Word: bess
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...Juilliard School, where her teacher, Florence Page Kimball, economically taught her to "sing on your vocal interest, not on the principal." In 1952 she was discovered by Composer Virgil Thomson, who cast her in his opera Four Saints in Three Acts. That led to her first popular triumph, as Bess in a revival of Porgy and Bess. A great career was launched...
...undeniable clunkiness ("Brian's mental capabilities did not include that of judging what was too obvious to require saying....Sandy gave him a look of hatred.") But because of Silver's lack of pretensions, these shortcomings rarely prove troublesome and sometimes even help. For instance, Lauren's own Bess and George--her wacky Southern Californian roommate Carol, who wears hotpants and lame sandals, and her best friend Michael, a gorgeous gay preppie from an old Boston family--are funny largely because they are overdone...
...choked room, of presidential campaigns, congressional hearings ("Nothing that Washington has to offer comes closer to theater") and state visits. He is at Nikita Khrushchev's elbow when the Soviet leader praises the bleak industrial landscape of the New Jersey Turnpike as a symbol of American dynamism; with Bess and Harry Truman as the couple, in bathrobes, bid good night from the back of their campaign train to an impromptu crowd of fellow ordinary Americans. Rovere's political analyses-about the Truman Administration's crippling venality, John Foster Dulles' domination of the Eisenhower Administration, John Kennedy...
This first round of offers appears to come with the territory if a Miss America expresses thespian designs. With the exception of Bess Myerson (1945), winners seem to find sustaining a career in the public eye more difficult than gaining the title. Rosemary LaPlanche (1941) is not much remembered today, though she made 84 movies, including Strangler of the Swamp and Devil Bat's Daughter. Lee Meriwether (1955) has had roles enough, but her name has failed to attain the tip of the national tongue. Mary Ann Mobley (1959) made those Elvis Presley films, and has had trouble shaking...
...Girl Crazy (1930), young Ginger Rogers sang But Not for Me and Embraceable You, and Ethel Merman razed the roof with I Got Rhythm. Of Thee I Sing (1931) won Ira the first Pulitzer Prize for a lyricist. For George's crowning triumph, Porgy and Bess (1935), Ira contributed about half of the lyrics (the others were by DuBose Heyward). The brothers repeated their success in Hollywood, especially with Fred Astaire: Shall We Dance included They All Laughed and Let's Call the Whole Thing Off; for Damsel in Distress they wrote A Foggy Day (in London Town...