Bluto, Buster and The Blob: Conversations with Actors and Writers From Hollywood and Radio’s Golden Age! Hardcover – November 14, 2024

BLUTO, BUSTER AND THE BLOB is the first in a series of three volumes of interviews with actors, actresses, directors and cartoon animators primarily from Hollywood's "Golden Age." Old-time radio announcer and actor Jackson Beck also voiced Popeye's greatest adversary originally known as "Bluto the Terrible" from the middle 1940s through the late 1950s and created the voice for a very similar character called "Brutus" in the early 1960s Popeye cartoons for television. All this and more of Jackson Beck's fabulous show business career is covered in several interviews found in this book. Olympic swimmer and actor Buster Crabbe - best known as "Flash Gordon" in the classic movie serials from the 1930s talks about his career on television, film and as an Olympic athlete. Actress and writer Kate Phillips tells about her experience in working on the classic sci-fi film, The Blob and her career on stage and screen.A 1978 Sons of the Desert convention in Chicago spotlighted the careers of comedy legends, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. People who worked with and knew Stan and Ollie tell their stories about one of America's greatest comedy teams in the 20th Century on film. Child stars like George "Spanky" McFarland and other members of Our Gang (aka The Little Rascals) talk a little about their careers, along with Janet Ann Gallow's memories of Lon Chaney, Jr., Sharyn Moffett remembers Boris Karloff in The Body Snatcher and Jimmy Hunt talks about Invaders from Mars!If that isn't enough, comedy director Ed Bernds talks about working with The Three Stooges, director Frank Capra and serials with tight-fisted Sam Katzman at Columbia Pictures.Future volumes will contain interviews with Adrian Booth (aka Lorna Gray) who remembers Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges and serial making at Columbia and Republic studios. Classic cartoon animators discuss Snow White, Pinocchio, Gulliver’s Travels, Popeye and Superman from the 1930s and '40s. Special effects master Linwood Dunn talks about making serials in Hollywood during the 1920s and touches on his work for King Kong and The Thing. The "Next Generation" of animators and special effects artists like Jon McClenahan talks about working on Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs and Jack Polito remembers his time for Irwin Allen on Lost in Space!Leonard Kohl is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Filmfax, Classic Images, Midnight Marquee, Movie Collector’s World, Scarlet Street, Monster Bash Magazine, The Official Popeye Fanclub News-Magazine and other film oriented publications. He is also the author of Sinister Serials of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. and has contributed to other anthology books, Science Fiction America, Lon Chaney, Jr. and the first edition of It’s Christmas Time at the Movies! He now lives in Wisconsin with his wife and son. Read more