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Children of the 1960s might recognize the late actor James Darren from his role as Moondoggie, aka Jeffrey Matthews, from the hit 1959 beach party movie "Gidget." Darren reprised his role in "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" and "Gidget Goes to Rome." Darren, however, was massively prolific in film, TV, and music, and his decades-long career was only cut short this week when the actor passed away at the age of 88. He left behind a sizable body of work that includes 14 studio albums, dozens of appearances in TV shows, and movies beyond Gidget. He shared the screen with future "Gilligan's Island" stars Bob Denver and Tina Louise in "Those Who Think Young," popped up in Jess Franco's 1969 version of "Venus in Furs," and most recently appeared in the Harry Dean Stanton film "Lucky" (one of the best films of 2017).

To Trekkies, Darren is best known for playing Vic Fontaine, the holographic Rat...

James Darren, the beloved actor and singer who rose to stardom as the charming surfer Moondoggie in the Gidget film series, passed away on Monday at the age of 88.

He is also known for his for his role of Officer James Corrigan in the police drama T. J. Hooker.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Darren died peacefully in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after battling heart-related issues, his son Jim Moret confirmed.

Per the report, he initially went to the hospital for an aortic valve replacement, but doctors determined he was too weak to undergo the procedure.

After being discharged and returning home, his condition worsened, requiring him to be readmitted to the hospital.

“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said to THR, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”

James Darren’s breakout role as Moondoggie in Gidget

Born James Ercolani on June 8, 1936, in Philadelphia,...

James Darren, the former teen idol and pop singer who played the dreamy surfer Moondoggie in three Gidget movies before starring on television on The Time Tunnel and T.J. Hooker, died Monday. He was 88.

Darren died in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Jim Moret, a correspondent for Inside Edition, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had entered the hospital for an aortic valve replacement but was deemed too weak to have the surgery; he went home but had to return.

“I always thought he would pull through,” Moret said, “because he was so cool. He was always cool.”

Early in his career, the dark-haired Darren received excellent notices for starring in Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) — portraying the son of a hoodlum defended by Humphrey Bogart’s character in 1949’s Knock on Any Door — and for playing the Greek soldier Spyros Pappadimos in The Guns of Navarone...

James Darren, who went from teen idol status acting in youth-oriented movies like “Gidget” to becoming an actor in TV shows such as “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “T.J. Hooker” and a singer and director, died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 88.

His son Jim Moret said that he had been able to express his love for his family while being treated in the cardiac unit. “He was a good man. He was very talented,” Moret said. “He was forever young.”

Moret said he was grateful that his father had been able to embrace his signature role as the surfer Moondoggie in the “Gidget” movie and that he continued to interact with his fans.

Born in Philadelphia, he studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and was signed to Columbia Pictures, where his first role was in “Rumble on the Docks.” He went on to...

Sandy Bresler, who served as Jack Nicholson’s agent and spokesman for more than 60 years, died Thursday in Santa Monica after a short illness, his family announced. He was 87.

Bresler first met the eventual three-time Oscar winner when both were serving in the California Air National Guard. He began representing the actor in 1961 after starting his career as a secretary at the William Morris Agency a year earlier.

Bresler’s clients also included actors Judd Hirsch, Randy Quaid and Louise Linton, now wife of film executive and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He “established the gold standard for personally curated talent representation,” his family noted.

On July 14, 1969, the day the Nicholson-starring Easy Rider premiered, the agent announced the launch of Sandy Bresler & Associates with an ad in The Hollywood Reporter in which he noted he was the actor’s “exclusive” representative.

Born on Jan. 20, 1937, Bresler was the son of Jerry Bresler,...

Joan Evans, the daughter of screenwriters and goddaughter of Joan Crawford, who starred opposite Farley Granger in her first three films and with Audie Murphy in a pair of Westerns, has died. She was 89.

Evans died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, her son, John Weatherly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

She also toplined the Charles Lederer-directed On the Loose (1951), playing a suicidal teenager in the drama written by her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert; portrayed Irene Dunne’s daughter in the fantasy It Grows on Trees (1952); and enlisted in the U.S. Navy with Esther Williams in the musical comedy Skirts Ahoy! (1952).

Evans played the love interest of Granger’s character in the title role of Roseanna McCoy (1949), a drama loosely based on the family feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. The two worked together again in the 1950 releases Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, a bleak film noir directed by Mark Robson.

Frederick Kohner penned a novel about his young daughter, who was emersed in the growing surfing community as a teen in the 1950s. Her summer experiences inspired the book. Kohner likely never imagined that his book would spawn a cultural phenomenon. It did just that. The book eventually spawned a franchise of films and television projects that brought viewers on Francie ‘Gidget’ Lawrence’s summer adventures. Over the years, several actors have taken on the role of Gidget. Do you remember them all?

Sandra Dee was the first actor to portray the famed character

Sandra Dee was the first actor to take on the role of Gidget. She appeared in the first film adaptation of the bestselling book. By the time Dee landed the role in Gidget, she was a veteran in the entertainment industry. According to The Bad and the Beautiful: Hollywood in the Fifties, Dee earned the equivalent...

The Screen Actors Guild presented legendary comic actor Eddie Cantor with the first annual Life Achievement Award back in 1962. Over the past six decades, the award for ‘outstanding achievement in fostering ideals of the acting profession” has been given to such Hollywood icons as Stan Laurel, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. More recently, Mary Tyler Moore, Charles Durning, Debbie Reynolds, Rita Moreno, Carol Burnett, Helen Mirren and Robert De Niro have received the honor.

