After a weekend filled with violence, including two ugly mass shootings and the brutal slayings of Rob Reiner and his wife in their home, I was deliberately throwing myself into an unrelated column I’d been working on for a few days prior, when my sister texted me with news that actor Gil Gerard, star of…
Tag: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Retro-Musings: Remembering the 1979 “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” feature film…
******DRACONIA-SIZED SPOILERS!****** I did a column on 1979’s “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” TV series (1979-1981) five years ago for the series’ 40th anniversary, which included a quick synopsis of the film. The TV version of the movie, retitled “Awakening” for the series, included several scenes shot specifically for the TV version that were…
Remembering iconic sci-fi designer Colin Cantwell (1932-2022)…
Colin Cantwell, Rocket Man. This morning, I woke up to read that Colin Cantwell–a name I’ve known since my teens, and a man I had the pleasure of meeting three years ago–passed away at age 90, after a struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. No, his name may not be a household name in special effects, like…
“John Carter” (2012), the unfairly maligned adaptation of the original space hero…
Before Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Luke Skywalker… I was born about a half-century too late to have been among the first generation to read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” books, but my own first inklings of them came via Carl Sagan’s landmark 1980 PBS TV series, “COSMOS.” The late pop scientist reminisced…
Remembering a performer who populated my childhood, Felix Silla (1937-2021)…
Felix Silla, an actor and stuntman active in the industry since the early 1960s, succumbed to cancer at the age of 84, on April 16th, 2021 after a lengthy battle. The actor is best known for playing the hirsute Cousin Itt on TV’s “The Addams Family” (1964-1966) as well as the robot companion “Twiki” to…