Happy Birthday, Barry Newman!

The star of Petrocelli (1974-1976) turns 75 years old today.

Father of the “Old Polish Proverb”

Today would have been the 85th birthday of George Peppard, the Detroit-born actor probably best remembered for his starring roles in two American TV series: Banacek and The A-Team. Unfortunately, Peppard died of pneumonia in 1994.

Still the Best Bond

As The HMSS Weblog reminds us, tomorrow, August 25, will mark the 83rd birthday of Sean Connery, the Scottish actor who first brought James Bond, Ian Fleming’s Agent 007, to the big screen.

Yes, Another Year Older

This week brings us two birthdays significant to fans of classic American TV crime dramas. Today, of course, marks 66 years since the delivery, in Los Angeles, of Susan Saint James, who would go on to co-star with Rock Hudson in the NBC Mystery Movie series McMillan & Wife (1971-1977). And tomorrow, August 15, will be the 88th birthday of Mike Connors, the Armenian-descended actor who achieved renown playing hard-fisted L.A. private investigator Joe Mannix, in the 1967-1975 CBS-TV series Mannix.

We offer our best wishes to both performers, as they gather breath to extinguish their multiplying birthday candles.

Rejoicing in Chandler’s Birth

Since I’ve been more or less faithful in making note of Raymond Chandler’s birthday ever since 2006, I was planning to let today--which marks 125 years since the author took his very first breath in Chicago, Illinois--pass by without any significant remarks. However, I was apparently alone in that decision.

In this new piece, The Daily Telegraph’s Jake Kerridge looks back at Chandler’s roots and his entry into the detective-fiction field. Mystery Fanfare’s Janet Rudolph highlights a recorded 1958 conversation between Chandler and James Bond creator Ian Fleming (which The Rap Sheet also noted a few years ago). Jason Diamond of Flavorwire has posted a list of what he thinks are the finest film adaptations of Chandler’s fiction. (Click here to watch trailers for those pictures.) And The Paris Review acknowledges the author’s natal day by posting one of many memorable quotes from The Big Sleep.

While we’re on the subject of birthdays, perhaps I should remind everyone that tomorrow would have been the 97th birthday of John D. MacDonald. Unfortunately, he died back in 1986.

Hart Throb

We want to extend our warmest wishes to Lola Albright. The Ohio-born model turned actress--best known for her co-starring role as nightclub entertainer (later restaurateur) Edie Hart on the TV series Peter Gunn (1958-1961)--today celebrates her 88th birthday. It’s only too bad that Craig Stevens, who appeared with her as private eye Gunn, isn’t around to help her blow out candles. He passed away in 2000 at age 81.

Let’s not forget, either, that today marks the 75th birthday of onetime Avengers co-star Diana Rigg. Since we presented a good-size post about Rigg on the occasion of her 70th birthday, back in 2008, there’s probably no need to repeat that. We’ll settle, instead, for drinking a champagne toast in her honor later this evening.

Bullet Points: Post-Fireworks Edition

• American actor Craig Stevens would today be celebrating his 95th birthday, had he not perished from cancer in 2000. Most Rap Sheet readers will likely remember Stevens (born Gail Shikles Jr.) best for his starring role in the 1958-1961 private-eye TV series Peter Gunn. However, his résumé is long and includes an appearance in the film Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953) as well as guest shots on such small-screen dramas as The Name of the Game, Alias Smith and Jones, The Snoop Sisters, Harry O, Ellery Queen, Police Woman, and Quincy, M.E. Stevens also starred in the TV series Man of the World (1962-1963) and Mr. Broadway (1964), and co-starred with David McCallum in The Invisible Man (1975-1976). In 1967, he reprised his best-known role in the big-screen release Gunn.

• Lest I forget it, let me note today that tomorrow will bring the 71st birthday of Richard Roundtree, who starred in both the film and TV series Shaft. You’ll learn more about his famous character here.

• I was pleased last night to see, on PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery!, the first regular episode of Endeavour, ITV’s prequel to John Thaw’s long-running Inspector Morse series. I am still, however, mourning the loss of Inspector Lewis, the sequel to Morse, which concluded its seven-season run with last Sunday’s episode, “Intelligent Design.” Fortunately, Lewis lead Kevin Whately says that he and co-star Laurence Fox would be “quite happy” to feature in the occasional televised Lewis investigation, “just not great big blocks of them. And I think ITV are keen to do some more ...” I definitely look forward to seeing those future Lewis movies.

