Rex Reed on 2010 Celebrity deaths

[Mister Tee]

I love Rex's annual dead people write-up even though the writing is so atrocious ("No more cable re-runs for Pernell Roberts . . . No More ratings wars for Art Linkletter") and risible.

No kidding. "The goodbye word"? How about, "The word goodbye"?

His tribute to Jean Simmons is very much about himself.

I barely got past this opening paragraph for that reason. Rex Reed is an insufferable name-dropper, a reactionary and a poor writer who's equated snideness with cleverness for too much of of my lifetime. When he passes, I'll give him all the respect he gave Rohmer.

[Reza]

He calls Dixie Carter a 'lady to the manner born'. It should instead have been 'to the manor born'.

[flipp525]

I love Rex's annual dead people write-up even though the writing is so atrocious ("No more cable re-runs for Pernell Roberts . . . No More ratings wars for Art Linkletter") and risible.

No kidding. "The goodbye word"? How about, "The word goodbye"?

His tribute to Jean Simmons is very much about himself.



Edited By flipp525 on 1294160287

[Big Magilla]

Thanks for posting this, Reza. I love Rex's annual dead people write-up even though the writing is so atrocious ("No more cable re-runs for Pernell Roberts . . . No More ratings wars for Art Linkletter") and risible. Scratch that, I love then BECAUSE the writing is so atrocious and risible. As a writing stylist, he makes Tom O'Neil seem like Nabakov. And there are always people mentioned whom I didn't realize -- or had forgotten -- had died and feel sad about (Adele Mara, Lionel Jeffries, Herb Ellis).

But he confuses Bob Thomas for Jim Bacon, is ridiculously nasty to Mitch Miller (desperate for a hit, Sinatra was eager to record "Mama Will Bark"), and should have shown some grace and omitted his personal knowledge of Lena Horne's final years. No one today could credibly defend Eddie Fisher as a talent ("Oh My Papa" anyone?), but, geez, the guy just died, show a little respect. And Rex parades his own shortcomings by proudly announcing he slept through all of Eric Rohmer's pictures

Yeah, I kinda liked Mitch Miller's TV show, corny as it may have been, in its day. I missed the mix-up of Bob Thomas and Jim Bacon and I agree a tribute column is not the appropriate place to diss Eddie Fisher or reveal the reclusive sadness of Lena Horne's final years.

I disagree, though, that he makes Tom O'Neill seem like Nabakov. They can both be infuriating, but Reed's columns and reviews are generally concise even when he's being obnoxious. He doesn't go on and on, touting the same nonsense over and over.

[Big Magilla]

Unless you're an Eric Rohmer fan.

Oh my goodness. I must have slept through the part where he says he slept through all of Rohmer's films.

[Big Magilla]

I didn't know Ursula Theiss had died.

As usual, Rex Reed's year-end tribute is a class act.

You obviously missed my post on Theiss when she died.

Either that or I forgot, which is just as possible.

[Reza]

I didn't know Ursula Theiss had died.

As usual, Rex Reed's year-end tribute is a class act.

You obviously missed my post on Theiss when she died.

[Damien]

Thanks for posting this, Reza. I love Rex's annual dead people write-up even though the writing is so atrocious ("No more cable re-runs for Pernell Roberts . . . No More ratings wars for Art Linkletter") and risible. Scratch that, I love then BECAUSE the writing is so atrocious and risible. As a writing stylist, he makes Tom O'Neil seem like Nabakov. And there are always people mentioned whom I didn't realize -- or had forgotten -- had died and feel sad about (Adele Mara, Lionel Jeffries, Herb Ellis).

But he confuses Bob Thomas for Jim Bacon, is ridiculously nasty to Mitch Miller (desperate for a hit, Sinatra was eager to record "Mama Will Bark"), and should have shown some grace and omitted his personal knowledge of Lena Horne's final years. No one today could credibly defend Eddie Fisher as a talent ("Oh My Papa" anyone?), but, geez, the guy just died, show a little respect. And Rex parades his own shortcomings by proudly announcing he slept through all of Eric Rohmer's pictures



Edited By Damien on 1294130541

[rain Bard]

Unless you're an Eric Rohmer fan.

[Big Magilla]

I didn't know Betty Lou Kiem and Ursula Theiss had died.

As usual, Rex Reed's year-end tribute is a class act.

