RAQUEL WELCH / STELLA STEVENS

 February may be the month of love and sweethearts but this year it has been particularly harsh with two of my early crushes: Raquel Welch and Stella Stevens, both of whom passed away on this month.

                                                                   RAQUEL WELCH                                                    

                                                  (September 5, 1940 - February 15, 2023)

Welch first won attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage (1966), after which she won a contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer Film Productions, for whom she made One Million Years B.C. (1966). Although Welch had only three lines of dialogue in the film, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became best selling posters that turned her into an international sex symbol. She later starred in Bedazzled (1967), Bandolero! (1968), 100 Rifles (1969), Myra Breckinridge (1970), and Hannie Caulder (1971). She made several television variety specials. WIKIPEDIA

STELLA STEVENS

(October 1, 1938 – February 17, 2023)

Stevens began her acting career in 1959 in the film Say One for Me produced by and starring Bing Crosby and appeared in several TV series such as the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, General Electric Theatre and Bonanza in 1960. She won the 1960 Golden Globe Award for "New Star of the Year".

That year she appeared in three Playboy Pictorials and was named Playmate of the Month for January 1960. She starred in films such as Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), The Nutty Professor (1963), The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963), The Silencers (1966), Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and The Poseidon Adventure (1972).  Stevens subsequently focused more on TV roles, miniseries, and movies including roles in The Love Boat (1977, 1983), Hart to Hart (1979), Newhart (1983), Murder, She Wrote (1985), Magnum, P.I. (1986), Highlander: The Series (1995), and Twenty Good Years (2006). WIKIPEDIA

(Happily, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren,Joan Collins, Elke Sommer, Ann-Margret, Ursula Andress, Angie Dickinson, Jacqueline Bisset, Catherine Deneuve, Linda Evans and Mamie Van Doren are still with us!)

Valentine's Day, 2023!

ACTING!

With the Academy Awards Ceremony coming up next month, it is with great joy and pride that I submit my nomination for acting in a real life drama.

Trying to watch the Green Comet...

The Mr. Magoo Cameos

 I love the cartoon character of Mister Magoo. I remember watching his antics at the movie theater and later on television. He's not the usual cartoon type of character. For one thing, he's a human. Not many human beings were featured as stars in those old classic animation shorts so it was kind of a departure.

WIKIPEDIA describes him like this: "Mr. Magoo is an elderly, wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of comical situations as a result of his extreme near-sightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem".

Mr. Magoo was also featured in a series of comic books throughout the 50s and 60s,

and for a while, was even published as a syndicated comic strip. The strips were then compiled into a paperback which has been the only source I have relied upon to read them. 

Quincy Magoo was also prominently displayed in several General Electric ads:

So for me, it was only natural to include him as a cameo figure in several of my newspaper cartoons:

Even his nephew Waldo made an appearance!

Oh, Magoo! You've done it again!

COLUMBO: The End of the Series

COLUMBO was an American TV series starring Peter Falk, which had its premiere  as a TV Movie of the Week on February 20, 1968 under the title PRESCRIPTION MURDER and also starring Gene Barry as Dr. Ray Flemming, a psychiatrist who murders his wife when she discovers he's having an affair with one of his patients. The movie pretty much establishes the character of Lt. Columbo of the LAPD. Here, Columbo establishes two of his most famous trademarks by needing to borrow a pencil and, just before leaving the psychiatrist's office, by saying, "There's one more thing . . . ". 

With Gene Barry

Three years later, on March 1st, 1971, the second COLUMBO TV Movie was telecast, starring Lee Grant as attorney Leslie Williams, who is so bored with her husband, she decides to fake his kidnapping after killing him and then plans to keep the ransom.

 Lee Grant

Finally, COLUMBO became one of three rotating programs of The NBC MYSTERY MOVIE and the first episode titled MURDER BY THE BOOK with guest star Jack Cassidy premiered on September 15, 1971. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

 Jack Cassidy

Robert Culp

 Robert Vaughn

 Dick Van Dyke

 John Cassavetes

Kim Hunter, Don Ameche and Ross Martin

 Susan Clark and Leslie Nielsen

Robert Vaughn

 Martin Landau

Jackie Cooper

 Patrick O'Neal

Donald Pleasence

Patrick McGoohan

Patrick McGoohan

Patrick McGoohan

Sally Kellerman, Patrick McGoohan and Rue McClanahan

And eventually, after some 69 episodes, COLUMBO appeared solving his last case, exactly twenty years ago, on January 30, 2003 in the episode COLUMBO LIKES THE NIGHTLIFE.

Peter Falk passed away on June 23rd, 2011 at 83.

After so many years it is understandable that some episodes were not as good as others but for me, the first seven seasons, from 1971 to 1978, were all winners.  Peter Falk had a long and distinguished career playing all sorts of roles, in comedy and drama but his ultimate legacy will always be as Lt. Columbo, the classic and unforgettable lieutenant who solved murders by sheer ingenuity, logic, lots of luck, and his uncanny powers of observation.

"Oh, there's one more thing!..."