Southern Bookman

Farewell, Roy Clark

Roy Clark at first gained recognition as a crossover TV personality whose citified country humor and instrumental talent appealed to TV variety show audiences.

Like Glen Campbell, Clark rose to stardom in Los Angeles with an urbanized country sound that reflected the migration from the farm to the city. Clark, who gained widespread fame as the host of the long-running country-fried hit "Hee-Haw," died this week of pneumonia in Tulsa, Okla.

While Clark's musical performances brought him appearances on 1960s TV variety shows, he also developed a comic personna of the canny Southern bumpkin, similar to those  of Andy Griffith or Jim Nabors. Clark's rubbery facial expressions guaranteed laughs.

Later, Clark reverted more and more to cornpone hillbilly humor as the host of the long-running "Hee Haw," along with the dynamic Bakersfield singer Buck Owens. Clark and Owens' "picking' and grinnin'" routine always made me cringe, as if I were watching the black actor Stephen Fetchit act out black stereotypes in 1930s movies.

While the "Hee-Haw"  act's broad humor was funny enough, it depended on demeaning Southern stereotypes. I was chagrined that such wonderful musical talents as Clark and Owens stooped to such condescending work. Owens apparently hated the bit.

While Clark was funny, his self-deprecating comic act overshadowed his immense talent as a singer and guitar/banjo player. Clark's musical talent compared to Campbell's, and he could have had a similar singing/playing career without the clowning.

Well, people loved "Hee Haw," as white audiences once loved "Amos and Andy."  Such broad, corn-shucking humor was long a staple of country acts. Even Hank Williams had such a comic in his band. Minnie Pearl built a durable career out of country humor. 

Clark had stage presence, and his comedy touched millions. Yet, his delivery of songs like "Yesterday When I Was Young" and his virtuoso instrumental performances made me wish that he'd concentrated on his music.

 

 

A charming afternoon with Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins

That old Rodgers and Hammerstein tune was right after all: There's nothing like a dame.

Four is even better, especially when the dames are Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins.

Director Roger Michell's delightfully low-tech film, "Tea With the Dames," captures the four great ladies of the English theater as themselves, seated at a table enjoying conversation, laughter, tea, and a bit of champagne.

Old chums Plowright, Smith, Dench and Atkins, arrayed before a stationary camera, share gossip, jokes, laments of aging and career triumphs and regrets.

As they laugh and banter with each other, small jewels of theater lore glitter. Atkins vividly describes how she suffers from stage fright. The closest they come to performance is displaying some of their vocal exercises. Their conversation is interspersed with video from some of their celebrated performances as young actresses.

Oliver, the domineering Shakespearian actor and director of the British national theater, looms over the conversation. Each of them gives anecdotes about the difficulty of working with the demanding theater titan. Video shows some of his noted performances, including starring in "The Entertainer" with Plowright and playing Othello in blackface.

Along with Oliver's lauded portrayal of the aging comedian Archie Rice in "The Entertainer, " he's shown playing Hamlet and Henry V.  Plowright remembers writing a fan letter to him as an adolescent girl, and how she thought his signature on the return letter was authentic until she learned when married to him that his secretary stamped his responses to fans.

Smith is the most forthcoming, with memories of visiting Oliver and Plowright's home when their children were small. She also remembers filling in for Plowrightt to comfort Olivier during one of his breakdowns. Plowright recalls the excitement of her marriage to Olivier, before characterizing it as "hell."

Looking back at their younger days, Plowright mentions that none of them were considered great beauties. Yet they glow with glamour in the excerpts from their early performances. As Plowright says, they excelled at creating the "illusion" of theater.

Now blind, Plowright most poignantly shows the ravages of old age. Also in their 80s, Smith, Dench and Atkins laugh about the roles they still receive, and how the acting techniques they considered revolutionary in their youth are now disparaged by a new generation. In their youth, they also mocked older stars.

Reluctantly discussing her starring role in the TV hit "Downton Abbey," Smith disparages the series and discloses that she's never watched it. Dench draws gibes for her recent starring turns in James Bond films and other projects.

