• Happy 95th — Dame Patricia Routledge!

    Happy 95th — Dame Patricia Routledge!

    One of the few upsides of digging out after another year of semi-living under an ever-present pandemic cloud is the opportunity to send good wishes for a very happy birthday to the brilliant Dame Katherine Patricia Routledge, who turns 95 today. Given Hyacinth would have been appalled at the possibility that I might forget to drop […]

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  • Happy belated 89th, Dame Maggie Smith!

    Happy belated 89th, Dame Maggie Smith!

      Fresh on the heels of one of the all-time greats of the acting world (Dame Judi Dench) turning 89 earlier this month on December 9, we now have the brilliant opportunity to celebrate another ‘Dame’ as she also turned 89 this past week – Dame Maggie Smith. Although she has achieved worldwide recognition with […]

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  • Remembering and wishing Mollie Sugden a happy heavenly 101st birthday!

    Remembering and wishing Mollie Sugden a happy heavenly 101st birthday!

    Mollie Sugden would have been 101 this past Friday. We, at Tellyspotting, wish her the best heavenly birthday, albeit a bit belated. For almost thirty years, Mollie Sugden brought smiles and outright laughter to not only the North Texas area, but to the world, as Mrs. Slocombe on Are You Being Served. One can’t help […]

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  • Happy 94th — Dame Patricia Routledge!

    Happy 94th — Dame Patricia Routledge!

    One of the few upsides of another year of semi-living under a pandemic cloud is the opportunity to send good wishes for a very happy birthday to the brilliant Dame Patricia Routledge, who turns 94 today. Given Hyacinth would have been appalled at the possibility that I might forget to drop a card in the […]

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  • Nicholas Lyndhurst joins cast of ‘Frasier’ sequel

    Nicholas Lyndhurst joins cast of ‘Frasier’ sequel

    It seems as though Frasier Crane has finally re-entered the building as news that the long-awaited Paramount+ sequel to Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier series has begun casting. Nicholas Lyndhurst (Butterflies, Only Fools and Horses, After You’ve Gone, Goodnight Sweetheart, New Tricks) will portray Alan Cornwall, a new character from Frasier’s past. Described as “Frasier’s old college buddy turned university professor, Cornwall is British, he’s boozy, and he’s larger than life.

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  • Happy belated 68th, Rowan Atkinson!

    Happy belated 68th, Rowan Atkinson!

    Rowan Atkinson turned 68 on Friday. From this end, all we can do is wish him a very Happy Belated Birthday. All he’s done is give the world the gift of laughter over the years beginning with Not the Nine O’Clock News, then Blackadder, Mr. Bean and, finally, The Thin Blue Line. Stops along the […]

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  • Recapping a 2016 brush with greatness while wishing Bill Nighy a very happy belated 73rd birthday!

    Recapping a 2016 brush with greatness while wishing Bill Nighy a very happy belated 73rd birthday!

    One of the all-time greats celebrated another trip around the Sun recently. William Frances (a.k.a. Bill) Nighy turned 73 on December 12. From Love Actually to Pirates of the Carribean to Pirate Radio to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz to State of Play and the Johnny Worricker trilogy of Page Eight, Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield, Bill Nighy can do no wrong in […]

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  • Happy 88th, Dame Judi Dench!

    Happy 88th, Dame Judi Dench!

    If it wasn’t the case before, I’m now fully convinced that if you looked up the definition of brilliant in the dictionary, there would simply be a photo of Dame Judi Dench. The Oscar/Tony/BAFTA/Laurence Olivier/Golden Globe/Screen Actors Guild award winner turns 88 years young today and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

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  • Derek Royle — a 30+ yr career that included one episode of ‘Fawlty Towers’

    Derek Royle — a 30+ yr career that included one episode of ‘Fawlty Towers’

    Watching Fawlty Towers recently, I got to thinking about all those British actors that had long, successful careers but that, for whatever reason, would be forever known as ‘being in one episode of Fawlty Towers.” I immediately flashed back to the time we had the good fortune to interview Nicky Henson in 2005 for the PBS program, […]

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