“The Bavarian Negro”: Deceased Artiste Günther Kaufmann

June 10th of next month will mark the 30th anniversary of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s death. While it seems that Fassbinder’s immense artistic achievement (over a short period of 13 years) will forever remain "a Mount Everest of modern cinema" (to quote Sarris' comment about Berlin Alexanderplatz), any regular viewer of his work feels as if they “know” his ensemble of actors, each of whom portrayed a few dozen different characters. Gunther Kaufmann, who died last week at 64, was one of the few actors whom Fassbinder envisioned primarily as two sorts of characters — friendly American soldiers and gangsters’ henchmen.

Kaufmann had an amazingly active and complicated life. He was born in Munich of a German mother and an African-American soldier father, and grew up in the Munich suburb of Hasenberg — he was nicknamed “the Bavarian Negro” during his career, and called his autobiography The White Negro from Hasenberg! (above). He served in the Navy and then supported himself doing small jobs, until he was cast in Volker Schlondorff’s Baal (1970), which starred Fassbinder.

Although Kaufmann was a married man, he had a relationship with Fassbinder while the young tyro director was making his first features. He first appeared in RWF’s Gods of the Plague (1969) and went on to be in 13 more of Fassbinder’s film and TV projects. He was a burly gentleman who did “look American,” thus his being cast as henchmen and American soldiers — although Fassbinder did give him a wild starring role in Whity (1970) and wrote a terrific supporting role for him as a confused terrorist in The Third Generation (1979).

Like a few of Fassbinder’s actors, he had a bit of trouble finding roles after the director’s sudden death and journeyed to Portugal for a time. He did eventually get back into the German film and TV industry, and worked regularly for decades until he was involved in a real-life situation that was indeed worthy of a melodrama by his old friend.

In 2002, he confessed to the murder of his accountant, whom he claimed he had fallen on while the two were having a physical altercation (as noted, Kaufmann was a big guy). It turned out that Kaufmann’s confession was false, intended to shield his wife, who was dying of cancer and was also a likely suspect for the murder (it is reported on the Net that they had been defrauding the accountant in order to pay for Mrs. Kaufmann’s cancer treatment).

The murder was declared an accident, and Kaufmann was sentenced to over a year of prison time for blackmail and robbery. In 2005, it came to light that his wife had indeed been involved in the murder — she had hired three men who were the actual killers of the accountant, unbeknownst to Kaufmann (which does indeed add to the melodramatic circumstances). Kaufman received a fine and a probation sentence for his phony confession and was released from prison in 2005.

His comeback in show business was very strong, as he again was able to play supporting parts in all kinds of movie and TV productions, including this all-too-cute kids movie about a girl adventurer, titled “Vicky the Viking” in English (not that it ever really came out here):

Kaufman died unexpectedly of heart failure at the point where he was preparing to act in a film based on his autobiography, to be called “God’s Second League” (thanks to the obit on the Fassbinder Foundation site for that tidbit)

He will forever be remembered by filmgoers around the world (including Americans, for whom he represented an unusual sort of “surrogate”) for his acting in the films of Fassbinder. As noted above, one of his best parts came in the very “busy” and incredibly prophetic satire of terrorism The Third Generation, in which he donned both blackface for the “caper” and “aged” makeup for a later sequence.

This is the film that contained ALL of Fassbinder’s players (well, nearly all) and although this trailer isn’t subtitled you’ll be able to understand it. The key point the film makes is that terrorists are a necessary element for capitalist society — capitalists in fact *need* their behavior to justify cracking down on human rights. That message will never be dated.

The best way to close out an obit for for Kaufmann, however, is to spotlight his singing, which was showcased in three of RWF’s films. He sang the opening theme song for Whity, in which his servant character summarizes the plot of the film (he will kill the family he works for, member by member).

His “best” song is, no question, “So Much Tenderness” (written by the inimitable Peer Raben and Fassbinder), which closes out The American Soldier in a grand and bizarre fashion — as a slow-motion scene plays on and on, making audience members laugh then squirm, then laugh and squirm again. Both songs are included in this tribute to the music of Peer Raben, which I created and uploaded to YT upon Raben’s death (the Whity theme is right at the beginning, and “So Much Tenderness” starts around the 2:00 mark):

 

He also sang a song for the soundtrack of Fassbinder’s last film, Querelle (1982), “Young and Joyful Bandit”:

“Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear”: the Speaking of Radio website

For me, radio is a magic medium, one that is, to borrow Fred Allen’s phrase about his nemesis (television), “rarely well done” these days. The most famous radio comedians and actors were indeed larger than life and also had incredibly memorable voices, which, naturally enough, had to be serve as their signatures. The wonderful website Speaking of Radio offers literally dozens of interviews with these special (and mostly departed) entertainers.

