R.I.P. 2014: The 50s and Before

From 1950s TV: comic genius Sid Caesar. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., star of 77 Sunset Strip.

From 1950s music: Phil Everly (left) of the Everly Brothers.  Bob Crewe, producer for The Four Seasons and songwriter ("Big Girls Don't Cry.")

Icon from the 50s and before: Shirley Temple, who produced a 1950s TV series of fairy tale adaptations that ranks among her lasting accomplishments.



From the World War II era: Chester Nez, Navajo code talker.  Alice Herz, oldest survivor of the Holocaust.  Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, last survivor of the Enola Gay crew that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Icons Connecting the Past and Future

In the 1960s it was becoming clear that pop culture was becoming American culture. By now that seems perfectly normal. The media covers pop music and movie stars as our royalty, television shows and movies like the latest artistic and cultural events. Scholars study Beatles lyrics and Doctor Who scripts. The new myths of gods, goddesses and heroes are the scifi and superhero sagas. But that didn't seriously begin to dominate until the 60s.

 Early boomers will remember the roots of this change in the 50s and 60s, especially as icons of those decades and earlier reemerge in the news one last time. The death of Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers reminds us that aspects of pop culture are really refinements of folk culture.

 I've just been rereading William Eastlake's early novels and came upon this sentence: "The secret in creating anything new seems to lie in borrowing all you see and hear about you and adding one small touch." That's often true in music particularly. Linda Ronstadt and Paul Simon talked about the Everly Brothers both in terms of the music they transformed and their effect on the music that followed theirs (like Simon & Garfunkel.) (Ronstadt was even better in this Time Magazine piece--the rest of it requires registration but even the intro paragraph adds something.)

 Adapting folk culture in a different way is seen in the life of Pete Seeger. He only slightly changed folk songs (though his strengthening of the lyrics of "We Shall Overcome" helped it become immortal) but he applied them to contemporary issues with roots in the past, such as civil rights, an end to war and preserving the natural environment. Here's Josh Marshall's remembrance, and one by Bruce Springsteen. 

To put it another way, as Marshall McLuhan did, each new medium (or form) at first adopts a previous medium as its content. So we've seen in our early boomer lifetimes how television took program models from radio and movies, which had earlier adapted them from the stage. As this essay says, the now classic early TV comedians brought sketches and approaches they adapted from the rich stage traditions of vaudeville. This was true of one of the great TV comedians and comic actors of the 1950s who died recently, Sid Caesar. Here's more of what I've written about him on this site, and still more on another.

The death of actor Ralph Waite is an occasion to recall how deeply and for a long time he has been part of establishing a cultural image, first as the young father on The Waltons and most recently as a father and grandfather figure on the TV series NCIS and Bones. I will also remember him for a little known but culturally evocative fantasy film about JFK called Timequest. Here's a biographical obit.

 Finally, the little girl who helped a country and a culture through the dark days of the Depression has passed away. One of Shirley Temple's proudest moments was that in one of those movies, she held the hand of the immortal dancer Bill Robinson--perhaps the first time a white female had touched a black male on the silver screen.  This reminds us of pop culture's role in change, as all of these examples do in different ways.

R.I.P. Boomer Heroes

Boomer Heroes who died in 2011 included these four exemplars.  Two are a little too old to be technically in the boomer generation, but they represent their spirit.

 Clarence Clemons was born about four years too soon to boom, but the Big Man was the soul of Bruce Springsteen's  E Street Band.  I saw them early on, when Clemons came out in a Santa suit for the band's version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

  Kara Kennedy was born in 1960.  She is pictured receiving the Medal of Freedom award from President Obama on behalf of her father, Senator Ted Kennedy.  Kara herself worked in politics, the media and for causes.  She battled lung cancer until her premature death.

Steve Jobs was born in 1955, a middle-boomer visionary of the computer age.  His influence on this rapidly changing present and on the future is hard to overestimate.

Wangari Maathai was born in Kenya in 1940.  She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her environmental justice activism, as the founder of the Green Belt Movement.   She also is a link from boomer aspirations to the future.  May all their best work live on and grow.  And may they rest in peace.

