Geri Jewell, Cousin of Blair
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
Okay, I’ll admit I was always a bit uncomfortable whenever Cousin Geri would show up at Leland Girls School on the TV series The Facts of Life. Her character was the cousin of teen socialite Blair Warner. Geri looked different and acted different because she had cerebral palsy…for real. But I can’t help but admire the producers of the show for bringing this disease into the public eye and at the same time give a chance to a talented comedienne with an alarming disability. Read the rest of this entry »
So who doesn’t love The Brady Bunch– either openly or secretly? I was actually a little later than some of my friends at getting into the series, not having watched my first episodes after school until about 1983 or so. But I quickly got hooked on the corny adventures of America’s favorite family with afros. I felt like I was right there being cool with Greg, being a loser with Peter, getting in the way with Bobby, drooling over Marcia, wanting Jan to fail miserably, and being protective of little Cindy. 
Many uneducated laymen may think that Rose Marie’s career began with her role as wisecracking Sally Rogers in The Dick Van Dyke Show, but in fact her original moniker was Baby Rose Marie, performing in vaudeville, radio, and short and feature films. One short bore the eponymous title Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder. She even starred in the W.C. Fields vehicle International House. 
Most movie buffs would certainly recognize Richard Kiel as the notorious and dealdy villian Jaws from two James Bond films, The Spy Who Loved Me and Jaws. As seen at left, Kiel wore metal inserts in his mouth by which he could bite into victims’ jugular vein, rendering them slightly dead. Younger movie buffs would certainly know Kiel for his portrayal of Mr. Larson in Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore. I’m ashamed to say that of the two, I knew him better from the latter film, never having been a big James Bond fan. 
Long before he was Rambo, Tango, Cobra, Judge Dredd, or Sheriff Freddy Heflin (that’s from the Robert De Niro vehicle Copland – for those who don’t know), I had only seen Sylvester Stallone perform in one role, that of Rocky Balboa. I had enjoyed the Academy Award winning film Rocky repeatedly on our VHS player, and one night even boxed along with Rocky and Apollo Creed with my pal Kenny Carroll, while my parents looked on and considered having me euthanized. So it was of little wonder that when the time came for me to send out my first through-the-mail autograph request, I chose to send a letter to Sylvester Stallone.