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Ron Harper, star of “Land of the Lost” and the 1974 “Planet of the Apes” series, has died, according to media reports. He was 91.

His daughter, Nicole Longeuay, told the Hollywood Reporter on Monday that he died of natural causes on Thursday at his West Hills home in Los Angeles.

The late actor, who was born Robert Ronald Harper, grew up in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh. He attended Princeton University and, instead of taking up a fellowship to study law at Harvard, decided to learn acting under theater director and actor Lee Strasberg. He later became Paul Newman’s understudy in the Broadway play “Sweet Bird of Youth” in 1959.

Harper opened up about his decision to pursue acting over the law in 1966.

“I kept saying to myself, ‘Should you waste your good education being an actor?’ And that little voice within me kept saying things like, ‘What do you...

Ron Harper, who starred in iconic science-fiction series like Planet of the Apes and Land of the Lost, has died at 91. His daughter, Nicole Longeuay, says her father died of natural causes at his home in West Hills on Thursday.

Ron Harper, with his golden hair, piercing eyes, and suave demeanor, was an understudy for Paul Newman on Broadway before playing notable roles like Alan Virdon in the Planet of the Apes series, Uncle Jack in Land of the Lost, and Peter Whitmore in the TV series Generations. Before striking it rich with roles that would increase his star power, Harper appeared in four series that never got a second season, including 87th Precinct, Wendy and Me, The Jean Arthur Show, and Garrison’s Gorillas.

Thankfully, Planet of the Apes helped put Harper on executive’s watch lists. While Planet of the Apes didn’t last long on the air, Harper...

Ron Harper, who starred on Planet of the Apes and four other short-lived primetime series and on the final season of the beloved kids TV show Land of the Lost during a very busy 15 years on television, has died. He was 91.

Harper died Thursday of natural causes at his home in West Hills, his daughter, Nicole Longeuay, told The Hollywood Reporter.

After understudying for Paul Newman on Broadway, Harper portrayed Det. Bert Kling alongside Norman Fell, Robert Lansing, Gregory Walcott and Gena Rowlands on the 1961-62 NBC cop show 87th Precinct, based on the novels of Ed McBain.

He played Jeff Conway, the husband of Connie Stevens’ character, on the 1964-65 ABC sitcom Wendy and Me, also starring George Burns, who produced the show and appeared as the owner of the apartment building in which the young couple lives.

Next up for Harper were turns as the son of Jean Arthur...

William Shatner. Leonard Nimoy. Nichelle Nichols. These names belong to some of the most influential actors in television history, but they are almost interchangeable with the names James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Uhura. For better or for worse, these names and faces are inextricably tied to the characters they played.

That said, anyone who only knows the cast of Star Trek’s original series as the command crew of the USS Enterprise is missing out on some pretty fantastic acting work elsewhere. Every member of the cast had credits before the first season in 1966, and they all went on to other projects after the show’s cancelation in 1969, even as they reconvened for the feature films. If you don’t want to sift through hours of Westerns and police procedurals, here is a cheat sheet to the best non-Trek performances from the stars of The Original Series.

William Shatner...

Joan Evans, an actress who was the goddaughter of Joan Crawford, died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, according to her son, John Weatherly. No cause was given.

During her career, she worked with the likes of Farley Granger, Audie Murphy, Irene Dunne, and Esther Williams, among many others.

Among her film roles were parts in On the Loose (1951), It Grows on Trees (1952); and Skirts Ahoy! (1952).

She signed her first film contract in 1948 at age 14 to work with producer Samuel Goldwyn.

While doing reshoots, she was accidentally shot in the arm by Farley Granger. His gun discharged and she need emergency surgery and hospitalilzation.

Evans later appeared in such films as The Outcast (1954), A Strange Adventure (1956), The Flying Fontaines (1959) and The Walking Target (1960), and on TV shows including Climax!, The Millionaire, Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, Wagon Train, Zorro, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Tall Man and Laramie.