R.I. P. 1950s Pop Culture

Among those we lost in 2011 are these pop culture figures from the 1950s: actor Delores Fuller (Ed Wood films), Elliott Handler (who named the Barbie Doll for Mattel, Joe Morello (drummer for the Dave Brubeck Quartet), actor James Arness (Gunsmoke), actor and icon Elizabeth Taylor, Carl Gardner (lead singer of the Coasters.)

R.I.P. More 50s

R.I.P. in 2011 from the 50s: Sid Melton, Captain Midnight's sidekick; Anne Francis in Forbidden Planet, Dana Wynter in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Yvette Vickers as the original Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, David Nelson of the Nelson family, and Cliff Robertson, whose first starring role was in 50s sf Saturday morning TV as Rod Brown, Rocket Ranger.

Yet More 1950s

Also lost in 2011 from the 50s: Randy Woods, impressario of Dot Records (Pat Boone, Fabian, etc.); actor Jane Russell; songwriter Jerry Leiber of Leiber & Stoller; tv writer Madelyn Pugh Davis, who concocted some of the most famous I Love Lucy scenes, including the wine stomping scene; Gladys Horton, lead singer of the Marvelletes.

R.I.P. 1960s

Among those lost in 2011 from the 1960s: Suze Rotolo, artist and Bob Dylan companion on the famous Freewheelin' album cover; student activist Carl Ogelsby; Owlsley Stanley, famed LSD and Grateful Dead impressario; Cliff Robertson, who played JFK in PT-109;  director Sidney Lumet (Fail-Safe); Sargent Shriver, first Peace Corps director; Fred Shuttlesworth, Civil Rights activist (far left with Martin Luther King); actor Susannah York; filmmaker Ken Russell( The Who's Tommy).

Not pictured: filmmaker Richard Leacock (Montery Pop); musician Bert Jansch (Pentangle); musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron; Barry Feinstein (album cover photographer, The Times They Are A'Changin), rock impressario Don Kirschner, journalists Tom Wicker, Andy Rooney and Robert Pierpoint. 

R.I.P. 70s

Lost in 2011 from the 1970s: Elisabeth Sladen, beloved companion Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who; First Lady Betty Ford; Henry Morgan, Col. Potter on M*A*S*H; Ellen Stewart, founder of New York theatre's La Mama; actor Michael Sarrazin; Nixon impressionist David Frye; Peter Falk, who was Columbo.

Not pictured:  filmmaker Peter Yates (Breaking Away); singer Phoebe Snow, guitarist and record producer Don DeVito (Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.)

Sarge

The 50th anniversary of JFK's Inauguration on January 20 begins a host of such anniversaries of the Kennedy years. Shortly it will be of the founding of the Peace Corps, just months after its founding director, Sargent Shriver, passed away at the age of 95.

Nobody embodied the energy, the "vigah" of the JFK administration more than Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps. I was inspired by his enthusiasm and his book about the Peace Corps (though it was apparently written mostly by a future PA Senator, Harris Wofford.) He gave substance to the Kennedy emphasis on idealism and service, and many in my generation answered the call. Shriver not only built the Peace Corps, but as the first head of the Office of Economic Opportunity which ran the LBJ War on Poverty, he supervised the invention of Head Start and VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps. With his wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he started the Special Olympics, and together they championed the cause. Even when he himself succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease, his prominence enabled his family to help bring this condition out of the shadows.

Here's his obituary at the Washington Post, and an article about him, the Peace Corps and Martin Luther King at the New Yorker. Here's a tribute in Vanity Fair, and one by Bono.

R.I.P. 2010: the 50s

Early boomers will remember them (l to r starting at the top): Art Linkletter (TV's People Are Funny) Pernell Roberts (Bonanza), singer Eddie Fisher, Peter Graves (Fury was his first fame), singer Lena Horne, actor Kevin McCarthy (seen here in Invasion of the Body Snatchers), Mitch Miller, Patricia Neal, author J.D. Salinger, actor Tony Curtis. Not pictured here but elsewhere on this blog: Fess Parker (Davy Crockett) , Barbara Billingsley (Leave It To Beaver.) Memories of them remain. May they rest in peace. Click collage to enlarge.

