DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

Contributors

ALEX STRACHAN

MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

ROGER CATLIN

GARY EDGERTON

TOM BRINKMOELLER

GERALD JORDAN

NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
ROBERT OSBORNE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
May 3, 2018  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

 

Today is the birthday of Robert Osborne, the classy host of classic films on TCM for so many years. As a remembrance, the network tonight presents two relatively recent specials celebrating the late Osborne’s on-air impact as the face and spirit of Turner Classic Movies when it launched in 1994. The first, at 8 p.m. ET, is a very special edition of Private Screenings, in which co-host Alec Baldwin surprised Osborne in 2014 by making him the subject, not the host, of the show. Then, at 11:30 p.m. ET, TCM presents what for Osborne was another celebratory surprise: Robert Osborne’s 20th Anniversary Tribute, sprung upon him, by some surprise special guests (including Eva Marie Saint), at the 2014 TCM Classic Film Festival. The tribute tonight on TCM also includes screenings of two of Osborne’s very favorite movies. At 9:30 p.m. ET, there’s the way-ahead-of-its time Dodsworth from 1936. And ending the salute at 12:30 a.m. ET is 1944’s Laura, starring Gene Tierney as the murder victim whose framed portrait so haunts the detective working on the case that he falls in love with her memory. That portrait of and in Laura inspired the central Laura Palmer mystery of Twin Peaks, among other things – and also inspired Osborne, who tracked down and bought the original painting and had it hanging, in proud display, in his New York apartment.

 
 
 
 
 
Leave a Comment: (No HTML, 1000 chars max)
 
 Name (required)
 
 Email (required) (will not be published)
 
WIYTB
Type in the verification word shown on the image.