Show No. 413 with guests Barbara van Orden, Sam Medina and Geoffrey Mark
Original Airdate: Aug. 3-6, 2018
First hour: Actor, writer and director Sam Medina (Preacher, From Dusk to Dawn: The Series, Kickboxer: Vengeance, Kickboxer: Retaliation) talks to Ed about working alongside Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg in the new action thriller Mile 22 (including shooting part of the film on location in Bogota); his roots in New Orleans and the role he played to help rebuild the city after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina; his upcoming directorial debut later this year in Code Name: The Dragon, an action movie starring MMA superstar Cung Le; and how he approaches playing villains, even when the character requires him to go to a dark place. Mile 22 opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, Aug 17. (Sam will also be seen the new Marvel adventure Venom, which opens in theaters on Friday, Oct. 5.) Also in this hour: Music and TV historian Geoffrey Mark offers his thoughts on the subject of How Would You Define a Classic TV Show?, plus he 
shares a story about the word of advice that Rip Taylor once gave that changed the course of Geoff’s career. Geoff will perform some of the songs of Ella Fitzgerald on Saturday, Aug. 11 at the Center for Spiritual Living in Palm Springs, CA. on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at the Santa Monica Public Library in Santa Monica, CA. Geoff’s latest book, Ella: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald is available, both in hardcover and as an eBook, at Amazon.com, UltimateSymbol.com/Ella and online bestsellers everywhere. The Deluxe Edition of Ella: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald includes a two-CD set with more than forty studio/live tracks of Ella in her prime, as well as the hardcover book. All forty tracks in the CD set were personally selected by Geoff himself from all four of her major recording labels, Decca, Verve, Capital 
Records and Pablo. Second hour: Singer/actress Barbara van Orden takes Ed behind the scenes of this year’s LA’s Next Great Stage Star Competition, the only musical theatre competition of its kind on the West Coast, and a showcase for undiscovered performers between the ages of eighteen and thirty-two with “triple threat” talent (acting, voice and dance). Barbara also shares a few stories of working with the likes of Soupy Sales, Morey Amsterdam and Frank Sinatra. (Sinatra not only took Barbara under his wing early in her career, but encouraged her to help other young artists down the road, just as he had helped her.) For our listeners in Los Angeles, LA’s Next Great Stage Star competition takes place every Monday evening through Aug. 27 on the Debbie Reynolds Main Stage of the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.
