The life and career of Howard McNear, who portrayed Floyd the Barber on “The Andy Griffith Show”

By
Monica Pop
-

Over the years, a number of incredible actors and actresses who were part of the movie industry helped shape it. No matter how big or small their parts in certain films were, some roles remain iconic, just like that of Barber Floyd in what is considered one of the most warmly remembered comedies ever, The Andy Griffith Show.

The beloved barber was played by actor Howard McNear who had a long career on radio before he turned to films. He first found fame with a role on the radio program Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police, where he voiced Clint, an ace operator and Speed Gibson’s uncle.

In 1942, McNear enlisted as a private in the U.S Army Air Corps and after serving, he took the role of Doc Charles Adams in the CBS Radio show Gunsmoke. Over the years, he played a number of roles, including congressmen, hotel managers, and even villains.

However, he had his major breakthrough starring alongside some of the greatest names of the time, among which Andy Griffith.

Floyd, the barber he played, became a crucial Mayberry character fans couldn’t imagine the series without.

Many believe that the character of Floyd “The Barber” Lawson was based on the barber who cut Griffith’s hair, a man named Russell Hiatt. However, Jim Clark, co-author of The Andy Griffith Show Book, said: “No one can know for sure at this point. I’ve heard Russell tell folks that he remembered cutting Andy’s hair during the time frame of his trips home during college, which circa 1944 would fit.”

During the show’s run, McNear suffered a stroke which limited the motor function of the left side of his body. He took some time off, but it was Andy himself who did his best to get McNear back to the show. After his return, he was often portrayed sitting in a chair and when he needed to stand “it was with the aid of a special jig the men in the crew built for him.”

Two years after the stroke, McNear suffered another one, and sadly, he passed away in 1969 at the age of 63.

Speaking of the impact and influence McNear had on The Andy Griffith Show, pop culture historian Geoffrey Mark told Closer: “If you watch all the episodes like I have hundreds of times, Floyd the Barber really permeates Mayberry. A lot of Mayberry’s attitudes get revealed through him, because that barbershop was kind of the center of town for the men to gossip in. And there were almost as many scenes in the barbershop as there were in Andy’s office.

“People just hung out there, so whenever anything happened in town, any storyline where something was going on, there was always a scene at Floyd’s where they discussed it.”

Rest in peace Howard McNear.

Larry King’s new will emerges as legal battle over his estate between his estranged wife and children continues

By
Monica Pop
-

The biggest dream of one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, TV hosts, Larry King was to pursue a career in broadcasting. He worked hard for that and even after his passing in January of this year, he is still remembered as a legend. “I wanted to be a broadcaster since I could remember, when I was five years old,” King said on the series Dispatches From Quarantine.

The way he entered the industry is quite amazing. In fact, late King met a CBS announcer by chance and was offered to go to Florida and try his luck as a broadcaster. At the time, there weren’t many people who worked this job and it was quite easy for inexperienced individuals to get hired.

Shutterstock

However, King first worked as a cleaner when in Florida and was put on the 9 a.m. to noon shift, also doing newscasts and sportscast during the afternoon, after one of the announcers quit. One of the conditions for getting the job was for King to change his birth name, which was Lawrence Zeiger. So, minutes after going on air, he decided to call himself King. Why King you may wonder. Well, according to the host himself, he had seen a commercial for King’s Wholesale Liquor and the name sounded good.

“I was petrified,” King told People in 1980 of his beginnings. “The theme music was supposed to fade, and I was supposed to do a voice-over. But every time the music faded I’d turn it back up again.”

“Finally, the station manager stuck his head into the studio and said, ‘Remember, this is a communicating business.’ I let the music go down and told the audience what had just happened. Those were my first words on the radio.”

Youtube/CSpan

During the first few years of his career, King didn’t have it easy. At one point, he was arrested for grand larceny, and although he was acquitted of all charges, he lost all of his broadcasting roles. But it didn’t took him long to return, again as one of the best in the business. In 1978, he was hired by WIOD in Miami and given his own coast-to-coast talk show, The Larry King Show, and the rest is history.

