January 15, 2024
Links to the past, with relevance today:
NYT: It's incredible that Happy Days, the beloved show about the '50s is itself 50 ... years old. Fascinating to hear the core surviving cast talk about the landmark series. One juicy tidbit about the late Garry Marshall from Henry Winkler:
“He was generous but also was structured. He took no bad behavior. One time, when he was announcing the guest cast, I said, 'Garry, we have to hurry up because I’m flying to Arkansas.' He nodded, put down the microphone, grabbed me by my shirt, put me against the wall and said, 'Don’t ever do that again, because they have every right to be recognized like you.' He kept us in line.”
YOUTUBE: Mel Brooks is pushin' 100 (he's 97), but he appeared at the 14th Governors Awards this week, where he (finally) received an honorary Oscar.
GOFUNDME: Legendary actress Valerie Perrine still needs our help.
NYT: The new book from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Be Useful, is reviewed as "bizarre."
EW: The Sopranos creator David Chase warns that the Golden Age of TV — not the '50s and '60s, as often described, not the Norman Lear '70s, but the past 25 years — is dying.
GREG IN HOLLYWOOD: The delectable Sal Mineo, now and forever.
HUFF POST: Pretty unbelievable that on Martin Luther King Jr. Day the news is that North Carolina's top Republican contender for the governorship, a Black man, shaded (in 2018) MLK as an "ersatz pastor" and "communist," and stating that taking today as a holiday is the same as "leaching." Sic. And sick.
EXTRATV: Days of Our Lives icon Bill Hayes, who had a no. 1 hit song with his 1955 cover of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," died this week at the ripe old age of 98.
BOY CULTURE: Tattling on Tattletales, one of TV's greatest-ever game shows.
PEOPLE: Harrison Ford, 81, got choked up accepting his Critics Choice Lifetime Achievement Award Sunday, saying:
"First of all, I'm really happy to be here tonight to see what our business is turning into, and all of the talented people who are getting opportunities that probably wouldn't have existed in the early part of my career. I'm here because of a combination of luck and the work of wonderful writers, directors and filmmakers. I feel enormously lucky. I'm happy for this honor, and I appreciate it very much ... I want to thank my lovely wife, Calista Flockhart, who supports me when I need a lot of support. And I need a lot of support."
DAILY MAIL: The right-wing tabloid press wants you to believe that Barbra Streisand selling over 200,000 copies of her massive memoir is a "flop." In 2024? I wouldn't call it a flop, even if her publisher may have overpaid; publishers routinely overpay for prestige projects by politicos and other celebs and nobody says boo. As a palate cleanser, watch this delightful re-creation of Streisand's star-making performance of "Miss Marmelstein":
Screw 'em all — buy My Name Is Barbra here.
