Dina Merrill, heiress and actress, dies at 93 Dina Merrill, the rebellious heiress who defied her super-rich parents to become an actress, often portraying stylish wives or “the other woman,” has died. She was 93. Merrill died Monday, according to a family spokeswoman. The cause of death and other details weren’t immediately available Tuesday. With the help of Katharine Hepburn, who recommended her for the 1957 comedy “The Desk Set,” Merrill was a popular star for years, in part because of her resemblance to Grace Kelly. Her films included “Operation Petticoat,” “The Sundowners” and Robert Altman’s Hollywood satire “The Player.” She also was a dedicated philanthropist and supporter of the arts. Merrill was the daughter of cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and E.F. Hutton, a multimillionaire industrialist and financier in his own right. One of her childhood homes was Mar-a-Lago, which her mother had built not long after her birth in 1923. Merrill was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York City on Dec. 29, 1923. She adopted her stage name when she began her film career. Her first husband, Stanley Rumbough Jr., also came from a wealthy family and was an heir to the Colgate toothpaste fortune. After she divorced him to marry Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson in 1966, her name was removed from the New York Social Register. She had expressed surprised that she’d still been included. A few years before her name was excised, Merrill had said: “It’s really so depressing to still be listed in the social register after all the acting I have done.”
Her father was E.F. Hutton and her stage name was borrowed from a family friend, who just happened to be the guy who founded Merrill Lynch. Also, her niece was Glenn Close. That's pretty cool.
Jared Martin, Who Played Rodeo Cowboy Dusty Farlow on 'Dallas,' Dies at 75 Jared Martin, the Dallas actor who portrayed Dusty Farlow, the rodeo cowboy and Sue Ellen Ewing seducer who perished in a plane crash, only to have producers resurrect his character by popular demand, has died. He was 75. Martin died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer at his home in Philadelphia, his son, Christian Martin, told The Hollywood Reporter. Martin roomed with Brian De Palma when they both attended Columbia University in New York and appeared in the first and third features of the director's career: Murder a la Mod (1968) and The Wedding Party (1969). In De Palma's inaugural effort, Martin played "a mad photographer-murderer who liked to lick the blood off his victims' bodies," he recalled in a 1981 interview with People magazine. "Brian used Hershey syrup for blood and paid me $35." Martin's career also included starring roles on two sci-fi TV series: 1977's The Fantastic Journey at NBC and a 1988-90 adaptation of War of the Worlds, which aired in syndication. In 1979, the handsome actor signed a contract to appear as the cowpoke Steven "Dusty" Farlow — the adoptive son of Clayton Farrow (Howard Keel) — on three episodes of the third season of the smash CBS primetime soap Dallas. "They brought Dusty Farlow on to make goo-goo eyes at Sue Ellen [Linda Gray], become moderately involved with her, tempt her and then she basically remembered who she was and went back to J.R. [Larry Hagman]," Martin said a few years ago in an interview for a Dallas fan site. Dusty (fans nicknamed him "Lusty Dusty") was incinerated in a plane crash, but after J.R. was shot by an unseen assailant in that season's finale, viewer polls and Las Vegas oddsmakers made the character a favorite to be the answer to the burning question, "Who shot J.R.?" So producers found a way to have him return. "My agent said, 'Get ready, they are going to bring you back,'" Martin remembered. "I said, 'How? I'm dead.' My agent says, "Oh, this is Hollywood, they will think of something.'" It turns out Dusty had survived, but his injuries rendered him impotent, paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. "He was being nursed back to health by an extremely beautiful woman. That was something America kind of wanted to see at the time; don't ask me why, but they did," Martin said. "So I came from being very much of an episodic television actor to being part of the most successful and fabulous series ever to have been known to humankind." Dusty would make a miraculous recovery and even return to the rodeo circuit. Born in Manhattan on Dec. 21, 1941, Jared Christopher Martin was the son of famed New Yorker artist and illustrator Charles E. Martin. He attended The Putney School in Vermont and Columbia, then followed De Palma to Hollywood The blue-eyed Martin also appeared in such movies as Westworld (1973), The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974) and Pia Zadora's The Lonely Lady (1983) and on TV's The Partridge Family, Dan August, Night Gallery, The Rookies, The Waltons, How the West Was Won, The Incredible Hulk, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The Love Boat, Hunter and L.A. Law. After retiring from acting, Martin co–founded and served as creative director of the Big Picture Alliance, a nonprofit group that introduces inner-city kids to the art of filmmaking, and worked as a professional painter and photographer. And just last year, Martin co-directed the feature film The Congressman, starring Treat Williams.