R.I.P. 2010: the 60s

Early and middle boomers remember them from the 60s: Lynn Redgrave (Georgy Girl), Robert Culp (I Spy), Ted Sorenson (Special Counsel and speechwriter for JFK), director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde), Stewart Udall (JFK's Secretary of Interior), Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider), author George Leonard, operatic star Joan Sutherland. Not pictured: Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet), country singer Jimmy Dean and Walter F. Morrison, creator of the Frisbee. May they rest in peace. We remember them.

Kate R.I.P.

Kate McGarrigle in 1976, when she and her sister Ann were first achieving recognition as the McGarrigle Sisters. They really blazed the trail for so many later women singers in the contemporary folk-influenced vein. I remember being in their apartment in Manhattan once--one large room was ringed with motel keys, from their tours. Kate was born in 1946--the first year of the Baby Boom--and she died in 2010. So she also symbolizes the boomers who passed on this year, having made their contribution to the ongoing flow. Here's a nice blog tribute to her.

R.I.P.: 70s, 80s

Some of those we lost in 2010 who made the 70s and 80s brighter for Boomers: (l to r across) James MacArthur (Hawaii Five 0), Irving Kirschner (directed The Empire Strikes Back, Robocop, etc.), Stephen J. Cannell (created many TV classic series including The Rockford Files), John Forsythe (Dynasty, Charlie's Angels), Rue McClanahan (Golden Girls), Tom Bosley (Happy Days), soul singer Teddy Pendergrass, director Blake Edwards (10), actor Leslie Nielsen (Airplane, Naked Gun etc.) actor Jill Clayburgh, best known for the groundbreaking Hollywood film An Unmarried Woman. Others include Daniel Schorr who reported on Watergate for CBS, and Alexander Haig, of that Nixon administration; Gary Coleman, Dixie Burke.

Leaving "Leave It To Beaver"

Barbara Billingsley died recently, setting off a surprising number of "End of an Era" stories--surprising because she and Leave It To Beaver were singled out as symbols of the 50s. I wrote about this in context of 50s TV moms at 60s Now but since then, in my continuing effort to waste what time I have left, I watched archival interviews with Billingsley and Jerry Mathers at YouTube. A lot of the memorial recollections mentioned her appearance on this show as a mom who dressed up in pearls and high heels to do housework, as some kind of example of the 50s fantasy mom. Like somebody thought of doing that? According to her it's not true. Her clothes weren't expensive; some dresses came from J.C. Penney. She wore pearls to cover the hollow in her neck that caused problems for the camera. She wore heels only in the last years of the series, so she could still be taller than her growing boys.

She and Jerry Mathers were very thoughtful about the show. Mathers admitted that the producers were conscious of projecting a good image of an American family, once the show was being exported to more than 100 countries, and that they consciously tried to set standards, such as solving problems by calm fatherly talks, and by having the parents occasionally admit they were wrong.

Mathers said that Leave It To Beaver was the first TV sitcom to center on the children. I don't think that's true--Father Knows Best was primarily about the children, and it started three years earlier (in 1954. Beaver premiered in 1957.) He said he didn't know where the "Leave It To" came from, but there was a TV series called Leave It To Larry that lasted only a couple of months in 1952, starring Eddie Albert as a young man working for his father-in-law (Ed Begley, Sr.).

But he might be right about this: 'Beaver' was unique in its time for taking the point of view of the kids, spending a lot of time seeing the world from their point of view. And that does make the show special.

I hadn't realized that the show was revived for a surprisingly long run in the 80s, although on cable. Billingsley, Mathers, Tony Dow (Wally) returned to mostly deal with the problems of their children (or grandchildren. By then the actor who had played the Dad, Hugh Beaumont, had met a grisly fate, according to Mathers. He had strokes, Tourettes Syndrome, and then died.) None of the cast worked much after the series, until this revival. Mathers was in real estate. He lived not far from Beaumont. Then more recently, Disney did a version with a new cast.