The website is the product of several decades’ work by Chuck Schaden, a radio broadcaster (and major fanatic) in the Chicago area. Schaden hosted a radio show called “Those Were the Days” from 1970-2009 and was lucky enough to get interviews with most of the major figures from radio’s past. He nabbed a bunch of them when they were passing through Illinois doing summer stock productions, but also traveled to L.A. to speak to a number of them.

Since pretty much all of these folks are dead now, Schaden (right) has a wonderful archive of both radio and early TV history on the Speaking of Radio site. It notes on the site that he published the interviews as a book, which must’ve been a very thorough history of Thirties-Fifties media, but it’s something else entirely to hear the voices of these folks, especially when they’re talking about topics they deeply love — or are deeply bitter about.

So what does Schaden offer on the site? The audio files aren’t downloadable (that is available for a fee), but you can listen to them for free online. The guest roster, as noted, is insane. It’s easier to cite the people he *didn’t* get to interview (Orson Welles, George Burns) than it is to mention all the seminal folk he did get to talk to. I’ll give it a try, though, based on the 30 or so interviews I’ve listened to in the past month.

Even though Chuck often had a limited amount of time with the A-listers from the Golden Age of Radio (less than 20 minutes), he was able to glean ample amounts of fascinating information. For a brief sampling, I’ll quote the moments I was most impressed by:

— His confabs with radio and early TV superstars Jack Benny, Phil Harris, Alice Faye, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, and Milton Berle.

— Harry Von Zell, the announcer who worked a hell of a lot on old-time radio (several shows simultaneously), describing how he delivered one of the first on-air bloopers ever, by nervously introducing President Herbert Hoover as “Hoobert Heever.”

— The people who were willing to recreate great radio intros and special moments on-air for Schaden, including Mel Blanc, Louis Nye, and Tony Randall.

— Brett Morrison, a very monotone-sounding interview subject, suddenly coming out with a terrific version of the beloved intro to The Shadow, which he played on-air for longer than any other actor. (“Who knows what evil lurks… in the hearts of men…?”)

— Vincent Price, talking about his love of the medium and also of his devotion to fine art, noting that he’s making a Dr. Phibes sequel because the first film really needed a sequel (and he’s not kidding — I love Vinnie).

— The ever-awesome writer-producer Arch Oboler describing what radio can do that other media can’t, by describing a monster (your own real-life worst enemy) creeping up behind you….

— Mike Wallace (right) discussing being the narrator for both The Green Hornet and The Lone Ranger, and the ways in which actors made extra dough (by perfoming the shows three times in succession, for each U.S. time zone!).

— Mel Blanc and Jim Backus talking separately about overcoming health troubles that nearly killed them (in Blanc’s case it was a near-lethal car accident).

— Howard Duff on being blacklisted: “I wasn’t even a good liberal!”

A few riveting negative moments (proving the interviews truly were off-the-cuff):

— Sid Caesar insisting he’s “not bitter,” but going on and on about how bad TV got after the Fifties.

— Hans Conreid responding to one of Schaden’s customary last questions (“Do you ever think radio comedy and drama as we knew it could return?”) by noting that traditional radio programs are completely gone forever (for their part, Joseph Cotton and Howard Duff very much lament the loss).

— Tony Randall maintaining that he had VERY little fondness for old-time radio, as he thought it was mostly badly scripted (with the exception of a few shows — he cites Benny, Fred Allen, and the you-either-love-it-or-you-don’t Vic and Sade).

— Rudy Vallee (above) being utterly charming about his own relative lack of popularity (“My records never sold…”), and then offhandedly telling a story in which he calls comedian Pinky Lee “Jewboy”….

And my two favorites:

— One of my all-time, big-time character actor faves, Sheldon Leonard, talking about how to properly deliver Damon Runyon dialogue.

— And Edgar Bergen not only speaking in his familiar dummy voices for Schaden, but also discussing what it was like to collaborate on writing sketches with the one and only W.C. Fields.

Schaden did indeed make the most of his time with these radio legends. A few other names found in the archive: Kate Smith, Don Ameche, Agnes Moorehead, Ricardo Montalban, Morey Amsterdam, and Ginger Rogers.

I found it fascinating that he refers to what we now term “old-time radio” or “the Golden Age of Radio” as “the radio days.” This was no doubt because network radio programs really ended in the mid-Fifties, which was a mere 15 years before Schaden’s nostalgia program went on the air. It’s interesting to contrast that 20-year “jump” in comparison to our own current binges of “instant nostalgia,” where mediocre items from 5-10 years ago are already packaged in “yes, I remember it well” talking-head TV series. (And the music-video Eighties is deemed as distant as the era of silent movies.)

