Vital Viewing (Hitsville's Hamlet Edition)

 

Motown Records founder Barry Gordy was born on this day in 1929. One of the most successful music industry execs ever, you'd think a man with such a golden ear would be sure of a sure thing when he heard one. As it turns out, just like the rest of us, Gordy could be plagued with doubts, and often equivocated when it came time to sign a future living legend, as he admits in this 2013 interview with British talk show host Jonathan Ross:

  

Yes, that's Richard Gere to the right of Gordy, and, further down on the couch, Jack Black. The young woman sitting in between Gere and Black obviously needs no introduction.

Now back to Gordy, who in 1963 was so unsure of Stevie Wonder's potential that before signing him he made the child take a...

...test, the results of which revealed young Stevie to be a...

...genius!

OK, so maybe it didn't happen quite that way, but the young lad was more than talented enough, as you'll see in the following ancient videotape:

I don't know about you, but those numbers running in the lower left corner are making me nervous! Let me get my smelling salts.

OK, I'm better now. Onto The Jackson 5, the success of which in 1970 was so much in doubt that in the likelihood they failed, Gordy would need a...

...fall guy.

So? Were they a bust? You decide:

I'll decide. The kids remained gainfully employed. For that matter, so did Miss Ross.

 

Of course, if Stevie Wonder or The Jackson 5 were just starting out today, they would have their very own YouTube channels, and be able to bypass Barry Gordy and his handwringing entirely. 

Lastly...

  

Roisin Conaty, a British comedienne, in the off chance she did need an introduction.

 

Someone Turned the Lights Out There in Memphis

 

I've read several biographies of Elvis Presley, and one thing that all these books make clear is that at some point the King of Rock and Roll eventually came to see his throng of admirers as something of a burden. Oh, sure, he liked that they loved him--who doesn't like being loved? --but he found himself overwhelmed by fans whenever he went out in public, a situation he could only rectify by turning day into night, renting movie theaters and even amusement parks after closing hours, when the regular patrons of such places were at home in bed. Elvis' daughter Lisa-Marie, a celebrity in her own right but not so much so that she couldn't go out when the sun was still up, never felt she had to run away from her father's fans, at least not on what would have been his 88th birthday, telling the crowd at Graceland "you're the only people that can get me out of my house," and, after the official ceremony was done with, staying to mingle a bit. Two days later she was back in Hollywood at the Golden Globes, flanked by her mother Priscella and Jerry Schilling, a member of her father's fabled Memphis Mafia, i.e., his entourage. Two days after that she died of what's being reported in the media as a cardiac arrest. I remember seeing Lisa-Marie on talk shows some fifteen years ago promoting her first album, and thinking she had a kind of melancholic air about her. Call me weird, but that actually made me like this young woman when I was prepared not to, as it had seemed like she may had made this particular career choice only because, well, because she was Elvis Presley's daughter (in fact, the song I heard on the radio turned out to be pretty good.) Nevertheless, you may wonder exactly what someone born in the lap of luxury would have to feel melancholic about. Well, Lisa-Marie took a few nasty falls from that lap. The first came when she was nine years old and saw her cardiac-arrested father face down on the bathroom floor. That's the melancholy that informed those talk show appearances I spoke of. The second fall came just two years ago when Lisa-Marie's 28-year-old son, Benjamin Keough (who, had he died his hair black and combed it into a ducktail, would have looked just like his grandfather), put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. At the risk of jumping to conclusions, it would seem depression runs in this family (it runs even in the extended family, as an ex-husband of Lisa-Marie's, one Michael Jackson, died from too much chemicals in his system, just like the posthumous father-in-law he often emulated.) Of course, these kinds of things happen to poor and working- and middle-class people too. But because they're not celebrities, it happens anonymously, lending a cloak of invisibility to a mental health crisis. I wish Lisa-Marie and Elvis and Benjamin and Michael hadn't died at the young ages they did, but at least it removes, however temporarily, that cloak.