She stopped acting in the...

Joan Evans, the daughter of screenwriters and goddaughter of Joan Crawford, who starred opposite Farley Granger in her first three films and with Audie Murphy in a pair of Westerns, has died. She was 89.

Evans died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, her son, John Weatherly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

She also toplined the Charles Lederer-directed On the Loose (1951), playing a suicidal teenager in the drama written by her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert; portrayed Irene Dunne’s daughter in the fantasy It Grows on Trees (1952); and enlisted in the U.S. Navy with Esther Williams in the musical comedy Skirts Ahoy! (1952).

Evans played the love interest of Granger’s character in the title role of Roseanna McCoy (1949), a drama loosely based on the family feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. The two worked together again in the 1950 releases Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, a bleak film noir directed by Mark Robson.

Phyllis Coates, the first actress to play Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane on television, only to leave the Adventures of Superman after just one season, has died. She was 96.

Coates, who also appeared in Republic Pictures serials and in such films as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, died Wednesday of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, her daughter Laura Press told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of Wichita Falls, Texas, Coates first portrayed the headstrong Lois opposite George Reeves as the Man of Steel in the dark sci-fi movie Superman and the Mole Men (1951).

The success of that Lippert Pictures film — the first full-length theatrical feature starring the comic-book hero — led to the quick decision to start production on a syndicated show for television.

Coates segued to the series and got into jams as Lois in all 26 episodes of the first season...

NBCUniversal is diving back into the free TV realm. Months after the company discontinued its free streaming tier of Peacock, Variety reports that NBCU is launching a bundle of free ad-supported streaming TV (Fast) channels in July, spanning multiple genres and with content from most of NBCU’s channels.

The new Fast channels will initially be available on Amazon’s free streaming platform Freevee, as well as Xumo Play, the joint venture that NBCU’s parent company Comcast is building with fellow cable provider Charter Communications. No specific date was provided for the launch of the channels, but they are slated to be available sometime next month.

Watch Now $0 / month amazonfreevee.com

It’s not yet clear if the new channels will be added to other NBCU streaming platforms, such as Peacock or its new live TV service Now TV. It would certainly make sense, as Now TV already carries...

Finis Dean Smith, a stuntman regular in John Wayne Westerns who turned to Hollywood after becoming an Olympic gold medalist, died Saturday. He was 91.

Smith was born in Breckenridge, Texas and began his athletic career competing in track and field competitions, earning All-American status in the 100-meter dash in 1952.

He went on to win varying athletic championships, culminating in his inclusion on Team U.S.A. as a member of the 4×100-meter relay team at the Helsinki Olympics, where he would win the gold medal. Following his graduation from University of Texas at Austin, Smith would play for the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers for a few years ahead of his career in the entertainment industry.

Working as a stuntman, Smith was a part of several Oscar-winning Western films, including “True Grit” and “How the West Was Won,” in addition to “The Quick and the Dead,” “El Dorado” and “Rio Lobo.

Dean Smith, who won a gold medal as a sprinter at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics before becoming a top-notch Hollywood stunt performer who worked on a dozen films starring John Wayne, has died. He was 91.

Smith died Saturday at his home in Breckenridge, Texas, after a battle with cancer, his friend Rob Word told The Hollywood Reporter.

Smith, who got into the business with help from James Garner, appeared in seven Paul Newman films, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974).

The tough Texan, who loved to say he could “ride, run and jump,” doubled for good friend Dale Robertson on the 1957-62 NBC series Tales of Wells Fargo, the 1964 film Blood on the Arrow and the 1966-68 ABC series Iron Horse.

He also did the dirty work for Ben Johnson...

Lisa Montell, a starlet in the 1950s and ’60s who appeared in such films as World Without End opposite Rod Taylor and Ten Thousand Bedrooms alongside Dean Martin, has died. She was 89.

