BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: CELEBRITIES

JACK BENNY & EDGAR BERGEN

“Even when I’m generous –especially when I’m generous –I almost feel guilty about it. Having  lunch with Edgar Bergen at the Brown Derby, I demanded  the check. The waiter did the usual silly take, I’ve come to expect. He said,“Mr. Benny, I’m surprised to hear you ask for the check.”
    “So am I,” I said, “and that’s the last time I’ll ever eat with a ventriloquist.”

Jack Benny and His Daughter Joan. Sunday Nights at Seven: the Jack Benny Story (New York: Warner Books, 1990)
**
S. J. PERELMAN & FUNNY NAMES

Perelman also wrote a handful of screenplays, 
most notably for the early Marx Brothers films 
Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. Despite hating 
Hollywood for all the right and obvious reasons, 
he won an Academy Award in 1957 for his adaptation 
of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days, 
written for the impresario Mike Todd, its producer.
But his stock-in-trade was the sly, parodistic 
short piece mixing slang with baroque and foreign 
words, to wit, terms such as rebarbative and 
divertissement. Like W. C. Fields, he delighted 
in preposterous names, such as Roland Portfolio, 
Strobe Fischbyne, President Butterfoss of Nossiter 
College, Lord Burrwash,  nLuba Pneumatic, Mrs. 
Bianca Fangl (“Not that Bianca Fangl!”), the 
French grammarian  Moe Juste, and Inspector 
Marcel Riboflavin n(in “The Saucier’s Apprentice”).

 SAM KASHNER, DECEMBER 25, 2021 in AIRMAIL
**
SELF PORTRAIT

   "I look like the girl next door…if you happen 
to live next door to an amusement park."
DOLLY PARTON
**

TULLULAH BANKHEAD

Lucille Ball “indicated the crocheted garment 
Bankhead wore around her shoulders. “I love 
that sweater.”
    “My dahling, take it!” Tallulah practically 
threw the thing in Lucy’s face, despite her protests. 
There was a moment of icy silence, broken by Vivian 
Vance’s cheery remark: “Well, for me, the slacks. 
I love the slacks.” Tallulah promptly stood up and 
peeled off her slacks. Anything to oblige. She was
 not wearing any panties.”

Stefan Kanfer. Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and 
Comic Art of Lucille Ball (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)
**
LUCILLE BALL

“As a child, Ball was reserved, but she knew she 
wanted to try her hand at show business. At age 14,
 she enrolled in Manhattan’s John Murray Anderson 
School for Dramatic Arts, where her classmates 
included some future leading ladies. "I was a 
tongue-tied teenager spellbound by the school's 
star pupil, Bette Davis," Ball once said. The 
school wasn’t so convinced of Ball’s own talents, 
though; teachers told her mother that Ball was 
“too shy” to ever be successful. That feedback 
didn’t stop Ball, however. She went on to explore 
a number of different paths, including modeling. 
Fashion designer Hattie Carnegie hired Ball as 
her in-house model in 1928, and later, as a model 
for Chesterfield cigarettes. It was Carnegie who 
suggested that Ball dye her brunette hair blonde 
— but Ball’s signature bright red hair wouldn’t 
come until later.”

MEGHAN NEAL, editor, Inspiring Quotes from Lucille Ball
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/
FMfcgzGllVmMxtgcZLwshHsKpqWmrkdF
**
JIMMY DURANTE & HIS $100,000 NOSE

 “There’s this piano scene. I’m playing a duet 
with Liberace. So I hit two notes, he hits two 
notes. Then I say in competition, you got to 
use all your weapons. So I starts to play with 
my nose. So Liberace comes over and accidentally 
touches the piano-key lid and it comes down on 
my nose.” Sadly stroking his bandaged pride and 
joy Durante murmured. “A mortifyin’ experience.”*

TIME magazine (April 19,1957)
*Durante (who was a descendent of the poet Dante) 
had his nose insured for $100,000.
**

           BUD ABBOTT JUMPS SHIP
       
          Bud Abbott’s father, Harry Abbott, was 
at the time advance man for Ringling Brothers Circus 
and his mother was performing as a bareback rider. 
By the time he was old enough to go to school his 
family had moved to Coney Island in New York, where 
Public School 100 had him as a pupil until “could 
outrun the truant officers.” He was in fourth grade.
 From then on he helped his father a little, did 
odd jobs around and painted a lot of signs until 
at the age of fifteen he ran afoul a Mickey Finn 
in a Brooklyn beer joint and was shanghaied onto 
a ship sailing for Norway..
         Abbott jumped ship at Bergen and worked 
his way back to New York, where his father was 
now associated with one of the burlesque chains. 
He got Abbott a job as assistant cashier in the 
Casino Theater in Brooklyn….
 CURRENT BIOGRAPHY 1941
**
HARPO MARX & 20TH CENTURY PAINTING

“Harpo was once asked to donate his house in 
Beverly Hills for a one man show by an unknown 
artist. He thought about it, then obliged, and 
a few of the pictures were sold., The grateful
 artist then offered Harpo six paintings as 
a gesture of appreciation. But Harpo declined 
Big, big mistake. Years later, those paintings 
by Paul Klee, were worth millions.”

Jeffrey Lyons. Stories My Father Told Me: Notes 
from “The Lyons Den” (New York: Abbeville, Press, 2011)

**

AIMEE SEMPLE McPHERSON

Aimee Semple
McPherson (I’ll try to keep this simple)—
Aimee Semple McPherson
Was once a very famous person.
**
IRENE DUNNE

Irene Dunne,
Reading the filmscript for Dune,
Sd: “I’d much rather
Appear with William Powell in Life With Father.

LJP