Sample Schaden’s chats and you’ll find yourself moving back to a simpler era when, yes, voices and imagination mattered. And, while show-biz egos were still of course *incredibly* large, there were very well-regarded nice guys like Jack Benny on the A-list, and the talent involved could justify such ego.

Thanks to Rich Brown for turning me on to the SOR site.

Der Goober-mensch: Deceased Artiste George Lindsey

Character actors who get identified with a single role are blessed and cursed. George Lindsey was one such performer, a gent who studied at the American Theater Wing in NYC, played villains on TV Westerns, and supplied comic voices for cartoons, but was always known (and will always be known) as Goober Pyle, the country hick in the beanie hat.

Lindsey initially played the part, of course, on The Andy Griffith Show from 1964-68 (taking the place of Jim Nabors, who left for his own spin-off series), continued playing the part on the Andy-less Mayberry RFD (1968-71), and then wore the beanie and was referred to by the character name on Hee-Haw for another 20 years. Not bad for a character that was intended as a fill-in hick character.

I can offer little new in the way of Andy Griffith Show and Hee-Haw information, since those shows both had long lives in syndication. I can, however, dote on Lindsay’s forgotten sideline, his work as a Goob-crooner. From the Capitol LP Goober Sings, here’s a ditty called “I Ain’t Good Lookin’ ”:

Another poster has put up Lindsey warbling “Mountain Dew” on Hee-Haw. Perhaps the purest sign of Goober idolatry is this music-video by Moore and Moore. There are supposedly “17 legendary artists,” but I couldn’t name more than a few of ’em.

Would that every man could find the Goober within….

Lindsey donated his scripts and show-biz ephemera to his alma mater, the University of North Alabama. One can only hope that little beanie he wore will dwell in the halls of academia for some time to come.

A fan turned historian: Deceased Artiste and NYC FM legend Pete Fornatale

The bond between the great radio voices and their audience is a direct one and, oddly enough (given the spatial disconnect), a very emotional one. Free-form FM legend Pete Fornatale created such a bond in his work, whether he was playing music he deeply loved, or stuff that was on the dreaded “playlist.” Like many of the free-form folk who are still with us, Pete also served the function of “curator” of pop-rock culture, teaching, writing books, giving lectures (that were suitably free-form), and trying to keep alive the enthusiasm for music that is now enshrined either as “oldies” or (BAH) “classic rock” while still exploring the work of new folkies and rockers.

Pete’s obits and the tributes from his colleagues at his station, WFUV, all stressed that the guy spent his whole life in his chosen profession — he started as a DJ at his college radio station (which, coincidentally, was the very same FUV) in the mid-Sixties, and then was lucky enough to score a berth at NYC’s leading FM rock station, WNEW-FM, forging a long association that seemed to have contained a lot of his happiest moments and some of the most regrettable (enter: the playlist!).

My own relationship to Pete’s work on radio was somewhat spotty: I noticed in listening to the airchecks that are on the Net that the reason I probably fell away from listening to him and a few other NEW DJs as an adolescent was that I wasn’t into the “arena rock” acts that were emphasized on the station by the late Seventies. I always had (and will always have) a special connection to that incredible air-staff (Allison Steele, Muni, Fornatale, Elsas, Scelsa), but that “dinosaur music” (as I thought of it then, and still sorta do) was being washed away in my mind by new wave and punk.

In researching this piece, it was thus a pleasure to discover the moment in 1982 that Pete created “Mixed Bag,” his nearly 30-year radio show featuring the music he really loved — folk, folk-rock, and basically any quality rock and popular music that fit into his episodic “themes.” This show ran on early Sunday morning (basically the only time he had found when the tightly-playlisted stations he worked at would leave him alone), so I wasn’t hearing Pete for some years (late sleeper that I am).

On the return to WFUV, with his friends and fellow free-form legends Dennis Elsas and Vin Sclesa (who have both followed their own interesting trajectories over the years), it was a joy to hear Pete go off on his audio reveries. In its most recent incarnation, “Mixed Bag” was a fascinating, at times nearly OCD (but very listenable!), exploration of themes or concepts in music. One thing made me have infinite respect for Pete: the fact that, no matter how “out of fashion” an artist was, Pete continued to play them if he loved their music.

Such was the case with Harry Chapin, one of the artists whose work I dearly love, but even I haven’t paid tribute to on this blog or the Funhouse TV show (not because he’s “disapproved of,” but because no new material has emerged and I’ve been distracted by the million other artists whose work has popped up on this rabbit-hole called the Internet). Pete, however, regularly played Harry, and now that he’s gone, I wonder if anyone else will continue to spin those gorgeous and moving story-songs that Chapin made a specialty of.