• Howard Shrier’s latest Jonah Geller novel, Miss Montreal, wins a thumbs-up from January Magazine critic Jim Napier.

• Mike Ripley is a little late with his latest “Getting Away with Murder” column for Shots, but that hardly lessens its value. Included among Ripley’s wide-ranging topics this month: Goldsboro Books’ annual Crime in the Court event; new novels by Charles McCarry, Michael Gregorio, Craig Robertson, and Ian Sansom; a look back at the work of Victor Canning, and a glance ahead at the next book by David Downing. You’ll find all of that and more here.

• Pornokitsch contributor Jared Shurin continues his semi-monumental task of reviewing “each and every Hard Case Crime publication” with this write-up about Seymour Shubin’s Witness to Myself (2006). You can find Shurin’s full series at this link.

• A couple of congratulations are in order: One to the blog Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased, which today marks its second anniversary; and the other to Nick Cardillo’s The Consulting Detective, which has filed its 100th post.

• Still more applause, this time for Peter Robinson. As the author reports, the British TV series DCI Banks, based on his long-running succession of Inspector Alan Banks novels, “has won the Royal Television Society (Yorkshire Branch) Award for Drama.”

• A trio of interviews worth your reading: Paul D. Brazill talks with Jim Winter about the latter’s new Cleveland-based, Nick Kepler private-eye novel, Bad Religion; Dutch blogger Jochem van der Steen interviews Sam Hawken on the subject of his new novel, Camaro Run; and BOLO Books’ Kristopher Zgorski chats up Helen Smith, the author of Invitation to Die.

• Back in 2004, Mystery Scene magazine published a good-size piece by editor, anthologist, and crime-fiction scholar Allen J. Hubin, in which he recalled the many challenges involved in producing “the mammoth and definitive bibliography Crime Fiction, which lists and cross-references every mystery novel and writer from 1749 until the year 2000.” That article is now available on the mag’s Web site.

Still Famous After All These Years

I never have trouble remembering Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday, for it coincides with the anniversary of my founding The Rap Sheet (a subject about which I shall have more to say anon). Had that physician turned author not died in July 1930, he’d be celebrating his 154th birthday today, having been born in 1859.

On this occasion, let me direct you to a fairly good biography of Conan Doyle here, a video of the author talking about his life and career (which I’ve posted before on this page, but which many readers probably have not seen), and David Abrams’ review of the 2007 book Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley. Oh, and if you didn’t see it before, here is James McCreet’s Rap Sheet piece looking back at some of the more preposterous deductions made in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

(Hat tip to MysteryFanfare.)

READ MORE: “Sherlock Holmes Is on the Case,” by Margot Kinberg (Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...).

Burr in the Saddle

Ivan G. Shreve Jr. has posted a nice remembrance, in the blog Radio Spirits, of Canadian-born actor Raymond Burr--the star of Perry Mason and Ironside--who would have celebrated his 96th birthday today. Unfortunately, Burr died in 1993 at age 76.

Better, Stronger, Faster?

Let’s all wish Michigan-born actor Lee Majors a happy birthday. The former star of Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Fall Guy turns 74 years old today.

You Go, Hugh!

Happy birthday to American actor Hugh O’Brian. The former star of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955-1961) and Search (1972-1973)--who married for the first time just seven years ago--turns 88 years old today. In other words, he has already outlasted the real-life lawman, Earp, by eight years.

Can We Get Some Cake with That?

This is certainly an occasion for celebrations. First up, we must pay tribute to California novelist Bill Pronzini, who turns 70 years old today. Pronzini is, of course, the Grand Master Award-winning creator of the long-running “Nameless Detective” series, the most recent installments of which were all released in 2012: Hellbox, Femme, and Kinsmen. Since I’ve written before on this page about Pronzini’s literary virtues, let me point you to two blog posts elsewhere that acknowledge the start of this author’s seventh decade, one by TomCat in Beneath the Stains of Time, the other by Patrick Ohl, sharing his respect for Pronzini’s knowledge of this genre.

Today would also have been the 90th birthday of Don Adams, the actor who starred with Barbara Feldon in the 1965-1970 TV spy spoof Get Smart. Unfortunately, Adams died in 2005 from a lung infection.

And let’s not forget that it was 60 years ago today--April 13, 1953--that UK publisher Jonathan Cape released Ian Fleming’s first novel, Casino Royale. That book introduced the world to a certain British super-spy, James Bond (aka Agent 007), who would become famous not only through Fleming’s novels and short stories, but as a consequence of his appearances on television and in a series of films. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that this is Bond’s 60th birthday, and that he’s holding up well for his age. Very well, indeed.

