Remember Wayland Flowers and Madame? Mr. Flowers was a devastatingly-funny puppeteer who moved from the gay cabaret scene into mainstream TV in the sixties and seventies. The act was the perfect example of the old saw that the ventriloquist's dummy can always get away with saying things that the ventriloquist could not. I never saw him perform live but folks who did all raved and said, as they do of some comedians, "You haven't seen him if you've only seen him on television."
I did briefly meet Wayland Flowers backstage when he was doing his 1982 TV series, Madame's Place on a stage that adjoined one where I was working. His program was being done on a very low budget…so low that they had to tape a couple of shows per day in order to bring it in for the money they had. That might have been fine but someone had forgotten something…which was that there's a simply physical limit to how long a puppeteer can keep the old arm extended in the air. The one time I got to spend any time with Jim Henson, I remember him talking about that and about the time Kermit filled in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Mr. Henson said, approximately, "It wasn't until I was out there doing the monologue that I suddenly realized, 'Oh, my God! I have to keep my arm up for ninety minutes.' We'd usually tape four or five minutes, take a ten minute break, tape four or five more…"
They figured that out when they started taping Madame's Place. The schedule simply demanded more of Flowers than he could handle. You remember those photos of Sandy Koufax after he pitched a game? The ones where he'd be in the clubhouse and they'd be packing his throwing arm in ice to bring down the swelling and pain? Well, one day I walked into the Make-Up Area on the show I was doing and Wayland Flowers was in there with his puppeteering arm soaking in a small Whirlpool of icy H2O, and he seemed to be in a great deal of agony.
We got to chatting…and I think he was talking to me mainly to get his mind off his arm, though we did talk about that, too. There was then, he said, talk of hiring a "stunt puppeteer" to switch off with him working Madame. When the other guy was doing it, Wayland would have been off-camera providing the voice. He didn't like that idea, he said. No one else had ever operated Madame…and puppeteers can get very protective and proprietary about their kids. He didn't want someone else's hand in there and he was also worried about maintaining a consistent performance. The precise way Madame moved — "her special rhythm," as he called it — was as much a part of the character as anything else. Then again, he was suffering a lot and they had something like fifty episodes left to shoot. I never heard if they wound up bringing in someone to relieve him or if he toughed it out.
That was in '82. Six years later, he passed away from one of those ugly, AIDS-related diseases.
According to his Wikipedia page, Flowers bequeathed his estate, including his puppets, to his manager, Marlena Shell. It also says there that Madame now resides in the permanent collection of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia…and sure enough, that institution's website lists Madame as being resident and as a gift of Marlena Shell. But either there were two puppets (quite possible) or the old broad's gone and busted out of the joint.
The auction house called Profiles in History is having a sale of Hollywood memorabilia next week and one of the "items" up for bid is Madame, as shown above, complete with "fainting couch." The estimated price is $25,000 to $30,000. I hope she finds a good home.