MGM Livewire: Debbie Reynolds

As a kid living first in Texas and then Burbank, California, Mary Frances Reynolds (you can call her Frannie, everyone did)
was a tomboy and everyone's kid sister.  She loved playing with boys and doing boy things, especially baseball.  The boys didn't always treat her nicely and she bristled when they accused her of being a girl.  As a result Frannie grew feisty, tough and energized, traits that would be a part of her until her dying day.

Villainy with B Leading Man Stephen McNally

He populated a helluva lot of movies in my boyhood and my young eyes bulged out of their sockets at some of the vicious, spellbinding things he did.  All those women he slapped and the men he shot right between the eyes.  While I didn't know the word "amoral" at the time, I see it's fitting to describe Stephen McNally's characters.  He could be a nasty killer, a brooder, blistering with his stock-in-trade being the eyes that narrow and bore into his quarry.  He scared me.  

Guilty Pleasures: Valentino

1977 Biography
Screenplay by Ken Russell
and Mardik Martin
From United Artists
Book by Brad Steiger and
Chaw Mank
Directed by Ken Russell

Starring
Rudolf Nureyev
Leslie Caron
Michelle Phillips
Felicity Kendal
Carol Kane
Seymour Cassel
Huntz Hall