RIP: GENE HACKMAN

Gene Hackman could trace back his entire acting career to one moment when he was 13 years old: His father left the family and, as he left, he walked right past his son and said nothing — just gave a slight wave.

Decades later, Hackman said he still thought about that little wave, and how much an actor could show, or hide, with just one understated gesture.

Hackman channeled that experience into a long career in acting, appearing in more than 100 movies and TV shows. The two-time Oscar winner and his wife were found dead in their New Mexico home, a Santa Fe County Sheriff's spokesperson said Thursday. Hackman was 95 years old.

Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Denise Avila confirmed the deaths in a statement.

In a released statement, the sheriff's spokesperson did not provide a cause of death for Hackman or his 64-year-old wife, Betsy Arakawa. The pair and a dog were found dead Wednesday afternoon in their home. Foul play was not suspected, authorities said.

Hackman played complicated men — many of them not very nice. He won his first Oscar for his performance in the 1972 film The French Connection, in which he played a hard-nosed New York cop who roughs up a drug dealer — while dressed in a Santa suit. He won his second Academy Award playing a sadistic sheriff in the 1992 Western Unforgiven.

Hackman was tough in real life, too. He went to jail at 16 for stealing, and right after that talked his way into the Marines. Hackman bumped around for a decade, then signed up for acting lessons at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse. He hated everyone there — except for a short kid with a big nose named Dustin Hoffman. Hackman and Hoffman were both kicked out of the program for lack of acting talent, so they moved to New York and slowly broke into the movies.

"It's always more fun to play heavy than it is to play a good guy," Hackman told Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 1999.

He did play some good guys — the inspirational coach in the movie Hoosiers, a preacher in the Poseidon Adventure — but Hackman was a coiled snake of an actor, always with a hint of menace. Hackman said he dug for intense emotions in his roles and kept them under wraps.

"I find in me a sadistic streak," he said. "I find something in me that maybe might not be very attractive, but I feel might be valuable in this context — under certain circumstances we're all capable of murder, I suppose."

Hackman epitomized a 1970s, edgy, tightly wound masculinity. He intimidated the cast of The Royal Tennenbaums, from 2001, including Luke Wilson, who played his adopted son. In a Fresh Air interview a few years later, Wilson remembered doing a scene with Hackman — his idol. Wilson kept fumbling his lines.

"He just looked back at me with this glance that shivered me to the bone," Wilson recalled with a laugh. "And needless to say, I nailed it on the next take."

The part was written with Hackman in mind, but director Wes Anderson told Fresh Air it took him months to convince Hackman to do it.

"He was happiest when he was doing a hard shot," Anderson said. "He's such a good actor he can do anything and he sort of likes a chance to stretch his legs."

Hackman tried stretching his legs in other directions — he painted and wrote novels. He retired from acting multiple times during his career, but multiple times, he returned.

"If you've done it as long as I have, it's very hard to drop it." he explained. "You know, there's something very seductive about acting. You come to work and there's 90 people waiting for you to do something. There's something both very heady, and seductive and unattractive about that."

Some critics thought he made too many small, weird movies in the 1960s and too much commercial dreck in the 1980s and after. But unflinching, funny, surly, and a study in self-possession — Hackman became one of the most sought-after actors of his generation...

THE PASSING SCENE OF 2024

Another year is over, and sadly another year of losing great stars. entertainers, and legends that helped make life a little bit more enjoyable and a little bit more interesting. Here are some of the greats we lost in 2024...

Bob Newhart

Comedian BOB NEWHART died at the age of 94 on July 18th. Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his record album of comedic monologues, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became a bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart; it remains the 20th-best-selling album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, was also a success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.Newhart hosted a short-lived NBC variety show titled The Bob Newhart Show (1961) before starring as Chicago psychologist Robert Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 to 1978 and then as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on series Newhart from 1982 to 1990. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the 1990s, Bob and George and Leo. Newhart acted in films such as Catch-22 (1970), Cold Turkey (1971), In & Out (1997), and Elf (2003). He also voiced Bernard in the Disney animated films The Rescuers (1977) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990). Newhart played Professor Proton on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from 2013 to 2018, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award.

Actress JANIS PAIGE, died on June 2nd at the age of 102. Paige was one of the last stars of the "Golden Years Of Hollywood". She started her career in 1944, and was popular in Warner Brothers and later MGM musicals. Stardom came in 1954 with her role as Babe in the Broadway musical The Pajama Game. She danced with Fred Astaire in MGM's Silk Stockings in 1957.Paige appeared in touring productions of musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Applause, Sweet Charity, Ballroom, Gypsy: A Musical Fable, and Guys and Dolls. Roles on television continued throughout the 1990s, but she retired from perofrming in 2001, but made appearances through 2022.

Comedian, RICHARD LEWIS, died of a heart attack on February 27th at the age of 76. Lewis came to prominence in the 1980s and became known for his dark, neurotic, and self-deprecating humor. As an actor, he was known for starring in the ABC sitcom Anything but Love from 1989 to 1992, and for playing the role of Prince John in the 1993 film Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Lewis also had a recurring role as a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm from 2000 to 2024. He quit stand up in 2018, but kept on making acting appearances through this year.

Actress, GLYNIS JOHNS, died on January 4th at the age of 100. She made her screen debut in 1938's South Riding. She is best remembered for playing the mother in 1964's Mary Poppins. In 1973, she introduced Stephen Sondheim's song "Send In the Clowns" on Broadway in A Little Night Music. She played the camera-toting grandmother in the 1995 Sandra Bullock hit While You Were Sleeping. and made her last appearance on film in 1999.

