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Beyond "the perfect fool"
Beyond “the perfect fool”
Ed Wynn, Jack Palance, and Keenan Wynn in Requiem for a Heavyweight
I recently came across a pencil drawing of Ed Wynn that I did about 50 years ago. Seeing that drawing was a prompt through which I discovered a pair of events in television broadcasting that combine for a unique and moving experience.
I’m old enough to be familiar with Ed Wynn, because he was frequently on television in the early…
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#Early television#Ed Wynn#Keenan Wynn#Ralph Nelson#Red Skelton#Requiem for a Heavyweight#Rod Serling#The Man in the Funny Suit
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Books: "Missing Her"
Books: “Missing Her”
Michio Kaku and the late Stephen Hawking, a couple of spoilsports in my estimation, both have maintained that time travel to the past is impossible. Their conclusions throw cold water on an idea that has stirred the imaginations of writers, film-makers, and ordinary people from, you should pardon the expression, time immemorial.
But J.L. Willow (it’s a nom de plume) isn’t deterred by theoretical…
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Doris Day: "The Thrill of It All"
Doris Day: “The Thrill of It All”
DORIS DAY
If you ‘re looking for a way to do homage to Doris Day, who died today, I recommend The Thrill of It All,��which she made in 1963. I’m not a fan of this genre, but this movie has been a favorite of ours since it appeared in theaters the year before we were married. The story is about Beverly Boyer, a perky wife and mother-of-two, who stumbles into a career as the spokesperson for a soap…
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"And the $64 question is ...."
“And the $64 question is ….”
JAMES HOLZHAUER/ABC photo
I have never watched Jeopardy, and consequently I have no vested interest in how James Holzhauer has run up his record-setting winning streak. I can’t help knowing, however, that there is a kerfuffle over it in which some critics say Holzhauer is ruining the game for others. If I understand the complaint correctly, the issue is that Holzhauer’s success has as much to do…
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#James Holzhauer#Jeopardy#Joyce Brothers#Phil Baker#Take It or Leave It#Television#The $64 Question#The $64000 Question
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"Why is your head higher than mine?"
“Why is your head higher than mine?”
RAMA X/Anadolu Agency
I read a long story from Reuters today about Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun—not a household word in the United States but the king in Thailand. He became the monarch in 2016 upon the death of his father, and he is going to be formally crowned on Saturday. He is also, and more conveniently, known as Rama X.
According to Reuters, the king runs a tight ship. He has…
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"... and cabbages and kings"
“… and cabbages and kings”
Crown Prince Akihito tries on a Yankee cap for Casey Stengel and the future Empress Michiko/Associated Press
Considering the amount of time we spent at Yankee Stadium during my youth and adolescence, it was inevitable that we would see some familiar faces. These included Jimmy Powers, John Wayne, Sidney Poitier, and Faye Emerson. We also saw a face that was unfamiliar to us but not to a lot of…
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#Akihito#baseball#Dale Long#Emperor Akihito#Emperor of Japan#Jiggs Donahue#New York Yankees#Yankee Stadium
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"Mention my name in Sheboygan, but please don't tell them where I am"
“Mention my name in Sheboygan, but please don’t tell them where I am”
When I was a newspaper reporter, I was assigned to cover the dedication of a school in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, that was named after a former mayor, James J. Flynn Jr. During the ritual, Jay Flynn, as everyone knew him, stood next to me, and at one point he leaned toward me and whispered in his gravelly voice, “They should never name a building after someone who is still alive. It’s too risky.”
J…
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The Songbird of the South
The Songbird of the South
KATE SMITH
Should we chip Abraham Lincoln’s image off of Mount Rushmore, because he said that black and white people could not live together in peace; because he believed the white race was superior; or because his favored disposition of freed slaves was not to establish them as American citizens with full rights but rather to ship them to a colony in Liberia?
