Tony Piazza's Blog, page 11
August 1, 2012
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze & Me by Tony Piazza
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze & Me by Tony Piazza Comic book heroes have garnered big box office receipts for a number of years, and still are, as evidenced by The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spiderman. But what most fans do not realize is that publications known as “pulps” led [...]
July 31, 2012
Singing with Pernell Roberts by Tony Piazza
Singing with Pernell Roberts by Tony Piazza Roberts as Adam Cartwright (Bonanza) This reminiscence is due to a wonderful biographical article that I read recently on the Turner Classic Movie site. It reminded me of the time when PERNELL ROBERTS was a guest star on “The Streets of San Francisco” in 1977. The episode was entitled “Breakup,” and [...]
July 30, 2012
Two Anecdotes from Peter Ustinov by Tony Piazza
Two Anecdotes from Peter Ustinov by Tony Piazza Sir Peter Ustinov Sir PETER USTINOV…actor, author, and man of too many other accomplishments to fully do him justice here. I took this photograph (below) just before a personal introduction we were given him during a reception in San Francisco back in the [...]
July 27, 2012
The Streets of San Francisco: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Lunch by Tony Piazza
The Streets of San Francisco: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Lunch by Tony Piazza During the fourth season of “The Streets of San Francisco” we did a two parter which was going to write MICHAEL DOUGLAS’S character, Steve Keller, out of the show and introduce RICHARD HATCH as detective Dan Robbins. This episode [...]
July 26, 2012
Working with a Legend by Tony Piazza
WORKING WITH A LEGEND by Tony Piazza I was watching a young Fred Astaire in “Top Hat” on DVD last night and thought back to the summer I worked with him during the “autumn” of his life in 1973. It was during the shoot of Irwin Allen’s “Towering Inferno” at San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency Hotel [...]
July 25, 2012
On Location with Leslie Nielsen by Tony Piazza
On Location with Leslie Nielsen by Tony Piazza Mr. Nielsen and my father, from “The Streets of San Francisco.” In 1976 I worked on a Quinn Martin T.V. movie entitled “Brinks: The Great Robbery.” In it I was as a stand-in for STEPHEN COLLINS (“Star Trek-The Motion Picture”) . ”Brinks” also starred LESLIE NIELSEN during his [...]
July 24, 2012
Natalie Wood and Bob Wagner by Tony Piazza
Natalie Wood and Bob Wagner by Tony Piazza Whenever the media revisits the death of Natalie Wood in 1981 I cannot help but reflect back to a time when I worked with Bob Wagner and saw Natalie for the first time. Bob Wagner was in two TV crime series pilots filmed in San Francisco. The first was [...]
July 23, 2012
My Italian Buddy, Paul Sorvino by Tony Piazza
My Italian Buddy, Paul Sorvino by Tony Piazza Paul Sorvino and my mother in 1976. My Italian buddy, PAUL SORVINO (Goodfellas, Law and Order), an accomplished actor who has appeared in numerous roles on television and feature films. He was born in April of 1939 to an Italian American family whose descendants came from Naples. Raised in [...]
July 20, 2012
On the Set with Brenda Vaccaro by Tony Piazza
On the Set with Brenda Vaccaro by Tony Piazza I knew BRENDA VACCARO through MICHAEL DOUGLAS. During the years that we filmed “The Streets of San Francisco” they were an “item”. There was a five year difference between the two; Michael being born in 1944 and Brenda in 1939. When they met, Brenda’s career was [...]
July 19, 2012
MISSION: EMBARRASSING by Tony Piazza
MISSION: EMBARRASSING by Tony Piazza One fine summer day, A.T.A. (during the Age of Television Antennas) I decided to go visit my father on location for an episode of “Mission Impossible” (The original T.V. series, C.B.S.). Actually the company was shooting the prologue for a number of episodes where Phelps gets his instructions via the [...]