Actress, CHITA RIVERA, died at the age of 91 on January 30th. After making her Broadway debut as a dancer in Guys and Dolls (1950), she went on to originate roles in Broadway musicals such as Anita in West Side Story (1957), Velma Kelly in Chicago (1975), and the title role in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993). She was a ten-time Tony Award nominee, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice for her roles in The Rink (1984) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993). She was Tony-nominated for her roles in Bye Bye Birdie (1961), Chicago (1975), Bring Back Birdie (1981), Merlin (1983), Jerry's Girls (1986), Nine (2003), Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life (2005), and The Visit (2015). She had her last acting role in 2021.

Donald Sutherland

Actor DONALD SUTHERLAND, died on June 20th at the age of 88. He received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. He is cited as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. He received an Academy Honorary Award in 2017. Sutherland rose to fame after starring in films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), and Kelly's Heroes (1970). He subsequently starred in many films both in leading and supporting roles, including Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), The Day of the Locust (1975), Fellini's Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), 1900 (1976), Animal House (1978), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Ordinary People (1980), Eye of the Needle (1981), A Dry White Season (1989), Backdraft (1991), JFK (1991), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), Without Limits (1998), The Italian Job (2003), and Pride & Prejudice (2005). More recently, Sutherland portrayed President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise. Donald continued working through 2023.

KATHRYN CROSBY, the widow of entertainer Bing Crosby died at the age of 90 on September 20th. Kathryn was a minor B-actress who met Bing on the Paramount lot in 1953. They married in 1957 and had three children together - two boys and a girl. They remained married until Bing's death in 1977. Kathryn returned to performing after Bing's death and was remarried from 2000 to 2010. 

Actor LOUIS GOSSETT JR, died on March 29th at the age of 87. Gosssett started on broadyway in critically acclaimed plays including A Raisin in the Sun (1959), The Blacks (1961), Tambourines to Glory (1963), and The Zulu and the Zayda (1965). In 1977, Gossett appeared in the popular miniseries Roots, for which he won Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama or Comedy Series at the Emmy Awards. In 1982, for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and became the first black actor to win in this category. He was last seen in the movie muscal remake of The Color Purple in 2023.

Actress SHELLEY DUVALL, died at the age of 75 on July 11th. She was a popular actress in the 1980s. Duvall gained prominence for her leading roles as Olive Oyl in Altman's adventure film Popeye, and Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's horror film The Shining, both in 1980. She appeared in Terry Gilliam's fantasy film Time Bandits (1981), and Fred Schepisi's comedy film Roxanne (1987). She ventured into producing television programming aimed at children and youth in the latter half of the 1980s, creating and hosting the programs Faerie Tale Theatre (1982–1987), Tall Tales & Legends (1985–1987), Nightmare Classics (1989) and Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories (1992–1994). She made her last movie appearance in 2022.

Character actor BILL COBBS died at the age of 90 on June 25th. He is known for such film roles as Louisiana Slim in The Hitter (1979), Walter in The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Reginald in Night at the Museum (2006) and Master Tinker on Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). He played Lewis Coleman on I'll Fly Away (1991–1993), Jack on The Michael Richards Show (2000), and had guest appearances on Walker, Texas Ranger and The Sopranos. In 2012, he had a recurring role as George in the sitcom, Go On. In 2020, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Performance in a Daytime Program for the series Dino Dana. His last role was in 2023.

James Earl Jones

Actor JAMES EARL JONES, died at the age of 93 on September 9th. He was one of the leading black actors of his generation. He was known as the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies but he made so many other memorable movie appearances. Beside the Star Wars sequels, Jones was featured in several other box office hits of the 1980s: the action/fantasy film Conan the Barbarian (1982), the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America (1988), and the sports drama/fantasy Field of Dreams (1989). He also lent his distinctive bass voice to the role of Mufasa in the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King. He worked doing voice over work and making appearances on television shows until later in his careeer. He retired from performing in 2021...

Singer STEVE LAWRENCE, died at the age of 88 from complications from Alzheimer's Disease on March 7th. He was best known as a member of the pop vocal duo "Steve and Eydie" with his wife Eydie Gormé, and for his performance as Maury Sline, the manager and friend of the main characters in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Steve and Eydie first appeared together as regulars on Tonight Starring Steve Allen in 1954 and continued performing as a duo until Gormé's retirement in 2009. Lawrence had success by means of the musical hit parades in the late 1950s and early 1960s with such hits as "Party Doll" (U.S. No. 5), "Pretty Blue Eyes" (U.S. No. 9), "Footsteps" (U.S. No. 7), "Portrait of My Love" (U.S. No. 9), and "Go Away Little Girl" (U.S. No. 1). Steve retired in 2019.

Comedian MARTIN MULL died on June 27th at the age of 80. Mull gained visibility on screen for Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and its spin-off Fernwood 2 Night. His other notable roles include Colonel Mustard in the 1985 film Clue, Leon Carp on Roseanne, Willard Kraft on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Vlad Masters / Vlad Plasmius on Danny Phantom, and Gene Parmesan on Arrested Development. He had a recurring role on Two and a Half Men as Russell, the drug-using, humorous pharmacist. He made his last television appearance in 2023.

Actress TERRI GARR, died at the age of 79 on October 29th. She was a popular actress of the 1970s and 1980s. She starred in the monumental comedy Young Frankenstein (1974) starring Gene Wilder as as being nominated for an Oscar for her role in Tootsie in 1982. Garr's career began to slow in the late 1990s after a neurologist informed her that symptoms she had been experiencing for many years were those of multiple sclerosis. Garr last acted on television in 2011. She appeared at the 19th Annual Race to Erase MS event in 2012.

Entertainer PETER MARSHALL, died on August 15th at the age of 98. He was an American game show host, television, radio personality, singer, and actor. He was the original host of The Hollywood Squares from 1966 to 1981 and has almost fifty television, movie, and Broadway credits.He retired in 2021.

