“Where’s Nitti?” “He’s in the Car.”
Friday, March 15th, 2013
I sometimes wonder what it must to do one’s self-esteem to continually be cast as the evil villain. That’s a question I should have asked Billy Drago when I met him at the Chiller Theatre show on October 27, 2012. There must be a limited number of actors in the business who have a higher ratio of ‘bad guy roles’ to ‘good guy roles’ than he does. And clearly he does it well. I’m not familiar with a lot of the evil roles he played, but you might catch him as a gangster in an episode of Moonlighting, a corrupt deputy in Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider, or most notably as Al Capone’s henchman Frank Nitti in The Untouchables. Read the rest of this entry »
I stayed blissfully out of the evening TV drama scene throughout the 90’s. I simply didn’t watch them, concentrating solely on sitcoms and movies. But there was one exception and it was a most pleasant one: Picket Fences. I faithfully recorded each and every episode of this amazing, entertaining show, and watched them and shared them with friends ad nauseum. I loved each and every character, and had a particular fondness for the red-hot red-headed character of Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart – played to perfection by equally attractive Lauren Holly. 
In the old days of going to California – like in the 1980’s and 90’s – my trips to southern California were usually to see Bob, and thus I would generally spend most of my time with him. But usually during my weekends, it doesn’t often work out that I get to spend much time with Bob as he lives about an hour and a half away from the Hollywood Shows, and I am usually out of there by Sunday or Monday. For this particular trip, I chose to set aside two days so that he and I could maneuver about the L.A. area like the old days. So he took off Monday from work and we planned out a few things to hit on Sunday and Monday. 
I can’t resist a good Seinfeld quote for a title, this one relating to George Costanza’s irrational fear of contracting systemic lupus erythematosus when a psychic advises him not to take a trip to the Cayman Islands. But this has absolutely zero to do with the subject of this posting. The posting has to do with actor Peter Lupus – best known for his role as Willy Armitage on the TV series Mission: Impossible. Well… I say that is what he is best known for, but some out there may know him because he was the first well-known male actor to pose fully nude for Playgirl Magazine. I had cursory knowledge of the former when I met him, no knowledge of the latter.