broad back in broadcasting

 

The Bellamy Brothers' songs were very popular on country music radio in the 1970s and '80s.

In the 1980s I did Morning Drive on a Midwestern country music radio station, and in the morning after the "Star-Spangled Banner" I came on and said,

"Hi!  I'm Penny Lane, the gal who put the broad back in broadcasting, the woman who makes radio - Active!

Starting your Friday right, it's Willie Nelson, and K---!" and hit the switch to start the record - "Whiskey River, take my mind," - na na na, NAH- na-na-na..."

        (It wasn't Willie Nelson every day, I just used that as an example.)

I came up with that Morning thing to say because I thought it should be a consistent, daily thing.  Upbeat, and peppy.

I was met by a radio listener at a "live remote" event, where you do interviews on the spot, and the guy said, "I like it when you say you put the bra back in broadcasting!"

I always tried to enunciate clearly, but maybe I didn't do a good enough job of that, if he thought I said "bra" - ...

-30-

movies

 

movies - 

Currently a 1980s film called Jagged Edge can be streamed on "Max" - that's a channel connected with Amazon Prime.

Fatal Attraction (1987) is on Netflix (last day to watch, next Wednesday, July 31st.

The actress Glenn Close is in both of those movies.  

You can have a "Glenn Close weekend"...

Jagged Edge was written by Joe Eszterhas - who, it turns out, grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, same area as me.  Some of his works have some stuff in them that I wouldn't put in, if it was me.

        I was not a fan of Basic Instinct, and I gave up after Showgirls - I think I walked out of that one.  Just - couldn't.

But he was real successful, so I tried to learn something from him.

Both Edge, and Attraction, have those '80s hairstyles and clothes.  Linebacker shoulder pads; fuzzy, wild, curly hair.

I like in Jagged Edge how, when you see the ocean, they were filming real ocean, not computer-CGI stuff like now.

        And the great Robert Loggia is in Edge.  The film came out in 1985; 19 years later, in 2004, Loggia was in The Sopranos - he doesn't look much different, to me...  "Feech La Manna."

 

-------------------------  Moving away from the thriller genre, recently was watching The Wizard Of Oz.  Though actually, maybe that is a sort of thriller, too...  It certainly thrilled me when I was a child, and still does - partly because I like it now, and partly because I liked it then.

Such a funny Comment I read -

"As an adult, I noticed how odd it was that a bunch of Kansas farm workers all had New York accents."

Oh!  I could relate to that!

I started noticing the Brooklyn bending of words and dropping of R's when I was 10 or 11, I think, watching that movie every year on TV.

        A lot of actors and actresses come from New York City, maybe because it's easier to get started there because there is theater, right there where they already live, and also many films and television shows are made there.

-30-

thumbs-up

 

Suzanne Pleshette; Bob Newhart (The Bob Newhart Show)

Go on You Tube and find the video titled,

If I said you had a beautiful body lyric video Bellamy Brothers

uploader / channel:  Bobby Brown

(13 million views)

... and Play.

It's a country song.

The whole title is, "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me."

        A little play on words, there.

The comedian Bob Newhart, who just passed on at the age of 94, said he didn't "get" country music - he said, "I think it's all one song."

        I met someone like that, once.  In the state capitol cafeteria I went for lunch and some lobbyists introduced themselves and asked me where I was from and what I was doing.  I said the town where I lived, and that I worked at a country music radio station.

        The executive director of the towns and cities organization burst out cheerfully, "Oh!  I'd rather chew barbed wire than listen to country music!"

He was an upbeat person who knew everything about lobbying and the political process and the various state legislators.

        Good dancer.

Under the Bellamy Brothers video, one Comment read:

~  Every weekend I have to play this beautiful piece.  Thumbs up Bellamy brothers.  From Uganda East Africa.

See, now, for that guy it isn't "country music," put in a category.  It's just a song - a "beautiful piece."

        I love how the phrase "thumbs up" seems to be universal among all languages.  Uganda.  (!)  Only imagine.

-30-

question-mark and the Mysterians

 

I have been coming to work and going home after work by calling on my cell phone for the taxi, to give me a ride home, and I pay them.