Frank Deford, Giant of Sports Journalism, Dies at 78 Frank Deford, the charismatic sports writer widely regarded as one of the best of his generation who also presided over the ambitious and short-lived The National, one of the biggest busts in the annals of the newspaper industry, has died. He was 78. Deford, who began his career at Sports Illustrated in 1962 and remained with the magazine for decades, died Sunday in Key West, Fla., his wife told The Washington Post. A prolific and widely admired novelist as well, Deford wrote the 1981 book Everybody's All-American, about the downfall of a 1950s University of North Carolina star. It was made into the 1988 film directed by Taylor Hackford that starred Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lange. Deford's passion, knowledge of sports and knack for storytelling led the Baltimore native to opportunities beyond the page. HBO brought him in to serve as a senior correspondent for Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, and for 37 years through this month, he served as a regular commentator for NPR's Morning Edition. He won an Emmy Award and a Peabody.
Alex the Life of a Child as Seen on ABC: Frank Deford: Amazon.com: Books Deford’s 1981 novel Everybody’s All-American was named one of Sports Illustrated’s Top 25 Sports Books of All Time and was later made into a movie directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Dennis Quaid. His memoir Alex: The Life of a Child, chronicling his daughter’s life and battle with cystic fibrosis, was made into a movie starring Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia in 1986.
Elena Verdugo, Emmy-Nominated Actress on 'Marcus Welby, M.D.,' Dies at 92 Elena Verdugo, who portrayed the devoted office assistant and nurse Consuelo Lopez opposite Robert Young on the 1970s ABC drama Marcus Welby, M.D., has died. She was 92. Verdugo replaced Audrey Totter as the star of the CBS Radio comedy Meet Millie and continued to play the wisecracking Brooklyn secretary Millie Bronson on the CBS television version — one of the first shows to be broadcast live from Hollywood — that ran for four seasons, from 1952 through 1956. On the big screen, Verdugo appeared opposite Lon Chaney Jr. in the 1945 Universal horror films House of Frankenstein (as the sympathetic gypsy girl Ilonka) and The Frozen Ghost and in the adventure tale Thief of Damascus (1952). Verdugo also was a singer and dancer. She performed in the 1940s with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra and handled the vocals on his hit "Tico Tico," which was used in the finale of the 1945 Sonja Henie film It's a Pleasure!. The 5-foot-2 Verdugo received supporting actress Emmy nominations in 1971 and 1972 for playing the warmhearted Consuelo, whom many consider to be the first working-professional Latina woman to be portrayed on series television. Marcus Welby aired for seven seasons, from 1969-76. Early in the medical drama's run, Consuelo would pour Dr. Welby a cup of coffee when he arrived at the office, but Verdugo said that changed after working women wrote in to complain. "[They said,] 'You stop getting him coffee in the morning, we are sick of it, now all doctors want us to get a cup of coffee for them in the morning,'" she once recalled. "And I said, 'I got it, I got it! I will cut it down.'" A native of Los Angeles, Verdugo was a descendant of Jose Maria Verdugo, a Spanish army officer who in 1784 was granted grazing rights to a 36,000-acre area that included much of what is now Glendale, Burbank, Eagle Rock and La Crescenta. Verdugo finished high school on the Fox studio lot and appeared as a dancer in the Don Ameche-Betty Grable studio musical Down Argentine Way (1940). Her film résumé also included Rainbow Island (1944), starring Dorothy Lamour; Song of Scheherazade (1947), with Yvonne De Carlo; Gene Autry's The Big Sombrero (1949); the Charlie Chan mystery The Sky Dragon (1949); and Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), starring Jose Ferrer. Before running Dr. Welby's office, Verdugo had recurring roles on the short-lived TV series Redigo, The New Phil Silvers Show, Many Happy Returns and the Juliet Prowse starrer Mona McCluskey.