The Late Show

Dracula's Daughter? Morticia Addams? Nah, it's just French actress Sarah Bernhardt, circa 1873. She's not yet 30 and, though seen here in a coffin, still had fifty more years to go. In her day Bernhardt was considered the greatest actress in the world, but she was probably less Meryl Streep and more a thespian Lady Gaga: The-Artist-as-Weirdo. That's no slight but exactly what she wanted people to think, the first celebrity to conclude that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Take the coffin. As Sarah herself told it, she was nursing her tubercular sister back to health, letting her sleep in her own bed, while the actress slept in a casket that she just happened to have lying around the apartment. A manicurist dropped by, saw Sarah in the box, and ran out of the apartment screaming. From then on "all of Paris knew." So what else could poor Sarah do but have her picture taken in the sarcophagus and try her damnedest to make sure every man, woman, and child in France got a copy? It recalls another Artist-as-Weirdo, Michael Jackson, who a century later made sure a photo of himself sleeping in an oxygen chamber fell into the hands of the National Enquirer. That didn't hurt his record sales any (though a later revelation about an entirely different set of sleeping arrangements clearly did, proving that there IS such a thing as bad publicity.) Getting back to Sarah, it was just one of many eccentricities that she indulged in that the French loved gossiping about, from a private menagerie kept in that same crowded apartment to a private army of lovers, usually but not exclusively male, kept in that same private apartment. She wore belts below her hips, so much jewelry that she chimed as she walked, and, as if sleeping in a coffin wasn't enough, sculpted a death head of her recently departed husband. However, what truly shocked the normally open-minded French public wasn't what she did offstage but on it. Not satisfied with mere portrayals of Cleopatra or Salome, Sarah decided to play the title role in Hamlet as well! Later she is said to have donned a beard to play Shylock (if not the same gender, they at least shared the same religion.) 

Sarah sold tickets and continued to through the rest of her life, which included a major calamity in the 20th century portion of that life. Jumping upon an improperly placed mattress during a performance, she apparently broke her leg and didn't seek medical attention right away. It didn't happen overnight, but gangrene eventually cost her that leg. Still, she appeared on stage and now movies and on recordings. As is often the case with film footage from before World War I, her screen appearances look as though they were shot through a Coke bottle (because the print has disintegrated; contemporary audiences would have seen it clear as day.) In her 60s, she obviously can no longer play the ingenue, and there's the flailing of arms so often seen in silent pictures, as if Sarah herself was the manicurist who had just seen Sarah in a coffin. But that's all we have to go by. The 19th century part of her career, which so wowed contemporary audiences, only exists in photographs. What would 21st century audiences think of her? Given changes in acting styles, it seems unlikely she would still be considered the greatest actress in the world (George Bernard Shaw, 12 years her junior, found her exaggerated mannerisms to be "childishly egotistical") but that doesn't mean she wouldn't be fun to watch. We'll never know for sure, as Sarah Bernhardt is now Lost in Time...

 

Sarah Bernhardt lost a leg but not her reputation. Tragedy is relative.  

 

 

 

 

Thrice Removed

They say bad news comes in threes.

I first heard them say this in the summer of 1977, when Elvis Presley, Groucho Marx, and Sebastian Cabot (the butler on Family Affair) all died within days of each other. There was a kind of cosmic appropriateness to these deaths. Elvis was the King of Rock and Roll, Groucho was the King of Comedy, and Sebastian was the King of Supporting Actors on Sentimental Family Sitcoms.

Now, thirty-two years later, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson have all died within days, and, for the latter two, hours, of each other. I will discuss each of these three in reverse order of both their deaths and celebrity status.

