MEMORIAL DAY May 31, 2010

It’s back to the drawing board for BP who announced that its latest “Top Kill” process to plug the Gulf oil leak had been a failure.  On a more positive note, the attempt did gain valuable name recognition for one of the villains in the next James Bond movie.

Queen Elizabeth will not attend the Commonwealth Games scheduled for early October in Delhi.  Too bad, because she’ll miss the long anticipated debut of ex-daughter-in-law Sarah Ferguson in the 10,000 meter Prince Andrew Royal  Family Influence Peddling Relay.

Embarrassed recently when a murder “victim” turned up alive after his “murderer” had been executed, China has tightened its rules that allow convictions based on torture-induced confessions -- or as Dick Cheney refers to it, “cost-efficient” justice.

Signaling the end of PM Gordon Brown’s authoritarian rule, Britain’s new government canceled a proposed plan that would have required Brits to carry an ID card.  Critics condemned the plan as too close to totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany… Soviet Russia… Arizona...  

Australia is in the midst of a sperm donor shortage and has launched a TV ad campaign to recruit volunteers, reminding them that it’s not only painless, but fun.  Unfortunate choice of background music, though -- “Tie Me Kangaroo Down.”
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Excerpted From THE LAUGH MAKERS  

Hope worked hard on his specials, and because he was proud of them, he suffered an acute allergic reaction to television critics who might be less than captivated by the end results of our efforts. Now on the leeward leg of a long and inordinately successful career, he craved acceptance. He had become accustomed to being liked, and criticism of his performances, because it was rare, smarted all the more. By and large, because of his wide popularity and his near icon status, most TV critics had come to treat Hope with kid gloves.  Most, but not all.

In the early 1980s, Hope picked up what would prove to be a persistent and bothersome burr under his creative saddle. The burr’s name was Gail Williams, a television reviewer employed by the entertainment industry trade paper The Hollywood Reporter. She had embarked on what Hope believed to be — judging from his reaction to her reviews — a one woman crusade to destroy, special-by-special, his television career. This, despite the fact that Williams’s reviews appeared after the shows had aired and couldn’t possibly have affected their ratings. (Hope never allowed pre-screening for the critics for this very reason.)  Besides, as I’d often point out to him when he’d call in a state of near apoplexy after reading one of Gail’s broadsides, The Hollywood Reporter is strictly an industry publication with virtually no circulation outside of Tinseltown.

That made no difference.  “I’m suing them for a million dollars!” he’d scream. After one particularly scathing review, he told me to call the entire staff and have them write anonymous letters to the paper defending him — not unlike Nixon, in the heat of Watergate passion, issuing orders to Haldeman and Erlichman that they would ignore. We did likewise.  While Hope carefully nurtured friendly relationships with most of
the major newspaper TV critics across the country — he seldom turned down a request for an interview — he had no control over critics hired by the trade-papers who were not beholden to him. They were free to express their true feelings and Williams did — in spades.

What did Williams write that sent Hope’s blood-pressure into the stratosphere? Here’s just a sampling:

“. . . Bob ‘dirty old man’ Hope’s latest special was a standard vehicle for the comedian. . . As always, conversations were marred by excessive reliance on cue cards and sketches were broad, featuring Hope in silly costumes, and sophomoric humor.” (Bob Hope’s Spring Fling 1980)

“. . . Hope delivered his monologue with his characteristic expressionless panache.” (Hope For President 1980)

“Everyone read their cue cards reasonably well, and [Loretta] Swit even managed to make her lines sound somewhat spontaneous at points.” (Bob Hope’s All-Star Comedy
Christmas Special 1980)

And she was just getting warmed up.

Tomorrow:  The review that sparked the million dollar lawsuit. 

Order THE LAUGH MAKERS on line:

http://www.amazon.com/LAUGH-MAKERS-Behind-Scenes-Incredible/product-reviews/1593933231/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=2

Also available in an unabridged audio version read by the author: 

http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0545479184.1272211432@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjadekfdmleefcefecekjdffidfmf.0&productID=BK_BEAR_000001
 
UK orders:

http://www.audible.co.uk/aduk/site/product.jsp?p=BK_BEAR_000001UK&BV_SessionID=@@@@1904657385.1272326590@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccgadekffeehdjcefecekjdfikdffg.0