Tag Archives: the 70s

Hearst’s pooch won best of breed for the toy group and will compete in the finals tonight. The dog is named Rocket, not Tania as one might hope.

Via Entertainment Tonight: Billy Crystal blazed trails in the 1970s by playing Jodie Dallas on Soap, the first openly gay character to regularly appear on a network television show. These days, however, the 66-year-old funnyman thinks that TV”s depiction of homosexuality has come a long way — perhaps even too far. Speaking to journalists at the TV Critics Association press …

A Jimmy Somerville fan has compiled the below video to accompany his latest release. As a challenge to hardcore disco heads, let’s see who can name all of the artists that appear. Some of them are extremely well-known, but there are a few fairly obscure acts too. I think I count 21 in total. RELATED: The  single and 12″ are …

Happy 90th Birthday, President Carter! Michelle and I send our best wishes to you and Rosalynn. -bo pic.twitter.com/Du99I0S524 — The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 1, 2014 Last night President Obama congratulated former President Jimmy Carter on his 90th birthday. Carter is the sixth US president to become a nonagenarian. The others: George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, …

The reunited Boomtown Rats performed stateside for the first time in more than 20 years on Friday in a showcase at Manhattan’s Terminal 5. Their 1979 classic below was written about a San Diego school shooting – which at the time was so unusual that (spurred by the shooter’s reason) it was worth writing a song about. Frontman Bob Geldof, …

She said as she sat in the host’s chair in order to show her most flattering side.

Henry Stone, whose TK Records provided much of the 70s’ disco soundtrack, has died in Miami at the age of 93. Via Billboard: In 1948, Stone moved to Miami where he set up Seminole, a record-distribution business and Crystal recording studio. Three years later, he recorded his first artist, a pianist-singer from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind …

Via the Randy Report: Fans of classic 70s and 80s pop/rock/dance music – mark your calendars! On July 2, 2014, The GRAMMY Museum will unveil its latest temporary exhibition, Donna Summer: Four Seasons of Love. Located on the Museum’s fourth floor, the exhibition will offer visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the iconic career of 5-time Grammy Award-winner Donna Summer. This …

JMG reader Dave Evans has compiled over 70 minutes of gay-related news reports that aired in the 1970s. Among the topics: Anita Bryant, gay rights marches, the slaying of Harvey Milk, and the riots that erupted after the Dan White verdict. Worth your time. RELATED: Last week Evans compiled news clips from the first ten years of HIV/AIDS.

Two-time Emmy-winning actress Ann B. Davis died today. CNN reports: Ann B. Davis, known for her role as housekeeper Alice Nelson on “The Brady Bunch,” died Sunday, close friend Bishop William Frey said. She was 88. According to Frey, Davis fell and hit her head Saturday morning in her bathroom. She suffered a subdural hematoma and never regained consciousness. Appearing …

Via Boy Culture, here’s a great nod to 70’s gay disco culture via a track the label winkingly claims to have “discovered” in their vaults. They nailed it – lyrics, music, costumes, and video effects. “Pretty boys on the prowl and the girls who are draggin’ / I’m part of their world cuz baby I’m haggin’.”   Loving this. 

Ray Manzarek, founding member of the iconic band The Doors, has died at the age of 74. Manzarek founded The Doors after meeting then-poet Jim Morrison in California. The band went on to become one of the most successful rock ‘n’ roll acts to emerge from the 1960s and continues to resonate with fans decades after Morrison’s death brought the …

Deadline reports on the coming Anita Bryant biopic: Uma Thurman will star as controversial anti-gay activist Anita Bryant in Anita, produced by Sex And the City creator Darren Star, Howard Rosenman, Jeffrey Schwarz and Dennis Erdman. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman will direct from a screenplay by Chad Hodge. Those filmmakers, who most recently helmed Lovelace, won Oscars for Common …

Following the naming protocol of ABBA: The Movie and ABBA: The Concert, opening today in Stockholm is ABBA: The Museum. Some 40 sets of the trademark shiny flares, platform boots and knitted hats are on display in the museum. But visitors can also see digital images of what they would look like in costumes, record music videos and sing such …

And Debbie Reynolds as Paul Williams. From a 1979 show dug up by JMG reader Dave Evans.

“I really can honestly say, ‘My Dad was Gay.’ I can also say that being gay killed him. Because it was so taboo, he could never make peace with himself. He never allowed himself to have a genuine love. He was forever taunted by his own disdain for the natural inclinations that he was BORN WITH. Bob was a family …

Deep Throat star Harry Reems, the only porn actor ever charged and then convicted on federal obscenity charges (overturned on appeal), has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65. The news was first reported by Don Schenk, a close friend of Reems, who was by his side yesterday afternoon when he succumbed to organ failure at the Salt …

Walter Murphy got an Oscar nomination today for his theme song from Ted. (Lyrics by Seth MacFarlane, his co-nominee.) You might remember Murphy for his #1 pop hit from 1976, A Fifth Of Beethoven. Murphy’s follow-up single, Flight ’76, was a cheesetastic disco version of Flight Of The Bumblebee. It got to #44. He never charted again. Murphy also wrote …

“The idea—and not just the idea, the actual life of homosexuals—changed immeasurably because of the acceptance of homosexuality. And that was because of AIDS. No one ever says that. Or how AIDS caused gay marriage. I mean, it would never have existed. You could pretend to your family that you were straight, but you couldn’t pretend you weren’t dying. And …

I actually do remember JFK’s assassination rather vividly and I was only four years old. Source.