Betty Anne Rees, who appeared on My Three Sons but was better known for the films The Unholy Rollers and Sugar Hill, has died at age 81. Rees died on June 3 at home in Hemet, California, niece Kathleen Loucks told The Hollywood Reporter. The retired actor had suffered a series of falls recently and had possibly endured a stroke, and she was also living with multiple sclerosis. Born Elizabeth Anne Rees in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on April 14, 1943 — and educated at Shaker Heights High School, the University of Miami, and the Pasadena Playhouse — the actor made early appearances on the daytime soaps General Hospital and The Doctors, per THR. In the early 1970s, Rees guest-starred on the TV shows The F.B.I., Adam-12, Mannix, and Mod Squad. Then came her role in the ABC-turned-CBS sitcom My Three Sons. Rees played Janet Ingram, the secretary of Fred MacMurray’s character, in the final season.
- 6/8/2024
- TV Insider
Betty Anne Rees, who portrayed tough women who weren’t very nice in The Unholy Rollers and Sugar Hill, two 1970s offerings from the B-movie factory American International Pictures, has died. She was 81.
Rees died Monday at her home in Hemet, California, after a series of falls and a possible stroke, her niece, Kathleen Loucks, told The Hollywood Reporter. She also was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1990s.
The Ohio native played Janet Ingram, the secretary for Fred MacMurray’s Steve Douglas, on the last of My Three Sons’ 12 seasons in 1971-72. (Abby Dalton was Janet on an episode three years earlier.)
In The Unholy Rollers (1972), directed by Vernon Zimmerman, Rees portrayed Mickey Martinez, a star of the Los Angeles Avengers roller derby team who does not get along with popular new player Karen Walker (1970 Playboy Playmate of the Year Claudia Jennings).
The film, executive produced by Roger Corman...
Rees died Monday at her home in Hemet, California, after a series of falls and a possible stroke, her niece, Kathleen Loucks, told The Hollywood Reporter. She also was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1990s.
The Ohio native played Janet Ingram, the secretary for Fred MacMurray’s Steve Douglas, on the last of My Three Sons’ 12 seasons in 1971-72. (Abby Dalton was Janet on an episode three years earlier.)
In The Unholy Rollers (1972), directed by Vernon Zimmerman, Rees portrayed Mickey Martinez, a star of the Los Angeles Avengers roller derby team who does not get along with popular new player Karen Walker (1970 Playboy Playmate of the Year Claudia Jennings).
The film, executive produced by Roger Corman...
- 6/8/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Paul Vance, one of the most successful songwriters of the bubblegum pop era in the early 1960s, died May 30 at age 92.
Born Joseph Paul Florio, Vance and cowriter Lee Pockriss were a songwriting machine as staff writers in the famed Brill Building hit factory in New York. Vance was credited with more than 300 songs, including hits Catch A Falling Star, Playground of My Mind, and Tracy.
But it was Brian Hyland’s rendition of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini that dominated Am radio of the era, making Hyland a teen idol in the process. The song hit No. 1 on the Billboad Hot 100 and was a hit around the world. The song was allegedly inspired by Vance’s daughter, who was too shy to wear a bikini in public.
The success was a double-edged sword for the songwriting team, who became somewhat pigeonholed as novelty songwriters. Their next hit...
Born Joseph Paul Florio, Vance and cowriter Lee Pockriss were a songwriting machine as staff writers in the famed Brill Building hit factory in New York. Vance was credited with more than 300 songs, including hits Catch A Falling Star, Playground of My Mind, and Tracy.
But it was Brian Hyland’s rendition of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini that dominated Am radio of the era, making Hyland a teen idol in the process. The song hit No. 1 on the Billboad Hot 100 and was a hit around the world. The song was allegedly inspired by Vance’s daughter, who was too shy to wear a bikini in public.
The success was a double-edged sword for the songwriting team, who became somewhat pigeonholed as novelty songwriters. Their next hit...
- 6/4/2022
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Liz McCann, a groundbreaking Broadway producer who, as one of the first and most successful women to achieve a prominent leadership role in the theater industry – a term she hated, preferring “theater community” — died Thursday of cancer at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. She was 90.
