The LuLac Edition #346, Nov. 10th, 2007

PHOTO INDEX: TV TALK SHOW HOST JOEY BISHOP FROM AN OLD TV GUIDE ISSUE I SAVED, FORMER GREEN BAY PACKER GREAT MAX McGEE, ACTRESS DEBORAH KERR, SINGER ROBERT GOULET AND DISTRICT ATTORNEY BLYTHE EVANS, JR.

TRANSITION

JOEY BISHOP

I first became familiar with Joey Bishop as a kid when he had his black and white TV show where he played himself. Sort of, he was an entertainer with a hot wife, Abby Dalton and a nut job friend, Corbett Monica. My appreciation for Bishop came later when I was 13 and he started to host a late night talk show on ABC. I talked my parents, during the summer of ’67, in letting me stay up to watch the Bishop show. Both thought the Carson show was too risqué so my mom previewed the Bishop program on ABC. She never got past the charming, young 30 year old co-host Regis Philbin who she dubbed as “cute as a button” and before I knew it, it was me, a glass of milk and Joey Bishop most summer nights. It wasn’t really the comedy but the times we lived in then that drew me to the show. Routinely Bishop had on people like Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and interesting journalists of the day like Sander Vanocer and Stewart Alsop. Ironically, all these guests didn’t cause the one major controversy of the show. It happened when Regis Philbin, to Bishop’s amazement walked off the stage saying he “was unappreciated”. A week later he was back and the only two times Bishop beat Carson was when these two little things, planned or unplanned happened. Little did I know it but the Ratpacker was instilling in me a familiarity with the global issues of the day as well as an appreciation for the art of the interview. It is for this reason I fondly remember Joey Bishop. Here he is with a few familiar faces from our friends at YOU TUBE.
http://www.findinternettv.com/Video,item,2589704816.aspx.



DEBORAH KERR


I wasn’t very familiar with her until the movie “Sleepless In Seattle” when the movie she was best known for, “An Affair To Remember” was featured. Being the romantic slob I’ve always been, I enjoyed the original with Gary Grant more than I realized. Her career as I researched it through her old movies was an era where “classey women” could also be “classey broads”. The sand rolling scene with Gregory Peck proved that in “From Here To Eternity”. Her film era was one that can never be duplicated and in a way that’s a very good thing. The fact that a movie in the nineties can pay tribute to a classic actress and film says a lot about that era. From YOU TUBE, that wonderful scene where she stays seated. She wasn't the only one glued to her seat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zscMODFlEn8.

ROBERT GOULET

He first came into my being on the Ed Sullivan show as a small child. All the women in our Sunday night household, mother, sister, aunts, and female cousins came to a standstill when Robert Goulet came on TV. The tux or the navy blue suit was tailored to accentuate his positives. He was sexy to the females before they even knew they could be that way. Whether it be young teener or dowager, Robert Goulet made them stop dead in their tracks. The voice was magnificent and my God when we got our color TV and those blue eyes beamed out at you from that cathode ray, the women in our family went nuts. I had an appreciation for the voice and the presence. He was married for a while to Carol Lawrence who I thought was very hot and I appreciated the way he handled his celebrity. Years later, I still enjoyed the music, especially around Christmas and really enjoyed the way he made fun of his career. He died waiting for renewed life. But those memories he brought were more than his fans can ever repay. He was 71.
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=36R93Vk0nAY.

BLYTHE EVANS, JR.

I was in the seventh grade and I came home with this huge poster some guy on the street in Pittston gave me. It was a Blythe Evans for District Attorney poster. My dad, a confirmed Democrat and Stephen Teller man (Evans’ foe in the ’67 DA’s race) said, “what the hell are you doing with that thing?” Quietly, I squirreled it away to my bedroom and stuck it under the bed with my piddling but growing collection of pre-teen porn. Sticking it in between a few magazines of "True Confessions" and "Stag", I forgot about it until the fall campaign. The races were heating up in the county and the young barrister from Plymouth was giving Teller, a former DA, a run for his money. On election day, my man, even though his poster was still under the bed won. Maybe it was the way Evans won the GOP primary, beating Wilkes Barre Attorney Joseph Kasper by about 48 votes, maybe it was the youth on the photo, the straightened tie, but Evans fascinated me. For four years he was Luzerne County’s DA, following the flamboyant Tom Mack. He went at his job in a plodding manner but prosecuted thousands of cases. One summer I even went to the old dome to see Evans try a case. Wasn’t much of one because the guy copped a plea but my man, campaign poster still under the bed, impressed. In 1971 he was defeated by Pat Toole when he ran for re-election and practiced law close to his old home base Plymouth. One of the regrets of my life, (and I have very few) is that I never sought him out after he was DA. I think it might have been a interesting conversation and from what I heard about his personality, I think he would have enjoyed the story about his big ass campaign poster hiding under my bed his entire term as DA.

MAX MCGEE

I became a Green Bay Packer fan because my uncle Joe was a Packer fan. He was my godfather and brought me Green Bay trinkets when he visited. My dad was a Chicago Cardinal fan but then they moved to St. Louis. When you’re a kid and used to 1950 Beaver Cleaver stability, who wants to follow a team that moves! On our black and white TV, I watched those Packers with the voice of God, Ray Scott, wiping up the rest of the NFL. I was used to losing as a Phillie and Indians fan in baseball but my heavens, in football, my team reigned as kings. In 1966, the black and white TV blew up and we bought a color TV. It was then that I saw the colors Green and Gold. The very first Super Bowl was played on Jan. 15th, 1967. It wasn’t called the Super Bowl then, had about 30,000 people attending, (you could get a ticket for $6.00) and was on two networks. The Packers wanted to prove a point and win the game big against the fledgling AFL. But their prime receiver, Carroll Dale got hurt in the first series of downs in the game. So Vince Lombardi brought in veteran Max McGee who had been out on the town the night before and had a huge hangover. All he did was catch 4 touchdown passes in that big Super Bowl I win against Kansas City. He became famous for that and a type of idol, not for the alcohol consumption the night before but for the performance he gave during the game. As one of Lombardi’s players, McGee parlayed his success to a successful career in broadcasting and founder of the Chi Chi’s Restauraunt Chain. From YOU TUBE, the late Max McGee remembered. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bqxh-gdDuU