February 25, 1996: My daughter and I found some interesting junk

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday my daughter and I explored a wild area near Dundas and Lansdowne between the north side of Dundas and the railroad tracks. We found an old crutch and a bunch of other stuff.

Bernard McEveety

            On Monday morning I gathered some vintage photos of sex workers for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.85 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune about every other song until the last five songs and then it fully behaved itself until the end. 

            I shaved and showered directly after song practice and then got ready for my appointment with my periodontist Dr. Xia. I got there pretty much just on time. He removed most of my stitches and said the rest are soluble and will dissolve by themselves over the next couple of weeks. He said the bone graft looks pretty good so far, so it appears like I’m on track to getting the implant. I brought my smaller denture along to see if it fits but he says it still doesn’t right now. I’m coming back in three weeks to check again. He doesn’t think it will fit because the bone graft has changed the shape of the gap. At that point if it still doesn’t fit they’ll order a retainer for me to wear for the few months until I get the implant. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought four bags of green grapes, a pack of raspberries, a Caribbean avocado, two containers of roasted red pepper hummus, and a container of Baba ganouj. I looked for non-dairy ice cream, which they had last year but there was none in sight this time other than in pop form on sticks. 

            I weighed 90.45 kilos at 15:50, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since February 12. 

            I took a siesta at 16:30, planning to get up at 18:00 but I slept until 18:45. 

            I weighed 91.3 kilos at 19:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:07. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity a recording of my daughter Astrid singing at around the age of 3 but the recording is very low in volume. I’ll try again tomorrow as it might be a memory issue for my computer in Audacity. Sometimes a restart will fix it. 

            I had two potatoes with margarine and two slices of five-year-old cheddar while watching season 1, episode 29 of Combat. 

            K Company is behind enemy lines and have to get back to their side within two and a half hours before Allied shelling of the area begins. While checking a barn for Germans, Kirby hears a noise and fires, just missing a baby in a basket. A dead woman they assume was the child’s mother is found outside the barn, having been killed by German mortars the night before. 

            Saunders says they have to move out and the men assume they will be taking the baby but he says no. They protest and grumble as they make their way until finally Saunders sends two men back for the baby. Since Doc is unarmed he is the only one allowed to carry the baby as they need every gun to be ready. The map shows that there is a convent not far away and so they make their way there only to find that it’s been destroyed. 

            Then they see a German patrol approaching on the road and they hide. On both sides of the road is an orchard and the Germans stop to pick apples. After a while they move on but Doc has been covering the baby’s mouth to keep it from making noise and it seems it may have killed the infant. Doc performs mouth to mouth for a long time and is almost ready to give up when the baby returns to consciousness. 

            They find a bombed out house where there is a bicycle and clothing that survived the blasts. Stroback sees a cow and goes running towards it to get milk for the baby when he steps on a mine and is killed. Since the Germans might have heard the mine, Saunders takes Brockmeier with him to recon. Meanwhile the men go against orders and sweep the field for mines so they can milk the cow. A wine bottle is washed and Doc rigs a nipple from a dropper in his med kit. When Saunders comes back Kirby lies that the cow wandered over to them so they milked it. He doesn’t believe him. 

            In the baby’s clothes they find a locket that indicates the baby had a German father and a French mother. 

            To get back to their lines they have to cross a fast river over which the only crossing is a pontoon bridge heavily guarded by German soldiers. K Company will have to try to cross where the river is rapid but they wouldn’t be able to carry the baby. Caje sees a Frenchman cross the bridge on a bicycle and the soldiers don’t ask to see his papers. He gets the idea to take the baby back to the house, change into the clothes they found and ride the bicycle with the baby in the basket across the bridge and then meet his company on the other side. He finds one German soldier goofing off by the house then sneaks up behind and strangles him. He and the baby make it across the bridge and meet K Company on the other side. 

            The Allied mortar fire begins and they have to make their way through it back to their lines while still shielding the baby. They find a convent that is happy to take the baby. All the men, including Saunders are sad to be free of the infant. 

            This episode was directed by Bernard McEveety, who directed 52 episodes of Gunsmoke, and 5 episodes of Knight Rider. He directed The Brotherhood of Satan, Ride Beyond Vengeance, and Napoleon and Samantha. The latter was Jodie Foster’s feature film debut at the age of 9. While shooting it she was picked up by a lion and shaken in its mouth before the trainer said “Drop it!”

February 24, 1996: My daughter and I found a nearby playground in my new neighbourhood

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday my daughter and I began our weekend together. It was fairly warm for February. We found a playground in my new neighbourhood.

Eric Braeden

            On Sunday morning I continued to collect images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and it went out of tune on almost every song.

            I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been running all week and set the other one going. Maybe in a month or so I won’t need the humidifiers anymore and my Sundays will be freed up for painting. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar, with a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown but only as far as St George and Bloor because the Bloor bike lane was getting slippery. I went south to Harbord, west to Bathurst. south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 91.05 kilos at 18:05. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:41. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive a recording that has my daughter Astrid making mostly pre-verbal sounds. Most of the first half of one side is a CBC interview with Leonard Cohen. The rest of the tape consists of a woman reading Ontario legal documents in French. 

            I made some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted a few more images from my hard drive. I’m up to the pictures with titles that start with “L”. 

            I cubed a pack of tofu and sautéed it. I added water, spinach, two Szechuan spice packs, and two servings of noodles. I ate supper with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 28 of Combat. 

            K Company has just liberated a French town and is looking forward to rest and relaxation there when a sniper kills one of their men. They search house to house but we see a man dressed as a local walk to a bombed out factory on the edge of town and descend to a hidden living quarters in the basement. We see him don a German uniform. 

            Later he returns to the village, again dressed as a local and from another upper floor room kills another GI. The sniper easily escapes back to his hideout. Francoise the bartender goes to meet him there and we see they are lovers. 