Now the cell phone doesn't work anymore, even outside the building.  I said to someone in "HR" that the phone doesn't work outside the building in the afternoon when I come to work, but it does work at night when I call the taxi.  

And now, suddenly, mysteriously, after I told her that - it doesn't work anymore at night, either.

Hmmmmh, very mysterious.  

        I wonder why. ...

Now I will have to sleep overnight at work and not be able to come to work the next day because I have been up all night, sleeping on the concrete.

          Or - walking home at night, and now I can do it, but when winter comes, and it's 500 degrees below zero, it will be problematic.

I am so sick of the crap.  

The harassment needs to stop.

It's a form of terrorism; maybe Homeland Security can do something about it. ...

       (I think they can make time - the middle eastern Arab Muslims have been pretty quiet, lately....)

-30-

accordingly...

 

Richard Nixon (President from 1969 to 1974); Lyndon Johnson (President from 1963 to 1969)

I was both surprised and not surprised today, upon reading that President Biden has decided to drop out of the presidential election contest.

        How have we come to such a pass in this country, where literally no one wants the job?

        I have had the concept for a while that in the modern era, post 1994, more bad, self-interested people - evil people - are drawn to politics in America.

        Then just recently another idea occurred to me which adds onto the concept that more terrible people get into politics now, and it is this:  by the same token, good people are driven away from becoming involved in government or the political process.  

The good people are repelled by the types they see participating in the public discourse.

So it's two interlocking phenomena:  bad people in; good people out.

Years ago, around 2009 or 2010 I think, I was in a conversation with a man who is a good, principled person with leadership qualities.  I lightly mentioned that he would be a good candidate, and he actually seemed to get a little bit mad!  (LOL)

        In a split second I went from feeling like I was giving him a nice compliment and sort of anticipating a humble, thankful acknowledgement - to thinking myself fortunate if I could escape without receiving a smack in the head!  (not really, but you know...)

Thinking, "Jize, don't get overwrought, my dude!"

He's 13 years younger than me, so his experience of our public discourse and media's coverage of same, in his formative years, is different from mine.  He sees politics, literally, as something to be actively avoided!

        That was an important, eye-opening moment for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted to recommend two videos on You Tube:  one of President Biden making his announcement in an address to the nation, and one of President Lyndon Johnson announcing similar intentions, in 1968.

        However, there is not yet any speech by Biden available on You Tube, that I can find anyway.  Apparently he communicated the decision in a letter, and will speak on it later this week.

Listen here on You Tube, video titled:

Reel America Preview:  LBJ Announces He Won't Run 3/31/1968

uploader / channel - C-SPAN

It's part of a longer speech - this vid is less than two minutes.  It's the "surprise" part of his address.

        "Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president...."

President Johnson had that Southern accent particular to the Texas Hill Country, where he was from.

I realized today that for some reason, I see Lyndon Johnson as kind of a tragic figure.  Richard Nixon, as well.

        Then I thought, 'Maybe every president is a tragic figure, in some way.'  But then, with consideration, I decided, No, not all presidents - I don't see Barack Obama as a tragic figure, or George W. Bush or his dad (1988 - 1992), or Bill Clinton, or Reagan or Gerald Ford. ...

        I don't know....

"Texas Hill Country" - by Patricia Reed

-30-

hey, come off it

 

YALE:

What are you doing here?

ISAAC:

What do you mean, what am I doing here? - I spoke to Mary, Weren't you going to say anything?

YALE:

Of course I was going to say something to you, but not now - 

(looking back over his shoulder, at the classroom)

I'm tryin'-da --

ISAAC:

So where can we speak?  Where can we go and talk?  Where can we speak?

(They go into another classroom, with no students in it.  There's a skeleton.)

YALE:

How'd you get past the security?

ISAAC:

I - walked - right - past!

ISAAC:

What are you telling me, that, that, you're gonna leave Emily, is this true? - And run away - with the, the, the winner of the Zelda Fitzgerald Emotional Maturity Award?!

YALE:

Look, I love her.  I've always loved her.

ISAAC:

What kind of crazy friend are you?

YALE:

I'm a good friend!  I introduced the two of you, remember?

ISAAC:

Right!  What was the point?!  I don't understand that!

YALE:

I thought you liked her!

ISAAC:

I do like her!  Now we both like her!