Their stories are charming and bittersweet. With their beautiful accents and perfect English, they would be captivating reading the phone book.

 

Goodbye to the World Series

I've been following the World Series through the five-minute daily wrap-ups on MLB.

That saves me from spending four or five hours watching the games between the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The first two games won by Boston have featured big home runs by the Red Sox and great plays such as Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi's leaping catch Wednesday night.

But I can't tolerate the endless pitching changes, hitters stepping out of the batter's  box, the yawning waits between pitches. 

It used to be dramatic for a hitter to foul off pitch after pitch. Now, it's like water torture.

I've found more interesting the spate of stories about the 1916 World Series between the Red Sox and the Dodgers, then in Brooklyn and then known as the Robins, or the Superbas.

Red Sox pitcher Babe Ruth won a 14-inning complete game in that series. The contest lasted two hours,. That would be two innings today.

Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" the most influential novel of 1960s

Emily Temple's "A Century of Reading" series on LiteraryHub has given useful and entertaining lists of the defining American books of each decade beginning with the 1900s.

I've had no quarrel with Temple's top 10 lists until, as might be expected, she reached the 1960s on Tuesday.

My objection is that she left Joseph Heller's 1961 novel "Catch-22" off her Top 10 selections, relegating it to the much larger "See also" list.

"Catch-22" was the essential work that defined the anti-establishment, anti-military, non-conformist spirit of the 1960s. Heller's book was much more influential than those she places on the top 10.

While I appreciate Temple's honoring of poetry by including Sylvia Plath's "Ariel," on the decade's top 10, "Catch-22" inspired the 1960s generation much more than Plath's posthumous collection.

Heller's black-humor masterpiece outweighs three of the other novels she includes, "Portnoy's Complaint," "Slaughterhouse Five" and "Stranger in a Strange Land."

While Temple says in her introduction "I do not make any claim on exhaustiveness," I was mystified how she could have left Norman Mailer's 1968 classic "Armies of the Night" off both the top 10 and "see also" lists.

Mailer's new journalism landmark about the Vietnam protest march in Washington, D.C., is another defining work of the era. To my mind, it should have made the top 10 over the new journalism books Temple names, "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" and "In Cold Blood."

A strong case for top 10 status could also be made for Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." 

Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," placed on Temple's secondary list, should have also been on the top 10. Carson's book launched the environmental movement and still inspires the campaign against climate change.

Temple's "see also" roll ignores several other books that illustrated the zeitgeist: Eldridge Cleaver's autobiography "Soul on Ice," Richard Farina's novel, "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me," Hunter S. Thompson's New Journalism classic"Hell's Angels" and Frederick Exley's memoir/novel "A Fan's Notes."

While the 1960s marked television's ascendency for news and entertainment, the decade also brought an outpouring of important, vital literature. Temple's incomplete list brings more debate to a contentious time.

 

Farewell, Jim Taylor, LSU and Green Bay Packers legend

My dismal experience at YMCA camp gave me one of my strongest childhood memories: meeting the Green Bay Packers' Jim Taylor.

Nearly 60 years later I remember the crew-cut Jimmy standing in the dim light of a rustic cabin before a gaggle of preadolescent boys wearing Camp Arrowhead T-shirts, blue jeans and high-top Keds.

As I sat on a roughhewn bench, my misery drifted away with the thrill that I was in the presence of someone big and famous.

I can't recall what the square-jawed and muscular Green Bay Packers fullback said, probably something about the importance of hard work, perseverance and teamwork. Nor did I have the foresight to get his autograph. His talk must have given me some of the grit to overcome my acute homesickness and stay until the blessed last day of camp. Throughout my life, I have kept the memory of Taylor that night as a model of grace.

Taylor, like me a Baton Rouge native, died Saturday morning at age 83 after a long and successful NFL afterlife. An All-American two-way player at LSU before the Tigers' football glory days, Taylor was a stalwart of Vince Lombardi's rugged Green Bay Packers championship teams of the 1960s. He won the NFL Most Valuable Player award in 1963, and scored the first Super Bowl touchdown.