[Reza]

New York Observer 1/5/2011

REX REED's COLUMN

The goodbye word takes on a somber and
rueful new meaning as I begin the annual task of
wrapping up an old year by waving adios to the
bearded man with the scythe, and welcoming a new
kid on the block with his year to grow. We lost
so many famous and celebrated people in 2010 that
by midsummer I already had 35 pages of
handwritten names. So before we begin anew, join
me in a toast to those who departed in the year
just ending. “Attention must be paid,” wrote
Arthur Miller in Death of a Salesman, and that applies to one and all.

Topping the list of my personal losses is
Jean Simmons, my loyal and cherished friend for
40 years, and a legendary star of the silver
screen who truly earned the label. From the good
old days when she was married to film director
Richard Brooks and we were the unbeaten champion
partners who staged annual canasta parties in
their Beverly Hills home every New Year’s Eve,
collecting money from all the guests on their way
out, to strawberry picking in muddy Connecticut
fields and crawling around on our hands and knees
trying to find her lost reading glasses at the
re-release of Spartacus, we had some
laughs. Earlier this year, I helped her daughter
Tracy stage a triumphant memorial at London’s
Covent Garden. The attention she deserved was
finally paid in a jam-packed royal sendoff, with
poems and memories by Claire Bloom, Hayley Mills,
Edward Fox, and Joss Ackland, among others, as
well as critics, historians, friends and
fans. When Dame Judi Dench ended the hour
singing “Send in the Clowns” with Sir Richard
Rodney Bennett at the piano, there wasn’t a dry
eye in the house. One of the warmest, most
elegant and luminous stars of the last
half-century, her departure was another nail in
the coffin of a movie legacy that will never come again.

I will also miss my friend June Havoc, the
equally legendary show business icon and sister
of famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee whose early days
in vaudeville as Baby June were portrayed in two
autobiographies and the Broadway musical
Gypsy. Havoc, as she was called by friends,
never approved of the way that show inaccurately
portrayed her mother Rose, played by Ethel
Merman. During the Depression she stayed alive
by entering dance competitions, which she later
chronicled in a brilliant 1963 play, Marathon ’33
starring Julie Harris. She died at 97, but never
lost her radiant spark right up to the end,
receiving guests in her Connecticut bedroom with
her blonde curls tied in a baby-blue satin ribbon.

In a diminishing world of first-rate singers
you can still listen to without an Excedrin, the
sadness was overwhelming when Lena Horne died at
92, smoldering through her last eight bars with
no reprise. In the pantheon of prejudice that
poisoned so many illustrious careers in America’s
ugly past, Lena broke every rule and
crashed through every barrier with her
supersonic talent and breathtaking beauty. She
was an international star of films, Broadway
musicals, concert stages, Las Vegas, and soignée
supper clubs who was in a class by herself. Yet
she never achieved the respect, personal
happiness or household fame she deserved. Still,
unlike other black icons who were victimized by
the bigotry of race and class, Lena became a
rabid civil rights activist, proud member of the
NAACP, and got even with a life well lived in an
unenlightened age. I loved my friendship with
Lena. She always called Liz Smith and me her
“adopted white children” and one of my fondest
memories was sitting on her lap one night at a
party where she fed me birthday cake with long,
elegant fingers dazzled by diamonds. In the end,
she unfortunately became a bitter recluse who
spent her days in the dark, throwing things at
the TV set, rarely seeing even her own
grandchildren. But there was so much to be proud
of. Her singing was unparalleled, she smashed
stereotypes, made history, and inspired hundreds
of girl singers. In 1981, when Tom Snyder gave
me 90 minutes on NBC because I was the only
interviewer she would talk to, she said: “You get
into the habit of surviving.” If only she had enjoyed it more.

Who could forget Patricia Neal, 1964 Oscar
winner for Hud, a model of talent and courage who
endured the perils of Job, learning to walk and
speak all over again after three paralyzing
strokes, then returned to the screen in 1968 in
The Subject Was Roses. Later she became a great
favorite on the New York social scene, raising
millions for the hospital named after her in her
native Kentucky for brain injured children and
adults. In a voice like a mello cello rubbed with
rye whiskey, she polished off her trademark
sarcasm in many unforgettable performances on
stage and screen, but my favorite was the 1950
Hemingway noir, The Breaking Point, in which John
Garfield asked her if she’s ever been to a
cockfight. She curled her lip and snarled, “All that trouble for an egg.”

