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Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko on July 20, 1938 in San Francisco, California. She was nicknamed "Natasha" by her parents, Nikolai and Maria, two Russian immigrants living on the edge of poverty and who could barely speak English. In her youth, Maria had dreamed of becoming an actress and when her precious Natasha was born, she began to transfer those ambitions to her youngest daughter. She would frequently take the girl to the movies and by the age of three, "Natasha sat through two-hour films without moving." My mother used to tell me that the cameraman who pointed his lens out at the audience at the end of the Paramount newsreel was taking my picture. I'd pose and smile like he was going to make me famous or something. I believed everything my mother told me. (Natalie Wood) With Welles in Tomorrow Is Forever After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Nikolai took up American citizenship as Nicholas G...

+++   ********* Vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit. (Doris Day) *********

Since today is James Cagney's 116th birthday, this week on "Film Friday" I want to tel l you about what was, according to the man himself, his favorite of all the films he made. Original release poster by Bill Gold Directed by Michael Curtiz, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) opens in the early days of World War II, when George M. Cohan (James Cagney) is called to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House, after impersonating him in the Rodgers and Hart musical I'd Rather Be You . In response to Roosevelt's questions, Cohan begins narrating the story of his life, beginning with his birth on July 4, 1878 and then recalling his vaudeville days with his father Jerry (Walter Huston), mother Mary (Rosemary DeCamp) and sister Josie (Jeanne Cagney). Th e Four C ohans perform successfully across the country, but G eorge gets too cocky as he grows up and is blacklisted by theatr ical prod ucers for being troublesome. In the early 1900s, while the fam...

JAMES CAGNEY (July 17, 1899 — March 30, 1986) Once a song-and-dance man, always a song-and-dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.