Carl Weathers

Actor CARL WEATHERS, died on February 1st, at the age of 76. His roles included boxer Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky films (1976–1985), Colonel Al Dillon in Predator (1987), Chubbs Peterson in Happy Gilmore (1996), and Combat Carl in the Toy Story franchise. He also portrayed Det. Beaudreaux in the television series Street Justice (1991–1993) and a fictionalized version of himself in the comedy series Arrested Development (2004, 2013), and voiced Omnitraxus Prime in Star vs. the Forces of Evil (2017–2019). He had a recurring role as Greef Karga in the Star Wars series The Mandalorian (2019–2023), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

Actress GENA ROWLANDS, died on August 14th at the age of 94 from Alzheimer's Disease.She is known for her collaborations with her actor-director husband John Cassavetes in ten films, including A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), both of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for Opening Night (1977). She is also known for her performances in Woody Allen's Another Woman (1988), and her son Nick Cassavetes's film, The Notebook (2004). She retired from acting in 2015, and in 2019 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.

Televions personality RICHARD SIMMONS, died on July 13th at the age of 76. Simmons was an American fitness personality and public figure. He was a promoter of weight-loss programs, most prominently through his Sweatin' to the Oldies line of aerobics videos.Simmons began his weight-loss career by opening his gym Slimmons in Beverly Hills, California, catering to the overweight, and he became widely known through exposure on television and through the popularity of his consumer products. He was often parodied and was a frequent guest of late-night television and radio talk shows, such as the Late Show with David Letterman and The Howard Stern Show.

Actress LINDA LAVIN, died on December 29th at the age of 87. She was a broadway star until she moved to Hollywood in 1973. She starred as the title character in the television show Alice from 1976 to 1985. Lavin continued to work until the end, and she was currently working on a Hulu series for Hulu with the working title "Mid-Century Modern" with Nathan Lane.

Actress MAGGIE SMITH, died at the age of 89 on September 27th. In later years she was known for her roles in the Harry Potter movies and Downtown Abby series, but she had a decades long career in every medium. Smith won Academy Awards for Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978). She was Oscar-nominated for Othello (1965), Travels with My Aunt (1972), A Room with a View (1985) and Gosford Park (2001). Maggie largely retired by 2023.

Barbara Rush

Actress BARBARA RUSH, died on March 31st at the age of 97. In 1954, she won the Golden Globe Award for most promising female newcomer for her role in the 1953 American science-fiction film It Came from Outer Space. Later in her career, Rush became a regular performer in the television series Peyton Place, and appeared in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other programs, including the soap opera All My Children and the family drama 7th Heaven, as well as starring in films such as The Young Philadelphians, The Young Lions, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and Hombre. She retired from acting in 2017.

Character actor M. EMMET WALSH, died of cardiac arrest on March 20th at the age of 88 He was an American character actor who appeared in over 200 films and television series, including small but important supporting roles such as Earl Frank in Straight Time (1978), the Madman in The Jerk (1979), Captain Bryant in Blade Runner (1982), Harv in Critters (1986), and Walt Scheel in Christmas with the Kranks (2004). He worked through this year.

Actress SHANNON DOHERTY, died of cancer on July 13th at the age of 53. She played roles in both television and film, including Jenny Wilder in Little House on the Prairie (1982–1983), Maggie Malene in Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985), Kris Witherspoon in Our House (1986–1988), Heather Duke in Heathers (1989), Brenda Walsh in Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990–1994), 90210 (2008–2009) and BH90210 (2019), Prue Halliwell in Charmed (1998–2001), and Dobbs in Fortress (2021).

Record producer and musical guru QUINCY JONES, passed away on November 3rd at the age of 91. Over the course of his seven-decade career, he received many accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. Jones produced three of the most successful albums by pop star Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). Jones keep working up until his death. 

Director and writer JIM ABRAHAMS, passed away at the age of 80 of leukemia. He is best known for the spoof movies that he co-wrote and produced with brothers Jerry Zucker and David Zucker, such as Airplane! (for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay) and The Naked Gun series. He suffered with leukemia for years and pretty much retired in 2019.

Mitzi Gaynor

Entertainer MITZI GAYNOR, died at the age of 93 on October 17, 2023. She was one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood's golden age. She appeared in movie musicals with Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, and Bing Crosby. Her most famous role was as Nellie Forbush in the movie version of South Pacific in 1958. After the end of movie musicals, Mitzi moved to television and live performances. Mitzi continued performing live until 2014 and made appearances through 2021.

Actress OLIVIA HUSSEY, died at the age of 73 on December 27th of breast cancer. She first rose to fame as Juliet in 1968's Romeo & Juliet. She played numerous roles over the years from Norman Bate's mom in Psycho 4 (1990) to Mother Theresa in Mother Theresa Of Calcutta (2003). She was also a voice actress, voicing numerous Star Wars video games into the 2000s. She retired from acting in 2018.

These stars, icon, and entertainers are gone but never will be forgotten...

RIP: TERI GARR

Teri Garr, offbeat comic actress of ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Tootsie,’ has died. She was 79.

Garr died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” said publicist Heidi Schaeffer. Garr battled other health problems in recent years and underwent an operation in January 2007 to repair an aneurysm.

Admirers took to social media in her honor, with writer-director Paul Feig calling her “truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more” and screenwriter Cinco Paul saying: “Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better.”

The actor, who was sometimes credited as Terri, Terry or Terry Ann during her long career, seemed destined for show business from her childhood.

Her father was Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comedian; her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the original high-kicking Rockettes at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dance lessons at 6 and by 14 was dancing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies.

She was 16 when she joined the road company of “West Side Story” in Los Angeles, and as early as 1963 she began appearing in bit parts in films.

She recalled in a 1988 interview how she won the “West Side Story” role. After being dropped from her first audition, she returned a day later in different clothes and was accepted.

From there, the blonde, statuesque Garr found steady work dancing in movies, and she appeared in the chorus of nine Presley films, including “Viva Las Vegas,” “Roustabout” and “Clambake.”