            Kirby runs across two boys playing war. Caje learns they are looking for the sniper. They say they saw someone go into the factory. Saunders and Caje go there and meet Francoise and Hans on the way. They find the sniper’s lair. 

            After they return to the village the sniper targets Saunders but he sees the gun in the window and moves. The bullet hits the wall near Saunders’ face and partially blinds him. The sniper stops to help an old lady with her baskets just as Hanley asks if they’ve seen anybody. Through his blurry vision Saunders can see Francoise walking out of the village and he follows her. She detects him and hides. The sniper grabs one of his cached rifles and hides behind a ridge to wait for Saunders. Francoise sees this and calls out a warning so the shot misses him. Hans shoots Francoise then Saunders fires from side to side in his general direction with his machine gun until he hits and kills the sniper. He goes to Francoise as she is dying. 

            The sniper was played by Eric Braeden, who immigrated to the US as a teenager and worked as a translator, a cowhand, and a lumber mill hand in Montana and Texas. He earned a track and field scholarship to Montana State University. He and Bob McKinnon made a documentary of their successful trip the length of the Salmon River. He went to Hollywood to find a distributor and ended up being cast as the co-star in The Rat Patrol. His film debut was in Operation Eichman in 1961. He starred in Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Adulteress, and The Man Who Came Back. He co-starred in The Mask of Sheba, The Ultimate Thrill, and The Ambulance. He reluctantly accepted the role of Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless and it made him a star. He has been nominated for five Emmy Awards. He co-starred in the mini series Lucky Chances. He thinks Hollywood’s portrayal of US soldiers in WWII caused the Vietnam war.

February 23, 1996: Brian Haddon didn't want to perform with me until everything was right

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron. I invited Brian Haddon to accompany me but he was a bit of a perfectionist and wanted us to rehearse a few more times.

Curt Conway

            On Saturday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of “Les Millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg.

            I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the first of two sessions and it went out of tune during almost every song. The new tuner is more accurate but has no magical effect on the guitar.

            Around midday I went to No Frills where I got a refund for the zero alcohol mouthwash that I accidentally bought last week. The grapes were very cheap at $4.14 a kilo but I could only find five bags that were relatively firm. I also bought a pack of raspberries, some bananas, mouthwash, a carton of coconut milk, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, and a container of what I thought was non-dairy coconut ice cream but it was dairy coconut ice cream. I’m pretty sure I’ve bought non-dairy ice cream at No Frills but there’s none there now. They have it at Freshco so maybe I’ll pop by there tomorrow. 

            My upstairs neighbour David called and said he forgot to buy bread so I gave him three slices of Bavarian sandwich bread. 

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 14:35, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since last Saturday. 

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:00. It was too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos at 17:20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive a recording of my daughter Astrid making pre-verbal sounds. It’s only on the beginning of side A. I have another tape that has more of her on it that I’ll digitize tomorrow. 

            I created more sub-folders in my SSD for photos including one for Kitten Natividad. I deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I used the remainder of some tofu I cooked a few days ago, added water, some broccoli, and two Szechuan flavour packets. I cooked them for a while, then added two servings of ramen noodles. I had two bowls of the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 27 of Combat. 

            Kirby is on trial for desertion and if found guilty the punishment could be the firing squad. Saunders and Caje attend his trial.

            He had been separated from K Company when they were under heavy mortar fire. He was found by Sgt. Metcalf of F Company and ordered to help take Hill 256. But on the way up Kirby saw that they were under machine gun fire and ran. Metcalf saw no machine gun and his word has more weight because he’s a decorated soldier while Kirby has a reputation for being a troublemaker. 

            Saunders points out that he’s fought beside Kirby many times and he’s never run but he’s told that one only needs to run once to be a coward. 

            There is one German prisoner from that battle and Saunders tries to get him to confirm that there was a machine gun but he refuses to give anything but his name, rank, and serial number. 

            Saunders and Kirby’s lawyer Captain Dugan check the records and find there has only been that one battle on Hill 256 so if machine gun shells can be found there it could save Kirby. Saunders and Caje decide to go on a private mission to Hill 256 but they only have one night because Kirby will be on the witness stand in the morning. They enter British lines and are captured but after a few hours their identities are confirmed and they are allowed to continue because the Brits sympathize with their situation. 

            They see German soldiers as they make their way to the hill and strangle two of them. At the top of the hill Caje falls into a deep man-made hole and inside finds a spent machine gun belt. But a truckload of Germans arrive to start cutting down trees in the area. They kill one of them who gets too close to the hole and then sneak away. 

           They give the shells to Dugan who brings an ordinance expert into court to identify the shells as German. The prosecution drops the charges and Kirby is free to go. Metcalf still insists he saw no machine gun.

            Saunders concludes that Metcalfe is so conditioned to be brave that he can’t even see danger when it’s staring down his throat. 

            Captain Dugan was played by Curt Conway, who was a member of the Actors Studio. His film debut was in Singapore in 1947. He played Hitler in an episode of the Twilight Zone. He appeared on four episodes of The Odd Couple. He founded the Conway Theatre Studio in Hollywood in 1962. He was on the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts and taught at the Civic Light Opera Musical Theatre Workshop in LA. He taught acting at the University of California from 1970 to 1972.

February 22, 1996: It was so much easier to teach another musician my songs now that I could play them

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday Brian Haddon started learning to play my songs on the recorder. It was so much easier to teach another musician my songs now that I could play them on guitar. Rehearsals were chaotic with the earlier ensemble of Christian and the Lions when I would just try to sing them my songs.

Hendrik Vallaerts

            On Friday at about 3:00 my upstairs neighbour Jacob was banging on something. 