It’s been a terrible time for the Redgrave
acting dynasty. Following Natasha Richardson,
this year marked a final curtain call for her
uncle, Corin Redgrave, and her aunt, Lynn
Redgrave, who lost her long battle with cancer at
age 67, leaving Vanessa and her daughter Joely
Richardson as the last two survivors of a
historic family legacy. 2010 also framed final
closeups for Kathryn Grayson, the trilling
soprano who was one of the brightest stars in MGM
musicals like Show Boat, Anchors Aweigh and Kiss
Me Kate, and Bronx-born dese-dem-and-doser Tony
Curtis, whose career never amounted to much more
than a T-shirt and a tight pair of jeans until
Sweet Smell of Success in 1957. Then he made up
for lost time with Spartacus, Some Like it Hot,
and others. Somewhere along the way, he also learned to act.

Who will take up the hell-raising reigns
surrendered by Dennis Hopper? At 74, the
cinema’s raunchiest rebel without a cause had
long ago overcome his Easy Rider mantle as
psychedelic guru to become a grizzled character
actor riddled with repercussions from his
excessive early years. He was, to put it
succinctly, a mess. But he was also a far cry
from his National Enquirer image. Nervously
seated next to him at a Toronto Film Festival
lunch a few years ago, I was jarred when he spent
the entire time discussing recipes for turkey
stuffing. Also: Jill Clayburgh, who lost her
21-year battle with leukemia at a still-young 66;
Lina Romay, famous “latin from Manhattan” and the
pepper pot who sang with Xavier Cugat’s orchestra
in a series of lavish MGM Technicolor musicals in
the late 1940’s and early 1950’s; Peter Graves,
impossibly handsome, square-jawed hunk who never
became a star until he spoofed his own image in
Airplane! as the closeted all-American pedophile
pilot with a special passion for little boys
visiting his cockpit; Nan Martin, distinguished
character actress who graced every medium; child
star Corey Haim (The Lost Boys) who shocked the
world when he died of a drug overdose at 38;
Betty Lou Keim, lovely actress who played
rebellious teenagers in some excellent Fifties
films, holding her own opposite James Cagney,
Barbara Stanwyck, Frank Sinatra and Ginger
Rogers; James Mitchell, the brilliant American
Ballet Theatre star who danced with Cyd Charisse
in the MGM musical extravaganza The Bandwagon,
before he threw away his toe shoes, played the
dramatic role of an illegal Mexican immigrant in
Border Incident, and joined the soap opera “One
Life To Live” for the next 30 years; Adele Mara,
B-movie actress at Republic studios who
co-starred with John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima;
Lionel Jeffries, British comic famous for family
flicks like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; Ian
Carmichael, Peter Sellers’ owlish cohort in
comedies like I’m All Right, Jack; Christopher
Cazenove, another English star of Dynasty and
PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre” who recently toured
America in a revival of My Fair Lady. Critics
pointed out one major difference between him and
the original star, Rex Harrison: “Mr. Cazenove could sing.”

The list of sayonaras goes on. Corey
Allen, 75, was the last surviving member of the
ill-fated Rebel Without a Cause cast. He played
Buzz, the handsome tough guy who challenged James
Dean to the fatal “chicken race”. Ursula Thiess,
86, was the German B-movie siren and widow of
screen legend Robert Taylor. Ilene Woods, 81,
was the voice of Cnderella in Disney’s timeless
classic. Have you forgotten Cecile Aubry, the
beautiful French actress who co-starred with
Orson Welles and Tyrone Power in the epic
spectacle The Black Rose? She landed on the
cover of Life magazine, then disappeared. It was
rumored she was being held captive in a Turkish
harem. Turns out she was secretly married to the
son of a Moroccan pasha for six years, after
which she returned to France and authored a
series of children’s books. Also destined for
obscurity but saved by the obituary page was
1970’s Albanian heartthrob Bekim Fehmiu, the
first actor from Yugoslavia (now Bosnia) to
become a Hollywood star. He played opposite
Candice Bergen and romanced both Ava Gardner and
Brigitte Bardot, but life in the fast lane
backfired. This year, he committed
suicide. What memories were conjured by the
death of Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in
eight Tarzan films although he could not
swim. Later, he dragged his old loin cloth out
of moth balls for the Bomba, the Jungle Boy
series, retired in 1955, and went into business,
importing lobsters from Baja. It was one last
gaze into the crystal ball for Zelda
Rubenstein­the four-foot-three actress who played
Tangina the Psychic in Poltergeist and became an
advocate for the rights of “little people”. Last
but not least, let’s raise a glass to Shirley
Bell Cole, the radio voice of Little Orphan Annie
(“Leapin’ lizards!”) who was an inspiration to
children during the Depression, and to Meinhardt
Raabe, the Munchkin coroner, and Olga Hardone­at
three feet tall, the tiniest of the Munchkins in
The Wizard of Oz. Olga danced as the center
member of the Lullaby League and was one of the
first to welcome Judy Garland to Oz. That leaves
only three remaining Munchkins alive today.