His summertime appearance at my camp fuses with indelible television memories of watching him take the ball from Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr and "run for daylight" behind the Packers' indomitable pulling guards in Lombardi's famous sweep. After partnering with Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon for one year at LSU, Taylor played with Notre Dame Heisman recipient Paul Hornung at Green Bay. Taylor gave the muscle and Hornung the glamour of the first NFL team to receive a national following. 

While I was an immediate fan of the upstart AFL, shown in living color on NBC, the Packers were my favorite old-time NFL powerhouse. As late Sunday afternoon shadows rolled across our backyard, we watched the Packers crush another opponent on Green Bay's "frozen tundra," narrated by Ray Scott's thrilling voice. The Packers on TV were one of the few CBS shows my father, an NBC television station executive, allowed us to watch.

Taylor finished his LSU career in 1957, the year before Coach Paul Dietzel and his Chinese Bandits won the national championship. Cannon joined him as a sophomore, also playing on offense and defense. Before Cannon and his teammates secured permanent LSU fan loyalty with the national championship and his 1959 Heisman Trophy punt return against Ole Miss, a follower could go to a ticket window just before kickoff and buy a ticket to the game.

Like Cannon, the less athletic Taylor was a follower of Baton Rouge weightlifting guru Alvin Roy, whose strength program carried Hank Stram's Kansas City Chiefs to the 1970 Super Bowl championship. Former Packers center and Georgia Tech, Alabama and Kentucky coach Bill Curry remembered after Taylor's death how Taylor insisted on the rookie Curry joining him for bench pressing sessions during Lombardi's grueling two-a-day preseason practices.

Still active two years ago, Taylor joined LSU fans in Green Bay for the Tigers' ill-fated game against Wisconsin at legendary Lambeau Field. The Green Bay Packers museum at Lambeau honored Taylor with his own exhibit, fitting for the first Lombardi Packer inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. 

The Taylor exhibit included an amusing evaluation in which Lombardi lauds Taylor for not thinking too much. Lombardi prized those who would follow orders without question, although he had a fondness for the rebellious Hornung and Max McGee.

A typed letter from Taylor soliciting a place on the Packers belies Lombardi's comment. Taylor's letter had no typos or grammatical errors, and displays an admirable ability to express his thoughts. I was excited to see Taylor's return address from a street in Baton Rouge's Southdowns neighborhood a block or two away from where I spent my early childhood.

Taylor was overshadowed by the Cleveland Browns' more athletically gifted Jim Brown, who unlike Taylor probably never touched a weight. In contrast to Brown's breathtaking breakaway runs, Taylor chewed up yards, crushing into linebackers and defensive backs like Sam Huff, Chuck Bendarik and Dick "Night Train" Lane.

While I admire Taylor's gridiron glory, I cherish more my warm memories of the modest man who made a long drive at night through the rural Louisiana darkness to inspire young boys at camp.

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff brings Time magazine into new era

Henry Luce's media empire is breaking up at last, undone by the digital economy.

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynn, are purchasing Time magazine from the Meredith Corp. for $190 million. The size of the purchase is surprising; longtime rival Newsweek was sold for virtually nothing a few years ago.

The Benioff deal doesn't include former Luce jewels  Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money, which the midwestern company Meredith also wants to peddle. 

Along with Time, Luce's Fortune and Sports Illustrated were stalwarts of a fabled company that dominated the national media landscape. Money magazine came in later, riding high on a new age of middle class wealth and consumerism. The Luce titles shared a corporate culture of elite journalism: superstar writers, immersive full-color coverage of events, huge expense accounts.

Rocked by the Internet and the disappearance of once bountiful print advertising, the famous titles struggled to find a new place in the digital world. At last, Meredith purchased the fading magazines, with plans to sell them off. The publisher of homespun publications loaded with family advice and inspiration, Meredith plans to keep still profitable Time brands Southern Living and celebrity-oriented People.

