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Robert Logan, who succeeded Edd “Kookie” Byrnes as the valet parking attendant on the famed ABC detective show 77 Sunset Strip and starred as the dad in a series of return-to-nature adventure movies, has died. He was 82.

Logan died May 6 of natural causes in Estero, Florida, his son, Anthony Logan, told The Hollywood Reporter. His family chose to wait until this week to announce his death.

After Gerald Lloyd Kookson III was promoted from parking attendant at Dino’s Lodge — a nightclub owned by Dean Martin — to partner and private investigator at the detective agency next door, the Brooklyn-born Logan joined Warner Bros. Television’s 77 Sunset Strip to play his replacement, another hipster named J.R. Hale.

On the swanky series that starred Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Roger Smith as the crime solvers Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer, respectively, Logan portrayed Hale on 50 episodes of the show’s final two seasons,...

If you’ve ever been around a runner or went to high school pretty much anywhere, you’ve probably seen the cross country shirts with the message, “Your team’s punishment is our team’s sport.” It’s not untrue that runners are usually not shy to talk about running, whether they’re asking you to make a donation in support of them running a marathon or trying to get you to come on a run with them in a snow storm because the texture is just better that way.

Yet, aside from films like 2007’s “Run Fatboy Run” starring David Schwimmer, there are no comedies that punch up at runners the way “Caddyshack” did for golfers or “Slap Shot” did for hockey players. So, when producers Brian Hunt of Believe Entertainment Group and Marc Lieberman from Above Average teamed up to make an ensemble comedy with a very specific kind of audience,...

Paul Childs Feb 12, 2018

After Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves - and that song! - hit big, the song work of Bryan Adams was in high demand at the movies...

Last month, this site ran an article about the power of feel good pop music to lighten our mood. As soon as I read it I rushed home and put on some Bryan Adams. This wasn’t just a sudden whim. I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since 'that bloke who sings about the best days of his life' released 'that song from that film'.

See related Den Of Thieves review Pablo Schreiber interview: Den Of Thieves O'Shea Jackson Jr. interview: Den Of Thieves

Everything I Do (I Do It For You) was massive hit in 1991. It reigned over the pop charts for what felt like forever and became a fashionable choice for recessional music and first dances at weddings,...

Top o the monday morning to you.

• NPR there's a new Marlene Dietrich exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in DC so check it out if you're passing through or live there. They say it's "dazzling"

• /Film John G Avildsen (Rip). The director of cultural phenomenons Rocky and the Karate Kid has passed away at 81. He'll always be remembered for those two pictures but we have to also thank him for trash cult fav A Night in Heaven as well as launching the career of Susan Sarandon in Joe (1970)

• THR Comedy Actress roundtable with Emmy Rossum, America Ferrera, Minnie Driver, Kathryn Hahn, Issa Rae, and Pamela Adlon

More after the jump including controversy in Oscar's animation branch, Patti Lupone, Captain Underpants, Lambda Awards, etcetera...

John G. Avildsen, who won an Oscar for directing the iconic Rocky and also helmed all three Karate Kid movies, has passed away at 81. While no cause of death was revealed, the director's representative confirmed his death in Los Angeles today. The filmmaker leaves behind a lasting legacy of telling some of the best underdog stories ever put on film.

Variety confirmed the director's death with his rep earlier today, although no further details were given. It hasn't been revealed yet if there will be any sort of public memorial service for the filmmaker. The man was born December 21 1935, in Oak Park, Illinois, USA, graduating from the prestigious Hotchkiss School and Nyu. He got his start in the movie business by serving as assistant director on movies helmed by Arthur Penn and Otto Preminger.

The late filmmaker made his feature directorial debut in 1969 with Turn To Love, which he also served as the cinematographer on.

While "Magic Mike" is in theaters we're looking back at memorable movie strippers

It's hard to know what possessed Oscar winning director John Avildsen to make the very trashy A Night in Heaven (1983), and less than a decade after his Rocky triumph at that. But make it he did. This one time paycable regular is about a schoolmarm community college professor named Faye (Lesley Ann Warren) who falls for a student named Rick (Christopher Atkins) once she sees, uh, more of him at her local bar's Ladie's Night. It takes place in Florida and considering that this is the only major theatrical motion picture about a male stripper before Magic Mike which also takes place there, does this mean that Florida is the capital of pelvic thrusts and loincloths... or just ceaselessly horny?

By day Rick's cocky glibness irritates Faye in speech class where she flunks him. But by night...

