Dancing at Home

  

It looks like someone threw a party and they broke out the record player.  45s, I'd bet. 

Mr. Sensitive

 

 

About six or eight months ago my computer died and with it, my old, yet quite good scanner.  Basically, it wasn't supported anymore so I couldn't download the software off the web, and so it went in the garbage.  Anyway, I got a really good deal on a new one.  In other words, free.  Unfortunately, apart from being free, it also doesn't have a color correction setting, so this is what the print looks like. 

So, Mr. sensitive, the guy with the guitar that all the girls loved, which means that all the other guys hated him.  There's a processing lab stamp on the back, just the standard "KODACOLOR PRINT" logo, plus a date, "MAY 67PA" I don't know what PA stands for.  
 

Clifton Webb and Friends

The man on the right is actor Clifton Webb.  Curiously what's written on the back, "Dave McIntyre Don Larson June 59"  doesn't mention Webb.  Perhaps the writer assumed that  identifying Webb wasn't necessary.  I couldn't find any info on McIntyre and Larson, but for those of you too young and don't watch old movies.....

Webb was born Webb Parmalee Hollenbeck in 1889 in the less than cosmopolitan Indianapolis, Indiana.  As a child he studied voice and dance and was a professional ballroom dancer by his late teens.  His early career was mostly in the theater.  He had the occasional film role, including in silent movies, but didn't become a star until 1944 when he played villain Waldo Lydecker in Otto Preminger's Laura.  In 1948 he starred in Sitting Pretty as Lynn Belvedere an eccentric genius who takes a job as a babysitter.  The movie was so successful that Webb ended up making a series of Mr. Belvedere films.  He was in Titanic opposite Barbara Stanwyck, still my favorite film version of the sinking of the ship.  (Sorry James Cameron.)  Some of his more memorable films,  The Razor's Edge,  The Man Who Wasn't There, Three Coins in a Fountain, Cheaper By the Dozen,  and as Victor Parmalee, in Boy on a Dolphin.  I wonder if he chose the name of the character.  He lived with his overbearing mother Maybelle  until she died in 1960.  He died six years latter in 1966. 

Going by the backdrop, I'm thinking this photo was taken in a television studio. Perhaps he was being interviewed.

Music On Television

Imagine, if you will, you're a music crazed kid in the 1930's.  You've got a stack of big band 78 rpm records that you play all the time.  You've got society bands like Larry Carlton, swing bands like Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, and your favorite, Count Basie.  Every waking hour you dream of what it would be like to be with one of your favorites, touring the nation to sell out crowds.  Even a regional band would be great.  So you practice and practice until you're old enough to be a professional musician just like your idols.

And then it happens.  It's not a band that comes calling, it's the draft board.  The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, and like every other kid your age, all your dreams are on hold until the war is over.  It's not music you dream of, it's survival.  Eventually, the war ends, you've come home in one piece, which is not something  a lot of your friends can say.

So,you get stateside and marry your sweetheart.  She waited for you, and after all the death you've seen, all you want is a normal life.  You take a good job at the car plant, have a kid or two and settle in to a nice, comfortable life in the new suburb.  But music keeps playing in the back of your head.  You can't let it go, so you take a part time job playing  in a restaurant.  The patrons enjoy their dates, and every once in awhile, one of them drops a dollar in your tip jar and makes a request.

This goes on for a few years, and you're beginning to hate music.  Something you thought would never happen.  One night you're sitting there going through your set list when this man approaches.  "Not Mona Lisa," you think.  "Please no, not Mona Lisa.  If I have to play Mona Lisa one more time I'll throw up."

