Posted on 07/17/2018 4:40:21 PM PDT by eastforker
“How he dived 30 feet from the bridge of the mine-sweeper into the Mediterranean with the pipe he was smoking still tight in his teeth, and won himself a four-legged pal at the same time, is the story told in a letter home from Soundman 2c C. Leroy Van Cleef Jr. 20, U.S. Navy of 198 North Bridge St. H wrote his parents. “We were along the coast and had our new mascot aboard. It was a fairly heavy sea (and cold water, I might add). Our mascot happens to be a spaniel of some sort. We call the water-loving hound 'Rusty'. “Well, Rusty was out on the fantail this day and a wave came along, washing her overboard. We had to get permission to break formation and go back for her. That took us about 15 minutes until we finally found her. I was up on the bridge at the time, smoking my pipe. Well, I shed the knife I had on and my shoes, and yelled up for permission to go after her. 'Permission granted.' “So I dove off the bridge. When I hit the water, I heard something snap in my mouth. That happened to be my pipe while diving about 30 feet. I don't know how my teeth escaped breaking. Luck, I call it. However, I got Rusty all right. She was swimming to beat everything. Quite a current too. They threw us a life ring and pulled us aboard. “Yesterday I was out on the fantail and the sea was rushing up on the deck. Rusty came up and snuggled around my legs. I guess that swim was worth my favorite pipe.”
Always liked him. Another of my favorites was a WWII Navy petty officer ... Don Rickles.
Just a bit over 3 years and almost made Chief.
The folks of Hollywood.. They sure ain’t like that nowadays....
You missed him here. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3668405/posts
Reality is always better than fiction. It’s character without a script.
I love this series. Thanks for taking it on.
You are welcome but the list keeps getting longer and longer.
He was in one of my favorite episodes of the original Twilight Zone, a western titled The Grave.
Plot
The outlaw Pinto Sykes is ambushed by the men of the town in the middle of the street. Some time later, gun-for-hire Conny Miller, who had been hired to track down Sykes, arrives in town. He goes to the saloon where the men who hired him are gathered and is angry to learn that they had dispatched Sykes themselves.
Moreover, on his deathbed Sykes accused Miller of being a coward, saying he left a clue he was in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Miller never followed it up, presumably being afraid to confront Sykes. He also made a vow to reach up and grab Miller if he ever came near his grave.
Miller says that Sykes was a liar, claiming he went to Albuquerque and found no sign that Sykes had ever been there, and also denies that he is at all frightened by Sykes’s threat of vengeance from beyond the grave.
The men are not convinced, openly admitting they themselves are frightened of Sykes, and dare Miller to make a midnight visit to Sykes’s grave.
Miller is told to stick a knife into the burial mound as proof that he had visited the grave.
After being confronted by Sykes’s sister Ione, Miller treks in the cold, windy darkness to the cemetery and, at midnight, kneels at the grave and plants the knife.
But as he attempts to leave, he is suddenly pulled back down.
The next day, Miller has still not returned. The townsmen, accompanied by Ione, visit the cemetery in search of Miller.
They find Miller lying dead atop Sykes’s grave, with his knife through his coat pinning him to the ground.
Steinhart [Van Clef] deduces that the wind blew Miller’s coat over the grave, he stuck the knife through his coattail unknowingly, and as he stood up afterward, he mistook the pinned coat’s resistance for Sykes’s grip and died of fright.
However, Ione points out that since the wind was blowing from the south that night, it would have blown Miller’s coat away from the grave, not over it.
She then laughs mockingly at the stupefied men.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grave_(The_Twilight_Zone)
Cas
Lee Marvin as Conny Miller
James Best as Johnny Rob
Lee Van Cleef as Steinhart
Strother Martin as Mothershed
Stafford Repp as Ira Broadly
Elen Willard as Ione Sykes
Dick Geary as Pinto Sykes
William Challee as Jason
Larry Johns as Townsman
Anybody who was anyone had to do TTZ or the original Gunsmoke. Badge of honor and all that.
That is a great episode.
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance!
Forgot about that one.
Lee Marvin, who of course played LV in the film, also starred in the TZ episode I referred to.
That he did. They probably hung out together at the local VFW.
In high school I dated a girl whose father was a dead - ringer for Van Cleef. And he was a cop. Talk about intimidating!
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