Trailer Park of Terror - 2008

Based on the Imperium Comics series, Trailer Park of Terror. Six troubled high school students and their chaperon, an optimistic youth ministries Pastor, return from an outdoor character building retreat in the mountains. During a raging storm, their bus crashes, hopelessly stranding them in the middle of the Trucker's Triangle, a forgotten locus of consummate evil in the middle of nowhere. The hapless group seeks shelter for the night in a seemingly abandoned trailer park they find down the road. However, when the sun sets, it's not refuge they find. Instead, terror finds them in the form of Norma, a damned redneck reaper with a killer body who dispenses vengeance and death aided by her cursed companions, a bloodthirsty brood of Undead trailer trash.

Suzanne Pleshette

Born in Brooklyn, New York the only child of Eugene and Geraldine Kaplan Pleshette, she entered the High School of the Performing Arts at twelve, and attended Syracuse University with a drama major.

She made her Broadway debut in 1957's ‘Compulsion' which was followed by ‘Golden Fleecing' with Tom Poston in 1958. That same year saw her feature film debut in ‘The Geisha Boy.' In 1961, she replaced Anne Bancroft in the Broadway production of ‘The Miracle Worker' winning critical acclaim.

She also appeared in numerous films including ‘The Birdsin 1963; ‘The Ugly Dachshund' and ‘Nevada Smith' in 1966; ‘Blackbeard's Ghost' in 1968; ‘If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium' in 1969; and ‘Support Your Local Gunfighter' in 1971. Additionally, she maintained a constant presence on television, appearing in guest roles from 1957's ‘Habourmaster'; to ‘Route 66' in 1961; and ‘It Takes a Thief' in 1969. Her signature role, however, remains that of Emily Hartley in ‘The Bob Newhart Show' which ran from 1972 to 1978 and for which she earned two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the role in 1990 during ‘The Newhart Show's final episode in one of the most talked finales in television history, and again in ‘The Bob Newhart Show 19th Anniversary Special' in 1991.

She continued as a guest star in a variety of television series as well as starring in made for television movies such as ‘The Queen of Mean' in 1990 and ‘A Twist of the Knife' in 1993. Her productivity waned as she spent more time with, Tom Gallagher, her husband of 32 years. He succumbed to lung cancer in January 2000. In the spring of 2001 she married long time friend Tom Posten.

Pleshette was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006, less than a year before Posten's death from respiratory failure in 2007. After treatment she appeared in a cast reunion with ‘The Bob Newhart Show' veterans. Pleshette succumbed to respiratory failure at her home at age 70. She received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame posthumously on what would have been her 71st birthday.

Actress Lois Nettleton dies at 80

Starred in 'In the Heat of the Night'

Two-time Emmy winning actress Lois Nettleton died Jan. 18 in Woodland Hills, Calif., after a long bout with lung cancer. She was 80.

A veteran of the Broadway stage, films and television, Nettleton recieved Emmys for the daytime special "The American Woman: Profiles in Courage" (1977) and for "A Gun for Mandy," (1983) an episode of the syndicated religious anthology "Insight." She received an additional three noms as guest star in "Last Bride of Salem" and "The Golden Girls" and supporting actress in "In the Heat of the Night." On Broadway, she became identified with the work of playwright Tennessee Williams.

Born in Oak Park, Ill. Nettleton competed in beauty pageants as Miss Chicago and Miss Illinois, then studied acting in Chicago before moving to New York to join the Actors' Studio. She made her Broadway debut in 1949's "Darkness at Noon" and "The Biggest Thief in Town," and returned to Chicago to co-star with Burt Reynolds in "The Rainmaker." The 1955 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," staged by Eliza Kazan, brought her to the attention of theater critics. She went on to star in "Silent Night, Lonely Night," "The Wayward Stork," won the Clarence Derwent Award for "God and Kate Murphy" and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1976 for "They Knew What They Wanted."

Playing Blanche DuBois in the 1973 revival of Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire,she won rave reviews in New York and throughout the country.

Nettleton played a bit part in Kazan's classic film, "A Face in the Crowd," but made her official film debut in 1962 in the film adaptation of Williams' "Period of Adjustment." Among her other film appearances were "Mail Order Bride," 'Valley of Mystery," "The Man in the Glass Booth," "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," and "Come Fly With Me."

A regular on "Twilight Zone," she was a frequent guest at the series' annual conventions. She was a series regular in "In The Heat of the Night ," "All That Glitters" and "You Can't Take It With You," recurring in "Crossing Jordan," "Murder, She Wrote," "Full House" and "The Golden Girls," and guest-starred in numerous series, miniseries and TV movies.

