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Lorna Gray at "SerialFest," Newtown PA, 5/18 - 5/21

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  • Meet Lorna Gray at SerialFest: May 18, 2006 - May 21, 2006

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Offline BeAStooge

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Adrian Booth Brian, aka "Lorna Gray," costar of several Three Stooges comedies will be the special guest at the SerialFest Film Festival, held in Newtown, PA on May 18 - 21.  Newtown is a few miles north of Philadelphia, just off I-95.

Adrian costarred with the Stooges in YOU NAZTY SPY! (1940), THREE SAPPY PEOPLE (1939) and ROCKIN' THRU THE ROCKIES (1940).

http://www.serialsquadron.com/serialfest/index.htm
Link above for full information.
Basic info and a few "Lorna Gray" related highlights, from SerialFest's website...

Quote
SerialFest 2006
The world's only all-serial film festival, and the most fun a serial fan can have.
Featuring special guest Adrian Booth.
Thursday – Sunday
May 18 – 21, 2006

Location:
The Newtown Theater (Daytime film screenings)
120 N. State Street, Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
215-968-3859
(Newtown is Exit 49 off I-95 between Philadelphia and Princeton NJ)

May 19 – 20, 2006
16mm/35mm Films to be screened at the Newtown Theater
Friday 10am - 5:30pm / Saturday 10am - 5:30pm
Digital video, dinners & additional activities Thursday-Friday-Saturday evenings & Sunday morning/afternoon at the Hampton Inn and nearby restaurants.

Reservation & Ticket Information
Adult admission
$65 for all events
$90 including Saturday dinner

Kids/Students
Free admission to shows
$25/ Saturday dinner

Copies of the Adrian Booth art print will be distributed at the Friday evening dinner/autograph signing session at the Hampton Inn meeting room.

SerialFest is a not-for-profit event. All those who work on SerialFest are volunteers, and box office receipts from the show benefit future events, the Yak Awards, and film preservation projects. All overrun from box office receipts collected for SerialFest will be directed to serial film preservation or to acquisition of chapters from the Library of Congress.

Friday May 19
Hampton Meeting Room
6:00 Pizza / Trivia Contest / Auction / Adrian Booth Autograph session
DAUGHTER OF DON Q featuring Lorna Gray/Adrian Booth
THE GIRL WHO DARED featuring Lorna Gray/Adrian Booth

Saturday May 20
CAPTAIN AMERICA featuring Lorna Gray/Adrian Booth
5pm Adrian Booth Curtain Call

6:00 Temperance House
Annual Squadron Dinner / Yak Award / Picture/ Photo presentation
Adrian Booth interview

8:30 Hampton Inn Meeting Room
Adrian Booth Clips
PEST FROM THE WEST (1939) featuring Lorna Gray/Adrian Booth, with Buster Keaton
Other Comedy Shorts featuring Lorna Gray


Dog Hambone

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I saw somewhere that Lorna Gray, in Three Sappy People, choked on that pastry that was lobbed right into her open mouth & needed medical attention.

Brent, by the way I really enjoy your missing & or deleted scripts features in The Three Stogges Journal. 


Pilsner Panther

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I wish I didn't live 2,500 or so miles away from this great lady, because I'd sure like to meet her. Adrian (Lorna) worked with both the Stooges and with Buster Keaton, at Columbia.

She's "soitenly" earned her slapstick credentials!

 [whoo]


Offline JazzBill

I wish I didn't live 2,500 or so miles away from this great lady, because I'd sure like to meet her. Adrian (Lorna) worked with both the Stooges and with Buster Keaton, at Columbia.

She's "soitenly" earned her slapstick credentials!

 [whoo]
I just missed it by a week. I was on vacation this week, if I would took the next week I could of made it. It's only about 850 miles from me. I would of loved to meet her. I liked her in the Stooge shorts and I especially liked her in "Pest From The West", with Buster Keaton.  Another one I would like to meet is Frances McCoy. I believe she is still alive but I don't know what condition she's in.
"When in Chicago call Stockyards 1234, Ask for Ruby".