            At 3:45 the fire alarm started bonking and continued for half an hour until the firemen came. I could hear them in the hall but I didn’t get up to check on whether there was actually a fire. I fell asleep and dreamed that I went out to talk with them and saw that unit 2 was totally gutted and black. Of course it wasn’t. 

            After yoga I gathered more images from the internet for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it didn’t stay in tune as well as yesterday but it wasn’t too bad. 

            Around midday I painted the underside of my top bathroom shelves with “blue bliss”. I also straightened out the lines where the top shelves meet the walls. It looks good but it’ll need at least one more coat, which I’ll add on Tuesday. 

            I weighed 91.8 kilos before lunch.

            I took a siesta at 14:30 as usual but didn’t wake up until 17:15. My body was probably making up for its loss of sleep while the fire alarm was sounding. It was too late for a bike ride.

            I weighed 91.95 kilos at 17:40. 

            I called my periodontist Dr. Xia and left a message to let him know I was almost finished with the Peridex mouth rinse and wondered if I could go back to regular mouthwash. He got back to me an hour later and said I could use warm salted water instead. He also said I could lightly brush the area of surgery now. I’m looking forward to getting the twenty stitches out. I can feel the ends of the threads and it feels like I’ve got a spider in my mouth. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:41. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of the Bomb Shelter Light demo tape. The next tape I’ll digitize is one containing pre-verbal sounds my daughter made when she was small. 

            I created some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I boiled a potato in vegetable broth, added spinach, and five-year old cheddar. I put in a little too much salt. I ate while watching season 1, episode 26 of Combat. 

            K Company is battling the Germans in what is supposed to be an evacuated French town. Then they notice a beautiful young woman sitting in a rose garden oblivious to the gunfire and the explosions. Oddly the garden has been untouched while outside its gate the streets are torn up. The Germans retreat but will be back and they outnumber K Company. Saunders enters the garden to try to get the woman to leave. The young woman’s name is Jeannine and she is with her caregiver, the elderly Celeste. Jeannine has lost her family and now lives in a delusional fantasy of peace in the garden. Celeste speaks English and tells Saunders that divine intervention is protecting Jeannine and her garden. She says that Jeannine will die if she leaves. 

            Later Saunders comes back to try again. Although Jeannine cannot speak English she has taken a liking to Saunders and follows him when he leads her to the gate. But then she sees the devastation outside and has a panic attack. She retreats to the garden. 

            Saunders goes back to his company. The Germans begin to shell the town and Lieutenant Hanley tells Saunders to try again to get the civilians out. Jeannine is playing a record and wants Saunders to dance with her. Celeste points a rifle at Saunders and forces him to do so. He doesn’t really have to be forced. After a while Jeannine becomes very calm in his arms and he picks her up to carry her out of the garden with Celeste following. He lays her down in a stable at the command post but when she wakes up she panics. Doc gives her an injection that puts her to sleep. 

            The Germans stop firing for the night and everyone goes to sleep. Jeannine wakes up and wanders back to her garden. Saunders finds her there as German troops occupy the town. A machine gun nest is holding K Company down. There’s an abandoned tank nearby with the big gun out of commission but the machine gun works. Caje tries to get to it but is wounded. Saunders successfully gets into the tank and uses the machine gun to take out the nest. The Germans are gone from the town for now. Jeannine and Celeste are back in the garden and Jeannine gives Saunders a rose before he leaves. 

            This story was written by Hendrik Vallaerts, who started as a writer for Frank Sinatra’s radio show. He wrote the Star Trek episode “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”. He wrote six scripts of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and created the minisub they used in the series. He wrote the two episodes of Batman for which he created the villain the Bookworm.

February 21, 1996: Brian Haddon joined my band Christian and the Lions

Thirty years ago today 

             On Wednesday Brian Haddon brought his recorder to work and afterwards we went back to my place to jam. He decided he was interested in learning my songs and we made plans to start busking together as well.

J.D. Cannon

            On Thursday morning I finally memorized the fourteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are four verses left but some have repeated lines I already know and so it’s more like two more verses to learn. 

            I continued to search online for vintage photos to add to my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. I’ve got 74 so far. 

            I weighed 90.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and after having to retune following the first song and then the second, it stayed in tune for the rest of the session. 

            I created a few more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several images from my hard drive.

            I weighed 91.05 before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and for the first time since before the big storm the Bloor bike lane was clear enough for me to ride all the way downtown. I was almost disappointed because I’d gotten used to these shorter bike rides over the last few weeks. It was quite tiring riding downtown and back without practice. I stopped at Freshco on my way back where I bought seven bags of grapes but stuffed them all into four bags just in case the cashier wanted to be strict about the four item limit for price matches. I also got two packs of raspberries, some bananas, a carton of soy milk, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, two cans of kidney beans, Sensodyne toothpaste, and shaving gel. 

            The price match on the grapes was with the No Frills price of $4.14 a kilo. For some reason Jeremy the cashier disputed that and got out his calculator to work out a much higher price per kilo. I said, “You didn’t get $4.14 a kilo?” He said that’s not what $2.99 a pound works out to. I informed him, “It’s not $2.99 a pound, it’s $1.88 a pound!” When he looked at my flyer he’d been looking at the price for the item below the grapes. He fixed his mistake but I’ll probably avoid Jeremy’s counter from now on. 

            When I got home I saw that I’d forgotten the bananas and they weren’t on my receipt. I took them out of my basket when I was putting the seven bags of grapes into four bags and then must have forgotten to put them back in.

            I weighed 90.95 kilos at 19:15. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 20:35.

            There was no time to work on any projects tonight. 

            I boiled the good parts of two potatoes in vegetable broth. On another burner I heated what was left of the chicken and potato soup I’d made yesterday and added two slices of five-year-old cheddar. To the main soup I added spinach and after about ten minutes added yesterday’s soup. The finished product was delicious. 