Fred J. Koenekamp, Oscar-Winning DP of ‘The Towering Inferno,’ Dies at 94 Cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp, who won an Oscar for “The Towering Inferno” and was also nominated for shooting “Patton” and “Islands in the Stream,” died May 31. Age 94. His daughter Kathy Guyitt and the American Society of Cinematographers confirmed his death. Both “Patton” and “Islands in the Stream” were directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, for whom he also shot “Papillon” and later “Yes, Giorgio". His work included memorable films of the 1970s such as “Billy Jack,” “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” “Kansas City Bomber,” “Uptown Saturday Night,” and “The Amityville Horror". Koenekamp received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asc in 2005. He was born in Los Angeles, where his father, Hans F. Koenekamp, was a Hollywood cinematographer and special effects expert. After starting out as a film loader at RKO, he moved up through the ranks and eventually became director of photography for several seasons of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.".
Skip Homeier, Nazi Child in 'Tomorrow, the World!' and 'Star Trek' Actor, Dies at 86 Skip Homeier, who played the menacing Nazi youth in the 1944 drama Tomorrow, the World! before appearing in scores of Westerns, war films and TV shows, has died. He was 86. Homeier died June 25, his son, Michael, and wife, Della, each reported on Facebook. Homeier also is known to fans of the original Star Trek for portraying Melakon, a Nazi-like character, in the 1968 episode "Patterns of Force" and as the arrogant Dr. Sevrin, who carries a deadly bacteria within him, in 1969's "The Way to Eden." Homeier also played Judge Charles Older, who heard the case against Charles Manson (Steve Railsback), in the acclaimed 1976 CBS telefilm Helter Skelter and appeared as the title character, a cop working the night shift out of Hollywood, in the 1961 NBC crime drama Dan Raven. A native of Chicago, George Vincent Homeier portrayed violent or neurotic characters early in his career. He was billed as Skippy Homeier when he made his onscreen debut as a Nazi teen who arrives in Middle America in Tomorrow, the World!, starring Fredric March. (The kid actor had originated the role of Emil Bruchner on Broadway in April 1943). The lanky Homeier later was memorable as a foolhardy man looking to make a reputation as a gunslinger in The Gunfighter (1950), starring Gregory Peck, and he played the jittery soldier Riley "Pretty Boy" Duncannon in Lewis Milestone's Halls of Montezuma (1951) and the hit man Roxey in the Alaska-set film noir Cry Vengeance (1954), starring Mark Stevens. He also appeared in Arthur Takes Over (1948), Sealed Cargo (1951), Sam Fuller's Fixed Bayonets! (1951), Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952), Black Widow (1954), Between Heaven and Hell (1956), Stark Fear (1962), Don Knotts' The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) and Muhammad Ali's The Greatest (1977). Homeier's resume was packed with Westerns, including Ten Wanted Men (1955), The Road to Denver (1955), Stranger at My Door (1956), Dakota Incident (1956), The Tall T (1957), Day of the Badman (1958), Comanche Station (1960) and Showdown (1963) for the big screen. On television, he showed up on Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rifleman, Wagon Train, Branded, Bonanza and The Virginian. The actor also had a recurring role as a mentoring doctor on the 1970-71 CBS drama The Interns and appeared in guest stints on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Millionaire, The Addams Family, The Outer Limits, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Fantasy Island, Vega$ and Quincy M.E.
Harvey Atkin Dead at 74: Roles Included Cagney & Lacey and Law & Order: SVU What a real shame. Loved him in Super Mario Bros. Super Show and also Jacob Two Two, which I grew up watching.