Or should we evaluate Abraham…
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#Josephine Baker#Kate Smith#Lew Brown#New York Yankees#Philadelphia Flyers#Pickaninny Heaven#Ted Collins#That&039;s Why Darkies Were Born#Woody Guthrie
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A spouse in every port
A spouse in every port
In the early days of television, WOR in New York had a weekday program called Million Dollar Movie—one of the first features to bring movies to TV audiences. I was reminded the other day of one of the movies I saw on that show when I was about 12 years old: The Captain’s Paradise starring Alec Guinness and Yvonne DeCarlo, the former Peggy Middleton. Guinness played a ferry captain who had two…
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Books: "The Phantom of Fifth Avenue"
Books: “The Phantom of Fifth Avenue”
When I was growing up, there were two men in our town, identical twins who, past middle age, lived together as lifelong bachelors, dressed alike, and even walked alike—turning and stopping and starting together as though one were a hologram projection of the other.
I used to think of these men as eccentric. But now that I’m a lot older than they were then, I have come to realize that eccentric is…
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Books: "Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams"
Books: “Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams”
LOUISA JOHNSON ADAMS
A participant on Quora asked recently for “interesting facts” about John Quincy Adams—the sixth president of these United States and the son of the second president. When I last checked, none of the respondents had mentioned JQ’s wife, Louisa, who was at least as interesting as he was.
Louisa Adams’ story is raised from undeserved obscurity in a biography by namesake Louisa…
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Writing in recent posts about the namesakes of peach melba and chicken tetrazinni got me to thinking about another food that was named after a celebrity, but which celebrity I cannot say for sure. I refer to Baby Ruth, the candy bar—and a particular favorite of mine.
For many years, I was under the impression that the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of Grover and…
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"The Best of Enemies"
“The Best of Enemies”
ANN ATWATER and C.P. ELLIS
During a group discussion in our parish last month, we touched on the question of whether anyone is beyond redemption. We had in mind folks like the terrorists who carry out mass murders and suicide missions for what they perceive to be good or necessary causes. The question might have answered itself if any of us that night had thought of C.P. Ellis. I, for one, had…
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#Ann Atwater#Best of Enemies#C. P. Ellis#Civil Rights#Durham North Carolina#Ku Klux Klan#Mark St. Germain#Osha Gray Davidson#racial issues#school desegregation#segregation
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"I'll sing in the streets!"
“I’ll sing in the streets!”
An estimated 250,000 people assemble for Tetrazzini’s Christmas Eve concert in San Francisco.
My recent post about Nellie Melba called to mind Luisa Tetrazzini, who had several things in common with Melba. Tetrazzini was also a soprano—a coloratura whose range extended to the F above high C—and a contemporary of Melba at the beginning of the 20th century. Also like Melba, Tetrazzini had an…
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Sic transit and so forth
Sic transit and so forth
When I saw this display at the supermarket today, it sent my mind reeling back to an eposide of Downton Abbey in which the Australian soprano Nellie Melba was engaged to gave a recital at the Granthams’ mansion. More precisely, this display reminded me that among the historical inaccuracies presented in that series, the visit by Nellie Melba was one of the most glaring—to anachronisms such as I…
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Books: "In Pieces" by Sally Field
Books: “In Pieces” by Sally Field
SALLY FIELD/In Pieces/Simon & Schuster
“Why is it easier for me to write about the times in my life that felt humiliating or shameful? Is it because those are the things that still haunt me?”
Sally Field asks those questions in her remarkable memoir, In Pieces, and they imply that the distinguished actress is, in her interior life, a work in progress at 72.
“Do I hold on to those dark times as a…
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"Oh, no, it isn't the trees . . . ."
“Oh, no, it isn’t the trees . . . .”
The young JACK BENNY (Benjamin Kubelsky) with his violin.
I was about to watch an episode of the Jack Benny Program recently when I became absorbed in the opening theme. The theme is associated not just with the television series but with Jack Benny himself. The song, “Love in Bloom,” was not written by amateurs. The music was by Ralph Rainger and the lyrics by Leo Robin. Ralph Rainger, a member…
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#Bing Crosby#Early television#Jack Benny#Kitty Carlisle#Leo Robin#Liberace#Love in Bloom#Music#Ralph Rainger#Songwriters Hall of Fame#Television
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