An interview with author David C. Tucker - Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record

We continue our look at the new book on Gale Storm this week with an interview with the author, David C. Tucker.  Please see last week's post for our review on Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record.

JTL: You first researched the work of Gale Storm (and interviewed her) for your 2007 book The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms. What made you want to take up Gale Storm as a full-length book project?

David Tucker: Before I wrote that first book, I knew less about her than most of the other women I profiled. But as I watched her shows, and researched her career, I was captivated by her charm and talent. Interviewing her only added to that, and kept me thinking about her even after The Women Who Made Television Funny was finished. A full-length book gave me the opportunity to explore her film career in depth, which wasn’t possible the first time. Although she had passed away by the time I began the newer book, I was lucky to be able to speak with her daughter, two of her grandchildren, her stepdaughter, and people like Linda Wood, who as a little girl loved Margie on TV and persuaded her father, a record executive, to offer Gale Storm a recording contract.

JTL: Gale wrote her own autobiography I Ain’t Down Yet, which revealed her battle with alcoholism.  Having read your book, I’d like to read her memoir as well.  Personally, though I enjoy biographies of entertainers, and especially value autobiographies as lending insight into their careers, I am inevitably disappointed that the greater part of these celebrity bios are devoted to little more than a cursory view of their career achievements.  Much of these books dwell on anecdotal material, which though entertaining (and as with Gale’s struggle with her disease, inspiring), is not always very useful to the serious film fan.  I found myself in reading many books on film stars to be annoyed that a film I wanted to know more about was dismissed as “and then he did this.”  Then a full chapter on the next divorce or scandal.  Your book, Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record is a detailed career record fans can turn to for the most meticulous chronicling of her work.  Many serious classic film and television fans are extremely knowledgeable and compile their own informal hobby lists that would be the envy of professional keepers of baseball box scores. What is your opinion and your approach to writing about your film star subjects and Gale Storm in particular?

David Tucker: I wrote Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record with the aim of complementing and supplementing the memoir she wrote. While that book is a great read, it focuses largely on her recovery from alcoholism, which had received much publicity at the time it was published. I wanted to cover her film and television career in more depth, including the B movies, which are often given short shrift in books. So there is an essay on every film she made, with behind-the-scenes details and a critical analysis. Likewise, there’s an extensively researched section on her work in television. Since her own book came out in the early 1980s, there was also a need to explore the last three decades of her life. Those later years included, among other things, her life as a widow after Lee’s death, her second marriage, and her final professional performances. On the personal side, it was exciting to meet and befriend her niece, who shared not only great stories with me about the family, but also rare photos of Gale’s parents and sisters.  

JTL:   I note that you credit in your acknowledgements section a thank you to fans who provided material -- films and memorabilia from their own collections.  When I was writing about Ann Blyth, I found her fans to be invaluable for sources of material that just could not be found elsewhere.  I still hear from fans wanting to share their treasures, and I’ve made a couple wonderful friends among them.  What was your experience in the hunt for film and television video, radio and recordings, lobby cards and various memorabilia and how did private collectors help you?

David Tucker: Gale had a very close, loving relationship with her fans, and they were incredibly helpful in preparing the book. People who didn’t really know me would send me DVDs, tapes, and memorabilia, so that I was able to see as much of her work as possible. Ron Baker, who co-founded her fan club, is a walking encyclopedia of Gale’s life and career, and he couldn’t have been more generous or helpful. Even Gale’s own daughter said he knew far more about her mother’s career than she did. 

JTL:  Also, as regards the challenge of collecting material for research, I’ve read where Boomers were big collectors and the older Boomers are now downsizing, but younger generations are less interested in collectibles (putting a dent in the income of some collectibles dealers).  Do you have an opinion on what will happen to all this material, these posters and 16mm films and such?  Will estate sales draw out other collectors or will they just be a glut on eBay?  Or perish the thought, left in landfills?

David Tucker: Some of it, inevitably, will be lost. But I like to think that my books help to preserve not only information, but also high-quality reproductions of rare lobby cards, film stills, and other memorabilia. My publisher’s books stay in print for long periods of time, and they can be found in the collections of many libraries and archives. Even after the original illustrations deteriorate, hopefully this will allow future generations to see them. I also plan to donate some of these original materials to archives, where they can be professionally preserved, and that’s something fans could consider doing as well.

