Edward Hardwicke Passes On

Actor Edward Hardwicke, perhaps best known for playing Watson opposite Jeremy Brett in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Return of Sherlock Holmes, passed on 16 May 2011. He was 78 years old. The cause was cancer.

 Edward Hardwicke was born in London on 7 August 1932, the son of actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Helena Pickard. He made his film début when he was only ten years old, in 1943 in the movie A Guy Named Joe. He attended Stowe School and spent his National Service in Royal Air Force as a Pilot Officer. Afterwards he trained in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He would have a very successful career in the theatre, appearing at the Bristol Old Vic, the Oxford Playhouse, the Nottingham Playhouse, and Sir Laurence Olivier's National Theatre.

In 1954 Edward Hardwicke appeared in the films Hell Below Zero and The Men of Sherwood Forest. From the late Fifties into the Sixties he appeared in such TV shows as ITV Television Playhouse, Invisible Man, Danger Man, ITV Play of the Week, Sherlock Holmes (a different series from the one in which he starred with Jeremy Brett), Journey into the Unknown, and Biography. He appeared in the films Othello (1965), A Flea in His Ear (1968), and Otley  (1968).

The Seventies saw Mr. Hardwicke became very active on television. He starred as Captain Pat Grant in the series Colditz, appeared as Arthur on the series My Old Man, and as Enrico Fermi in Oppenheimer. He also appeared on such shows as Crown Court, Edward the King, Against the Crowd, Holocaust, and Tycoon. He appeared in such films as The Reckoning (1971), The Day of Jackal (1973),  The Black Windmill (1974), and The Odd Job (1978).

In the Eighties Edward Hardwicke played Sir Hector Rose in the series Strangers and Brothers. He appeared in such shows as The Bell, Lytton's Diary, and The Disctrict Nurse. It was in 1984 that he first played Dr. Watson, appearing in the series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. He would once more play Watson in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. He appeared in the film Venom (1981).  In the Nineties Edward Hardwicke once more played Watson in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. He appeared on the shows Lovejoy, Peak Practice, and Verdict. He appeared in the movies Let Him Have It (1991), Shadowlands (1993), The Scarlet Letter (1995), Hollow Reed (1996), Elizabeth (1998), and Ain't Misbehavin' (2000). He appeared as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Photographing Fairies (1997), making one of the few actors to have played both an actor and a character he had created. In the Naughts he appeared in the films She (2001), Enigma (2001), Love Actually (2003), and Oliver Twist (2005).

There are those who believe Edward Hardwicke was the best Dr. Watson to appear on television or film. Having a soft spot for Nigel Bruce (not to mention Jude Law), I am not sure I agree, but there can be no doubt Edward Hardwicke was very, very good, not just as Watson, but in many other roles. He played everything from Mr. Bronlow in Oliver Twist to Marcus in Titus Andronicus. Like many British actors trained on the stage, he seemed capable of playing anything and being convincing doing it. Few actors were ever as good as Edward Hardwicke at his craft.

Godspeed Dana Wynter

Dana Wynter, the female lead of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), passed on 5 May 2011 at the age of 79. The cause was congestive heart failure. Her co-star, Kevin McCarthy, had just died last year.

Dana Wynter was born on 8 June 1931 in Berlin, Germany. Her father was an English surgeon. She was raised in England and attended Rhodes University in South Africa with the intent of becoming a doctor. While there she discovered the theatre. She returned to England to take up acting.

Miss Wynter made her début on the screen in an uncredited role in the film Night Without Stars in 1951. Her first credited role was the same year, playing Marjorie Brewster in White Corridors. Over the next few years she appeared in such films as The Woman's Angle (1952), the classic action movie The Crimson Pirate (1952) and Knights of the Round Table (1953). She made her television début in 1953 in an episode of Robert Montgomery Presents. She would spend most of her career in television. In the Fifties she appeared on such shows as Suspense, The United States Steel Hour, Studio One, The 20th Century Fox Hour, and Playhouse 90. The latter half of the Fifties saw Dana Wynter do many films as well. Aside from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, she also appeared in  In Love and War (1958), Shake Hands with the Devil (1959), and Sink the Bismark (1960).

