http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE5_3L0JCiE&feature=related
Anybody here sleep with a teddy bear? Not me, for certain. But, I like this song anyway.
Good morning, WA2K radio audience.
edgar, The King would say to Connie: "Let me be Your Teddy Bear." I think, Texas, that I might have slept with a panda bear when I was a wee thing.
Well, folks, according to the spider web of the world, today is George M. Cohan's birthday.
A tribute to George M.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f78i6sdEQE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA4hxbslgig
Can't have the coming up 4th of July, without the
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Absolutely, edgar, and thanks for the song and the reminder.
It is my understanding that the largest minority group in America is the Hispanics. Odd that, how can a minority group be large? Well, we know what that means.
Today is Franz Kafka's birthday, so see if you can make the connection, folks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0nQMgaJibc&feature=related
I admit to not making a study of Kafka. I know some about The Wretched of the Earth -
Hey, edgar. To make a long allegory short, Gregor, a traveling salesman who provides for his family, turns into a giant cock roach, and they eventually kill him. Does that help?
The title of the thing is Metamorphosis.
Hey, folks. Let's go To Mexico with James Taylor. I wanted an excuse to do James.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvNl1rqB-Fs&feature=related
George Sanders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born July 3, 1906(1906-07-03)
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Died April 25, 1972 (aged 65)
Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain
Years active 1929 - 1972
Spouse(s) Susan Larson
(m. October 27, 1940, div. 1949)
Zsa Zsa Gabor
(m. April 2, 1949, div.April 2, 1954)
Benita Hume
(m. February 10, 1959, died November 1, 1967)
Magda Gabor
(m. December 4, 1970, div. January 16, 1971)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor
1950 All About Eve
George Sanders (born George Henry Sanders) (July 3, 1906 - April 25, 1972) was an Academy Award-winning English film and television actor.
Early life
Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, of British parents. In 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, when Sanders was 11, the family returned to Britain and, like his brother, he attended Brighton College, a boys' independent school in Brighton. He then attended Manchester Technical College in Manchester, England. After graduation he worked in an advertising agency. It was there that the company secretary, an aspiring actress named Greer Garson, suggested to him a career in acting. Sanders' lookalike older brother, Tom Conway, was also a movie actor, to whom Sanders later handed over the role of The Falcon in The Falcon's Brother (1942). The only other film in which the two real-life brothers appeared together was Death of a Scoundrel (1956). In both films they played brothers.
Career
Sanders made his British film debut in 1934 and, after a series of British films, made his American debut in 1936 with a role in Lloyd's of London. His British accent and sensibilities, combined with his suave, snobbish, and somewhat menacing air, were utilised in American films throughout the next decade. He played supporting roles in prestige productions such as Rebecca, in which he joined forces with Judith Anderson in her persecution of Joan Fontaine. He also played leading roles in such less high-profile pictures as Rage in Heaven. During this time he was also the lead in both The Falcon and The Saint film series, and also played Lord Henry Wotton in a film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray. In 1947 he co-starred with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
In 1950 Sanders gave his most widely recognised performance, and achieved his greatest success, as the acerbic, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He moved into the field of television and was responsible for the successful series George Sanders Mystery Theatre. Sanders played an upper crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in a 1965 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode, "The Gazebo in the Maze Affair", and reprised the role later that year in "The Yukon Affair". He also portrayed Mr. Freeze in two episodes of the 1960s live-action Batman TV series.
Later, he provided the voice for the malevolent Shere Khan in the Walt Disney production of The Jungle Book. One of Sanders's final screen roles was in the 1972 feature film version of the popular television series Doomwatch.
Sanders' smooth voice, urbane manner, and upper-class British accent were the inspiration for the Peter Sellers' character "Hercules Grytpype-Thynne" in the famous BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show. Sellers and Sanders appeared together in the Pink Panther sequel, A Shot in the Dark.
He was honoured with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: for motion pictures at 1636 Vine St, and for television at 7007 Hollywood Blvd. In popular culture, he is mentioned in The Kinks' song "Celluloid Heroes" and his ghost makes an appearance in Clive Barker's 2001 novel Coldheart Canyon.
Other projects
Sanders has two crime novels to his credit: Crime on My Hands (1944, written in the first person and mentioning his "Saint" and "Falcon" movies) and Stranger at Home (1946). These were published simply to cash in on his screen success, and both were ghostwritten: the former by Craig Rice, the latter by Leigh Brackett.