YALE:

(belligerently)

Yeah, well, I liked her first!

ISAAC:

(incredulous)

'I liked her first' - ?  What are you, six years old?  Geez!

YALE:

I thought it was over.  I mean, would I have encouraged you to take her out if I still liked her?

ISAAC:

So - what, you liked her now you don't like her, now you did like her, you know, it's still early, you can change your mind one more time before dinner!  (dinn-ah!)

YALE:

Don't get sarcastic about this.  You think I like this?

ISAAC:

How long were you gonna see her, without saying anything to me?

YALE:

Don't turn this into one of your big moral issues!  

ISAAC:

You could-a said - all you hadda do - was, you know, call me and talk to me.  You know, I'm very understanding, I'd have said no, but you'd have felt honest.

YALE:

I wanted to tell you about it, I knew it was going to upset you.  

(he sighs)

We had a few innocent meetings.

ISAAC:

A few?!  She said one!  You guys - should get your stories straight, you know - don't you rehearse?

YALE:

We met twice, for coffee.

ISAAC:

Hey, come off it, she doesn't drink coffee.  What'd you do, meet for Sanka?  That's not too romantic, you know, it's a little on the geriatric side...

YALE:

Well, I'm not a saint.  Okay.

ISAAC:

But you're too easy on yourself!  Don't you see that?!  You know, you're - that's your problem, that's your whole problem!  You rationalize everything, you're not honest with yourself, you know, you want to write a book, but - but in the end, you'd rather buy the Porsche. 

        You cheat a little on Emily, and you play around with the truth a little with me - and the next thing you know, you're in front of the Senate Committee and you're naming names!  You're informing on your friends.

YALE:

You are so self-righteous, you know, I mean, we're just people!  We're just human beings, you know - you think you're God!

ISAAC:

(considers that for a second)

I - I gotta model myself after someone.

YALE:

Ya-just can't live the way you do, you know?  It's all so perfect.

ISAAC:

What are future generations going to say about us?  My God, you know - 

(he looks at the skeleton and points to it)

someday, we're gonna, we're gonna be like him!  I mean, you know, he was probably one of the beautiful people, he was probably dancing, and playing tennis and everything and - and - now look, this is what happens to us!  

        You know?  It's very important to - to have some kind of personal integrity!  You know - I'll be hanging in a classroom one day, and I want to make sure when I - thin out - that I'm - well thought of.

YALE:

Ike - Ike - where you going?

-30-

"you think you're God!"

 

In the book Camera Girl, there's a quote from a letter Jackie wrote to her stepbrother, Yusha Auchincloss:  "There are so many people who get lost in pessimism and seeing the worst - but that is so wrong when there is good and beauty in the world - and it's so much happier being optimistic - even if you're wrong - you're happy and you make other people happy and isn't that what's important?"

 

        I could relate to that quote, because I sort of unconsciously fall into a habit of trying to entertain everyone and make everyone happy.  Some people are entertained one minute, but then attacking you the next, and then you're severely disappointed.

And then I ask myself, "Do I have a degree in Psychology?"

No, I do not.

Do I have some magical power to help everyone?

Probably not.

        This interior conversation makes me remember a scene in a Woody Allen movie (as many things do) - Manhattan.

Woody Allen wrote and directed:  he plays a character named Isaac.  

His friend Yale accuses him:  "You think you're God!"

Isaac's response to this is priceless.

In 1979, the entire audience fell out of their seats and rolled on the floor, laughing.

On You Tube, the video:

Manhattan (9/10) Movie CLIP - You Think You're God

uploader / channel:  Movieclips

-30-

they shall not escape

 

I had this idea that the phrase, "I come as a thief" must be a quote from something in literature - a poem, Shakespeare, or whatever....

Googled - it's from the Bible - First Thessalonians, Chapter 5, Verses 1 to 4:

"But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief."

-30-

I Come As A Thief

 

Louis Auchincloss

Louis Auchincloss was a cousin by marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier.  He was a full-time attorney who wrote, apparently, about 60 books. (??!)

        In 1976 I bought a paperback book written by him,  I Come As A Thief.  I suppose I bought it because of the dramatic title, and because I could afford it.  Probably found it in Osco Drug, which used to be on the main street of a Midwestern town near the tiny town where I lived, then.