Montell died March 7 in Southern California Hospital at Van Nuys of heart problems and sepsis, her daughter, Shireen Janti, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of Poland, Montell portrayed characters of various ethnicities during her career. In Naked Paradise (1957) and She Gods of Shark Reef (1958), directed back-to-back in Kauai by Roger Corman, she played Hawaiians.

She also showed up on several TV Westerns, including The Gene Autry Show, Broken Arrow, Tales of Wells Fargo, Colt .45, Have Gun — Will Travel, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Bat Masterson and Maverick.

In the sci-fi feature World Without End (1956), written and directed by Edward Bernds, Montell portrayed a woman on Earth in the 26th century, hundreds of years after a devastating atomic war, who...

"The A-Team" and "High Plains Drifter" star Jack Ging has passed away, according to Deadline. The performer was a familiar presence for fans of early television, appearing in Western series as early as 1958 before his turn as General Harlan "Bull" Fulbright in the popular 1980s action series about a team of framed Vietnam vets. The actor's death came from natural causes at the age of 90, with outlets reporting that he passed away in his home in La Quinta, California.

Ging appeared in dozens of film and television roles over his career before his last on-screen turn in 1994. He's perhaps most-known for his turn on "The A-Team," where he played Bull, a general who hunted down the A-Team before being dramatically killed off in the fourth season finale. Another notable on-screen roles was that of Lieutenant Dan Ives in "Mannix," the long-running detective series that starred Mike Connors and began in...

Jack Ging, an actor who had more than 50 film and television roles from the 1950s through the 1990s, died Sept. 9 at his home in La Quinta, Calilf. No cause was given

Ging was best known as General Harlan “Bull” Fulbright on NBC’s The A-Team, and was a recurring character as Lt. Dan Ives in the detective show Mannix in the 1960s. He was also known for a supporting role in the final season of Tales of Wells Fargo, starring Dale Robertson.

Born to farmers in Oklahoma, he served in the US Marine Corps for four years and was honorably discharged. He went on to play college football at the University of Oklahoma, scoring five touchdowns during his career there and appeared with the team in the 1954 Orange Bowl. He later played briefly for the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League.

Film credits included the Clint Eastwood films Sniper’s Ridge,...

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Jack Ging, the familiar character actor who recurred on such series as Tales of Wells Fargo, Mannix, Riptide and The A-Team and appeared in three films opposite Clint Eastwood, has died. He was 90.

Ging died Friday of natural causes at his home in La Quinta, California, his wife, Apache Ging, told The Hollywood Reporter.

In rare starring turns, Ging played the love interest of Diane Baker’s character in a remake of Tess of the Storm Country (1960), a soldier and reluctant hero in the waning days of the Korean War in the drama Sniper’s Ridge (1961) and a clinical psychiatrist on the 1962-64 NBC medical series The Eleventh Hour.

Alongside Eastwood, Ging portrayed a marshal in Hang ‘Em High (1968), a doctor in Play Misty for Me (1971) and Morgan Allen, the mine owner (and lover of Marianna Hill’s character), in High Plains Drifter...

Josh Brolin has spent his career pushing the narrative boundaries of the West.

Roles in resurgent Westerns such as “No Country for Old Men” and “True Grit” fortified the Oscar nominee’s place in the genre’s recent canon. His first major TV role was on ABC’s 1989 series “The Young Riders,” about the Pony Express.

The year prior to “Riders,” Brolin spent 24 hours believing he’d get his big break on CBS’ “Lonesome Dove” miniseries, having been cast as Newt, an orphan in the West, alongside his all-time favorite actor Robert Duvall. But the day after getting the role, the network pulled the offer, citing a contractual obligation to eventual star Rick Schroder.

“It was the greatest moment of my life,” Brolin recalls. “It is still the most elated I’ve ever felt about anything work-related and then it left as quickly as it came. I was absolutely freaking devastated.