Her death was announced by her longtime associate and friend Kristen Luciani.
Elizabeth Ireland McCann — known throughout the Broadway community simply as Liz — started her career in theater as a production assistant and manager with Proscenium Productions at the Cherry Lane Theatre in the 1950s. In 1955, the company would be the first Off Broadway theater to win a Special Tony Award for its seminal productions of The Way of the World and Thieves’ Carnival.
Following a series of short-term theater jobs, McCann, who had acted in plays during her student years at Manhattanville College, completed a law degree at Fordham University. She later earned a...
Her death was announced by her longtime associate and friend Kristen Luciani.
Elizabeth Ireland McCann — known throughout the Broadway community simply as Liz — started her career in theater as a production assistant and manager with Proscenium Productions at the Cherry Lane Theatre in the 1950s. In 1955, the company would be the first Off Broadway theater to win a Special Tony Award for its seminal productions of The Way of the World and Thieves’ Carnival.
Following a series of short-term theater jobs, McCann, who had acted in plays during her student years at Manhattanville College, completed a law degree at Fordham University. She later earned a...
- 9/9/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Update, with reactions Anne Beatts, an original Saturday Night Live writer who created some of the show’s earliest breakthrough characters, among them the nerdy high schoolers Todd DILAMuca and Lisa Loopner, died yesterday. She was 74.
Her death was announced in a tweet by SNL original cast member Laraine Newman. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
“Struggling to find adequate and appropriate descriptive words to describe her singular self,” tweeted Sarah Jessica Parker, who starred in the Beatts-created 1982 CBS sitcom Square Pegs. “I need time. Cause I’m coming up short. Gosh, she was really something. Rip Anne. Thank you. For memories very few 17/18 yr olds get to make. X, Sj”
Beatts began her career in comedy writing with a stint at National Lampoon magazine, becoming the Harvard Lampoon spin-off’s first female editor. She wrote one of the magazine’s most notorious spoofs – an ad for the...
Her death was announced in a tweet by SNL original cast member Laraine Newman. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
“Struggling to find adequate and appropriate descriptive words to describe her singular self,” tweeted Sarah Jessica Parker, who starred in the Beatts-created 1982 CBS sitcom Square Pegs. “I need time. Cause I’m coming up short. Gosh, she was really something. Rip Anne. Thank you. For memories very few 17/18 yr olds get to make. X, Sj”
Beatts began her career in comedy writing with a stint at National Lampoon magazine, becoming the Harvard Lampoon spin-off’s first female editor. She wrote one of the magazine’s most notorious spoofs – an ad for the...
- 4/8/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Anne Beatts, a pioneering comedy writer who helped launch “Saturday Night Live” and created the 1980s cult-favorite sitcom “Square Pegs,” died Wednesday at her home in West Hollywood. She was 74.
Beatts’ death was confirmed by her longtime friend Rona Edwards.
Beatts was a revered figure in comedy circles given her long resume. She and then-writing partner Rosie Shuster were among the very few women to work on “SNL” at the time of its debut in 1975 on NBC. Beatts was also the first female contributing editor to National Lampoon.
In the early 1980s, Beatts created the CBS comedy “Square Pegs,” which was a launching pad for Sarah Jessica Parker. The series that revolved around a group of awkward high school students was embraced by critics as a breath of fresh air for TV at the time, reflecting the burgeoning youth culture of the 1980s. But the show was canceled due to...
Beatts’ death was confirmed by her longtime friend Rona Edwards.
Beatts was a revered figure in comedy circles given her long resume. She and then-writing partner Rosie Shuster were among the very few women to work on “SNL” at the time of its debut in 1975 on NBC. Beatts was also the first female contributing editor to National Lampoon.
In the early 1980s, Beatts created the CBS comedy “Square Pegs,” which was a launching pad for Sarah Jessica Parker. The series that revolved around a group of awkward high school students was embraced by critics as a breath of fresh air for TV at the time, reflecting the burgeoning youth culture of the 1980s. But the show was canceled due to...
