Variety Shows

All posts tagged Variety Shows

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Edie Adams

Published January 12, 2020 by biggayhorrorfan

Edie Adams

I often hit upon a performer I want to write about for this feature and then I have to scramble to find if they have any kind of horror connection. Sometimes I luck out and there is a direct link to the genre. Sometimes I only manage to pluck out a tenuous thread. Occasionally, there is no link at all and I have to move along with a slightly heavy heart. Thankfully, the delightful Edie Adams, my latest obsession, was featured in a 1961 television production of The Spiral Staircase, one of several adaptations of the classic Ethel Lina White story about a handicapped woman being pursued by a fetishistic killer. This particular production was also notable for featuring such performers as Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) and Lillian Gish (Night of the Hunter). (Adams played Blanche, the role that Rhonda Fleming had originated in the original screen version.) Spiral Ethel

For those who know about her career, though, it isn’t surprising that Adams has this eclectic entry on her professional resume. Almost chameleon like in her approach to her art, she was known as a comedienne, singer, impressionist, spokesperson and actress. Here’s Edie, her variety show, in which she showed off all those skills in premium, is still considered one of the greats of that particular world of entertainment. Here, her take on More Than You Know provides a nice look at her unique way of handling a classic composition.

Nicely, www.edieadams.com and https://www.facebook.com/realedieadams/ keep all the many aspects of this valuable performer, who died at the age of 81 in 2008, thoroughly alive and kicking!

Edie Adams 2

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Bette Davis and Andy Williams

Published May 26, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Davis and Williams

Bette Davis threw herself, gamely, into whatever opportunities came her way. Whether shaving her head, elongating her eyebrows or adding padding to her frame, there was little that she wouldn’t do for a role. Fully embracing her horror queen mantle, Davis even recorded a rock and roll number celebrating Baby Jane, one of her most endearingly acclaimed gothic portrayals. Here she performs that (culturally fascinating) number on The Andy Williams Show.

Interestingly, Davis ended her career with a role in genre icon Larry Cohen’s Wicked Stepmother, a zany look at witchy (and bewitching) women – qualities that this erstwhile adventuress always possessed.

Meanwhile, Williams, whose reputation was always a bit sunnier than diva Davis’s, has found his music also being used in such darker projects as The Shape of Water and The Zodiac. Most effectively, perhaps, his beaming version of Happy Heart was used to incredible effect in Shallow Grave, a violent thriller that, culturally, announced actor Ewan McGregor as a force to be reckoned with.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Davis and Williams 2

Music to Make Horror Movies By: Shirley Jones

Published March 31, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

Shirely

Roles in Oklahoma, Carousel and The Music Man pegged the exquisite Shirley Jones as one of America’s true sweethearts. Glossy production numbers on variety specials, like the one below, only enhanced that image.

But every performer has a dual nature. Jones, who won an Academy Award for playing a lady of the evening in Elmer Gantry, has been nicely showing hers in such latter day horror productions as Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and Zombie Night. If that isn’t proof of her full bounty of talent then I don’t know what is!

Shriek_If_You_Know_What_I_Did_Last_Friday_the_Thirteenth

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Diahann Carroll

Published January 27, 2019 by biggayhorrorfan

diahann carroll

She supported the beleaguered Lindsay Wagner as a supernatural force hunted her in the fun From the Dead of Night. The magnificent Diahann Carroll also excelled as mysterious neighborhood woman in the excellent, haunting Eve’s Bayou, as well.

Thus, it can’t be any surprise then that this consummate performer beguiled talents like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra with her powerful witchcraft.

Those looking for further evidence of her compelling power can find it at the fan run www.diahann-carroll.com, as well.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli

Published September 9, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

 

CBS television special 'Goldie and Liza Together,' September 22, 1979

Just like me, Goldie Hawn and Liza Minnelli have never quite made the curve. While my lack is probably imaginary and (possibly) self-inflicted, the only way Hawn and Minnelli didn’t quite got into the groove was with their horror credits.

But…Hawn did face down the terrors of an abusive ex in the 1991 thriller Deceived and is an integral part of the catty craziness of Death Becomes Her, a much loved take on body modification (that has many campy elements of terror). Minnelli, meanwhile, has provided gothic back-up vocals for both Alice Cooper and My Chemical Romance…earning her place in the hearts of everyone on eyeliner spectrum – from drag to punk rock.

