samhexum

He was 81.

My pot dealer is essential, vital, invaluable...

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He was Playgirl's first centerfold, though not nude. His chartreuse bikini is burned in my brain. I loved the GOLDEN GIRLS episode in which he and Sonny Bono (as themselves) fought over Dorothy. I'm too lazy to look it up, but it may have been the last TV appearance for each. I was very surprised reading in his obituary that he started STAR WAGGONS, a company that makes high-end trailers for TV & movies actors on set. Lyle Waggoner's name is attached to nearly every hit out of Hollywood, from "Breaking Bad" to "Avatar," from "The Hangover" to "Gran Torino." However, you won't find the veteran actor's name in the cast credits. Instead, it's scattered all over the set. On trailers. Waggoner is the owner of Star Waggons, a company of 800 trailers built to accommodate every conceivable need on location. Revenues in 2015 were somewhere around $17 million, up 18 percent in a year. Movie trailers have come a long way. "When I first started, we had a plywood box with a little bed in it, a mirror and a light bulb over the top," the 80-year-old Waggoner said, sitting inside a massive trailer decked like out a modern hotel room. A lifelong entrepreneur, Waggoner's strange path to manufacturing success started in St. Louis, where he worked as a door-to-door salesman. Customers kept telling him, "You should be an actor." So he moved to Los Angeles to study acting and admits he got very lucky, very quickly. He landed a spot on "The Carol Burnett Show," and later on "Wonder Woman." "I wanted to have my own business, and being an actor is really having your own business," he said. "You're the product, you're the salesperson." While working on "Wonder Woman," Waggoner's contract allowed him to have a trailer on location. "They gave me a motor home," he said. "This was a big improvement." He found out the motor home was being rented from a local resident. Waggoner's entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. He went to the show's transportation coordinator and asked, "If I had a motor home, would you rent it from me?" The coordinator said yes, "So I went out and bought one." Soon Waggoner was buying a fleet of motor homes and renting them out to studios all over town, using his star power to sway loan officers and paycheck as collateral to get more money for more vehicles. "I didn't know if this was going to work or not," he said, "but that's what entrepreneurs do, they take a risk." Star Waggons started paying off almost immediately. For every $50,000 motor home Waggoner bought, his monthly payment was around $400. "I was renting them for $400 or $500 a week." Waggoner ended up with 90 motor homes, and a business he originally envisioned as a "backup" to acting soon had a starring role. "There was some pushback from the fact that I was an actor," Waggoner said of how studios reacted to his new business venture. "But if they didn't want me in there, why didn't they do it?" Then came a huge decision. In 1988, Waggoner decided to stop buying motor homes and start building trailers instead. The RV business in Los Angeles had taken a downturn, so there was plenty of manufacturing talent available. Waggoner figured trailers would be better than motor homes because they could be towed, they didn't have transmissions, which needed fixing. Also, building his own trailers allowed Waggoner to customize them for actors. "You needed a makeup area, you needed a full-length mirror." His goal: Make the best trailers in Hollywood. Fast-forward 28 years, and Star Waggons manufactures more than two dozen types of trailers for all kinds of artists — makeup, wardrobe, productions, even classrooms for child actors. The trailers cost as much as $2 million to make and rent for up to $10,000 a week, though most are built for between $80,000 and $200,000. These days, the company is run by Waggoner's two sons, Beau and Jason, with Jason's wife, Molly, as chief designer. The three joke that sometimes their family venture is a bit of a family feud. "Jason and Beau have very different personalities, a little Oscar and Felix," said Molly. "It's good enough for a reality show." Throughout it all, Lyle kept up his acting career up to 2005, according to imdb.com, when he played Jack on one episode of "The War at Home" TV series. MEET THE FAMILY BEAU WAGGONER - HEAD OF MANUFACTURING "I started 27 years ago with my father," said Beau. "My father didn't put me into a position, I had to earn the position." Beau started out washing trailers, then repairing them, "and then a position came open where I was in charge of sanitation, which I did for seven years, which was pretty interesting ... my nickname was Ty-D-Beau." Beau began studying architecture and basically taught himself design, and he eventually became head of manufacturing, a job he attacks with passion. JASON WAGGONER - HEAD OF MARKETING Jason didn't start out at Star Waggons. His career took him into the oil business and banking, before coming to work for his dad in 2002. He recommends anyone going into a family business spend time outside of it first. "It gives you a completely different perspective, and then you can bring things in from the outside that you didn't have." MOLLY WAGGONER - HEAD DESIGNER At first, Molly Waggoner was not impressed with the trailer interiors at her husband's company. "I was thinking, this is where we stay when we go camping, it felt very outdated." Her job was to transform Star Waggons into something a celebrity would feel at home in — installing 15-foot long white couches (which somehow stay clean), special sconces and lamps, frameless glass shower doors ("that's never been done before"). Everyone from J-Lo to Will Smith has slept in a Star Waggon. "This needs to feel like the way they live," Molly said. Her husband, Jason, added, "If they live in a $10 million house, they don't want to go to a $25,000 trailer." YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT'S LEFT BEHIND... "We found a big paper bag full of foam rubber breast enhancements ... falsies," said Lyle Waggoner of one trailer returned after a shoot. "For about a week, everybody in the company had a nice bustline. Even the dog had one on his head." He recalls that Lou Ferrigno's trailer from "The Incredible Hulk" came back with green body paint all over the shower. A professional basketball player needed a higher toilet seat, "and we had to do that for him." Teri Hatcher recommended a redesign for a trailer she planned to use, and Waggoner was at first skeptical, figuring what could she possibly know? "I said, 'Go ahead, whatever makes the artist happy,' " he said with a laugh, "so she came back with a really great design ... it worked out terrific!" SPEAKING OF SPECIAL REQUESTS... Jason Waggoner said the craziest request Star Waggons has ever received came from an unnamed star who wanted a lap pool inside his trailer. "I think they were testing us," he said. However, his team went to work and designed a trailer with an indoor pool. "Then we got a call, 'No, no, no, they're not going to need the swimming pool this time," Jason said. "It's good to know that we have the design for it, just in case." This being Hollywood, you never know when that pool design will come in handy. Making artists happy is what Star Waggons strives for, and it's provided a Hollywood ending for an actor who always preferred working with his hands to working on stage. Lyle Waggoner is most pleased that he created something he has successfully passed on to his children. "They took it to another level that I never thought I would see Star Waggons at," Lyle Waggoner said. "They do all the work, and they send us a check."

