Lana Turner, the Girl Next Door
Lana Turner was one of M-G-M's great stars. She married seven times. She started out as "the girl next door" in movies, and was reported to have said, "I expected…
Grateful Dead Co-Founder, Jerry Garcia
Co-founder of the musical rock group Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, liked to improvise and once described his playing style as having "descended from barroom rock and roll, country guitar. Just…
Clark Gable in San Francisco
One of Clark Gable's big films was San Francisco. His co-star was Jeanette MacDonald, and she was the one who delivered the property to M-G-M, which happened to be a…
Josephine Baker, The Most Sensational Woman Anyone Ever Saw
As if from nothing, Josephine Baker journeyed to Europe where she was an instant success and became a symbol of the Jazz Age. In stage shows there she would appear…
Predicting a 90-Year Old Ty Cobb’s Batting Average
How does one compare different eras in any given sport? Carl Erskine remembered how his Brooklyn Dodgers teammate Duke Snider fielded that one. Snider was asked how a great player…
Roy Campanella’s Life Lesson
Life is often not fair. Consider the life of Roy Campanella. He never made more than a $36,000 annual salary playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Today he'd be paid $36…
Bettie Page, the Queen of Pin-Ups
Playboy magazine hailed Bettie Page as "the Queen of pin-ups, the model of the century." The girl with the trademarked black bangs, fabulous killer curves, and sweet smile, grew up…
Hall of Fame Manager, Casey Stengel
When the Hall of Fame manager of the New York Yankees, Casey Stengel, died, the great writer for the Los Angeles Times, Jim Murray, wrote, "God is certainly getting an…
Lou Gehrig as an Actor in Movies
The Pride of the Yankees (1942) starring Gary Cooper was the superb screen biography of baseball's Lou Gehrig. Samuel Goldwyn produced this four-star classic motion picture, top tier in every…
George Mikan, Mr. Basketball
Before LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, Magic, Worthy, Kareem, Wilt, Elgin and Jerry West, the Lakers dominated the NBA with 6'10" George Mikan. And no one dominated the NBA the way Mikan…