        My dad saw what I was reading and he said, That author is related to Jackie Kennedy by marriage.

(Me:  "Oh.")

I know I read the book, but I can't remember what it was about.  (That isn't a negative judgment - just - you can't remember everything....)

I read about his job on the back of the book, and it told me, you can have a job and still write.

-30-

Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss

 

the Upper East Side in New York City

Jackie Kennedy's mother's maiden name was Lee.  When she married "Black Jack," she added Bouvier to her name - after divorcing him, she married millionaire Hugh D. Auchincloss.

        Jackie and her sister Lee called their stepfather Uncle Hughdie, or "Unk."

----------------------------- [excerpts from Camera Girl, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony - 2023, Gallery Books] ----------------

Jackie Bouvier's primary memory of her parents prior to their 1936 separation was their heading out to a Central Park Casino dance.  "I'll never forget the night my mother and father came into my bedroom all dressed up to go out.  

        I can still smell the scent my mother wore and feel the softness of her fur coat as she leaned over to kiss me good night."  The "moment stayed with me because it was one of the few times I remember seeing my parents together.  It was so romantic.  So hopeful."

        When twenty-year-old Janet Lee married thirty-seven-year-old Jack Bouvier, she entered a family that lived far more extravagantly than her own.  Ironically, the Lees had greater wealth, all earned in one generation by her father, James Thomas Lee.

During Black Jack and Janet's trial separation, from October 1936 to April 1937, Black Jack moved into a suite at the Westbury Hotel, then moved back home for several months.  It was clear there would be no reconciliation, and the final separation came in autumn 1937, when, after briefly staying with his parents, he settled into his permanent apartment at 125 East 74th Street.

        As the girls consistently defended Daddy, Mummy's escalating resentment toward her children manifested through her "frequently yelling" and her "very quick and at times violent temper," according to the nanny, Bertha Kimmerle.

...Jackie frequently spoke about running away and going to her father's house.  The author Gore Vidal said Jackie's "life in the world had been a good deal harder than she ever let on."

...Throughout the two years of Jack and Janet's separation - 1938 to 1940 - and then the two years after the 1940 divorce, Jack was able to enjoy the company of his daughters on most weekends during the school year.... 

        However, two months after Janet's June 1942 remarriage to Unk, she and her daughters moved to Unk's Virginia home.  From September 1942 until June 1944, Jackie was unable to see her father much on weekends, and they had just six summer weeks together in East Hampton.  

Black Jack's brother-in-law John Davis noted how heavily Bouvier began drinking and how he raged against Janet and her new husband, whom he dubbed "Take-a-Loss-with-Auchincloss."

Jackie Bouvier with her mom and dad

-30-

Black Jack Bouvier

 

"Black Jack" was the nickname of Jackie Kennedy's father, John Vernou Bouvier.

------------- [excerpts from Camera Girl, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony, Gallery Books - 2023] --------------------

On July 14, she arrived in New York City, met by her father.  All year long he looked forward to this annual summer reunion....

        He typically welcomed his daughters with an effusion of embraces and kisses, as well as a critique of their appearance combined with flattering praise....

        Then they would typically begin arguing, Bouvier-style - heated and unrelentingly loud.  Months earlier, after using his Bloomingdale's charge account with abandon, she failed to call him on Easter Sunday, and he yelled at her for both using the card and ignoring him.  

His reactions were not entirely predictable.  Initially upset when he learned that she applied for the year long study-abroad program through Smith College, he then felt such pride at her acceptance that he offered to underwrite it all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        Born on May 19, 1891, in New York (where he lived until the age of two), John Vernou Bouvier III was raised in Nutley, New Jersey, attending grammar school in nearby Morristown.  After he was expelled from boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy for gambling, his father pushed him through Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School with the help of tutors until he was accepted at Columbia University.  

        He studied there for two years, then transferred to Yale in 1910.  A member of the secret society Book and Snake, he excelled at tennis and was on the rowing team, but Jack - in his white flannel trousers, Bloody Mary in hand, cranking up the phonograph - was mostly renowned for his parties.