Marty Sklar, pioneering imagineer who channeled Walt Disney, dies at 83 Marty Sklar had only just graduated from UCLA, and here he was shadowing Walt Disney, his demanding new boss. The fledgling writer was unsure how to make himself useful, but he had a mind to scribble down some of the maxims Disney laced into conversation. “Know your audience.” “Tell one story at a time.” “Wear your guests' shoes.” Long after his mentor's death, Sklar recognized the treasure-trove of wisdom he had started compiling at Walt Disney's elbow in the late 1950s. He distilled it all into "Mickey's Ten Commandments," a widely circulated creed that remains a touchstone in the theme park industry. Walt Disney Co., where he led the creative development of the Burbank company’s parks, attractions and resorts around the world, including its ventures in the cruise business, housing development and the redesign of Times Square in New York. Sklar died Thursday in his Hollywood Hills home. No cause of death was given. He was 83. His retirement in 2006 marked the end of an era: He was one of the last remaining executives to have worked alongside Walt Disney in shaping the company into a global powerhouse. Sklar, who last served as principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, the storied theme park design and development outfit, was so closely associated with the company’s namesake that he became known as the Sorcerer's Apprentice. “He embodied the very best of Disney, from his bold originality to his joyful optimism and relentless drive for excellence,” Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said in a statement. “He was also a powerful connection to Walt himself. No one was more passionate about Disney than Marty and we’ll miss his enthusiasm, his grace, and his indomitable spirit.” Martin “Marty” Sklar was born in New Brunswick, N.J., and attended UCLA, where he was editor of the Daily Bruin newspaper. While there, he got a summer job at Disneyland in 1955 — the year the park opened. Sklar, who grew up in Long Beach, had only just started working at Disneyland when Walt Disney asked him to give a 10-minute presentation on how he would create a newspaper for Main Street, U.S.A., the quaint themed area near the park’s entrance. "I was frightened. Here I was 21 years old, had never worked professionally," Sklar recalled in a 2002 interview with The Times. "He had time for even the smallest detail, like my newspaper." Disney was impressed enough with Sklar that he hired him full time to write marketing and sales brochures for Disneyland after he graduated from UCLA in 1956. Sklar soon became Walt Disney’s lieutenant, and, according to several former colleagues, developed a reputation for being able to channel the boss’ unique style in speeches and other material he’d write on his behalf. “Walt and he seemed to think alike,” said Dave Smith, Disney’s former chief archivist, who began at the company in 1970. “Marty really understood Walt more than a lot of people.”
Patti Deutsch Dies: ‘Laugh-In’ And ‘Match Game’ Regular & Veteran Voice Actor Was 73 Patti Deutsch, a comic who was a regular on the last season of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, appeared often on the 1970s Match Game and went on to a successful voice-over career, has died. She was 73. Her family said she died Wednesday at her Los Angeles home after a long battle with cancer. Born in Pittsburgh on December 16, 1943, Deutsch worked alongside Fred Willard in the improv troupe Ace Trucking Company in the 1960s and early ’70s. The group, which made multiple appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, also featured Bill Saluga, who would go to be known as the “You can call me Ray” pitchman for Natural Light beer. Deutsch’s big break came in 1972 when she was case as a regular on NBC’s politically tinged sketch series Laugh-In. But the show was past its peak as a big part of the era’s pop culture zeitgeist, and the 1972-73 season would be its last. As that series wrapped, the nasally voiced comic and actress became a semi-regular on Match Game ’73, the Gene Rayburn-hosted daytime game show revival known for celebrities’ racy and ribald answers to the host’s questions. Deutsch was a popular draw on the show, which led to her joining the couples game show Tattletales, appearing with and her husband, writer Donald Ross (The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote). By the mid-’80s, Deutsch had begun a successful second career as a voice actor on shows including The Smurfs, while continuing to guest on live-action TV series such as She’s the Sheriff and Moonlighting. She lent her voice to episodes of such ’90s toon series as Darkwing Duck and The Critters. She continued to work through the 2000s, doing voice roles in such films as Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Monsters, Inc. and Happily N’Ever After. Her final credit was a guest role in the 2013 ABC series Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23.