The billionaire Benioff plans to run Time as a separate entity from his Salesforce software company. As New York Times business columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin pointed out Wednesday, the deal is another triumph of the new West Coast digital elite over the old East Coast establishment. Luce's Time invented the word tycoon, which has new meanings today.

If Time's aggressive reporting on the Trump administration continues under Benioff, the software billionaire is likely to draw the ire of Trump, as Sorkin said. Trump frequently blasts Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos for his ownership of the Washington Post. Benioff says he won't participate in Time editorial decisions.

The future appears especially dire for Sports Illustrated, whose weekly format proved out-of-date in the world of ESPN, itself now struggling to define its future. Fortune with its strong business coverage will still be a valuable brand, even as a standalone. But Sports Illustrated appears endangered in the Internet world.

A new identity for SI sportswriter

SI's questionable future might have played a part in SI senior writer Lee Jenkins' move to the Los Angeles Clippers as "executive director of research and identity," but the job's new-age title sounds more fascinating than writing profiles of jocks.

And, as the envious "Pardon the Interruption" wise-ass Tony Kornheiser said, Jenkins will probably triple his salary. On PTI's sister ESPN show, "Around the Horn,"  Dallas Morning News columnist Tim Calishaw also expressed laptop envy at Jenkins' move.

Jenkins had difficulty explaining exactly what he'll do in the Clippers post. Something about using his interviewing skills to gain deeper insights into players' personalities, and improving the fan experience. Well, the Clippers have long had an identity crisis, although until losing guard Chris Paul, they've supplanted the Lakers in the Los Angeles sports world in recent years.

But, talk about identity, the Lakers have now landed Lebron James. The Clippers can boost their identity by landing Kyrie Irving. I wonder if Jenkins will ask Irving why he believes the world is flat. That's all right, so does Tom Friedman.

Jenkins joins former Lakers star and ace basketball talent evaluator Jerry West and coach Doc Rivers, who both seem to have enough identity of their own without any evaluation from Jenkins.

Microsoft billionaire and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has delivered another West Coast hit on the old Luce empire. Ballmer's worth $40 billion, so what's a few bucks for an old sportswriter?

Woodward's "Fear" lands quietly at local Barnes & Noble

A few copies of Bob Woodward's "Fear" lay on a small table Tuesday near the cash register at my friendly neighborhood Barnes & Noble.

I was surprised that Woodward's blockbuster detailing the incompetence of Donald Trump didn't receive a more prominent display.

While "Fear" might attract impulse buyers standing in the checkout line, the book had been placed inconspicuously away from the main display tables at the center of the store. Perhaps the B&N had landed only a few copies of the book, and didn't want to sell out too soon.

As I waited to buy the first Paris Review under new editor Emily Nemens, I overheard a lady ask a "bookseller" about Woodward's book. I myself was tempted to pick one up, but withstood the impulse. It occurred to me later that a first edition of the book might be valuable one day. But I think the media revelations about the book will be enough for me without plodding though the gray stretches of Woodwardese.

On Tuesday night, Woodward continued his media tour promoting the book with an interview on the Rachel Maddow show. Maddow's earnest, ingratiating manner and speculation that some of the book's revelations hinted at larger, more nefarious deeds seemed to perplex Woodward.

The veteran member of the Washington media establishment appeared caught off guard at Maddow's straying away from the established line of questioning he'd received on other shows. At times, he looked puzzled at her immersion in details and her speculative leaps. When Maddow went too far with one of her conclusions, he admonished her.

After those awkward moments, Woodward ended the show with a ringing condemnation of Trump and his "assault on the truth."

Woodward conceded to Maddow that Trump had "more pathways" to corruption and malfeasance than any other president about whom he'd written, a chilling statement from the man who played a major role in uncovering Nixon's Watergate.

 

The New York Times witness protection program: Trump staffer pens anonymous op-ed piece

Watching Donald Trump fume about the "lying New York Times" before a bewildered group of sheriffs Wednesday afternoon, I imagined "Trump: The Opera."