            I had supper while watching season 1, episode 25 of Combat. This story had the feel of a back door pilot. The star, Rick Jason did very little while the episode was driven by the guest star, J.D. Cannon, playing superspy Ted Slocum. AI says that there is a considerable group of fans and critics that agree with me that this was probably a back door pilot. Espionage shows were very popular at that time but it would have been unique to have one set during WWII.

            In the middle of being shelled by Germans in France, Lieutenant Hanley gets orders to report to a cocktail lounge in London. They fly him out still dirty from night patrol. He gets cleaned up at the hotel and soon he’s in uniform enjoying a drink in the lounge. 

            At the bar two men are debating and then finally betting on how many companies a German infantry regiment has. The British man says 15 and the Middle North American argues it’s 12. They see Hanley and recognize by his uniform that he would know and so they agree that he can settle the bet. Hanley says 15 so the Middle North American pays a pound. He sits with Hanley and asks what outfit he’s with but he won’t say. The Middle North American shows his credentials and he’s Ted Slocum of the Washington Foreign Press but Hanley still won’t give out any information.

            Slocum leaves and then Hanley gets a phone call to go to a certain address. He enters a dark room lit by one candle where a man named Williams at a table tells him to sit down and look at a photograph on the table. Hanley recognizes the Barole family. There is Raymond, who was Hanley’s college roommate, Raymond’s little sister Marie and their father Dr. Barole the physicist. Williams says that Dr. Barole is in hiding in occupied France to avoid being forced to serve the German war effort. He is hiding in a town near the Swiss border. 

            An attempt was made to help him escape but it failed because someone tipped off the Gestapo and Raymond was killed. Barole needs someone he can trust so he will cooperate with a new escape plan. Williams says that Hanley would be accompanied by an experienced spy who has jumped into occupied territory many times. Only Marie knows where her father is but the Maquis would lead them to her. 

            Hanley agrees to the mission and then a light comes on revealing that nearby is sitting Ted Slocum, the spy who will lead the mission. Hanley is impressed because he found Slocum very convincing as a news correspondent when he met him in the bar. 

            Slocum takes Hanley to get their papers. A man who was recently in prison for counterfeiting is now the expert in charge of that department. They get suited up with French citizens’ clothing of the region in question. 

            They jump and are met by two men and one woman of the Maquis. Two Germans are approaching and Slocum immediately tells the other men to hide, then he grabs Lily, throws her down on the ground and begins kissing her. The German soldiers just think it’s a couple of French lovers and they let them go. 

            They go to Marie and she is happy to see Hanley again. It turns out that Dr. Barole is hiding in Marie’s cellar. Slocum tells him they have to leave tonight. Barole says he needs his notebook, which he’s hidden in the wine cellar of a local bar that is frequented by German soldiers. 

            Slocum burgles a uniform store and dresses as a German officer. He walks into the bar and asks for wine but acts disgusted by what he tastes. So the bartender takes him to the basement where Slocum “accidentally” breaks the wine bottle the bartender hands him and while the proprietor goes upstairs for a mop, Slocum finds Barole’s notebook. On his way out the other German officers are leaving and he learns that they are going to the church where he, Hanley and the Baroles are supposed to rendezvous. He goes back to Hanley and says there is a traitor among the three Maquis they are working with. Slocum tells each of the three a different location for their next rendezvous. Then later he says they are going to the church tower to watch and see which location the Gestapo go. That way they will know who the traitor is. Lily suddenly jumps out of the car and runs. Slocum drives after her but she runs into an area under curfew and the Germans shoot her. 

            Slocum, Haney, the other two Maquis and the Baroles make it across the Swiss border and then Hanley and Slocum head back to London so Slocum can buy Haney a drink. 

            Slocum was played by J.D. Cannon, who started his studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before WWII and finished them after. He was a founding member of the New York Shakespeare Festival. His TV debut was on the Phil Silvers Show. He starred in the original off-Broadway production of Blood Knot in 1964. His film debut was in An American Dream in 1966. He co-starred in Cool Hand Luke, He appeared in 5 episodes of Alias Smith and Jones. He played Police Detective Peter B. Clifford on McCloud from 1970 to 1977 (a role that his producers said was the closest thing to a living Dick Tracy).

February 20, 1996: I met my fellow model and musician Brian Haddon

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday I took my guitar to work with me at the Ontario College of Art. Sometimes I would pose with it for paintings. At lunchtime I would sit in the models’ lounge and in those days the school had a nice one with a big couch where models could hang out and get to know each other. That day I met Brian Haddon who it turned out was also a musician and had studied at the Royal Conservatory. He said he played recorder and we talked about getting together and playing to find out if he’d like to join Christian and the Lions.

Garry Walberg

            On Wednesday morning I gathered more images from the internet for my phot-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the last of two sessions and it stayed in tune most of the time but not as much as yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer and we’ll see how the new tuner works on that. I tuned my Martin acoustic with it earlier and it was difficult. I find it needs to be slightly below dead-on the notes for the B and the high E. I was used to finding where that was with the old tuner. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos before lunch. I had some of the potato and chicken soup that I made yesterday and added saltines. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but because of the storm O’Hara was too slippery so I just went straight to Freshco along Queen. That was difficult as well but not as bad. I had to walk around a couple of cars. At the supermarket I bought three bags of cherries, some spinach, some broccoli, two packs of tofu, one container of Compliments vegetable broth and another of Campbells just to see if there was a difference. Once again I couldn’t find my Scene card at the cash. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos at 17:40. 

            I spent an annoying hour trying figure out how I could access my Scene card without looking in my Gmail. I kept getting trapped in the Scene website and couldn’t get out. That happened several times. Finally I was able to put my card in Google Wallet and then I had to figure out how to have Google Wallet easily accessible. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:41. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side one of Bomb Shelter Light’s demo tape. Bomb Shelter Light featured at least once at my The Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage. The songs seem derivative of Nick Cave. 

