Mother’s Day with Joan Crawford
May 10th, 2009 by Scott Marks
At Home With Joan Crawford (1953)
What better way to celebrate this May Ten than with the biggest mother of them all, Miss Joan Crawford? This first clip resurfaced (in truncated form) in a hilarious compilation called Hollywood Outtakes & Rare Footage that was released several years after the publication of Christina Crawford’s sensational tell-all, Mommie Dearest. At Home With Joan Crawford was a PSA produced by Warner Bros. to be shown in New England theaters to help raise money for The Jimmy Fund Clinic, a cancer research group. Audiences cringed when they heard the offscreen voices of Joan’s two children Christine and Christopher bid their “mommie dearest” goodnight. The fact that it was shot in the style of a brooding film noir didn’t help matters. Audiences had a chance to save a child’s life. Too bad they weren’t one of Joan’s.
Joan Crawford on What’s My Line? (1961)
Joan loved parading her adopted charge before the cameras. (A series of miscarriages prevented Ms. Crawford from having children of her own.) She used her kids like props, much in the same manner Joan Rivers carted around her beloved pooch Spike. Joan turned up as the Mystery Guest on What’s My Line? and saw to it that she packed her twin daughters Cynthia and Cathy. Note the way Joey Bishop intimates that John brought them on camera as potential dates for both he and Bennett Cerf. A can of Bon Ami cleanser across the skull sounds pleasurable in comparison.
Joan & Christina Crawford on The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon (1968)
In his review of Johnny Guitar, Francois Truffaut observed that as she aged, Joan Crawford became more masculine. In this clip from the 1968 MDA Telethon, Jerry Lewis introduces “solid citizen” Crawford who proceeds to read a pity pitch not from the heart, but off a series of prepared notes she brought with her on stage. (With that mile-high challah hairdo how did she ever manage to fit her head through a door frame?) At this point in her career Joan was going through a quart of vodka a day and it shows in her faltering delivery of the hopelessly maudlin poem The Clumsy Falling Down Child. Not eager to share the spotlight after her marvelous, marvelous performance, Joan barely takes time to introduce Christina before immediately whisking her away to the phone banks.
Tags: Christina Crawford, Jerry Lewis, Joan Crawford, Joan Crawford Christina Crawford, Joan Crawford Mothers Day, Joan Crawford Whats My Line, Mommie Dearest, Mothers Day, The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, Video, Whats My LineFiled Under Uncategorized
Dorothy Kilgallen story optioned for big screen biopic
October 3rd, 2008 by Scott Marks
Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgallen & John Charles Daly
November 8, 1965 was the last time Dorothy Kilgallen, syndicated columnist of The Voice of Broadway, appeared as a member of the What’s My Line? panel. Twelve hours after that live Sunday night broadcast, Ms. Kilgallen was found dead on the third floor of her five-story New York townhouse.
It was her 515th stint as a regular panelist on the popular and erudite (by game show standards) quiz program and for years controversy has surrounded her death. Viewers of her last show saw a visibly disoriented Ms. Kilgallen slur, sweat and stammer her way through the thirty minute program. A career substance abuser (mostly booze), when her hairdresser arrived the next morning, he discovered the lifeless body of the chinless columnist. The cause of death was listed as a combination of alcohol and Seconal, possibly concurrent with a heart attack. Unable to determine whether or not her demise was a suicide or an accident, medical examiner James Luke added “circumstances undetermined” to the death certificate.
According to Variety, producer John Davis (Dudley Do-Right, I Robot, Fat Albert, Norbit) has optioned Good Night, Dorothy Kilgallen, a proposal for an expose book by Paul Alexander that ties the columnist’s death to her investigation of the JFK assassination. Kilgallen was an outspoken critic of the Warren Commission. A friend of JFK’s, she began a crusade to single-handedly uncover a conspiracy behind his murder. She conducted an interview with assassin’s assassin Jack Ruby that purported to contain important new information on the murder of President Kennedy. She conceived the interview as a centerpiece for her expose Murder One, Alexander’s book insists that Kilgallen died mysteriously and the notebooks containing the information she was about to publish disappeared.
While the Kennedy cover-up might have been her last bout with controversy, it wasn’t her first. Frank Sinatra refused to appear on What’s My Line due to a long standing feud with the singer that began after an antagonistic 1956 article titled The Frank Sinatra Story. Frank went out of his was to belittle the “chinless wonder” in his Vegas act and it wasn’t until years after her death that Sinatra finally agreed to appear as a WML? mystery guest. In addition to Mr. Sinatra, she also fought with Jack Paar and Arthur Godfrey. Her feud with Paar was based on his support of Fidel Castro and Kilgallen, a staunch anti-Communist, criticized him for it.
Producer John Davis will bring the project to Fox through his first-look deal. No talk yet of who they will get to play Ms. Kilgallen, but I’m rooting for Patricia Clarkson. As for the Bennett Cerf role, my vote goes to Dave Thomas! Sadly, SCTV’s What’s My Shoe Size? is no longer available on YouTube, so you’ll just have to make due with the real thing.
Tags: Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgallen, dorothy kilgallon, dorothy killgallon, dorothykilgallen, Good Night Dorothy Kilgallen, jack ruby, Jerry Lewis, John Charles Daly, john davis, kenedy assassination, kennedy conspiracy, paul alexander, syndicated columnist, the voice of broadway, Video, Whats My Linekeep looking »