Avast Matey! It's Talk Like A Pirate Day -- the weather is gray and rainy in the Flathead Valley. The migrating Canadian Geese sure made a racket after sunset last night. The Autumnal Equinox is later this week, but it was awfully dark under the low clouds this morning -- I kept the cats in, just to be safe. No need to fool with Coyotes.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution as Autumn rushes toward us! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: What the bloody 'ell is this 'ere malarky about Talk Like A Pirate Day? I call it a tribute to the great character actor Robert Newton. He starred in Blackbeard the Pirate, Walt Disney's Treasure Island, and an Australian TV series/movie where he reprised his distinctive over-the-top version of Long John Silver as an exuberant Bristol seafaring man with a heart of gold, and near-fatal lust for the same precious metal. As far as non-pirate fare goes, I saw Soldiers Three the other week, and Newton was hilarious -- even Stewart Grainger and David Niven were funny. I HAVE to mention Newton's portrayal of camp-follower Pistol in Henry V one more time -- he had Sir Lawrence Olivier on the verge of cracking up!
The only Newton mis-fire I've seen is Jamaica Inn, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, co-starring Maureen O'Hara, in her screen debut, and Charles Laughton, one of Newton's few equals in the art of over-acting. It may read like a winner, but it's a weak walk-through of a movie. They must have been rationing ham in England that year.

I keep getting Google inquiries about "Mickey Hagarity," a name I mis-spelled once in connection with my Something Weird Video Collection. The real man has passed away: (from Yahoo.com) Mickey Hargitay, the actor and world champion bodybuilder who was married to 1950s sex siren Jayne Mansfield and whose daughter is Emmy-winning actress Mariska Hargitay, has died. He was 80. Born Miklos Hargitay in 1926, he emigrated from his native Hungary to the United States after World War II. He became interested in bodybuilding in the 1950s and was named Mr. Universe, Mr. America and Mr. Olympia in 1955. He parlayed his perfect physique into a performing career when Mae West tapped him to be one of the musclemen in her stage show. It was there that Hargitay met Mansfield, whom he married in 1957. That same year, he made his big-screen debut in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." He went on to star opposite his wife in three films: "The Loves of Hercules," "Promises! Promises!" and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" The couple had three children together, including Mariska, before divorcing in 1964. (Their relationship was hounded to death by bottom-feeders who we now call the Papparazzi and Mainstream Media. IMHO)
Mansfield died in a car crash in 1967.


(Left to Right)Jayne Mansfield in a mid-50's publicity shot; Her hard-fighting show business predecessor Mae West, standing next to Mansfield's future husband, bodybuilding champion Mickey Hargitay, in West's nightclub revue circa 1956.