            I cubed a pack of sautéed tofu, added the rest of the pho broth, and some chopped broccoli. After the broccoli was cooked I added a pack of kimchi ramen noodles and the herbs and spices that came with it. I had supper with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 24 of Combat. 

            Three journalists come to observe K Company in action. The most aggressive among them is Eleanora Hunt, who will do anything to get a story. Captain Smith tells Hanley and Saunders to look out for Hunt as she can do the war a lot of good. She’s one of the best magazine photographers in the business. 

            She goes out to an observation post with Saunders and Billy and complains she’s yet to hear a shot or see a dead German. Suddenly they are attacked by two Germans, who are killed. She jumps into a car carrying two resistance fighters and so Saunders gets in too as he’s been ordered to watch out for her. They drive back to the command post. 

            That night Eleanora sneaks off with the Maquis fighters to the nearby village of Trois Anges. K Company has to go after her. The people of the village misunderstand Eleanora’s presence there as being part of the liberation of the town. Everyone comes out to celebrate, which could tip off potential traitors who now would know who among them was with the resistance. Later they learn that the town has been occupied and Hanley and Saunders lead a squad to do reconnaissance. Eleanor tries to tag along in a commandeered jeep but agrees to wait outside the town. 

            A jeep is attacked and one of the men is killed. The two resistance fighters are found, one of them dead and the other dying. Eleanora is brought in and Saunders shows her the dead in a school and three members of the resistance hanging from church bells. 

            Later Eleanora mails Saunders a copy of the magazine containing her article and pictures. 

            One of the other journalists was played by Garry Walberg, whose film debut was in Gangster Story in 1959. His TV debut was on Rawhide in 1959. He played Sergeant Sullivan on five episodes of Johnny Stacatto. He appeared in the very first episode of The Twilight Zone. He played Sergeant Goddard in 33 episodes of Peyton Place. He played Hansen in the Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror”. He played Oscar’s poker buddy Homer on the sitcom The Odd Couple. He played Police Lieutenant Frank Monahan on all seven seasons of Quincy.

December 19, 1996: My landlady felt right about her pregnancy

Thirty years ago today 

             On Monday I chatted with my new landlady Helga Schlatter about her pregnancy. She said that she’d been pregnant once before but had gotten an abortion because she’d had a premonition that the baby would be evil. Considering that the one she did have is now in prison for murder, maybe she got her psychic wires crossed.

Marlene Parker

            On Tuesday morning I continued gathering images for my photo-video of the song “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year. No wonder I’m out of breath after I do my chin-ups. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it was staying in tune about half the time until the battery died on my tuner. I switched to my new rechargeable Snark tuner for the first time and it seems more accurate. After that the guitar stayed in tune almost the whole time. Time will tell if all my tuning problems all these years have been because of a bad tuner. It may just be that the Gibson liked the damp weather today and the tuner is just a coincidence.

            Around midday I finished touching up the wall paint above the top bathroom shelf and also fixed an area on the north wall that I’d smudged with pink paint. Now I’m finished with the stepladder for the bathroom and tomorrow I’ll start painting the undersides of the top shelves with the Blue Bliss paint. 

            I weighed 92.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and found they’d cleared the snow that’s been blocking the Bloor bike lane at Shaw and Bloor but it’s still clogged up from Grace Street on. I went down Grace to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and west to home. The sun was enormous and red because of the dwindling fog. I took some pictures but it was already partly behind buildings. 

            I weighed 92.1 kilos at 17:55. 

            I was behind in my journal because I fell asleep at the computer last night. I got caught up at 19:18. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of “Dancing to the Words”, which was my disc jockey audition tape for CKLN. At first the waveform died about a song and a half into the tape and so like the day before yesterday I had to restart my computer before Audacity would record the whole thing. 

            I deleted a few more photos from my hard drive. 

            I used the rest of the water in which I’d cooked the three chicken legs two days ago to boil the good parts of two potatoes. It tasted a little thin to be soup so I added some miso. That helped but not enough and I didn’t want to use too much miso. It didn’t taste like soup until I added the rest of the gravy and the last chicken leg. After that it was delicious. I had two bowls while watching season 1, episode 23 of Combat. 

            K company is holed up in an abandoned town when the Germans attack. They are forced to surrender and are marched to a command post where they are tied to the wooden fence of a goat pen. 

            A German soldier named Kurt needs a better pair of boots and sees that Kelly wears the same size. He steals Kelly’s boots and then says, “Danke schoen mister”. 

            The Allies begin shelling the command post and the stable catches fire. All the men but Saunders break free of their ropes and run, thinking Saunders is with them. They make it across the river and are taking a moment’s rest when Saunders emerges from the flaming stable in a state of shock with both of his hands badly burned. He crosses the river and faints just as K company moves on. 

            Saunders wakes and continues on. He collapses by a stream that K Company has just crossed. He finds the mud soothing and covers his hands. 

           That night K Company stumbles on a German campsite with a supply tent. They kill two guards and steal rations. Kelly finds boots and puts them on, telling the others he’ll catch up but he is discovered and shot by a German soldier. They escape and after they eat they wade up the river. Saunders also enters the river and collapses on a log. K Company passes him in the dark and then his log comes loose from the shore and floats downstream. When he wakes in the morning he makes his way upstream again. 

            He finds some leftover rations that he has to eat like a dog because he can’t use his hands. K Company finds an orchard and feasts, taking lot’s of apples with them. Saunders finds the same orchard but now all the low hanging fruit is gone and he can’t grip a stick to knock any apples down. 

            Weak from hunger he becomes delusional. He finds a dead German soldier and thinks it’s his brother Joey. He picks him up and begins to carry him. K Company comes across two Allied tanks and several soldiers and they are saved. A little later Saunders is found by the tank crew, still carrying the German. 

