"Honey Shot" Director Andy Sidaris, R.I.P.
The world will keep turning on its axis, but it'll jiggle just a little less with the loss of TV sports and B movie director Andy Sidaris (SAVAGE BEACH, PICASSO TRIGGER), who departed this earth last week at the age of 76.
While working as a sports director for ABC's "Wide World of Sports," Sidaris pioneered what came to be known as the "honey shot" -- a shot of a pretty young woman in the crowd, or a cheerleader waving her pom-poms on the sidelines. (Let me tell you, for girls watching TV sports in the early 70s, just how depressing and annoying these gratuitous shots were -- especially because ABC rarely covered women's sports.)
Yet Sidaris turned out to be as a dramatic TV and film director, one of the more lighter touches in episodic TV, helming episodes of the "Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew" mysteries that were kid friendly but just this side of camp. With his Arlene as his production partner, he made a dozen hilarious action movies starring some guy from "General Hospital" and gun-wielding glamour models with plot-explaining titles: FIT TO KILL and BULLETS, BOMBS AND BABES.