Is it my imagination or has Tony Blair started to sound more and more like George W. Bush? Unfortunately, George W. Bush isn't sounding more like Tony Blair. He's sounding more like an impressionist doing George W. Bush.
I don't recall if I made it up or quoted it from somewhere but in an article I wrote 25 years ago, it said that by the time they leave office, all presidents look like the Paul Conrad caricature of themselves and sound like David Frye impersonating them. Bush is well ahead of schedule.
And say, whatever happened to David Frye? The last time I heard him perform was not on TV or a record or even in a club. A comedian I was writing for played me back a message the man had left on his machine. Frye was upset because the comedian had done a joke on The Merv Griffin Show that was — arguably, I thought — similar to a joke in his own act. He called, got the machine and left this long but brilliant twenty minute scolding, the first three minutes of which were in the voice of William F. Buckley, followed by four minutes of George C. Scott and then a few of Al Capp and a couple of appearances by Richard M. Nixon and so forth. (It was actually more than one message because every time he took a medium-length pause, the machine cut him off. So Ted Kennedy or whoever he'd been doing at the moment would call back and resume that particular tirade.) The recipient of the complaint was pissed at the accusation but he had to admire the skill and admit that he felt somehow honored by this long message accusing him of plagiarism.
Then a couple days later, I was out on a date in Westwood Village and I spotted Mr. Frye in the Tower Records up there, flipping through the albums in the Comedy section. He was unshaven and looked like he wanted to be alone so I didn't say anything to him.
Fifteen minutes later, my lady friend and I were walking down Westwood Boulevard and we saw an elderly woman fall on a flight of stairs that led up to a Hungry Tiger restaurant. This was back when there were Hungry Tiger restaurants. My lady friend was schooled in First Aid so she ran up and started helping the woman while I located a pay phone. This was back when there were pay phones. I called for an ambulance and then when I returned to the scene of the accident, I tried to politely shoo away some of the people who were clustered about, looking at the injured woman and asking if there was any way they could help. One of them was David Frye. He said, "Is there anything I can do?"
I think I said something like, "You can do Nixon." He laughed and gave me that furrowed brow look that all Nixon impersonators did because they'd learned it from watching Frye. I remember thinking that the beard stubble made the facial impression frighteningly accurate. Then he walked off and I've never seen him anywhere since. This was something like thirty years ago.
From about half past the Johnson administration until the fading days of Watergate, Frye was one of the most popular impressionists in the business and certainly the King in the area of political voices. Does he still perform anywhere? Is he even still alive? The guy was really remarkable.