Word: ginger
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...admires the writings of Zane Grey and St. Francis of Assisi? Wooden is also a deacon in the First Christian Church of Santa Monica. He reads the Bible daily. He neither smokes nor drinks and will not tolerate profanity. On occasion, he will partake of a "Pat Boone Special" (ginger ale with a dash of grape juice). His strongest expletive is "Goodness gracious sakes alive!" And after a tough day on the court, he unwinds by reading poetry (Shakespeare, Shelley, Whitman). Or, if he needs a special uplift, he will dash off a few lines of his own. Sample...
...stench you smell is from her." His face reddening, he shouted at Mrs. Cheshire, "You're nothing but a $2 broad. . . Here's $2, baby, that's what you're used to." With that, he stuffed two dollar bills into Mrs. Cheshire's empty ginger-ale glass and marched...
...Among them: Top Hat, The Gay Divorcee, Flying Down to Rio. Astaire was 34 when the series began, and distinctly the lesser half of the famed Broadway act he made up with his sister Adele, who had abruptly quit her career to marry an English lord. Twelve years younger, Ginger was a knockabout ingénue with a track record of some success but no public personality of her own. Astaire was unquestionably the architect. He designed the dances, demanded complete control of the cutting and synchronization...
...result of this technical skill was an illusion of total spontaneity. Though knowing dance experts might point out scornfully that Astaire faked some of Ginger's taps, Astaire never again or before had a partner who produced the same alchemy as Ginger. As Author Croce, who can turn a nice phrase, notes. Ginger had her own qualities: "That beautiful supple back that let her arch from his arms like a black lily," while he produced "those ratcheting tap clusters that fall like loose change from his pockets...
Well, alas, the partnership broke up, mostly because Ginger had higher ambitions. Observes Croce, who does not admire Ginger as a straight actress as much as some of us: "She's an American classic just as he is: common clay that we prize above classic marble. The difference between them is that he knew it and she didn't." To adapt a phrase from Thomas Nash, brightness fell from the air. Its particular gleam has never been recaptured-except perhaps in this book. · A.T. Baker