mongoII wrote:Judith, I for one recall comic London Lee. I've seen him often on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was a kid.
And strangely enough I liked Keefe Brasselle (resembled Montgomery Clift). Funny he appeared in "A Place in the Sun" as Clift's cousin and it was noted in the film that they looked alike.
He was also good in two films Ida Lupino directed, "Not Wanted" and "Never Fear".
He paired well with Marjorie Main in "A Letter from a Soldier" an excerpt from the movie "It's a Big Country".
I would like to see "The Eddie Cantor Story" once again.
Actually, I kind of liked Brasselle, too, but I thought he wasn't anywhere near the performing powerhouse he seemed to think he was. I remember a summer replacement show (remember those?) he did on CBS. I was quite young then, but I recall being struck by how hard he seemed to be working, to such little result. Sonny Bono never sweated so much on stage, and I think Braselle sang better than Sonny -- but not by much. At least Sonny gave the appearance of enjoying himself. Oh -- and I always confused Brasselle on the screen with Robert Evans.
London Lee -- we could all do without him. He was like the boy at a bar mitzvah who tried to steal the limelight from the bar mitzvah boy by acting goofy and telling jokes that he thought were funny, though no one else did. Funny as a hernia was London Lee. And that name -- he was about as London a Lee as Joan is a Rivers. Does anyone remember the
Dick Van Dyke Show episode called "Big Max Calvada?" It deals with a scary gangster (played by Sheldon Leonard) who pays to have his nephew put on the Alan Brady Show, and insists that Rob and his team write jokes to make the kid seem funny, which he most definitely is not. The nephew character looked, talked, and was a bundle of nervous energy just like London Lee, who supposedly was backed by his rich father.