December 11 Birthday Wishes

Gilbert Roland [1905 - 1994]
Marie Windsor [1919 - 2000]
Eddie Firestone [1920 - 2007]
Richard Devon [1926 -2010]
Robert Ivers [1934 - 2003]

Howdy Manco!!

Gilbert Roland was a Spanish/Mexican actor, whose career spanned 6 decades. First appearing in the silent films in 1925, his handsome looks and virile physique would propel him to stardom, in films like Beneath The Twelve Mile Reef, The Bad And The Beautiful. He appeared in at least 6 serial films as the Cisco Kid in South Of Monterey, King Of Bandits, Riding The California Trail etc, long before Duncan Renaldo took on the role. He could also play Arab villains like The Desert Hawk and Hispanic villains, as in The Last Of The Fast Guns and American Indians like Dull Knife in Cheyenne Autumn. During the 50's and 60's, Roland made many guest appearances on the t.v. westerns, lke Death Valley Days, Zorro, Gunsmoke and Bonanza. Roland made his last appearance in the 1982 Willie Nelson/Gary Busey film, Barbaroso, as Don Braulio.

Marie Windsor played more adulterous wives, slutty girlfriends and gun molls than almost any female star in Hollywood. She just had the look of a brazen woman and was typecast for most of her career in that role. She appeared in many frontier/western films, like The Fighting Kentuckian, Dakota L'il, Frenchie etc. Her most famous role was probably the film, The Killing, with Elisha Cook jr. She also was cast as the landlady in the 1979 thriller, Salem's Lot with David Soul. In her later years, she often played good hearted floozies and ladies with hearts of gold, as in Mail Order Bride, The Good Guys And The Bad Guys and Cahill, U.S. Marshal. She did her last acting on the Angela Lansbury series, Murder, She Wrote.

Eddie Firestone was a character actor, whose career spanned over 40 years in film and t.v. First appearing in 1949, he would go on to appear in several excellent films, like The Great Locomotive Chase, The Law And Jake Wade and the supurb made for t.v. film, Duel. Firestone appeared on many of the t.v. westerns like Bonanza, Tales Of Wells Fargo, but is probably best known for his role of " Hap" on Gunsmoke.

Richard Devon got his start playing in a kiddies show called Space Patrol in 1950. From there he was immediately cast as the bad guy in almost every film and t.v. series I've ever seen him in. He had a sneering smile and a phony con man air about him that made him perfect for these roles. He was in the original 3:10 To Yuma, Machine Gun Kelly, The Badlanders, Cattle King and on every t.v. western you can name as a gunslinger, gang member, bully, con man, prison guard etc. Tom Goldrup related a story about Devon being on a western set with Audie Murphy, in which Audie was supposed to ride up, dismount and charge through the door where the bad guys( Devon) were. Devon said he was tired from a long day and decided to pull a prank on Audie. Instead of the door flying open, Devon, who was a much bigger man that Audie, braced against the back of the door and when Audie hit the door, he bounced off like a ping pong ball. I don't know if I would have tried this with a man who was known to have killed over 100 men during a pitched battle in Europe during WW II. I believe it was also Devon that talked about Alan Ladd wouldn't get near him on another western set, because of the difference in height and had the director tell Devon to stoop down, when he was on the set with Ladd, to minimize the difference in height. He also said that when his scenes were finished, Ladd chased him down and told him what a pleasure it was to work with him.

Robert Ivers was another character/supporting actor, whose career, although short, appeared in films with Elvis Presley in G.I. Blues, Jerry Lewis in The Errand Boy and The Delicate Delinquent, James Cagney in Shortcut To Hell and Robert Taylor in Cattle King. Most of Iver's career was spent on t.v. on series like Tombstone Territory, Bat Masterson, The Virginian and his last role on the 1960's series, 12 O'clock High.

Ed

Eddie Firestone invited us to his home to interview Michael Pate who was visiting him from Australia. Eddie was a really nice guy. He almost drowned while making an Alan Ladd western in which he played a prisoner, and the prison guard, played my good friend Richard Devon (who also celebrates his birthday today) saved his life. We are still in contact with Richard's widow, the thing I remember most about them is that whenever they went out together they always held hands, like the day the four of us walked to a restaurant for lunch and they held hands as they walked down the street.....and they were holding hands when he passed away. He had many funny stories he shared with us about his days in Hollywood.

Also today:

Rita Moreno (1931-), the lovely Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer, appeared in movies such as Cattle Town, Fort Vengeance, The King and I, The Yellow Tomahawk, and The Deerslayer, before being cast in the Oscar winning role of Anita in West Side Story. Kids who grew up in the '70s would remember her from the TV show The Electric Company. She was the first Hispanic to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.

Lynda Day George (1944-) appeared on Route 66, Flipper, The Fugitive, Bonanza, Mannix and The Virginian before being cast as Lisa Casey on Mission:Impossible, for which she earned and Emmy and Golden Globe nomination. She got married to actor Christopher George after appearing together in Chisum with John Wayne, then appeared in several TV shows and movies through the 1970s and '80s. She retired from acting in 1989.

AND: Hailee Steinfeld, Mattie Ross in the recent version of True Grit, and soon to be seen as part of the title role in a new version of Romeo and Juliet. I'm sure everybody cab guess which half.

Rita Moreno! What a career she's had. Her cantina singer at the beginning of Garden of Evil was probably the high point of that movie for me. She also played Sonseeahray (the Debra Paget role) in the "20th Century Fox Hour" version of Broken Arrow, in which John Lupton played Tom Jeffords for the first time. I caught that on the Fox Movie Channel a few years ago, and I think she was more down-to-earth, less "Hollywood" and more believable than DP (who, no doubt about it, was a beauty). Well, Happy 81st, Rita!