The cameras stopped rolling for Kevin
McCarthy, respected actor regrettably best known
as the panicky doctor who tried to save the world
from alien pods in the 1956 Invasion of the Body
Snatchers; James McArthur, forever youthful son
of Helen Hayes and star of a string of Disney
classics; Simon McCorkindale, 58, handsome
leading man who played the suave, romantic
murderer in the all-star Agatha Christie thriller
Death on the Nile; Gloria Stuart, 100, glamorous
blonde in Thirties horror flicks who made a
miraculous, Oscar-nominated comeback in 1997 as
the oldest living survivor in the blockbuster,
Titanic; and Norman Wisdom, 95, England’s most
beloved slapstick comic­a silly, baggy-pants
clown whose stumbling, bumbling pratfalls were a
smash in his Broadway debut in the 1967 musical
Walking Happy. He was a great favorite of Queen
Elizabeth, who knighted him in the year 2000. It
was one last double-take for Leslie Nielsen, a
serious actor who never lived up to the potential
of his early dramatic work on live TV and films
like Ransom! and Forbidden Planet. Sidetracked
in dumb Naked Gun farces, he got rich, but the
acting career went over the falls in a barrel.

Among the TV pioneers who watched their
final test pattern fade in 2010: living-room
sitcom favorites Tom Bosley, who went from
doorman at Tavern on the Green to Tony-winning
star of the Broadway musical Fiorello!, followed
by 11 years of “Happy Days”, and Barbara
Billingsley, who, as June Cleaver on “Leave it to
Beaver”, was the perfect Eisenhower-era wife and
mother, wearing high heels and pearls even when
running the vacuum cleaner, and at the end of the
day was always home with freshly baked
cookies. No more cable re-runs for Pernell
Roberts, the eldest Cartwright son on “Bonanza”,
a show he hated, equating his participation with
“Isaac Stern playing with Lawrence Welk”. He
later moved to “Trapper John, M.D”, but few
people remember he sang the leading role in the
pre-Broadway tryout of Mata Hari, directed by
Vincente Minnelli. No more ratings wars for Art
Linkletter, the unpretentious CBS House Party
host for 18 years, or for precocious midget Gary
Coleman (Diff’rent Strokes),John Forsythe
(Dynasty), Robert Culp (I Spy), Harold Gould
(Valerie Harper’s father on Rhoda and Betty
White’s boyfriend on Golden Girls), and blonde
flapper Dorothy Provine (The Roaring 20’s). Fess
Parker, TV’s Davy Crockett, hung up his coonskin
cap, and sportscaster Don Meredith called his
last shot from the 40-yard line on “Monday Night
Football”. It was a cheerless sign-off for Buff
Cobb, a popular staple of TV’s “golden age” who
co-hosted two of the first “live” talk shows with
then-husband Mike Wallace and appeared as a
regular panelist on Masquerade Party with Ilka
Chase and Ogden Nash; for David Wolper, who
produced the mini-series Roots and The Thorn
Birds; for witty, rumpled and eternally grumpy
newscaster and Today show anchor Edwin Newman;
for award-winning news analyst Daniel Schorr; for
Clay Cole, producer of Dick Clark’s “American
Bandstand” and rock guru who gave teens their
first look at the Rolling Stones; for crusading
48 Hours news correspondent Harold Dow; and for
controversial Mitch Miller, who, during his
tenure as an influential recording-industry
producer at Columbia Records, steered the careers
of Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett and Doris Day,
before becoming a TV star himself with a
nauseating crop of corn called Sing Along With
Mitch. One critic suggested it would be best
watched with the sound off. Ever the curmudgeon,
he called rock and roll “a disease” and turned
down contracts with Elvis Presley and Buddy
Holly, while plugging polkas and insipid pap like
“Mule Train” and forcing Frank Sinatra to record
a gimmicky horror called “Mama Will Bark”,
accompanied by a pack of howling dogs. Sinatra
never spoke to him again. His bad taste proved
the American people will buy anything, while he
went on record saying “I would never buy that
stuff for myself.” I was devastated by the
early exits of my two favorite Southern
belles­oversexed Golden Girl Rue McClanahan and
honey-dripping Tennessee glamourpuss Dixie
Carter, who used her languid Julia Sugarbaker
accent from Designing Women in several seasons of
acclaimed cabaret performances at New York’s
swanky Café Carlyle. A multi-talented actress,
lady to the manner born, and ex-wife of the
former editor of the New York Observer, you could
rockabye your baby to her Dixie melody. I guess I
should not overlook Eddie Fisher, whose wonky
voice crooned its way off-key through TV shows,
hit records and unfathomable marriages and
scandalous divorces (Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie
Reynolds and Connie Stevens). It was the mystery
career of the century, somewhat explained now in
his trashy autobiography and daughter Carrie’s
sarcastic tell-all monologues and one-woman
confessionals. But my favorite summation came
the night Debbie Reynolds walked out on the stage
of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, cased the
joint, and said, to tumultuous applause: “Look at
this place. I guess I married the wrong Fisher.”

