Michael Blodgett, 68, an actor best known for his role as Lance Rocke in the 1970 cult film “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” and who went on to write novels and screenplays, died Nov. 14 at his Los Angeles home of an apparent heart attack, his ex-wife said.
Blodgett found early success as a television host, first in 1967 as the emcee of “Groovy,” a beach-party pop-music program that aired weekday evenings on a local TV station. The next year he switched to more serious fare with “The Michael Blodgett Show” on another station. The 90-minute talk show ran Saturday nights and featured such guests as composer Henry Mancini, actresses Connie Stevens and Agnes Moorehead, and comedian Pat Paulsen.
By 1970, Blodgett had resumed acting, including “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” the X-rated film about an all-girl rock ‘n’ roll band that was directed by Russ Meyer and written by film critic Roger Ebert. Blodgett switched his focus to writing novels in the 1970s, and some of his stories were later turned into movies.
He had a best seller with the 1982 thriller “Captain Blood” and then teamed with writing partner Dennis Shryack. Blodgett and Shryack turned Blodgett’s “Hero and the Terror,” published in 1982, into a screenplay for the 1988 Chuck Norris martial-arts movie. The pair also co-wrote the screenplays for the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy “Turner and Hooch” and the 1987 Burt Reynolds action movie “Rent-a-Cop.”
Francine Parker, 81, director of a controversial anti-Vietnam War documentary film that mixed footage of spoofing entertainers, including Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, with interviews with disillusioned soldiers, died Nov. 8 near her home in Los Angeles.
The cause was heart failure, said Jay Stephens Rodriguez, a friend of Parker’s who was technical director for “FTA.” The film is based on a 1971 tour to entertain members of the military. Its title “stood for ‘free the Army’ publicly,” Rodriguez said Wednesday. “The troops had another phrase.” He added: “Our audience was the soldiers who were fighting the war bravely and loyally but were against the concept of the war.” For Parker, the film “was the pinnacle of her political activism,” Rodriguez said.
Produced by Fonda and Sutherland, among others, the tour and the film offered a vaudeville-style array of politically satirical skits, songs and dances, intended as an alternative to USO shows like those starring Bob Hope. Soldiers interviewed in “FTA” voiced outright opposition to the war or, in some instances, complaints about the U.S. Army.
The film was released in July 1972 and shown at selected theaters across the country, but in less than a week, it was pulled from distribution.