Her marriage to disk jockey/writer Jean Shepherd, which began with a call-in on his WOR-AM radio show on which she developed into a regular guest, ended in divorce.

Donations are suggested to The Actors' Fund for Everyone In Entertainment, 729 Seventh Avenue, 14th Fl., New York, New York 10019.

Veteran TV actor Allan Melvin dies in L.A

Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:19pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Allan Melvin, a character actor known for appearances in such TV staples as "The Phil Silvers Show," "All in the Family" and "The Brady Bunch," has died, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.

Melvin succumbed to cancer on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles, the paper said, quoting his wife, Amalia. He was 84.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in New York City, Melvin got his big break on "The Phil Silvers Show," which ran from 1955 to 1959, playing Cpl. Henshaw, the right-hand man to Silvers' Sgt. Ernie Bilko.

He went on to play Archie Bunker's neighbor Barney in "All in the Family," and different roles on at least eight episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show." Fans of "The Brady Bunch" knew him as Sam the butcher, the boyfriend of Alice the housekeeper.

Melvin also worked in cartoons, providing the voices of Magilla Gorillain the Hanna-Barbera series of the same name and Bluto on "Popeye," the Times said.







(Reporting by Dean Goodman; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Maila Nurmi; actress created early TV’s Vampira character

January 16, 2008

In the early days of television, when horror movies were often campy by nature, actress Maila Nurmi created the character Vampira, a glamorous ghoul who as hostess of late-night fright films in the 1950s layered on her own brand of camp.

Vampira played with her pet tarantula, gave gruesome recipes for vampire cocktails and bathed in a boiling caldron. With a knack for the double-entendre and the requisite blood-chilling scream, Vampira was a hit.

The character won Nurmi short-lived fame and a dedicated cult following. Nurmi claimed Vampira was also the uncredited inspiration for later ghoulish yet glamorous female characters in film and television, including Elvira.

Nurmi, who also appeared in the 1959 Edward D. Wood Jr. movie “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” was found dead in her Hollywood home Jan. 10. The cause of death was still being investigated, said Lt. Fred Corral of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Nurmi was believed to be 85, although sources offer conflicting dates of birth.







Born Maila Syrjäniemi in Finland, Nurmi immigrated to the United States when she was a toddler. By 17, she had dropped her surname and taken on that of her famous uncle Paavo Nurmi, a world-class runner known as the “Flying Finn.” In her teens, she moved to New York, and then Los Angeles, to pursue a career in acting.

Little came of Nurmi’s efforts to land conventional leading roles in theater or on-screen. The unconventional came calling in 1953, after Nurmi attended a Hollywood masquerade ball dressed as the ghoul of Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons.

“I bound my bosoms, so that I was flat-chested,” Nurmi said, “and I got a wig, and painted my body a kind of a mauve white pancake with a little lavender powder so that I looked as though I’d been entombed.”

Nurmi’s costume was judged the best at the ball, according to an article that was posted last week on her website. Months later, a KABC-TV producer tracked her down and offered her work as hostess of a late-night horror show.

In creating Vampira, Nurmi said she went beyond the Addams cartoon, developing an alter ego influenced by beatnik culture and her experiences as a child of the Depression.

Vampira wore a low-cut tattered black dress that showed off her impossibly small waist (courtesy of a waist cincher) and displayed more cleavage than was common for the day. With her 6-inch-long nails and dark, dramatically arched eyebrows, watching Vampira was “a release for people.”

“The times … were so conservative and so constrained,” Nurmi said in a video interview that was posted on her website. “There was so much repression, and people needed to identify with something explosive, something outlandish and truthful.”

Shortly after her debut, Vampira appeared in Life magazine, and soon there were fan clubs around the world.

“I was high-rolling in Hollywood, and I was quite full of myself,” Nurmi said in a 1994 interview with People magazine.

But in 1955, KABC canceled her show, and the result was a stinging decline. When she met Wood at a party during the height of her career, she felt nothing but disdain, she told People magazine, but when he approached her in 1956 and offered her $200 to appear in his movie, she accepted the offer.

“I was scraping by on $13 a week,” she said in the People article. “I thought, ‘Well, here I go. I’m going to commit professional suicide right now.’ ”

“Plan 9 From Outer Space,” a zombie movie, has been called the worst movie ever. She appeared in a few more movies, but by the 1960s, Nurmi’s career had taken a turn toward oblivion.

