He also introduced “My Mammy” and “Carolina in the Morning.” Fred Mertz made a helluva living for Al Jolson.
In time, Bernie Brillstein became as a second father to John Belushi, and the two really seemed to care about each other on a personal level, not just manager and star client.
Brillstein tried on numerous occasions to confront Belushi about his addiction, and in fact was one of the only people (besides Aykroyd and John’s wife Judy) who John Belushi would ever let get emotionally close enough to him to implore him to clean up his life.
Sadly, Brillstein wasn’t great at a tough-love approach, and ended up (along with just about every other power player in Hollywood at the time) more or less enabling J.B.'s lifestyle with access to unlimited cash and no real accountability for his clearly fucked up behavior, both on and off the set…
She was the green dancer on Star Trek. Her first husband was Jimmy Boyd whose claim to fame was that he was the kid who sang “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” He was also not remotely attractive so Ms Craig must be blind.
To clarify, Yvonne Craig was not in the pilot episode, “The Cage.” She appeared as an Orion woman in “Whom Gods Destroy” as a follower of Garth of Izar.
By the way, the Orion dancer scene in “The Cage/The Menagerie” has a strong resemblance to a dance scene in the 1955 movie “The Adventures of Hajji Baba.” I wish I still had it on my DVR so that I could post it for comparison.
Let’s tie Yvonne Craig and Perry Mason as this one is pretty interesting. In 1958, she appeared in “The Case of the Lazy Lover.” Playing her stepfather was Neil Hamilton. Nearly ten years later, they were reunited as father and daughter, Commissioner Gordon and Barbara Gordon in Batman.
Of course it is. That’s the Tommy Westphall group.
One of the other guest stars in “Whom Gods Destroy” was Keye Luke, the all-purpose Chinese character actor who played everything from Lee “Number one son” Chan in Charlie Chan movies to Master Po in Kung Fu.
I have always questioned the color correction/green woman Star Trek story. Having done some color lab work in my time, I just don’t see how it would be possible to correct a green woman to normal flesh tones. I think the story is just that, a story.
Yet more Trek lore:
NBC execs were afraid that there was going to be religious backlash against a character who looked so much like the Devil. They had an artist airbrush out Nimoy’s ears. When Spockmania broke out a few weeks later, that artist was fired.
I wonder why there was no backlash against Eddie Munster.
Why would the artist be fired? He was told to airbrush out the ears, he airbrushed out the ears. Now the exec who decided it should be done, firing him makes sense. But the artist?
Jim Belushi himself has sad that, no mattr what your intentions were towards helping his brother John, five minutes whim and you’d be doing whatever John asked you to. That was just one aspect of his personality: People could not say no to John when he asked them for anything.
Alas, it would prove fatal.
I guess because they needed someone to blame. I’m really not sure, I read that in a book many years ago.
Another factor was that most of the people around Belushi were drug users themselves. They weren’t using drugs at the same self-destructive level Belushi was but they saw a moral quandary in telling somebody else that he should stop using drugs when they were using the same drugs.
And the size of Belsuhi’s drug use was only really apparent in retrospect. When he was working on SNL, the people on the show were more worried about Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman whose drug problems seemed worse than Belushi’s.
One piece of trivia that support that Khan and Chekov knew each other:
“Space Seed” (SD 3141.9), when Khan was found, has a later stardate than “Catspaw” (SD 3018.2), Chekov’s first on-screen appearance. Granted, the former was a 1st-season episode and the latter was the 2nd-season premier. But the stardates definitely put Chekov on the Enterprise before Khan was found.
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I wonder why there was no backlash against Eddie Munster.
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Ghouls apparently had some kind of exception to a lot of TV land taboos. Gomez and Morticia were one of the first couples on TV that you knew got their freak on and they even slept in the same bed (they weren’t the first couple on TV to do so but they were early). The Brady Bunch didn’t come on for years but never allowed Carol and Mike to get as physical as Mon Amour and Cara Mia.
Apparently, he really was one of the most charismatic people in the world, at least when he was in good spirits and coherent—Even people who didn’t normally get high (Carly Simon, Gilda Radner) would often tag along with John, just because he was just so much fun to hang with, so wild and free…
Belushi was also, by every account I’ve read, a voracious reader who could converse intelligently on many subjects. He particularly loved history and particularly particularly loved anything to do with Napoleon and had a collection of Napoleonic memorabilia.
So trivial as to define trivial for those who don’t know the term: Paul Benedict, best known for playing Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons and for appearing in most of the Christopher Guest ensemble movies, died in what had once been Belushi’s house in Martha’s Vineyard.
Two more super trivial pieces of Paul Benedict trivia:
-He was nuts for raccoons and famous for it (he built special feeders for them wherever he lived and loved to feed them by hand- a major “don’t try this at home” trick as they carry rabies and other diseases and have very sharp teeth, but apparently he was never hurt).
-He was a very close friend of Al Pacino, who actually delivered the eulogy at one of Benedict’s memorial services. Hard to picture them together- a very Felix:Oscar thing, but they were friends for many years which is why Benedict popped up in tiny roles in some Pacino movies (Devil’s Advocate being one of them- he’s on screen for about 10 seconds).
Not really TV trivia, as it only tangentially relates to John Belushi, but Cathy Smith, who served 15 months for injecting Belushi with that fatal mix of coke and heroine, was a backup singer and groupie who had a three-year affair with Gordon Lightfoot and is the subject of his hit song “Sundown.”
She was also a heroin/fuck buddy of fellow Canadian Rick Danko, bass player for The Band.
Cathy Smith was a real piece of human trash, and she made a life of glomming onto famous (or semi-famous) drug addicts like a leech clings to an engorged hemorrhoid…