In 1958 Sanders recorded an album entitled The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady. Released by ABC-Paramount Records, the album offered lush string arrangements of romantic ballads, crooned by Sanders in a persuasive baritone. He went to great lengths to get himself signed to sing in South Pacific, but was overwhelmed with anxiety over the role and quickly dropped out. Sanders' singing voice can be heard in Call Me Madam and Disney's The Jungle Book as Shere Khan. He signed for the role of Sheridan Whiteside in the stage musical Sherry! (1967) based on the Kaufman - Hart play The Man Who Came to Dinner, but felt overwhelmed by the demands of the production, and resigned when his wife, actress Benita Hume, found she had terminal bone cancer.
Marriages
On 27 October 1940, Sanders married Susan Larson. The marriage ended in divorce in 1949. From 1949 until 1954, Sanders was married to the Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor. (In 1956 he and Gabor starred together in the film Death of a Scoundrel.) On 10 February 1959 Sanders married actress Benita Hume, the widow of actor Ronald Colman. Benita Hume died in 1967. Sanders' final marriage, on 4 December 1970, was to Magda Gabor, the older sister of his second wife; the marriage lasted only 6 weeks. Following this he began to drink heavily.
His autobiography, Memoirs of a Professional Cad, was published in 1960 and received critical praise for its wit. Sanders, himself, suggested the title A Dreadful Man for the biography of him later written by Brian Aherne and published in 1979.
Later life
In his later years, Sanders suffered from bewilderment and bouts of anger, both made worse by health problems. He was losing his balance, among other things, and can actually be seen visibly teetering in his very last films. He also had a minor stroke, according to correspondence quoted in the book of his friend and biographer Brian Aherne. His latest girlfriend, a Mexican woman, much younger than himself, induced him to sell his beloved house in Majorca, Spain - an act which he regretted bitterly afterwards. From then on, he drifted. But house or no house, what stands out is that he couldn't bear the idea of losing his health, of being dependent on someone else's care. By this time Sanders was fed up with life anyway. (It was around this time that he dragged his grand piano out onto the lawn and smashed it to pieces with an axe because he couldn't play it anymore.[1])
Death
Soon after, in April 1972, he checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona, Spain. His body was discovered two days later, along with five empty bottles of Nembutal. He left behind a suicide note that read:
Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.
His friend David Niven recorded in his autobiography Bring On The Empty Horses that Sanders had predicted, many years earlier, in 1937 at age 31, that he would commit suicide at the age of 65. In 1972, he fulfilled this prediction.
His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the English Channel.
Tribute
To mark his 102nd birthday on July 3, 2008 the cable channel Turner Classic Movies will be showing his movies from seven in the morning until about eight at night. They are starting off with Samson and Delilah and have Assignment in Paris, Witness to Murder and so on.
Susan Peters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Suzanne Carnahan
July 3, 1921(1921-07-03)
Spokane, Washington, United States
Died October 23, 1952 (aged 31)
Visalia, California, United States
Spouse(s) Richard Quine
(1943-1948) (divorced) 1 child
Awards won
Other Awards
Hollywood Walk of Fame
Susan Peters (July 3, 1921 - October 23, 1952) was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actress whose promising career was cut tragically short.
Biography
Early life
Peters was born Suzanne Carnahan in Spokane, Washington. First contracted by Warner Brothers, which was unable to utilize her talents, she subsequently began working for MGM Studios after completing high school. Her first job was to read with potential actors in their screen tests. Before long she had impressed studio executives with her own talent, and they began casting her in films.
Career
For the first two years she used her given name and played small, often uncredited parts in films such as Meet John Doe (1941), before adopting her stage name. But her beguiling acting in a supporting role in the MGM programmer, Tish, resulted in a studio contract. Her first substantial role, in Random Harvest (1942), earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination.
Further impressed, MGM began to groom her for starring roles, casting her in several lesser productions that allowed her to learn her craft. A starring role in Song of Russia (1943) earned her critical acclaim but the film was not a commercial success. However, in 1944, she was one of ten actors who were elevated from "featured player" status to the studio's official "star" category; the others included Esther Williams, Laraine Day, Kathryn Grayson, Van Johnson, Margaret O'Brien, Ginny Simms, Robert Walker, Gene Kelly, and George Murphy. An official portrait taken of MGM's contracted players during this period prominently features Peters sharing the front row with the head of the studio himself, Louis B. Mayer, and alongside such illustrious actors as James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, Margaret Sullavan, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, and Greer Garson -- such was the faith that the studio had of her talent and potential at the time.
Personal tragedy
Married to the actor Richard Quine, she was with him on a hunting vacation in early 1945, when a rifle accidentally discharged, causing a bullet to be lodged in her spine. The accident left her permanently paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheel chair, however she attempted to continue her acting career.
