The Writer's Life 8/23 - A Hollywood Stalwart & More

My9 is into season nine of The X-Files. Last night it broadcast the first two episodes, which featured a perfectly cast Lucy Lawless as a genetically altered super soldier. I had zero recollection of them, although I'm pretty sure I stayed with the original run of the series until the bitter end. During commercial breaks, I switched to ThisTV, which was airing Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983), a cheesy sci-fi flick starring Peter Strauss and Molly Ringwald. Unfamiliar with it, I looked it up at IMDb, where it is rated 5.3 on a scale of ten. The parts I caught were silly fun. It was directed by the late Lamont Johnson, who I remember as having had a solid reputation. He has 81 titles listed under his name as director and, surprisingly, 44 as actor. His most notable work came in TV, where he began in the mid '50's. He worked on just about every popular show. He did ten episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel, 14 of Peter Gunn, eight of Dr. Kildare, eight of The Twilight Zone, 24 of Matinee Theatre, and lots of one or two-shots. He was also at the helm of many big screen releases. His best work came in TV movies, which garnered him two Emmys: Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985) and Lincoln (1988), a miniseries. He also did the then controversial The Execution of Private Slovik (1974), the story of the only American killed for desertion since the Civil War, and That Certain Summer (1972), one of the first films to examine the then taboo subject of homosexuality. Here is a quote attributed to him: "Projects about human problems, about the testing of the human experience, about the pressures which exist upon human beings in a difficult world, are what really involve me. The traps people get into and have to battle out of are the elements of drama with which I like to deal." He passed away in 2010 at 88. Well done, sir. Here's a picture of him at work:

And here's a still from the Nothing in the Dark episode of The Twilight Zone, which first aired in 1962 and starred Robert Redford as the Angel of death - talk about perfect casting - and Gladys Cooper:

Just when it seemed political correctness couldn't get any more absurd, it has. Robert Lee was scheduled to cover a game from the University of Virgina. ESPN re-assigned him for fear his name would be offensive to certain viewers. Here's a photo of Mr. Lee:

The floating book shop didn't do nearly as well as yesterday, but it was still a good session, as a number of my favorites stopped to chat and the weather was spectacular. My thanks to the woman who bought a book in Russian, to the one who purchased one on Yoga, to the one who chose a large pictorial on Feng Shui, to the man who bought one on writing, and to Mira, just returning from a yoga class. She beamed when I showed her a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, which she read long ago in her native Ukraine. She was especially thrilled because Eugene O'Neill, the subject of her senior thesis, based one of his characters on Bulgakov's. She intends to give the novel to a professor who has never read it. Tomorrow she will begin her final semester at St. Joseph's College, where she is majoring in Literature. She's taking 16 credits. As if that's not daunting enough, her thesis will be due in December. All the best, my dear.

Vic's Sixth novel: http://tinyurl.com/zpuhucj 

Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story Collection:http:// tinyurl.com/lh2tepa 
Vic's 2nd Novel Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Website: http://vicfortezzaauthor.my-free.website/

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