Actor following famous footsteps

Press, 11 October 1988, Page 19

Actor following famous footsteps

David Hartnell's

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I’m not one to gossip but ... Keith Coogan, one of Hollywood’s rising young stars, is following in the famous footsteps of his grandfather, the legendary Jackie Coogan. “I’ve always felt it was in my blood,” he admits. “I’d see my grandfather in the old movies or watch him on TV, and I knew I wanted to be just like him.” Keith, 18, launched his career when he was just five, the same age as Jackie when he starred with Charlie Chaplin in the movie “The Kid” in 1921.

For the last five years actor Tony Curtis, 62, has been living in Hawaii and enjoying the life of an artist. He’s had many exhibitions. But now he’s hankering for the bright lights of Hollywood again. The actor will soon again be back in front of the cameras. Next week he starts shooting a TV movie, “The Mobsters.”

Singing star Johnny Cash has been suffering with very bad arthritis, and has had to cancel a concert tour of America. He has had a battle with arthritis for the past three years, but only recently did he speak to a magazine about his medical problem. For years he lived with the pain, taking only aspirin. Then he moved on to other drugs, which landed him in the Betty Ford Centre with an addiction.

The ruby slippers which Judy Garland wore in the movie “The Wizard of Oz” were recently sold to an English collector for $25,000. They are one of three pairs made for the M.G.M. movie by costume designer Adrian. Marlene Dietrich

vainly tried to use her famous sex appeal to halt the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII. This is something that Douglas Fairbanks, jun., reveala in his new autobiography, “The Salad Days,” which has been launched in Hollywood this week. The screen goddess passionately supported Edward’s monarchy and vowed she would pit her charms against those of the American divorcee Wallis Simpson to convince the King not to give up his throne. Douglas Fairbanks, whose four-year marriage to actress Joan Crawford ended in divorce in 1933, also recounts youthful love affairs with the musical comedy star Gertrude Lawrence and Vera Zorina, who was a worldclass ballerina, before settling down with his second wife, Mary Lee, in a very happy 49-year marriage.

A young delivery boy bringing a present to Zsa Zsa Gabor approached her house and found her watering her flowers. Miss Gabor, assuming the boy was a criminal, screamed in Hungarian and threatened him with the hose. She made him leave the package on the ground a back right away. She then called an employee to open it right there and then in case it was a bomb. When she was satisfied it was nothing more than a sterling-silver gift, she chased the boy away without any kind of tip. The price of fame in Hollywood! But really, the Gabor sisters are only famous for being famous. When was the last time you saw any of them in a movie or TV show?

Max Bygraves records are the very latest craze in swish L.A. discos. It’s about three decades since “Singalonga Max” was on the English charts with classics like “You Need Hands” and “Tulips from Amsterdam.” But now the American disc jockeys have created a whole new generation of fans for Max. I hear that Max, who’s now 65, is thinking about an American tour next year if the craze keeps up. It could all bring him a lot of dollars; already two record companies are. looking at doing an updated American version of his hits. Bob Hope wants to talk to Max about an idea he has of making him his sidekick in a new 1989 version of his 1950 s “Road” movies. And who said that Max Bygraves was old hat!

"Golden Girl” Betty White is designing a new range of fashions for the mature woman. She hopes to have them on the American market by next year ... but my lips are sealed.