“I’m a lady linoleum-layer,” she told a Times reporter in 1962. “And if things are slow in linoleum, I can also do carpentry, make drapes or refinish furniture.” And for 99 cents an hour, she cleaned celebrity houses, she told Entertainment Weekly in 1994.

Nurmi opened a Vampira antique shop, but she continued to struggle to make ends meet. In the late 1980s, Nurmi filed a lawsuit against another glamorous ghoul. She alleged that Elvira had ripped off her character, copying features such as a “distinctive, low-cut, tattered black dress, emphasizing cleavage and a voluptuous figure.”

The courts disagreed.

Nurmi’s influence can be seen in the teen “goth” look of today, said Dana Gould, a longtime friend of Nurmi.

“She really sort of cast the mold for a look that is still around,” said the comedy writer and comedian.

Director Tim Burton’s film about Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp, introduced a new audience to Wood and Nurmi.

Later in life, Nurmi, who was divorced and had no children, began creating Vampira drawings and selling them on the Internet. She remained proud and protective of the character she created, Gould said.

“I don’t have any babies or any social history that’s remarkable, so I’m leaving something behind, you know, when the time comes to say goodbye, I’m leaving something,” she said in an interview with KABC’s Eyewitness News.

A memorial service is being planned.

Actor Brad Renfro dead at 25

LOS ANGELES -

Brad Renfro was a street-smart Tennessee schoolboy plucked from obscurity in 1993 to play the title role in “The Client.”

The film’s success brought him instant stardom, but struggles with drugs and alcohol dogged his career. On Tuesday, he was found dead in his home. He was 25.




The cause of death was not immediately determined, said Craig Harvey, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. An autopsy was planned.

In “The Client,” based on a John Grisham best-seller, he played a youngster who witnesses a suicide and gets caught up in a mob investigation. Susan Sarandon was nominated for an Oscar for her role as the lawyer the boy hires to help protect him.

Director Joel Schumacher wanted an unknown for the role.

“I didn’t want to use one of those pretty kid faces the audience would be instantly familiar with,” the director said when the film came out. “I want a real wise-ass, a kid who nobody would know.”

A Knoxville police officer who worked to educate children about drugs told a casting director about Renfro, whom he had seen in an anti-drug skit. That led to an audition and Renfro was chosen for the part.

“I’m definitely going to film school,” the boy said when “The Client” came out. “I want to be like Joel.”

Renfro followed up with major parts in the 1995 AIDS drama “The Cure,” the 1997 “Sleepers,” and “Telling Lies in America,” also 1997. More recent credits included “Ghost World,” 2001; “Deuces Wild,” 2002; and “The Jacket,” 2005.

But he was arrested numerous times over the past decade.

The actor served 10 days in jail in 2006 after pleading no contest to driving while intoxicated and guilty to attempted possession of heroin. The latter charge stemmed from his arrest in Los Angeles’ Skid Row area, when he attempted to buy the drug from an undercover officer.

Other run-ins with the law included a 1998 charge of cocaine and marijuana possession, for which he avoided jail time in a plea deal. He was also placed on probation and ordered to pay $4,000 for repairs to a 45-foot yacht he and a friend tried to steal in Florida in 2000.

The following year, he was charged with underage drinking and violating the terms of his probation, and was ordered into alcohol rehabilitation.

After one court appearance, Renfro talked to reporters about rehabilitation, saying it had “definitely been an eye-opener” and he was eager to get clean.

Renfro’s lawyer, Richard Kaplan, said he did not know whether the death was connected to addiction.

“He was working hard on his sobriety,” Kaplan said. “He was doing well. He was a nice person.”

Renfro recently completed a role in “The Informers,” a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel that stars Winona Ryder, Brandon Routh and Billy Bob Thornton.

“Brad was an exceptionally talented young actor and our time spent with him was thoroughly enjoyable,” Marco Weber, president of the film’s production house, Senator Entertainment, said in a statement.

Dennis Bowman, the retired police officer who had launched his career, told The Knoxville News Sentinel on Tuesday he had followed Renfro’s ups and downs over the years.

“With all the other problems he had, I can’t say I was dumbfounded (at his death),” he said. “I told everybody in 1993, ‘This will either be the best thing or the worst thing for Brad. Time will tell.’ I guess it told today.”

Eartha Kitt

Legendary American singer and actress Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer aged 81 on Christmas Day (December 25), 2008.

Most famous for singing the 1963 Christmas hit "Santa Baby", Kitt was also an actress and singer in New York musicals and cabaret shows.

Born on January 17, 1927 in North, South Carolina, Kitt also scored a UK Top 40 hit with "Where Is My Man" in 1984 and also with Broknski Beat with the track "Cha-Cha Heels".

