The Hall of Fame Case for Gene Autry

Gene Autry wore many hats, proverbially speaking, besides the cowboy dome piece in his movies: Owner of Los Angeles television station KTLA from 1963 to 1982 Original singer of the Christmas standard Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Army Air Corps officer and Air...

Buster Keaton, Joe E. Brown, and the Olympics

Baseball’s nexus with Hollywood had a center point in Los Angeles’s Wrigley Field on February 28, 1932 for a charity game benefitting America’s Olympians; the ’32 Summer Olympics—which took place in Los Angeles—inspired two comedy icons to...

Mickey, Whitey, and the Class of 1974

During the summer of 1974, excitement charged the air.  We watched with wonder when Philippe Petit walked on a wire between the Twin Towers, with dismay when President Nixon resigned because of the Watergate scandal, and with awe when the Universal Product Code...

Durocher, Drysdale, and the Duke

Hollywood’s cup of glamour runneth over with lore, the most significant likely being, in terms of endurance, the story of Lana Turner, she of the tight-fitting sweater, busty figure, and platinum blonde hair.  Turner’s genesis as a star began at...

McGraw and McGillicuddy

One was pugnacious.  The other, almost regal. When John Joseph McGraw took the field, he embraced baseball games as bouts, thus earning his nicknames Mugsy and Little Napoleon. When Cornelius McGillicuddy managed the Philadelphia Athletics, he wore a suit rather than...