        An entitled, arrogant rogue, Jack gambled illegally (mainly on prizefights, at the racetrack, and in casinos) for high stakes in the company of his pal New York mayor Jimmy Walker.  He sped along the Motor Parkway into Long Island, knowing he'd never be ticketed because the chief of police was a former family gardener.  

        On occasion, he donned goggles for a dangerous flight in a Stinson Reliant monoplane to East Hampton, where he also organized and managed a summertime amateur baseball team, Bouvier's Black Ducks.  

He never contradicted rumors of his sexual escapades, including that of an affair with fellow Yale Glee Club member Cole Porter.  To stand apart from his peers, he devised a distinct appearance with fashion trademarks such as longer-than-normal shirt cuffs and cuffless trousers, black dancing pumps without socks, and a blue silk straw-hat band that matched his eyes.  

        In 1919, he was thrown out of the Hotel Knickerbocker because he made a "little skip" through the lobby, then in a "rude and unseemly manner stared at the greatly embarrassed ladies . . . made loud noises, used abusive language and by means of threats, force and violence, attempted to enter the ladies dressing room."  Jack sued the hotel manager for assault.

         Jack also staged grand public entrances.  When he exited his shining black Lincoln at the premier of Showboat, his diamond cuff links and gold-tipped walking stick were noted in the press.  He stood for a moment until he had the attention of the gawking crowds, then swirled off his black cape and gracefully draped it over his arm.  

(His theatricality even led a talent scout to encourage him to audition for the role of Rhett Butler in the film version of Gone with the Wind.)  One reliable affectation never failed to get him attention.  Night or day, summer or winter, he was never seen without his face glowing with the darkest possible tan, whether obtained from the sun or a lamp.

        Borrowing money from his wealthy great-uncle, he bought a seat on the Stock Exchange, proving wildly successful as a broker.  He lived a fast, indulgent life - introspection and emotional commitment were not for him.  In June 1914, he quickly got engaged to golf champion Lillian B. Hyde, then suddenly broke it off.  

        By April of 1920, his fiancee was Baltimore debutante Eleanor Carroll Daingerfield Carter.  The engagement was called off after six months.  Pursuing Chicago heiress Emma Stone but failing to commit, he got his comeuppance when she married his brother.

        His unwillingness to marry angered his father....

        Jack's July 7, 1928, wedding to his sisters' friend Janet Norton Lee, an eager social climber seventeen years his junior, seemed only to serve the purpose of making his father happy.

-30-

walking distance from Grand Central

 

Vassar College

-------------------- [excerpt from Camera Girl, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony.  Copyright 2023, Gallery Books] --------------------

As the June 1949 wedding season approached, it seemed like every one of her fellow Social Register debutantes wanted a husband.

        All Jacqueline Bouvier wanted was a "terrific camera."

        Vassar College had only just begun its final exam period, but the sophomore...was eager to complete her second year and leave the Hudson River Valley campus behind.  Among her innumerable and pronounced contradictions, Jackie was an excellent student who hated school.  

        She credited individual instructors for introducing her to subjects that became lifelong passions, but learned more on her own, outside institutional boundaries.

 

...She accepted the era's belief that young women should hide their intellectual gifts.  [A teacher said] "to avoid doing too well, Jackie would deliberately leave out one question on a test."

On the day her sophomore year ended, June 9, she departed the campus immediately, with all she owned.

        Her destination was Merrywood, her mother and stepfather's McLean, Virginia, estate.  This was a trip she knew well, taking her through New York City, where she'd make her way crosstown from Grand Central Station to Pennsylvania Station to catch the train to Washington.  

On the way, she would typically stop in at "that camera store by the station," almost certainly Peerless Camera, located at 138 East 44th Street, which was walking distance from Grand Central, and famously offered photographers the full spectrum of new cameras and cutting-edge equipment of seemingly all makes and models, and an array of attachments from lenses to flashes.  

        The object of her desire was the Leica IIc (notable for its fast shutter speeds), which had gone into production the previous year....She wanted the best camera to record her imminent year abroad in Paris.

-30-

journalistic rigor

 

I came back to reading the book Camera Girl, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony.  It's about Jackie Kennedy's young, single years - her education and writing.

