Showing results by author "Michael B. Druxman" in All Categories

Yvonne De Carlo, Michael B. Druxman’s one-woman play, is set in 1974 when the actress is at an emotional crossroads. As she contemplates divorcing her husband of 18 years, she remembers the events that have brought her to this point in her life, beginning with a fatherless childhood in Vancouver, BC, and a destitute mother intent on making her daughter a ballet star. She further reminisces about the many men who have passed through her life, including romances with the likes of Howard Hughes and Aly Khan.

Dick Powell made a career of reinventing himself. Born in Arkansas, the young tenor played horn and banjo, and sang with various dance bands and orchestras in Pittsburgh and elsewhere before he was brought to Hollywood, where he sang opposite Ruby Keeler and others in such classic Busby Berkeley musicals as 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1935, and the Al Jolson film, Wonder Bar.

Clifton Webb was one of those rare motion picture actors who became a major box-office star when he was in his mid-50s. Indeed, his first sound movie was Laura (1944), and his role as Waldo Lydecker in that classic film noir earned him the first of three Oscar nominations. Four years later, Clifton Webb became a household name when he played Lynn Belvedere and poured a bowl of mush onto a baby's head in Sitting Pretty.

Ida Lupino was a trail-blazer. Not only was she one of the most vibrant Hollywood actresses of the 1940s and 1950s, but she was also only the second woman to become a member of the Director's Guild. Michael B. Druxman's one-woman play, Ida: The Last Lupino, joins Ida in 1983 when she is living alone in her decaying Brentwood home as a virtual hermit, lamenting the break-up of her marriage with Howard Duff. Ida: The Last Lupino is a vivid, often witty, portrait of a woman who conquered a man's world.

Following an earthquake,, tourists have begun to disappear in the Lorenzo Caverns. The FBI claims that a bear is the culprit, but the local sheriff and an esteemed archaeologist suspect that the missing people have become the victims of a bloodthirsty alien creature.

Michael B. Druxman’s Rathbone joins the actor near the end of his life while, because of his troubled financial condition, he is working on still another less than memorable film. The play delves into Rathbone’s dark side, exploring his relationships with his first wife, the son he virtually abandoned, and Ouida, the divisive woman to whom he was married for over 40 years, yet perhaps never really knew.

As Captain Blood, Robin Hood, and the Sea Hawk, he was the "King of the Swashbucklers". As Errol Flynn, he was Hollywood's number one rogue. He was married three times, and also was the defendant in three rape trials. Indeed, it's fitting that his last major swashbuckling film cast him in the role of Don Juan. The play joins Flynn a few weeks before his premature death. Knowing that the end is near, he is in a New York airport, waiting to fly west to see his children for the last time.

This study of Hollywood's favorite "screwball" comedienne begins on the eve of her death. Following a successful war bonds tour, she awaits word in an Indianapolis hotel room to see if she's been successful in securing plane reservations for a flight back to Los Angeles. She's anxious to get home, because she suspects that her husband, Clark Gable, is cheating on her.

For nearly 30 years, Clark Gable was "the King" of Hollywood. Female fans swooned, and male admirers were made envious of his unaffected masculinity. Through jaunty, self-assured performances in films like It Happened One Night, San Francisco, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Gone with the Wind, he carved a niche for himself as the quintessential American movie star.

He's been called "the best film actor Hollywood has ever known". His marvelous performances in classic movies like Captains Courageous, Adam's Rib, Bad Day at Black Rock, and Inherit the Wind endowed him with a tough, solid humorous image - one that was totally at odds with his own personality. The play opens in 1967 when Tracy was in poor health and struggling to complete what would be his final film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Jackie Moss was once one of the hottest stand-up comedians in show business, a contemporary of Don Rickles, Jack Carter, and Buddy Hackett. He'd even had his own television series. But Jackie has a temper and that temper has put his career in trouble. Fired from his most recent Las Vegas engagement and with his personal manager threatening to terminate their relationship, Jackie has only one gig left on his schedule: a well-paying one-night performance at a private party deep in the Ozark Mountains.

Before Oprah, before Ellen, there was Dinah Shore. She was the queen of the afternoon talk show. For over five decades, Dinah induced a state of joy into people wherever she appeared, a love affair between her and her audience. In the fickle world of popular music, Dinah had a longer run at the top than any other girl singer, and on television, she had no equal in the musical field. Arguably, she was "the first lady of television". Dinah's life, however, was not always easy.

On the evening of February 1, 1922, silent film director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death in his Los Angeles home. The murder, coming on the heels of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, shocked the Hollywood community and the country, resulting in reform groups labeling the film capital a "modern day Babylon," and demanding that movies be censored or, in some communities, even banned.

In Michael B. Druxman's outrageous comedy, Hail on the Chief!, cantankerous gentleman rancher Oliver Pettridge hates his neighbor, a former cowboy movie star. He's hated him for years over a property line dispute. As the play begins, the neighbor has just been elected President of the United States.

Clara Blow is a one-woman play in two acts about the life and times of Clara Bow. The "It" Girl was the movies' first American sex goddess. The star of Wings, the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Clara Bow's unhappy life, in many ways, paralleled that of her successor, Marilyn Monroe. A longtime victim of insomnia, Ms. Bow lies awake on the morning of her estranged husband's funeral and painfully remembers the mentally ill mother who once tried to kill her; her career as the ultimate "flapper" her many nervous breakdowns; and affairs with the likes of Gary Cooper, Gilbert Roland, director Victor Fleming, and, as is said, the USC football team.

While running from the law in Dallas, small time hustler Charlie Powers is hit by a car and "dies". He has an out-of-body experience, in which he witnesses a gangland slaying that took place 17 years earlier. And, he recognizes the killer as a man who is currently running for political office in California. Brought back to life by paramedics, the roguish Powers decides to pursue an investigation for his own personal gain. Unfortunately, he gives himself away to the candidate, and now the pursuer becomes the pursued.

HISTORY TELLS US:

In 1888, the elusive serial killer, Jack the Ripper, terrorized the Whitechapel District of London. Scotland Yard was baffled. But, that same year, Jack met his match when he crossed paths with the dreadfully evil ...really awful...Count Dracula. On July 22, 1934, notorious bank robber John Dillinger was shot "dead" by the FBI in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater.