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Today is the 80th birthday of West Side Story and Twin Peaks actor Richard Beymer - a happy day to him! I didn't really know anything about Dick so I went a'looking this morning and he's lived an interesting life! He got his start as an actor in Vittoria De Sica's 1953 film Stazione Termini (aka Indiscretions of an American Wife) opposite Montgomery Clift! The year that West Side Story hit he shared the Golden Globe for "New Star of the Year" with Warren Beatty and Bobby Darin - supposedly him and Natalie Wood didn't get along on WSS because she'd wanted Beatty, her co-star in Splendor in the Grass that same year, to play Tony opposite her. (Diva.)
Also he was good friends with Sharon Tate and actually convinced Sharon to become an actress! Most importantly of all though - he played Mimi Rogers' husband on shirt-lived ABC modeling series Paper Dolls, alongside Morgan Fairchild, Brenda Vaccaro, and Lauren Hutton. Man the 80s were the best. Has Paper Dolls been released anywhere? I would love to watch some Paper Dolls. Anyway Beymer has been single his entire life (cough cough) and is a big practitioner of Transcendental Meditation with David Lynch - they went to India together in 2014 and Beymer made a movie about it, I guess. Anybody have any good Richard Beymer stories?
