Gone With or Without fanfare

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

Very sad to hear that Reinhold Weege has passed away.
Multi-talented, humourous and witty and a creater of great comedy shows with many common sense messages relayed in them.

Oh to have those "Barney Miller" and "Night Court" episodes on now instead of the crud & crape & cesspool shows playing now.

R.I.P. RW - - you are missed

Larry

[Rita Hayworth]

Hi,

Very sad to hear that Reinhold Weege has passed away.
Multi-talented, humourous and witty and a creater of great comedy shows with many common sense messages relayed in them.

Oh to have those "Barney Miller" and "Night Court" episodes on now instead of the crud & crape & cesspool shows playing now.

R.I.P. RW - - you are missed

Larry

I know exactly how you feel Larry ... I love those two shows and Reinhold Weege is a talent that won't be forgotten by us all.

[moira finnie]

Oh, heck. Now TCM is going to have to update their video TCM Remembers...

Jack Hanlon (1917-2012), who appeared in The General (1926) with Buster Keaton, was kissed by Greta Garbo, appeared in the "Our Gang/Little Rascals" comedies, and shared the screen with Clark Gable and Constance Bennett, has died in his 90s in Las Vegas. Mr. Hanlon had also been a paratrooper in WWII and worked for Allied Van Lines for many years after his retirement from the screen when he was a mere 16 years of age.

There is an interesting posting about meeting Mr. Hanlon in his later years here at a blog called The Terrible Catsafterme. Below is his obituary from The Huffington Post.:

RENO, Nev. -- Jack Hanlon, who had roles in the 1926 silent classic "The General" and in two 1927 "Our Gang" comedies, died Thursday in Las Vegas, family members said Sunday. He was 96.

The precocious, freckle-faced Hanlon was a natural as a child actor from 1926 to 1933, said his niece, Wendy Putnam Park of Las Vegas.

"He was absolutely the sweetest, most charming man," Park told The Associated Press. "He loved talking about being in the movies if you brought the subject up. He loved sharing stories about being in them."

After a small role with Buster Keaton in "The General," he played mischievous kids in two of Hal Roach's "Our Gang/Little Rascals" films: "The Glorious Fourth" and "Olympic Games."

Hanlon also played an orphan in the 1929 drama "The Shakedown," and got an on-screen kiss from Greta Garbo in the 1930 film "Romance."

He appeared in eight more "talkies," including "Big Money" with Clark Gable, in the 1930s before calling it a career at the age of 16. He rarely made more than $5 a day.

His friend, Bob Satterfield, told the Las Vegas Sun that he watched the Our Gang films and "The General" with Hanlon.

"He told me it was like watching someone else because it was a lifetime ago ... Jack led a full life," Satterfield, a Southern California high school activities director and silent film buff, told the Sun.

After leaving Hollywood, Hanlon became an Army paratrooper and mover for Allied Van Lines. He had resided in Las Vegas for 18 years, Park said, and lived in his own home until October when he moved to an assisted living center.

"Surprisingly, he was in good physical shape until two months ago," Park said. "He liked being independent and watching old movies on TV. He basically died of old age."

He will be buried in Santa Monica, Calif., along with his wife of 37 years, Jean.

Survivors include two other nieces and a nephew.

[Western Guy]

God bless. But he enjoyed a long life and thankfully could enjoy good health until towards the end. It's certainly what any of us can hope for.

[JackFavell]

I agree, WG. What a great life, one that should be celebrated.

[feaito]

Sad news.

Moira, I wonder which is the film "Big Money" mentioned by the newspaper. I can't recall a film with that title in which Gable appeared.

Wendy,

Is that Norma Shearer as Nina Leeds in your avatar?

[JackFavell]

It's supposed to be Norma, and I think it's a beautiful pic of her.

[RedRiver]

Kissed by Greta Garbo. Good Heavens! That, alone, is a legacy.

[charliechaplinfan]

It certainly is, not many people can claim that.

Norma often has a dreamy look about her, it was part of her strength.

[feaito]

It's supposed to be Norma, and I think it's a beautiful pic of her.

I am sure she's Norma and she looks beautiful; I think that it's a still of her characterized as Nina Leeds in "Strange Interlude" (1932), based on Eugene O'Neill's play, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Western Guy]

Okay, don't want to spoil this, but as far as kissing Garbo. The story I heard was Fredric March apparently was coming on a little too amorous towards Miss Garbo during the filming of ANNA KARENINA. To offset Freddie's romantic overtures, prior to their romantic scenes, Garbo took to eating garlic. Could be one of those Hollywood Urban Legends, or perhaps Garbo was resenting the fact that John Gilbert was passed over for the role of Count Vronsky.

[charliechaplinfan]

It's hard to tell but Fredric March did have that reputation of being amourous on set and I had heard Garbo ate garlic before there scenes but I didn't think March would have propositioned Garbo, I didn't think anyone would have the guts to do that. March did say that working with Garbo did not constitute an introduction.

[moira finnie]

Garlic?! Like she'd need that.

Come off it! Garbo could have snapped Freddie like a twig!...not to mention what Flo would do to him when he got home. Even Evelyn Keyes didn't fall for his "great lover" routine when she was still wet behind the ears during the making of DeMille's The Buccaneer (1938). I think March was a terrific actor once his directors' wrung the ham out of him, (and when he wasn't wearing silken britches, a toga, or a curly perm), but he was not Mr. Smooth. As a sex symbol, Freddie was a great bank clerk (his original occupation before he heard the siren song of show biz). Love ya, Mr. March, just not that way.

[Western Guy]

Well bottom line, Freddie stayed married to Miss Eldridge all those years. Gotta respect him - or her - for that.

Don't forget, Freddie also tried his "talents" both on Miriam Hopkins and Carole Lombard, with not much success. But at least Carole never referred to the shrunken head that Gable had bought for her as a surprise gift as a "reminder of George Raft".

[moira finnie]

Hume Cronyn tells a great story about the longtime couple. He was visiting Fredric March when he was dying in the hospital in 1975. Florence Eldridge took a break while Cronyn was there and was reading a book when the actor came out of her husband's room to see her. Closing the book (which I suspect was David Chierichetti's superb "Mitchell Leisen: Hollywood Director"), she turned to him fuming over an account of her husband's naughty behavior with his co-star Evelyn Venable on the set of one of his finest roles in Death Takes a Holiday (1934). The fact that she could still be mad as a wet hen over something the scamp tried (and failed at) forty years before indicates an abiding kind of love, even if she still found his foibles rather exasperating.

Interestingly, one of the kind of roles I think that March played most convincingly in his career in films such as The Best Years of Our Lives, An Act of Murder, and The Desperate Hours:

A longtime married man.