Her big film break came as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in 1974’s Francis Ford Coppola thriller “The Conversation.” That led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who said he would hire her for the role of Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant in 1974’s “Young Frankenstein” — if she could speak with a German accent.

“Cher had this German woman, Renata, making wigs, so I got the accent from her,” Garr once recalled.

The film established her as a talented comedy performer, with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael proclaiming her “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.”

Her big smile and off-center appeal helped land her roles in “Oh God!” opposite George Burns and John Denver, “Mr. Mom” (as Michael Keaton’s wife) and “Tootsie” in which she played the girlfriend who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange and learns that he has dressed up as a woman to revive his career. (She also lost the supporting actress Oscar at that year’s Academy Awards to Lange.)

Although best known for comedy, Garr showed in such films as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Black Stallion” and “The Escape Artist” that she could handle drama equally well.

“I would like to play ‘Norma Rae’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ but I never got the chance,” she once said, adding she had become typecast as a comic actor.

It was also during those years that Garr began to feel “a little beeping or ticking” in her right leg. It began in 1983 and eventually spread to her right arm as well, but she felt she could live with it. By 1999 the symptoms had become so severe that she consulted a doctor. The diagnosis: multiple sclerosis.

For three years Garr didn’t reveal her illness.

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t get work,” she explained in a 2003 interview. “People hear MS and think, ‘Oh, my God, the person has two days to live.’”

After going public, she became a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, making humorous speeches to gatherings in the U.S. and Canada.

“You have to find your center and roll with the punches because that’s a hard thing to do: to have people pity you,” she commented in 2005. “Just trying to explain to people that I’m OK is tiresome.”

She also continued to act, appearing on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Greetings From Tucson,” “Life With Bonnie” and other TV shows. She also had a brief recurring role on “Friends” in the 1990s as Lisa Kudrow’s mother. After several failed romances, Garr married contractor John O’Neill in 1993. They adopted a daughter, Molly, before divorcing in 1996.

In her 2005 autobiography, “Speedbumps: Flooring It Through Hollywood,” Garr explained her decision not to discuss her age.“My mother taught me that showbiz people never tell their real ages. She never revealed hers or my father’s,” she wrote. She retired from acting in 2011. Garr is survived by her daughter, Molly O’Neil, and a grandson, Tyryn.

RIP: MITZI GAYNOR

Mitzi Gaynor, Showbiz Dynamo and Star of ‘South Pacific,’ Dies at 93

The singer, dancer and actress was a movie-musical legend, Las Vegas headliner and centerpiece of annual TV specials. Mitzi Gaynor, the leggy entertainer whose saucy vitality and blond beauty graced the big screen in South Pacific and on Las Vegas stages and in spectacular TV specials, has died. She was 93.

Gaynor, who received top billing over The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 16, 1964, and was famed costume designer Bob Mackie‘s first celebrity client, died Oct. 17 of natural causes, her team announced in a statement.

With her hazel eyes, tight curls and exuberant singing and dancing, the feisty Gaynor stood out in such movies as My Blue Heaven (1950) with Betty Grable and Dan Dailey; in Irving Berlin’s There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), opposite Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe, her eventual successor at 20th Century Fox; and in the Cole Porter MGM musical Les Girls (1957) with Gene Kelly.

Gaynor also starred in Anything Goes (1956) with Bing Crosby and Donald O’Connor, The Joker Is Wild (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Happy Anniversary (1959) with David Niven and Patty Duke.

In 1957, Gaynor was involved in a fierce competition to win the role of Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in Joshua Logan’s South Pacific, the long-awaited adaptation of the sensational Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical.

“I was filming The Joker Is Wild with Frank Sinatra and got the call that I’d be auditioning for Oscar Hammerstein at the Beverly Hills Hotel ballroom for South Pacific,” she told Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune in 2013. “I did ‘Honey Bun,’ I did ‘A Cockeyed Optimist.’ I did everything but strip.

“Oscar’s way, way at the other side of the ballroom. Why? I don’t know. But he walked over afterward. … You know when you do good? You feel like, ‘Well, at least I didn’t make a fool of myself.’ Oscar took my hand and said: ‘Thank you very much, Miss Gaynor. You’ve been a wonderful sport.”

She went on to famously sing “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” and “Some Enchanted Evening” in the 1958 film, and the exotic World War II-set musical became the third highest-grossing movie ($17.5 million, or $147 million today) of the year. She also was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actress (comedy or musical).

Gaynor made her last noteworthy film appearance in Stanley Donen‘s Surprise Package (1960), a musical comedy that also starred Yul Brenner. With the Hollywood musical fading into obscurity, she retired from the movies after just one more film, the Kirk Douglas-starring For Love or Money (1963). She was in her early 30s.

Partnered with husband/manager Jack Bean, she smartly trained her sights on Las Vegas. Dressed in glittery Mackie costumes and accompanied by a team of handsome male dancers, she began singing, dancing and telling jokes in Vegas in 1961 and eventually acquired a stake in the Flamingo Hotel.

After what the Catholic Church called a “lascivious” 13-minute performance of her act on the Sullivan show — she was introduced as “Hollywood’s Mitzi Gaynor!!!” — the Beatles requested her autograph. (During rehearsals, they also asked to borrow her hair dryer.) They were all on the show broadcast from a Miami hotel, seen by 70 million viewers; a week earlier, Sullivan had introduced the Fab Four to America for the first time.

In 1968, Gaynor reportedly was earning $45,000 a week in Vegas. Also that year, she starred on her first TV special, Mitzi, for NBC. Five years later, she headlined the first of her six annual specials for CBS, including Mitzi and a Hundred Guys; Mitzi … A Tribute to the American Housewife; Mitzi … Zings Into Spring; and Mitzi … What’s Hot, What’s Not.

Gaynor said she regularly was approached to star in a weekly network variety show but refused. “Gene Kelly once told me, ‘Only do event television,'” she said.

