Thursday 1 December 2011

Britain is a country where old men remember Efrem Zimbalist Jnr, '77 Sunset Strip' and American tv from 1950's














I saw that the American actor, Efrem Zimbalist Jnr, was 88 years old yesterday.
I remembered him from the tv series,'77 Sunset Strip' which I saw on our black and white tv, when I was a boy in the late 1950's and early 60's. He played a private investigator working out of a stylish office with his partner at '77 Sunset Boulevard', helped by Edd Byrnes as 'Kookie', a rock and roll-loving, wisecracking, hair-combing, hipster and aspiring p.i., who worked as the parking attendant at the club next door.

With 'Kookie' in 1958 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqvFmAm9C5w&feature=related



Efrem is an interesting man, born in New York, where his father was famous violinist, Efrem Zimbalist Senior, born in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don in 1890 and his mother, operatic soprano Alma Gluck, born in Romania in 1884. He graduated from Yale University and it was after the Second World War, in which he gained a 'purple heart' honor, that his acting career took off.

Efrem talking about his book 'My Dinner of Herbs', his parents and childhood and seeing Stalin in Moscow :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QPxkXon20







His Mother singing 'Swanee River' with his father accompanying before Efrem was born in 1915 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiS4jHETAvM

He also played 'Dandy Jim Buckley' with James Garner in the Western series 'Maverick' :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrsDT02OcE&feature=related
















Thinking about Efrem opened the floodgates of memory taking me back not just to '77 Sunset Strip', but all the other 'Western' series I had watched on our black and white tv when I was a kid.

77 sunset strip :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZXkn9NAcA&NR=1&feature=endscreen

The Lone Ranger
:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxIuIxqo2So&feature=related

Wells Fargo :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxeIyXitU-E&feature=relmfu

Bonanza :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL5LBnPyClg&feature=related

Rawhide :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl2fONPgIJE&feature=fvwrel

Laramie :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nNRvDo3Ukc&feature=related

The Rifleman :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX2oZ6Kv_qo&feature=related

Bronco Lane :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQWWRuVb_dM&feature=related

The Virginian :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWet2qgieVc&feature=related

The High Chaparral :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkGb4yNUyUc&feature=related

Wyatt Earp
:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZgLmEdSfVQ&feature=relmfu

Wagon Train with guest star 'Ronald Reagan' :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkAk_JCe9XQ

1 comment:

  1. Brilliant!!! well done and thanks a million...memories come back in droves...all great! Keep it up.

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