dual personalities

Today we toast actor James Franciscus (January 31, 1934 – July 8, 1991) on his birthday.

You remember him. He was in a lot of television shows in the 60s and 70s (according to my research he was on at least three TV Guide covers!) and he made a couple of memorable movies. Unfortunately he made a lot of bombs as well. Mostly he could rock a jeans jacket.

But did you know that he was born and raised in St. Louis? His father was a pilot in WWII and was killed in action, so after his mother remarried, the family moved east, thus interrupting his idyllic country childhood. After graduating from Yale, he headed west to stardom.

Growing up, we always liked him (as did our mother) and we watched whichever of his shows or movie-of-the-week was on the telly. A particular favorite was Longstreet (1971-72) which starred Franciscus as insurance investigator Mike Longstreet.

After a bomb (hidden in a champagne bottle) kills his wife and leaves him blind, Longstreet pursues and captures the killers. He then continues his career as an insurance investigator despite his blindness. Bruce Lee was a semi-regular on the show, so you know it was legit. It was a cool show. Really. Too bad it only lasted a year.

Although Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) is admittedly a special movie (and Franciscus is nearly naked throughout–check out those abs),

my personal favorite is the The Valley of Gwangi (1969)–a western/fantasy spectacle with special effects by the great Ray Harryhausen and music by the great Jerome Moross.

This movie surfaced on TCM last week and I DVR’d it and watched it one evening with the OM. It was a diverting 90 minutes to be sure. This movie deserves to be much more famous than it is! I mean, really–cowboys lassoing a T-Rex?

A T-Rex bringing down a Mexican cathedral?

James Franciscus in this outfit?

Well, suffice it to say, you should try to find this movie and watch it. There is something quite endearing about these pre-CG films and the action scenes are really quite exciting. And the music is terrific.

So don’t forget to toast old James Franciscus tonight! When his mother died in the 1980s she left a big chunk of money to the Episcopal church I attended. No one remembered who she was by then (she had been gone for years) but the gift went to build the St. George Chapel and was much appreciated. Funnily enough, there was another old lady at this same church at the time whose son also had a go at a career as a movie star, although he was not nearly as successful as James Franciscus. Who remembers this guy?

Yes, that’s Todd Armstrong, who starred in Jason and the Argonauts (1963)–another Harryhausen feature. He fought those scary skeletons.

And, hey, he was the son of the architect who designed the famous meeting house for those ethical humanists I blogged about last week!

Let’s hear it for synchronicity! The world is more than we know.

*Neil Young