King interviewed some of the most famous and most influential people during his career.

Shutterstock

“The hottest radio property in the country,” as described by the Miami Herald’s former magazine Tropic Sunday, King wasn’t only famous for his special technique for interviewing people, but for his suspenders too.

“‘You know, you’re much trimmer, you look good, you ever tried suspenders?’ I had never worn suspenders in my life,” King recalled on the Today Show. “‘You ought to try it. It might be a nice look.’ I tried it and one night, put suspenders on. Some people called in and said, ‘Boy that looks good’ and that’s all you had to hear. And I’ve worn them ever since.”

Shutterstock

The “king” passed away on January 23, 2021, at the age of 87. He had multiple health issues over the years. In 2019, he suffered a stroke, and just before he left this world he was hospitalized with COVID-19.

King’s son, Larry King Jr, spoke of his dad and told People: “What we can all take away from our father’s last time with us was his love of life. He had an indomitable spirit. Although he lost the battle he beat so many times over the years, we continued to be inspired by his strength.”

“Our dad was always thinking and focused on what we were up to in our lives,” he added. “He enjoyed just spending time with us and sharing memories together, especially going to Dodger games. I remember us playing basketball in the front yard of our house. Celebrity tour buses would come around and I think they were caught off guard seeing dad shoot baskets with us. We just loved those moments.”

Shutterstock

In 2020, a year before he died, King lost two of his children, Andy and Chaia. And now, as he’s no longer here, a battle for his estate is on. As reported by Yahoo, his estranged wife Shawn King is after it.

In February of this year, Larry King Jr. submitted a holographic will that his father had written on October 17, 2019. In it, King says he leaves his property to his children. However, according to the Los Angeles Times, Shawn’s lawyers claim the will was written under “questionable circumstances.”

“It will be argued that Larry did not have the capacity to draft a will. The fact that he hand wrote the will, combined with his possibly diminished capacity could lead one to believe he did not know what he was doing,” Shawn’s lawyer Walzer Melcher told Yahoo.

“A man of Larry’s wealth and experience would ordinarily retain counsel to prepare an estate plan that would include a trust.”

Shutterstock

King had filed for a divorce with Shawn in August 2019 but according to her lawyers, he “was not pushing the divorce and was generally non-responsive and refused to participate in the divorce proceeding,” according to The Los Angeles Times.

Rest in peace, Larry King, you will be missed.

Tom Selleck and wife Jillie have been married for 33 years and are still going strong

By
Monica Pop
-

One of the biggest sex-symbols of the 80’s, Tom Selleck, made a name for himself portraying the role of detective Thomas Magnum in Magnum P.I. The series which aired for eight years, from 1980 to 1988, earned Tom an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe.

Before he played this role which cemented his place in Hollywood, Tom worked as a model, but soon after, he found himself joining the California National Guard in the 160th infantry regiment and served from 1967 to 1973. Speaking of that period of his life, Tom is proud to say he’s a veteran “I was a sergeant in the U.S. Army infantry, National Guard, Vietnam era. We’re all brothers and sisters in that sense.”

Flickr

After his service, he turned to acting, and the rest is history.

Millions of women fell for his charm and great looks, and men started growing mustache like their idol. At the time, Tom was really a symbol for masculinity. After Magnum P.I, Tom played the role of Monica Geller’s (Courteney Cox)  boyfriend in the popular TV series Friends, and his recent project is the CBS police drama Blue Bloods. He starred in Three Men and a Baby (the highest-grossing film of 1987), Mr. Baseball and Quigley Down Under.

Wikipedia Commons / Alan Light

In 1971, he married model and actress Jacqueline Ray, but the pair divorced in 1982. Since 1987, Tom is married to the love of his life, wife Jillie Joan Mack.