But he doesn't ask you to play anything.  He hands you his business card and explains his dilemma.  He's a program director for this new thing called television.   The network provides a few hours of programming every day, mostly radio serials reworked for TV, but the rest of those hours have to filled with local content.  He has this idea for a morning talk show, with a couple of hosts who will chat up members of the local women's club, athletes, and whatever famous person who's passing through town, and he wants a musician to play intros, a few songs, maybe even compose a theme song.  He asks you to stop by the station the next morning and talk.  So, you call in sick, take the street car downtown and meet with the station manager.  You talk music, play a few songs, tell him you're confident that you can write that theme song.  Of course, the job is a bit more than the  morning show.  After that, you'll pull the same duty on a cooking show, the ten minute local news broadcast, and then after a three hour lunch, it's background music for the after school cartoon show.  And the money they're offering is amazing.  Twice what you're making at the car plant.

You go home and tell the wife, but she's not exactly thrilled.  "Television?  They're so expensive.   We don't know anyone who can even afford a television.  Why give up a good job for such a fly by night sort of thing."  There's a big fight, but you're getting a second chance at your childhood dream, and you're not turning it down.  It's bye bye assembly line and hello TV.

At first, it's just as the program director described.  You can play what you want, and it was easier to write the theme song than you expected, so while you're not ecstatic,  over all you're happy with your new job.  And then one day John and Karen, the show's two hosts, say something to you, live on air.  It's a little surprising, at first, but you've been shot at by a Panzer tank, so you don't really rattle.  Soon you're more of a regular part of the show.  People begin recognizing you on the street, as more and more people actually buy a television set.  Then one day, you get a call for a local business man.  He's built a super market, a first for the new suburb, and he wants you to play at the grand opening.  You call up a few guys you know and form a small combo.  After that, it's car dealerships, weddings,  a prom or two, and a regular Saturday night set at a local supper club.  No requests allowed. No Mona Lisa.

  And then one day, you read in the paper that Count Basie is in town.  No black man has ever appeared on the station before, but you go and beg your boss to have him on the show with John and Karen.  He's a little worried, but this isn't the south, so in the end, he relents, and for one wonderful morning you get to play with your idol.  After the show is over, the Count turns to you and says, "You got chops, man"

As the years pass by, the station moves more to prerecorded music,and rock and roll becomes the popular music that everyone wants to listen to.  But that's alright.  You're the station's music director, and you book the acts.  Chuck Berry may not be the Count, but he's not bad, and no one really cares if you hire a black musician.  You're thinking about retirement when another opportunity comes your way.  The dean of a local college asks if you want to teach jazz composition.  You tell him you went form high school directly into the army and never went to college.  "That's alright," he replies.  "We'll give you an honorary degree, and then you can teach a few classes every week.  All because the music kept playing in your head.

That's not the story of Larry Ferrari who spent years playing organ on a Philadelphia television  station.  He was drafted into the army, but it was right after the war ended.  He preformed on armed services radio before starting his TV career.  But I like my story better.

Mariette Hartley and Arlene Dayton?

One would think, since I live in Los Angeles and work in the movies (albeit at a very low level), I'd have lots of Hollywood photos.  Not really.  The fact is they don't interest me all that much. I only have these two pictures because they were in one of those occasionally purchased envelopes of images that almost always have stuff I wouldn't have bought by themselves.

So, the woman on the left is Mariette Hartley, an actress that those of us of a certain age would recognize right away.  She did a lot of episodic television, the occasional movie, and most prominently, along with James Garner, was a long time pitch woman for Polaroid cameras. 

Look at the bottom of the two pictures and stage lights can be seen.  Clearly from a sound stage, probably from one of her many television appearances.  Going by the hair styles and clothing, I took a quick look at her IMDB page, searching for a possible match from about the late seventies through the eighties, but couldn't find an actual show.  As far as Arlene Dayton, her name is written on the back of the top print, but no one by that name  has an IMDB listing. 

Born in 1940, Hartley is still active.  She's had a recurring role in the Fox series 9-1-1. 

