Joe Arce

CHICAGO – Building a career role by role, Viola Davis has emerged at the top of her profession as an actress, with four Oscar nominations in her journey – and one win for “Fences” (2016) – including this 2021’s nod for her shape shifting performance as a real-life 1920s Blues Singer in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

CHICAGO – In one of the crueler events during the cruel year of 2020, the actor Chadwick Boseman died from cancer at age 43. But he left us two prominent roles in 2020, as a pivotal character in Spike Lee’s “Da Five Bloods” and in his 2021 Oscar nominated performance as Levee in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

CHICAGO – My portrait of Liza Minnelli is one of my favorites not just for what appears in frame, but equally for the story of what happened after the shutter was clicked. This was back in 1992, when my focus was on Rock and Roll photojournalism, and I had been granted access to Liza through Tower Records in Chicago. She was promoting her “Live From Radio City Music Hall” release.

CHICAGO – The legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 74 years young on April 16th, 2021, and the athlete/activist is more in demand than ever. With a commitment to social justice his entire basketball career, his achievements in that pursuit shine as bright as his record-breaking days on the b-ball court. Photographer Joe Arce publishes an Exclusive Photo of Jabbar from 2016, when he appeared at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, through Anderson’s Bookshop.

CHICAGO – A man called Screech is gone. Dustin Diamond, who portrayed the Screech character for many years on the series “Saved by the Bell” and its various iterations, passed away on February 1st, 2021, in a Florida hospital after a bout with cancer. He was 44.

CHICAGO – Misty Rowe is a Country Music cultural icon, through her many years with TV’s “Hee Haw,” but she also portrayed Marilyn Monroe in “Goodbye, Norma Jean” (1976). She remembers it all in her new memoir, “Misty Memories.”

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Dawn Wells in a 2017 salute to her Gilligan’s Island past.

CHICAGO – To top off the end of 2020, it was announced on December 30th that Dawn Wells, best known for the girl-next-door role she had as Mary Ann on the 1960s sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” had passed away due to COVID complications. She was 82. Dawn Wells was also a friend of HollywoodChicago.com, and had posed for the camera of photographer Joe Arce on several occasions.

CHICAGO – Misty Rowe is a Country Music cultural icon, through her many years with TV’s “Hee Haw,” but she also portrayed Marilyn Monroe in “Goodbye, Norma Jean” (1976). She remembers it all in her new memoir, “Misty Memories.”

LOS ANGELES – In another shocking piece of news in this year of 2020, the actor Chadwick Boseman, who embodied the Marvel superhero Black Panther in the film and universe, passed away on Aug. 28. He was known also for portraying black icons such as Jackie Robinson (“42”) and James Brown (“Get on Up”). He was only 43 years old.

CHICAGO – In 2011, a unique award was conferred upon Regis Philbin, the talk show/game show host and sometimes actor. The Guinness Book of World Records acknowledged that Philbin had appeared on the most hours on American television, with an astounding 16,746.5 in the final tally. Philbin passed away on July 24, 2020, at the age of 88, in his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.