MORE RECENTLY UNEARTHED BITS & PIECES ABOUT CROTON NOTABLES PATRICIA BENOIT SWIFT, HOLBROOK BLINN, GLORIA SWANSON & JACKIE GLEASON

Welcome to Everything Croton, a collection of all things Croton -- our history, our homes, our issues, our businesses, our schools -- in short, EVERYTHING CROTON.

SOME MORE RECENTLY UNEARTHED BITS & PIECES ABOUT CROTON NOTABLES PATRICIA BENOIT SWIFT, HOLBROOK BLINN, GLORIA SWANSON and JACKIE GLEASON--click on the photos and links. 

First up, from RADIO TV MIRROR 1955, more about the late Croton notable and actress PATRICIA BENOIT SWIFT, in her role as MRS. PEEPERS to television's Wally Cox as MISTER PEEPERS. 

The show ran from 1952 through 1955; others in the cast included Tony Randall as history teacher Harvey Weskit; Georgann Johnson as Harvey's wife, Marge.

Benoit played county nurse Nancy Remington, later married to Peepers.  She lived in Croton from 1961 through 1981.  YOU CAN READ HER OBITUARY here.

Next up, a quick article from the 1927 PHOTOPLAY magazine about Holbrook Blinn, of Blinn Road fame here in Croton.  He's shown here with Madge Bellamy in THE TELEPHONE GIRL.

You can read more about it here. 

Unlike many films of this era, it survives today and is preserved at the EYE Institut aka Filmmuseum.

For those who don't know, Holbrook Blinn was a very well known silent film star, performer, producer and director of plays at the Princess Theatre. You can read more about Blinn here

And just for fun, from the 1927 PHOTOPLAYS COOK BOOK, here's a CREAMED FUDGE recipe attributed to  Croton's own Gloria Swanson!  One of the Everything  Croton Elves promises to give this one a try. We'll let you know how it turns out!  

Next, also from 1927, a brief blurb about Swanson and her "marquis" dispelling those divorce "rumors".  He was Swanson's third husband...a French aristocrat Henri, Marquis de la Falaise de la Coudraye, whom she married on January 28, 1925, after her divorce from second husband Herbert Somborn was finalized. Though Henri was a Marquis and the grandson of Richard and Martha Lucy Hennessy from the famous Hennessy Cognac family, he was not rich and had to work for a living. He was originally hired to be her assistant and interpreter in France while she was filming Madame Sans-Gêne (1925) with Warwick Ward.  Swanson was the first film star to marry European nobility, and the marriage became a global sensation, ending in divorce in 1930.

Next up, from 1959, a bit of good natured ribbing from Toots Shor about Jackie's Gleason's famous round Cortlandt house (described here as being in Peekskill). For those who don't know, Toots Shor's Restaurant was a restaurant and lounge owned and operated by Bernard "Toots" Shor at 51 West 51st Street in Manhattan during the 1940s and 1950s. As for Gleason, he was a frequent Croton visitor; for more, CLICK HERE

See the last edition of SOME MORE RECENTLY UNEARTHED BITS & PIECES ABOUT CROTON NOTABLES GEORGE BIDDLE, LENORE ULRIC, HAROLD GRAY and GLORIA SWANSON here.

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