Taking in the Sites

• Blogger-author Evan Lewis today reports that Doug Allyn (who’s already carried home more of these coveted commendations over the years than anybody else) has won Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s 2012 Readers Award. Here’s how the voting broke down:

1. “Wood-Smoke Boys,” by Doug Allyn (March/April 2012)
2. “Mariel,” by David Dean (December)
3. “Champawat,” by Lia Matera (September/October)
4. “Skyler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit,” by Evan Lewis (September/October)
5. “Dial Country Code 91 + M for Murder,” by Stewart Brown (December)
6. “Death of a Drama Queen,” by Doug Allyn (September/October)
7. “So Near Any Time Always,” by Joyce Carol Oates (March/April)
8. “Black Pearls,” by Clark Howard (May)
9. “One Angry Julius Katz and Eleven Befuddled Jurors,” by Dave Zeltserman (June)
10. “Golden Chance,” by S.J. Rozan (December)

• It was about a year ago, I think, that my cable-TV provider dropped BBC America from its one-step-up-from-basic package. As a consequence, I lost Law & Order: UK and other programs I’d enjoyed watching regularly. Just this last weekend, though, I discovered that I once more have access to the channel ... which meant that I could finally see Ripper Street, the new crime series set in London’s notorious East End in

1889, shortly after Jack the Ripper’s murderous rampage there. Well, as you might expect, I spent a good few chunk of Saturday and Sunday catching up with Ripper Street via On Demand--and enjoyed every minute of that experience. What a splendidly atmospheric, character-rich, and smartly written show this is, with special credits due Adam Rothenberg, playing Homer Jackson, an American police surgeon with an elusive past, and Jerome Flynn, who appears as laconic but hammer-fisted Detective Sergeant Bennet Drake. If you haven’t partaken of this series, you owe it to yourself to watch. The eighth and final episode of the season is scheduled for broadcast in the States this coming Saturday at 9 p.m. (see the preview on the left), but Ripper Street has already been renewed for 2014. Once I’ve made it through the episodes from this series, I’ll be on to another BBC America crime drama, Copper, set in New York’s notorious Five Points neighborhood in the mid-1860s, which I’ve heard is also a must-see. Thank goodness, BBC America is back!

• Lend an ear, folks! At least for the time being, you can listen to Mark Billingham’s Rule Book of Crime, a three-hour production of BBC Radio’s 4 Extra. During the show, this author best known for his Tom Thorne crime novels (The Demands) “detects his favourite radio sleuthing stars--Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Raymond Chandler, Henning Mankell, and P.D. James.” Billingham has long experience as a stand-up comedian, so you can expect this program to be very entertaining. (Hat tip to Ali Karim.)

• The March edition of Mike Ripley’s “Getting Away with Murder” column was posted in Shots today. It features notes about upcoming crime-fiction commendations, London’s “Murder in the Library” exhibition, new novels by Andrew Taylor, Tom Harper, and Paul Thomas, and the only rude photo I’ve ever seen of Louise Penny.

• The HMSS Weblog looks back a full half-century to the time when author Ian Fleming had to choose between committing himself to making movies from his James Bond novels, or participating in the TV spy drama The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

• You can’t revisit The Maltese Falcon too often.

• Thank you to Steve Powell of The Venetian Vase for choosing The Rap Sheet as one of 2012’s best blogs.

• Well, it’s about damn time! China Beach, the habitually exceptional, 1988-1991 Vietnam War-era drama starring Dana Delaney, is finally due out in a 25-anniversary collector’s edition next month. It won’t be cheap; all 61 episode are being retailed for $199.95. But China Beach was an amazing show. If you have somehow forgotten it, refresh your memory by watching the Season 1 opening here.

• Do you have fond memories of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm spy films (based loosely on Donald Hamilton’s Helm novels)? If so, then a new e-book called Booze, Bullets & Broads: The Story of Matt Helm, Superspy of the Mad Men Era might be well worth your investigating.

• The fourth Kindle edition of ThugLit is now available.

• Organizers of PulpFest 2013 are soliciting nominations for their annual Munsey Award, which recognizes “the efforts of those who work to keep the pulps alive for this and future generations.” The PulpFest Web site adds that “All members of the pulp community, whether they plan to attend PulpFest 2013 or not, are welcome to nominate a deserving person for this year’s award.” Any ideas? The deadline for nominations is April 30.