EVEN IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC, HOW COULD Y'ALL HAVE MISSED THIS? NBC has given a 13-episode series order to a new Dick Wolf crime drama series starring Christopher Meloni, reprising his “Law & Order: SVU” role as Elliot Stabler. The drama, which marks the actor’s return to the Dick Wolf fold, revolves around the NYPD organized crime unit led by Stabler (Meloni). It is the first show to come out of the massive new five-year, nine-figure, multi-platform deal Wolf signed with Universal Television last month, which includes multiple series commitments. Former “Chicago P.D.” showrunner Matt Olmstead is being eyed as writer-showrunner. Like “Law & Order: SVU,” headlined by Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson, the new drama is set in New York, allowing for potential seamless crossovers with “SVU,” also set at an NYPD unit, and for Benson-Stabler reunions. With their undeniable on-screen chemistry and great rapport on and off the set, Hargitay and Meloni were one of television’s most popular duos for over a decade. During his almost nine years away from “SVU,” Meloni remained close with Hargitay and the Wolf family. In January, the former co-stars appeared together, alongside Wolf, in “The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU” TV special on NBC. It was around that time the press first heard chatter of a potential new Wolf series with Meloni. Had SVU's season not been cut short by the pandemic, the season finale would have involved Elliot's wife & one of his sons, and would have served as his re-introduction. I'm sure there will be a few cross-overs with SVU, but that's NOT the cross-over I'm interested in seeing... As we all know, Elliot is the long-lost half-brother of Bonnie Plunkett, of CBS's MOM. They had the same mother: Here's Bonnie with her mother, Shirley Stabler: And here's Elliot with his mother, Bernadette Stabler: My theory is that Shirley Bernadette Stabler was so overcome with guilt and shame about abandoning Bonnie at a fire house when she was four that she fled cross-country and tried to re-invent herself as Bernadette Shirley Stabler, and that's when she met Elliot's dad. Of course, once she tired of Elliot's dad, she fled cross-country again... wait until Elliot finds out he also has a younger half-brother, Ray Stabler, shown here in the scene in which he & Bonnie first found out about each other: Considering that Olivia lost her own long-lost half-sibling earlier this season, it's gonna be bittersweet for her when she finds out about Elliot's new expanded family. BTW, IMHO... the SVU episode with Bernadette Shirley Stabler was the best in the show's history. He should have had at least an EMMY nomination... maybe his half-sister can give him one of her SIX awards.

