William Janney 1980
Monday, January 7th, 2008
William Janney was the dramatic leading man in Laurel and Hardy’s 1934 feature film Bonnie Scotland. Never mind that his scenes as the romatic interest to starlet June Lang were more-or-less distractions to the boys’ comedy in the picture – that’s not his fault. He was there working alongside the boys and that’s enough to thrill any film buff including me. Other than his work with Laurel and Hardy, his film career mostly entailed bit parts and b-pictures, but I am still thrilled to say that I once was able to meet William Janney. Read the rest of this entry »
I wasn’t particularly busy with autograph collecting in March of 1986, but I did manage to send out three requests on March 10. One (of several) to 
Rolfe Sedan had an extremely distiguished career as a character actor playing more than 250 different roles from the early 1920’s to the late 1970’s in both film and telelvision. Among his most notable roles was his role as Mr. Beasley the postman on The George Burns – Gracie Allen Show, but what really piqued my interest was his role as a hotel desk clerk in the Laurel and Hardy classic Double Whoopee in 1929. 
At left is a photo that I snapped (instead of having the good sense to actually get into) of several members of the Springfield Towed in a Hole Tent of the Sons of the Desert surrounding Laurel and Hardy co-star Virginia Karns Patterson in the Fall of 1986. Clockwise from the kneeling girl, we see Carla Degar, Ron Weber, George Willeman, Larry Smith, Virginia, and finally Jim Harwood. These guys sort of represented the new generation of tent members as literally all of them began coming to the meetings in 1986, just as I was coming out of my shell and breaking forth into the ‘world’ of Laurel and Hardy.