            This was the last episode directed by Robert Altman. 

            The German soldier Kurt was played by Marlene Parker, then credited as John Siegfried. She was born Siegfried Speck in Dresden in 1930 to a deaf and mute mother who could not care for her. She was placed in an orphanage and then adopted at the age of 6 by an unaffectionate family. When she was 14 the Allies repeatedly firebombed Dresden but her foster parents lived outside the city. After Germany fell the Russians were more brutal than the Nazis. She apprenticed as a hairdresser and then got work in a fashionable salon in East Berlin. Before the Berlin wall went up she and her boyfriend made the treacherous journey to West Germany. She eventually got work as a hairdresser on a cruise ship and ended up in Hollywood with many famous clients such as Doris Day. She started acting in plays at the German Club. Her film debut was in the 1959 remake of The Blue Angel. She played a German officer who is executed for being gay in the movie Hitler. She was Rock Hudson’s lover. She was on the verge of suicide before she decided to transition. After she started taking the hormones she lost a lot of work because she no longer looked like the guy they wanted for commercials. She transitioned in 1978.

February 18, 1996: It was too cold to play outside

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday it was too cold to go outside so my daughter and I played in my new home.

Dick Peabody

            On Monday morning I gathered a few more images for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 92 kilos before breakfat, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year.

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions and it only stayed in tune all the way through one song. 

            I deleted several photos from my hard drive. 

            I weighed 92.55 kilos before lunch. That’s the most in long time for the early afternoon. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor. The Bloor bike lane is still blocked with snow from Shaw maybe to Bathurst. If they clear it I’ll start riding downtown again. 

            I weighed 92.6 kilos at 17:45. It’s been years of evenings since it’s been that high. I’m looking forward to getting off this soft diet. Soups are very fattening. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:20. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1 of “Dancing to the Words”, which was my disc jockey audition tape for CKLN radio. 

            I made some more Photos sub-folders in my SSD and deleted 90 images from my hard drive. 

            I cooked a potato in chicken broth and added a cooked chicken leg. I ate the soup while watching season 1, episode 22 of Combat. 

            In a rainy European forest we see two German soldiers. Soon a lone US soldier appears and kills them. He takes their rifles and walks through the forest into some thick foliage that conceals the mouth of a very large cave. He descends to a campfire and tosses the rifles onto a pile. 

            The scene switches to K company where Lieutenant Hanley says they are going out on night patrol in two teams. The mission for each team is to take at least one German soldier prisoner and then return. Sergeant Saunders’ team consists of Caje, Kirby, Littlejohn, and Billy. 

            Saunders sends Kirby out to scout around and shortly after that he comes back with a German soldier as prisoner. Saunders says they can go home now but suddenly there is a shot and the German falls dead. The shooter is the lone soldier we saw earlier. He introduces himself as Lieutenant Joseph B. Krantz and says he got separated from his squad. When he learns they didn’t want the German dead he says he owes them one and would like to tag along to help them out. Even though he outranks Saunders he says he’ll follow his orders. But when Saunders says it’s almost time to go back Krantz suggests a fighting soldier would stay until they got what they came for. Saunders says he was told to avoid a fight and so he’s following orders. 

            Krantz wanders off and Saunders is about ready to head back when Krantz appears and says their way back is cut off by a German patrol. Saunders says they’ll have to hide for a while and so Krantz leads them to his cave. 

            Saunders places Billy and Littlejohn on guard outside the cave. Billy says he doesn’t think Krantz is an officer because he doesn’t carry himself like one. 

            Caje finds a keyring containing the dog tags of several US solders. Saunders is looking at them and reading out the names when Krantz grabs them from his hand. 

            Saunders and Kirby explore the cave and find a hot springs pool containing the bodies of nine US soldiers. The dogtags of one of them reads Lieutenant Joseph Krantz. Saunders confronts “Krantz” and he finally tells the real story. He says the real Krantz wouldn’t listen to him when he said the shouldn’t use the cave. The Germans outnumbered them and they were trapped. After some pushing by Saunders he admits that he survived because he ran. Saunders asks who he is and he says he doesn’t know. 

            Littlejohn tells Saunders there are Germans coming. They put out the fire and hide. There’s a firefight. “Krantz” tells Saunders there’s a back way out. He holds off the Germans alone and finishes them off with a grenade before being shot and killed. Saunders only reports that they found the bodies of ten US soldiers and gives Hanley the dogtags. 

            Littlejohn was played by Dick Peabody, who served in the US Navy during WWII. He studied electrical engineering under the GI Bill but switched to acting. After graduation he was making TV commercials when he was noticed by Robert Altman. He became a news anchor, a radio host, and a TV producer. He was successful but bored so he moved to Hollywood where he hooked up with Altman again, who cast him in Combat. He was a theatrical instructor at UCLA and was a founding member of the Canyon Theatre Guild. He did commercials for Lipton Tea and Paper Mate Pens. In 1985 he stopped acting because of back pain but resumed his writing. he wrote a column called Peabody’s Place for a local paper in Placerville, California.

February 17, 1996: I adapted Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" as a tribute to my late friend Mike

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I spent the day with my daughter at my new place and she stayed overnight. When she was sleeping I worked on learning the song “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison. I remembered that Morrison was a favourite of my recently deceased friend Mike Copping and so I changed the lyrics as a tribute.

Denise Alexander

            On Sunday morning I continued to gather images for my photo-video for the song “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year. My arms are going to be disproportionately muscular from doing chin-ups every day with my increased weight. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice and a few times it actually stayed in tune.

            Around midday I set my clean warm mist humidifier going and cleaned the one that’s been running all week. 

            I weighed 92.2 kilos before lunch. I’d have to look through old files to find when I weighed that much in the early afternoon. I had the rest of the hot Italian sausage soup that I made yesterday and added saltines. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor, east of which the Bloor bike lane is still blocked. I went south to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and west to home. 