Legendary Editor Judith Jones Dies At 93 Judith Jones may not have been a household name, but without her, some of the world's most famous books may never have made it to many library and kitchen shelves. The editor died Wednesday at her home in Vermont, according to a statement from the publisher Knopf. She was 93. Her stepdaughter said the cause was complications from Alzheimer's disease. Jones worked at Knopf for more than five decades. She retired in 2011 as senior editor and vice president. It was 1950 when Jones at age 27 was working in Paris as an editorial assistant at Doubleday Publishing. She stumbled upon a book in the discard pile as she was in the middle of writing rejection letters. This one, however, she could not put down. She was struck by the face on the cover. It was Anne Frank. "I read all afternoon with the tears coming down my face," Jones told NPR's Jacki Lyden in a 1998 interview. "When my boss got back, it was evening by then. He said, 'What are you doing still here?' And I said, 'We have to have this book!' And he said, 'What? That book by that kid?'" The book by that kid became The Diary of Anne Frank. It had already been released in German and Dutch, but Jones convinced her bosses to publish it in the United States, vastly expanding its readership. It went on to sell more than 30 million copies worldwide in more than 60 languages. That canny move convinced Knopf to hire Jones in 1957. Once again she persuaded a publishing house to take a risk on another rejected work; this one a manuscript co-authored by Julia Child. Jones got Mastering the Art of French Cooking published in 1961 and helped revolutionize the way Americans cook. As Jones wrote in her 2007 autobiography The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food: "With a new, exotic, unfamiliar style of cooking, more than ever we are flying blind — we may never even have tasted the dish we are trying to reproduce — and we need a lot of hand-holding. So I kept my eyes and ears, to say nothing of my taste buds, open to the kind of writer-cook who was particularly gifted, like Julia, at explaining the techniques of a different cooking culture." Throughout her career, Jones championed various cookbook authors who went on to become icons: James Beard, Marcella Hazan and Lida Bastianich, said Knopf in its statement. She also worked with such luminary authors as John Updike and Anne Tyler. In addition to editing, she wrote several books about cooking and baking, some alongside her husband, Evan Jones, reports The Washington Post. She leaves behind four children and stepchildren, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, says The Post.
Ty Hardin - Wikipedia Ty Hardin (January 1, 1930-August 3, 2017) - TV and film actor best known for westerns, especially his starring role on TV's Bronco (1958-1962). His film roles include Merrill's Marauders (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), Palm Springs Weekend (1963), PT 109 (1963), Battle of the Bulge (as a German spy, 1965), Joan Crawford's romantic interest in Berserk! (1967), and Custer of the West (1967). He appears uncredited in Billy Wilder's Avanti! (1972)
http://nypost.com/2017/08/08/broadway-legend-barbara-cook-dead-at-89/ Barbara Cook, legendary star of the Broadway musicals “The Music Man,” “She Loves Me” and “Candide,” died this morning at 89. The cause was respiratory failure, her son Adam LeGrant told The Post. Slender, beautiful, blond and blessed with lyric soprano voice as clear as crystal, Cook, who was born in Atlanta, became Broadway’s most famous ingénue in the 1950s. She originated the role of Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 musical “Candide,” stopping the show nightly with the operatic “Glitter and Be Gay,” which became one of her signature songs. She also originated the role of Marian the Librarian opposite Robert Preston’s Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” for which she won a Tony Award in 1957. Her Broadway career ended in the early ’70s as she struggled with depression, alcoholism and weight gain. “Because of this package I’m in,” she once told me, “it became more difficult to get roles. They asked me to be Tug Boat Annie — what the hell have I got do with Tug Boat Annie?” As her drinking spiraled out of control, Cook withdrew from show business. But she got sober in the ’80s and re-invented herself as the premiere interpreter of the American Songbook. She marked her return to the stage with a mesmerizing performance as Sally in a concert version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” at Lincoln Center in 1985. Her interpretation of “Losing My Mind” has never been equaled. Cook’s concert career took off, and she recorded many acclaimed albums — “Barbara Cook’s Broadway, “Barbara Cook at the Met” and “Mostly Sondheim: Live at Carnegie Hall.” Another of her signature songs from her ingénue days was “Vanilla Ice Cream” from the musical “She Loves Me.” “And vanilla ice cream is the last thing she ate — the God’s honest truth,” her son told The Post.
