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| Will the Real Santa
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| Guest Star Info |
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Rick
Springfield |
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Although
Rick Springfield's music was frequently dismissed as vapid teen
idol fare, his best moments have actually withstood the test
of time far better than most critics would ever have imagined,
emerging as some of the best-crafted mainstream power pop of
the decade.
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A singer turned soap-opera star turned
singer, Springfield was born Richard Springthorpe on August
23, 1949 in Sydney, Australia to a military man; the family
moved around Australia and England a great deal during Rick's
childhood, and he sought his escape from the difficulty of making
friends in books and music. He formed a band in high school
and eventually joined a '50s revival group called Rock House,
moving on from there to join the teenybopper band Zoot in 1968.
Zoot became one of the most popular groups in Australia until
1971, scoring several hits. Springfield went solo after the
breakup and garnered his first U.S. success the following year
with a re-recording of his Australian hit "Speak to the Sky";
the song reached number 14 in the U.S., but would prove to be
his last major success for quite some time. Subsequent '70s
albums stiffed, and record company difficulties prevented Springfield
from recording after 1976. In the meantime, Springfield had
begun taking acting classes;
he signed a contract with Universal Studios in 1980 and appeared
on several television programs. Although
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Universal dropped him shortly thereafter,
he was able to secure a recording contract with RCA on the strength
of his demos; in the midst of recording his debut for the label,
he was signed to play the young, eligible Dr. Noah Drake on
General Hospital in 1981. Springfield's popularity skyrocketed,
setting the stage for the release of Working Class Dog later
that year. Powered by the classic single "Jessie's Girl," which
eventually hit the top of the charts, and the Top Ten follow-up
"I've Done Everything for You," Working Class Dog was a smash
success, and Springfield eventually returned to his first love
of music when concerts conflicted with his television career.
The follow-up, Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet, was released in
1982, spawning the Top Ten smash "Don't Talk to Strangers";
1983's Living in Oz offered more of the same, including the
Top Ten "Affair of the Heart," although it betrayed signs that
the gears were beginning to wear down on the Springfield machine.
Springfield made the leap to the big screen in 1984 with Hard
to Hold, which was much more successful at the box office than
with critics; the soundtrack spawned his last Top Ten hit to
date, "Love Somebody." His career seemed to bottom out afterwards,
although he recorded several more albums over the rest of the
'80s, and continued to land television roles into the '90s.
In 1999, Springfield returned with a new album, Karma. |
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Dan O' Herlihy |
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Born in May of 1919 in Wexford, Ireland
A handsome leading man
with more artistic ambitions than most, O'Herlihy first appeared
in British director Carol Reed's 1947 Odd Man Out and then made
his American screen debut opposite Orson Welles in the odd,
moody, Welles-directed Macbeth (1948). Stardom never came, but
he won an Oscar nomination for his rich performance in Luis
Buñuel's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1952), a career
high point. Active in TV on both sides of the Atlantic, O'Herlihy
had a plum role (along with other Irish and Irish-American actors)
in John Huston's directorial swan song, The Dead (1987), and
in 1991 turned up in David Lynch's surreal prime-time TV series,
"Twin Peaks." Contemporary moviegoers might know him best as
the CEO of Omni Consumer Products in RoboCop (1987) and RoboCop
2 (1990). In recent years O'Herlihy has been active with California
Artists Radio Theatre. |
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John Ericson |
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Also Known As: Joseph Meibes
Born: September 25, 1926 in Dusseldorf, Germany German-born
John Ericson was trained for an acting
career at New York's American Academy of the
Dramatic Arts. Ericson possessed a
brash, bristly personality that worked against his handsome,
sensitive features. As a result, he was better suited to such
roles as the title character in Pretty Boy Floyd (1960) than
he was to such lyrical romances as Teresa (1952) and Rhapsody
(1953). In 1965, John Ericson was co-starred with Anne Francis
on the TV private eye series Honey West. |
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William Campbell |
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October 30, 1926 in Newark, NJ In films
from 1950, actor William L. Campbell was most often seen in
secondary "best friend" or bad-guy roles. In 1955, he starred
as "death-row lawyer" Caryl Chessman in Cell 2455 Death Row.
Three years later, he co-starred with Paul Birch in Cannonball,
a popular Canadian-based syndicated series about long-haul truckers.
Star Trek fans will instantly recognize William Campbell as
the malevolently childlike titular alien Trelane from the 1967
episode "The Squire of Gothos." |
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