After all her years working on TV, she finally won an Emmy in 2008, for her PBS special Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years.

She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago on Sept. 4, 1931. Her mother was a dancer and her father a cellist, and she took her first dance class at age 8. An only child, she and her parents moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit and finally to L.A. when she was 11, to follow her dance teacher. At age 13, then known as Mitzi Gerber, she convinced Edwin Lester, the impresario of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, that she was 16 and landed a role in the musical Song Without Words.

While in The Great Waltz, she was spotted by a Fox producer, signed to a contract by studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck and had her last name changed to Gaynor. In My Blue Heaven, she stood out in several send-ups of TV commercials in the film. Fox was grooming her to be the next Grable, and in quick succession, she starred in the Jeanne Crain sorority story Take Care of My Little Girl (1951); Golden Girl (1951), set amid the California Gold Rush; the comedy We’re Not Married! (1952) with Monroe; Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952); Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1953); The I Don’t Care Girl (1953); Three Young Texans (1954); and The Birds and the Bees (1956)‚ an RKO remake of The Lady Eve.

In September 2022, she received a Legacy Award from the Cinecon Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

She was married to Bean, who started out as a public relations executive at MCA, from 1954 until his death in 2006...

RIP: JAY POPA

 I recently lost a dear friend with the passing of Jay Popa. Anyone who is a big band fan is familiar with the website The Big Band Alliance, which Jay and his brother Chris run. Jay had a big heart, and I count him as a friend. Here is his beautiful obituary...

Everyone should have a devoted son, loving brother, and best pal like James Michael Popa, known to family and friends as “Jay.” After a brave two-year battle with esophageal cancer that metastasized to his liver and bones, Jay passed away August 17, 2024 at age 70.

He was born in and grew up in Alliance, and was a gentle, kind, generous, thoughtful, and humble person to all, with a beautiful soul.

All his life Jay liked to draw and, even while in ill health recently attended art classes at the North Canton Public Library. His favorite color was gold. While he appreciated stylish designs, furniture and decorations, he preferred shopping at Goodwill and other thrift stores. He enjoyed music ranging from the Motown sound of The Supremes and The Temptations to the big bands of Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller, and spent time (especially after he retired) watching dozens of old and new TV shows such as “Dark Shadows,” “NCIS,” and “The Masked Singer.” Comedies like “The Three Stooges,” “The Munsters,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” and “Laverne and Shirley” made him laugh. And he loved dogs.

A graduate of Alliance High School and Bowling Green State University, he had a long career as a Computer Programmer with Central Trust (later Bank One) in Canton, then, after moving to Columbus, worked for Riverside Methodist Hospital there.

He was preceded in death by his father, Aurel Howard Popa (1993); his mother, Mildred Carol Crist Popa (2020); and several aunts and uncles including Tillie Stahl (1999) and Sophie Teeters (2014).

Those left to cherish his memory are two brothers, Stephen of Aloha, Oregon, and Christopher (Jose Luis) of Chicago, Illinois; several cousins including Carolyn Frank of Alliance, Cheryl Citino of Salem, Margie (Danny) Engle of Salem, and Diane (David) Kieffer of Delaware, Ohio; and other extended family members.

Thank you to Dr. Amir Iqbal and the ladies of the Oncology and Palliative Care departments at Aultman Alliance Community Hospital, as well as the staff of Aultman Woodlawn in Canton and Christopher J. Graff of Cassaday-Turkle-Christian Funeral home in Alliance...

The Big Band Alliance

RIP: KATHRYN CROSBY

Kathryn Crosby, a 1950s Hollywood starlet who gave up her film career to marry Bing Crosby, the Oscar-winning actor, radio star and mellifluous “White Christmas” crooner, and as his widow became chief protector of his legacy, died Sept. 20 at her home in Hillsborough, Calif. She was 90.The death was announced in a statement by publicist B. Harlan Boll, who did not note a cause.

Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Kathryn Grant — as she was then known — dominated the Texas beauty contest circuit between Houston and Corpus Christi. A 5-foot-3, auburn-haired stunner, she was crowned “Golden Girl of the Texas Baseball League,” “Miss Buccaneer-Navy” (dressed in pirate motif) and “Queen of the Houston Rodeo and Fat Stock Exposition,” for which she was teased among rivals and friends alike as “Miss Fat Stock.”

She had met Crosby in 1953, a year after she was named first runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant and landed a Paramount studios contract. She was 20 at the time and was on the studio lot, breathlessly ferrying a load of petticoats to the wardrobe department, when she rushed past Crosby, then 50 and a recent widower. He was leaning against the doorjamb of his dressing room, casually whistling a tune.

"Howdy, Tex,” he asked with bemusement. “What’s your hurry?”

Crosby had been a box-office juggernaut on the lot for two decades, an audience favorite not only for his vaudeville-style “Road” movies with Bob Hope but also for his Oscar-winning turn as a singing priest in “Going My Way” (1944). In her spare time between walk-on roles, the starstruck young Kathryn filed dispatches for newspapers back home under the title “Texas Gal in Hollywood” and soon returned to Crosby to request an interview.

“You a reporter?” Crosby asked.

“I’m a columnist,” she said.

“The dickens you are,” he replied. “I didn’t know they came so pretty.”

Crosby agreed to the interview, then invited her to tea and later to dinner. She described an instant and mutual infatuation between herself and Crosby, who exuded a languorous sex appeal with his piercing blue eyes and the virile romantic baritone voice that had sold hundreds of millions of records, among them “Please” and “Pennies From Heaven.”

Their courtship lasted nearly four complicated years. Crosby disappeared from her life for months at a time and jilted her twice, only to emerge with reinvigorated ardor. As he pursued other on-set romances, including with actresses Grace Kelly and Inger Stevens, Kathryn was determined to focus on her own pursuit of stardom.