The Sixties saw Miss Wynter appear in the films On the Double (1961), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), If He Hollers, Let Him Go (1968), and Airport (1970). She was a regular on the TV series The Man Who Never Was, playing Eva Wainwright. She also guest starred on the TV shows The Virginian, Burke's Law, Wagon Train, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, 12 O'Clock High, Ben Casey, The Wild Wild West, Gunsmoke, and Get Smart.

In the Seventies Dana Wynter appeared on such shows as Marcus Welby M.D., The F.B.I., Hawaii Five-O, Ironside, Cannon, Ellery Queen, and The Rockford Files. She appeared in such films as Santee (1973) and Le Sauvage (1975).  From the Seventies into the Eighties she was a regular on the series Bracken, after which she appeared only in two episodes of Magnum P.I. and the reunion movie The Return of Ironside in 1993. In the Eighties she wrote a gossip column for the British newspaper The Guardian.

Dana Wynter was an exceedingly talented actress. Indeed, perhaps no better proof of this is to be had than her role in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Miss Wynter convincing played an American divorcee, with no trace of her English accent. In the movie Fräulein in 1958 she once more played with an accent other than her own--a light German accent. Over the years Miss Wynter would play a variety of roles in both movies and television, from her typical American divorcee in Invasion of the Body Snatchers to a rich, alcoholic, self confessed tramp in In Love and War (1958) to various English ladies and other nobility in many TV shows (an example being Lady Beatrice Marquand-Gaynesford in The Wild Wild West Episode "Night of the Two-Legged Buffalo). Although never a major movie star, Dana Wynter had the talent of one.

Actress Mary Murphy Passes On

Actress Mary Murphy, perhaps best known for her role in The Wild One (1953), passed on 4 May 2011 at the age of 80. The cause was heart disease.

Mary Murphy was born in Washington, D.C. on 26 January 1931. She was only six months old when her family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Following her father's death, her mother moved the family to Southern California. She was a package wrapper at Saks at the time that Paramount Pictures discovered her in a café. She made her film début in an uncredited part in The Lemon Drop Kid (1951). She appeared in bit parts in such films as When Worlds Collide (1951), My Favourite Spy (1951), The Atomic City (1952), and Houdini (1953). Her first major role and her breakthrough role would be Katie Bleeker, the small town love interest of Marlon Brando's biker in The Wild One.


Over the next few years Miss Murphy appeared in such films as The Mad Magician (1954), Sitting Bull (1954), The Desperate Hours (1955), and The Maverick Queen (1956). From the late Fifties onward, her career would mostly spent on television. Miss Murphy only appeared in three more films after 1956: Live Fast, Die Young (1958),  The Electronic Monster  (1958), and Crime and Punishment U.S.A. (1959). On television she appeared in such shows as Cavalcade of America, Wagon Train, The Restless Gun, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor, and The Millionaire.

The Sixties Mary Murphy spent mostly in television. She guest starred on such shows as The Rebel, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, Honey West, and I Spy. She appeared in the films as Two Before Zero (1962) and 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962). In the Seventies she appeared in the  films Junior Bonner (1972) and I Love You...Goodbye (1974).. She appeared on the shows Circle of Fear and The Streets of San Francisco. She retired in the Seventies and worked in a Los Angeles art gallery.

The New PC

For those of you who don't know (and given I boasted of it on Facebook and tweeted it as well, I doubt there are many), I bought a new computer this weekend. This brings me to an interesting observation (well, interesting to me), despite their importance in modern society, you almost never see individuals in movies or TV shows dealing with replacing an old PC with a new one. Indeed, I could see where it would at least make for a good episode of a sitcom.

