tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146900851769565592.post2140589035749050357..comments2023-07-14T07:14:03.947-05:00Comments on Armchair Actorvist: Fate's TouchArmchair Actorvisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02873366521914303194noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146900851769565592.post-12123553366840676592020-08-18T20:10:03.236-05:002020-08-18T20:10:03.236-05:00I just saw Maryellen in an old episode of "An...I just saw Maryellen in an old episode of "Annie Oakley" from the 50s. She was a natural. Texascomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09010930342036623294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146900851769565592.post-33029901413521533032014-09-20T23:24:09.386-05:002014-09-20T23:24:09.386-05:00[A revised version of a comment I had tried to sen...[A revised version of a comment I had tried to send earlier, which maybe didn't reach its destination)<br /><br />I wanted to thank you for your reminiscence about Maryellen Clemons. She was my girlfriend for a time when we were students at Hollywood High School in 1959-61. (I had transferred there from a West L. A. high school to study acting and directing with the great John Ingle, the best teacher I ever had, himself a Los Angeles theater and eventually film and TV actor of some renown, best known for a starring role in the TV soap "General Hospital." John Ingle's students included my classmates Swoosie Kurtz and Stephanie Powers, and later, Barbara Hershey, Richard Dreyfus, and Nicholas Cage.) <br /><br />Maryellen and I became friends when I directed her in a Hollywood High "Thursday Theater" lunch-hour production of J. M. Synge's "Riders to the Sea." I had cast her in not in the starring role but in a substantial supporting role, which she played with a terrific Irish accent. The lead role went to Susan Slavin, who, like Maryellen, later established a career as a respected drama teacher--in her case, in NYC. (Susan was close, in the ensuing years, with a classmate of ours named Larry Moskowitz, who, as Larry Moss, has become a professional acting teacher of some renown in the Los Angeles area.) <br /> <br />Maryellen and I started going out not long after "Riders to the Sea" and enjoyed a brief romance before I got drawn off in other directions. At Hollywood High, I experienced, for the first time in my life, being chased by girls and I sort of gave myself over to it, despite a history of shyness. My starring in HHS plays sort of helped, but I was pretty full of myself in those days. <br /><br />Two other girls I was close to at the time, Liana Engstrom (later Jena Engstrom), who had transferred with me from University High School, and Patricia Hyland, both had careers acting in TV Westerns in the 1960s. Liana/Jena's career was sadly cut short by a mental breakdown in the mid-'60s and she still suffers from schizophrenia today at age 73, and lives in a mental institution. <br /><br />I'm grateful to Maryellen for staying friends with me throughout our high school years, and though we fell out of touch after that, I've always felt a warm spot in my heart for her and was very saddened to learn of her death during the past decade. <br /><br />I enjoyed the Armchair Actorvist reminiscence, with its mixture of exasperation and appreciation, because it conveyed a sense of reality. <br /><br />I never became an actor (though as a sometime poet, I still give occasional public readings). As a theater arts major at UCLA, I had to forgo the ego gratifications I had basked in during high school, though I did play a pretty substantial supporting role in a one-act comedy, the name of which I can no longer remember. I soon got drawn off into the study of literature, and eventually became an academic. For the past two decades I've been a film historian on the cinema of Jewish experience.<br /><br /> Joel RosenbergJoel Rosenbergnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146900851769565592.post-54350845844802782014-09-20T23:14:12.393-05:002014-09-20T23:14:12.393-05:00I left a rather detailed reminiscence of Maryellen...I left a rather detailed reminiscence of Maryellen but I'm not sure it got there, because of some difficulties with the sending procedure. I can provide it if it was not received.<br /><br />Also I'd appreciate it if Anonymous, who wrote the October 13, 2013 entry, would contact me. We surely must have been classmates with Maryellen in John Ingle's class between 1959 and 1961, and I'd welcome conversation. Please contact joel.rosenberg@tufts.eduJoel Rosenberg = joel.rosenberg@tufts.edu..noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146900851769565592.post-10066099796870295572013-10-22T00:04:47.496-05:002013-10-22T00:04:47.496-05:00I read this with some sadness. I knew Maryellen b...I read this with some sadness. I knew Maryellen back in Hollywood High school, in John Ingle's drama class. I remember her as a fun, lively kid. We were only casual friends, but she once gave me a ride home (we lived on the same street) in her car that rattle so badly I thought it would fall apart. I've never seen her since high school but at this moment I see her clearly as she was then, easy going and funny.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com