JTL:  I enjoyed reading your book on Gale Storm very much.  Like most Baby Boomers, I’m familiar with her most from reruns of My Little Margie.  (I seem to remember there was a child character on the 1970s sitcom soap opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman who was addicted to My Little Margie reruns.) While, as a fan of classic films, I was aware of her career, but did not know the wide range of genres in which she performed -- noir, westerns, musicals, and I am delighted to discover her discography in recordings and Soundies. I really knew nothing of her recording career. “I Hear You Knockin’" quite surprised me, and the YouTube video I checked out -- I must say, a knock-out. Do you have a favorite film of Gale’s? A favorite record?

David Tucker: Many people love It Happened on Fifth Avenue, of course, which was also one of her favorite films. I love it too, and recommend it to anyone, especially as a holiday treat. But, as you say, most people don’t know the extent of her film work. Her noir films of the late 1940s and early 1950s (Abandoned, Between Midnight and Dawn) are a revelation if you haven’t seen them. I’m also quite fond of G.I. Honeymoon, a little-known Monogram comedy from 1945 that really gives you an early glimpse at the type of characters she would play in her television series. As for her music, I especially loved her singing on Oh! Susanna, where she did beautifully choreographed musical numbers that really showcased her talent.

JTL:   I’m delighted that you covered her experience in summer theatre, another aspect of an entertainment career that is often neglected in biographies.  There is the usual “Have you retired?” question when a star flies under the radar in the film industry -- but not to fans who loyally flocked to summer theaters to see their favorites.  Interestingly, Gale did not start in theatre, but came to it rather late in her career.  Many studio-trained stars were uneasy, even terrified by going on stage.  How do you think she made the transition, and did she enjoy the challenge of stage work?

David Tucker: Although she had made a few stage appearances earlier, it wasn’t until the 1960s that it really became a major focus of her career. She had some nerves, as anyone would, but it doesn’t seem to have been a difficult transition for her. Gale had acted in front of a camera for so many years, doing shows that were filmed without a studio audience, that she found it exciting to hear live, spontaneous reaction when she performed. She was also heartened to realize that people still remembered and loved her, and would eagerly buy tickets to see her on stage. 

JTL: Radio, too, often goes unmentioned, but since Old Time Radio (OTR) is so much more easily discovered and shared in our Internet era, it is easier for a film star biographer to hear these shows to write about them. Gale’s career as you note, as did so many others, actually began on a radio contest, which sent her to Hollywood. What is your opinion on her versatility? Did you start writing about Gale as a fan, or did you become a fan through writing about her?

David Tucker:  Although it certainly wasn’t funny at the time, in later years she could laugh at the fact that her RKO contract, which was the grand prize in the radio contest, petered out so quickly. An executive there told her that she didn’t have what it took to become a star. Gale had more determination than people realize, and she proved him wrong, as he himself later admitted. I originally saw and admired her work on My Little Margie, but there is much more to her career. Researching this book really showed me that, along with being a talented comedienne, she was a fine dramatic actress, and is underrated as a singer. 

JTL:  A large section of your book is devoted to detailing episodes of My Little Margie and her second successful series, The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna. You mentioned that Oh! Susanna never made it to DVD (I believe at least the first season of My Little Margie is on DVD) and, except for some episodes shared by collectors, there are only a few up on YouTube to give us a taste of what that show was like -- an early Love Boat, with Gale as a cruise director and the wonderful ZaSu Pitts as her buddy.  How do you think these two different series compare in illustrating her many talents?

David Tucker:  have a special fondness for My Little Margie, because to me it represents pure, unadulterated fun -- no messages or underlying meanings, just the biggest laughs possible. Margie is a great character who enjoys life thoroughly, and reminds us to do the same. When she did The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna, there was an effort by producers and writers to let her character mature a bit, although she was still quite the schemer. I think both series show that she had comic abilities that were largely overlooked in her film career, and the second show has the marvelous bonus of integrating her singing talent. 

JTL:   Gale worked for many of the smaller studios in Hollywood.  I expect if that radio contest had sent her to MGM instead, she’d have been plunked into musicals for probably her entire career and not done the wider range of work she experienced. What do you think were her greatest strengths as an entertainer, and how do you think working at the smaller studios served her?