The plain fact is that many of us keep much of our lives (if not all of it) on our computers. This is particularly true for me, as I am a writer. When I get a new computer, I then have to back up any projects on which I am working so they can be moved to the new machine. Above all else, I had to remember to transfer the file for my book on power pop, as well as the files of notes I have. Of course, we also use computers for entertainment, so I had to back up all of my music. I kid you not, it took three hours to completely back up everything (I have around 3000 songs). I also had to move my pictures over to the new machine, those I use on this blog and on Retrophilia (my Tumblr blog), as well as my personal ones . Curiously, I discovered I have far more pictures of classic actresses than classic actors...

Of course, even once one has transferred everything he or she needs to the new computer, he or she might find they don't have the programmes to utilise the files. At one time a common complaint was that PCs came bundled with too much software, programmes one would never use. My old computer came with both Quicken and Microsoft Money, two programmes that do the same thing...and two programmes I would never use. Today things are very different. PCs don't come bundled with enough software.  I had to dig out my Microsoft Word disc so I would have a decent word processing programme (the PC came with nothing but Wordpad and Notepad...). I also had to download Napster so I could play my music (in all fairness, the PC did come with Windows Media Player, but I much prefer Napster).


Anyhow, here it is, 10:42 PM my time and I still haven't finished the process of moving from one machine to another. The new PC has most of what I need now, but there are some files I forgot and are still on the old computer. I also need to install a few more programmes that I don't use that often, as well as the printer. As to the new computer, itself, it is a very nice machine. While it is a lower end Hewlett Packard, it is very fast, even compared to my nephew's more high end machine. It also runs very, very smoothly.  In fact, the only complaint I have is that it came bundled with Norton for its security programme. Mind you, I have had very bad experiences with Norton. It seems that when it updates or scans it robs memory and/or bandwidth. And my PC would still be infected by viruses or Trojans. It has since been my policy to uninstall Norton and install McAfee. McAfee coes not rob memory or bandwith when updating or scanning. And I have never had a machine attacked or infected which had McAfee for security

So what does any of this have to do with pop culture? Not much really. It does have a lot to do with this blog. With a new computer I will no longer have to worry that the machine is going to shut down midway through blog entries, which means I can go back to writing more and longer blog entries. I don't know about my readers, but I know that makes me happy.

Video Killed the Radio Star

Okay, I have to apologise. Last night I promised a real blog entry for today. Unfortunately what I did not anticipate last night was how long it would take to save everything I wanted from the old PC to move to the new PC. My songs (all 3000 or so of them) alone took two hours to back up. I will leave you then tonight with the classic "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

The song is famous as its video was the very first one played on MTV, a cable channel which now ironically no longer shows videos in any quantity (reality shows killed the video star...). The song seems to be set in the Fifties and Sixties, when television and other technologies were overcoming radio. Indeed, Trevor Horn of The Buggles has said the song was inspired by the J. G. Ballard story "The Sound-Sweep," in which a boy finds an opera star hiding away in a sewer. With technologies changing ever more swiftly, the song seems even more pertinent today than it was when it was released in 1979.

Sunny Afternoon by The Kinks

Today the PC went the whole day without overheating, probably because temperatures dropped to something more reasonable than 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Regardless, I had to spend the day paying bills and I am a bit tired from running around. That being the case, I'll leave you with the classic "Sunny Afternoon" by The Kinks. This is the original promotional film for the song from 1966.

Tomorrow I am buying a new PC and I promise I will try to do a real blog entry.

Summer in the City

I have to apologise for not posting this week. Since Sunday it has been 90 degrees Fahrenheit every day. Combined with a house with only one window unit air conditioner and an aging computer which wants to shut down when it's hot, I have not dared do any lengthy posts. I then leave you with the only song I think truly describes summer, not as some beautiful, mild time, but as hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable. This is "Summer in the City" by The Lovin' Spoonful.

Spring is scheduled to return this weekend and with any luck I'll get a new PC tomorrow and another air conditioner not long after that! I hate summer.