BITS &PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: CELEBRITIES #2

FLORENCE MILLS



She was the greatest Negro star I ever saw. She was
thin & reedy and her voice was immeasurably poignant
She also danced wondrously. Florence Mills was to be
the star of the first ann-Negro musical, called
Shuffle Along. Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle wrote
the score and Josephine Baker had a bit in it.One
of the songs was "I'm Just Wild About Harry." Although
I never met het, the memory of Florence Mills remains
somewhat dimmed but lustrous. She was very young when
she died.

OSCAR LEVANT in The Memories of an Amnesiac (New York:
G.P. Putnam's Sons,1965.

**

There was a great deal of tension during rehearsals of
the Broadway production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple
between director Mike Nichols and one of the stars,
Walter Matthau. At one particular rehearsal, Nichols
was ridiculing and belittling Matthau's efforts in a
particularly abusive manner, so the actor stopped and
said:
   "Okay,Mike, can I have my balls back?"
   "Certainly," said Nichols and snapped his fingers:
  "Props!"

Peter Hay. Broadway Anecdotes (New York/Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1989)

**


 At the end of the play I had to explain to the audience 
–as I build the church all in mime – that I’ve been told 
by God to wheel my mother in a barrow all over England….
and I’d been wheeling this fragile old lady all over 
the stage…until God told me to stop at this mound (on 
the stage) and build a church. Finally we stop, and I 
build the church – I and the audience have to imagine 
it.
  As I tell the villagers in the play how it happened, 
I could feel the absolute stillness of the audience. 
The atavistic hairs on the back of the back of my 
neck rose and I thought: what an extraordinary feeling, 
That was the first time I felt a sense of the power 
of acting, of being the medium through which the emotions 
of the words could be felt. That’s when I thought I’ll 
go on with it.

Richard Burton, on acting in Christopher Fry’s 
The Lady’s Not For Burning. Quoted by Hollis Alpert 
in Burton.

BIOGRAPHY FOR THE NEXT GENERATIONS

Frank Lloyd Wright—
I think I shall write
His biography in 4 seconds. Ready! Set! Go!
Wright. Architect. That’s all I know.
**

ON CARY GRANT

It’s a  part I’ve been playing a long time, but no way am I really Cary Grant. A friend told me once, ‘I wanted to be Cary Grant.’  And I said, ‘so did I.’ In my mind’s eye, I’m just
a vaudevillian named Archie Leach.

       Cary Grant

Quoted in Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise
 by Scott Eyman (NY: Simon & Schuster,
2020)
 

JACKIE GLEASON SKIPS OUT OF A BOARDING
HOUSE WITHOUT PAYING THE RENT

In summer Jackie (GLEASON) was booked into 
Wanamassa Gardens in Asbury Park... Jackie
stayed at a local boarding house near the
beach and spent so much of his salary that he 
was behind in his board bill. One noontime
he lowered his luggage out a back window to
a friend waiting below and then walked through
the lobby in his bathrobe.
  "Going for a little dip," he said brightly.
"They say it's wonderful for the appetite."
When he got outside, he hopped into his friend's
car, got in the back seat and put his clothes on
while they drove to New York. Three years later
he went back to the boarding house to pay the
overdue bill. The landlady took a long look at
Jackie and burst into tears. "We thought you
drownded!" she moaned.

Jim Bishop. The Golden Ham: A Candid Biography of
Jackie Gleason ( New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956).
**
FRANK SINATRA AS A LADIES MAN

"When Sinatra dies, they're giving his zipper 
to the Smithsonian."'
                 Dean Martin