Kitt throughout her career was nominated for Tony, Grammy and Emmy awards, winning two Tonys in 1978 and 2000 for roles in the musicals Timbutktu! and The Wild Party, respectively.

Working with the legendary Orson Welles in 1950's 'Dr Faustus', Welles famously described Eartha as "the most exciting woman in the world".

Kitt was also famous for playing the role of Catwoman, in the 60s Batman television series.

She took over the role of Catwoman for the third season of the 1960s Batman television series,

Kitt wrote three autobiographies in her lifetime; Thursday's Child (1956), Alone with Me (1976), and I'm Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten (1989).

Beverly Garland, versatile actress in film and TV, dies at 82

By Dennis McLellan
December 7, 2008

In a career spanning more than 50 years, she moved from B-movie cult stardom to scores of roles in television, notably on My Three Sons.' She also operated a namesake hotel in North Hollywood.

Beverly Garland, whose long and varied acting career ranged from B-movie cult stardom in the 1950s portraying gutsy characters in movies such as "Not of This Earth" and "It Conquered the World" to playing Fred MacMurray's wife on the sitcom "My Three Sons," has died. She was 82.

Garland, who also was an involved owner of her namesake hotel in North Hollywood, died Friday after a long illness at her Hollywood Hills home, said son-in-law Packy Smith.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years and began with a supporting role in the 1950 film noir classic "DOA," Garland appeared in about 40 films and scores of television shows.

"Not only was she a terrific actress, she was one of those special gals who was fun to work with," said Mike Connors, who appeared with Garland in director Roger Corman's low-budget 1955 film "Swamp Women" and later worked with her when she made guest appearances on his TV detective series "Mannix."

"She had a great sense of humor, she was very thoughtful and had a great laugh," Connors said. "You couldn't help but laugh with her when she laughed."







Despite her reputation for doing heavy drama -- including being nominated for an Emmy in 1955 for her performance as a leukemia patient in the pilot of the medical drama "Medic" -- Garland was best known to many for her comedy turn in "My Three Sons." She played the second wife of MacMurray's character, widower Steve Douglas, during the last three seasons of the popular series, which aired from 1960 to 1972.

"The only thing that bothers me is that everybody loves this character so much," Garland told The Times in 1969. "I don't remember anybody loving me all that much."

Garland also played her fair share of mothers in TV series. She was Stephanie Zimbalist's in "Remington Steele" and Kate Jackson's in "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" in the 1980s, and Teri Hatcher's in "Lois & Clark - The New Adventures of Superman" in the '90s.

She also had recurring roles in the TV shows "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," "7th Heaven" and the ABC soap opera "Port Charles."

Early in her career, Garland played undercover New York police officer Casey Jones in the 1957-59 syndicated series "Decoy," said to be the first American TV police series built around a female protagonist.

Garland's big-screen credits included roles in films such as "The Joker Is Wild" (1957), "Pretty Poison" (1968), "Where the Red Fern Grows" (1974) and "Airport 1975" (1974).

But her starring roles in low-budget exploitation films in the '50s such as "The Alligator People" gave her an enduring cult status.

For Corman, she starred in five films in the 1950s: "Gunslinger," "It Conquered the World," "Naked Paradise," "Not of This Earth" and "Swamp Women."

"Part of what made her a favorite of B-movie fans was that she was seldom a shrinking violet in her movies," Tom Weaver, a science-fiction and fantasy film expert, told The Times. "In fact, she was just the opposite."

In "It Conquered the World," "she grabs a rifle and goes gunning for the monster in its own lair. In 'The Alligator People,' she chases an alligator man into the swamp, and so on," he said.

"She didn't play the demure, reserved heroines very well," Weaver said.

She was born Beverly Fessenden, on Oct. 17, 1926, in Santa Cruz and grew up in Glendale, where she studied acting in high school and began working in little theater, which she continued after the family moved to Phoenix.

She became Beverly Garland when she married actor Richard Garland; they were divorced in 1953 after less than four years. An earlier, brief marriage to Bob Campbell when she was 18 also ended in divorce.

In 1960, she married real estate developer Fillmore Crank, a widower with two children, Cathleen and Fillmore Jr. They had two more children, Carrington Goodman and James Crank. In 1972, the couple built their mission-style hotel in North Hollywood, now called Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn, which she remained involved in running. They also built a hotel in Sacramento that bore Garland's name in the '80s but later sold it.

Her husband died in 1999. Garland is survived by four children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Plans for a memorial service are pending.