Speaking of Chapin, Fornatale was not just a DJ who talked the talk — he was a “child of the Sixties” who still made charity a priority, doing dedicated work for the organization Harry created called WHYHunger. Here Pete is introducing a documentary on the Occupy Wall Street Movement this past December at the Paley Center in NYC:

It’s hard to convey what is special about any great radio personality (I had this trouble trying to sum up what Lynn Samuels did in my Deceased Artiste tribute to her). The best way to experience his work is to go to the the NY Radio Archive site, which has a number of recordings of Pete’s great moments available as free MP3 downloads, including:

— an extremely early 1969 fill-in slot, where Pete discusses whether the Jerry Lewis telethon is “legit” or not (fascinating!).

— a gorgeous 1977 interview with Brian Wilson in full “Landy mode.” The interview is particularly touching because Pete tells him at two points how much Pet Sounds and the Beach Boys’ music has meant to him. He also tells Brian how much he is loved, which is particularly moving (given that I saw Brian on Larry King a few years back, and he is still haunted by being what he calls “a bad man”).

— a 1977 segment which, as noted above, reminded me how codified WNEW became as the Seventies wore on. Too much arena- and classic-rock (Yes, Pink Floyd, Santana, Chicago). Perhaps the only song that I loved then and still love is “Time Has Come Today,” which was of course an “oldie” by ’77. You do get to hear Pete playing a tape of the ad he did for the Woodstock festival back in ’69, which is amazing.

— the first “Mixed Bag” from 1982. Utterly invaluable, as it includes a “presentation tape” (that’s what Pete calls it) that was used to sell the idea to WNEW’s management. The first song is Chapin’s “Remember When the Music,” and the first guest is Don McLean, who sounds oddly angry for such a wonderfully sensitive singer-songwriter. The piece de resistance is that Pete’s first themed set is geared to the holidays — he does a set on the topic of loneliness.

—a 2003 clip where Pete plays 1996 interviews with himself and Jonathan Schwartz (the mellow-voiced DJ who always makes me think of Robert Klein’s exquisite parody of him). Schwartz discusses the radio “experts” called in to retool WNEW in the late Seventies, and Pete also weighs in on his growing disillusionment with the station.

In that interview, Pete discusses his friendship with Harry Chapin (how the two met when Pete picked up Harry when he was hitchhiking in Long Island during the Sixties) and digs out the oft-repeated story about how one of his first fan letters for “Mixed Bag” was a note commending him, but noting there were lots of new Eighties folkies who needed airplay (the note was from a then-unsigned Suzanne Vegas). Find this aircheck and many more at the NY Radio Archive.

Now, since this blog is more visually oriented, here are some clips that show different sides of Pete. First some audio of he and Dennis Elsas on WNEW in 1983. Here is rare documentary footage of the station, with some vintage Pete in the middle:

A very odd item, a video docu called “How Audio Recordings are Made” featuring the group The Washington Squares, hosted by a very nerdy-looking Pete!

Pete had a literal who’s-who of singer-songwriters and folkies on his different radio shows. One of the people he said he was proudest to host is the “Old Folkie” himself (thanks, Harry), Mr. Pete Seeger. Here Pete introduces Seeger at the Lone Star in 1985 and here he is interviewing Seeger, Jim Brown (no, no that one), and Roger McGuinn in 2007:

Proving that Pete was a very good interviewer, here’s a rare chat with Leonard Cohen from April 28, 1985, fortunately preserved by a fan. Caught in the morning (and sounding somewhat burnt), Leonard is incredibly honest and funny, sings “Night Comes On” and reads poetry from his Book of Mercy:

Finally, acknowledging Pete’s other “professions,” here he is lecturing on the subject of Woodstock at Queensborough Community College. “Lecturing” is a poor word to capture what he did with an audience — he clearly drew on his years teaching high school English to captivate an audience and, most importantly (this guy clearly remembered what school was like), to keep them awake! (Watch his techniques here to involve the audience, but also to “swerve” things just when they seem to be reaching a mellower tone.)

The last time I saw him host an event, it was a tribute to the Bottom Line at the World Financial Center in the summer of 2011 (or was it 2010?). His sense of enthusiasm was truly infectious, and he did work to keep the audience engaged in a live venue — this was indeed interesting to me, having grown up on the mellower, slow-talking, somewhat nerdy-sounding, older-brotherly DJ voice he used on the radio (no AM Top 40 “puker” was he).

What was most important, though, at that show — as he lamented the loss of that sadly long-gone NYC nightspot that hosted all the non-arena/concert-hall performers who counted in the Seventies and Eighties — and in the clip below is how much he loved talking about this stuff:

Pete was one of the last of a dying breed. Thankfully, in the NYC area, we still have free-form radio legends Bob Fass, Vin Sclesa, and Dennis Elsas not only still with us, but also still on the air on a weekly basis (Elsas is on every weekday on WFUV). We should acknowledge their contribution and treasure it while we still have them.