Two-time Oscar and three-time Emmy Award winning Sally Field is the latest recipient of the Life Achievement Award. The 76-year-old actress, who came to fame as the ultimate teenager “Gidget” in the 1965-66 ABC sitcom, is currently starring with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno in the hit feature comedy “80 for Brady.” She appeared with Jim Parsons last year in the drama...

Here's a brief look – to be expanded – at Turner Classic Movies' June 2017 European Vacation Movie Series this evening, June 23. Tonight's destination of choice is Italy. Starring Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donahue as the opposite of Ugly Americans who find romance and heartbreak in the Italian capital, Delmer Daves' Rome Adventure (1962) was one of the key romantic movies of the 1960s. Angie Dickinson and Rossano Brazzi co-star. In all, Rome Adventure is the sort of movie that should please fans of Daves' Technicolor melodramas like A Summer Place, Parrish, and Susan Slade. Fans of his poetic Westerns – e.g., 3:10 to Yuma, The Hanging Tree – may (or may not) be disappointed with this particular Daves effort. As an aside, Rome Adventure was, for whatever reason, a sizable hit in … Brazil. Who knows, maybe that's why Rome Adventure co-star Brazzi would find himself playing a Brazilian – a macho, traditionalist coffee plantation owner,...

Christian movies: Starring Nicolas Cage, the widely panned 2014 apocalyptic thriller 'Left Behind' was a box office bomb – unlike (relatively) recent popular 'faith movies' such as 'Heaven Is for Real,' 'Son of God' and 'War Room.' A thought on the New Christian American Cinema: Tired of the blatant propaganda found in 'mainstream' Christian movies Two films that might be called “Christian movies” opened last week, and I decided that I wouldn't watch them, write about them, or review them – at least directly. I'm not even going to mention their titles here because I don't promote propaganda films, and that's what this recent advent of Christian movies has become: propaganda. After all, since nearly all American cinema is Christian cinema, the New Christian American Cinema is in fact pure propaganda – not cinema. Worse yet, it bores me. So, here's the thing about what we've come to call...

You may be asking me, "Yo, Uncle Anna, what's a Kelly Brook?"

Well, my young friend, besides being the eighth most-popular Google Search, Kelly Brook is an English Playboy model-slash-actress. She has appeared in Deuce Bigalow, Piranha 3D and something called Kelly Brook's Cameltoe Shows, which I'll choose to assume are a wildlife spotlight on the humpbacked desert animal.

Brook, who's also known for dating Jason Statham and Billy Zane, is currently frolicking around Italy in various stages of undress, like a PG-13 version of Gidget Goes To Rome. Check out today's newest shots of Brook, via Celebuzz:

read more...

You may be asking me, "Yo, Uncle Anna, what's a Kelly Brook?"

Well, my young friend, besides being the eighth most-popular Google Search, Kelly Brook is an English Playboy model-slash-actress. She has appeared in Deuce Bigalow, Piranha 3D and something called Kelly Brook's Cameltoe Shows, which I'll choose to assume are a wildlife spotlight on the humpbacked desert animal.

Brook, who's also known for dating Jason Statham and Billy Zane, is currently frolicking around Italy in various stages of undress, like a PG-13 version of Gidget Goes To Rome. Check out today's newest shots of Brook, via Celebuzz:

read more...

Producer Mark Canton ("300") has teamed with Pterodactyl Productions to reboot the teen surfer character 'Gidget' for both TV and feature films.

The name 'Gidget' is a combination of 'girl and midget'.

The character was created by author Frederick Kohner in his 1957 novel "Gidget, The Little Girl With Big Ideas", written in the first person, based on the accounts of his daughter Kathy and the surf culture of Malibu Point.

Kohner, a prolific screenwriter with one Academy Award nomination, published seven sequels to his first "Gidget" novel, including "Cher Papa" (1959), "The Affairs of Gidget" (1963), "Gidget in Love" (1965), "Gidget Goes Parisienne" (1966) and "Gidget Goes New York" (1968), plus two novelizations based on films including "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" (1961) and "Gidget Goes to Rome" (1963), based on original stories by Ruth Brooks Flippin.

Barney Cohen is in charge of the new projects, working with "Gidget" rights holder Gidget Worldwide.

Click the images...

Film and TV director made famous by his 'Gidget' surf movies

Despite a long and varied career, in which he made several excellent films noirs, westerns, thrillers and war dramas, and a fair number of superior television movies, it was the wry fate of the film and television director Paul Wendkos, who has died of a lung infection aged 87, that his death was announced widely with the words "Gidget director dies".

The popular teen surf movies – Gidget (1959), Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) – directed by Wendkos, are interesting documents of pre-hippy conservative California youth culture. Gidget, a contraction of girl and midget, is the nickname of a 16-year-old adolescent (played in succession by Sandra Dee, Deborah Walley and Cindy Carol) trying to cope with the problems of growing up, mainly defined by her relationship with her boyfriend, Moondoggie (James Darren).

According to the Variety review of...

By Frank Swertlow

Paul Wendkos, who directed the 1959 surfing classic "Gidget" and two sequels, died early Thursday at his home in Malibu.

Wendkos, who was 87 (although some reports put his age at 84), had been ill for several years following a stroke.

"Gidget," which starred Sandra Dee and James Darren, was followed by "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" in 1961and "Gidget Goes to Rome" in 1963.

Wendkos' films helped popularize surfing in the U.S. and a...