Basketball legend, movie star, author and all-around great guy Kareem Abdul Jabbar is also a fan of classic movies.  And he's got great taste.

As a guest programmer this month on Turner Classic Movies, Jabbar has picked two of my favorites, The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep (both airing Monday - March 22nd).  This hoops star knows him some classic noir.

He's also picked a couple of great old John Wayne movies, The Shootist and Stagecoach, showing from midnight into the wee hours.  Tasty picks.

(I really did meet him when he was Lew Alcindor of the Milwaukee Bucks, and I was a tiny toddler lifted onto the shoulders of the tallest human being I had ever seen.  He was a gentle giant, and it was the coolest thing that had ever happened to me.)

Jabbar in LA at a 2008 club opening, by John Shearer/Getty Images

Classically handsome Peter Graves,  he of the distinguished gray hair and deep, resonant voice, has passed away of natural causes at his home in California.

Most people will remember him from his days as the chief agent in charge of television's Mission Impossible team, or more recently, as the host of A&E's Biography.

But he had a long movie career as well, and I'll always remember him for his great performance in Billy Wilder's classic WWII prisoner-of-war movie, Stalag 17, his cameo as the cheesy TV host in Men in Black II, and his hilarious turn as the kinky pilot in Airplane.

Rest in peace.  Roger, Roger.

The actor on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in October, 2009, by Kristian Dowling/Getty Images

Let's hear it for the Internets, the Googles and the "U-Tube," as one lady of a certain age I worked with was wont to write.

Here for all to love is every Alfred Hitchcock cameo, in chronological order, from his early days in London through his Hollywood heyday.  (Warning - the Hitchcock theme music is loud and repetitive.)

I must say the Master of Suspense did not change his looks much from youth to age, except to become even more of what he was.  And while most of these are great, I wouldn't watch all of his films in order.  I would start with the best Hitchcock movies.

Hat tip to Cinematical for digging this up.

I hated when they did it to Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney (Diet Coke) and Fred Astaire (Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners, for God's sake).

Now they're doing it to classic movie star Marilyn Monroe and murdered musical genius John Lennon. Using film of them in commercials. All to sell a squat little Citroen car. Yuck.

The irony is that in both clips, the stars are rejecting nostalgia, embracing the new, the groundbreaking. And then, with a burst of cool music, this little car that looks like a malformed VW bug shows up.

Monroe's image continues to make millions for the people who control it, and I guess Lennon is going to be one of those icons who earns just as much in death as he did in life, if not more.

The whole thing creeps me out.

Lennon's glasses and a photo from a 2007 charity auction in New York, by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images