The squarest man in rock ’n’ roll: Deceased Artiste Dick Clark

The lionization of Dick Clark since his death has fascinated me in that, while the guy was indeed a part of all of our childhoods, he wasn’t a particularly “warm” media personality. Oh sure, his Top 40 DJ voice was mellow and very pleasant to listen to, and he had the cleancut good looks of any era’s boy next door. But Dick Clark was a host and nothing more. Like Ryan Seacrest today, he was an anodyne presence who had no show-biz persona to speak of — he ushered kids onto a studio set to dance to records and he ushered contestants onto a studio set to play a game ripped off of Password.

I’d like to tackle two of the most interesting aspects of Dick Clark’s reputation: his much-vaunted connection to rock ’n’ roll and its later incarnations, and the completely specious assertion that he “broke the color barrier” on TV dance parties.

First of all, while I don’t adhere to the definition that Nick Tosches supplies in his excellent book Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n’ Roll — namely, that rock was dead by the time Elvis “broke” in ’56 — I would maintain that it was dying on the vine by 1958. At that point American Bandstand truly defined what remained of the cadaver — the new imitation Elvises (led by Fabian) and the pop starlets (epitomized by the always-forlorn Connie Francis — about whom, more later).

So Dick Clark became a “name” in American rock ’n’ roll by doing what was surely the cheapest fucking music show to ever air on a major network. Early on, when I was just a kid discovering the music of the Fifties through my mother, she distinguished for me between shows that had the performers playing live and the Dick Clark approach, which was pretty much ALWAYS (outside of his imitation Grammies, the American Music Awards) people lip-synching to their records — even if said records were several years (or several decades) old.

This was driven home for me by two events: a VH-1 all-weekend marathon of American Bandstand reruns in the early Nineties, and the explosion of YouTube as a hub for rare video clips. The former event found me feverishly taping the episodes and finding that, while they were historically interesting, they were almost without exception (save the legendary PiL appearance) a let-down, since the artists were always lip-synching and Dick’s interviews were useless pap.

In the second instance, I discovered a bunch of clips on YT that fans had put up from their bootleg collections that showed that Clark had indeed had on his shows an incredible roster of the great “lost” bands that made two or three albums in the Sixties and then disbanded (succumbing to internal friction and/or drug troubles).

But, again, the clips are wildly disappointing, since Clark was SUCH a cheap bastard throughout his career that even if the performer appeared on a primetime network show produced by him (as Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band did), they would be lip-synching to a fucking record. Here’s the Beefheart performance (read: lip-synch):

So, Clark could be hailed for having acts on AB that never appeared elsewhere on national TV, including Love, the 13^th Floor Elevators, and the first version of the Magic Band. As examples of what made the bands special, the clips are mostly worthless — Clark's shows were the bookings a band would get if they couldn’t snag an Ed Sullivan or a Hollywood Palace or even an Andy Williams shot.

If you couldn’t get on the shows that had the artists perform live, you’d be on Dick Clark’s teen dance party, lip-synching to your record and answering dopey-ass questions from the “world’s oldest living teenager.” The official DC Productions channel on YT is in fact made up of nothing but these time-wasting chats.

The clips continue to appear and disappear from YouTube with some regularity (and if re-posted, have to be “disguised” from the search engine). Here’s Love guesting on AB. Watch ’em lip-synch because DC was one cheap bastard:

DC Productions also owns the libraries of several other rock-TV producers, including Murray the K — whose programs contained live performances and very interesting “concept” lip-synchs by the performers — and patrols YT and other clip-sites to make certain that footage isn’t seen as well.

The purpose of this trolling is to ensure that DCP cashes in on licensing for documentaries — where inevitably the footage looks great, but is, again, WILDLY disappointing in most every case. To illustrate that, here’s Dick saving dough again by having the 13^th Floor Elevators lip-synch:

Now that I’ve dispensed with that aspect of the Dick Clark mythos, let me discuss his ubiquitousness on TV and the declaration that he “was a civil-rights pioneer,” a contention repeated a lot on the cable-news networks and conservative talk-radio (the latter kinda figures, doesn’t it, given Clark’s cleancut appearance and mediocrity as a music pundit).

Perhaps the single best tribute done to Clark, in terms of its kitschiness, was the Piers Morgan episode which brought back the previous owner of that timeslot, the one and only Larry King (whose ridiculously hagiographic tributes to dead people I loved to pieces, as I have noted in the past). Morgan asked Larry to weigh in on Clark’s importance (the primary question asked on these shows is “why would you say so-and-so was SO important…?”).

The other guests were an astounding roster of MOR pop people from different eras, all phoning in — Morgan’s show will have none of the wonderful (and eminently watchable) circus-like aspect of King’s show, where everyone talked at once on separate satellite feeds. Thus, Donny Osmond was heard at one point, Paul Anka at another, Gloria Estefan at another, and a member of the Commodores and another gent from a Nineties black boy band to perpetuate the “Dick loved black people” story at another.