Michael Jackson wasn't that much older than me, so I guess you could say we grew up together. When I was a little boy he was the little boy lead singer of the Jackson 5, though I was probably more familiar with the Saturday morning cartoon Michael than the flesh and blood performer. When the cartoon was cancelled to make room for Speed Buggy or Hong Kong Phooey or something like that, I promptly put him out of my mind. Plus, the Jackson 5 disappeared from Top-40 radio, as did most black acts in the late '70s. When Michael came roaring back in the early '80s, I was at first unsure if this taller, thinner guy was the same cartoon kid I once knew.

I have to say I didn't particularly like Michael Jackson back then. At the time I was a fan of the stripped down rock of folks like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Segar, whereas Jackson sounded a bit too disco for my tastes. Plus, I like to make up my own mind whether I like somebody or not. That became almost impossible with Jackson. I'd turn on MTV and it was RESISTANCE IS FUTILE--YOU WILL LIKE MICHAEL JACKSON. Yes, I know, he "broke the barrier" for black artists on MTV. In that case, they should have played more Stevie Wonder or Patty Labelle. No, just Michael, Michael, Michael. If you said you didn't like, or was merely indifferent to, Michael Jackson, then you might as well deny it three times as the rooster crows. Or get struck by lightning on the way to Damascus. Now that Jacko belongs to the ages, the PR groupie fascist hard sell has started up all over again. Watching Larry King or Keith Olbermann ask people about Jackson's talent, I noticed that more then a few mentioned, without any sense of irony, his popularity. I'm sorry, folks, but before I plunk down money for one of his albums, it has to sound good to my ears, not yours.

This confusing popularity with talent seems to have come from Jackson himself. Upon the release of Bad, his follow-up to Thriller, which had sold around 40 million copies in the early '80s, he had the words 100 MILLION taped to his mirror. This is how many copies of Bad he hoped to sell in a single year. In order to sell that many in 1987, roughly half the population of the United States would have had to buy a copy. Half of the head bangers would have had to buy a copy. Half of the country music fans would have had to buy a copy. Half of the classical music fans would have had to buy a copy. Half of the jazz fans would have had to buy a copy. Half the of the Deadheads would have had to buy a copy. Half of the punk rockers would have had to buy a copy. Even half of the Lennon Sisters fans would have had to buy a copy. In the end, Bad sold about 30 million copies, and that was over a 20 year period. Whatever my feelings about his music, I did occasionally admire Jackson's individuality and nonconformity, but I don't think he himself especially admired those traits in others. He just expected everyone else to be a record buying zombie.

About that individuality and nonconformity, Michael Jackson spent a lot of time cultivating an image of a man who wouldn't let go of his inner child, what with naming his ranch Neverland, filling it with amusement park rides, and giving interviews where he claimed to believe in magic. Strangely, he didn't seem to channel any of that childhood wonderment into his art. At least not from Thriller on. Thanks to all the media coverage, I've spent the last few days becoming reacquainted with Jackson's music. My tastes have expanded considerably since 1982, so I think I can listen to these songs with an open mind. I was struck by the edginess, the grittiness, that Jackson brought to a music form that I'd written off as disco (which I no longer believe "sucks".) For someone with an asexual image, he actually sang about sex quite a bit (straight sex: "girl" this, "girl" that.) I've heard absolutely nothing about the joys of childhood. No childlike whimsy along the lines of "Yellow Submarine". The only song about a child that I'm aware of is "Billie Jean" and in that he's denying paternity. I've also noticed that his high pitched voice occasionally had a growling, snarling intensity. If you only knew Michael Jackson from listening to Thriller, you might think this was one bad motherfucker. I'm serious about this! And as for how he looked when he performed those songs, ever notice he scowled when he sang? In one video he looked so pissed (while clutching his crotch) I think Johnny Rotten might be reluctant to cross him. And what about the names of some of those albums? Bad. Dangerous. This is kid stuff only if it's 11:PM and you don't know where those kids are.

So, can Jackson's childhood wonderment ever be reconciled with his sometimes dark music? Apparently not beyond a reasonable doubt...

