John Charles Thomas for IMDb

There is so much to say regarding Mr. Thomas that is needed for changes to IMDb listing which, for whatever reason, has been hi-jacked for another entertainer.  Because I wish to provided all necessary information in one place, I've decided to post to my Blog (which hasn't been used for much of anything of late) so here it is.

Mr Thomas's 1922 Passport Application includes an affidavit from his parents which indicates his actual birth date is September 6, 1890 and contains a photo which clearly reflects a person other than that whose photo has been added to IMDb.  While some of the other resources indicate a birth year of 1889 and 1891, it would seem that the Passport Application and attendant Affidavit of birth should supersede other online info.  See:

The California Death Index lists his death date as 13 December 1960.  See:

Further his listing at Hollywood Walk of Fame tends to confirm that the information provided by Kaiser is not for John Charles Thomas.  See:  

John Charles Thomas-Hollywood Walk of Fame

This Post About John Charles Thomas at Get Satisfaction  indicates the breadth of the problem.  The birth/death information needs to be corrected and ALL of the photos related to Joseph Toner need to be removed.  The thread contains a lot of research provided by Maggie Dwyer which also serves to substantiate this request to have info changed as well as having all of the photos removed.

Rin-Tin-Tin, Susan Orlean, and Me

Fiction is my poison of choice and I’ve been addicted since my very first Nancy Drew book wayyyyyy back when I could buy a used book for a quarter and sell it back for a dime.  I worked my way through all of Carolyn Keene’s teenage detective stories, book by book. I haven’t stopped reading since and now I’m collecting those old Nancy Drew books.

I’ve always been drawn to books because of story, the fictional magic carpet that allowed me to travel to different places, different times and still have the comfort of my own bed in my own room.  East of Eden, On The Beach, Exodus, The Secret of Santa Vittoria, The Haunting of Hill House,  and many others, fueled my imagination and love of prose. 

But only recently have I been absorbed by a real story, a biography of a dog and the man who loved and trained him; one where I found more than a story to draw me in, more than a world different than my own.  Recently, Susan Orlean took me on a wondrous journey with Rin-Tin-Tin that wound through my own memories like a path in the woods that disappears and reappears on a whim.  When I began reading Orlean’s “Rin-Tin-Tin” I wrongly assumed it would be just a well-written biography of Rinty and Lee Duncan.  It never occurred to me that I would learn so much or that it would become a door to long forgotten memories of my own.

Of course I have really fond memories of the TV show, the Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin; it was a favorite of mine.  And though I actually preferred that show to Lassie, I knew much more about Lassie and the Weatherwax family.  I’m not sure why that is so, it doesn’t make sense to me now that I think about it, but there it is.  So reading about the early days of Rin-Tin-Tin and Lee Duncan were a revelation. I was totally unaware that Rinty had made so many silent films and I had really never heard of Duncan. But what I found in the book was a strange and nostalgic trip though my own life; memories of growing up; memories of a time that seems not so long ago.

I was born and raised in Glendale, California; the “Jewel City”, a ‘bedroom community of Los Angeles.  I lived there until I was 35....a memory-packed 35 years.  And strangely, a lot of that time intertwines with the story of Rinty and Duncan and Bert Leonard.  Bert Leonard, who Orlean describes in beautifully descriptive terms, lived on Los Feliz Boulevard.  Los Feliz, which runs from Glendale, just north of Forest Lawn, to Western in Hollywood.  A road I traveled a lot in my youth;  to Griffith Park Fountain, Griffith Park, the Observatory, the Zoo, Ferndale, the Carousel, Riverside Drive, to Western and down to Hollywood Drive.  

Above Los Feliz is a Frank Lloyd Wright structure known as Ennis House.  The house we drove to frequently when teenagers before we knew who Frank Lloyd Wright was, because the exterior had been used in the ‘horror’ film “The House on Haunted Hill”.  

We drove down Los Feliz to Hollywood Boulevard, to Stan’s Drive Inn for a  burger, then back up Sunset to Western, and back to Los Feliz, back home. It was our weekend ‘drive’.  Well, you get the idea.  

Rinty, the beautifully sleek, intelligent and agile German Shepherd that I watched on the TV at my Nana’s house. My Nana, dead these many years; born about the same time as Duncan.  Wispy memories mixing with real people mixing with ghosts from the past.

I’m grateful to Susan Orlean for the learning experience, for the joy of her prose.  But, I’m more grateful for the slew of memories that poured out of the pages of a book that really had little to do with my life, and everything to do with the world I grew up in.  Thanks, Susan.

Michele Bachmann and Shooting The Messenger

During an interview with Matt Lauer of the Today Show, Michele Bachmann strongly implied that it was possible for a young girl to "suffer from mental retardation" because of taking the HPV injection.  She made the statement in response to this question by Lauer:  "Do you feel he placed the health and safety of young girls in the state of Texas behind, or below, the need for campaign funds?" (at 2:00 mark).  Interestingly enough, it appears that Ms. Bachmann fully intended to get the remarks about retardation into the interview whether or not Lauer asked such a question.


Immediately prior to the question being asked, Ms. Bachmann made some interesting and reasonable claims about Gov. Rick Perry's "probable" crony-capitalism in unilaterally signing an Executive Order mandating the vaccine for young girls.  These were strong statements which, from her point of view, rightfully questioned Perry for not taking the issue through hearings and the legislative process.  Her case was beautifully made but apparently she didn't think it had the necessary punch and decided to add 

"...(Perry) signed a requirement that all innocent twelve year old, or eleven year old, girls in the state of Texas be forced by the government to take an injection of what could be potentially a very dangerous drug, and after the debate last night........."  


Matt Lauer Interview with Michele Bachmann

Given what came next in the interview, is there any doubt what she was going to say to reinforce her statement that the drug was potentially very dangerous?  

Now Ms. Bachmann is trying to distance herself from the statements made during that interview saying:

"All I was doing is relaying what a woman had said," Bachmann told The Associated Press after touring a manufacturer in Waterloo. "I relayed what she said. I wasn't attesting to her accuracy. I wasn't attesting to anything." 

The statement is disingenuous at best and an out and out falsehood at worst.  Ms. Bachmann, you should honestly own up to the gaffe and take responsibility for it.  If you weren't trying to imply that the drug was so dangerous as to perhaps cause mental retardation, then why in the world did you feel the necessity to ensure you got the statement on air?  It was irresponsible.  You need to own that, admit it, and then you can move on.  But to put the blame on an innocent and clearly mis-informed anonymous woman, well, that is really dangerous. 

Michele Bachmann's sphere of influence is a hundred thousand fold greater than that one anonymous woman with her unsupported statements about her daughter.  She knows that and yet she chose to repeat the claim on a major network television show.  Not only chose to repeat it, she made damned sure she got the statement on the air because she wanted the implication out there.  Ms. Bachmann cannot and should not assume that the American public is so stupid as not to understand what she was doing.  We do.  Can you say, SCARE TACTICS?