#bob fuller

[manyother]

JUNE 13,1955: Actress Jayne Mansfield, actor Lance Fuller, actor John Smith, actress Natalie Wood, and actor Bob Fuller get Coca Cola's as they pose at a drive-in restaurant in Los Angeles.

Photo by Earl Leaf (1905-1980).

[sparklejamesysparkle]

Jayne Mansfield, Natalie Wood, Lance Fuller, John Smith, and Bob Fuller at a drive-in restaurant in Los Angeles, California, photos by Earl Leaf, June 13th, 1955. All of the young aspiring thespians were then under contract with Warner Bros. Studios, and Natalie, who'd been acting since childhood, had just completed filming her star-making role in Rebel Without a Cause at the time and would soon after attain A-list status, becoming a respected star and an important Hollywood player. The young men achieved minor careers, attaining success in supporting roles in films and television but never becoming household names like Wood and Mansfield did after these photos were taken. It's of interest to note that though Jayne auditioned for the role of Judy which Natalie ultimately played to great effect in Rebel Without a Cause, director Nicholas Ray (who humored her, but knew from the get-go she was completely wrong for) cast her in a small part as a car-hop at a drive-in restaurant in the movie instead. The brief scene was unfortunately cut from the finished film with only a couple of on-set production stills existing of Jayne's association with Rebel. Dropped by Warner Bros. soon after, she quickly scored a starring role in the Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? which she eventually starred in on-screen after 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the play and signed Mansfield to a long-term contract, partially as a threat to Marilyn Monroe, who 20th greatly under-appreciated and believed was "difficult" and "uncooperative" in her quest to appear in movies worthy of both her talent and status as the studio's top box office star. While signing with 20th paved the way for Jayne to finally achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a movie star, the studio treated her even worse than they treated MM and Jayne's high-octane blonde bombshell image, ravenous, often short-sighted ambition, her trusting nature, and her misguided penchant for staging publicity stunts (which grew increasingly more desperate and outrageous) resulted in an endless stream of scandalous headlines which eventually, and rather sadly, relegated her to being cast in second-rate movies and becoming a tabloid/gossip-mag celebrity, never allowing her an opportunity to actually prove her talent and intelligence or to be taken seriously by Hollywood prior to her tragic passing at the age of 34 in a horrific car accident in 1967. It's worth noting that 20th Century Fox terminated Mansfield's long-term contract in April of 1962, three months before they fired Marilyn Monroe and canceled production on her final, prophetically titled movie Something's Got to Give. Marilyn sadly took her own life at the age of 36 two months later. Despite her great success as an Oscar-nominated screen star, Natalie Wood also met a tragic end, dying under mysterious circumstances in the deep, dark waters off the coast of Catalina Island in 1981 at the age of 43. The investigation into her sad and untimely passing remains an open police case, officially classified as "unsolved" to this very day.

[questcequecestqueca]

Natalie Wood, John Smith, Bob Fuller, Lance Fuller, and actress Jayne Mansfield

[kbade]

Can we talk about Robert Fuller for a sec?

His mom (Betty) was a night club dancer who married a Navy Officer

He walked out of the Vice President’ of Talent’s office TWICE(first because they wanted him to be the lead roll in a detective series but he wanted to do a western so he turned them down, and the second time because they wanted him to play Slim in Laramie but he wanted to be Jess oh my God can you imagine how terrible that would’ve been?

his mom marked out his name on his birth certificate(which was Leonard Leroy Lee) and renamed him Robert Simpson Jr. after his step dad making his birth certificate void

He had a job at Guman’s Chinese Theatre and worked his way up from a doorman to the Assistant Manager

His parents opened a dance class where they taught the Navy personnel how to ballroom dance

His step dad became a background dancer and was in almost every movie musical from 1950 to 1987

One of the reasons he got the part in Friendly Persuasion was because his sideburns were real

He made a German album called Am fuss der blauen berge/Laramie

[sillysymphony]

Jayne Mansfield with Natalie Wood, Lance Fuller, John Smith and Bob Fuller, 1955.

[oldhollywoodholla]

Bob Fuller, Natalie Wood, John Smith, Jayne Mansfield, and Lance Fuller posing at drive-in restaurant (1955)

[bluesrocknrollingstones]

from the Albany Group archive

[julielondonlove]

“The Wedsworth-Townsend Act”, 1972, NBC-Universal

The anniversary of the Emergency! premiere is tomorrow, January 15, and as I was capturing videos of the pilot in preparation for my Instagram tribute, I was reminded of something.

How much I HATE season 1 Dr Brackett. 

Now, I love the character of Dr Brackett. Of all the characters in the show, I personally believe he shows the most personal development (although Gage has plenty of his own). Bob Fuller did a fantastic job of portraying him, and he’s one of my favorite characters.

But I can hardly watch him in the pilot! He’s arrogant and rude and cynical. He’s extremely self-conscious, which is fair and that in itself isn’t a bad character trait. But in him, it manifests as pride and anger. He isn’t nice to Dixie at all, the one person you’d think he would be nice to (though, to be fair, she does push him a little too hard). He resents Johnny and Roy even when they save her life. That may be the turning point in which he decides to support the program, but it’s obvious that he still doesn’t trust them or the rest of the paramedics. 

I know there are plenty of explanations/excuses for his behavior. I recognize that, and I really do love Dr Brackett. This is just my little bit of mumbling as I rewatched several scenes from the pilot today to record them, and I was reminded of how painful it is to watch a character I do absolutely love be such an asshole. Maybe that’s why I love him so much - his character develops immeasurably throughout the series.