Barbara Cook makes a rare screen appearance in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "A Little Sleep" With an unusually short-haired Vic Morrow in "A Little Sleep"
RollingStone.com Glen Campbell, the indelible voice behind 21 Top 40 hits including "Rhinestone Cowboy," "Wichita Lineman" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," died Tuesday. He was 81. A rep for Universal Music Group, Campbell's record label, confirmed the singer's death to Rolling Stone. During a career that spanned six decades, Campbell sold over 45 million records. In 1968, one of his biggest years, he outsold the Beatles. --- Campbell was born in 1936 in Billstown, Arkansas, the seventh son in a sharecropping family of 12 kids. "We used to watch TV by candlelight," Campbell told Rolling Stone in 2011. In his youth, Campbell started playing guitar and became obsessed with jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. He dropped out of school when he was 14 and moved to Wyoming with an uncle who was a musician, playing gigs together at rural bars. He soon moved to Los Angeles and by 1962 had solidified a spot in the Wrecking Crew, a group of session pros. In 1963 alone he appeared on 586 cuts, and countless more throughout the decade, including the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man," Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas,” Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling." "I’d have to pick cotton for a year to make what I'd make in a week in L.A.," he said. "I learned it was crucial to play right on the edge of the beat ... It makes you drive the song more. You're ahead of the beat, but you're not." Fellow Wrecking Crew member Leon Russell called Campbell "the best guitar player I'd heard before or since. Occasionally we'd play with 50- or 60-piece orchestras. His deal was he didn't read [music], so they would play it one time for him, and he had it." In late 1964, Brian Wilson had a nervous breakdown on tour with the Beach Boys, and the band called on Campbell to replace him on bass and high harmonies. "I took Brian’s place and that was just ... I was in heaven then – hog heaven!" Campbell remarked. "He fit right in," said Wilson. "His main forte is he's a great guitar player, but he's even a better singer than all the rest. He could sing higher than I could!" Wilson even wrote an early song, "I Guess I'm Dumb," for Campbell. His first hit was a cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie's antiwar song "Universal Soldier." But Campbell's own political views tended to be conservative. "The people who are advocating burning draft cards should be hung," he said in 1965. Campbell had his first major hit in 1967, with "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," written by Jimmy Webb, an L.A. kid with a knack for intricate ballads. "Glen's vocal power and technique was the perfect vehicle for these, in a way, very sentimental and romantic songs. And I think that you know we made some records that were very nearly perfect. 'Wichita Lineman' is a very near perfect pop record," Webb said. "I think in the process that Glen was a prime mover in the whole creation of the country crossover phenomenon that made the careers of Kenny Rogers and some other... many other artists possible." The tune kicked off a working relationship that included the haunting Vietnam War ballad "Galveston," the tender "Gentle on My Mind" and "Wichita Lineman," Campbell's first Top 10 hit. With swelling orchestral arrangements and slick production, the songs weren't exactly considered hip in the Sixties. "They felt packaged for a middle-of-the-road, older crowd," said Tom Petty. "At first, you go, 'Oh, I don't know about that.' But it was such pure, good stuff that you had to put off your prejudices and learn to love it. It taught me not to have those prejudices." In 1967, Campbell won Grammys in both the country and pop categories. In the summer of 1968, Campbell guest hosted the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The successful appearance led to his own variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, which he hosted from 1969 until 1972. Artists like Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and Linda Ronstadt performed on the show, which also gave a national platform to rising country stars like Willie Nelson. "He exposed us to a big part of the world that would have never had the chance to see us," said Nelson. "He's always been a big help to me." Campbell's boyish charisma led John Wayne to cast him in a co-starring role in 1969's True Grit. He later said that his acting was so amateurish that he "gave John Wayne that push to win the Academy Award." But the good times didn't last: His show was canceled; his first feature film, 1970's Norwood, flopped; and the hits dried up for a few years. Then, Campbell scored a smash with 1975's "Rhinestone Cowboy." It began a comeback that included hits "Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.") and "Southern Nights." The hits slowed down again in the Eighties; in the Nineties he opened up the Glen Campbell Goodtime Theatre in Branson, Missouri