• Can this really be? Today marks the 60th birthday of Los Angeles-born actress Kay Lenz, whose face was once very familiar on screens large and small. One of her childhood roles was on The Andy Griffith Show, but Lenz went on to appear in Ironside, Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, McCloud, Nakia, Petrocelli, Hill Street Blues, Moonlighting, and numerous other TV series. She played a disturbed woman in the 1974 Peter Graves TV pilot, The Underground Man, and was cast as a mystified witness to a shooting in the 1979 Father Brown series pilot, Sanctuary of Fear. She also portrayed a withdrawn college student in the 1978 TV creepshow, The Initiation of Sarah. Lenz won an Emmy Award for her guest spot in “After It Happened,” an installment of the 1988-1991 NBC drama Midnight Caller. I probably remember her best, though, as a captivating, “free-spirited teenage runaway” in Clint Eastwood’s 1973 romantic film, Breezy, which also starred William Holden. (Watch the trailer here.) Happy birthday, Ms. Lenz!

“Make a Wish”

Last year at this time, I posted a fond tribute to actress Sherry Jackson on the occasion of her 70th birthday. Back then, I’d heard about Jackson’s performance in director Blake Edwards’ 1967 film, Gunn, a big-screen adaptation of his 1958-1961 TV series, Peter Gunn, in which the polished private eye of the title (played again by Craig Stevens) investigated the assassination of a crime boss. (Mystery*File says the picture’s plot line was expanded from “The Kill,” the TV series’ 1958 pilot, but “with some fine variations—at least one borrowed from Mickey Spillane’s Vengeance Is Mine.”) Having never watched Gunn, though, I had also never enjoyed the lovely Ms. Jackson’s appearance in it as “a beautiful and mysterious kook who shows up naked in Gunn’s bed.”

Well, 12 months later, I still haven’t seen Gunn; sadly, no DVD edition is yet to be had. But recently, I discovered on the Web the scene from that movie—now embedded at the top of this post—in which Jackson introduces her character, Samantha, to Stevens’ gumshoe from the comfort of his very own bedroom pillows, wrapped in barely concealing bedsheets (though she was also wearing pasties—something not obvious to filmgoers). It’s a sweet, lighthearted, and sexy interlude—and apparently not Jackson’s sole half-clad moment during this flick’s 94-minute run. At least part of one such episode was evidently cut from the version made available to prudish American viewers, leading to the story that a nude scene featuring Jackson was found only in foreign prints. In a 2011 interview, Jackson sought to set the record straight:

Doing the notorious foreign market nude scene—which is total nonsense—it doesn’t really exist ... I’m supposed to put my arms around Gunn and my towel drops ... So Blake [Edwards] comes up to me and, very fatherly, says, “I just want to pull the camera back a couple of feet when your towel comes down.” He was very gentle and thoughtful about it and made it easier for me ... I think he was more nervous than I was! That said, the most you saw—and briefly—was the side of my breast. That was it—the scandalous overseas graphic sequence! Another Hollywood urban legend.

It’s difficult to believe, watching the motion-picture clip above, that more than 45 years have passed since its shooting, and Sherry Jackson—who was in her mid-20s in Gunn—is 71 years old today. Please join me in wishing her the happiest of birthdays!

SEE IT NOW: Two more things you might enjoy watching—the opening title sequence from Gunn and a collection of scenes from that film, both of which can be found here.

READ MORE: “Gunn (1967)—Blake Edwards,” by John Greco
(Twenty Four Frames); “A TV and Movie Review by David L. Vineyard: Peter Gunn” (Mystery*File).

An Octogenarian Aussie

I missed acknowledging, last Friday, the 83rd birthday of Australian-born actor Rod Taylor. In addition to starring in the 1960 science-fiction film The Time Machine and Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), Taylor appeared with Dennis Cole in the 1971 historical action series Bearcats! and the 1983 spy drama series Masquerade.

Taylor also featured in Fate Is the Hunter (1964), Hotel (1967), Nobody Runs Forever (1968), and The Train Robbers (1973). He even did a turn as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious asterds (2009).

However, many Rap Sheet readers may remember Taylor best for his performance as Travis McGee in Darker Than Amber, the 1970 cinematic adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s 1966 novel. As author Gar Anthony Haywood put it recently on Facebook, Taylor was the “best Travis McGee EVER.” If you’ve never seen the film, click here to watch its opening sequence as well as a late fight scene between Taylor and William Smith that apparently became much more violent than the director had expected.

Bullet Points: Wet Wednesday Edition*

• To celebrate the release this month of his new non-fiction work, Ellery Queen: The Art of Detection, Francis M. Nevins recalls his introduction to the two “fractious” cousins who, under the Queen pseudonym, “reshaped the modern detective novel.”