David Tucker: I think she has innate charm and likability that come out very clearly in her performances. Although she could, and did, play some fine dramatic roles (such as Abandoned), her sense of fun is a major factor in her success. Being at the Monogram studios meant she was a big fish in a very small pond. While there wasn’t much star treatment at a Poverty Row studio, she had the chance to play a variety of roles. She also demonstrated that she could do good work on a tight schedule, which made her a natural to transition into a weekly TV series. 

My thanks to David C. Tucker for joining us today, and I hope you visit his interesting blog and read his new book, Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record (McFarland, 2018).

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THE WINNER OF THE CONTEST TO WIN EITHER AN PRINT BOOK OR AUDIOBOOK VERSION OF ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. IS...…

Sam H.!

Congratulations, Sam!  And thank you to everyone who entered the contest.

Review of Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record by David C. Tucker

Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record by David C. Tucker is a pleasant career review of a charming lady whom most readers will remember as an icon of television’s Golden Age, but whose films remain little discovered by even many classic film fans.

This is the latest in a collection of books about classic TV and film figures by Mr. Tucker. He was fortunate to interview Gale Storm for a chapter in an earlier book – The Women Who Made Television Funny (2007). Expanding on her life and career for this book, Tucker gives us a detailed chronicle of her work. Her film career took her to various studios where she appeared in many genres. (Her strikingly meteorological name was bestowed on her, along with a studio contract, as a radio talent show contest prize.) I would guess classic film fans may remember her most from the Christmas favorite It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947).

What her film work in westerns, noir, and dramas may have lacked in terms of opportunities to do comedy or musicals (she had a terrific singing voice), television provided ample opportunities for both. Her first series, My Little Margie (1952-1955) allowed her to cut up splendidly, and her second comedy series The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna (1956-1960) – allowed her to sing as well. Both series episodes are detailed in the book.

Gale Storm: A Biography and Career Record is published by McFarland. It is thorough and interesting and includes interviews and many photos.  It is a fine tribute to an actress whose range of accomplishments may surprise you. Next week we’ll have an interview with author David C. Tucker about his book.

Speaking of singing, have a look below at Gale Storm’s live TV performance of her song “I Hear You Knockin’” – that earned her a gold record.

For more on Tucker’s books, please see his blog here.

The author provided a review copy for purposes of this review post.

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To continue our celebration of Ann Blyth's 90th birthday, I'm giving away a present to one lucky winner: Your choice of either a paperback version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. (mailed to you), or the audiobook version narrated by actress Toni Lewis (sent directly to your email for download to your computer, iPad, or phone). Just send me an email saying you want to enter the contest. I'll draw the name of the winner out of a hat next week on Wednesday, August 29th.

Good luck! 

Ann Blyth's 90th Birthday - and a giveaway!

Ann Blyth is 90 years old today.  This in itself is an achievement, and her family and friends who will surely celebrate the milestone are not the only beneficiaries of Miss Blyth's -- or in private life, Mrs. McNulty's -- good health and longevity; her fans around the world will smile today and wish her a very happy 90th birthday.  

When she was a small child raised by a single mother in Depression-era New York City, standing on a box to reach a microphone at her first gig that would help support her struggling family -- for a  few bucks a week -- I guess she probably would not have imagined a day, when after decades of career and personal adventures, so many strangers would be vicariously attending her 90th birthday party.  

They will do so by watching a favorite Ann Blyth film on their televisions or their computers or their iPads, and skim through several congratulatory posts and messages on Facebook and Twitter, maybe "liking" something they read.

It's a long way from the box and the microphone and rushing home from school to run to rehearsal.

Five years ago I was mulling over a new topic for this blog and I decided to post about a couple Ann Blyth films.  It was pure serendipity, or a blessing, that I stumbled upon a journey of discovery that fascinated, and moved me, and enriched my small personal world to the point where I find myself grateful not only to an actress from the glory days of Hollywood's celebrated studio system, but to her fans who've shared so much with me in terms of their memorabilia, their memories, and their enthusiasm.  I posted weekly on her career in 2014, The Year of Ann Blyth, which begins with this intro post here.

What I've found most appealing about Ann Blyth is more than her obvious talent; it is her work ethic, her decency, and kindliness.

But my exploration into her career with weekly blog posts, that developed into a book, (which, by the way, is reviewed today on author David C. Tucker's blog here) was more than just an exercise in fandom. It was an investigation and analysis of twentieth-century popular entertainment told through the career trajectory of one actress.