In 1980 these two icons joined forces for Goldie and Liza Together… a truly colorful television special, indicative not only of the era but of the incredible talents involved.

The show aired twice, to less than stellar ratings, but it will forever remain a favorite to those who actually experienced in all of its initial flaming glory.

Goldie Liza Duo

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Yvonne DeCarlo

Published March 4, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

yvonne de carlo. .jpg

Her beauty brought Howard Duff to his knees in 1947’s Brute Force, but Yvonne De Carlo is probably best known to the latch key generation as the gloriously fun Lily Munster. Besides The Munsters, fans of freewheeling  horror fare are most likely familiar with her dedicated performances in such late night cable favorites as Cellar Dweller, Play Dead, American Gothic, Satan’s Cheerleaders and Silent Scream.

Her multiple talents extended far beyond genre territory, though. An acclaimed singer, she won praise for her performance in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in the ‘80s. As the clip below reveals, she was also a vibrant guest on television talk shows and variety specials, as well.

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan

yvonne horror

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Carol Lawrence

Published February 25, 2018 by biggayhorrorfan

carol lawrence summer of fear

Best known for her career defining performance as Maria in the original Broadway production of West Side Story, the exquisite Carol Lawrence also cavorted, gracefully, across television screens on such shows as Murder, She Wrote, Hawaii Five-O and General Hospital.

As other urbane divas before her, Lawrence showed her horror roots by flirting with danger in the 1978 made for TV film Summer of Fear (AKA  Stranger in Our House). Directed by the legendary maestro of terror, Wes Craven, here Lawrence found herself being threatened by the supernaturally enhanced Lee Purcell. Nicely, this beloved cult piece that offered Linda Blair a place to hone her act as a feisty damsel in distress, has recently been given a deluxe Blu-ray release by Music Box Films.

That is reason to celebrate, as Lawrence did in 1965, that some people do understand our needs as horror fans…and that they most certainly “got rhythm”!

www.carollawrence.com

carol lawrence pants

Until the next time, SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Barbara McNair

Published September 24, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Photo of Barbara McNAIR

Cult aficionados know the exquisite Barbara McNair from her association with writer-director Jess Franco. Forever tempting in Venus in Furs, one of Franco’s most fully realized fever dreams, she also sang the theme song to 99 Women, one of his more popular (and sleazy) women in prison epics.

barbara venusBut McNair was a maverick on many levels. She was the first black woman to host her own syndicated variety show. She also co-starred on Broadway and recorded for Motown Records, scoring a minor hit or two with them. Appearing on many of the hottest shows of the ‘60s and ‘70s, she always added elegance and flair, as well.

Here, she gives the dapper, joking Dean Martin a run for his money with their take on the standard, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, an appropriate title for a horror blog if there ever was one.

McNair, who passed away from throat cancer in 2007, lives on in memory at http://www.barbaramcnair.com.

barbara mcnair

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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Music to Make Horror Movies By: Gloria Swanson

Published March 19, 2017 by biggayhorrorfan

Sunset Boulevard

Was there ever anything as haunting as Gloria Swanson’s deliciously deluded Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s classic, emotional noir Sunset Boulevard? Many refined and enthusiastic film buffs will probably, unanimously, agree that there isn’t.

Thankfully, almost 25 years after this macabre venture, Swanson returned to play another demanding diva in Curtis Harrington’s fondly remembered television horror Killer Bees. As the queenly Maria von Bohlen, Swanson ruled her fictional family with a tart grip even as the matriarch’s fuzzy flying pets began to draw the life out of members of the frightened local community.gloria killer bees

Meanwhile, although she was never known as a singer, the always game legend tackled a couple of tunes in the early 80s on a variety of star studded specials.

Here, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra’s well regarded Wonderful One gets the nostalgic treatment.

 

Next, Swanson is joined by Brooke Shields (Alice, Sweet, Alice, The Midnight Meat Train) and Barbara Eden (A Howling in the Woods, The Stranger Within) for a surprising version of Cole Porter’s What Do You Think About Men?

For those interested, the adventures of this singular entertainer are explored in deeper detail at https://thehairpin.com/scandals-of-classic-hollywood-the-gloria-swanson-saga-part-one-e2d29b36eac2

gloria 3

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