september 2005 > final credits > last link on the left

Don Adams >permalink<

Don Adams Another icon of sixties television is now gone. In early September, Bob Denver who played Gilligan on "Gilligan's Island" died.

Just over three weeks later, the star of "Get Smart" -- Don Adams aka Maxwell Smart aka Agent 86 to millions of TV fans -- passed away on September 25, 2005 at the age of 82 from lymphoma and lung infection.

For more about the man who put "Would you believe ... ?" into everyday lexicon, visit the Last Link Don Adams tribute page.

Thomas Ross Bond >permalink<

Little Rascal

Butch At the age of five, Tommy Bond was literally plucked out of the Great Depression and picked to star in one of cinema's longest-running series. A talent scout for the Hal Roach studios approached Bond as he was leaving a Dallas cinema with his mother. The scout thought he had a great face and set up an appointment for Bond with Roach who was gathering new talent for his popular "Our Gang" comedies.

"Our Gang" started in 1922 as a series of films that featured the misadventures of a group of poor neighbourhood children. Roach produced the shorts at his own studio until 1938 when he sold the franchise to MGM, who continued the series until 1944 using Roach's story ideas. By the time the series ended, a total of 220 shorts and one feature film had been made. Roach syndicated his shorts, the ones he produced during the sound era, to television as "The Little Rascals" (MGM retained ownership of the name "Our Gang").

The "Our Gang" films are remarkable in retrospect. They portrayed children acting in a natural style, with boys and girls and blacks and whites interacting in an unaffected and equal manner. Such behaviour among adults didn't occur in film until the 1960s.

Tommy Bond entered the "Our Gang" stable as a supporting charcter in 1932. He left the series in 1934, returning in 1937 to replace another actor in the "bully" role of Butch. It was Butch who competed with Alfalfa for Darla's attention. Bond was featured in nearly 40 installments of the series.

In the 1940s, Bond played Jimmy Olsen in two Superman serials and appeared as Joey Pepper in several installments of the "Five Little Peppers" serial. In 1951, Bond quit acting and went into television directing and production work for KTTV-TV Channel 11 in Los Angeles and later at KFSN-TV Channel 30 in Fresno before retiring in 1991.

Bond was one of the last surviving members of the forty-one children who played in the "Our Gang" series. Other notable survivors include Jackie Cooper (who played Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Christopher Reeves-era Superman movies) and Mickey Gubitosi, better known as Robert Blake. Bond's son, Thomas R. Bond II, is the owner of the production company American Mutoscope & Biograph, which first began film production in 1895.

For a photo gallery of children who appeared in the "Our Gang" and "The Little Rascals" series, visit Thomas Staedeli's web site. For more about the Hal Roach series, visit Wikipedia's "Our Gang" entry.

September 24, 2005 at age 79. Complications from heart disease.

Bob Redding >permalink<

Goalie-cam innovator

Goal! It's the instant-replay angle that hockey fans now take for granted, but who was the first to risk placing a camera inside the net? It was probably Bob Redding -- who gave fans the view that normally required the strapping on of goalie pads.

In 1967, Redding was a photographer for The San Diego Union and Evening Tribune. He came up with the idea of rigging up a remote-control still camera in goal at the San Diego Sports Arena. He attached his camera to the post in back of the goal and encased it in a compressed wood box with the front covered with plexiglass. The shutter was operated by Redding via a radio transmitter.

It didn't take long for the camera to be given the ultimate test. Early in the first San Diego Gulls 'AA' hockey league game with the camera in place, a player drilled Redding's contraption -- and both teams gathered to see how the camera fared. Redding adapted his camera for a less dangerous sport -- basketball -- and the rest, they say, is history.

September 17, 2005 at age 70. Complications from a stroke.

Gordon Gould >permalink<

Laser pioneer

There was a time when if someone mentioned the word 'Laser' it would have to be followed with the explanation that it was an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation." Gordon Gould coined the term in 1957 but it took him three decades to be officially credited for his work.

In 1954, Gordon was a graduate student at Columbia University when he read a scientific paper written by professor Charles H. Townes that described the "maser," a predecessor device that amplified microwaves. Gould had his own thoughts about how to employ light instead of high-energy radar waves, and he jotted his ideas and sketches in a notebook that he had the presence of mind to have notarised.

The invention of the laser remains a contested debate. Townes and Bell Labs researcher Arthur L. Schawlow published the first scientific paper describing a laser in December 1958. Gould, mistakenly thinking that he had to first build a prototype first, did not apply for his patent until several months later.

Gould left Columbia University and joined Technical Research Group, who with military aid to the tune of $1 million, tried to turn to the laser into a practical device. Gould could not work on the research himself as he was denied a security clearance because he had taken part in a Marxist study group in Greenwich Village with his first wife, Glen Fulwider, in the late 1940s. Ironically, Gould had worked on the Manhattan project just years earlier. The first actual working laser was built in 1960 by Theodore Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories in California.

Gould joined the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1967 and later helped found Optelecom, a company that made fiberoptical equipment. All the while, he pursued his laser patent applications. In 1977, he won the first patent for his laser work but did not start receiving royalties until 1988. Even though he had signed away 80 percent of the proceeds in order to finance his court costs, in his last years he was a rich man, reaping $30 million from patent licenses from more than 200 companies.

