One of the hardest things to do is to explain to a young person what it was like when something that has become established and famous was brand new. This clip of Mel Brooks appearing on The Dick Cavett Show offers a small bit of what it was like when he was first rolling out …
The very sexy Anne Francis, a native of Ossining, died yesterday at the age of 80. Many know her best for her portrayal of Altaira in the sci fi classic Forbidden Planet (“Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet” goes the line in “Science Fiction/Double Feature,” a song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She also …
In his recent review in The New Yorker of a number of books about the entity known as late-night television, Louis Menand recounts the famous evening when Dick Cavett hosted Gore Vidal, Janet Flanner and a drunken, obsteperous Norman Mailer. I don’t recall if I saw the original program in 1971 (my senior year of …
Visitors to the offices of Jann Wenner on Sixth Avenue and 51st Street will be treated to the sight of the many National Magazine Awards the magazines of Wenner Media have collected over the years, many of them quite justifiably for the art direction of Rolling Stone. Well, they won’t be winning any art direction …
Before George Lois went to work at Esquire and became a giant of the magazine industry, he was a giant of the advertising industry. Thus it makes sense that for its August issue, Playboy would turn to Lois for some comments on Mad Men, which begins its fourth season on Sunday. Now, this does not …
The topic of this article is supposed to be Why Men Don’t Like to Dress Up, but I’m having some difficulty with it, because the premise is obviously untrue. Men love to dress up. If you have any doubts, go to a football game—NFL, NCAA. Look in the stands. You’ll see tens of thousands of …
Most of the obituaries of Fess Parker, the actor who famously portrayed Davy Crockett on television in the fifties and who died yesterday, placed him at the center of genuine coonskin fad, part of the crazy quilt of crazes of that period that included Elvis, hula hoops, drive-ins and that made up pop culture during …
I had an amazing reception to my recent post about my uncle, Andy Malanowski. I heard from many of my cousins, which was wonderful, notably Dave Powell, the husband of my cousin Christine Malanowski Powell. He has constructed an impressive Powell family tree which by his good grace (or maybe it’s the grace of Chris) …
I am looking forward to Sunday’s debut of the HBO miniseries The Pacific, which focuses on the experiences of the marines who fought America’s island war against Japan. One of the early episodes will focus on the battle of Guadalcanal. It was there, relatively early in the long campaign to control of the island, that …