The standout guest, though, was Connie Francis. I don’t want to mock Ms. Francis’ appearance or her physical condition — suffice it to say she does not look well and has clearly had a number of ailments in the last few years. Her contribution to the program was fascinating, in that I remember the supermarket tabloid stories that accompanied her breakdown several decades ago, in which it was noted she hired a hitman to kill the people she hated — her dad was right at the top of the list and Dick Clark was somewhere close below him!

As Connie spoke, you could hear that Morgan was getting antsy, because her paean to Dick was an elaboration of her problems in years past, and how Dick factored into them. First, she noted that she had been “involuntarily” committed to institutions 17 times, and Dick “pleaded with me” on bended knee to take her Lithium. Then she added that Dick himself committed her once (!). The story was getting SO harrowing that Morgan did indeed cut her off.

I remember the TV “comeback” appearance she mentioned at one point.  She appeared on Clark’s short-lived primetime variety show, which aired live in the mid-Seventies. Francis came out and sounded off-key, and was a sad echo of her former self.

She noted on the Piers Morgan show that Dick has assured her “you can just lip-synch to the records.” (That’s how an only moderately talented DJ becomes a iron-clad millionaire.) Connie said it took “200 takes” to get what she wound up lip-synching to.

What I got out of this accumulation of detail was that, yes, Dick Clark did encourage performers to come back to show business after their personal crises (Gloria Estefan noted he was very helpful to her after her bus crash in the Nineties), but even if they shouldn’t be appearing on stage. Ms. Francis is a tragic and heroic figure for all the stuff she’s gone through in her life — and one gets the feeling that she would have been much better off if “friends” like Clark had left her alone to simply get well.

On a related note, a New York Times piece by Stephen Holden that appeared on Friday quoted documentarian Shawn Swords as saying that Clark “‘an alpha villain’ whose kingdom was ‘built on ill-gotten gains.’ In exchange for exposure on the air singers were expected to sign away their copyrights and all future royalties…. ‘I really think the man’s place in pop music history needs to be re-evaluated.’ ” Holden notes that “such things were common practice in the music business at the time.” But should we be saluting a guy involved in such practices?

Then there is the “civil rights pioneer” label. I have read different articles over the years addressing the matter of whether Clark integrated his teen dancers on AB. The truth is that he did it only when he had to. This important Philly Post article by Tim Whitaker spotlights research that professor Matt Delmont did for his book The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ’n’ Roll and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia.

The article refers to Delmont’s discovery that Clark’s claim of early integration on AB was a myth concocted in the Seventies when Clark’s hoary old vehicle was getting its ass kicked by Soul Train in the ratings. Black teens were in fact turned away from the AB for the flimsiest of reasons, and there was in fact no integration (until, of course, it was more socially acceptable years later).

So Clark wasn’t the kind of truly influential and innovative music TV producer that Ed Sullivan, Don Kirshner, or even Burt Sugarman (The Midnight Special) were, nor was he a “civil-rights pioneer.” Add to these myths the vanity-move he made when he decided to continue appearing on his feeble New Years Eve show (which was annually taped in summer, except for Clark’s countdown in Times Square) well after his stroke and recovery.

I do believe that people who have suffered debilitating strokes and other horrible health dilemmas should continue to work in the public arena, but Clark’s decision reeked of unabashed vanity — as did the plastic surgery that he appeared to have had to make his face resemble his earlier “world’s oldest teenager” look.

You see, there was no time after the late Fifties when he wasn’t on TV, and even though the programs were thin wisps of nothing (there’s not much overhead on a bloopers show, is there?), he continued to hang around the dial as he raked in millions. The notion of him retiring was untenable, even when he really needed to exit the public stage, since he had nothing to contribute, except to note he was still among us.

Thus, when the tributes came thick and heavy and the empty plaudits started racking up from folks who were attached not to memories of Clark but to the comforting feel of their own youth, I felt it necessary to write a Deceased Artiste about a person whose work I watched a helluva lot when I was young, but for whom I developed a deep aversion as I got older.

I will give DC one piece of praise: he was a fine game show host. Game show hosts can be brilliant (witness John Daly) or witty (Steve Allen) or just utterly charming (Garry Moore, Allen Ludden, Bill Cullen), but they don’t really need to be. Dick Clark was a great choice to host the COMPLETE ripoff of Password that was the [fill in the money amount] Pyramid. A nice voice and cleancut looks are excellent on a gameshow.