From that post:

Movies, radio, television—our entertainment industry became America’s greatest export to the world, for better and for worse. I want to examine this watershed century in the acting profession and the media through the career of one actress, and am particularly drawn to Ann Blyth for different reasons; including that she moved comfortably between the different media and excelled at each, and because long after she performed in her last movie she continued to work when it suited her, on television and most especially, the stage, including plays, musicals, concerts, night clubs and cabaret. Throw in a few TV commercials, and you can see she tagged all the bases.

And something else...something intangible and perhaps only evident when you stack her performances on a timeline: if you know Ann Blyth only through her frothy MGM musicals, you don't know Ann Blyth.

In dramas she has morphed into the epitome of hateful, sensual, heartbroken, and shamed. If you know her only as the demon teen Veda in Mildred Pierce, you don't know Ann Blyth. The same colossal greedy train wreck of a girl who spit invective at Joan Crawford and smacked her in the jaw also performed a night club act to enthusiastic crowds in Las Vegas, bringing them to tears with the sentimental "Auld Lang Syne" and sang at the California state fair. If you only know her from The Helen Morgan Story or melodramas, you are missing her genuine gift for screwball comedy. Sinking herself intellectually, just as much as emotionally into these roles, she swims against the powerful and unrelenting current of studio typecasting... 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

To continue our celebration of Ann's birthday, I'm giving away a present to one lucky winner: Your choice of either a paperback version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. (mailed to you), or the audiobook version narrated by actress Toni Lewis (sent directly to your email for download to your computer, iPad, or phone). Just send me an email saying you want to enter the contest. I'll draw the name of the winner out of a hat in two weeks on Wednesday, August 29th.

Good luck!

And Happy Birthday, Mrs. McNulty!

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For the entire month of August, the eBook version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. will be reduced by 70% to $2.99. This special sale continues only this month, and only for the eBook version.

You can get your copy here at these online retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple iBooks

Katie Did It - and a sale!

Ann Blyth will be 90 years old next Thursday on August 16th. I posted a Universal publicity photo last week that was taken just before Katie Did It (1951) when Ann was about 22 years old. In the YouTube video above, you can watch the entire movie. When I was gathering films and research material for my book on Ann Blyth's career, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star., Katie was the most elusive; it was the last movie I was able to obtain after more than a year of searching. It cracks me up that it's now available in public domain on the Internet Archive site and in the above video from YouTube.

We'll celebrate her 90th birthday next week with another post, and a giveaway.

Also, for the entire month of August, the eBook version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. will be reduced by 70% to $2.99. This special sale continues only this month, and only for the eBook version.

You can get your copy here at these online retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple iBooks

Ann Blyth's birthday milestone - and a celebration sale!

Ann Blyth will reach a milestone birthday this month - she will be 90 years old on August 16th.  The Universal publicity photo above was taken just before Katie Did It (1951) when Ann was about 22 years old.

We'll celebrate her upcoming birthday the next few weeks with a few special posts.

Also, for the entire month of August, the eBook version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. will be reduced by 70% to $2.99.  This special sale continues only this month, and only for the eBook version. This book grew from my year-long weekly posts on her career in the 2014 series I called The Year of Ann Blyth, starting with this one.

You can get your copy of the eBook here at these online retailers:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple iBooks

Teresa Wright - the odd girl

Teresa Wright is one of 50 stars featured in the Big Star Album winter 1943 issue, a quarterly magazine from Dell Publishing Company.  It is a collection of black and white portrait photos, with blurbs or brief bios accompanying each star.

Miss Wright is 24 years old, and already packaged as "different" who "says she wants to reach folks' souls."

The editors note, "You can take for granted that she's an odd girl.  All for art.  Never touches make-up or cigarettes."

Not exactly stellar notices, but in an industry focused on superficial glamour, it demonstrated a wary if grudging respect for the young woman who, probably just as this issue hit the stands and long after this blurb was written -- had been nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in the same year, and won for the latter category for Mrs. Miniver (1942).  The editors seem to have forgotten she had also been nominated the year before for Best Supporting -- three nominations for her first three Hollywood films, a feat that has never been done by anyone else since.

Take that, Big Star Album.

1776 - 1976 - 2026?

At the end of the school year in about 1974 or 1975, I can remember an assembly in junior high school that was meant as an end-of-the-year treat for us kids to get us out of the hot, stuffy classrooms that were not air-conditioned and move us into the gym/auditorium that was also not air-conditioned. A movie projector was wheeled in on one of those old typical public school audiovisual carts and a screen was pulled down over the stage. We were treated to a movie that day. It was 1776 (1972).