Gould was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991. His laser has been used to measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon within millimetres, cut steel, read barcodes, aid in surgery, play CDs and DVDs and help level picture frames in homes around the world. In 1984, Gould underwent several operations for eye problems and benefited from his own work.

September 16, 2005 at age 85. Infection from circulatory and vascular ailments.

John J. McMullen >permalink<

Brought NHL hockey to New Jersey

John McMullen McMullen was a career naval officer who founded a marine engineering firm after leaving military service. He turned to the sporting world in the early 1970s, buying the New York Yankees from CBS. In 1979, McMullen became the owner of baseball's Houston Astros. Three years later, he turned his attention to hockey.

The Denver-based Colorado Rockies, who entered the National Hockey League in 1977, never rose above being a floundering hockey franchise. McMullen bought the team in 1982 for $30 million, moved them to the Garden State's Meadowlands Sports Complex and renamed them the Devils after a fan vote.

Despite the move and the change in name, the team fared no better, prompting the usually cautious Wayne Gretzky to state "They're putting a Mickey-Mouse operation on the ice -- it's ruining hockey." New Jersey missed the playoffs in its first five seasons, a near incredible feat back in the day when 16 of 21 NHL clubs made it to the post-season.

For years, the Devils struggled in a market dominated by the New York Rangers and Islanders. However, Lord Stanley's Cup found its way to the New Jersey locker room in 1995 and again in 2000.

After being unable to obtain state assistance toward building a new arena in Hoboken, McMullen sold the Devils to the YankeeNets sports holding company for $175 million in the summer of 2000.

September 16, 2005 at age 87.

Robert Wise >permalink<

Robert Wise started in the film business as a messenger in the RKO Studios editing department, a job the 19-year-old landed through his brother, an accountant. He soon found himself editing one of the greatest films of Hollywood's golden era, "Citizen Kane." By the time his six-decade career ended, Wise was one of most recognised directors of the latter-half of the twentieth century.

Robert Wise died September 14, 2005 at the age of 91 from heart failure.

For more about the legendary director, visit the Last Link Robert Wise tribute page.

J. Calvin Jureit >permalink<

Gang-Nail connector plate inventor

Working on the gang-nail There would be some who would say it was divine intervention. A quiet moment in a church service led Jureit to daydream ... and he envisioned a fastening device that would revolutionise the housing industry.

Prior to Jureit's invention of the Gang-Nail, a plate made of galvanized steel with nail-like prongs protruding from it, roofs were built up from individual rafters, involving precise cuts and toe nailing -- the driving of nails into lumber at a sharp angle. The Gang-Nail allowed roofs to be assembled as trusses that could be built off-site in mass quantities. The cost-savings of the Gang-Nail led to affordable housing in the 1950s, and it was just one of 60 construction-industry patents that Jureit held.

Jureit studied art, chemistry and accounting before joining the U.S Navy in 1942. He was stationed in Australia and New Guinea, and although he saw no combat he did see a great deal of war-related construction. Postwar studies in engineering served him well during the growth of suburbia that accompanied the baby boom. The firm that first manufactured Gang-Nails, Automated Building Components Inc., is now owned by Warren Buffet under the name of MiTek.

After retiring, Jureit built a home in Coral Gables, Florida around a massive theatre pipe organ. All seven of his children were musicians, and his home was the venue of classical music concerts held for friends and neighbours.

September 9, 2005 at age 87. Head injuries from a fall.

Patricia McQueeney >permalink<

Manager

Patricia McQueeney McQueeney managed Harrison Ford for over 35 years, working exclusively for him since 1986. Ford credits her with helping transform him from a struggling actor to a Hollywood superstar.

Among McQueeney's other clients were Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Charles Martin Smith (who all appeared with Ford in George Lucas' 1973 film "American Graffiti") and Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest, frequent stars in Lucas' fellow Bay-area friend Francis Ford Coppala's films.

New to the business of personal management in Hollywood, McQueeney first met Ford in 1970 when he was getting more work as a carpenter than as an actor. She recalled that Ford did not look particularly pleased to be at their first meeting. Under her wing, Ford went on to fame in "Star Wars" and the "Indiana Jones" trilogy, later becoming one of Hollywood's more bankable stars.

McQueeney's entertainment career spanned five decades, first working as a top New York model under the name Patricia Scott while becoming a familiar face on television as a spokeswoman for Revlon, AT&T and Eastman Kodak. As Scott, she also appeared regularly on NBC's "Today" show with Dave Garroway in the early 1960s. She became a prototype for female co-anchors who followed after Garroway left the show, working with John Day, Edwin Newman, Hugh Downs and John Chancellor.

She moved to California in 1964 and continued to work in television commercials before creating McQueeney Management in 1970.

In 2000, when Ford received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award, he singled out his longtime manager in his acceptance speech, thanking her for her "wisdom, counsel, charm and professionalism."

September 4, 2005 at age 77.

Bob Denver >permalink<

Bob Denver Denver was known to generations of TV viewers as the bumbling slacker castaway Gilligan on the original Survivor-type show "Gilligan's Island." However, Denver first became a familiar face to audiences with his portrayal of the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," which aired from 1959 to 1963. The two roles brought a sense of counterculture to the small screen.

Bob Denver died September 2, 2005 at the age of 70 from complications due to cancer treatment.

For more about the actor forever known as Gilligan, visit the Last Link Bob Denver tribute page.

final credits - september 2005