| July 4 |
| Happy Birthday, America! |
| 1911 -- sing your favorite patriotic songs with Mitchell William Miller, who's born today in Rochester, New York. Not surprising that the man who popularized the sing-along was born on the 4th, is it? 1951 -- Jack Webb does a summer radio switch as he goes from copper to brass (think about it; it gets funnier). Known for 'Dragnet,' he turns in his badge and picks up the horn on 'Pete Kelley's Blues.' While some may laugh today at the idea, they can't laugh long: Jack's staccato delivery as the '27 Kansas City jazz man playing the music he loves while struggling to keep his soul from slipping beneath the tawdry waters of gangsters and speakeasys ( wow; on the re-write, that actually looked pretty good) is incredibly effective. And remember that the 1955 film of the same name not only starred but was also directed by Jack and that Jack coaxed an Academy Award-winning performance out of singer Peggy Lee, who appeared on screen in only one other film role her entire career. A watered-down tv version of 'Pete Kelley's Blues' lasted just 13 episodes in 1959. Although Jack Webb still directed (future 'FBI' agent William Reynolds starred), the seamy side of life was toned down for television audiences and was, ironically, the weakest incarnation of 'Pete Kelley's Blues.' (And please note: if Pete Kelley had been a member of a live studio audience instead of a musician, we could have said Jack Webb went from copper to clapper and that would have really been funny . . . ) 1967 -- Tom Jones appears on the first telecast of CBS's summer musical variety series 'Spotlight.' Tom's appearances on the British-based show leads to his own series two years later. 1980 -- Despite the initial protests of Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butts about the 'rock and roll element,' the Beach Boys gave a free outdoor performance to an estimated 500,000 people in the Washington, D.C., mall area. 1995 -- Eva Gabor, who fit in perfectly with the Kafka-esque life of 'Hootersville' in 'Green Acres,' dies of complications resultant from food poisoning. While Eva is credited with the quote "Marriage is too interesting an experiment to be tried only once," she was apparently the 'calm' Gabor sister: Eva, the youngest, married five times and eldest sister Magda married six times. But it was middle sister Zsa Zsa who took the wedding cake by marrying seven different men. (You say Jan Brady's been married how many times?!) Eva was 74 at the time of her death. 1997 -- CBS newsman/anchor Charles Kuralt, who put the 'folksy' back into 'Americana' as host of 'CBS Sunday Morning' and his 'On The Road' snapshots of small town America, dies of complications from lupus. He was 62. |