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5 articles from 2008

25 May 2008 7:14 AM, PDT | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

American comedian-turned-director Dick Martin has passed away at the age of 86.

He died early Saturday evening surrounded by family and friends, after suffering from respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, according to the star's spokesperson Barry Greenberg.

Martin enjoyed a career spanning 40 years, but was perhaps best known for his role as co-host of the hit 1960s TV series Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In.

The variety show debuted in January 1968, winning over both audiences and critics and topping the Nielsen TV ratings charts for two years. The show, which featured song-and-dance segments and stand-up banter between Rowan and Martin, helped launch the careers of several young actors and comedians, including Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson and Jo Anne Worley.

Hollywood stars John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, as well as then-presidential hopeful Richard Nixon, also made brief appearances on the show before it was cancelled in 1973.

Martin later moved on to directing, following the advice of fellow comic and actor Bob Newhart. He quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's most hard-working TV directors, working on episodes of Newhart, In The Heat Of The Night, Archie Bunker's Place and Family Ties.

Martin is survived by his wife Dolly Read and two sons from his first marriage to Peggy Connelly: actor Richard Martin and Cary Martin. At his request, there will be no funeral.

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7 March 2008 12:11 PM, PST | From Watcher | See recent Watcher news

Between Dr. Drew Pinsky on VH1's reality hit "Celebrity Rehab" and the fictional Dr. Paul Weston on Hbo's highly addictive "In Treatment," we're awash in TV therapists .

"These shows are a way of people getting back in touch with the soul, and the audience wants that," Baylor College psychiatry professor Glen Gabbard, author of “Psychiatry and the Cinema,” told Broadcasting & Cable.

But TV’s fascination with the therapist’s couch is nothing new. Here’s a highly subjective look at a few of the fictional tube shrinks — past and present — who have captured my imagination.

Dr. Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) of HBO’s “The Sopranos” (1999-2007)

Nobody knew more about New Jersey’s top mobster, Tony Soprano (except perhaps the FBI agents who kept tabs on him). But toward the end of the series,  she began to wonder how much she’d helped the mobster, who first visited  after suffering a panic attack.

Tempo

21 January 2008 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Suzanne Pleshette, who played Bob Newhart's wife on The Bob Newhart Show from 1972 to 1978, died Saturday in Los Angeles just days short of her 70th birthday on Jan. 31, when she was to have been honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame. Her death was attributed to respiratory failure. She had been treated for lung cancer since 2006.

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21 January 2008 | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Actress Suzanne Pleshette, who started out in films such as The Birds but became a television star playing Bob Newhart's wife on The Bob Newhart Show, died Saturday night of respiratory failure at her home in Los Angeles; she was 70. Pleshette had been battling lung cancer since 2006, when she underwent chemotherapy and had part of one lung removed. A fresh-faced beauty with a distinctive, husky voice, Pleshette worked mostly onstage in the 50s, with one of her most notable roles as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, replacing original star Anne Bancroft. She made her film debut opposite Jerry Lewis in The Geisha Boy and worked steadily in television as she launched her film career. Her most notable screen role was in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, where she played a local schoolteacher who befriends out-of-town socialite Tippi Hedren and helps protect the children of the town during one of the film's terrifying bird attacks. In 1964, she married screen heartthrob Troy Donahue, her co-star in the romantic drama Rome Adventure, though the marriage lasted less than a year, and in 1968 married Texas oilman Tommy Gallagher.

Despite a prolific career in film and television, Pleshette gained her fame playing Emily Hartley, the down-to-earth wife of psychiatrist Bob Hartley (Bob Newhart) on the 70's sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, which ran for six years and earned her two Emmy nominations. Pleshette was so well-known as the small-screen wife of Newhart that she reprised her role in an unexpected cameo in the series finale of Newhart's second major sitcom, Newhart. The episode, where Newhart awakens in the bedroom set of his old show with Pleshette by his side (as they often ended episodes of their old show, trading dry banter) is considered one of the most clever, and surprising, series finales in television history. Pleshette continued working in television through the rest of her career, earning another Emmy nomination for playing Leona Helmsley in Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean, and made appearances in sitcoms Good Morning Miami, 8 Simple Rules... and Will & Grace (where she played the mother of Megan Mullally's character, Karen Walker). Pleshette also provided the voices of Yubaba and Zeniba in the English language version of Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning animated film Spirited Away. In 2001, after the death of her second husband, Pleshette married actor Tom Poston, whom she had met 40 years ago and who had co-starred in Newhart; they remained married until his death last year. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff

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18 January 2008 | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Actress Suzanne Pleshette, who started out in films such as The Birds but became a television star playing Bob Newhart's wife on The Bob Newhart Show, died Saturday night of respiratory failure at her home in Los Angeles; she was 70. Pleshette had been battling lung cancer since 2006, when she underwent chemotherapy and had part of one lung removed. A fresh-faced beauty with a distinctive, husky voice, Pleshette worked mostly onstage in the 50s, with one of her most notable roles as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker, replacing original star Anne Bancroft. She made her film debut opposite Jerry Lewis in The Geisha Boy and worked steadily in television as she launched her film career. Her most notable screen role was in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, where she played a local schoolteacher who befriends out-of-town socialite Tippi Hedren and helps protect the children of the town during one of the film's terrifying bird attacks. In 1964, she married screen heartthrob Troy Donahue, her co-star in the romantic drama Rome Adventure, though the marriage lasted less than a year, and in 1968 married Texas oilman Tommy Gallagher.

Despite a prolific career in film and television, Pleshette gained her fame playing Emily Hartley, the down-to-earth wife of psychiatrist Bob Hartley (Bob Newhart) on the 70's sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, which ran for six years and earned her two Emmy nominations. Pleshette was so well-known as the small-screen wife of Newhart that she reprised her role in an unexpected cameo in the series finale of Newhart's second major sitcom, Newhart. The episode, where Newhart awakens in the bedroom set of his old show with Pleshette by his side (as they often ended episodes of their old show, trading dry banter) is considered one of the most clever, and surprising, series finales in television history. Pleshette continued working in television through the rest of her career, earning another Emmy nomination for playing Leona Helmsley in Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean, and made appearances in sitcoms Good Morning Miami, 8 Simple Rules... and Will & Grace (where she played the mother of Megan Mullally's character, Karen Walker). Pleshette also provided the voices of Yubaba and Zeniba in the English language version of Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning animated film Spirited Away. In 2001, after the death of her second husband, Pleshette married actor Tom Poston, whom she had met 40 years ago and who had co-starred in Newhart; they remained married until his death last year. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff

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5 articles from 2008