IF: forgotten

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I'm hard to fit!
If you are 25 years old or younger, you probably don’t know Carol Wayne. Even if you were around during the height of Carol’s popularity, she is most likely forgotten to you now.

Carol Wayne was a former professional ice skater and Las Vegas showgirl whose “dumb blonde” persona gave her tremendous, but brief, fame beginning in the late 1960s throughout the 1970s. She made single episode appearances in popular shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Emergency!, I Spy and was featured in six different episodes of Love, American Style. She appeared on numerous game shows, including as a regular panelist on Celebrity Sweepstakes, produced by her husband, Burt Sugarman.

But, Carol was best known for her on-going stint as “The Matinee Lady” on “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson”. In a series of skits, known as “The Mighty Carson Art Players”, Johnny would portray different characters. One of the most popular was Art Fern, host of the fictional “Tea Time Move.” Art Fern was a parody of local afternoon movie hosts who showed old films and shilled for local businesses. Carol’s shtick involved standing beside Johnny, batting her eyelashes. She was invariably the punchline to a barrage of rapid-fire, double entendre jokes. In 1980, Johnny Carson threatened to quit The Tonight Show unless NBC cut the show’s time from ninety to sixty minutes. NBC had no choice but to reluctantly agree to Carson’s demand. The new sixty-minute format meant that Carson had less time for skits and the need for Carol’s services dwindled.

By the early 1980s, Carol’s demand in show business was practically over. She divorced Burt Sugarman in 1980. In 1984, she declared bankruptcy due in large part to a cocaine and alcohol problem. At times, she was reduced to being an occasional escort for wealthy businessmen in order to make ends meet. In an effort to recharge her diminishing career, she posed for a nude pictorial in Playboy. It netted her a part in the film Heartbreakers. It would become her final movie role.

Carol was on vacation in Manzanillo, Mexico with Los Angeles car salesman Edward Durston on January 10, 1985. The couple had an argument and Carol went for a walk on the beach to clear her head and calm down. Edward, meanwhile, packed and checked out of their hotel. He flew back to Los Angeles, leaving Carol’s luggage at the airport in Mexico. Carol’s body was found in shallow water by a local fisherman. She was fully-clothed, free of drugs or alcohol and had been dead for approximately three days. The official cause of her death was accidental drowning. Carol did not know how to swim and consciously steered clear of water.

Sixteen years earlier, her companion, Edward Durston was in Diane Linkletter’s apartment when she jumped six stories to her death.

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Monday Artday: supernatural

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is Susan friend coming wit her t'night?
In 1982, I was in my second year of art school. When I began my first year at The Hussian School of Art, Jimmy Carter was president and he was very generous with government money for education (if you can call “art school” education). When Ronald “There’s a Commie under my bed” Reagan became president, dollars that once went to education programs were now earmarked for bombs to keep us free from those dirty Ruskies! To pay for school, I worked three evenings a week at my cousin’s health food restaurant, Super Natural. Super Natural served veggie burgers and fresh salads and eggplant Parmesan and vegetable stir-fry and tempeh sandwiches and all sorts of organic and healthy shit. My cousin commissioned a local artist to create a mascot for the restaurant. He delivered Carrot Man, a super-vegetable who fought against fast food. (I actually redesigned Carrot Man several months later for a new in-store menu.)

Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I would walk (actually I’d run to make it in time for my designated 3 o’clock start) from 13th and Arch in center city Philadelphia to 16th and Spring Garden, just on the outskirts of North Philadelphia.

Super Natural was a cafeteria-style eatery that did a brisk lunch business. It was directly across the street from the Philadelphia headquarters of Smith Kline (now GlaxoSmithKline). Soon, Community College of Philadelphia opened in the 1700 block of Spring Garden Street, in the long-vacant former site of the Philadelphia Mint. (Incidentally, this building also served as Philadelphia Police headquarters in the 1983 film Trading Places.) Because the crowds were so big at lunchtime, my cousin Ron decided to open for dinner three nights a week. Unfortunately, Smith Kline employees and Community College students wouldn’t be caught dead in North Philly after 5 o’clock…lest they be caught dead. Needless to say, dinner business was light.