After being dropped by Paramount, she was picked up by Columbia studios and promoted as a versatile leading lady. She had a featured role as a card dealer in the anti-corruption drama “The Phenix City Story” (1955) and co-starred opposite Audie Murphy in the western “The Guns of Fort Petticoat,” Jack Lemmon in the military comedy “Operation Mad Ball” and Tony Curtis in the drama “Mister Cory,” all in 1957.

She was a princess in “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958), a trapeze artist in “The Big Circus” (1959) and, in perhaps her best performance, a surprise witness in “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), holding her own in a cross-examination showdown with a slick attorney played by George C. Scott.

By the time Bing Crosby eloped with her to Las Vegas in 1957, Kathryn, a Methodist, had converted to Catholicism at his insistence but extracted a promise that she could continue her career after their marriage. But he soon reneged, preferring she stay at home as he wound down into semi-retirement and managed his many business interests and investments, ranging from baseball teams to thoroughbred horses to real estate.

She ultimately went along. Mrs. Crosby later said she wished to give her husband a life vastly different from his anguished and thoroughly dysfunctional first marriage, to actress Dixie Lee, whose alcoholism left him so despairing that he often stayed away from home, leaving her and his children to fend for themselves.

By the early 1960s, Bing and Kathryn had left Southern California and settled in a 24-room Norman-style mansion in Hillsborough, an upscale suburb of San Francisco. She had three children with Bing — including actress Mary Frances Crosby, whose character shot J.R. on the TV series “Dallas” — and spent five years completing a degree in registered nursing. She also was a public-school teacher, host of a morning TV talk show in San Francisco, and the author of a rosy 1967 memoir (“Bing and Other Things”).

She modeled clothes for designer Jean Louis, did occasional summer stock with Bing’s approval, accompanied her husband and children on bird-hunting and fishing expeditions and helped him manage his constellation of properties across the West and in Mexico. She vivaciously sang duets with Bing on TV specials, including his annual Christmas show, and appeared with their children in Minute Maid frozen orange juice commercials, a product Bing endorsed.

As a more contented spouse and father, Bing spent a great deal more time with his second family than he had with his first, Mrs. Crosby said. Nevertheless, she said, he could be a controlling and mercurial perfectionist at home, even as he tried to live up to the laid-back Mr. Lucky persona he had long cultivated — the charming and carefree all-American fellow who just happened to have a voice of peerless emotional resonance.

“He doesn’t exactly lose his temper in the traditional way,” Mrs. Crosby told an interviewer. “He just gets very quiet. That’s when I start wondering what I’ve done. You see, Bing will never say what is bothering him.”

With her nursing credentials, she looked closely after Bing’s well-being amid health setbacks, including after he plummeted 20 feet from a sound stage in March 1977 while rehearsing a TV show, seriously injuring his back. “She really took care of him,” said jazz critic Gary Giddins, an authoritative Bing biographer. Because she was emotionally stable and the family disciplinarian, he added, “She also allowed him to be the kind of father he had not been in the first marriage.”

In October 1977, he was on a golfing trip in Spain with friends when he died suddenly, at age 74 after a heart attack, just after completing a round of play.

Mrs. Crosby gradually restarted her acting career, mostly with touring theater companies and also in a cabaret act that paid tribute to Bing.

To tell her own story, Mrs. Crosby wrote “My Life With Bing” (1983) and “My Last Years with Bing” (2002). Of all the roles she would play — on screen and stage and in private life — she said there was one that made all the others possible. “I want you to understand,” she once told People magazine, “that my position in this world rests on being Mrs. Bing Crosby.

RIP: JAMES EARL JONES

James Earl Jones, a commanding presence onscreen who nonetheless gained greater fame off-camera as the sonorous voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader and Mufasa, the benevolent leader in The Lion King, died Monday. He was 93.

Jones, who burst into national prominence in 1970 with his powerful Oscar-nominated performance as America’s first Black heavyweight champion in The Great White Hope, died at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Independent Artist Group announced.

The distinguished star made his big-screen debut in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and was noteworthy in many other films, including Claudine (1974) opposite Diahann Carroll; Field of Dreams (1989), as the reclusive author Terence Mann; and The Sandlot (1993), as the intimidating neighborhood guy Mr. Mertle.

For his work on the stage, Jones earned two best actor Tony Awards: for originating the role of Jack Jefferson — who was based on real-life boxer Jack Johnson — in 1968 in Howard Sackler’s Great White Hope and for playing the patriarch who struggles to provide for his family in a 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson’s Fences.

Jones, the recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017, was one of the handful of people to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony and the first actor to win two Emmys in one year.

“You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have,” the self-deprecating star said when he was given his Academy Award. “But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.”

Jones’ rise to become one of the most-admired American actors of all time was remarkable considering he suffered from a debilitating stutter as a child.

James Earl Jone's last role was 2021's Coming 2 America, and he retired shortly after finishing that role...

RIP: PETER MARSHALL

Peter Marshall, who won four Emmys hosting the first incarnation of the long-running game show Hollywood Squares, has died at the age of 98, TVLine has confirmed. Marshall died on Thursday of kidney failure at his home in Encino, California “surrounded by loved ones,” his family said in a statement.

After an early career in comedy and on Broadway, Marshall signed on to host what was then titled The Hollywood Squares in 1966, after Bert Parks hosted the initial pilot for NBC. Marshall thought he would only spend 13 weeks as the host, but that turned into 16 years, with Marshall emceeing the show — which featured celebrities like Paul Lynde answering trivia questions as “squares” in a giant tic-tac-toe board — from 1966 to 1981. Along the way, he won four Daytime Emmys for his hosting work.

After Hollywood Squares’ initial run ended, Marshall went on to appear in the 1982 film musical Annie and on TV shows like CHiPs, Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. He later returned to Hollywood Squares for a week in 2002, serving as the center square and also hosting an episode.