We have mentioned on this blog before the 1970s being a decade almost peculiarly devoted to nostalgia. It was the era where we saw a revival of sorts in culture and entertainment, a nod to Hollywood's heyday. Many of Hollywood's stars at that time were still with us, indeed, were still working, and were able to share with us and enjoy the images of their youth which at the time they may have thought doomed to obscurity. But thanks to television and the new videocassettes on the horizon and much memorabilia sold in the meantime, the 1970s became an era where we rediscovered the past and reveled in it. It was the era of That's Entertainment (1974), and young people such as myself were able to not only to learn about the 1920s and 30s and 40s but actually to identify with those eras even in the face of the impending disco craze.

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, JT Lynch photo.

But 1974 or 1975 was still too early for disco. What it was, however, was an interesting watershed where, bit by bit, we began to be aware that the bicentennial of our nation was close at hand. I think we warmed to it slowly but once we saw the party on the horizon we became immersed in the Bicentennial. Perhaps it was the horrific experience of all the upheaval and violence and disappointment and, indeed, revolution of the 1960s that put us in a different frame of mind where we might welcome a more noble, and perhaps scrubbed-up, past.

Suddenly there were novels written about the colonial period, and towns across the United States began to discover their own history and prepare for a historical presentation, even if the celebration was nothing more than fireworks on July 4, 1976. This is not to say that we looked backward with the effect of Disney-fying our past.  Rather, there was a lot of re-examination of many unpleasant aspects of our history, which we faced, I think, nobly, humbly, and learned a great deal from it.

Somewhere in there, a musical called 1776 embodied pretty much all of that era – the interest in nostalgia, the sincere desire to investigate our national roots good and bad, as an opportunity to revel in the joyous knowledge that our democracy was once the greatest experiment of mankind and the most successful and in many ways an uplifting boon to mankind from many nations.  It demonstrated how slim the margin was between success and failure of that experiment.

The play was first performed on Broadway in 1969, when the upheaval of the 1960s was barely out of the rearview mirror. It opened on March 16th of that year at the 46th Street Theater in New York, now called the Richard Rogers Theatre. It depicts, of course, the story of the delegates fighting over the Declaration of Independence preparatory to its writing and signing and adoption in July 1776. There are various historical inaccuracies in the show, but, of course, this is a musical; indeed, it is even a musical comedy though its more somber moments are revelatory, so it should not be looked upon as a documentary. It was never intended to be.

The movie was made in 1972 and, happily, some of the Broadway originals made it to the screen such as William Daniels as John Adams, Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin, Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson, and John Callum as Edward Rutledge. In the film a very young Blythe Danner plays Martha Jefferson (the role had been originated by Betty Buckley on stage in her Broadway debut). 

As an old movie fan, I take particular delight in seeing Howard Da Silva as Franklin.  Da Silva certainly had his troubles up against the Blacklist and the worst days of the 1950s, so it is especially fun to connect the sneering gangster from The Blue Dahlia (1946) to singing as the jovial, avuncular if naughty Ben Franklin. It is also a very special delight to see Ray Middleton in the smaller role of Thomas McKean, the Scotts delegate from Delaware. We discussed his work in this post on I Dream of Jeanie (1952) where he played the minstrel showman Edwin P. Christy in his booming baritone voice.

Though I love all the sly playfulness in the script and the delightful songs, my favorite among the musical numbers are “Molasses to Rum to Slaves” sung by John Callum as he points out that the evil of slavery is not just something borne of the South but that was aided and abetted by the northern colonies who engaged in the infamous Triangle Trade. It is a very honest and majestic song, even if it is uncomfortable for many of us to hear. It is an excellent way to teach history, I think because it is simple and it is vivid and it gives one a slice, just a taste of all the complications and human emotions that went behind the history.

I'm also very fond of the song called “Cool Considerate Men” which describes the conservatives in Congress not wanting to rock the boat, indeed, many of whom did not really want independence because they were afraid they would lose everything they owned. This song, although it illustrates the beginnings of a split that existed from the very beginning in terms of North and South and propertied men and unpropertied men, the aristocrats versus the rabble—it is not really accurate to say there was a Left and Right in the United States at the time of Revolution. That came much later.

The Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, JT Lynch photo.

