Word: showman
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...timing was perfect. The uke, inexpensive and easy to learn, had become the prime accessory for jazz agers. Hits like Ukulele Lady, Hula Lou and My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua made the Hawaiian sound, in its perky pop mutation, the hottest "world music" of its time. Nawahi, a showman as much as an artist, aimed to please. He could run through Kitten on the Keys at warp speed, or play Turkey in the Straw on the steel guitar using his foot as the steel...
Today Douglas Wick, the movie's producer, can say, "Anyone with a little showman in his blood knew it could work." And now the rest of Hollywood knows too. Even before it opens, Gladiator smells like a hit. Its early glow has movie people saying "Of course!" Of course there's a magnetic pull of audiences to Roman Empire epics--stories about palace sex, political backstabbing and violent raids are as today as the Clinton Administration. Of course Ridley Scott, whose only big hit was the 1979 Alien but who directed influential films such as Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise...
DAVID MERRICK--the Ziegfeld of the '60s, the Abominable Showman (a description he adored), a boss who scared the pants off this young man whom he had just hired to write the songs for Hello, Dolly! (starring Carol Channing, pictured with Merrick), entering his blood-red office for the first time. A jokester who used rave quotes by ordinary people (who had the same names as the seven Broadway critics of the day) to advertise a flop show of his in a full-page New York Times ad, a loving father, a ladies' man--the dictator who forced...
Through books and films, Jacques-Yves Cousteau shared his close encounters with dolphins, sharks, whales and other sea creatures with armchair divers around the world. He was a showman nonpareil, as when he described his first scuba dive in his mellifluous French accent: "I stood upside down on one finger and burst out laughing." But the former French navy officer had a serious side. Cruising the oceans in his vessel Calypso, he became increasingly worried about their health and founded the Cousteau Society to sound the alarm...
...truly do no wrong. But while that god-like status could lead to complacency on the artist's part, Morrissey proved even to a neutral observer that without a record label or new album to promote, he still has the magnetism lacking in many bands today. Always the showman, he appeared onstage looking like a fetish version of Elvis in a black PVC outfit and launched into "A Swallow On My Neck." The lesser-known song started the show on a weaker note, but Morrissey's jovial mood and his backing band's incredibly tight, focused musicality only created momentum...