My mother [the actress, Maureen O'Sullivan] bought what became widely known as “The White Album” as soon as it was released in the fall of 1968. She introduced it to me in a most odd way. During a family gathering at her apartment, we were playing Killer, a whodunit game. The “killer” kills by winking at you, then you wait fifteen seconds before announcing you have been killed. My mother went around the room, showing the album while playing it on the record player. I listened to “Dear Prudence” with great apprehension. As each line finished, I wiped my brow with relief. As the song ended, I felt immense gratitude that it was not as I had feared. Just then, my mother came over to me, and leaning in, she gently said, “Isn’t it beautiful?” I looked up at her, and she winked.Here's Maureen O'Sullivan talking to David Letterman in 1986. She talks about Groucho Marx, who tested jokes on her until she said "I really hate funny men. I will never laugh... So don't tell me any more jokes... I like humor to come out of something else — but no gags." She — who played Jane in the Tarzan movies — then proceeds to tell us about Cheetah — a "horrible creature" and "a homosexual."
ADDED: I'm adding my "animal cruelty" tag. O'Sullivan and Letterman and the audience laugh and laugh over what is the mistreatment of the chimpanzee used in the Tarzan movies.
Posts
12 comments:
I don’t understand the Killer game, although that was a great way to “kill” her daughter. Given that Prudence is an unusual name, I was expecting some kind of reaction to that first playing.
I assume the Killer game proceeds by having everyone try to guess the killer. The killed person waits 15 seconds before announcing the murder, so it's a whodunit. Maybe the victim answers questions.
A gay actor is the stereotype.
Klavan says actors are broken people who turn their problems into art. Probably that's why their political opinions are worthless.
Old trivia, this: McCartney played the drums on "Dear Prudence".
While checking out what other Beatles recordings he played drums on (“Ballad of John and Yoko” and “Back in the USSR”) I came across this: Foo Fighters song with McCartney playing drums in the studio. Pretty danged fun and worth a listen or three.
Which makes me wonder: if today's technology existed back then, would he have ever joined a band, of just have recorded songs by himself, and perhaps get musicians to be a backing band for performance when needed?*and**
(*insert 'Wings' joke here).
(**Of course, he did this with his first solo album, which I believe is the best solo album by any of the Beatles, and the closest in spirit to the White Album.)
I am Laslo.
I wonder if Richard Cooke's mother played "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" for her son's entertainment.
Musicians and groups of musicians are incestuous. Fame constructs musicians into groups but truly they all play with each other all the time credited or uncredited. Example: John Sebastian plays uncredited harp on the Doors "Roadhouse Blue" one example among thousands.
But, prudence is such a negative virtue: being prudent is all about what you don't do.
Perhaps that's why Google Ngram Viewer shows the word in steady decline from 1805 or so until present. With not even a blip of renewed usage following release of the Beatles' White Album.
What was Prudence worried about. Her sister a few years earlier, at age 20, married a 50 year old Sinatra.
Supposedly McCartney played percussion, ie celery, on The Beach Boys "Vegetables" session.
How to Play Wink Murder
And here's a film clip of Prudence's mother Maureen playing Jane to Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan (pre-code and NSFW).
I knew that more than one chimpanzee had played Cheetah, but according to Wikipedia, as many as 18 have played the role, plus one six year old boy. I gather from the Letterman clip that O'Sullivan and other people who worked with chimpazees in films were not aware that chimpanzees are dangerous: they are pound for pound much stronger than humans and they are capable of using their long, sharp canine teeth to slash and rend. Not quite ten years ago Charla Nash had her face and hands torn off by a chimpanzee owned by a friend. There are credible reports of rape and attempted rape of human females, to my knowledge most recently in a zoo in Rostov, Russia.
Filmed in Crystal Springs FL. The river there is still glass clear.
Post a Comment