Offline garystooge

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     Frank Reighter and I went to visit Adrian Booth Brian at the SerialFest event this weekend.  She was very happy to see us and forced us (well, little force was required) to sit next to her for a couple hours as she signed autographs for fans. I'm happy to report that she appears to be in good health for age 87, and seems mentally as sharp as she was when she came in for the fan club meeting in 2004.
     It was interesting learning about her non-Stooges films, as the SerialFest crowd is as passionate about that film genre as we are about the Stooges. While we love Adrian as "Mattie Herring" and "Sherry Rumsford", they adore her as "Vultura" (from "The Perils of Nyoka").
     I also picked up a few tidbits of info about each of her 4 Stooges film appearances. In "Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise", after Curly says that April, May & June are three of the prettiest months of the year, Adrian replies (in a deep Southern accent) something like, "Why y'all say the kindest things".  I asked her why she spoke with a Southern accent, since neither the Widow Jenkins nor the other daughters had any accent at all. She said that Jules White instructed her to do so and in fact, White was so taken with the way that she delivered that single line that he gave her the lead role in the next two Stooges shorts ("Three Sappy People" and "You Nazty Spy").
     I also asked her about the much-repeated story that during "Three Sappy People", a piece of pastry that was thrown at her lodged in her throat and she required emergency medical attention. She said that was way overblown, however Jules White did instruct that the pastry was to be thrown at her at the precise moment her mouth was wide open to get the most comic effect.
    Adrian was not aware that "You Nazty Spy" had been colorized and was curious to see it. I told her that her hair color in the colorized version appeared to be a reddish brown, not dark brown or black. She confirmed that it was indeed auburn for that film.
    As for her final Stooges film, "Rockin Thru the Rockies", Ed Bernds had said that Adrian was deathly afraid of the bear that was on the set and that Larry Fine had sneaked up behind her and piched her on the leg, scaring the heck out of her because she thought it was the bear. Adrian had no recollection of this at all, and claimed she wouldn't have been afraid of the bear.
    Adrian sends her regards to all the Stooges' fans and hopes that we'll have her back at one of our meetings in near future.

Gary


Offline jrvass

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Thanks for the report!  :D

James
This prestigious award, has been presented to you.
Because your belly sticks out farther than your Dickey-Do!


Offline garystooge

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Quote
Thanks for the report!
You're welcome. I neglected to mention one other thing about "You Nazty Spy". There's a line where Adrian says, "Last one in is a Republican".  This was funny back then because the Republicans had been trounced big-time in the 1936 Presidential elections.  Well, Adrian is now a staunch Republican and mentioned she wished she could change the line to "Last one in is a Democrat"!
Gary


Offline JazzBill

I am totally green with ENVY. Good job of reporting though.
 [yes]     [yes]       [yes]         [yes]        [yes]         [highfive] 
"When in Chicago call Stockyards 1234, Ask for Ruby".


Offline jrvass

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You're welcome. I neglected to mention one other thing about "You Nazty Spy". There's a line where Adrian says, "Last one in is a Republican".  This was funny back then because the Republicans had been trounced big-time in the 1936 Presidential elections.  Well, Adrian is now a staunch Republican and mentioned she wished she could change the line to "Last one in is a Democrat"!
Gary

I don't know how to attach a file here, so this will have to do.

http://home.comcast.net/~jrvass/Greatest_Movie_Line_Ever.wmv

James
This prestigious award, has been presented to you.
Because your belly sticks out farther than your Dickey-Do!


Pilsner Panther

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Gary, let me add my thanks here for filling us in on the event. 87 and still going strong, that's great!

I've seen quite a few of the older jazz musicians, most of whom are now gone: Stephane Grappelli, Doc Cheatham, Ralph Sutton, and Jay McShann, to name just a few, and there's something about having an appreciative audience that seems to keep a person young. The very last time Stephane Grappelli toured, he was 89 and so frail that he had to be helped out onto the stage and play sitting down, but the minute he picked up his violin, the years fell away and he played with all the fire and imagination of a 25-year-old virtuoso. Everyone there was amazed by the transformation.

I guess the same sort of "magic" is working in (Adrian) Lorna's case... good for her! 

[thumbsup]


Offline garystooge

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87 and still going strong, that's great!

Fact is, she seems virtually the same mentally and physically as when I first met her back in the mid 1990s. The only difference I notice is that she doesn't talk about her deceased husband, David Brian, quite as much as she did back then. He had just passed away at that time and she was quite devoted to him. She still passes out inspirational poetry that he wrote, but doesn't seem to dwell on him quite as much.

The best thing about Adrian is that she spends time with each fan. Many autograph signers today are machine-like....they don't even look up at the person they're signing for. If Adrian has a line of 4 people waiting for her, it can take 20 minutes until the last person gets to the front of the line. When you hand her a photo to sign, she inevitably relates a story about the dress she was wearing, the other actors in the scene, the wig she was forced to wear, etc.  She's one of our final links to the "golden days" of Hollywood, with plenty of stories to tell about the big-name stars that she worked and hung-out with.  Hopefully she'll be around for many years to come.
Gary