[from the book jacket] - Camera Girl brings to cinematic life Jackie's years as a young single woman trying to figure out who she wanted to be.  Chafing at the expectations of her family and the societal limitations placed on women in that era, Jackie pursued her dream of becoming a writer.  

        Set primarily during the years of 1949 - 53, Jackie was in her early twenties, the book recounts in heretofore unrevealed detail the story of her late college years and her early adulthood as a working woman.  

Before she met Jack Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier [BOO-vee-ay] was the Washington Times-Herald's "Inquiring Camera Girl," posing compelling questions to members of the republic on the streets of D.C. and snapping their photos with her unwieldy Graflex camera.  She then fashioned the results into a daily column, of which six hundred were published.

        Carl Sferrazza Anthony, a historian and leading expert on First Ladies, draws on these  columns and previously unseen archives of Jackie's writings from this time, along with insights gleaned from interviews he conducted with the former First Lady's friends, colleagues, and family members.  

Camera Girl offers a fresh perspective on the woman later known as Jacqueline Kennedy and Jackie O, introducing us to the headstrong, self-assured young woman who went on to become one of the world's most famous people.  

        It's a glamorous and surprisingly hard-charging story of a person determined to define herself, told with admiration, empathy, and journalistic rigor.

-30-

"long day's journey into work"

 

Shelley Hack, Season 4 "Angel"

In the Charlie's Angels documentaries on You Tube, they mention working long hours - specifically, "18-hour days."

        How is that possible?  There are 24 hours in a day, and if you seriously work 18 hours, there are only 6 hours left before the next day of working starts.  You need eight hours of sleep, and there are not even eight hours left, only six. 

        And you aren't even going to get six hours of sleep, unless you lie down right where you are, with a pillow, where you were working, when you stop working, and Sleep Immediately, for the whole six hours, because that's all that is available to you, and that doesn't even leave time for brushing your teeth and cleansing and moisturizing your face and even changing into pajamas.

You cannot work "18-hour days" - that doesn't make sense.  (As young people say on  the Internet, "The math ain't math-ing.")

Maybe they worked "hard," and the hours got a little long, and it "felt like" 18 hours to the actresses.

----------------------------------------- The actor David Doyle was on "Charlie's Angels" - I used to assume he was Charlie, but he wasn't, he was "Bosley."  Charlie would call and talk on the speaker-phone, and Bosley would meet in person with Jill, Kelly, and Sabrina.  (I didn't watch it closely enough.  I was - "aware" - of it.)

        David Doyle had started his acting career with stage work on Broadway.  He had a unique, great voice, and excellent timing.

David Doyle, on "Charlie's Angels"

-30-

stay out of small, foreign cars

 

Farrah Fawcett in the Ultra-Brite toothpaste commercial

"We thought the audience would like to escape," says Leonard Goldberg, discussing the origin of the Charlie's Angels concept.

When Goldberg and Aaron Spelling first pitched the idea of the TV series to network executives, in a meeting at the famous, iconic Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the programming "brass" said, "That's the worst idea we've ever heard, forget about it."

        The actor Robert Wagner had some development leverage in TV as part of an earlier tv-movie contract, so Leonard Goldberg took the Charlie's Angels idea to him.  Wagner said, "That's a terrible idea for a television series, but you guys know what you're doing, if you like it, go ahead."

When they're trying to put the original cast together, they discuss finding Farrah Fawcett.  She had launched her career appearing in TV commercials - they say that in the documentary, and then they show a commercial with Farrah in it, and I remember that commercial from when I was in grade school, or maybe junior high.

        Farrah appears in a sun-drenched, outdoor scenario, saying "Mother always told me:  sit up straight, eat all your vegetables, and stay out of small, foreign cars.  But Joey - Mother never told me about Ultra-Brite!"

(Ultra-Brite was a toothpaste.)

        And a song kicks in:  "My mother thought that all that whitening, would make me too exciten-ing, so Mother never told  me about - Ultra-Brite!"

"Charlie" in Charlie's Angels is the man who you never see - you only hear him on the speaker-phone, informing the young-lady detectives (or - "angels") of what their assignment is.  Originally, they hired the actor Gig Young for the part.

"The debonair, Oscar-winning actor had a smooth, sophisticated voice"...

        But he was drunk during the day, when he was supposed to work, so that didn't happen.  They ended up hiring John Forsythe for that.