Tom first laid eyes on Jillie during the production of Cats where she played Rumpleteazer. The actor, who was 38 at the time, was so smitten with this young actress that he kept coming back for a number of showings. His co-star Jane Seymour told People, ”He kept telling me how great ‘Cats’ was, I thought it was good, but I couldn’t see going back a dozen times.”

One dinner was more than enough for the two to realize that they belonged together. The pair has been married for 33 years and are still very much in love.

Shutterstock

In 1988, they welcomed daughter Hannah.

The Selleck family is doing their best to live a normal life as much as possible. Hannah, who is now 32 years old, has been brought up at the family ranch in California where the Sellecks live until this day. She is a huge lover of animals, especially horses, passion that she inherited from her father. Today, the father and daughter are running a horse stable together. “My dad encouraged it a lot. He liked the idea of developing the babies and developing young horses, so he was a big supporter of this idea,” Hannah told the Hollywood Reporter. ”We want to show that we can produce the horses in the States, having them on the ground as foals and bringing them up through the young horse classes,” she told Sidelines.

Shutterstock

Tom is 75 and enjoys his days with his loving wife and daughter. He and Jillie often say that the secret to their long and happy marriage is that they have always taken time off from work to be with each other and consult one another about basically anything. In an interview with the USA Today, Tom said, “I do grunt work and I make the rounds. I like watching things grow. It’s a retreat.”

Take a look at his interview in the video below.

QAnon supporters believe Oprah was wearing an ankle monitor during bombshell Harry and Meghan interview

By
Monica Pop
-

Even days after it was broadcasted, Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Harry and Meghan is still a top news and is causing a stir on the social media.

Many of the revelations were shocking to say the least, and while some defend them, and others slam them, I am sure there is not a single person who doesn’t have an opinion about everything that is going on within the Royal family.

According to CBS, the bombshell interview which made headlines was watched by staggering 17 million people.

Among the rest, the couple spoke of the conversations by one of the senior royals about how dark the skin of Archie would be. Harry, however, said he would never reveal the name of that person as they wanted to protect the Royal family. “That conversation, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked,” he told Oprah.

Meghan spoke of her suicidal thoughts and how she was not provided help as it would harm the Institution’s reputation.

But as literally the entire world has been obsessed with what the Duke and Duchess had to say, the conspiracy group QAnon is shifting the focus and is presenting this theory that the host was wearing an ankle monitor during the first tell-all interview with the former royals.

The popular QAnon channel We The Media, which operates on the messaging app Telegram, posted the question “Oprah ankle monitor?”

This was more than enough to start their 200,000 followers speaking and spreading the word. They claim she was trying to hid it with her boots.

“So obvious, first few minutes she was strategically keeping both her feet behind that little table then got comfortable or forgot about need to conceal it … she should fire the camera man,“ Telegram user Roxanne F. wrote. Another user, Stroud Mom, added: “At the furthest point away from the mouth, and where the microphone would pick up on any time she repositioned herself, in her seat? I don’t think so.“

When it comes to this group’s theories, including the one which claimed that Donald Trump would be re-inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4, they never turn to be true.

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman’s daughters are following in their famous parents’ footsteps

By
Monica Pop
-

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are one of the most famous Aussie couples. Although she was born in the Hawaii and he’s from New Zealand, they consider Australia their home.

Not only they are celebs many love and admire, but they look awesome together.

Shutterstock

The story behind how the two started dating resembles a fairy-tale. Kidman confessed during a 2007 interview with Vanity Fair that when she first met Urban in 2005 at a “G-Day LA” event which honors the work of Australians, she was secretly engaged to someone else. However, just three months after this serendipitous encounter, the two were engaged.

“There was an enormous attraction initially and we got engaged after three months and then we got married really quickly, but we didn’t really know each other,” the actress said, according to Metro. “We really only got to know each other after we were married.”

“I think meeting at a certain age makes a difference. And I trust my gut instinct. From the first minute I met him, there was a feeling of, Ahhh OK, somehow I’ve met home. And he had the same feeling. That was all we had but that was the essence of what we worked from.”