As the baritone playing Trump bewails the perfidy of his presidential staff, the sheriffs lined up behind him act like a Greek chorus. In ominous minor-key tones, they sing the word "lying" over and over, or "treason." The Trump character grows ever more frenzied, his voice rising until he stalks off the stage in a heart-pounding dramatic climax.

Broadcast on Chuck Todd's daily "Meet the Press," Trump appeared before the sheriffs in their uniforms and cowboy hats just as news broke about a high-level Trump aide calling Trump morally and intellectually unfit for the presidency. The aide made his accusations in an anonymous piece written for The New York Times op-ed page. 

As the puzzled sherifs looked on, Trump paced back and forth, clutching a printout of the article, which he tried to read in between fulminating about the Times and the "gutless" writer. Along with looking like an opera's tragic villain, Trump resembled a prosecutor making a case before a jury.

For the second day in a row, revelations about Trump's rebellious staff painted the administration as a dysfunctional "crazy- land." As the night wore on, cable TV's familiar chatterers grew shriller and shriller as reports accumulated about the pseudo-president's "volcanic" rage.

Betraying the autocratic tendencies decried in the op-ed piece, Trump in an ill-considered tweet called on the newspaper to turn over the writer to the government "in the interest of national security." In Trumpland, milk, imported cars and op-ed pieces can harm national security. 

The anonymous author's op-ed article followed the release of similar findings from veteran journalist Bob Woodward in his forthcoming book, "Fear: The Trump White House."

After the op-ed article news broke late Wednesday afternoon, Washington journalists and insiders sought to reveal the writer's identity. Several cable TV commentators disputed the writer's claims to heroism, finding him or her cowardly.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell made a good case for national intelligence director Dan Coats, although I believe Coats has too much of a sense of loyalty to write the piece, and that he would find its anonymity distasteful.

Vice Presdent Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denied speculation that they were the author. I could see Pompeo doing it, although he was en route to Pakistan when the news broke. Pence lacks the imagination and writing ability. One of his aides might have done it though.

Other possibilities included economics adviser Larry Kudlow. Someone even suggested Melania Trump, the English-challenged first lady.

The piece appeared too slick for even a skilled communicator like Kudlow. It read as if it were cooked up in a conservative think tank like the Heritage Society. The senior aide likely wrote a rough draft, or outline of ideas, to be polished by a skilled think-tank hack.

The article sounded as if it had been written by more than one person. A single Cabinet member might have been the final author, but consulted with others.

Hopes for the end of the Trump presidency ended the article, indicating that the GOP establishment might have had enough of Trump. Once Brett Kavanaugh takes his seat on the Supreme Court and begins alsahsing the rights of women and workers, Trump will be tossed overboard.

Then we can wait for "The Death of Klinghoffer" author John Adams to write "Trump the Opera."  Following"Nixon in China," the title might be "Trump in Crazyland."

 

Fellini's "8 1/2" surfaces on TCM's Summer Under the Stars saltire to Marcello Mastroianni

Just when I'd thought Turrner Classic Movies had grown stale and predictable, the movie channel ran Frederico Fellini's "8 1/2" Thursday night.

That raised my hopes that my all-time favorite film, Fellini's "La Dolce Vita," would follow. But the "Summer Under the Stars" salute to Marcello Mastroianni ended with films like "Divorce Italian Style." Even the prospect of Sophia Loren didn't tempt me to stay up past my bedtime. 

Although "8 1/2" usually strikes me as meandering and banal, I was captured by Fellini's imagery. As Felllin's alter-ego, Mastrioanni with his weary smile and goofy hat captures the acedia of celebrity culture and the exhaustion of ideas. 

Then there's shots of Claudia Cardinale in a white slip.

I would love for TCM to offer a Fellini marathon night: "La Dolce Vita," "8 1/2" and "Satyricon." Wouldn't that be fun?