            I weighed 91.95 kilos at 17:40. It’s been a few years since it’s been that high in the evening. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:16. 

            I started trying to record from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity but the audio wasn’t showing up as a waveform in Audacity. I tried to recheck my settings and even the connections but nothing seemed to be wrong. Finally I just restarted my computer and then it worked. I recorded what I’d labeled as “Copyright Tape”. I had mailed it to myself more than thirty years ago but the envelope had worn out and there was no sealed proof anymore, so I just recorded it. The whole tape only contains one song, which is my 14 minute long “Portrait of My Quicksilver Headdress”. So now it’s digitized. It’s one song I never recorded other than on this tape even though Brian Haddon and I performed it when I featured at the Art Bar Reading Series probably about 29 years ago. At that venue the features were required to provide copies of the poems for the audience to read and so what I did was write the whole song out on one long piece of old style perforated printer paper that was passed around the room like a snake as we performed. 

            I made some more sub-folders for photos in my SSD and deleted several more images from my hard drive. 

            I boiled three chicken legs and combined one of them with pho broth and shin ramen. I had the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 21 of Combat.

            K Company is reconning a town when Germans open fire from various windows. Grenades take out the machine gun nests. A lone elderly Frenchman emerges to tell them that the Germans are holding five children, himself and the librarian in the library. Lieutenant tells his men to fall back and he contacts the command post. He learns they are going to shell the library in about three hours. 

            So Hanley goes in solo to try to rescue the children. Lieutenant Liebner is the German officer in charge. He catches the old man Marcel reading the children the history of France and orders all of the books burned. Liebner fancies the librarian Annette and takes her to the wine store for a glass. When he has finished he leaves but she lingers and Hanley comes out of hiding. She tells him to leave and runs away. 

            Hanley goes through a basement window of the library but finds the door locked from the outside. Annette sees him go in from an upper window and makes an excuse that one of the children is cold and she needs a blanket from the basement. She goes down to tell Hanley to leave. He tells her the Allies are going to shell the library. She thinks that if she tells Liebner they will leave. Marcel comes down, then a soldier. Hanley fights and stabs the soldier. Liebner comes looking for Annette. Marcel creates a distraction by attacking Liebner with a knife and Liebner shoots him. Annette says Marcel killed the other soldier. 

            The door is locked and Hanley is trapped again. Annette writes a note and gives it to the oldest child. Then she pretends to give in to Liebner’s advances and asks that they go to the wine shop and finish their drink. The boy brings the note to Hanley telling him where everyone is. While Annette distracts Liebner, Hanley rescues the children. Liebner sees them running away and fires after them. He is about to kill Annette when the shelling begins and he dies. 

           After the children are safe Hanley takes Saunders back to look for Annette but they find she’s been killed by the shelling. They claim there was no other way. Hanley reluctantly agrees. I say if even one innocent dies in war it should be considered a war crime. 

            Annette was played by Denise Alexander. She earned a Bachelors degree in Arts and Sciences. She made her TV debut in an episode of Dimension X in 1950. She made her feature film debut in Crime in the Streets in 1956. She played Susan Hunter Martin on Days of Our Lives from 1966 to 1973. When she left Days of Our Lives for General Hospital she was the highest paid daytime TV actress. She appeared in 1117 episodes of General Hospital as Dr. Lesley Webber. She played Mary McKinnon on Another World from 1986 to 1989. She was a published photographer.

February 16, 1996: I heard that my friend Mike Copping had died

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I got a call from Peter Copping, the brother of my friend Mike Copping. He told me that the previous weekend Mike had died of a heart attack in the kitchen of his home outside London, Ontario. He was surrounded by his wife and two children when he passed away. I felt very sad and cried for a few days. I picked up my four and a half year old daughter for the weekend and told her I needed a hug. We went to the Rustic Cosmo Café for a poetry open stage and Raven was there.

Marie Gomez

            On Saturday morning after I went to bed I could hear my upstairs neighbour’s dog in distress. I don’t know what Jacob was doing to it. I got the impression he punished her by locking her out of the apartment on the stairway. 

            After yoga I finally memorized the thirteenth verse of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. There are five verses left but some have repeated lines I already know and so it’s more like three more verses to learn. 

            I searched online for vintage photos of down and out millionaires and millionaires who act poor. Then I looked for old photos of millionaires in China. These are all for my photo-video of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Kramer electric during song practice and it stayed in tune for almost the whole session. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I bought five bags of red grapes, three packs of raspberries, some organic bananas, mouthwash but I accidentally got the kind without alcohol, margarine with olive oil, a jug of orange juice, a jug of iced tea, a container of 4% skyr, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 90.65 kilos at 14:45, which is the most I’ve weighed in the early afternoon in a long time. 

            I weighed 91.7 kilos at 17:35. That’s the most I’ve pushed the scale in the evening in a few years. I gained weight because of the diet after the last bone graft as well. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:12. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive the finale of my last Slamnation poetry slam. It was hosted by Cad Lowlife who now calls himself Cad Gold Junior. There was a small turnout and so there were only one and a half tapes. I’ve now digitized all the audio recordings of all my poetry slams. 

            I made some more sub-folders of photos in my SSD and deleted a lot more from my hard drive.

            I cut up five hot Italian sausages and sautéed them. I added the last of my garlic chicken broth and the rest of a container of pho broth. I tried to cook the Japanese noodles in the steamer above the soup but it was taking too long so I just tossed them into the soup. 

            I had a bowl of the soup with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 20 of Combat. 

            K Company makes a stop at an evac hospital and all the men’s mouths are watering to see female nurses. Suddenly against orders Corporal Andy March jumps out of the jeep and runs into the tent. He approaches one of the nurses and starts kissing her. It turns out that it’s Lieutenant Amelia March, Andy’s wife. They’ve been married eight months but have only known each other for two days. Saunders tells March they have to move out but March begs for more time with his wife. Saunders says he’ll put in a request on his behalf for two days leave. 

