10/13/23
Newsletter #487
The Crack of Dawn
I heard this story in the documentary, Harry Belafonte: Sing Your Song, which is a very good, thorough, film. My parents had at least one of Harry Belafonte’s records, and he used to have an annual TV special (for which he won several Emmy Awards) that was a big deal. I also knew him as a movie actor. He co-stars in a particularly good heist film, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), which he also produced, directed by the great, Robert Wise. Belafonte also starred in and produced a film I wanted to like, The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959), a post-apocalyptic tale of the last three people on Earth, but sadly, it’s a bore, bombed, and ended his producing career. In any case, Mr. Belafonte, who died on April 25, 2023, at the age of 96, is an incredibly interesting subject.
Aside from his many accomplishments in music, TV and movies, Harry Belafonte was indispensably important as the foremost proponent of the civil rights movement in Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s. He was the connection between the civil rights movement and Hollywood. When Martin Luther King would hold a rally, it was Belafonte’s job to wrangle as many movie stars as he could get to show up.
By 1958 Harry Belafonte was at the peak of his popularity. He had conquered music, TV and movies. Even though he was a major part of the American civil rights movement, he still wanted/needed to do more. Belafonte was a driven man who put his money where his mouth was. He went to Kenya, surveyed the country, assessed the political situation and the government, and concluded that if they had 70 college educated young men and they might make a go of it. So, Belafonte personally sponsored 70 young Kenyan men to four years of college and board in America at the university of their choice. I think it was 70, maybe it was 40. But the deal was that they had to promise to return to Kenya after their schooling.
One of these men was Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. who chose to attend the University of Hawaii, which sounds like a wise choice to me. It was there that he met a white woman from Kansas named Ann. They married and gave birth to Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. on August 4, 1961, who would become the 44th President of the United States.
Just yesterday I saw a clip of Donald Trump declaring that Joe Biden was presently working for Barack Obama. Trump kept repeating Obama’s name and emphasizing “Hussein” over and over like this was the key to everything. As per Google, “Hussein means ‘small handsome one’ and is the diminutive of Hassan, which means ‘beautiful.’” It’s an extremely common name in a lot of the world. So, as Mr. Trump kept repeating, “Hussein” over and over, he was really saying, “Beautiful, small handsome one!” which was probably a laugh riot all over the Arabic-speaking world.
Changing subjects, watch your brains.
On Bill Maher’s podcast show, Club Random, this week he had Mayim Bialik. At first, I had no idea who she was. I don’t watch Jeopardy anymore. After a point, though, it all made sense, although I’ve never seen an episode with her as the host. But apparently now she’s gone and it’s Ken Jennings. Whatever. I used to watch the show when it was originally on, and Art Fleming was the host. Behind the contestants, the set was mechanical, and blocks would spin around to reveal the questions. Single Jeopardy was for 10-20-30-40-50 dollars; in Double Jeopardy the stakes skyrocketed to 20-40-60-80-100 dollars. Should I somehow fantasize that I’m on Jeopardy – it happens, though not often – my brain always says, “Movies for twenty, Art.” I never got with the Alex Trebek version.
However, I did try out for the show. When Scott Spiegel and I lived on McCadden St., in that wacky little bungalow frequented by Quentin Tarantino, back in 1986, we both tried out. We walked over to the studio where they held the try-outs – we lived right in the center of Hollywood – cutting across the large Cinerama Dome parking lot to get there. It was held at some nameless studio on Vine St.
There was a line of people, but it wasn’t swamped. They seated 20 people at a time. A big analog timer with a sweep second hand sat on a desk in the front of the room. We were all given a paper test with a pencil. We were informed that we had 13 minutes to answer 50 questions that were from every subject, and should we get more than two wrong we would definitely not be proceeding to the next level, which was the personality test – did you actually have a personality and could you functionally play the game. They then set the big timer for 13 minutes and said, “Go.”
Within 10 questions I hadn’t answered two and knew I was out. I think I didn’t answer six questions in total. I certainly guessed on at least ten more. I didn’t come close to making it. Apparently, neither did Scott. Two people out of 20 made it to the next level. Forlornly, Scott and I returned to the bungalow, two lonely little figures walking across the vast Cinerama Dome parking lot, unsuited even for game shows, in the oppressive landscape called Hollywood.
Movies for 100, Art.