This purpose of this blog is to put together a virtual list/collection of memorable (if fleeting) references to the cities of Wilkes-Barre, PA or Scranton, PA in movies/TV/music/Broadway/books (in the script, setting, lyrics, etc).
We'd like to thank everyone for the overwhelming support and suggestions for the Entertainment blog. I'll continue adding these as blog entries as time permits.
Showing posts with label native (Kingston). Show all posts
Showing posts with label native (Kingston). Show all posts
The Reference Department would like to congratulate Kingston native Brad Gooch for his National Book Critics Circle nomination. His first work of nonfiction--the critically-acclaimed Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor--has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
To place a hold on Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor, click here.
During the Mailbox segment toward the end of last Tuesday's episode of Live With Regis and Kelly (April 21st), Kingston, Pennsylvania resident Kathleen Jordan's email was read on the air--she told Regis he should wish someone a Happy Birthday for her (I think it was Don Rickles, but I'm not positive).
Today, April 16th, would have marked the 82nd birthday of stage, screen and performing legend Edie Adams, a native of Kingston, Pennsylvania. Sadly, Miss Adams passed away this past October after a long battle with cancer and complications from pneumonia. Her eclectic work on the stage and in film and television have left a lasting impression on entertainment and popular culture.
Edie Adams was born Edith Elizabeth Enke in Kingston, Pennsylvania on April 16, 1927. The family relocated to Grove City, PA before settling in Tenafly, New Jersey. Edie took her mother's maiden name Adams as her stage name. She was often billed as Edith Adams as well as Edie Adams.
Edie earned a vocal degree from the Julliard School of Music and graduated from the Columbia School of Drama. After earning the title of the Miss US Television, she enjoyed guest appearances on Milton Berle's TV show.
Adam's professional career originated in television as a regular on Ernie Kovac's popular 1952 television show, which led to her becoming the spokesperson for Muriel Cigars; Adams actually went on to patent a cigar-holding ring she used in the television commercials., which ran for over 19 years.
Adam's work in television led her to the Great White Way, where she starred in the original Broadway productions of 1953's Wonderful Town with Rosalind Russell and 1956's Li'l Abner, which earned her a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
Television was Edie Adams's main forte, where she appeared in episodes of some of the most popular TV shows of all time from the 1950s through the 1990s. In addition to I Love Lucy and the final episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, Adams has appeared in episodes of The Red Skelton Show, What's My Line?, Love American Style, McMillan & Wife, Police Woman, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Carol Burnett Show, Murder She Wrote, It's Garry Shandling's Show, and Designing Women. Adams also hosted her own television variety show Here's Edie from 1963-64, which featured appearances by the legendary Count Basie, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Eddie Fisher; Here's Edie was one of the earliest shows to feature a black man and a white woman singing and dancing onstage together. Edie also made numerous singing appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Her television film work include her role as the Fairy Godmother opposite Julie Andrews in Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, which originally aired in 1957, and the role of Ruby Miller (her last screen appearance) in PBS's controversial 1993 miniseries Tales of the City, based on the novel by Armistead Maupin.
Much of her film work was in supporting roles in what would go on to become classic films. She played Miss Olsen in 1960's Best Picture winner The Apartment (directed by the legendary Billy Wilder and co-starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray), Rebel Davis in 1961's Lover Come Back (with Rock Hudson and Doris Day), and Monica Crump in 1963's ensemble piece It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (with Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney,Milton Berle and Ethel Merman). She gained a whole new generation of fans from her hilarious turn as Mrs. Tempest Stoner is Cheech & Chong's 1978 stoner classic Up in Smoke.
Edie Adams married Ernie Kovac in 1955; they appeared together in Lucy Meets the Moustache, the final episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, in 1960; on the episode, Miss Adams performed the song That's All, a fitting tribute to the end of a television era. Sadly, Ernie were killed in a tragic automobile accident in 1962; Kovac's untimely death left his widow owing thousands of dollars in back taxes, which she paid off with film and television work and her huge draw as a nightclub performer. She was also married to photographer Martin Mills from 1964 to 1971 (they had a son, Josh Mills) and actor/musician Pete Candoli from 1972 to 1988. Tragically, twenty years after her husband's death, Edie's and Ernie's daughter Mia (an aspiring actress herself) was killed in a car accident in 1982.
