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DON DAYNARD
I recently obtained a copy of David Ragan's monumental book Who's Who In Hollywood--1900-1976, published by Arlington House a year ago, It contains, according to its jacket, 20,000 entries covering players from 1893 to 1976 including some "lost" players Ragan was unable to locate, The book runs 864 pages and therefore it isn't one you start at page one and read through in order. It's the kind of book you pick up and open wherever the spirit strikes you and flip back and forth as various names come to mind.
Ragan certainly gets "A" for effort--it must have been a horrendous task compiling all the information, What other film book you know about contains bio information on such obscure players as Ethan Laidlaw, “Black Jack" O'Shea and other similar "B" Western performers? And what other film book contains a full page of bio material on Bob Steele and only 22 lines about Errol Flynn?
However, this is not to say Ragan's book doesn't contain errors, In skimming through it I found a bunch of them, some of ‘em dandies!! Now, before you leap to your feet and accuse me of being picky picky, let me say I've committed lots of errors in print, including one beauty some years ago in Films In Review, but that's another story. It's probably well-nigh impossible to put such a book together without committing errors but some of Ragan's don't make sense, Such as:
He perpetuates the erroneous myth that Charles Gemora did play King Kong in the original film, He didn't. However as recently as the fall of '76 Gemora himself stated to the press that he was in “the monkey suit" for some of the scenes in the original classic, To get the true facts, check the book The Making Of King Kong by Goldner and Turner and you'll see where Gemora got himself confused and how the facts got misconstrued in the intervening years,
Ragan says Olive Carey and Olive Deering are one and the same. They aren't, Both worked in silent pictures, Deering in particular for DeMille but there's no doubt that they were two separate people,
Ragan is hazy on his serial facts, He says Bruce Bennett appeared in LOST ISLAND OF KIOGA in 1970 where in fact the film was first released in 1966 and is a feature version of a serial Bennett did, as Herman Brix, back in 1938 under the title HAWK OF THE WILDERNESS,
He says Clayton Moore retired from motion pictures in 1959 after the release of GHOST OF ZORRO, That was a feature version of a serial made in 1949 and Moore really retired, except for occasional commercial appearances, when his Lone Ranger tv series bit the dust. And even saying he's retired is probably incorrect as he still does public appearances in the Ranger outfit and even told me, on the phone once, “You know, I am the Lone Ranger” which was a little spooky but again that's another story. continued on page 3
CAPTAIN GEORGE'S PENNY DREADFUL, a weekly review established in 1968, ispublished by the Vast Whizzbang Organization at Memory Lane, 594 Markham Street, Toronto, Ontario, (canada,