A Golden Age Hollywood star in every sense, at just 16 Ruta Lee was cast in the all-time great movie musical, 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', subsequently becoming the designated smoldering beauty, spicy sexpot and fiery vixen in iconic TV Westerns, mysteries and dramas of the '50s and '60s.

She is celebrating her 90th birthday in classic Ruta fashion: with a one-woman show, fabulously titled 'Consider Your Ass Kissed! This week she brings her legendary inside showbiz lore and boundless energy to the Media Path studio!

Ruta's story begins with her Lithuanian background and parents who escaped the oppression of the Communist regime to Montreal, Quebec, where Ruta was born, singing and dancing. Her mother reached out to a Lithuanian priest in Los Angeles and thus began the plan to head for Hollywood.

Ruta’s Hollywood High training prepared her to land roles on The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show, The Roy Rogers Show and then iconic films including Funny Face with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn and Sergeants Three with The Rat Pack!

Ruta recounts her heroic efforts to extract her Grandmother from a Siberian internment camp. She took her request straight to Khrushchev! She tells us about her work with The Thalians, an organization founded by Hollywood actors to help children receive mental health care. Also, what is Audrey Hepburn's keep-slim advice? And what job yielded Ruta the most lucrative income?

And with public speaking being our number one fear, Rick Mitchell joins us to talk about his new book, one of the most crucial reference guides of all time, 'How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding, Bar Mitzvah, Graduation & Every Other Event You Didn't Want to Go to in the First Place'!

In recommendations--

Weezy: "Reality Winner Noir" - Reality (2023) on Max and Winner (2024) on Hulu

Fritz: 'Nickel Boys' now streaming on Prime

Path Points of Interest:

Ruta Lee

Consider Your Ass Kissed by Ruta Lee

Ruta Lee in
“CONSIDER YOUR ASS KISSED”
At The Purple Room in Palm Springs, Saturday & Sunday, March 29th and 30th

at The El Portal Theatre, Friday, May 30th, 2025

Ruta Lee on Wikipedia

Ruta Lee on Facebook

The Thalians

Rick Mitchell

How to Write a Funny Speech Buy Links

Nickel Boys (2024)

Reality (2023) on Max

Winner (2024) on Hulu

Media Path Podcast

Sharon Scott Williams bares her soul in a play called Crazy Mama, a powerful, personal story that's at once unique and wholly relatable. It's about family, mental illness and the bonds and devotion that propel us to protect and defend those we hold dear.

Crazy Mama is running at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, CA March 26 - April 6, 2025. It stars Linda Purl and is directed by Anson Williams, both icons of classic TV, including Happy Days, and one of whom is married to playwright Sharon Scott Williams. (You only get one guess which.)

Sharon came home from school, at the age of eight, to find her mother wielding a knife, in a psychotic episode. The ensuing events led to extended hospitalization and a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Her family’s coping heroism inspired her, decades later, to write a memoir, which Sharon’s husband, actor and director Anson Williams (Yes, you guess correctly), felt would make an astonishing one-woman stage show.

With Linda Purl in the starring role (playing 16 different characters!) the stage play of 'Crazy Mama' gives audiences the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences and it provides a conduit to conversations about mental illness, trauma and family dynamics.

Sharon tells how the crafting of the play inspired the processing of her long buried, confusing emotional cocktail of fear, guilt, shame, and anger and with similar Virginia ancestral roots, Linda identified instantly with the work and the power of its messages.

Plus, Sharon, Anson and Linda all claim Covid Love stories! Sharon, an Ojai, California Real Estate agent, had shown Anson a house a decade earlier. But, with both of them single, she received a text invitation from him for lunch! They spent the pandemic falling in love.

Linda ran into an acquaintance with a very similar show-biz history, Patrick Duffy. Their mutual friend, Richard Thomas paved the way and their Zoom friendship blossomed into romance! Also, we are proud to present our all-new IMDB Roulette Sub Genre quiz sensation, Were You On It, featuring full disclosures about Anson and Linda’s appearances on: Baywatch, The Waltons, The Secret Storm, Fantasy Island, Black Market Baby and I Married A Centerfold!

In recommendations--

Weezy: Documentary Beatles 64 on Disney+

Fritz: Documentary Becoming Katharine Graham on Amazon Prime

Path Points of Interest:

Crazy Mama at The Rubicon Theatre

Anson Williams IMDB

Anson Williams Wikipedia

Anson Williams on Facebook

Linda Purl IMDB

Linda Purl Wikipedia

Linda Purl on Instagram

Linda Purl in "POSSIBILITIES - songs of HOPE, RISK and MAYBE" at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood

Beatles 64 - Disney+

Becoming Katharine Graham - Amazon Prime

Arnetia Walker has lit up stages and screens for decades and she joins us this week to review her stunning show biz resume, including her latest entry, Bookie, the Chuck Lorre Max comedy on which she is currently slaying as Grandma.

We are also joined by artist and Holocaust Survivor Erika Kahn, a first-hand witness to the consequences of authoritarian rule, scapegoating, and nationally sanctioned brutality. Erika offers vital insight for us in our fight against a dangerous wave of fascism.

Orphaned as a child, Arnetia Walker’s showbiz career began at New York City's High School for the Performing Arts where her talent and dreams were nurtured and encouraged. Arnetia was embraced by a similar culture of community and support when she won her first Broadway role with Hal Linden in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window and then A Raisin in the Sun. Both Lorraine Hansberry's plays.

With a favorable alignment of the stars and talent recognition from Michael Bennet, Arnetia went from understudying Stephanie Mills in The Wiz to co-starring in Dreamgirls… a show within which she ultimately played every starring character. (But not on the same night.)

As gifted an actor as she is a singer, Arnetia talks about her slew of TV appearances, including her lead role in the Witt Thomas Harris sitcom, Nurses and the circumstances under which that part prevented her from being cast in E.R.

Currently, she is stealing every scene as the ruthlessly direct Grandma in Bookie. Arnetia shares what it's like to work with Chuck Lorre and Sebastian Maniscalco. She tells us about her cabaret era and her passion for cooking and she boldly takes on a round of IMDB Roulette that jars some treasured TV memories!

Then, Centenarian Erika Kahn recalls her childhood in Nazi Germany, and she contrasts and compares the climate which led to the Nazi atrocities with that of our current perilous pivot point in America. Erika is a tenacious activist whose words of hope and optimism are essential for those of us taking on the rise of American fascism.

In recommendations --

Fritz: Netflix Series 'American Manhunt: OJ Simpson'

Weezy: The Movie 'Studio One Forever' (2023), streaming on several platforms

Path Points of Interest:

Arnetia Walker

Arnetia Walker on IMDB

Arnetia Walker on Wikipedia

Arnetia Walker on Tiktok

Bookie

Erika Kahn

We Played Marbles: Remembering A Stolen Childhood

A documentary featuring Erika Kahn

American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson

Studio One Forever