Hard to believe they all passed on in 2010,
as well as some of the powers behind the scenes
who guided them to greatness. Films won’t look
the same without cameraman William Fraker, whose
images go unchallenged in 45 films, including
Rosemary’s Baby, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and
especially Bullitt. Strapped to a Mustang going
100 m.p.h. with his white beard flapping across
his eyes, his camerawork is as electrifying as
anything else in the movie. In an industry
dominated by cutthroats, gone are the rare
gentleman producers David Brown and Robert
Radnitz (Sounder), flamboyant Dino De Laurentiis,
and directors Claude Chabrol (labeled “the French
Hitchcock” for more than 80 crime thrillers about
murder and mayhem with escargot), B-movie hack
Clive Donner (when London stopped swinging, so
did he), Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde), James
Hickenlooper (Casino Jack), Italy’s Mario
Monicelli (Big Deal on Madonna Street), Irvin
Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back, the sequel to
Star Wars), Blake Edwards (Breakfast at
Tiffany’s), Ronald Neame (despite distinguished
films like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and
Tunes of Glory, it was to his everlasting dismay
that he was best known for his least favorite,
The Poseidon Adventure). We must also
add boring Eric Rohmer. A favorite of many
American critics, this overrated French yawn was
aptly eulogized in Arthur Penn’s wonderfully
unconventional thriller, Night Moves. Gene
Hackman is asked by his wife to go to an Eric
Rohmer film playing in an L.A. art house. “I
don’t think so,” he replies. “I saw a Rohmer
film once. It was kind of like watching paint
dry.” Truer words were never spoken. His films
re-defined narcolepsy. Claire’s Knee, My Night
with Maud, among others. I slept through them all.

With one foot already in the toilet, the
quality of today’s film scripts will never be the
same after Irving Ravetch (who with wife Harriet
Frank, Jr. turned out Hud, Norma Rae and The
Sound and the Fury), and writer-director Joseph
L.’s son, Tom Mankiewicz (who wrote several of
the James Bond films). I will also miss reading
Bob Thomas, the veteran syndicated columnist who
covered Hollywood royalty for six decades. Joan
Crawford could out-drink him, Marilyn Monroe told
him first about her love affair with JFK, and
when Clark Gable was whisked in secrecy to the
hospital following his heart attack, Bacon was
waiting. Aghast, Gable grinned and said, “How’s
the food in this joint?” Those were the days.

Literature will be less readable without my
favorite author, J. D. Salinger. One seriously
weird dude, he drank his own urine and spoke in
tongues, but he also raised the bar for aspiring
writers throughout the world. Other men of
letters who locked their typewriters and
computers and threw away the keys were Erich
Segal (they slammed Love Story, but it sold 22
million copies, proving “Success means never
having to say you’re sorry”); Alan Stilltoe, the
British novelist whose early works, Saturday
Night and Sunday Morning and Loneliness of the
Long Distance Runner, were adapted into highly
praised movies symbolizing the angst of the angry
British working class; Dick Francis, champion
steeplechase jockey turned best-selling mystery
novelist; Robert B. Parker, who created the
popular detective Spenser in more than 60 best
sellers; and Robert Katz, American writer who
lived in Italy, chronicling the Vatican’s
complicity in the massacre of thousands of Jews
under Mussolini in Death in Rome and The
Cassandra Crossing. Broadway dimmed the marquees
for veteran librettist Joseph Stein, who wrote
the book for Fiddler on the Roof. He was
followed, a few days later, by the great composer
Jerry Bock, who wrote music to fit his partner
Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics for such legendary
musicals as Fiddler, She Loves Me and
Fiorello! Ironically, Mr. Bock, Mr. Stein, and
Fiorello! star Tom Bosley all died within a few
weeks of each other, taking a chunk of Broadway history with them.