Happy Birthday to Christopher Atkins (above), who turns 51! Okay, time to name your top five Chris movies! Here are mine: 5. "Mortuary Academy," 4. "It's My Party," 3. "The Blue Lagoon," 2. "A Night In Heaven, "1. "The Pirate Movie".Also celebrating birthdays are Tyne Daly, who is 66, Christine Ebersole is 59, Jennifer Love Hewitt is 33, Ellen Page is 25, Charlotte Church is 26, and faboo ally Mary Chapin Carpenter is 54. What are your Mary favs? Here are mine: 5. "Down At The Twist And Shout," 4. "I Feel Lucky," 3. "Shut Up And Kiss Me," 2. "He Thinks He'll Keep Her, "1. "Passionate Kisses". GOProud Requests Meetings with Five Presidential Candidates as Part of Formal Endorsement Process. Yeah, good luck with that.Oh Hell No. No, No, No, No, No, And ... No!In ratings news, it was another worrying week for NBC's Smash, which was down another 18%. As Deadline reports, "While 2.3 is still a respectable demo rating at 10 Pm, the drops of...

Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Magic Mike Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer play strippers in Steven Soderbergh's next, a comedy entitled Magic Mike. Back in 1983, The Blue Lagoon's Christopher Atkins played a "sexy" dancer in John G. Avildsen's drama A Night in Heaven; it flopped. Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls (1995) was such a critical and box-office disaster that it all but ruined the director's Hollywood career. (True, Starship Troopers and Hollow Man didn't help matters any.) Will Soderbergh be able to strip the curse off of movies about strippers? Well, that all depends on how the filmmaker portrays his characters and the subject of sex. A moralizing movie about strippers, one that condescends to its characters, would definitely be a bad approach. That is, unless Soderbergh wants to lure only members of the censorship board of the Motion Picture Association of America. The fact is: prudes won't bother watching something like Magic Mike,...

The news of Van Halen hitting the road again in 2012 got me thinking about the other comebacks I’m eagerly awaiting. Next year, I’ll happily welcome the return of:

• Sappy Rachel McAdams: The Vow, costarring Channing Tatum, is the closest we’ll get to her doing a sequel to The Notebook.

• Sappy Nicholas Sparks novel adaptation: Something was missing in 2011, and it was me dragging friends to see one of these. Zac Efron’s biceps are making The Lucky One a surprisingly easy sell.

• Taylor Kitsch’s long hair: Just because it had to be short to shoot...

When AfterElton asked me if I'd be interested in doing a story on full-frontal male nudity in the movies, I said, “Interested? I've been researching it since I was 12!” What prompted the idea is of course the film Shame, which stars Michael Fassbender as a man addicted to sex. When the film debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year it set off a shockwave because of its sexual explicitness, including a much-discussed full-frontal reveal by Fassbender. Add to that the recent flurry of attention that stills of Jonathan Groff's nude scene in Twelve Thirty hitting the Internet generated, and it seems like these days cinema penises are a trending topic.

Everyone from film critics to Freudian analysts to gender theorists has written about male nudity in film. And sorting through the pronouncements on the male gaze and Lacanian mirrors and power inequities between the sexes in Hollywood...

Chicago – Lesley Ann Warren is familiar to TV viewers for her recurring role on “Desperate Housewives” as Sophie Bremmer and her portrayal of Jinx Shannon on “In Plain Sight.” She also has a rich career spanning five decades, with classic film and television characters along the way.

Born in New York City, Warren studied under Lee Strasberg at the famed Actors Studio, the youngest student to ever be accepted at 17 years of age. A year later she made a huge debut in the television remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” musical. This led to a contract with Walt Disney Studios, in such films as “The Happiest Millionaire” (1967). After leaving Disney, she did one season on the TV show “Mission: Impossible” and several roles in the mini-series era in the 1970s. She was nominated for an Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in “Victor Victoria” (1982) and went on to...

Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, William Levi

As you've probably heard (we may have mentioned it a few times), Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh is preparing to film the Citizen Kane of beefcake films. No doubt, Magic Mike will be competing for Oscars this time next year.

Magic Mike is based on the early stripper life of actor Channing Tatum, who will star in the film alongside some of the most notable male specimens of this generation.

You may think that a film about stripping will be silly, and a walk in the park for these actors, but this is serious business. If there's one word that will never be used in conjunction with this movie, it's "fluff."

Oh wait. Actually, that word may play a role.

What I mean is that it's not going to be as simple as it looks. Stripping isn't only about taking your clothes off.

I’ll admit as someone who saw the Christopher Atkins’ movie A Night in Heaven way too young, I’ve got an unusual appreciation for the male stripper genre. But I truly believe Magic Mike, the film inspired by Channing Tatum’s early days as an exotic dancer, moving forward is something to celebrate. First, I love that Tatum pursued turning his tale into a film whether or not his reps wanted him to. Now, I love that director Steven Soderbergh has cast Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four, Beastly) as the young stripper Tatum’s character will mentor. Have I ever seen Pettyfer act?...

I've heard about some serious but ultimately nonfatal movie injuries in my day, including Sylvester Stallone having to spend nine days in a hospital after filming his Rocky IV fight with Dolph Lundgren because the pericardial sac around his heart was swelling. This one tops that. While shooting the epic battle film The Eagle of the Ninth in the Scottish Highlands last October, Channing Tatum burnt his penis. Why is this making news now? Because he recounts his ordeal in a current Details cover story titled Channing Tatum is Proud of His Package. Playing a soldier of Rome's Ninth Legion,...