Lori Nelson, the 1950s starlet who was kidnapped by an amphibious monster in Revenge of the Creature and portrayed Barbara Stanwyck’s younger daughter in Douglas Sirk’s All I Desire, has died. She was 87.

Nelson had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years and died Sunday at her home in the Porter Ranch section of Los Angeles, her daughter Jennifer Mann said.

In Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952) and Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955), Nelson played Rosie Kettle, one of the daughters of the characters played by Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride in the Universal series of films.

Nelson also made her mark in I Died a Thousand Times (1955), a remake of the Humphrey Bogart classic High Sierra in which she portrayed the club-footed love interest of Jack Palance’s crook; Pardners (1956), working opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in their penultimate film together...

We all knew the end was coming. Bob Iger had promised, time and again, that the end was coming. But the rather abrupt announcement Tuesday afternoon that he would relinquish his longtime role as CEO of the Walt Disney Co. — and that theme parks head Bob Chapek would succeed him at the top of the Mouse’s big machine, effectively immediately — nevertheless knocked the wind out of everyone in Hollywood and on Wall Street.

Shares tumbled on the news in after-hours trade Tuesday and carried over to Wednesday’s regular session, dragging Disney’s stock down 3.8% and outpacing the broader market’s dip as it attempted to bounce back amid coronavirus fears.

Chapek is a seasoned, well-liked, 27-year Disney veteran. The industry had long known that the end of Iger’s reign was approaching. So what happened?

1. The Timing Was Unexpected — and Possibly Unplanned?

Given that Iger’s contract doesn...

Ben Cooper, a Western star of films and TV like “Johnny Guitar,” “Bonanza,” “Rawhide” and more, died in his sleep on Monday according to his nephew on the actor’s Facebook fan page. He was 86.

Cooper got his start in radio serials and on stage as a child actor before finding work as a boyish looking lead and supporting player on Westerns in both film and TV. He was best known for his role in the Nicholas Ray Western “Johnny Guitar” from 1954, where he played the bandit Turkey Ralston alongside Ernest Borgnine and Scott Brady.

Cooper’s first screen role came when he was 18 in the “Armstrong Circle Theatre,” and he followed that up with several TV appearances and roles in films from Republic Pictures such as “Thunderbirds,” “The Last Command” and “Duel at Apache Wells.”

Also Read: David Roback, Co-Founder of Mazzy Star, Dies at 61

He also appeared in...

Gene Reynolds, a former child actor who went on to co-create M*A*S*H and Lou Grant and direct and/or produced multiple other series and was a two-term DGA president, died Monday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. He was 96.

Reynolds won six Emmys — from more than two dozen nominations — three DGA Awards and a WGA Award during a six-decade showbiz career that began as a preteen actor. He would continue with onscreen roles through the 1950s before segueing to producing and directing.

He got his start behind the camera writing the 1958-61 NBC Western Tales of Wells Fargo and soon began directing episodes of such enduring TV series as Leave It to Beaver, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Andy Griffith Show — co-starring a young Ron Howard — Father of the Bride, The Munsters and more than 70- half-hours of the long-running Fred MacMurray sitcom My Three Sons.

David Crow Jan 17, 2020

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood might be over, but the adventures of Bounty Law’s Jake Cahill have only just begun!

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino made one of the best movies of 2019 by channeling his deep and affection for 1960s Hollywood into a grand epic of nostalgia daydreaming. The film, mistaken initially by many to be about the “Manson murders,” was instead a laconic hangout dramedy, led by washed up TV Western star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), who was famous 10 years prior for playing Jake Cahill on Bounty Law. Now that legend of Cahill will live on past Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’s wistful closing shot.

Speaking with Deadline while in the midst of the Oscars campaign season, Tarantino revealed that while imagining a fictional ‘50s TV Western for Rick Dalton to star in—think Steve McQueen on Wanted: Dead...