Hollywood Squares returned to TV in 1986 with a new version hosted by John Davidson, with Joan Rivers serving as the permanent center square. After that version ended in 1989, the format was revived once again in 1998, with Tom Bergeron as host and Whoopi Goldberg as the center square. That version wrapped up in 2004.

Peter Marshall also appeared in movies in Annie (1982) as the radio singer. In recent years he hosted many nostalgia shows on PBS...

RIP: GENA ROWLANDS

Gena Rowlands, the wife and muse of John Cassavetes whose unvarnished abilities found in such films as Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night and Gloria put her in the pantheon of acting legends, died Wednesday. She was 94.

Rowlands died surrounded by family members at her home in Indian Wells, California. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2019.

Rowlands received Oscar nominations for her performances in A Woman Under the Influence (1974), where she played an isolated, emotionally vulnerable housewife who lapses into madness, and Gloria (1980), where she sparkled as a pissed-off child protector who rails against the Mob.

She lost out to Ellen Burstyn of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Sissy Spacek of Coal Miner’s Daughter in those Academy Award races. Her greatness wasn’t formally acknowledged by the Academy until she received an honorary Oscar at the 2015 Governors Awards.

“You know what’s wonderful about being an actress?” Rowlands said at the ceremony. “You don’t just live one life — yours — you live many lives.”

Cassavetes directed his wife in A Woman Under the Influence and Gloria as well as in Shadows (1959), A Child Is Waiting (1963), Faces (1968), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), Opening Night (1977) and Love Streams (1984). He wrote all but one of those dramas as well, and together, the couple kick-started the independent film movement in America.

Survivors include their son, writer-director Nick Cassavetes, for whom Rowlands starred as a lonely widow in Unhook the Stars (1996) and as an elderly woman with dementia in The Notebook (2004). She also appeared in her son’s She’s So Lovely (1997), based on a script from John Cassavetes.

Her daughters, Zoe Cassavetes and Xan Cassavetes, are writer/directors as well.

At her best when playing beleaguered heroines, Rowlands often downplayed her corn-fed Midwestern beauty, subverting her good looks when the part called for it — as in Opening Night, when she portrayed the aging and insecure stage actress Myrtle Gordon.

Rowlands attended the University of Wisconsin but left to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in in New York. It was there that she met Cassavetes, an alum a year ahead of her who spotted Rowlands in a student production of J.B. Priestley’s Dangerous Corner.

Four months after they met, she and Cassavetes were married in 1954 and were together until he died from cirrhosis in February 1989. He was 59.

Rowlands‘ first professional stage appearance came in a Provincetown Playhouse drama. She also did live TV and was cast by producer-director Joshua Logan in 1956 to play a young woman who falls in love with an older man (Edward G. Robinson) in Paddy Chayefsky’s Middle of the Night.

After 18 months with the play, Rowlands signed with MGM and made her feature debut as Jose Ferrer’s confident wife in the drama The High Cost of Loving (1958). She went on to perform in the Dalton Trumbo Western Lonely Are the Brave (1962) with Kirk Douglas, in The Spiral Road (1962) opposite Rock Hudson and in Tony Rome (1967) with Frank Sinatra.

Rowlands also won three Emmy Awards (from eight nominations), with one for playing the first lady in 1987’s The Betty Ford Story and another for portraying a waitress in a diner who is romanced by another Cassavetes regular, Ben Gazzara, in 2002’s Hysterical Blindness.

Her more recent film appearances came in Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991) — the first film she made after Cassavetes‘death — Silent Cries (1993), Hope Floats (1998), The Weekend (1999), The Skeleton Key (2005) and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks (2014). She retired from acting in 2014....

RIP: BOB NEWHART

Bob Newhart, whose stammering, deadpan unflappability carried him to stardom as a standup comedian and later in television and movies, has died, according to a statement from his longtime publicist Jerry Digney. He was 94.

Digney said Newhart died in Los Angeles on Thursday morning after a series of short illnesses. He called the star’s passing an “end of an era in comedy.”

Over the course of five decades, Newhart’s popularity rarely waned, whether it was as the recording star of the comedy album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” (the first comedy album to win the Grammy for album of the year), the lead in two top-rated television sitcoms, or a supporting actor in movies including “Catch-22” (in which he played the timid Maj. Major), “Cold Turkey” and “Elf.”

He remains best known for the television shows, “The Bob Newhart Show” (1972-78) and “Newhart” (1982-90), both of which were built around his persona as a reasonable man put-upon by crazies.

Born George Robert Newhart in Oak Park, Illinois on September 5, 1929, Newhart was originally an accountant and advertising copywriter.

In 2022, he mused about his time as an accountant, joking, “in my case, I don’t think it’s amazing that a bad accountant could become a comedian.” He added that “there’s something about numbers and music and comedy, I’m not sure what it is,” going on to mention some comedy contemporaries that has an interest in music like he did.

He first rose to fame with his comedy album, 1960’s “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart.” The album was a phenomenon of its time and one of the best-selling albums of the year. It was No. 1 for 14 weeks on Billboard’s album chart and a multiple Grammy Award-winner, beating out Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte and Nat “King” Cole for album of the year. He also hit No. 1 with the follow-up, “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!”

“The Bob Newhart Show” debuted in 1972. (This is not to be confused with his Peabody and Emmy Award-winning variety show of the same name that aired for one season beginning in 1961.) He played a Chicago psychologist, Bob Hartley, who ministered to a host of eccentric patients.

In “Newhart,” he took on the role of Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon, who tried to maintain his sanity while surrounded by comical locals.

In both cases, his characters found refuge with their wives, played by Suzanne Pleshette in “The Bob Newhart Show” and Mary Frann in “Newhart.”

The latter show’s finale remains one of the most famous in television history. In the final “Newhart” episode, Newhart’s town is purchased by a Japanese millionaire. Golfers at a new course regularly batter the inn with their drives, and one day – in the midst of an argument with townspeople – Newhart is hit by a golf ball. After a quick fade to black, he awakens… as Hartley, his character from “The Bob Newhart Show,” in bed with Pleshette.