But Leave It To Beaver will always be special for that window into the world of kids growing up in the 50s--though almost exclusively boys. Mathers did say that the stories were based on things that really had happened, but the events as I recall them bore little resemblance to my experience. I was closer to Wally's age when I saw it, and I didn't have a brother. No, it was the guys "messing around," and trying to figure out why adults did what they did.

R.I.P. in 2009: 70s, 80s, etc.

Among those we lost who came to boomer fame in the 70s and 80s: Farrah Fawcett, Ricardo Montaban, Michael Jackson, director John Hughes (The Breakfast Club--shown here, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, etc.), writer Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H on TV) and Bea Arthur ("Golden Girls.")

R.I.P. in 2009: the 60s

Among those we lost in 2009 who came to boomer fame in the 60s: actor James Whitmore ("The Law and Mr. Jones" and the 50s' Them!); singer Gordon Waller of Peter & Gordon; actor Patrick McGoohan (TV's "The Prisoner") singer Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary; singer Koko Taylor; TV news icon Walter Cronkite; dancer Merce Cunningham; actor Wendy Richard (Gumshoe and "The EastEnders") impressario Allen Klein (with the Beatles); Ed McMahon (with Johnny Carson.) Not pictured: Robert MacNamara, Senator Edward Kennedy and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who all first became prominent during the JFK administration. (That shot of Cronkite shows him announcing the death of JFK.) Also not pictured: Henry Gibson ("Laugh-In")

R.I.P. in 2009: the 50s

Among those we lost in 2009 who came to boomer fame in the 50s: TV's Soupy Sales, Betsy Blair in her most famous performance in the Paddy Chayefsky Best Picture of 1955, Marty; Richard Todd, Disney's Robin Hood; TV's Gale Storm ("My Little Margie"); actor Gene Barry (War of the Worlds, TV's Bat Masterson); director Budd Shulberg and actor Karl Malden, from the classic On the Waterfront; guitar innovator Les Paul (that's one of his guitars); early 50s TV comic actor Arnold Stang.

R.I.P. 2008: The Final Frontier

Besides Arthur C. Clarke, one of Gene Roddenberry's inspirations in creating Star Trek, the Final Frontier lost other significant people in 2008. Majel Barrett Roddenberry (pictured here in three of her Star Trek roles; she appears on camera or as the voice of the Enterprise computer in every Star Trek series and feature, including the one yet to be released) was a major figure in creating Star Trek and especially keeping it alive. She was kind and generous to fans, and they loved her. Robert Justman (lower left) was Gene R's right hand man in creating the original Star Trek and the Next Generation. Joseph Pevney (center left) was an original series director, and composer Alexander Courage (top right) wrote the famous original series theme. Forrest J. Ackerman (top left) was famous in the sf subculture as a collector, a publisher and a fan over many years. Robert Jastrow (bottom center) was an astronomer and futurist with a cosmic perspective in time and space. Click collage to greatly enlarge. P.S. Neglected to include Ricardo Maltaban, who played Khan in the original series and Star Trek II.

R.I.P. 2008 (1)

Some of the 50s/60s Boomer heroes and elders we lost in 2008: the incomparable Paul Newman, country singer Eddy Arnold, actress Beverly Garland (the babe in seemingly every monster movie), artist Robert Rauchenberg, chess whiz Bobby Fischer, the unique Bo Diddley, and one of the voices of the boomer generation, George Carlin. click collage to enlarge.

R.I.P. 2008 (2)

More folks we lost in 2008 who boomers will remember: singer-songwriter John Stewart (Kingston Trio, etc.), Isaac Hayes, 60s designer Yves Sant Laurent, Arthur C. Clarke (who gave us 2001: A Space Odyssey), Suzanne Pleschette (a 60s starlet before her TV fame), folk singer Odetta, Charlton Heston, who did some pretty good work as well as his iconic kitch film roles. Click collage to enlarge.