Word: clown
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Jester Hackett claims he was born funny: "I was fat and I was from Brooklyn. That made me funny from the start." He is a veteran of the $5-a-night honky-tonks, the Catskills and the nightspots of Chicago. Miami and Las Vegas. He wanted to be a clown because of an early " 'feriority complexion," which he has since worked off in simple ways: settling down in New Jersey to a quiet family life (a wife and three-month-old son), playing golf, driving hot-rods at breakneck speeds. But a practical joke is still his special maggot...
...which to run its trick horse. The Lord let it rain and the horse won anyway, but as musical theater the whole carnival romp was a washout. Recording Artist Kay Starr's anvil voice (with a nice built-in sob) led a lusty counterpoint melody between town and clown. But Louis ("Satchmo") Armstrong as bandmaster and oldtime Circus Comic Buster Keaton were so much wasted tanbark. The "original" Jo Swerling-Hal Stanley music and lyrics had a too-familiar ring. ("If fate should hurt you/ I won't desert you/ We'll be together/ In stormy weather...
...sing a funny song about Christ walking on the water. Lewis insisted on doing imitations at dinner, and they went on too long. He even fancied he resembled Bernard Shaw and bought a wig at Clarkson's", the theatrical wigmaker, to improve his Shaw impersonation (the older clown was not amused...
...Belgium's Anne Bodart for a charming book of fables, most of which she wrote when she was 14. She had to wait until she reached a mellow 17 before her work was published in the U.S. (see below). Due in the U.S. early next year is Beau Clown by France's Berthe Grinault, 16, a "strange, curious book" about a professor, a psychopathic killer and a clown. The publisher's publicity agent describes Berthe as "a beautiful child of the earth, both innocent and diabolic...
...afforded an opportunity to experiment. Canadian-born Actor Christopher Plummer, who had a Broadway triumph as the Earl of Warwick in The Lark (TIME, Nov. 28, 1955), was cast in the title role. Opposite him, as the French King Charles VI, Langham put Gratien Gélinas, the ranking clown of French-Canadian musical revues. Members of Montreal's theatrical corps, schooled in the French acting tradition, were brought to Stratford to people the French scenes. The play was a solid hit, with Shakespeare's French and English contrasts made twice as vivid as a one-language company...