FILM BUFF COLUMNS

Blame Hollywood

By E. Mitchell

I’m here to tell you that if there’s anything wrong with your life it’s not your fault. Blame Hollywood. Let my pronouncement be a beacon of light and hope to all the slackers, losers and malcontents out there who currently misdirect their frustrations in self-loathing or road rage. The real problem is Cary Grant.

But how can Cary Grant be responsible for your failed marriage and poor hygiene you ask yourself? Surely your career path as a sideshow carnie has more to do with your failures than a dead Hollywood idol, you’re thinking, but that’s where you’re wrong. Don’t blame the victim (you) blame the real culprit (Hollywood).

Think back to that rainy night years ago when your wife was watching the movie “Charade” for the umpteenth mind-numbing time (already you’ve got a beef because you wanted to switch to the ballgame). Just a few more minutes, dear, she said clutching the remote to her bosom wishing it was Cary Grant (another beef). And then the defining moment when she glanced away from the screen, over to you and then back to the screen again. There. Your marriage officially ended and you didn’t even know it. The seeds of discontent were sown. The other man was standing right in the room but was not even on your radar.

Why did your marriage fail? Because you don’t look like Cary Grant, you don’t sound like Cary Grant, you don’t move like Cary Grant. You can’t run through a cornfield without mussing your suit, in fact you don’t own a piece of clothing that doesn’t look mussed the instant you put it on. You are incapable of good diction and snappy dialogue. Forget diction and dialogue, you communicate through a series of grunts.

Yet, your hideous inadequacies would all be perfectly fine if the bar hadn’t been set so high years ago in Hollywood. Cary Grant is the gold standard by which male perfection has been judged for decades. Grant himself was quoted as saying, “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant, even I want to be Cary Grant.”

The truth is he was really an illiterate cockney circus performer when he started out (you and he have a lot more in common than you thought!) The most significant difference is that he got the Hollywood treatment. You haven’t even had the Vitalis treatment.

Surreal as it may be, thanks to a media susceptible culture, Cary Grant, dead, has more influence over your wife than you do alive. Your only hope now is to humiliate yourself on a reality show - if you suddenly appear on the TV screen your wife might actually give you a second look.

Unattainable fantasies of the dream factory are the root of your troubles, my friend, so never, ever let the pesky concept of personal responsibility (or hygiene) nag at you again. You’re beat before you start so don’t start. Aim low and you’ll never be disappointed.

Drive that beat-up Gremlin proudly. Date a troll. Buy the Elvis-on-velvet from the back of a pick-up truck. Who needs a real tuxedo when you already own a novelty t-shirt tux? Why eat caviar when beef jerky is just as salty and will keep longer when the electricity goes out in your trailer.

Forget your problems. Instead of drowning your sorrows in another case of brewskies, remember, despite the champagne and roses, Cary Grant was divorced four times. If you keep at it you just might achieve the marital track record of a glamorous Hollywood movie star! And to think your wife once laughed at your lack of ambition -who’s laughing now, Mrs. Ex-FancyPants?

You’ve already picked out your next future ex-wife and she’s never even heard of Cary Grant. The deluxe drive-thru Las Vegas wedding package is planned for late spring as soon as your fiance graduates from high school. And your first wife thought you didn’t have class!

So get out there and enjoy life. Who cares if your appearance has been compared to a drifter’s corpse? You’re on the road to the Cary Grant lifestyle, just without the fancy clothes, expensive extras, good looks and charm. And if things don’t work out you can always blame Hollywood.

© Copyright by author, used with permission by Humor Press. No unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is allowed.

Close Encounters Of The Star Kind

By E. Mitchell

I touched Liberace’s organ. Actually it was his piano. In any case I touched his instrument. How did I achieve such intimacy with a big, spangly, show-stopping star? I was a tour guide at Rockefeller Center.

The grand finale of each tour was a stroll across the stage at Radio City Music Hall. On one particular tour, Liberace’s ornate piano was in place and ready for him to tickle the ivories when I wound my way through the wings with the tourists. I wasn’t supposed to touch the props but I couldn’t resist. After all, I didn’t have the plague.

In the movies, of course, I would no sooner touch the keys and burst into song when I would be discovered by a talent agent among the tour group, then catapulted to stardom and have my opening night gala on the very same stage. As it was, I was lucky I didn’t get fired for messing with the scenery.

Every guide knew the lore of former alum, Gregory Peck, who got in trouble for falling asleep at the back of the Music Hall while his tour group ended up staying and watching the show for free. That gaffe certainly didn’t hurt his career too much.

David Letterman was another Rockefeller Center “brush with greatness.” In addition to the tours, the guides also manned the ticket desk to the observation deck atop the RCA building. One guide was coming off shift as I took over and mentioned that Letterman was out on the deck smoking a cigar.

Minutes later Dave appeared and eyed me suspiciously “You weren’t here before,” he said, “I must have missed the changing of the guard.”

I laughed overenthusiastically and tried to strike up a conversation about our shared alma mater, Ball State University, but to no avail. Wasn’t he supposed to offer me a job that would launch my showbiz career, then, later, we would reminisce on his show and throw our heads back and laugh about our first meeting? Only in my dreams.

