They're saying CBS high muck-a-muck Les Moonves is about to exit that company; that a settlement on his contract is being negotiated and that he may depart with something in the neighborhood of one hundred million dollars. That's a very nice neighborhood. I think a lot of people would be thrilled to move into it even if it meant they'd be shamed as a predatory sex offender and ousted from the industry they loved.
The news has brought mixed reaction to those who felt Mr. Moonves was in need of serious punishment and shame. They're happy CBS is finally taking action and severing the man but not so happy about his severance pay. Alas, this is probably a contractual necessity. They'd avoid paying it to him if they could but they can't. No one should be surprised if, as seems logical, Les had the clout (and the smarts) to get an airtight contract that had no loophole about withholding pay if it turned out he was a sleazeball.
No, it's not fair. But you know what would be even less fair? If he indeed did use his power to abuse women and got away with it. A lot of powerful people do.
Lindsey Graham says abortion should be banned because it is not mentioned in the United States Constitution. I'm so excited because neither is cole slaw. Or Fox News. Or Lindsey Graham.
Comic actor Bill Daily died September 4 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 91 and during those 91 years, he was on television a ridiculous amount of time. Though best known for his sidekick roles on I Dream of Jeannie and The Bob Newhart Show, he was also a frequent guest on other shows and may have been in more unsold pilots than anyone else who ever lived.
I don't have any great stories about Bill. He was a solid professional who was known for always being on time, always knowing his lines, always taking direction and always being liked by everyone around him. The few times I met him, he seemed like the kind of actor who got hired because people just plain liked working with him.
Here's an obit that will tell you more about his busy career. I just wanted to say that he seemed like a real great guy who managed to have a really great career.
P.S. Stu Shostak just told me that when he had Bill on his talk show, Bill disclosed that he was severely dyslexic and had to learn scripts by having someone read them to him…but he was a quick study. That makes his career (and how much he worked) all that more impressive.
In December of 2016, the now-sadly-late Will Jordan guested on one of my favorite audio treats, Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. In recognition of Will's passing, the proprietors of said Amazing Colossal Podcast have brought it out from behind their paywall and made it available — for how long, I do not know — for free listening. Here's your chance!
Let us focus on one of the things wrong with the Democratic Party. There are plenty to choose from but let's just focus on one: They seem to care too much about effective governance and not enough about forming a united front to win elections. Kevin Drum has two back-to-back posts on his blog that make this point well. Read this one and then read this one.
Donald Trump promised voters that if he got elected, there would be healthcare for all and it would be better and cheaper for everyone. His "plan" turns out to be to get rid of Obamacare — perhaps just because it's Obamacare — and to replace it with nothing and not give a damn who gets hurt. This has not harmed him a lot (if at all) with the folks who put him in office. Some of them will lose their coverage completely or see their rates skyrocket and they will somehow not blame Trump or the Republicans. In the meantime, there are Democrats willing to tear the party apart fighting over this plan versus that plan.
My pal Ken Levine and I are both still mourning the passing of Neil Simon and we agree completely on his greatness and influence. So I was intrigued when Ken said this on his must-read blog…
Back in the '70s when The Odd Couple TV series was popular, there was an LA production at the (now defunct) Shubert Theatre of the original play with the TV cast in the roles. So Tony Randall was Felix and Jack Klugman was Oscar, etc. It brought down the house. And as I was watching it I thought to myself, "Wow, this is the best episode of The Odd Couple ever!"
I saw that production and I was sitting there thinking, "Wow, this is awful. Maybe we'll leave at intermission."
The odds are pretty good that Ken and I were not there on the same night because the house when I was there was definitely not being brought down. My date and I wound up not leaving at intermission but many did. In no particular order, there were three (maybe four) things wrong with what we saw…
The Shubert Theater (still defunct) seated 2,100 people and its stage was built to accommodate shows like Evita and A Chorus Line, both of which I also saw there. (Name-Dropping Aside: My friend Valerie Perri, who I just mentioned here, had the title role in Evita there. A lovely dancer named Charlene Ryan was one of the stars of A Chorus Line at the Shubert. Ms. Ryan is now Mrs. Aragonés, having married my collaborator Sergio.) Anyway, the place was too big for the seven-character, one-set Odd Couple.
