Word: showfolks
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...Showfolk love martyrology as much as political people do. Fearing and loving the audience which has so much power over them, the temptation to present someone like Bruce as a misunderstood genius, an artist ahead of his reactionary times is irresistible. So Director Fosse cops out, buying and selling, without insight or irony, his protagonist's own version of his life and hard times. As he proved in Cabaret, he has a fine eye for the gritty details of the grimiest levels of show business, but here realism (the film is shot in grubby black and white) reinforces...
...format that has become tiresomely predictable in the hands of others, Dick Cavett at 34 has produced the best mixture of literate repartee, information, entertainment and urbane wit to be found on late-night television. Those who dig good-natured buffoonery and the chitchat of West Coast showfolk go for Competitor Merv Griffin. Viewers who want to see briskly organized quasi-journalistic interviews watch David Frost's excellent syndicated talk show, a two-time Emmy Award winner. Those who tune in Carson do so mainly to watch a consummate comedian scoring off guests who might as well be dummies...
Plastic surgery is practically a branch of show business, but few showfolk talk about their operations on the Johnny Carson Show. British Actress Sarah Miles, however, didn't mind telling 7,200,000 viewers: "I had an ear job." Her ears, she said, "not only stuck out, but they had no shape at all. They used to flap in the wind." Miss Miles' now unflappable ears have given her considerable self-confidence. Asked whom she would choose to be alone with for six months, she said: "Hitler. If I had six months, I might be able to corrupt...
Some big lights of the movies were hiding under bushels. For Jerry Lewis it was a bushel of clown makeup, which disguised his identity as he brought down the house at Paris' Cirque d'Hiver benefit for old and ailing showfolk. And when Ringmaster Maria Callas announced who the clown really was, the house came down all over again. For Jerry is an important personage in France, an actor whose films are seriously studied. Lewis says he is even thinking of moving to Paris-"a good place to come if you're feeling low." For Bette Davis...
...Ambassador. Serves him right. Hope has been breaking up audiences for nearly 50 years. Even his fellow showfolk, notoriously envious of talent, get practically blubbery about him. "You spell Bob Hope C-L-A-S-S," says Lucille Ball. Adds Joey Bishop: "I'd like to get the applause at the end of my show that he gets before he opens his mouth." Woody Allen, himself a gag writer as well as performer, says: "He has been a terrific influence on every standup, one-line monologist. The thing which makes him great just can't be stolen...