And if there was ever a fire or weather incident in DC Productions, the staff should rush out a tape of THIS performance, the *only* spontaneous moment in the history of American Bandstand, the aforementioned appearance by PiL:

A troika of talented Deceased Artistes: Helm, Finley, Frid

Too many talented folk are kicking off, and what I really want to do are tributes to some wonderful filmmakers who died recently. But since the departures are happening faster and furiouser, I’ll address the most "obvious" deaths — namely the three talented people who left this mortal coil in the last week. (No, not Dick Clark. He'll get his own entry, and I ain’t deemin’ him talented.)

We start out of, course, with Levon Helm of the Band. Other folks will do more complete tributes (while still others will simply write subtle and touching comments to adorn the YT vids of his work), so I’ll just go with the most obvious oldie that never wears too thin. (I’ve always loved the oddball reference to Spike Jones — who never sang, but did talk.) Oh, the wonders that were accomplished by “Marty DiBergi” back in those coke-fueled days:





and one TV appearance, backing his movie “daughter” Sissy Spacek on The Midnight Special.


*****

The second member of the troika was William Finley, who was best known for acting in films by his friend Brian De Palma. He did have a handful of other roles (including a pair of performances in forgotten Tobe Hooper movies), and I do remember seeing him on The Joe Franklin Show promoting his mid-Eighties book on the sport of “Racewalking," but, yes, whenever, he is remembered, it will be for the films with De Palma.

He met De Palma at Columbia University, and worked on his shorts Woton’s Wake and Murder a La Mod (as an actor in both, and a set designer in the former). The first feature in which he had a prominent role — a really prominent role — was Dionysus in ’69 (1970). Finley plays the title role in a production by the Performance Group of The Bacchae, and gets to end the film on the up note, “A vote for Finley in ’68 will bring you Dionysus in ’69!" See the whole movie here.

Finley’s next memorable appearance in a De Palma film came in the wonderfully entertaining Hitchcockian nightmare Sisters (1973). Finley’s most significant scene is here, but you can watch the whole film below.



Finley’s finest hour, one which has enshrined him as a cult icon of sorts (in a very imaginatively designed super-villain outfit), was his performance as Winslow Leach, “the Phantom of the Paradise.” Finley is just terrific in the movie, lending a high-melodramatic note to his performance and contributing to the overall comic-book effect of the piece.

I have declared my devotion to Phantom on the Funhouse TV show, and recently wrote here about how Twentieth-Century Fox “blocked” a clip on YouTube of my interview with Phantom costar Gerrit Graham, because it included a 50-second clip from the film.

So, I suggest, if you haven’t seen Phantom, you check it out ASAP. It seems *whole chunks* have been up for nearly two years. Here is the opening:



And another sizeable bit that includes the brilliant horror-rock sequences (that are post-Alice and decidedly pre-KISS):



I will set aside the grumbles at Fox and say farewell to Finley, whose gawky, haunted performance in that film will keep him alive for a long, long time to come.
******

And speaking of haunted horror figures, we just learned yesterday of the death of the actor who incarnated the first “guilty vampire,” Barnabas Collins himself, Jonathan Frid.

I outlined my utter love for Frid’s characterization at length in an entry I wrote about Dark Shadows this past Halloween. But now for the inevitable obit: Frid was a classically-trained stage actor from Canada who was never quite at ease with playing a vampire on a daytime soap — which, of course, worked perfectly for Barnabas’ haunted quality.

He was both a master ham and a performer who was able to carry off very emotionally complicated scenes. Sometimes he did this by confounding his fellow actors with his own made-up lines (my personal favorite “bloopers” on the show were when Frid did this, and you saw the look of dismay in his fellow actor’s face).

He did, however, look incredibly cool and regal as Barnabas and created a completely iconic character, who truly is important in the history of horror/fantasy. Barnabas was a cursed bloodsucker who time-traveled with ease (and Dr. Julia Hoffman), and constantly was in the throes of yet another dilemma.

I salute Frid for having embraced in his final years the role he was eager to shed — in the final months of the show he told Dan Curtis he would stay, but would no longer play Barnabas (thus, an odd storyline cribbed from Wuthering Heights, in which he was “Bramwell Collins”). However, odd (or just downright goofy) the new Tim Burton DS feature turns out to be, it can’t erase memories of Frid in his cloaked finery as Barnabas. He was one of the coolest vampires ever.

I linked to several great DS clips in my Halloween entry (some of which went down in the interim — I knew that fan wasn’t going to be able to post on YT the entire run of the series as he/she planned….). Herewith an equally nice sampling, but before I get to the embeds, I offer you Mr. Frid’s own site, a fan’s posting of rare DS photos, and a solid collection of Frid’s dramatic soliloquies on DS

The fan-generated material on DS is fascinating, as with this person’s “annotated” storylines from the show. Herewith, the relationship between Barnabas and his very own Renfield, Willie Loomis (John Karlen):



Frid on The Merv Griffin Show at the height of his fame:



Frid guests on the extremely corny time-capsule game show The Generation Gap. Prepare for your mind to be blown:



On to a pair of non-Barnabas clips, which I uploaded to YT a few years back. First, a wonderful Frid blooper that Oliver Stone kept in his debut feature, Seizure (1974). The film is, to put it plainly, kinda nuts.