• I’m very sorry to hear that Portland, Oregon’s Murder by the Book, on SE Hawthorne Boulevard, will close in April, after 30 years in business. A notice on the store’s Web site reads, in part:

As you know, these past few years have been difficult financially for many reasons, including the generally depressed economic climate, growth of e-books, and elevation in the price of print books. In addition, Barbara [Tom] and Carolyn [Lane] are ready to really retire.

So far we have not found others who want to take on the labor of love that an independent bookstore represents. We will be making a concerted effort to find some kind of successor in the next few weeks and months. (Of course, we would happily entertain discussions with you or anyone you know who would consider this a great opportunity!)

In the next few months, the store will operate normally--that is, with a wide selection of books and an unlimited amount of advice--so we would hope for your continued support.

Even though I am a frequent visitor to Portland (at least its west-of-the-river side), I’ve only been to Murder by the Book a few times. I’ll have to make a point of dropping in there sometime this spring.

• Happy 150th birthday to the London Underground, the oldest sections of which began operations on January 10, 1863. To commemorate this occasion, author Christopher Fowler has posted some Underground trivia, while Janet Rudolph has assembled a list of crime novels and short stories that take place on the Underground.

• Curiously, today also marks what would have been the 100th birthday of another frequent lurker in the shadows: Richard M. Nixon, the former Republican U.S. president who will forever be remembered by the unfortunate epithet “Tricky Dick,” and who resigned partway through his second term as a result of the Watergate scandal--an event that spawned a wealth of political thrillers. It should come as no surprise that, according to a piece in Politico, “2 in 3 Americans still disapprove of the job Nixon did as president, making him by far the most toxic president of the past 50 years.”

• And though I didn’t know Larry Storch was still alive, it turns out that this comic actor best known for his role in F Troop celebrated his 90th birthday on Tuesday. By the way, in addition to his sitcom efforts, Storch also appeared over the years in The Name of the Game, Tenafly, Mannix, and Police Story. Check here for more.

• From In Reference to Murder: “Author Thomas Pynchon is in talks with director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood) to bring Pynchon’s 2009 stoner private-eye novel, Inherent Vice, to the big screen.” You hear that? It’s time to roust ’60s-era gumshoe Larry “Doc” Sportello from his haze and get him prettied up for the cameras. The results of this project should be interesting.

• British author Chris Ewan subjects his new (in the States, at least) thriller, Safe House, to the challenge of Marshal Zeringue’s Page 69 Test. See the results here. Ewan is, of course, best known as the author of the “Good Thief’s Guide” series, including The Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas and, forthcoming, The Good Thief’s Guide to Berlin.

• Celebrating Chinatown one more time!

• In a piece for Kirkus Reviews, Sue Grafton looks back on her 30 years in the crime-fiction biz. Meanwhile, Jen Forbes critiques Kinsey and Me, Grafton’s new collection of stories about herself and her famous series P.I., Kinsey Millhone.

• Five modern female crime writers--Denise Mina, Jassy Mackenzie, Sara Gran, Donna Leon, and Nevada Barr are interviewed by The Christian Science Monitor’s Randy Dotinga.

• Mystery fictionist Ed Lacy, who died 45 years ago this week, is profiled at welcome length in Tablet. Concurrently, J.F. Norris of Pretty Sinister Books reviews Moment of Untruth, Lacy’s 1964 “sequel of sorts” to his well-regarded 1957 novel, Room to Swing.

• And Kevin Burton Smith delivers a keen defense of the 1947 film The Brasher Doubloon, based on Raymond Chandler’s novel The High Window (1942). In a piece in The Thrilling Detective Blog, Smith calls it “a clean, relatively straightforward screenplay ... that leans heavily on Chandler's penchant for wisecracks.” More on the source of this picture’s name is here, and you can read about some other big-screen productions based on Chandler’s stories here.

* Yes, it’s been raining in Seattle again. Remind me, why do I live in such a damp environment? I’m sure there’s a reason ...

His Literary Longevity Knows No Bounds

Buddy2Blogger reminds me that, according to American journalist-editor Christopher Morley, founder of the Baker Street Irregulars, today marks the 159th anniversary of Sherlock Holmes’ birth. Since I have written before on this page about Holmes’ natal day (and also the birthday of Dr. John H. Watson), I shan’t dwell at length on this matter, but only hope that the ghost of the Great Detective is enjoying a pipe and a bit of violin practice somewhere in the hereafter.