I worked behind the counter, making salads, stuffing pita bread, dishing out portions of tofu lasagna and grinding fruits and vegetables into fresh juice. Despite fitting the profile with my beard and ponytail, I was not a follower of the health food lifestyle. During the day, I ate hot dogs from street vendors or bacon double cheeseburgers and fries from Burger King. And no weekend was complete without a cheesesteak from Jim’s on South Street or a hoagie from Lee’s.

One Friday evening, — February 26, 1982 to be exact — my life changed forever.

Super Natural’s closing time was 10 PM on Fridays and my co-worker Tony (whose name was really Gary… who knows?) and I were anxious to leave as soon as the last casserole pan was washed and the last mop string cleaned the last floor tile. Around 9 o’clock on this particular Friday, a party of three — two girls and a guy — entered the restaurant. I was not too happy, as I had to greet, serve and get this crew out in under an hour. One of the girls approached the counter. I thought she was pretty, but I was more concerned with moving them along — out of the restaurant and out of my life. She asked about the various dinner offerings on display. She pointed to a container of shredded cheese in the salad section and asked, “Does the cheese have rennet?” I replied with five words. Five words that obviously melted her heart and won me her eternal affection. Five magical words. I said “What the hell is rennet?

“Rennet,” she explained, “is used in making cheese. It is usually from an animal source. I keep kosher and if your restaurant is truly and strictly vegetarian, I was wondering if the cheese has a vegetable-derivative rennet.” She smiled.

I looked back at her with an annoyed and confused expression and said, “Kosher? I don’t know anyone under the age of 80 that keeps kosher. My grandmother keeps kosher, for Christ sakes!” I looked at the clock. “This is taking too long,” I thought. The other girl approached the counter. She was cute. I thought I would attempt to charm her phone number out of her, so this night wouldn’t be a total loss. The three made their selections and sat down at a table to eat.

Already behind in my usual closing-time schedule, I began to close up the steamtable, clean the wok and wipe down the other tabletops. Tony (or Gary or….whoever) was in the second-floor kitchen, washing the evening’s dirty casserole pans. As I wiped the other tables close to the lone diners, I tried to make friendly conversation. I suppose I thought it was my duty. I gathered all the charm I could (for a Friday at 9:45 PM). I introduced myself and I asked their names. The guy muttered something I really wasn’t interested in. The first girl — the pretty rennet-questioner — told me her name and asked me if I had an older and taller friend. The other girl introduced herself. Midway through her name I asked for her phone number….several times…. which she refused to give. So I scribbled on a piece of paper and forced my number on her. Girl Number One, however, gave me her number for my older and taller friend. She also told me that I was one of the most obnoxious people she had ever met. Finally they finished their meal and left to go to the movies, a midnight showing of Grease.

I called Girl Number One the next day, to tell her to expect a call from my older and taller friend. On the phone she was funny and sweet and adorable and there was no way I was giving her number to anyone. We talked for almost three hours and I asked her out myself.

We were engaged nine months later. This July, we celebrate our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary.

Curiously, I have happily kept kosher for twenty-four years and I decided to become a vegetarian almost three years ago.

Maybe Carrot Man does have super powers — supernatural powers.

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SFG: politics

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The challenge from sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week is “politics”.
I'll press your flesh, you dimwitted sumbitch!
W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel served as Texas governor and United States senator. Born in 1890 in Ohio, O’Daniel came to Texas at age 29 as a sales manager for Burrus Mills, a flour-milling company in Fort Worth. In 1928, O’Daniel took over the company’s radio advertising and started a country music program to promote the flour. O’Daniel hosted the show and organized a band called the Light Crust Doughboys. Many of the musicians who made Western Swing famous, including Bob Wills, got their start in O’Daniel’s band. In 1935 he organized his own flour company to make “Hillbilly Flour” and began to call his band the Hillbilly Boys. The slogan, “Pass the biscuits, Pappy,” made O’Daniel a household name throughout Texas.
Radio fans urged “Pappy” to run for governor, and in 1938 he did. He attracted huge crowds, ran on a platform of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, and won the election by a landslide. Unfortunately, O’Daniel possessed almost no qualifications for success in the governorship, and accomplished little of the agenda he had promised the people of Texas. He ushered in an era of censorship and limits on academic freedom at the University of Texas by his appointments to the Board of Regents. But despite his obvious shortcomings as a leader, he remained very popular due to his masterful radio showmanship.
In 1941, O’Daniel won election to the United States Senate in one of the most controversial elections in Texas history, edging out Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson by only a handful of votes. O’Daniel was ineffective in the Senate and was shunned by his more serious colleagues. With his popularity finally on the wane, he did not seek reelection in 1948.
In later years, O’Daniel was active in business and made two comeback attempts at the governorship, basing his campaigns on crude appeals to anti-communist and anti-civil rights feeling. But time had passed Pappy by and he attracted few votes. He died in 1969.
The character of Mississippi governor Menelaus “Pappy” O’Daniel, played by Charles Durning in the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”  is loosely based on the real W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel.