(Gig Young was the second husband of Elizabeth Montgomery, by the way.  After him, she married William Asher, and they did Bewitched together....)

        Then, before the 90-minute pilot made it to on-air, the network president was whining about it.  But the network boss gave the producers "one more chance to save their series."

        Aaron Spelling:  "They kept saying, 'What makes it different?'"

Spelling and Goldberg ad-libbed a set-up:  something about, how the "Angels" graduated from the police academy, but a man named Charlie took them away from cop-work, and hired the Angels as private eyes instead.

Spelling:  "And they said, 'Oh, that's great!  That explains the whole thing!'  So they bought it, from that moment."

Elizabeth Montgomery and Gig Young

-30-

time travel to the '70s

Viewer Comments under Charlie's Angels videos on You Tube:

~  Watching this show as a young adult in 2020 is so amazing, it makes me want to time travel back to the 70s when the hair was fabulous and the world was just starting to accept that women could lead on their own.

~  I'd love to climb into that time machine, too!  The fashion, the music, the lifestyles - the 70s had it going on!

~  Loved it in 1976 and love it now

~  My favorite seasons are:

Season 1 (the original Angels of course)

Season 2

Season 3

Never watched s4 and 5 because my favorite Angel Sabrina Duncan was not in it.  And all the s4 glamour was no longer the cool 70s Charlie's Angels.  The magic was gone.  That said, the glamorous s4 Angels would have been perfect for a show like Dynasty!

~  It's my favourite season with the highly underrated Shelley Hack.  I actually think they did some fresh and rather cool stories too in that season.

~  Season 4 and 5 got too shiny, too 80s already.  It was over from the moment Kate left.

~  The first season will always be my favorite....

~  Farrah Fawcett-Majors - even her name was so marquee; that added to her phenomenon, along with the poster

-30-

beauteous crime fighters

 

Jaclyn Smith; Farrah Fawcett; Kate Jackson

Now on HBO Max: the feature film Charlie Wilson's War.

On Netflix:  American Hustle

and Fatal Attraction.

Very well-made movies.

Actress Amy Adams is in both "Charlie Wilson" and "Hustle."

--------------------------------------------- Have been studying "behind-the-scenes" type shows on You Tube about the seventies TV series Charlie's Angels.

Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg were the producers who created the show.

        Recently I had discovered a 1965 series about a woman detective, Honey West - come to find out, Aaron Spelling was behind that, too.  It said in one of the documentaries, "Honey West was ahead of her time."  

        Spelling tries the woman detective idea in 1965 and it doesn't do well - then he tries it again in 1976, and there you go -- it is a big hit.

Actresses who portrayed the original "Angels" --

Farrah Fawcett

Jaclyn Smith

Kate Jackson

Jaclyn Smith was on the series for all five seasons that it ran.

Farrah Fawcett left after only one year, and was replaced by Cheryl Ladd, an actress who came from Huron, South Dakota.  (In Huron there was a restaurant called The Barn, and it had photographs up on the wall of Cheryl Ladd, celebrating that a local person had made it in Hollywood.)

        When Kate Jackson left the show after the third year, Shelley Hack was put into the show.  And the next year Shelley Hack was replaced by Tanya Roberts.

(Shelley Hack appeared in Woody Allen's film, Annie Hall.  You can see her clip on You Tube:

Annie Hall - The Happy Couple !

uploader / channel:  The Best Movies

        "I'm very shallow and empty, and I have no ideas - and - nothing interesting to say!"  lol)

----------------------------------------------

        July 1975, a 90-minute pilot for Charlie's Angels was filmed.

        There was, however, still some doubt of the show ever making it to the airwaves.

        Aaron Spelling said later in an interview, "The network had this stupid thing about, 'Women can't carry a series.'"

        Leonard Goldberg:  "They were really worried about women doing action / adventure."

One commenter called Farrah Fawcett's rapidly exploding fame and popularity at the time "a Farrah frenzy."

Aaron Spelling

-30-

Amy Adams; Julia Roberts

 

American Hustle is back, on Netflix.

I can't believe it.

Along with Fatal

Attraction.

Amy Adams does such a good job, as an actress.

In Charlie WIlson's War, and - in everything else she does.

-30-