The interesting thing about this song in the musical is that it reflects the era of the 1970s when this musical crawled out of the mosaic of our modern times and remains with us today. According to producer Jack Warner (speaking of Hollywood’s heyday, this would be one of the last films in which Warner was involved), President Richard Nixon requested to have that particular song that was in the stage play removed from the film because he thought it an insult to modern-day Conservatives. Warner, who was Nixon's pal, agreed to do it even though the director Peter Hunt, who also directed the stage play, refused. Warner took the song out in postproduction behind Hunt’s back, and he apparently also wanted to have the song cut out from the original negative of the film but the film editor saved the day and kept it safe. According to the Los Angeles Times of September 7, 2001, it was only decades later that this particular song was restored to the film.

When the Broadway musical was slated to be presented at the White House in 1970 for the pleasure of President Richard Nixon, it was likewise requested that the producers cut that song from the show.  They denied the request.

This is the power of history, the power to make it, shape it, the power to deny it and forget it. History never dies because its consequences are always with us. We may say that the left versus right fight represented in the song Cool Considerate Men was not accurate to July 1776 but it most certainly was accurate during the Bicentennial and the play was really about the Bicentennial after all, wasn't it?

And so there in the stuffy junior high auditorium we watched 1776 and our teachers explained to us who the characters were, and I can remember one teacher telling us to spot the redheaded man singing because that was Thomas Jefferson and he had red hair. Caesar Rodney’s facial skin cancer was explained to us. I can remember the clatter of the film projector. I can even remember a sense of discomfort from the teachers and a sense of wonder from the students that we were allowed to see some of the more risqué aspects of the film. To be sure what was risqué in 1975 is not anymore.

We did not need too much explanation about the Revolutionary War because, after all, we were in Massachusetts where we are spoon-fed on the Revolution, the colonial period, where fife and drum corps abound, and in those days, there was a certain smugness in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal that The Commonwealth was the only state in the union that did not vote for Nixon.  We wore T-shirts and had bumper stickers on our cars that said, “Don’t Blame Me, I’m From Massachusetts.”

Independence Hall interior, photo by JT Lynch.

We began celebrating the Bicentennial well before 1976 with many events, such as the recreation of dragging Colonel Henry Knox’s canon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York across the length of the Bay State to Bunker Hill—a miserable job in the winter back in 1775, and even in 1975 on the now-paved Route 20 (which we still call The King’s Highway as often as The Boston Post Road for some perverse reason.)

It was a good time to be young, in the warm lushness of summer when Freedom, to us, meant freedom from school.

Where has that enthusiasm for sentimental American history gone?

For that matter, where has all that old colonial furniture gone?  I don’t think you can even find it in flea markets these days, but everything was colonial reproductions. Everything was colonial. Everything had red, white and blue bunting, including a package of cupcakes.  The Bicentennial was on our money, coins and paper bills (including the short-lived new $2 bill).  It was stamped on our toys, license plates, clothing. I can remember carved eagle plaques on the wall and flags with the thirteen stars hanging from houses.

In 2026, just eight years away, we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We are due for another party. Our enthusiasm for the bicentennial may have been borne from the despair and disillusionment from the late 60s and the early 70s culminating with the Nixon scandal of Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Vietnam, the vice president being indicted for tax fraud—you name it, there was plenty of corruption to choose from. The Bicentennial gave us a chance to reboot, although the term was not used then.

Will we get another opportunity to rejuvenate and restore ourselves, to look back and to look forward with hope at our 250th celebration? Will there be a celebration? 

Will anybody revive that colonial furniture?

I remember the Bicentennial, the celebrations, the fireworks and the feeling on July 5th as the sulfur from the fireworks still hung in the air, of a sense of needing to move on and clean up after the party and continue on our journey as a nation. Will, just as in the aftermath of Nixon, will a new celebration of our founding as a nation remove the stain, the shame, and bad taste of the Trump years?  To be sure, this nation has suffered crises in many generations, and the threat to our democracy is as serious now because democracy is really a fragile thing that depends on us. The cool considerate men (and women) in Congress are just as self-righteous and just as good as feathering their own nests now as they were in 1976 or 1776.

Eight years away. We have work to do. Pride in our country is not something we deserve as a birthright. It is something we must continually earn.

Massachusetts where John Adams had to "sit down", photo by JT Lynch.