The couple has two biological daughters, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, 12, and Faith Margaret, 9. When Sunday was born, Keith shared the news with fans on his website. “Earlier this morning Nic gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban. We want to thank everybody that has kept us in their thoughts and prayers. We feel very blessed and grateful that we can share this joy with all of you today.”

Everyone was anticipating to see photos of the baby, but most of all, they were eager to learn the story behind the unique name. The proud mom later explained how one of her family members suggested it after reading about Sunday Reed, an early patron on the arts in Australia.

Nicole Kidman / Instagram

Urban is an incredible father who never misses the chance to speak of Kidman’s love for their daughters.

“She’s an extraordinary mum, she really, really is. Those girls are very, very lucky, and I feel very lucky that the children I should have in this world happen to be with Nic. I don’t know anything about raising kids and Nic does, and that comes in extremely, um, it’s really made for an experience I wouldn’t have had without that. Her patience, her recognizing them as people and not just little kids is really extraordinary. Her attention to honoring their feelings and listening to them right from day one – really being attentive to that is not how I was raised at all, so it’s really beautiful to see.”

Keith Urban / Instagram

Being kids of such celebrities like Kidman and Urban, one would assume the girls are spoiled rotten, but the truth is completely different. They tend to keep them out of the spotlight and impose some rules they should follow, like no TVs in their rooms and no computers in bed.

“We’re pretty strict with the boundaries on what we allow in terms of work into our home. I used to have an office in my house and I just got rid of it – it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I finally went, ‘This is not a good thing,’” the actress told Country Fan Cast.

Keith Urban / Instagram

Although they are still very young, it looks like Sunday and Faith are both following into their parents’ footsteps. They both play an instrument, the violin and the piano. On top of that, they are both into acting. In fact, the girls were extras on the set of the award-winning TV show “Big Little Lies.” After this unique experience, Sunday told her mom how she wants to be a director when she grows up. Faith had her first acting experience with her first voice-over role in Angry Birds 2.

“You can’t really get kids into anything, I’ve realized,” Kidman told People magazine. “You can push them a bit, but motivation is a really hard thing. I mean, nobody motivated me to be an actor; if anything they tried to deter me.”

Urban says that being a father is a feeling no other can beat. “It’s an incredible feeling. And having girls — I love having girls. You know, I come from a family with no sisters, one brother. So, it’s been quite the learning curve in a really good way.”

The family is the happiest when they are together and are spending their days at their home in Australia.

Grandfather wants his dog to be euthanized because he “doesn’t want to take care of her any longer”

By
Monica Pop
-

Melissa, a 34-year-old woman from Conyers, GA, brings a ray of hope in the life of many senior dogs everyone else quit on.

She has always been a passionate animal lover and an advocate, and now that she had a house with 11 acres of land, her dream of starting a rescue organization that would offer support and shelter to dogs in need finally came true.

“For the dogs that come to us and can be rehabilitated and adopted out, we’re going to do so. We’ll do everything we can to give them a chance at love and a family for their last years,” Melissa wrote on Facebook. “For those who are too old or too sick, we’ll be their family. They’ll live here until its their time to go, and when they do go to heaven.”

Just recently, Melissa got a call from the vet who treats her dog’s at Old Dog Home. What she heard broke her heart. One dog owner brought his pooch at the vet’s asking for the animal to be euthanized. And although this request isn’t that uncommon, it was the reason behind it that left Melissa raged. Apparently, the other wanted his dog’s life to be ended simply because he got bored taking care of her.

Source: Facebook/ Old Dog Home

When Melissa arrived at the vet’s office, she stumbled upon a very gentle dog. She couldn’t believe someone could abandon such a sweet creature.

Despite being around 10 to 12 years old, the dog now named Holly was in a good heath condition. Old Dog Home was full with residents, but Melissa couldn’t turn her back on an animal whose owners wanted killed so she took Holly in.

As it turned out, Holly had a couple of owners throughout the years, and her last family said how they already had two dogs and their grand kids weren’t interested in playing with a senior dog.