“Honey, wake up! You won’t believe the dream I just had,” he tells her, to uproarious audience laughter.

The finale of "Newhart," which brought back the characters of Dr. Bob Hartley, Newhart's character on "The Bob Newhart Show," and his wife Emily played by Suzanne Pleshette. 

“That was my wife Ginny’s idea,” Newhart explained to Parade magazine in 2013. “She said, ‘You should end the show by waking up in bed with Emily and explain a dream you had about owning an inn in Vermont.’ We used it!”

The actor was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for his “Newhart” series three times in the outstanding lead actor category. He didn’t win an individual acting Emmy until 2013, when he was recognized in the outstanding guest actor category for his portrayal of Professor Proton on “The Big Bang Theory.”

He was nominated for a total of nine Emmys throughout the course of his career.

Newhart was a frequent guest on the era’s variety and talk shows, and a regular fill-in host on the “Tonight Show,” switching out for his friend Johnny Carson 87 times.

Newhart never really retired, continuing to make television appearances in recent years on “Big Bang” and “Young Sheldon,” along with “Hot in Cleveland” and “The Librarians.”

Other film work from the star included turns in “Horrible Bosses” and “In & Out.”

RIP: SHELLEY DUVALL

Shelley Duvall, the big-eyed, waifish performer who won the Cannes actress award for Robert Altman‘s “3 Women” and endured Stanley Kubrick’s intense directing techniques to star in “The Shining,” died Thursday in Blanco, Texas, Variety confirmed with her partner Dan Gilroy. She was 75.

Duvall was known for working with director Altman, who cast her in “Brewster McCloud” as her first screen role. She went on to appear in his films “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” and “Thieves Like Us” before starring as part of the ensemble cast of “Nashville” in 1975. After gaining attention in “Nashville,” Altman cast her in “Buffalo Bill and the Indians,” then gave her unusual screen presence a chance to shine in “3 Women,” for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress as well as a BAFTA nomination.

Also in 1977, Duvall played a Rolling Stone journalist in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall,” and met Paul Simon on the set. They dated for two years.

Duvall starred as Olive Oyl in Altman’s “Popeye” in 1980, a role that she seemed born to play, with her giant eyes. Her unnerving performance as a health spa worker in “3 Women” led Kubrick to cast her as Wendy Torrance, the wife of Jack Nicholson’s character in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining,” based on the Stephen King novel.

“The Shining” required more than a year of shooting, and throughout, the legendarily demanding director pushed Duvall to her limit. Some of her scenes in “The Shining” required more than 100 takes, with the baseball sequence landing in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most takes of a scene with dialogue.

Years later, she talked about the difficult shoot with the Hollywood Reporter. “After a while, your body rebels. It says: ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes just that thought alone would make me cry. To wake up on a Monday morning, so early, and realize that you had to cry all day because it was scheduled — I would just start crying. I’d be like, ‘Oh no, I can’t, I can’t.’ And yet I did it. I don’t know how I did it. Jack said that to me, too. He said, ‘I don’t know how you do it.’“

Among her other roles were Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits” and the comedy “Roxanne” with Steve Martin.

During the 1980s, Duvall produced a series of children’s anthology shows based on classic stories. “Faerie Tale Theatre,” “Tall Tales & Legends,” “Nightmare Classics” and “Bedtime Stories” boasted notable directors including Tim Burton, Francis Ford Coppola and Ivan Passer and guest stars like Robin Williams, Jamie Lee Curtis, Elliot Gould, Laura Dern, Molly Ringwald and Ed Asner.


In recent years, she lived a reclusive life, her appearance on “Dr. Phil” in 2016 garnered negative publicity for sensationalizing her struggles with mental health. In 2021, she was interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter writer Seth Abramovitch, who traveled to Texas and found her happy to reminisce over her career and fondly regarded in her community in the Texas Hill Country, despite her eccentricities...

AN HONOR FOR CAROL BURNETT

"I remember, I was 10 or 11 years old, and I would put my handprints on Betty Grable's hands, and now they have mine 80 years later," Burnett told our blog.

Carol Burnett is returning to her roots.

On Thursday, June 20, Burnett got her hand and footprints cemented at the famous TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood — and it felt like a blast from the past, she told us. The actress, 91, says she grew up right down the street, and frequented the area often with her grandmother as a child.

“When I was a little girl, I was raised here, just on Yucca and Wilcox, Hollywood Boulevard was my street,” she recalls. “I remember, I was 10 or 11 years old, and I would put my handprints on Betty Grable's hands, and now they have mine 80 years later. Who knew?”

The Annie alum says being there for her own ceremony felt surreal, and she couldn’t help but feel like she was a kid again.

“When I put my hands down there today, I went back to Betty Grable, when I did it with them,” she explains. “All of a sudden I was a little girl again, putting my hands on Betty Grable's prints.”

“This is my roots,” noting that after living in the heart of Hollywood for 21 years, it is “quite a trip” to be in the position she admired so much.

“This [handprint] and then the Star on Hollywood Boulevard is in front of a theater where I worked as an usher,” she reveals. “So I’ve come full circle.”

In her speech, Burnett let out a little secret she had about the TCL theater — one she and her grandmother kept between them. She revealed that after they would splurge to see a Betty Grable movie, they'd get their money's worth from the experience.

"Before we'd leave, my grandmother said, 'Well, let's hit the ladies' room,'" she said before revealing: "So we would go in there and steal all the toilet paper. And she said, 'Well, we'll be set for another month.'"

Burnett was supported by her costars Laura Dern (Palm Royale) and Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) at the event, along with Dick Van Dyke, who appeared on The Carol Burnett show, which ran from 1967 to 1978. Jimmy Kimmel also spoke in her honor...