Frid plays a writer whose creations (a dwarf, played by Herve Villechaize, a “queen of evil,” played by the always sexy Martine Beswicke, and an African-American giant) come to life and try to kill the guests he’s invited over for the weekend. I spoke to Frid about the film briefly at a DS convention, and he said it was terrible, Oliver Stone was a horribly un-subtle director (he felt the same way about Dan Curtis, incidentally — check out the over-the-topness of the House of Dark Shadows feature.

Perhaps he was sorta mad that Stone used his haunted (and sometimes bewildered) quality so acutely in his first (admittedly very sleazy) feature. Here is the blooper that was left in the film — it is a gem:



Seizure does work on a very odd sleazy level. Perhaps one of its weirdest scenes not involving Herve Villechaize is this forced knife duel between Frid and the very sexy young Mary Woronov:



Now, I turn to prime Dark Shadows. First, the kitschy side, with the bloopers that are extremely amusing but all the more so because each one of them actually aired on the show. DS was a very low-budget production, and so they rarely did retakes — unless Frid began to curse (but more about that when I finally get around to posting a clip from my interview with the show’s costar Kathryn Leigh Scott). Thus, a LOT of odd moments were broadcast as part of the show:



Fan-created videos are of course the bulk of the DS tributes on YT (now that MPI has indeed pulled down the posters who were attempting to put the entire DVD library up on the site). There are fan-made music videos like “The Return of Barnabas Collins,” but nothing quite compares to the serious “meller” quality of the music-vids created by an engineer here in NYC when the show ran on public television.

They perfectly capture the mixture of emotions that DS provoked during its initial run and still can provoke today: an amusement at its highly melodramatic tone and also a fascination for its very tightly scripted (and yes, quite well-acted, under the *no-budget* circumstances) storylines.



Farewell and thanks a lot, Mr. Frid. You were an indelible presence on daytime TV. I only hope that the coffin isn't chained like last time. Willie should be along any minute now to let you out.... (Couldn't resist.)

The Media Funhouse interview: Deceased Artiste Claude Miller

A number of very talented folk have died in the last few weeks and I hope to get around to saluting each one of them, but I wanted to jump the gun for one gentleman, filmmaker Claude Miller, who died last week at 70. I interviewed Mr. Miller back in 2002 when he was in NYC to promote screenings of his film Alias Betty (the U.S. title for Betty Fisher et autres histoires).

He only made 16 fiction features in his nearly five-decade career in film, but during that time he also worked as an assistant to a trio of New Wave legends (Truffaut, Godard, and Demy) and wrote and produced for other directors. His finest work — a number of exceptional thrillers adapted from British and American authors, and his female coming-of-age pictures — is truly wonderful and will live on for some time to come.

Here he speaks about his one-time boss, and friend, Francois Truffaut:



And here he gives a very smart answer to my query about the two mediocre American movies made from his French originals:



The voice you hear on the clips is that of translator Robert Gray, who did a great job providing instant translation of Mr. Miller's answers.

Happy Easter! The “incredibly strange” Christian music-videos of Carman

Every year at Easter I feature an exploration of Christian kitsch on the Funhouse TV show. There are certain favorite subjects of fascination, and one of those is most certainly Carman. He is a mono-monikered Italian-American gent from NJ who has recorded music in every conceivable modern-day pop genre and created music videos that basically reproduce all the tenets (read: visual and editing tropes, and clichés) of each of the genres.

I’ll spotlight a mere three jawdroppers here. The first is solid slice of Nineties white-boy rap executed with the Xtian boy band DC Talk. It’s hard to pick my favorite gonzo line from Carman’s lyrics, but I think one of the finalists would have to be “Praise the Lord with your feet!”



Carman’s appropriation of pop-culture tropes is fascinating, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in his Xtian Western video(!). The clip is fascinating for several reasons, among them the fact that different classic Western themes (The Magnificent Seven, Bonanza and Wild, Wild West themes) were licensed for the video.

He also deftly blows away not only the notion of alcoholism, but also "false" religions (which include major world faiths — whaddya think that guy in the turban represents?). The melody is snatched from "Ghost Riders in the Sky":



And the oddest little item Carman ever cranked out is surely his weird “SLAM” video, which combines comic book imagery, A Clockwork Orange, the Batman TV show, and that goofy-ass synchronized Rhythm Nation dancing that was so popular in Nineties music-vids.



Yes… he is that Christian that hell warned you about! Carman is one strange and enthusiastic music-video maker. May we explore him for several Paschal seasons to come….