Source: Facebook/ Old Dog Home

“I don’t like to pick on children, but the granddaughter looked at me and shrugged – ‘We just don’t really like her. We like our other dogs better.’ Meanwhile, the dog stood there, wagging and wagging and wagging her tail,” Melissa wrote.

Holly is now treated for yeast infection, which is the reason why she urinated that much.

Although she felt insecure when she first arrived in her new home, Holly quickly realized she could trust Melissa.

“My real calling in life is to show people that “old” doesn’t mean “dead”… Old dogs still have life and love left to give,” Melissa wrote. “They are remarkably resilient and forgiving, and they deserve to have a chance at a Forever Family just as much as any younger dog does.”

Holly still needs time to heal emotionally, but once she feels better, Melissa will try to find her a loving new home. Of course, in case that doesn’t happen, she can always stay at Old Dog Home and spend her last years there.

“And then I will have another open spot, and I’ll save another old abandoned dog that nobody wanted,” Melissa continued. “That’s the dream, folks. That’s the dream!”

Please share this video and spread the word about Holly, maybe it will help find her forever home sooner than we think.

Kansas city won’t let their veterans stay homeless

By
Monica Pop
-

We always speak how the members of the military sacrifice a lot in order to keep our country safe, and most Americans have deep respect for those fighting for our freedom, but do we do enough for them as a country? The sad reality is that many veterans are struggling to continue with their old ways of living after service and a huge number of them suffer from PTSD and are left homeless.

Luckily, the city of Kansas is stepping up for these members of the community through the non-profit organization Veterans Community Project.

“Veteran Community Project refuses to let any Veteran falls through the cracks. From providing housing to offering walk-in support services, we are here for everyone who took the oath to serve America,” their website reads.

During the past two years, the organization built and equipped 13 homes. They may look tiny, but they provide everything one needs in order to lead a normal life. Besides housing, the veterans are provided with classes that will teach them how to budget money, cook, stay healthy and combat substance abuse.

Source: YouTube / Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US

The organization announced that during the second phase of the project, they are planning on building 19 more homes.

“One of the vets was sitting out there last week, watching the houses get built and was in tears,” Mark Solomon told FOX4.

“Literally just crying about the fact that he was going to be moving into one of these houses. That’s real. That’s what makes this all worth it and yeah, it’s a ton of time and a ton of effort, but we’re gonna be able to help these people.”

Offering the homeless veterans a place to stay is a wind at their back which will help them stay on the right path and will give them a new lease on life.

If you want to learn more of this project check out the video below.

Bear trapped inside a tiny cage for 9 years jumps of joy when he sees water for the first time

By
Monica Pop
-

If you want to see the true face of happiness, just take a look at the moon bear Tuffy having the time of his life at his new sanctuary. This poor bear’s life was a tough one. He was kept at a bear farm where he spent nine long years trapped in a ‘torture vest’ and packed into a tiny cage. 

Unfortunately, there are lots of other bears who share Tuffy’s life and aren’t lucky enough to be rescued the way he was. These farms use these gorgeous creatures for their bile which is extracted directly from their gallbladders. Yes, this is as painful as it sounds. If you wonder why someone would do this, it’s because Chinese people use it in the traditional medicine. 

Source: Facebook/ Animals Asia

Tuffy’s gallbladder was severely damaged and had to be removed, along with some of his teeth, while his paws were sour and cracked. “The cracked paws are common to bile farm bears as they only walk on bars, not grass. Dehydration is likely to have contributed to this too,” Animals Asia Bear Manager Louise Ellis said.

Most of these bears never get the chance to see the sun, or roam freely. Luckily for Tuffy, Animals Asia stepped in and managed to get him out of that awful place. He now gets to spend his days doing everything that makes him happy, and that’s swimming in his sanctuary pool. 

Source: YouTube/ Animals Asia

Watching Tuffy having fun is definitely something you don’t want to miss. 

1...595596597...888Page 596 of 888