The actors for The Odd Couple were poorly-miked or maybe the sound system was just badly configured. Whatever the reason, my date had to keep turning to me and asking me, "What did he say?" And I only knew because I knew the play by heart. I couldn't make out a lot of what was said either. The best actors in the world are kind of useless when you can't hear them.
Tony Randall and Jack Klugman were among the best actors in the world but they didn't act like it that night. Maybe it was because their lines weren't evoking the expected responses but they were rushing and mugging and not delivering a performance in keeping with their reputations.
And this is the "maybe." Maybe Ken had better seats.
I am not posting this to argue that he was wrong. I'm assuming we are both right about the particular performances we attended. On Ken's visit, the sound was probably fine and the cast found its footing and worked the material to its full potential. The Shubert was probably the same-sized monster the night Ken went but a real good play can even fill up the wrong size stage. For what it's worth, Dan Sullivan (the critic for the L.A. Times) wrote in his review of 12/4/75…
The annoyances of The Odd Couple at the Shubert include the crass canned music between the acts, the muddled crosstalk in the first poker-playing scene and the fact that the theater is miles too big for the play. The splendor of The Odd Couple is a dazzling comedy performance by Tony Randall, warmly supported by Jack Klugman.
So the Times critic agreed with me the place was too big and he had some trouble understanding the actors in the first scene…but he otherwise saw what Ken saw. I wish I had. This is something we should all keep in mind when we go to live performances. I have directed a grand total of one play — a sadly under-rehearsed (because there wasn't ample time) production of Mr. Simon's California Suite. Some nights, it was pretty good and some nights, it was not.
One of the cast members had a boy friend who came to most of the performances and after one in the "not pretty good" category, he came backstage and asked me, "What the hell happened?" Same actors, same stage, same lines, not a single laugh. All I could tell him was, "It was Wednesday, I guess." Perhaps that was the problem with The Odd Couple at the Shubert, too.
Obama telling the truth about his media criticism versus Trump's criticism: "I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people."
Trump keeps insisting that CNN, which shows a billion+ in profits a year, is "almost out of business." You know what is of out of business? Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump University, Trump Airlines, Trump's casinos, the GoTrump travel agency…
Another double-obit day. Comic-impressionist Will Jordan died this morning at home at the age of 91. He'd been failing for some time and this was not a surprise. To some, it may be a surprise that Will Jordan was still alive…but he was and he worked whenever anyone wanted him up until the point when his health would no longer allow it.
He was once a very big star thanks to his appearances on Ed Sullivan's TV program and because of his impression of Mr. Sullivan. Jordan did dozen of other celebrities but Ed was one of the most imitated personalities — by Will and by the entire population of the planet. It sometimes felt like everyone — professional or otherwise — did what was supposed to be an impression of Ed Sullivan. In most cases, it was an impression of Will Jordan doing Ed Sullivan.
He did it everywhere — even on Broadway in the hit show, Bye Bye Birdie. When they made the movie of that musical, they didn't hire Will to play Ed. They hired Ed to play Ed, and some reviewers remarked that Will Jordan would have been more convincing in the role.
Will's reputation for brilliance was acknowledged among many of his peers. So was an almost self-destructive paranoia about having his material stolen by some of those peers. One of his good friends was Chuck McCann, who introduced me to Will the one time I met him briefly. He seemed genuinely surprised that I knew who he was and regarded him as a great talent. This was many years after the mainstream industry was hiring him for much more than the occasional Sullivan carbon. Remember the Billy Joel video for "Tell Her About it?" That's Will as Ed. Here, take a look…
Chuck later told me that Will was pleased I fawned over him a little — and why not? He was very good at what he did. It wasn't his fault there's rarely that much demand for impressionists. But it was his fault, Chuck said, that he got so crazed when he thought someone had purloined one of his routines that he would stop performing for months on the principle that "If you don't perform it, they can't steal it from you."
Even in the brief time I spoke with Mr. Jordan, he alluded to his oft-expressed claims that Lenny Bruce had gotten much of his best material by swiping from him, as had Mel Brooks for the storyline of The Producers. Even if there was any truth to those assertions — and I'm skeptical there was — that was like three or four decades earlier.
But like I said, a funny man. He made a few records, one of which was a low-circulation "naughty" one that is long out-of-print but not long out-of-bootleg. It was called Ill Will and it's from the era when we didn't say a comedian was "cutting edge" or "new wave." We said the guy was "sick." It's a pretty sick, funny album. But then he was a pretty sick, funny man.