Music will sound sour without swinging
pianist Hank Jones; Oscar Peterson’s guitarist
Herb Ellis; jazz singer and political activist
Abbey Lincoln (a softer, less toxic Nina Simone);
harmonica virtuoso Jerry Adler; Duke Ellington
vocalist Joya Sherrill; revered West Coast
singer-pianist Joyce Collins; jazz drummer Ed
Thigpen (called “Mr. Taste” for his sensitive
accompaniment of Ella Fitzgerald); soul singer
Teddy Pendergrass; John Dankworth,
arranger-composer-saxophone wizard and husband of
Cleo Laine; Claiborne Cary, zany but dependable
cabaret singer-disciple (and sister of loopy
actress Cloris Leachman); father of the jazz
accordion Art Van Damme; be-bop Benny Goodman
piano player John Bunch; Cherie De Castro, last
surviving member of the singing De Castro
Sisters, whose recording of “Teach Me Tonight”
topped the charts in the 1950’s; ace trombonist
and big-band-era orchestra leader Buddy Morrow;
versatile jazz drummer Jake Hanna, who played
with both Woody Herman and Harry James; the
elegiac piano chords of Billy Taylor--musician,
composer, historian, educator and eloquent voice
of NPR, who won a Ph.D in music and instructed
everyone to “Call me Doctor”; and Canada’s Rob
McConnell, the last of the great jazz orchestra
leaders who wrote and conducted big brass
arrangements for Mel Torme’s “Velvet and Brass”
album (for which I wrote the liner notes). What
a shame we won’t be reading about them in the
carefully worded erudition of
biographer-songwriter-critic-jazz journalist Gene
Lees, whose English lyrics for Antonio Carlos
Jobim’s “Quiet Nights” made history and whose
monthly Jazzletter, one of the first series of
idiosyncratic essays on jazz, was a blog before
the word was invented. No more arias by Blanche
Thebom, the mezzo-soprano who specialized in
Wagner, singing more than 350 performances at the
Metropolitan Opera before joining Mario Lanza in
MGM’s The Great Caruso, or Met sopranos Shirley
Verrett (called “the black Callas”) and Dolores
Wilson, who moved to Broadway to co-star with
David Wayne in the ill-fated musical The
Yearling. It was curtains for Cesare Siepi, who,
like Ezio Pinza, also appeared on Broadway, and
for Joan Sutherland, the diva with a voice rich
and powerful enough to rise above every
orchestra, blasting away at full tilt in three
languages. After her 1961 Metropolitan Opera
debut, singing the mad scene in Donizetti’s
Lucia, was followed by a 12-minute standing
ovation, she was labeled “La Stupenda” and it stuck.

Politics won’t seem as pithy without
Theodore Sorenson, JFK’s main man, or Liz
Carpenter, Washington powerhouse during the
Lyndon Johnson administration and Lady Bird’s
press secretary during her White House days. I
ate my last meal at Elaine’s, but I’ll miss
eternally agitated proprietress and genuine New
York character Elaine Kaufman, who served
inedible food to the rich and famous, threw
garbage can lids at the paparazzi, and leaned on
the tables of unwanted customers, snarling
“You’re gonna hate it here!” It was a year of
horrible losses, from Glen Bell, who invented
Taco Bell, to Agethe von Trapp, the last of the
singing “Sound of Music” family. She was little
Liesel in the movie who sang “15 Going on 17”,
but she died at 97. Time flies when you’re humming.

Hard to believe they all shuffled off this
mortal coil in 2010, but for pure spirit and
spunk, I’ve reserved a special place for Doris
Travis, the last living Ziegfeld Girl, who lived
to 106. Two weeks before she died, she appeared
one last time on a New York stage as part of the
annual Easter Bonnet Competition to benefit
BroadwayCares/Equity Fights AIDS. She did a few
kicks, then apologized that she no longer
performed cartwheels. It brought down the
house. I miss her already--and the others,
too. When Boris Karloff died, he said “I’ll be
back.” In my dreams, so will they all.
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