MacDonald's Musings
August, 1999

Civic Players on Screen

Ia theater group like ours many talented people pass through our ranks. It is only natural that a few would be lured to hollywood with its potential for acting roles in movies. Bill Murey led the way and appeared in character parts in the late '70's and '80's. He was followed by our  fair Juliet, Carol Schneider, whose small film parts brought her less recognition that did her relationship with Brat Pack star Andrew McCarthy. Brother and sister Breaugh, Todd and Michelle came next, and while her work was confined to singing and stage acting, he found lucrative commercial work and bit roles in some movies(one scene with Judy Foster in "Contact" actually made the final print.

On the Chicago front, Patrick Blashill("Kismet","A Streetcar Named Desire", many others) found a regular spot with Life Long Theater Company, but his film work in "Baby's Day Out" and "Miracle on 34th Street" was cut. And Hedges MacDonald was one of the hundreds of extras filmed at Wrigley Field in baseball stadium shots for the John Goodman Babe Ruth Biopic "The Babe".

But all that is about to change, right here in Northern Michigan. Rich Brauer Productions is filming a family adventure film, "The Lost Treasure of Sawtooth Island" in the area this summer. With the oscar winning star Ernest Borgnine among the cast, the film is shooting at various locations in Frankfurt and South Manitou Island. One of the lead players is our own Mike Kelly who is joined by Denni Don Hunting, who begins her role in a wheelchair, but ends up swimming and swordfighting (talk about miracle cures). She is a hissable villian, a far cry from her frequent nurse and nun stage parts. Brauer describes the picture as a Swiss Family Robinson type story and promises a world premiere at the Dennos Museum.

"Little Orphan Annie" turns 75.

On August 5, 1924 Harold Gray began his phenominally successful comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" in the New York Daily News after several years of assisting on another hit strip "The Gumps". Although Gray always denied it , the legend persists that his original concept was an orphan boy called "Little Orphan Otto" but Captain Joseph Patterson(who latter changed Chester Gould's "Plainclothes Tracy" to "Dick") decided to change the character gender. Patterson headed the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate for many years and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism bears his middle name.

Whoever it was who actually feminized Annie, it was a wise decision. Only 3 strips of that day featured little girls, and the character has gone on to become the longest running lead character in any strip still running except for Katzenjammer kids Hans and Fritz and "Gasoline Alley's" Walt Wallet. Her patented curls were modeled after silent screen star, Mary Pickford.

Gray was a staunch conservative and Annie's adoptive Daddy Warbucks exemplified his own philosophy of the self made man- independent and beholden to no one. He frequently allowed his personal politics to enter the strip  (the first cartoonist to do so), and must have created considerable controversy when he opposed gas retioning in World War II.

After 44 years of writing and drawing the strip, Gray died and the feature passed through a succession of hands. His cousin and longtime assistant Robert Leffingwell was first followed by Henri Arnold and Henry Radvta then Tex Blaisdell and Elliott Caplin('Lil Abner" creator Al Capp's brother), and later David Lettick. Blaisdel did a reasonable job with the art but Caplin's scripting so effective on other strips he wrote never caught on.

In1974, with American interest in nostagia of the 1930's at its peak, the syndicate began offering reprints of Gray's "Annie" strips from the 1930's . Their run of old material was evidently incomplete because the continuity quickly jumped into the '40's, although the syndicate promotional material still stressed the '30's . "Little Orphan Annie" was not the first major strip to reprint old material, "Tarzan" had begun to reprint old dailies while contining to produce new Sunday Adventures two years earlier.

In April 1977 the Broadway musical "Annie" opened to great success and the syndicate realized the necessity of producing a first run strip once again. Leonard Starr was persuaded to abandon his show business theme strip "On Stage" to take on the aging eleven year old's adventure. He modernized the look of the strip while retaining Gray's style of storytelling minus the politics. Given the current de emphasis by newspapers of story strips, "Annie" (renamed after show ) is still a relative success, still appearing in its parent paper and (since the '70's) in the Detroit news.

A standing ovation

For Terri Heffron, who recently starred in "Philadelphia Story" in Grand Rapids.

For Frank Sisson, who appeared as a policeman in Neil Simon's "Rumors" along with former NMC player Annie Goodman for the Torch Theater at the Elk Rapids Township Hall Opera House.

For Sarah Baty, who with Dave Nertciage won first place in the International Thespian Festival in Lincoln, Nebraska with the musical duet, " A little Fall of Rain", from "Les Miserables". It was West High School's first year of entering the state level competition. Abby Pavlov also competed for Set Design for the play "Titanic in All Ships", and while she did not place, judges were impressed with her $100 entry which competed against schools with $2,000-$3,000 budgets.

For Kathy Verstreate who costumed both "Leader of the Pack" and "The Lost Treasure of Sawtooth Island" film working around construction schedules that made much of the playhouse inaccesseble to all but hard hat personnel.

For Evan Windholz, who lent himself and his motorcycle to the playhouse Cherry Royale Parade entry. Welcome to our active ranks, Evan!

For Charlotte Marie Veliquette, finalist for Cherry Queen, whose mom, Linda, was in our 1982 production of "The Insect Comedy" and "Kismet".  Charlotte was also 1998 Miss Elk Rapids.

Condolences to MIke Kelly on the death of his mother.

Birthday greetings to Michele Perez .

Hedges MacDonald

"Little Orphan Annie" Bibliography:
        Horn, Maurice "100 Years of American Newspaper Comics"
        Goulart, Ron "The Encyclopedia of Amrican Newspaper Comics from 1897 to the Present"