MGM continued to pay her salary, but unable to find suitable projects, Peters subsequently left the studio. An unsympathetic role in Columbia's The Sign of the Ram (1948) failed to win an audience, and a starring role as a wheelchair bound lawyer in the television series Miss Susan (1951) was also unsuccessful.
She toured in stage productions of The Glass Menagerie and The Barretts of Wimpole Street, and her performances were highly regarded, but her disability made her a difficult actress to cast.
Her career faltered, and as her marriage ended, Peters suffered from depression. Her health continued to deteriorate until her death, aged 31, in Visalia, California, from kidney disease and pneumonia, complicated by anorexia nervosa.
Susan Peters has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to motion pictures, at 1601 Vine St.
Pete Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr.
Born July 3, 1930 (1930-07-03) (age 78)
New Orleans, Louisiana
Genre(s) Dixieland Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Instrument(s) Clarinet
Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr. (born July 3, 1930), is a New Orleans clarinetist. According to a Belgian radio program ("La troisieme oreille", produced by Marc Danval) his name was originally Pierre de la Fontaine.
About Fountain
Pete Fountain was born in New Orleans and started playing clarinet, heavily influenced first by Benny Goodman and then by Irving Fazola. Early on he played with the bands of Monk Hazel and Al Hirt. With his long time friend, trumpeter George Girard, Fountain founded The Basin Street Six in 1950. After this band broke up four years later Fountain was hired to join the Lawrence Welk band, and became well known for the many solos he took on Welk's ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show. Fountain returned to New Orleans, played with The Dukes of Dixieland, then began leading bands under his own name, owning his own club in the French Quarter in the 1960s and 1970s. He later acquired "Pete Fountain's Jazz Club" at the Riverside Hilton in downtown New Orleans.
Pete Fountain Day in New Orleans
The New Orleans Jazz Club presented the Pete Fountain Day on October 19, 1959, with celebrations honoring the pride of their city concluding with a packed concert that evening. His Quintett was made up of his studio recording musicians, Stan Kenton's bassist Don Bagley, vibeist Godfrey Hirch, pianist Merle Koch and the outstanding double bass drummer Jack Sperling. Fountain brought these same players together in 1963 when they played the Hollywood Bowl. Pete would make the trek to Hollywood many times appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 56 times.
In 2003 Fountain closed his club at the Hilton with a performance before a packed house filled with musical friends and fans. He then began performing two nights a week at Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi where he had a home (later destroyed by Hurricane Katrina).
After heart surgery in 2006 he performed at JazzFest, and helped reopen the Bay St. Louis Casino which has the new name of the Hollywood Casino. As of March, 2007 he has returned to performing Tuesday and Wednesday nights there.
Fountain was a founder and is the most prominent member of The Half Fast Walking Club, one of the best known marching Krewes that parades in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. The original name was "The Half-Assed Walking Club" and was an excuse to take a "lubricated" musical stroll down the parade route. Pete changed the name under pressure exerted by the parade organizers. On Mardi Gras Day 2007 Pete once again joined his Half Fast Walking Club, having missed the event in 2006 due to illness.
Fountain's clarinet work is noted for his sweet fluid tone. He has recorded over 100 LPs and CDs under his own name, some in the Dixieland style, many others with only peripheral relevance to any type of jazz.
Loyola University New Orleans awarded Fountain an honorary degree in 2006.
On April 5, 2008, Fountain was inducted at the seventh annual Delta Music Festival in Ferriday in Concordia Parish. An exhibit was dedicated to Fountain, and he received a star on the museum "Walk of Fame" sidewalk, according to the office of Louisana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne.[1]
Pete Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Background information
Birth name Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr.
Born July 3, 1930 (1930-07-03) (age 78)
New Orleans, Louisiana
Genre(s) Dixieland Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician
Instrument(s) Clarinet
Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr. (born July 3, 1930), is a New Orleans clarinetist. According to a Belgian radio program ("La troisieme oreille", produced by Marc Danval) his name was originally Pierre de la Fontaine.
About Fountain
Pete Fountain was born in New Orleans and started playing clarinet, heavily influenced first by Benny Goodman and then by Irving Fazola. Early on he played with the bands of Monk Hazel and Al Hirt. With his long time friend, trumpeter George Girard, Fountain founded The Basin Street Six in 1950. After this band broke up four years later Fountain was hired to join the Lawrence Welk band, and became well known for the many solos he took on Welk's ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show. Fountain returned to New Orleans, played with The Dukes of Dixieland, then began leading bands under his own name, owning his own club in the French Quarter in the 1960s and 1970s. He later acquired "Pete Fountain's Jazz Club" at the Riverside Hilton in downtown New Orleans.
