Showbiz Boston

20/03/2025

Showbiz Peabody
Lennie's on the Turnpike was a legendary jazz club on the North Shore. Proprietor Lennie Sogoloff managed to attract some of the best jazz talent in the country, along with non-jazz artists such as Bette Midler and Jay Leno. The club burned down in 1971, but Lennie's legacy lives on in the memories of all who attended performances there. Lennie was mentioned with great affection in Jay Leno's autobiography as giving Jay one of his first club dates. Your humble host saw rock and roll founding father Joe Turner there. "Shake, Rattle and Roll"! 🎶

19/03/2025

17/03/2025

Thanks to Eli Polonsky, well known Grateful Dead fan and former WMBR DJ. He was there.

The Doors (with Jim Morrison) at the old Back Bay Theater, Boston on March 17, 1968.
No video of the concert, but a rough, distorted audience recording of the audio is here, song list below (click "See more"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-B2gkAJcQ

The original video for "The Unknown Soldier", a new release at the time, was shown on a big screen during the intermission break. You can view that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk-tbX7xVG4

When The Music's Over
Back Door Man-> Five to One-> Back Door Man
Break On Through-> Don't Fight It-> Break On Through
Love Me Two Times
You're Lost Little Girl
Light My Fire
The End-> The Holy Sha (etc..)-> The End

Linda Ronstadt and The Stone Poneys opened the show, unfortunately their set is not included in the recording.

Note: this was two nights after the former legendary WBCN 104.1 FM switched from classical music to progressive free-form album rock at night with its new "American Revolution" underground radio format. It was still classical music (Boston Concert Network) in the daytime for a very short time longer.

17/03/2025

We saw him for the first time last New Year's Eve, though he's been around Boston forever. And he works relatively clean, which is always a plus for us.

12/03/2025

Shot-in-Boston movie wrap up! (We must say that Monument Square is a much better movie about Charlestown than the later, splashier The Town. But we must also give kudos to Ben Affleck's getaway as a T bus driver in The Town!)
https://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/essential-boston-movies/?fbclid=IwY2xjawI-DEFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHUwltjxRd6YaPG-2pbzGr0J8LQKr8Vq794-C875dwep4JYFcIKP6gaJ6sg_aem_7UoruidbzL2oewNsnrkTEA

Our city’s rich cinematic history goes way beyond Matt Damon.

02/03/2025

A special effects company in Newton helped keep Florence Pugh safe while doing a stunt.
"In Little Women (2019), Florence Pugh’s Amy falls into an icy pond: that scene was shot with plexiglass over a real pond, digitally layered with snow, with Pugh falling into a heated pool under a catwalk—and the ice chunks were added in post-production."

Eight industry pros responsible for Massachusetts’ cinematic magic.

01/03/2025

A very important Bostonian, now ten years gone. For those out of town friends the West End, a vital immigrant neighborhood, was a tragic loss to urban renewal in the '50's. Many sociology students read "The Urban Villagers" about that neighborhood in college. Lenny top right back row. You can learn more at the wonderful West End Museum where this image is displayed.
https://www.facebook.com/share/16DocNeADD/

R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy/Spock, native Boston West Ender pictured here, right rear, in his West End days. Thanks for the reminder Rob McCarthy.

21/02/2025

Viewers, she married him! Bette Davis and Gary Merrill in All About Eve. They adopted a son, Mike Merrill, who was on the Brookline Town Council for years. Yours truly was lucky enough to see him at the unveiling ceremony of the Bette Davis postage stamp in 2008, along with Lauren Bacall, who, when she was 19 joined Warner Brothers and was terrified to meet her, "the queen of the Warner Brothers lot." A memorable afternoon at Boston University.

17/02/2025

Emerson Majestic Theater haunted?

09/02/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Akkbw3em1/
Showbiz Worcester

The city’s first film project of 2025 marks an ambitious joint venture between two local production companies to turn Worcester into a movie hub.

06/02/2025

A wicked good time. The Harvard University Man/Woman of the Year always brings THE hottest entertainers of the year to Cambridge to be feted by Harvard boys in drag! Tradition!! 🤩😘

06/02/2025

The creator of this long time crowd pleaser is from Needham.

03/02/2025

From the Lost Boston page:
Izzy Ort's World-Famous Rough Place to Play!
Izzy Ort’s Golden Nugget, on the left, was a hopping place in the 1940s. Many well-known musicians played on two floors, among them Murray Onigman and his nineteen-piece big band “The Bob Murray Orchestra,” he sang lead on one of the earliest recordings in 1944 of the Bobby Troup Song “Route 66.”
In the main room at street level, and in a room upstairs called El Tropico, patrons had dancing to many jazz performers among them Sam Rivers, Ruby Braff, Herb Pomeroy, and Quincy Jones. Izzy Ort’s was one of the first strip bars in what would later become known as Boston’s Combat Zone. As a popular hangout for rowdy sailors, it was notorious among musicians for being a rough place to play.

28/01/2025

A reasonably good series in celebration of the Wang Theater's 100th birthday. Good Will Hunting and Glory are the best of the bunch, though we found the latest version of Little Women really good, though somewere critical of the way it altered the timeline of the book. Surprisingly it was the first version of the classic novel filmed in and around Boston. The Gibson House Museum did double duty as Louisa May's publisher in Boston and her New York rooming house. A replica of the Alcott's house was built nearby 'cos of course the real one was too small to accommodate cameras. Of course we love the beginning of Glory with Proper Bostonians drinking tea on Beacon Hill and the regiment marching off to war past the State House. Oddly we found ourselves on the very training ground for Civil War soldiers in Readville, when we went with a friend to pick up his Tesla by the Readville train station.And finally what does the Wizard of Oz have to do with Boston? Its stars, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow were Dorchester boys! Now listen for the Boston accent!!

A Weekend of FREE Movies!

10/01/2025

Update: Bette Midler lost her home of many years, and Dick van D**e and family were evacuated but the home was saved by a neighbor's hose.
Who's that blonde in the picture? Paris Hilton. Along with Anthony Hopkins, John Goodman, Billy Crystal and Mark Hamill.
"According to the BBC, Casino actor James Wood, Roseanne star John Goodman, Scary Movie‘s Anna Faris, The Princess Bride actor Cary Elwes, TV host Ricki Lake, Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller, and Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, and actor and TV host Cameron Mathison have also lost their homes in the wildfire."
https://igvofficial.com/celebrity/celebrities-who-lost-homes-in-la-wildfire/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=HAPpic&utm_term=clb-v1-celebs-wildfires-9-1-1907&fbclid=IwY2xjawHtQ2tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVYLi7g4VZ7UCcv5ND4Y3e9UxOdrlsX4iK5eYG4jbVGHIH_YUJ6F89hDwg_aem_flPTg2QaX7DZP6ccUBaLrg

All the celebrities who have lost their homes in the destructive LA wildfire confirmed. Find out more here...