            Kirby is jealous to find out that his friend March has a woman in his life and he tries to pick up a waiter in a local bar but Saunders tells him she’s off limits. They will have to go out on patrol the next day but that night Kirby goes AWOL to try to make it with the girl at the bar. She seems uninterested and a man with the French Resistance tells him she is engaged to his brother. That doesn’t stop Kirby and so he gets beaten up by three Maquis kick boxers and tossed unconscious out with the garbage. He’s at the evac hospital before his company finds out he’s missing. 

            March has to take Kirby’s place on patrol and he gets caught in a mortar shell explosion and is taken to evac with life threatening injuries. Kirby learns from a patient who’s been there a while that Lieutenant March is actually in a relationship with the doctor Captain Anders. The captain has to operate on March to remove the metal from his skull. 

            Amelia admits to Saunders that she’s in love with Captain Anders. She planned to tell Andy after the war but if he dies it will make her relationship with Anders impossible. Andy lives and it looks like Kirby won’t be court martialed for going AWOL. 

            The waiter in the bar was played by Marie Gomez, who was discovered by Leonard Sillman. She began her career on Broadway in New Faces of 1962. She appeared in five episodes of The High Chaparral. She made her TV debut on Dobie Gillis in 1962. She was a contestant on Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Professionals. In later life she did charity work for orphans in Mexico.

February 15, 1996: I got my phone connected

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I got my phone connected at my new place.

Dan O'Hirlihy

            On Friday morning swelling had definitely gone down in my right cheek. During yoga I was able to put the right side of my face on the floor for the first time since the bone graft. There’s still a bruise on my cheek but supposedly that will go away. 

            I started looking for vintage images related to the idea of broken millionaires. I found a few images but I’ve got to change the wording of my search. 

            I weighed 89.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it stayed in tune almost half the time. 

            I painted the tops of my upper bathroom shelves with Blue Bliss. 

            I smudged the northern wall in a few places. I’ll touch that up on Tuesday and after that I might be finished with the ladder for the bathroom as I start painting the rest of the shelves. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Shaw and Bloor where the bike lane further east is still blocked with snow. I don’t think they are going to bother clearing that section. I went down Shaw to Harbord, west to Ossington, south to Queen and then west to home. 

            I weighed 90.3 kilos at 17:40, which is the most I’ve weighed in the evening since February 2. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:55. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity, then extracted to my hard drive side 2 of tape 1 of my fourth and last Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. The tape ends about halfway through the readings by the finalists. 

            I deleted about 65 images from my Photos folder. 

            I boiled a potato and added it to the ground beef soup that I’d made with the pho broth a few days ago. Earlier at lunch I added a can of butter chicken soup and it was quite good. I ate supper while watching season 1, episode 19 of Combat. 

            Doc is caring for a very badly wounded Lieutenant Hanley, plus Braddock and Corporal Cording. Jackson is driving them to a hospital according to the directions he’s been given but they arrive at a French chateau. The owner Count de Gontran resents their presence because he wants to keep the war far from his home. He lets them take the wounded in his ballroom but tells them they only have two hours. 

            Jackson tries to speed away to get help but is killed by German soldiers led by Major Richter who then arrives at the chateau and impresses Gontran with his gentlemanly manner and cultured ways. He encourages his daughter Gabrielle to be nice to Richter. When the US soldiers are discovered Richter allows doc to continue to treat his wounded but reminds them they are now prisoners of war. Doc can leave the room for medical purposes but if the others leave they will be shot.

            Braddock and Corporal Cording plot for one of them to escape to get help. They do rock paper scissors and Cording loses. He strangles their guard and tries to make it out but gets caught in the foyer and Richter shoots him. 

            Meanwhile Gontran sees Richter’s soldiers removing the priceless paintings from the walls of his chateau and complains. Richter claims he is only protecting them because the chateau is now a military target. Gabrielle begs Richter to at least leave the most precious painting. Richter finds Gabrielle charming and desirable and when he makes a list of the paintings for Gontran to sign he leaves out the one that Gabrielle mentioned. 

            But Gabrielle finds her father beside the unsigned list and he has committed suicide. Gabrielle comes to Richter’s room and behaves seductively but she has a knife in the pocket of her dress and stabs him when he comes to kiss her. She takes Richter’s gun and puts it beside her father’s body, then she tells Richter’s secretary that Richter does not want to be disturbed but has asked him to allow the US medic to look at her father, who is not feeling well. When Doc comes she secretly passes him the gun to transfer to his med kit. Doc, Hanley and Braddock are taken to a cage vehicle to be transferred to a prison camp. 

            On the road Braddock shoots the driver and the lock and they escape. They notify Allied command of the occupied chateau and bombers are sent. Gabrielle sits there smiling while her home comes down on top of her. It’s a fucked up ending. Neither side has respect for history. 

            Richter was played magnificently by Irish actor Dan O’Hirlihy. He studied architecture and published political cartoons. Although he earned the architectural degree his interest shifted towards acting and he found work on the stage as both actor and set designer and on the radio as a voice actor. His first lead was in Red Roses for Me in 1944. His film debut was in Odd Man Out in 1947. He co-starred in Orson Welles’ Macbeth in 1948. He starred in the Luis Buñuel production of Robinson Crusoe in 1954 and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. He co-starred in Kidnapped, Invasion USA, Sword of Venus, That Woman Opposite, Home Before Dark, A Terrible Beauty, The Young Land, Imitation of Life, One Foot in Hell, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Big Cube, The Carey Treatment, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Robocop, Robocop 2, The Dead, He co-starred in the TV series The Travels of Jamie McPheeters and The Long Hot Summer.