Honor Blackman, 94, passed away peacefully at her home recently. Not Covid-related.

I think he's doing the show from home, like everyone else these days. 10PM Fridays on BBC America. A hilarious clip:

Man who drove generations of students to be laid to rest in school bus casket It’s the last stop for a small town’s favorite driver. Glen Davis, a driver for Grand Meadow public schools in Minnesota, will be laid to rest in a casket designed to look like one of the yellow school buses he drove for 55 years before his retirement in 2005. Known by the thousands of schoolchildren he hauled to and from school as Glennie, Davis died Saturday at the age of 88. But he’d had his funeral planned — including the zany coffin — since 2015. Davis began driving a bus in 1949 when he was just 17, and logged over 800,000 miles in five vehicles throughout his career, according to his local paper, the Post Bulletin. Davis also worked as a farmer on the side, and could be found milking cows after completing his morning route. The idea for a bus casket was originally thought up by Davis’ son-in-law years ago — although this summer, a beloved Tennessee bus driver, David Wright, was buried in a similarly custom casket. A few of the uncanny details on Davis’ afterlife-bound box: a red stop sign painted on the side; black hardware finishes and replicas of safety lights; and a “03” emblazoned in black paint to signify the number of the first bus Davis drove. The flashy wares were a gift from Jim Hindt, owner of Hindt Funeral Home, who says Davis and his family extended him neighborly love when his daughter, now 16 and healthy, was diagnosed with cancer at 18 months. “We were going through a hard time. Both him and his family were just very good to us,” Hindt said in a 2015 Post Bulletin article about the casket. “I wanted to repay it somehow.” When Davis saw the particular piece, he reportedly got emotional. “Oh, good gosh, I cried a few times,” he told the Bulletin. His family hopes the sight of the casket will lighten the mood at his funeral, to be held on Friday morning. http://synd.imgsrv.uclick.com/comics/cl/2020/cl200320.gif

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Does an octopus dream? A stunning new video from an upcoming PBS documentary suggests that not only do they dream — but they put on a light show when they do. The clip, titled “Octopus Dreaming,” shows the mollusk clinging to the side of a large fish tank when it begins changing colors in rapid succession — from pale white, to dark brown, back to white and then into a camouflage pattern. The video, which has gone viral, is an excerpt from an upcoming episode of the PBS Nature series called “Octopus: Making Contact.” Scientist David Scheel, who narrates the clip, called it “something I’ve never see recorded before.” “You know if she is dreaming, this is a dramatic moment,” Scheel says. “You could almost just narrate the body changes and narrate the dream.” “It’s a very unusual behavior, to see the color come and go on her mantle like that,” he said. “I mean, Just to be able to see all the color patterns just flashing one after the other. You don’t usually see that when an animal’s sleeping. this really is fascinating.” The episode is scheduled to air Oct. 2.

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I didn't like Buck's or Maddie's new storylines this week. Otherwise, I'm enjoying this season. Ronda Rousey's been fine in her small role so far.