A Schwinn at Christmas

As a cycling enthusiast, I can assure you that the head badge on that bike is from a Schwinn.  At the very bottom of the oval, you'd read, "Chicago."  Ah, for the good old days when the United States was one of the world's leading bicycle manufactures.  When I was a kid, I longed for a genuine Schwinn bike.  I ended up with a Huffy.  After it was stolen, I got a used Raleigh three speed.  One of the best bikes I've ever owned. 

Airplanes at Christmas

This one has a processor's date, "JAN-58."  Clearly, it was taken Christmas morning, 1957. 

The Gunner In Hawaii

Written on the back of the photo: "Honolulu in the summer of 1967"

I didn't buy this photo because of it's connection to Hawaii.  No knock on the state, but Hawaii is one of five states I've never visited, and while I'd love to make the trip,  I don't pine for it's blue lagoons.  (Does Hawaii have lagoons?)  I picked up this image because the man looks like Bob Prince.

For those without a Pittsburgh connection, Bob "The Gunner" Prince was the longtime voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and for me, a cherished childhood memory.  Prince was born in Los Angeles, my current home, in 1916.  His father was in the army,  so L.A. wasn't home, so much as a stop on an ever changing map.  Prince would become a Pittsburgher latter in life, graduating from Schenley High in the North Oakland neighborhood of the city.  (Andy Warhol was also a Schenley High grad.)  A star swimmer at The University of Pittsburgh, after graduation, Prince went into broadcasting, and in 1948 joined the Pirate broadcast team as color man for Rosy Rosewall, taking over the top spot for the team when Rosewall died in 1955.  In 1969, broadcast rights for the Pirates had passed from Atlantic Richfield to Westinghouse Broadcasting, and Bob Prince never got along with his new employers.  For five years, the Pirate organization intervened every time Westinghouse tried to get rid of him, but in 1975, they gave up defending him, so Prince and his broadcasting partner Nellie King, were shown the door.  Prince did a year with the Houston Astros before being fired.  He also did part of a season on ABC's Monday Night Baseball broadcasts, but was let go when he attacked management, on air, for not letting him call games the way he wanted to.  He did radio for NHL,  Pittsburgh Penguins for part of a season, but he didn't know the game and had trouble with French Canadian names, so that didn't work out either.  In 1982, he returned to the Pirates, calling a handful of games on a cable station, and returned to start the 1985 season on radio only.  Bob Prince didn't finish the season, but not because of disputes with his employers.  A heavy smoker, Bob Prince died of mouth cancer, mid season.

The official story on Bob Prince's nickname, The Gunner, was as a reference to his fast, staccato style of speech.  The unofficial story is that he had a near miss from a gun totting, jealous husband.

Prince was a colorful presence in the broadcast booth.  He had a love of really bad sports jackets, a tendency to give nicknames to  players, and was the inventor of more than a few colorful phrases.  If the Pirates were down by a couple of runs, we needed a "bloop and a blast." When Roberto Clemente came to the plate it was, "Arriba, Arriba."   Clemente hated that one, considering it a bit racist.  I can remember an interview he did with Hank Aaron, where he suggested that once Aaron tied Babe Ruth's all time home run record, he should retire mid game and not risk hitting number 716.  Hank looked somewhat baffled at that one.  And of course, Bob Prince invented the Green Weenie, a green plastic rattle,  modeled after the souvenir pin given out by Heinz to those who took the pickle factory tour.  The Green Weenie was closer to the size of a foot long hot dog, and well, to put it mildly, a lot of fans thought of it as a green penis.  I know I did.  Hey, I was a teenager, what do you expect.

On the Set With Hal Roach, Jr.

Written on the back of the print, "Sat. Dec 17, 1955. "The Set" Can see me at the camera with script. Man in light suit (with arrow) is Hal Roach, Jr." The arrow referred to is on the print's white boarder, and cropped out, but it points to the man in the light suit in the group of people on the left side of the print. He's just of center. I've run an imdb search for Roach, and there are three shows listed as have been produced in 1955. The most likely candidate would be The Public Defender.