BackinMemphis

Actor Ross Hagen has died at the age of 72. Hagen, a regular on the 1960s TV adventure show Daktari, passed away on 7 May (11) in Brentwood, California after a battle with prostate cancer. The actor made appearances on TV Westerns such as The Big Valley and The Virginian in the mid-1960s and also co-starred with Elvis Presley in Speedway. He is best known for playing hunter Bart Jason in Daktari, about an animal study centre in Africa. Hagen also went on to write and direct, helming Time Wars and The Media Madman. He is survived by his partner, Lee Srednick, a son and a daughter, according to Variety.com.

Elvis Presley is so iconic, it's sometimes hard to remember he was just a guy. And bodyguard Sam Thompson remembers Elvis as a funny guy. Elvis would quote Peter Sellers' lines from "Pink Panther" movies on tour, Thompson says: "Things would be going crazy, and he would look at somebody and go, 'Do you have rhoom?' " in Sellers' Inspector Clouseau accent. Or, "Does your dog bite?" The King loved "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," the Black Knight scene in particular. After a bad show, he would tell guys backstage, in character, "It's only a flesh wound." Thompson, who later became a lawyer, judge and music producer with David Foster, lives in Las Vegas. This weekend, he, local singer Nellie Norris and I judged Fremont Street's Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest. (Winner: Las Vegan Johnny Fortuno.) Thompson regaled the crowd with a great story about Elvis' onstage splits. "Elvis would

America may not find out the winner of this season’s popular TV show “American Idol” until the end of the month, but the fate of its parent company is clear.Media company CKx Inc., which owns proprietary rights to “Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” said Tuesday is being sold to a private equity group for about $511 million in cash.. CKx also owns the rights to the name, image and likeness of Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali. The buyout group, led by Apollo Global Management, agreed to pay $5.50 per share for CKx, a 24 percent premium to the stock’s closing price Monday of $4.45. Shares rose $1.02, or 22.9 percent, to $5.47 in morning trading Tuesday. The company had about 92.9 million shares outstanding as of March 31. The board and The Promenade Trust, a group that benefits Lisa Marie Presley and is the company’s partner managing the Elvis Presley name, support the deal, as does Robert F.X. Sillerman, the company’s largest shareholder with a nearly 21 percent stake. A cash ten

Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and “Attack of the Giant Leeches,” was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said. Jan Shepard who starred in Attack of the Giant Leeches with Yvette told backinmemphis.com exclusively, she was very sad to hear the lost of her friend Yvette. Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Drive home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year, police said. The official cause of death will by determined by the Los Angeles county coroner's office, but police said they saw no sign of foul play. Vickers had lived in the 1920s-era stone and wood home for decades, and it served as the background for some of her famous modeling pictures. But over time it had becom

Elvis biographer Marshall Terrill will make his big screen debut with a Steve McQueen biopic and hopes producers will give “The King” the royal treatment for his next screen adaptation. The Hollywood Reporter announced on April 28 that two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner ( The Hurt Locker and The Town ) has formed a production company, The Combine, and will play Steve McQueen in an upcoming biopic. “I'm absolutely thrilled because this has been 20 years in the making,” said Terrill, who has written three books on Presley. “Renner is perfect as McQueen and is probably the hottest star on the planet right now.” Writer-director James Gray , who wrote and directed We Own the Night and Two Lovers , is attached to write the McQueen screenplay, which will be based on the two books by Marshall Terrill : Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel (1993) and Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon (2010) . Video director Ivan Zacharias is attached to mak

Choose Your Region US Price incl. S/H $14.99 Outside US Price incl. S/H $19.99 Paperback: 237 pages Publisher: Daywind (September 2009) Language: English JD had first written his autobiography in 1971, “Gospel Music Is My Life” with writer Bob Terrell. After Mary’s death, he and Terrell rewrote and updated the book, changing the title to “The Life And Times Of JD Sumner”. This book is now out of print as well, but if you find a copy of it, you’ll see JD’s colorful life story told in his own words…a “must-read” for any serious gospel music fan. There are 2 entire chapters devoted to Elvis ! The introduction is written by James Blackwood . This 2009 expanded edition includes lots of photos spanning JD's career. Price includes shipping and handling....act fast! These books are brand new and not used copies! So act fast! 14.99 for US residents and 19.99 for the rest of the world.