“Furthermore, in the second Pappy O’Daniel administration, these boys is gonna be my brain trust. And furthermore, by way of endorsing my candidacy, the Soggy Bottom Boys are gonna lead us all in a rousing chorus of ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ …. Ain’t you, boys?”
“Governor, it’s one of our favorites.”

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Monday Artday: elvis

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The Monday Artday challenge this week is “Elvis”.
I hope I haven't bored you.
Sure, he was known worldwide as “The King”, but here are a few little-known facts about Elvis Presley.
He was a black belt in karate.
His entourage were known collectively as the Memphis Mafia.
None of Elvis’s 31 feature films were ever nominated for an Oscar in any category.
Elvis recorded more than 600 songs in his music career, but didn’t write a single one of them.
Some of Elvis’s bejewelled jumpsuits weighed more than twenty-eight pounds.
He only performed five concerts outside the United States – all in Canada in 1957.
Led Zeppelin were big fans of Elvis and were desperate to meet him when they toured the US.
Elvis collected marble statues of the Venus de Milo and Joan of Arc.
Elvis’s favorite soft drink was Pepsi.
Elvis had “the hots” for Elizabeth Montgomery.
Elvis wore a cross, a chai (Hebrew for “life”) , and a star of David around his neck. He said, “I don’t want to miss out on heaven due to a technicality.”
Elvis’ favorite sandwich was a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Elvis’ favorite dessert was a hot fudge and amphetamine sundae.

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from my sketchbook: jerzy kosinski

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court jester
Jerzy Kosinski walked a fine, sometimes blurred, line between bullshitter and storyteller. Kosinski was born Josek Lewinkopf in Poland in 1933. As a child during World War II, he avoided the Nazis by using a false identity. He lived with a Roman Catholic Polish family in eastern Poland under the name, Jerzy Kosinski, an assumed name given to him by his father. A Roman Catholic priest issued him a forged baptismal certificate. In 1957, Kosinski emigrated to the United States by forging letters from Polish authorities guaranteeing his loyal return, which were needed for leaving the country at that time. Once in the United States, he graduated from Columbia University. He was a lecturer at Yale, Princeton, Davenport University, and Wesleyan. In 1965, he became an American citizen.

His 1965 book The Painted Bird garnered mixed reviews. A story of a child during the Holocaust, Kosinski always insisted it was based on his own experience. However, when the book was translated and published in Poland, the family he had lived with took great exception to the abuse that was described in detail. Kosinski claimed “poetic license”.

In August 1969, Kosinski was invited, by his friend Wojciech Frykowski, to a small get-together in Los Angeles. Coming from New York, Kosinski’s luggage was lost by the airline. He phoned Frykowski, told him of this mishap and explained he would have to miss the party. The party was given by Sharon Tate and everyone there was murdered by intruders under the orders of Charles Manson.

He won the National Book Award in 1969 for Steps. In 1975, Chuck Ross, a Los Angeles freelance writer conducted an experiment with Steps by sending 21 pages of the book to four publishers under the pseudonym Erik Demos. The book was turned down by all of them including Random House (which originally published Steps) and Houghton Mifflin (which published three of Kosinski’s other novels). His 1971 book Being There was made into an Academy Award nominated film starring Peter Sellers.

A 1982 Village Voice article accused Kosinski of plagiarism. The article alleged that a great deal of Kosinski’s work was lifted from Polish manuscripts, virtually unknown by American readers. Kosinski always maintained that he loved to tell outrageous lies, particularly to the rich, intellectual and famous. They were so eager to be entertained, he explained, that they willingly suspended disbelief, and they were so confident of their superiority that they deserved to be played for fools. The truth of the Village Voice charges remained a matter of debate.