After a long battle with cancer, Edie Adams died from complications of pneumonia on October 15, 2008 in Los Angeles. Click here to read her obituary from the New York Times.
The Lackawanna County Library System has many of Edie Adams's legendary film and recorded work to borrow in various formats: the DVD and VHS of The Apartment; the DVD and VHS of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; the VHS of Lover Come Back; the DVD of Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (as well as theaudio cassette of the soundtrack); the DVD of Armistead Maupin'sTales of the City; and the VHS of the Lucille Ball documentary Finding Lucy. Her recording of "A Little Bit in Love" from the Broadway musical Wonderful Town is featured on the CDBroadway's Greatest Love Songs.
This sentence begins the 2000 novel Zombie00 by Kingston native Brad Gooch, who recently released the criticially acclaimed Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor.
Zombie00 is an avant garde novel about a strange young man from the fictional Truckstown, PA which, according to Gooch, is "located near Scranton." A visit to a mummy exhibition and voodoo chamber at the Everhart Museum inspires him to move to New York City, acquire the name Zombie, and ponder the issues of dominance and submission in his journey of "zombification." The novel has heavy themes of homoeroticism and sadomasochism.
The first three pages include many local references, in which "Zombie" journeys with his parents from Trucktown to the Everhart Museum, located in the nearby city of Scranton:
"It all started at the Everhart Museum. The way to the museum was blocked by a huge ugly fountain."
The second paragraph of the novel reads:
"The museum rose before us in a park called Nay Aug Park that never seemed quite right."
Page three decribes "Zombie" seeing the mummy at the museum for the first time:
"It was wrapped in bandages. I was amazed that Scranton, Pennsylvania was important enough to be entrusted with one of the ancient Egyptian dead. That made me feel a lot better about myself, since Truckstown was located near Scranton."
Last week, on February 25th, a new biography about author Flannery O'Connor was released to enormous acclaim (from Library Journal to Vanity Fair to even O!), and it was also featured as the cover story of theMarch 1st New York Times Book Review with a glowing rave.
The title of the book is Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor; its author, Brad Gooch, is a native of Kingston, PA.
Brad Gooch was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania on January 31st, 1952. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia College in 1973, and he earned his Ph.D. with honors from Columbia University in 1986.
In addition to being a freelance author, Gooch is a Professor of English at William Patterson University in Wayne, NJ.
Gooch's first books were a collection of short stories titled Jailbait (published in 1984) and biographies of 1980s pop stars Hall & Oates and Billy Idol, published in 1984 and 1985, respectively.
Gooch's first novel, Scary Kisses, detailing the ups-and-down of a male model, was originally published in 1988 and reissued in 2003. Coincidentally, Gooch also worked as a model himself, most notably for a print ad campaign for Chanel's Allure. His second novel, The GoldenAge of Promiscuity, published in 1996, also dealt with beautiful people in pre-AIDS downtown Manhattan. Zombie 00, a novel about sadomasochism that is partially set in Scranton,Pennsylvania, followed in 2000.
Gooch's first serious biography of a renown author was titled City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara, published in 1993. Other of his nonfiction works include 1999's Finding The Boyfriend Within and 2003's Dating the Greek God (both dealing with gay issues and relationships), and 2002's Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America.
Gooch also regularly contributes to magazines including The Nation, Vanity Fair, American Poetry Review, Paris Review and Partisian Review.
To place a hold on Brad Gooch's latest book, the critically acclaimed Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor,click here; to read the rave for Flannery from The New York Times Book Review, click here.
The Reference Department would like to congratulate Kingston native Brad Gooch for his National Book Critics Circle nomination. His first work of nonfiction--the critically-acclaimed Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor--has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
Today, April 16th, would have marked the 82nd birthday of stage, screen and performing legend Edie Adams, a native of Kingston, Pennsylvania. Sadly, Miss Adams passed away this past October after a long battle with cancer and complications from pneumonia. Her eclectic work on the stage and in film and television have left a lasting impression on entertainment and popular culture.
