Dad won his third Emmy for a fondly remembered 1979 TV special called "The Halloween That Almost Wasn't." Although the disco elements make it a bit date, it still has its lovely charms. And the cast is great, especially Mariette Hartley whom I always thought was criminally underrated. We visited the great Westchester mansion where it was filmed and I remember Hartley saying hi while she was in the makeup chair! YouTube has a few copies, which is great.
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James Dean, a visionary and brilliant, charismatic actor died in a horrific car crash on this day, seventy years ago. He only made three films. Incredible as "East of Eden," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant" are, he left behind a huge body of work in TV. During the early 50s, Dean started getting roles in TV dramas, and, according to tonight's TCM broadcast of a formerly lost, but now restored teledrama called "Life Sentence," Dean's performances were getting noticed by teens, who would send him tons of fan mail. How does James Dean fit in with my father's career? Well, being that Dad worked with most every famous actor and actress out there, he casually mentioned once that he worked with Dean on one such drama. He said Dean was intense, SCARILY intense, and Dad could see that the actor was supremely gifted. Now for the title of this drama..well, that one, so far has eluded me. Dad, with all the productions he was constantly working on, did not know the name of this Dean one. And to this DAY, I cannot find anything that they did together, either on Google, or by watching the James Dean on TV DVD gift set I have. I thought it would be interesting to see what Google/ AI came up with when I punched their names into the search engine. Hilarity ensued. I mean it's pretty accurate, but I still don't know the title....  A Tribute to Robert Redford (August 18, 1936-September 16, 2025) And "Three Days of the Condor."9/17/2025 
 As a huge fan of the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, I was once told that there existed a great old short film parody from the 1968 called "The Dove." I found out about it many decades ago when I was casually chatting with a fellow film fan in one of those late, great NYC poster shops that smelled of dust, cigar smoke and old paper. He told me it's a legendary film among Bergmaniacs, that it parodies "The Seventh Seal" (Death plays tennis!) and the cast recite their lines in ridiculously fake Swedish, like Catherine O'Hara and Andrea Martin once did in an equally wonderful Bergman parody on SCTV. Well that sold me. I NEEDED to see this film. But how? Despite all the repertory film theaters near my old Upper West Side apartment, I had never seen this one listed in a program. That lucky day finally arrived when a friend lent me a copy of the film. To my delight, it was everything I imagined it to be. Funny, biting and even reverential towards to the man, the myth and the legend. What I was NOT prepared for was the closing credits, which I always watch. To my utter shock, delight and thrill, none other than Bob O'Bradovich had done the makeup. That I wish I could have leapt up and screamed was an understatement. More than anything, I wanted to go running to my father and have him tell me all about this shoot, which took place when I was probably four years old. But I couldn't. By the time I had seen this film, he had passed away. But I was also left with many more questions. Why hadn't he ever mentioned this film to me, knowing that I had discovered Bergman's films in college? Did he have to watch "The Seventh Seal" to get an idea of Bengt Ekerot's stunning makeup playing "Death"? Surely he must have enjoyed working with a young Madeline Kahn, in her debut? I have to think that this project simply got lost to time. He was an exceedingly in demand makeup artist at the time, and this was probably a one off project, thinking it would go nowhere. Little did he know. If he were alive, I would tell him how richly satiric the film is, what a great job he did with Death's makeup and, incredibly, that it was nominated for an Oscar for Live Action Short Subject at the 41st Academy Awards in 1969t. But alas, I cannot. I can only write a blog entry on his website. Still, I know he'd be delighted. It's been WAY too long since I've updated this website. But I had to get this in as a blog post. For those who don't know, "To Tell the Truth" was a great old game show in which three people disguised and pretended to be a prominent person in a specific field. It was up to the celebrity panelists to pepper each person with questions and then take an educated guess at the end ("Will the real (fill in blank) please stand up!). Hosted by the great Garry Moore, the show lasted through much of my childhood in the 70s. I watched it here and there, but I really missed this one. The guest is a prominent makeup up artist whose last name I couldn't quite make out. He was Pres. Nixon's makeup artist at the time. At one point panelist Peggy Cass asks him for some names of other artists who were prominent in their field for character and aging makeup. He responds as follows: "I would say you have two top men, one Dick Smith and the other Bob O'Bradovich." Her question begins at approx. 6:06. It's a lovely moment and I thank my Facebook friend for alerting me to it. There are pictures going around of Bryan Cranston made up as LBJ for the upcoming HBO biopic "All the Way." The makeup transformation by Bill Corso is pretty uncanny, but it got me to thinking about an equally uncanny transformation done by Dad sometime in the late 60s. Details are sketchy, but he once told me that he did LBJ's makeup for some appearances and LBJ lived up to his "I don't give a damn what people think" attitude with spectacular results, including peeing right in front of my Dad. But aside from that, he used to create makeup transformations all the time using his face as his canvas. Below is a shot of Dad as LBJ and Bryan Cranston as LBJ. I'd say both are equally amazing, but I may be biased..