In addition to his writing, Kosinski appeared 12 times on The Tonight Show during 1971-73, posed half-naked for a New York Times Magazine cover photograph by Annie Leibovitz in 1982, and presented the Oscar for screenwriting in 1982. He also played the role of a Bolshevik revolutionary in Warren Beatty’s film Reds.

On May 3, 1991, despondent over a prolonged period of writer’s block, coupled with an irregular heartbeat as well as severe physical exhaustion, Kosinski took a fatal dose of barbiturates and washed it down with a rum and Coke. He then twisted a plastic shopping bag around his head and taped it shut around his neck. He was found dead in the bathtub in his New York apartment.

My illustration is being used HERE on the Library Thing website’s page for Jerzy Kosinski.

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Monday Artday: money

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The challenge word on Monday Artday this week (at my suggestion) is “money”.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
On February 26, 1981, in Philadelphia, a twenty-eight year-old, meth-addicted, unemployed longshoreman named Joey Coyle had his life changed forever. Joey and two of his friends were on their way to buy drugs. They were driving behind a Purolator Armored Services truck that was returning from a pick-up at an Atlantic City casino. As the truck pulled away from a stop light, its back doors swung open and two money bags, containing 1.2 million dollars, fell out. As Joey grabbed the bags, his troubles began. Joey’s friends tried to convince him to return the money, but Joey could only see dollar signs in his eyes. He became the most popular guy at a South Philadelphia bar, handing out hundred dollar bills and bragging about his windfall.
Later, becoming nervous and paranoid, Joey tried to launder the money through some mob connections. Meanwhile, Joey’s friends, who were with him when he found the money, told authorities. Joey was a wanted man and planned his escape. However, he was arrested at Kennedy International Airport as he was checking in for a flight to Acapulco, Mexico. He was carrying $105,000 in 21 envelopes with $5,000 each. The envelopes were stuffed around his ankles in the tops of elastic socks. In February 1982, a jury found Joey innocent of theft by reason of temporary insanity. The armored car company recovered all but roughly $196,000 of the money.
In 1993, while awaiting sentencing for his sixth drug conviction, Joey hanged himself with an electrical cord.

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DCS: marie prevost

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She was a winner/who became the doggie's dinner
Mary Bickford Dunn was born in 1898 in Ontario, Canada. After her father died, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and sister. While working as a secretary, the attractive Marie applied for and landed an acting job at the Hollywood studio owned by Mack Sennett. Sennett dubbed her “the exotic French girl,” and rechristened her “Marie Prevost.” Prevost joined his gang of infamous Sennett Bathing Beauties. Marie was in good company with other Sennett Beauties including future screen legend Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand (who is credited with throwing the first custard pie in movies, it’s target being Fatty Arbuckle), and future Mrs. Clark Gable, Carole Lombard.

Marie’s star was rising fast. She showed the studio heads that she was more than just a pretty face and was given roles that allowed her to display her smart, comic timing. Often playing roles just short of risqué, her characters always turned out to be good girls by the end of the pictures. Marie worked with some of the greatest directors of the time, including Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille, Mervyn LeRoy. She was one of the busiest and most popular actresses of the 1920s. In 1926, while traveling in Florida, Marie’s mother was killed in a car accident. Her mother’s death hit her hard and she drowned her depression in alcohol.

Marie continued working, but the alcohol started to affect her physical appearance and she started to put on weight…and the studios began to notice. She found herself sliding down the Hollywood ladder. In the early 1930s she was able to find work, often portraying the wisecracking best friend. But, the girl who had once been a major player was reduced to bit roles with few lines.

A star just a decade earlier, Marie was now in her mid-thirties and considered a has-been. By 1934, she had no work at all and her financial situation deteriorated dramatically. The downward spiral became greatly aggravated when her weight problems forced her into repeated crash dieting in order to keep whatever bit part a movie studio offered. Her “crash diets” consisted of large amounts of alcohol and no food.

On January 23, 1937, police were called to a rundown apartment building in Los Angeles after neighbors complained of a continuously-barking dog. Inside, they found Marie dead on her bed. Her dog, without food or water for days, had chewed up her arms and legs in a futile attempt to awaken her. With the combination of alcoholism and self-imposed malnutrition, Marie had starved herself to death.

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