Pete Fountain Day in New Orleans
The New Orleans Jazz Club presented the Pete Fountain Day on October 19, 1959, with celebrations honoring the pride of their city concluding with a packed concert that evening. His Quintett was made up of his studio recording musicians, Stan Kenton's bassist Don Bagley, vibeist Godfrey Hirch, pianist Merle Koch and the outstanding double bass drummer Jack Sperling. Fountain brought these same players together in 1963 when they played the Hollywood Bowl. Pete would make the trek to Hollywood many times appearing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 56 times.
In 2003 Fountain closed his club at the Hilton with a performance before a packed house filled with musical friends and fans. He then began performing two nights a week at Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi where he had a home (later destroyed by Hurricane Katrina).
After heart surgery in 2006 he performed at JazzFest, and helped reopen the Bay St. Louis Casino which has the new name of the Hollywood Casino. As of March, 2007 he has returned to performing Tuesday and Wednesday nights there.
Fountain was a founder and is the most prominent member of The Half Fast Walking Club, one of the best known marching Krewes that parades in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. The original name was "The Half-Assed Walking Club" and was an excuse to take a "lubricated" musical stroll down the parade route. Pete changed the name under pressure exerted by the parade organizers. On Mardi Gras Day 2007 Pete once again joined his Half Fast Walking Club, having missed the event in 2006 due to illness.
Fountain's clarinet work is noted for his sweet fluid tone. He has recorded over 100 LPs and CDs under his own name, some in the Dixieland style, many others with only peripheral relevance to any type of jazz.
Loyola University New Orleans awarded Fountain an honorary degree in 2006.
On April 5, 2008, Fountain was inducted at the seventh annual Delta Music Festival in Ferriday in Concordia Parish. An exhibit was dedicated to Fountain, and he received a star on the museum "Walk of Fame" sidewalk, according to the office of Louisana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne.[1]
These epitaphs are reported to be from actual tombstones...
On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia:
Here lies
Ezekial Aikle
Age 102
The Good
Die Young.
In a London, England cemetery:
Ann Mann
Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.
Dec. 8, 1767
In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:
Anna Wallace
The children of Israel wanted bread
And the Lord sent them manna,
Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.
Playing with names in a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:
Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.
Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery:
Here lies the body
of Jonathan Blake
Stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake.
In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:
Here lays Butch,
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger,
But slow on the draw.
A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery:
Sacred to the memory of
my husband John Barnes
who died January 3, 1803
His comely young widow, aged 23, has
many qualifications of a good wife, and
yearns to be comforted.
A lawyer's epitaph in England:
Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange.
Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont:
I was somebody.
Who, is no business
Of yours.
Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona:
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Les No More.
In a Georgia cemetery:
"I told you I was sick!"
John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery:
Reader if cash thou art
In want of any
Dig 4 feet deep
And thou wilt find a Penny.
On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia:
She always said her feet were killing her
but nobody believed her.
In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:
On the 22nd of June
- Jonathan Fiddle -
Went out of tune.
Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont has an epitaph that sounds like something from a Three Stooges movie:
Here lies the body of our Anna
Done to death by a banana
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low
But the skin of the thing that made her go.
More fun with names with Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England:
Gone away
Owin' more
Than he could pay.
Someone in Winslow, Maine didn't like Mr. Wood:
In Memory of Beza Wood
Departed this life
Nov. 2, 1837
Aged 45 yrs.
Here lies one Wood
Enclosed in wood
One Wood
Within another.
The outer wood
Is very good:
We cannot praise
The other.
On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts:
Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.
The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost a consumer tip:
Who was fatally burned
March 21, 1870
by the explosion of a lamp
filled with "R.E. Danforth's
Non-Explosive Burning Fluid"
Oops! Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:
Born 1903--Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if
the car was on the way down. It was.
In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.
Hey, hawkman. Thanks for the great bio's and the wonderful epitaphs. Glad the deceased have a sense of humor. You and Nair have a wonderful holiday, and dump some tea in the harbor for us, ok?
Here's one by Pete Fountain called "Shine". Fabulous dixiland, y'all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipDtG8xV9_4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIr-FoBW5Xw
Caruso singing "Over There."
Why did the farmer name his rooster Robinson?
Because he crew so.
edgar, can you hear me groan?
God bless Enrico Caruso. Love the way he pronounced "word". Knew every one of those war songs, Texas, and thanks.
Speaking of hearing, y'all...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJt5KXP0cZM
I enjoy Enique almost as much as Julio.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zbZilQxF8k
In keeping with the 4th of July patriotism theme, here is a Luke the Drifter recording.
Ah, edgar. You are unique, Texas. Here's one for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34IzVKnk2yw
