century?! Long ago, a good friend of mine, who was a serious science fiction reader, told me that he couldn't bring himself to watch any show set in the future in which everyone wears baggy velour shirts. Next time you watch an old
Star Trek
episode, count how many times members of the
Enterprise
crew tug their shirts down when they stand up. (Maybe I'm expecting too much. Even Captain Pickard of the 24th century occasionally had to tug his shirt down.) Some future, huh? They can put a ship the size of a football stadium into hyperdrive, but they can't make clothes that don't bunch up.
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From my wedding album.
Kathy would probably prefer that I not post any pictures from my first marriage; however, I'm a historian, and pictures like this are part of my history.
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