Gone With or Without fanfare

[Sue Sue Applegate]

I adored Nora Ephron. I knew how wonderful she was when I read Heartburn, and she blended recipes with love, misery, angst, and antipasto.

And I knew exactly where she was coming from when she looked at her beautiful wedding ring on her own finger in the jewelry store, and said "It just doesn't go with my life anymore."

[charliechaplinfan]

I was so sad when I heard about her death on the radio this morning. I've loved her work, such a shame.

[Western Guy]

Just heard from a Hollywood friend that Don Grady, actor/songwriter and best known for playing eldest son Robbie Douglas on TV's "My Three Sons" has succumbed to cancer at age 68. I'm sure more details will be forthcoming. Among his other accomplishments, Don composed the theme to "Donahue".

Saw Don not too long ago on a TV program and was thinking how little he'd seemed to age.

[JackFavell]

Robbie!

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Don Gray was such a sweetie. I never knew he wrote the theme song for Donahue.

[Lzcutter]

Here's the obit from the Hollywood Reporter on actor/musician Don Grady:

Don Grady, a Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club who played son Robbie Douglas on the ABC and CBS series My Three Sons, one of the longest-running family sitcoms in history, died Wednesday in Thousand Oaks, Calif., after a battle with cancer. He was 68.

In 1960, three years after he was hired at age 13 as a Mouseketeer on the third season of ABC's Mickey Mouse Club, Grady began an 11-year run as Robbie on the sitcom My Three Sons, with Fred MacMurray starring as the widower dad, William Frawley (and then William Demarest) as the family housekeeper and Grady, Tim Considine (Mike), Stanley Livingston (Chip) and Barry Livingston (Ernie) as the sons. (Mike was written out at the start of the fifth season and Ernie was adopted, keeping the number of sons at three.)


My Three Sons, which debuted on ABC, moved to CBS in 1965 when ABC refused to finance the series' switch to color. With 12 seasons and 380 episodes produced, the Saturday night staple is second only to The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as TV's longest-running (live-action) family sitcom.

In the 1968-69 season, Grady's character and his wife Katie (Tina Cole) had triplets. He departed the series in 1971 at the end of the 11th season when Robbie, now a structural engineer, moved to Peru to work on a bridge construction.

A musical prodigy who had mastered several instruments (including the clarinet and accordion) by age 10, Grady appeared with his own band The Greefs on My Three Sons and wrote two songs for the show. After the series ended, he and songwriter Gary Zekley formed the band Yellow Balloon, named for Zekley's 1967 sunshine pop hit; played with a folk-rock outfit called The Palace Guard; and toured with a group known as The Windupwatch Band, which included Daryl Dragon (later the male half of Captain & Tennille).

In 1973, Grady recorded an album of his own songs (under his real name Don Agrati) titled Homegrown for Elektra. It featured one track using the Army Reserve Band, of which he was then a member. In 2008, he released Boomer, a collection of songs written for and about the baby boomer generation.

Grady served as the composer for the 1991 Blake Edwards comedy Switch starring Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits, did the theme song for the syndicated Phil Donahue Show and was the force behind a Las Vegas multimedia stage show at the MGM Grand called EFX, which at various times in the late '90s starred Michael Crawford, David Cassidy, Tommy Tune and Rick Springfield.

Grady also composed music for the live stunt shows at Universal Studios Hollywood and Florida (his score for The Wild, Wild, Wild West show ran for 14 years) and did the music for more than 30 Disney DVDs.

Grady also starred in a national tour in Pippin and had roles in the stage productions of Godspell and Damn Yankees.

A native of San Diego who grew up in Lafayette, Calif., Grady appeared as a kid in several TV Westerns before My Three Sons, including Wagon Train, The Rifleman, Have Gun — Will Travel, The Restless Gun and Zane Grey Theater.

Survivors include his wife Ginny, his children Joey and Tessa, his sister Marilou Reichel, her husband Meryl, their daughter Kelly and husband Mike Edwards and his mother Mary.

His sister, Lani O'Grady, who played oldest sister Mary on the 1977-81 ABC series Eight Is Enough, died in 2001 at age 46.

[Western Guy]

Yes, I recall Lani from an appearance on "Geraldo", where she discussed her battle with depression and agoraphobia. If I remember correctly she overcame her prescription addiction and claimed to have successfully balanced out her phobias with proper medication, yet shortly thereafter she passed away of an accidental overdose.

Very sad and tragic.

[RedRiver]

I can see those sneaker clad feet tapping right now.

[Western Guy]

. . . And that theme song has been running through my head for most of the day.

[CineMaven]

I understand that Ms. Singleton has passed away.

[JackFavell]

Awww! She made more appearances on Lucy than anybody I think, except for Fred and Ethel.

[MissGoddess]

She was a funny actress, sometimes Lucy would be so jealous and competitive with her character, Carolyn. I never remembered her name but always "knew" that face.

She also played a hilariously witchy mom on an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.

[MissGoddess]

One of my favorite episodes, about the little birds:

[Lzcutter]

News outlets in North Carolina have announced that beloved actor Andy Griffith has died at the age of 86. Griffith lived on Roanoke Island in NC and according to news reports there died at home earlier this morning.

More to follow.....

[JackFavell]

NO!