Many decades after the Bicentennial, I went to Philadelphia to see Independence Hall, to pick out where John Adams and my Massachusetts contingent sat.  Having grown up with the musical, it was a running gag on that trip that my brother, John, and I sang under our breath, “Sit DOWN, John!”  In another nod to the Hollywood’s heyday, by which I mean the dependence on the studio setting—that movie was filmed entirely on the back lot, probably one of the last to be filmed so.  No location shooting.

One of the most stirring scenes in 1776, in the film and in the stage musical, was at the very end when they are signing the Declaration and then freeze in the positions not unlike the old John Trumbull painting of the event.  It’s a stunning effect.  The characters immediately become history.  They become the image of the ideal we hold.  We must also take our places in the image of the ideal we hold. If our citizenship requires no effort from us, has no place in our collective memory, then it will have no meaning for our children and grandchildren.  Let’s save our country from being sold out to the highest bidder—foreign or domestic.  We can start this November.  Celebrations take a lot of planning.  By 2026, we might be able to restore our democratic principles.

In eight years, we can maybe revive some colonial furniture, too.

As William Daniel sang when he portrayed John Adams, "Is anybody there?"

The blogger waits for the post rider with news from the front.  JT Lynch photo.

Ida Lupino Wants to Laugh

Ida Lupino in living color, another example of gorgeous photography from Screen Guide magazine.  This March 1943 issue also includes a brief article, see below, on Ida's desire to step back from all the heavy drama and try a little comedy -- "I Want to Laugh!"

Lucille Ball - Color Portrait

This stunning color portrait of Lucille Ball was published in Screen Guide of February 1943. This fan magazine was a little different than others of its day: it was oversized, and its many photos and journalistic style of its articles resembled Life magazine.  

Though wartime brought printing restrictions to most periodicals in terms of use of one color or lesser quality paper, Screen Guide still managed to produced very handsome issues.  Though most photography in each issue was the standard black and white, such marvelous color photos as this were included.  The article with the photo was titled "Beauty Begins at Thirty!"  We know now that if Lucille Ball was concerned about a faltering career, she need not have worried.  TV was just down the road.  Even if it was in black and white.

Three Gleasons - James, Lucille, and Russell

James Gleason is a favorite character actor among classic film fans, and we could rattle off a giant list of movies he appeared in.  Less well known are his wife and his son, who pose with him in this trio shot from Stars of the Photoplay (1930).

Lucille Webster performed in a stock company owned by James Gleason's theatrical parents.  They were married in 1905.  His first Broadway appearance was in 1914, and after several years of acting, writing, and directing for the theatre, both husband and wife scored in the Broadway hit The Shannons of Broadway in 1927, which Gleason wrote.

His first film was in 1922.  He also wrote and directed for the movies.  He appeared in several with Lucille.  Their son Russell continued the family trade and appeared in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

This photo was taken around that time, when he was about 22 years old, when the family had so much to look forward to and, at least for James, was on the brink of a solid and respected film career.

Unfortunately, tragedy struck fifteen years later, when Russell, who had enlisted in the Army in 1943, was awaiting deployment to Europe with his troop in New York City when he died on Christmas Day 1945, having fallen out a fourth-story hotel window.  

Mrs. Gleason, who also served as vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, served on the advisory board for the Federal Theater Project, and ran for office in local politics, died about a year and a half later in 1947.

James went on to more roles in both films and TV, and died in 1959 at the age of 76.

I think my favorite line of his is from Meet John Doe (1941): "There y'are Norton, the people.  Try and lick that!"

TCM Classic Film Festival - Read All About It

Today begins the TCM Classic Film Festival hosted at several Hollywood venues by Turner Classic Movies.  Though I've never been to the TCMCFF, I've always enjoyed a ringside seat through the wonderful descriptions of my fellow classic film bloggers.  Their adventures and their enthusiasm are a lot of fun to follow.  If you aren't able to take in the festival, then by all means, enjoy the recap posts of the four days of old movie lovers' heaven through classic film blogs such as these:

Laura's Miscellaneous Musings

Essays from the Couch

Out of the Past

Once Upon a Screen

Outspoken and Freckled

Classic Move Hub

...to name a few.  But for on-the-spot action, follow their trail on Twitter - #TCMFF.

Thank you to these bloggers and others who share their experiences on social media about the TCM Film Festival for those of us who don't get to go, and for sharing their love of classic films all year long.