Hong Sang-soo's Right Now, Wrong Then.The lineup for the 2015 festival has been revealed, including new films by Hong Sang-soo, Andrzej Zulawski, Chantal Akerman, Athina Rachel Tsangari, and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes dedicated to Sam Peckinpah, Michael Cimino, Bulle Ogier, and much more.Piazza GRANDERicki and the Flash (Jonathan Demme, USA)La belle saison (Catherine Corsini, France)Le dernier passage (Pascal Magontier, France)Der staat gegen Fritz Bauer (Lars Kraume, Germany)Southpaw (Antoine Fuqua, USA)Trainwreck (Judd Apatow, USA)Jack (Elisabeth Scharang, Austria)Floride (Philippe Le Guay, France)The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, UK/USA)Erlkönig (Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland)Guibord s'en va-t-en guerre (Philippe Falardeau, Canada)Bombay Velvet (Anurag Kashyap, India)Pastorale cilentana (Mario Martone, Italy)La vanite (Lionel Baier, Switzerland/France)The Laundryman (Lee Chung, Taiwan)Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA) I pugni ni tasca (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)Heliopolis (Sérgio Machado, Brazil)Amnesia (Barbet Schroeder,...

The Wasteland:

Television is a gold goose that lays scrambled eggs;

and it is futile and probably fatal to beat it for not laying caviar.

Lee Loevinger

When people argue over the quality of television programming, both sides — it’s addictive crap v. underappreciated populist art — seem to forget one of the essentials about commercial TV. By definition, it is not a public service. It is not commercial TV’s job to enlighten, inform, educate, elevate, inspire, or offer insight. Frankly, it’s not even commercial TV’s job to entertain. Bottom line: its purpose is simply to deliver as many sets of eyes to advertisers as possible. As it happens, it tends to do this by offering various forms of entertainment, and occasionally by offering content that does enlighten, inform, etc., but a cynic would make the point that if TV could do the same job televising fish aimlessly swimming around an aquarium,...

Jeanne Cooper, who played Katherine Chancellor on the daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless," has died, TVLine reports. She was 84.

Cooper's son, actor Corbin Bernsen, confirmed the sad news on Twitter today (May 8), writing:

Mom passed this morning. She was in peace and without fear. U all have been incredible in your love. In her name share it 2 day with others.

— Corbin Bernsen (@corbinbernsen) May 8, 2013

Cooper was hospitalized last month with an undisclosed ailment and was said to be in critical condition.

Bernsen also took to his Facebook page to announce the news of his mother's death, sharing, "My mother passed away this morning just a short time ago, peaceful with my sister by her side, in her sleep. I was going to visit this afternoon, thought I had time. Reminder to self - time is a precious thing. I too am at peace however. I said my...

Daytime-tv grand dame Jeanne Cooper, who played The Young and the Restless‘ Katherine, passed away on Wednesday morning after being hospitalized, off and on since April, for an undisclosed illness.

Cooper’s elder son, actor Corbin Bernsen, shared the sad news on Twitter, saying, “She was in peace and without fear. You all have been incredible in your love. In her name, share it today with others.”

Mom passed this morning. She was in peace and without fear. U all have been incredible in your love. In her name share it 2 day with others.—

Corbin Bernsen (@corbinbernsen) May 08, 2013

Bernsen just...

Dale Robertson, best remembered for his roles in television and movie Westerns, has died. His niece Nancy Robertson tells the Associated Press her uncle died Tuesday at a hospital in La Jolla, CA following a brief illness. He was 89. Dale Robertson had small roles in films beginning in the late 1940s, including The Boy With The Green Hair and Flamingo Road. He went on to play Jesse James in Fighting Man Of The Plains before moving into television in the 1950s. His best remembered series were Tales Of Wells Fargo, Iron Horse, and Death Valley Days (1968-70). He also played the lead role in the first of A. C. Lyles’ second feature Westerns, Law Of The Lawless. He continued working in TV in the 1970s and 1980s, landing roles in the popular night-time soap operas Dallas and Dynasty. His final role was Zeke in TV’s Harts Of The West.