In 1976, CBS aired a critically praised Walt Whitman biography named after one of Whitman's best-known poems. "Song of Myself" was a short film presented under the auspices of "The American Parade," which presented a series of programs about prominent American figures around the Bicentennial celebration. Rip Torn played Whitman, and Dad was hired to do the complicated aging makeup, always an O'Bradovich specialty. Torn was impressive and the program was well received. It was one among many pleasurable small projects that gave Dad his professional fulfillment. Torn and he became friends after the production ended. And, on a side note: a friend recently told me that he attended a Rip Torn retrospective in which the actor presented his favorite TV and movie performances. Among them? "Song of Myself." Here is a clip from the special and from the O'Bradovich archives: a letter of effusive thanks from director Robert Markowitz.  All month long, TCM is spotlighting the films of Robert Redford, and tonight's movie "Three Days of the Condor" is one of his best. Released in 1975, it centers on New York CIA agent Joseph Turner who returns from a lunch break to find every single one of his co-workers dead. Barely escaping with his life, Turner goes on a quest to find the truth, but discovers he's the next target. Taut and tension-filled, "Three Days" luxuriates in paranoid conspiracy and gritty New York City realism. While America was still recovering from Watergate and trust in the government was at an all time low, NYC was facing a financial crisis that threatened its very solvency. Fans of 1970s New York City will lap up the location scenes, shot all around the city. As key makeup artist, my father was responsible for the special effects makeup, including the memorable shootout in the alley of the Ansonia hotel (now a residential building) on 74th street and Broadway. A longtime resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan himself, my father often remarked that traveling to the set was a breeze. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of him working on the gunshot, but I have a few photos of him on the set and with Cliff Robertson (courtesy of Ira Gallen, who worked on the crew and graciously shared these rare gems with me) along with some of my own screen caps. Be sure to watch tonight! One of the joys of growing up with a makeup artist for a father is that I sometimes got myself involved in the mix. Here is a scene from the living room where Dad was busy mixing his potions and I was being a curious five year old. 
It seems that this blog has quickly morphed into a memorial shrine. Today marks the first anniversary of Julie Harris' death, and I wanted to mark the sad occasion with a happy memory. In 1962, she won a Best Actress Emmy for her superb performance in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of "Victoria Regina." Previously, Claire Bloom had played the role in a similar production, but this was the year the Emmy rewarded Hallmark with its FIRST Emmy for outstanding makeup, given to Bob O'Bradovich. It came in the form of a plaque and it was a "special" citation, but Dad had remarkably broken the mold. Never before had the Emmy been given to TV makeup, despite the outstanding productions NBC's makeup department had enhanced. As usual, I remember Dad being way too modest (he probably should have hired an agent and capitalized on his fame) and I remember Mom saying that his simple and short speech on national TV--"thank you"--had been appreciated by all. Someday, I'd love to find the speech online somewhere because that would be amazing to witness. NBC knew they had a star on their hand (see photo below) and Dad was on his way to becoming the most important man in the NBC makeup artist. RIP Julie and Dad.
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