- 4/8/2021
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
Spoiler Alert: Santa Claus blows a mean sax.
The high point of Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles 2 comes at its least festive moment. The young and grieving teen Kate Pierce (Darby Camp) is mistaken for a runaway and taken away by airport authorities–while being lost in time–all the flights on Logan International Airport’s big board turn from hour-long delays to outright cancellations, and joy in that small part of Boston drops to 7 percent. People are all up in each other’s grills, nerves are frayed, and complimentary hotel stays are not going to cut it. They are not a merry bunch. If ever there was a time for a holiday miracle, this would be it. Only now, when things are at their darkest, does a flustered ticket agent named Grace (Darlene Love) reach for the public address microphone–and deliver “The Spirit of Christmas.”
Darlene Love...
The high point of Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles 2 comes at its least festive moment. The young and grieving teen Kate Pierce (Darby Camp) is mistaken for a runaway and taken away by airport authorities–while being lost in time–all the flights on Logan International Airport’s big board turn from hour-long delays to outright cancellations, and joy in that small part of Boston drops to 7 percent. People are all up in each other’s grills, nerves are frayed, and complimentary hotel stays are not going to cut it. They are not a merry bunch. If ever there was a time for a holiday miracle, this would be it. Only now, when things are at their darkest, does a flustered ticket agent named Grace (Darlene Love) reach for the public address microphone–and deliver “The Spirit of Christmas.”
Darlene Love...
- 12/1/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Timothy Graphenreed, a longtime musical and dance arranger who composed two numbers for the beloved Broadway musical The Wiz, died March 1 at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital. He was 68.
Graphenreed’s death was first reported today by Broadway World. A cause of death was not announced.
Last year Graphenreed completed work on an upcoming album by Broadway star and singer Lillias White. The album, titled Get Happy!, features White’s interpretations of standards, Motown hits, jazz and rock songs, and is described by Vermont’s Old Mill Recording Studio label as the “culmination of a 30-year friendship and professional collaboration between Lillias White and her musical director/accompanist, Timothy Graphenreed.” The album is dedicated to his memory.
Graphenreed provided dance arrangements for Broadway’s Leader of the Pack (1985) and Comin’ Uptown (1979), the latter a short-lived retelling of A Christmas Carol with a Black cast headed by Gregory Hines as Scrooge.
Graphenreed’s death was first reported today by Broadway World. A cause of death was not announced.
Last year Graphenreed completed work on an upcoming album by Broadway star and singer Lillias White. The album, titled Get Happy!, features White’s interpretations of standards, Motown hits, jazz and rock songs, and is described by Vermont’s Old Mill Recording Studio label as the “culmination of a 30-year friendship and professional collaboration between Lillias White and her musical director/accompanist, Timothy Graphenreed.” The album is dedicated to his memory.
Graphenreed provided dance arrangements for Broadway’s Leader of the Pack (1985) and Comin’ Uptown (1979), the latter a short-lived retelling of A Christmas Carol with a Black cast headed by Gregory Hines as Scrooge.
- 9/2/2020
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
I’ve always been obsessed with watching movies. From seeing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at the age of four at a Saturday matinee revival to today, the flickering shadow shows have filled my life. Consumed, I’m sure some would say. However, discerning fact from fiction has never been an issue, unlike Eric Binford, the hapless ‘hero’ of the eerie (and funny) Fade to Black (1980) – now here’s a kid with issues.
Written and directed by Vernon Zimmerman (The Unholy Rollers), Fade to Black was distributed by American Cinema Releasing on October 14th, 1980. The film bypassed audiences for the most part, but critics were generally pleased with the offbeat tone that it brought to the genre. If you love movies about movies, especially with a horror bent, Fade to Black is the film for you.
Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher – Breaking Away) lives with his haranguing aunt, and spends his days...
Written and directed by Vernon Zimmerman (The Unholy Rollers), Fade to Black was distributed by American Cinema Releasing on October 14th, 1980. The film bypassed audiences for the most part, but critics were generally pleased with the offbeat tone that it brought to the genre. If you love movies about movies, especially with a horror bent, Fade to Black is the film for you.
Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher – Breaking Away) lives with his haranguing aunt, and spends his days...
- 12/19/2015
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
Another pair of offerings from In2Film’s Roger Corman Collection and this time we venture forward into the 70’s, to two movies that span the spectrum of Corman’s career as a film producer. From the good: Grand Theft Auto, which marked the directorial debut of Happy Days actor Ron Howard; to the not so good: Deathsport.
Grand Theft Auto
Stars: Ron Howard, Nancy Morgan, Elizabeth Rogers, Barry Cahill, Rance Howard, Paul Linke, Marion Ross | Written and Directed by Ron Howard
This amiable screwball comedy is part road movie, part chase movie and part destruction derby, and concerns one young man’s elopement with his heiress girlfriend from La to Vegas while her father, her fiancé and various others are in hot pursuit hoping to prevent the forthcoming nuptials. However, the car crashes are the real stars of a film that marked the directorial debut of one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers.
Grand Theft Auto
Stars: Ron Howard, Nancy Morgan, Elizabeth Rogers, Barry Cahill, Rance Howard, Paul Linke, Marion Ross | Written and Directed by Ron Howard
This amiable screwball comedy is part road movie, part chase movie and part destruction derby, and concerns one young man’s elopement with his heiress girlfriend from La to Vegas while her father, her fiancé and various others are in hot pursuit hoping to prevent the forthcoming nuptials. However, the car crashes are the real stars of a film that marked the directorial debut of one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers.
- 5/29/2010
- by Phil
- Nerdly
May 3rd 2010 sees the release on DVD of a second batch of classic cult movies from the vaults of legendary film producer Roger Corman, representing the second half of The Roger Corman Collection, courtesy of Metrodome’s budget DVD label, In2Film.
The five new releases are Ron Howard’s directorial debut feature, Grand Theft Auto, 80s slasher, Slumber Party Massacre, Roger Corman’s own directorial contributions to the 1950s sci-fi genre, Not Of This Earth and Attack Of The Crab Monsters, and the David Carradine-starring, post-apocalyptic action-adventure, Deathsport.
Co-starring, co-written by and directed by Oscar winning director Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon; The Da Vinci Code; A Beautiful Mind) and featuring his Happy Days co-star Marion Ross, the amiable screwball comedy, Grand Theft Auto, is part road movie, part chase movie and part destruction derby. The nimble plot concerns one young man’s elopement with his heiress girlfriend from...
The five new releases are Ron Howard’s directorial debut feature, Grand Theft Auto, 80s slasher, Slumber Party Massacre, Roger Corman’s own directorial contributions to the 1950s sci-fi genre, Not Of This Earth and Attack Of The Crab Monsters, and the David Carradine-starring, post-apocalyptic action-adventure, Deathsport.
Co-starring, co-written by and directed by Oscar winning director Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon; The Da Vinci Code; A Beautiful Mind) and featuring his Happy Days co-star Marion Ross, the amiable screwball comedy, Grand Theft Auto, is part road movie, part chase movie and part destruction derby. The nimble plot concerns one young man’s elopement with his heiress girlfriend from...
- 4/28/2010
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Roller Derby, a sport that peeked in popularity in the early 70’s, is based on formation roller skating around an oval track, with points scored as certain (mostly female) players lap members of the opposing team. Judging by last week’s poor box-office performance of Whip It, it appears that Roller Derby is not a fad currently in vogue, but Drew Barrymore’s new film gives me an excuse to revisit the greatest movie of all about the rough, tough world of this trashy sports phenomenon. That would be 1974’s Unholy Rollers, starring the late Claudia Jennings, a grimy, low-brow slice of 70’s exploitation that perfectly captures the grimy, low-brow sport that is roller derby. From its then-trendy premise, to its goofy use of humor, to its energetic but clumsy execution, Unholy Rollers is truly one hell of an entertaining R-rated 70’s time capsule but one that is Not available on DVD.
- 10/14/2009
- by Tom
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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