Career-wise, subsequent star sightings were even less promising. I was at a mall in New Jersey when a shopper in front of me looked vaguely familiar. It was Celeste Holm.

Surprised to see an academy award winner standing in line like any other peasant, I asked “what are you doing here?”

“Buying towels,” she replied matter-of-factly, adding “my family has lived in this area since the 1700’s. What are you doing here?”

“Buying towels,” I concurred, trying not to sound like a copycat and feeling like an interloper, embarrassed to admit that my Irish ancestors didn’t exactly come over on the Mayflower.

New York was starting to feel like a small town when I ran into Ms. Holm again. We were sharing a crowded elevator at Carnegie Hall. There didn’t seem much point in reminiscing about our linen experience, so I said nothing. I knew she would be grateful.

I once found myself elbow to elbow with Nathan Lane in a mid-town nightclub. He was still incognito at this point in his career, I had seen him just the day before in a supporting role in a Broadway revival of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter and mentioned how I’d enjoyed his performance. He was enraptured. “Tell me more about myself” he said enthusiastically. He was an even bigger fan than I was.

A second sighting of Nathan Lane led to the most unique star encounter on my roster. I went to see him in Kaufman & Hart’s The Man Who Came To Dinner. At intermission, in the ladies lounge, the line was predictably long and someone was tapping preemptively when I opened the door. There before me was Kitty Carlisle!

Our ensuing verbal exchange was a little offbeat. I simply exclaimed “Miss Carlisle!” (‘Fancy meeting you here’ seemed too bourgeois.) Her simple reply, “Thank you” although a non-sequitur, sufficed as she maneuvered past me into the stall. Talk about the changing of the guard!

Even more intimate than touching Liberace’s instrument or buying towels with Celeste Holm was the serendipitous glee of sharing the powder room with the starlet of the Marx Brother’s classic A Night At the Opera and the wife of the playwright Moss Hart.

I did exchange glances with Woody Allen ringside at the Carlyle Hotel but that seemed like small potatoes compared with sharing the bathroom with Kitty Carlisle Hart.

Now if I could only find a creative way to use it on my theatrical resume.

Pet Peeves

By E. Mitchell

We all have pet peeves but I have a pet, pet peeve: people who give pretentious names to their animals. They should be horsewhipped, preferably with a whip from a horse named Old Plug rather than one named Pliny the Elder.

Take my advice: If your dog is brown, name it Brownie. If your cat smells, name it Stinky. If your fish is gold, Goldie will do just fine. Latte, Chanel and Vermillion are unwelcome alternatives.

I had a Chihuahua named Hammy. Everyone assumed because I was an English prof it was short for Hamlet. It was short for Hamster because the dog weighed three pounds. One of my colleagues named his cat Isis. Luckily the cat was none the wiser. The same can be said for my colleague.

My brother named his cat Sirius for the feline shaped constellation of the same name. Everyone thought the name was Serious, which would have been bad enough, but at least less pompous than Sirius. More idiotic but less repugnant. I couldn’t call the cat’s name without gagging. Curiously, I feel the same way about my brother.

After the cat died my brother got a dog and named it Ursa for the bear constellation. I’m talking about a big, dumb (the dog not my brother) black lab who eats furniture. Bear or Porky would have been appropriate names. As it is I can scarcely look the beast in the eyes (my brother as well as the dog) without laughing when I call his name. I think the dog feels the same way, about my brother.

Recently a string of stray kittens were spotted on my brother’s property; I am hoping to round them up for fear he might name them Orion’s Belt. Now all he needs is a beer-soaked goldfish he can call the Big Dipper.

Of course celebrities, not to be outdone by mere commoners (like my brother) have taken the name game a step further to inflict idiotic pretentiousness not only on their pets but also their unsuspecting offspring. Ironically, the poor children would be better off with animal names than the monikers chosen by their flashbulb-dazed parents.

If you were a boy wouldn’t you rather be called Spike than Prince Michael Jackson? Under the circumstances even Fido or Rover might be preferable.

Of course a few stars seem to have actually chosen pet names for their children. Apple and Blanket sound more appropriate for a litter of pocket poodles than human children.

Geographical names are popular too. Paris and Ireland are current celebrity choices. Turkey seems unlikely but you never know with the Hollywood braintrust.

Satchel defies categorization. Why not just name your kid, handbag.

The frosting on the cake of the pretentiousness phenomenon is adorning your pet and/or child with ostentatious apparel. For anyone other than heir to throne of Monaco, diamond encrusted accessories fall into the category of wretched excess. The only kind of jewelry a dog or infant really wants is the kind that has mistakenly fallen into the cake batter. And pets and children show a fiendish preference for wearing shiny objects on the inside of their bodies rather than the outside so unless you have a trusted manservant waiting on call for the unceremonious return of the bling, run for your life.

And save the fancy headgear for Little Lord Fauntleroy. Children and pets photograph best with a simple pair of underpants humorously placed atop their noggins.

The last bit of advice goes for adults too, but only after several martinis. Children and pets should not be served martinis even if you’ve named them Boozehound. In Hollywood of course, that applies to kids as well as pets.

E. MITCHELL HUMOR

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