Unlike Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett's passing was no surprise. Indeed, there's been practically a media death watch over her these last couple months. More than once I've logged into The Huffington Post and seen, usually from the corner of my eye, such morbid headlines as FARRAH TOO WEAK TO LIFT HER HEAD. The irony is that when it finally happened, it was within hours overshadowed by the death of you-know-who.

Farrah Fawcett was the reigning sex queen of my teenage years. She wasn't, however, my personal sex queen. Just as I don't like people telling me whether I should like Michael Jackson or not, so, too, I prefer to decide for myself whom I find attractive. Actually, I did think she was attractive, but so was Jacqueline Smith, Kate Jackson, Cheryl Tiegs, Suzanne Sommers, Christie Brinkley, Rachael Welch, Goldie Hawn, Linda Carter, Loni Anderson, Angie Dickenson, Jacqueline Bisset, Deborah Harry, Diana Ross, Charo, Lindsey Wagner, Barbi Benton, Catherine Bach, Bo Derek, Adrienne Barbeau, Jayne Kennedy, Olivia Newton John, Valerie Perrine, Barbara Bach, Jennifer O'Neill, Jill St. John, Carol Wayne, Lola Falana, Susan Dey, Roz Kelly, Randi Oakes, Linda Day George, Elaine Joyce, Leslie Ann Warren, Leslie Ann Downs, whoever played Nurse Goodbody on Hee Haw, and the lady that succeeded Farrah on Charlie's Angels, Cheryl Ladd.

Now that I've got that out of my system, I have to say that I watched some sort of retrospective on Farrah the other night, with a lot of clips from the '70s, and, GOD, SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL. It wasn't, as far as I'm concerned, the hair, or the teeth, or the high cheekbones. It was the eyes. She had beautiful eyes. If she had been bald, toothless, and had Nixonian jowls, but nevertheless still had those eyes, she would have been beautiful.

Farrah Fawcett later proved to be an excellent dramatic actress. Well, she proved that to everyone but me. I'm only halfway convinced. When it came to facial expressions, yes, she was good. She could look happy, sad, terrified, mortified, excited, bored, curious, the whole gamut of human emotions. And she could cry, with actual tears streaming down her face. That can't be easy. The problem for me was when she opened her mouth. I could always tell she was reciting lines she had earlier memorized. That what acting is, of course, but I don't need to be reminded of it.

Then there's Farrah's famous poster. This might be what put me slightly off of her for so many years. Here's what's bugged me about it.

She wasn't wearing a bikini.

OK, you're now probably thinking I'm being picky, or sexist, or both. Well, I'm not. In real life, I'd gladly settle for an attractive woman, or halfway attractive woman, or quarterway attractive woman, or one-eighthway attractive woman, or one-sixteenthway attractive woman, in a one piece bathing suit. Beggars can't be choosers.

But a poster isn't real life. A poster is a poster. A beggar can choose. And, dammit, if I'm going to hang a beautiful, sexy woman on my wall, I want her in a bikini!

(I have a thing for belly buttons, OK?!?!)

Finally, there's Ed McMahon. While I can't say I was actually a "fan" of his, I liked him well enough. I don't think Ed was even expected to have a fan base. His role in life was to make anyone who did have a fan base look good. Johnny Carson, of course, but also any celebrity sitting in between him and Johnny. He could even rein in Jerry Lewis on the telethon (he always announced a tote board number at the most opportune moment, such as when Jerry was crying, throwing a fit, or laughing wildly as he tried to eat his mike.) This is why Ed was such an appropriate host for Star Search. He made the contestants look good. If they won, they might become celebrities, go on The Tonight Show, and Ed McMahon could make them look good all over again.

Chris Matthews, taking a break from politics the other night, pointed out that Ed was a conduit for the audience. He was the audience. He was one of us.

Except, of course, he got paid to be one of us.