I'm enjoying EVIL. CAROL'S SECOND ACT is too formulaic for me so far & Carol's over-the-top enthusiasm is grating and too silly to be even remotely realistic. I like Bob. I like Abishola. I hate the cliche-ridden dialogue for almost all of the other characters on BOB HEARTS ABISHOLA, but it's from Chuck Lorre so I'll give it some time. Christine Ebersole is enjoyable as Bob's mom & we even got to hear her sing I'll be seeing you in the first episode. I've known she has a lovely voice for years.

He got the last laugh. Loved ones at an Irish funeral for Defense Forces veteran Shay Bradley were shocked — then delighted — when they heard the voice of their late friend calling out from his coffin. “Hello, hello — let me out!,” they heard on Saturday at Bradley’s funeral in Kilmanagh, Leinster, as his casket was lowered into the ground. The pre-recorded message continued, “Where the f - - k am I? Let me out, let me out. It’s f - - king dark in here. Is that the priest I can hear? This is Shay, I’m in the box. No, in f - - king front of you. I’m dead.” A video of the posthumous prank, posted to Twitter Sunday, shows mourners laughing and crying as Bradley’s voice began to sing, “Hello again, hello. Hello, I just called to say goodbye.” The footage has gone viral with more than 500,000 views and over 16,000 likes. Friends and family said the good-humored officer and father made the recording because he knew he was dying of a “long illness bravely borne” — and wanted “to make his family laugh rather than cry at the funeral.” Those close to him are now using the hashtag “#shayslastlaugh” to share the story. “My dad’s dieing [sic] wish, always the pranksters,” wrote his daughter Andrea on Facebook, in a post with more than 70,000 views. “Ya got them good Poppabear and gave us all a laugh just when we needed it!! I will love you forever #shayslastlaugh.” She added on Twitter, “What a man . . . To make us all laugh when we were incredibly sad . . . He was some man for one man . . . Love you forever Poppabear #Shayslastlaugh.” Other veterans of the Defense Force said the video of their colleague’s funeral “says it all” about military humor. “Was asked a question the other day, it was what’s the difference between military humour and Civilian humour it’s simple it’s black. This video should say it all,” they posted on Facebook. Bradley, who died Oct. 8, is survived by his wife, Anne, and children, Jonathan, Susanne, James and Andrea.

Devoted school bus driver David Wright left this world in the vehicle he was committed to driving while alive. The 76-year-old was buried in a bright yellow custom casket, made to look like a school bus for the Tennessee school district he drove for. “Besides the grandkids, that’s something he loved more than anything, being behind the wheel of that bus,” his son Calvin said. Wright, who passed away on Aug. 13, had served the Wilson County school system for 50 years, driving over three generations of families on his bus. A Wilson County Schools representative said he was “an incredible man with so many amazing stories to his credit.” “Mr. Wright was a selfless leader his entire life by being the example we should all strive to be,” the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement to Local 12. Wright had been honored for his service weeks prior to his death, when Wilson County Schools announced they would rename their transportation department after him. His funeral at Lebanon High School attracted a huge crowd. The casket was made by family-owned Nashville Casket Sales and was the idea of Wright’s son Calvin and his grandkids. Photos show the inside of the casket with an image of Wright smiling behind the wheel of his bus.

Liz Smith, the late gossip columnist, almost never wrote anything negative about anyone, so this one stood out to me. Diahann had done a show (for some reason, I’m remembering in Philly) and afterward a woman in her 20s came up to her & said something like “Diahann, you were wonderful; I’m such a fan.” Diahann thanked her and said something to the effect of “You know, dear, I have a daughter about your age, and when she was a child I taught her that it’s impolite to call your elders by their first names.” Liz called her out for being less than gracious with a fan.

I thought everyone knew & knew that she was in the car when Jayne was decapitated. BTW, Mariska's daddy had a teeny tiny role in one of the first SVUs.