 

 

 

Boys should read "Little Women" too

Louisa May Alcott's 150-year-old novel "Little Women" is receiving a new burst of attention.

An excerpt from New Orleans University English professor Anne Boyd Rioux's new book, "Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters," appears on  Friday's LiteraryHub.

Rioux's book receives a major review/essay in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly. Magazine writer Sophie Gilbert points to Alcott's subversive elements and her innovations in literary technique. 

Alcott based her work on her childhood growing up in an eccentric home in Concord, Mass. She and her three sisters were the daughters of Branson Alcott, a feckless utopian dreamer who was part of Emerson's transcendentalist circle. Laurie, one of the March girls' suitors, is believed based on Henry David Thoreau.

Louisa May Alcott's mother, Abigail May, kept the household afloat as Branson Alcott's schemes collapsed.

The book tells the story of how the adolescent March girls and their indomitable mother, Marmee, cope with the deprivations of the American Civil War, with the girls' father away in the Union Army. In real life, Louisa May served as a nurse in Washington, D.C., while Bronson remained home.

The never married Alcott saved the family from ruin with the best-selling "Little Women" and other books. She also had a secret life writing potboilers under a pseudonym, as Gilbert cites in her Atlantic review. 

Following a recent PBS series about the March girls, film director/actor Greta Gerwig is planning a movie based on "Little Women." Gerwig's "Lady Bird" stars Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet will appear, along with Emma Stone and Meryl Streep, and possibly Laura Dern, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Movies from the book were also made in 1933, 1949 and 1968, each reflecting its era of history and Hollywood stardom.

The 1933 version, directed by George Cukor, mirrored the struggles of the Great Depression. It starred Katharine Hepburn as Jo, the character based on Louisa May Alcott, Joan Bennett, and a wonderful character actress with an all-time great Hollywood name, Spring Byington.

Mervyn Leroy's 1949 version foreshadowed the postwar era of American consumerism. As Gilbert cites, the movie added a segment in which the family goes on a Christmas shopping spree thanks to a wealthy aunt.

The movie glowed with a new calvacade of stars: June Allyson (Jo), Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh and Mary Astor as Marmee. Astor, known for her role in a juicy Hollywood sex scandal, also played Humphrey Bogart's murderous paramour in "The Maltese Falcon." 

Directed by Gillian Armstrong, the 1994 version emphasized the book's underlying feminism, and featured Winona Ryder (Jo), Gabriel Byrne, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Bale, Susan Sarandon and Claire Danes, in another type of "Homeland."

While receiving fresh film interpretations generation after generation, the book's literary stock falters.

Rioux's book excerpt, "Why Don't Boys Read 'Little Women,'" decries the book's fading from school reading curricula. Educators shun "Little Women" because they believe that only girls will enjoy it, Rioux says.

She points out that girls are forced to read boys books such as "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn," although I was surprised that they are still taught, especially the latter.

 Girls are encouraged to read "Little Women" on their own, but fewer and fewer find it the touchstone that earlier generations did. ("Gone With the Wind," the Southern version of women coping with the Civil War and once a rite of passage for young Southern girls, is even less read these days.)

Risking revocation of my macho credentials, I confess that I read "Little Women" as a boy and thought it a wonderful book. My mother subscribed to a series of American classic children's books by some publisher, I believe Grosset and Dunlap, and each month or so we'd receive a new tome in the mail. I also read "Tom Sawyer," "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tales of Robin Hood," as well as Alcott's "Little Men." Along with my pleasure at reading these books, I recall their vivid cover, frontpiece and inside illustrations.

Another reason educators cite for not assigning "Little Women" is a "crisis" in boys' reading. They fear that boys will be so bored by "Little Women" that reading will be poisoned for them for life.

More and more, preadolescent males would rather play video games than sit down with a book. God forbid that those Ritalin-addled squires would be required to read an entertaining book that would teach them something about American history and girls.

"Little Women" is one of those essential American books that deserves wide readership. Its disappearance is part of a greater erosion of democratic values from American education.