birthday Archives - Page 31 of 50

Sylvester Stallone is 70

When The Wife and The Daughter went to Philadelphia in in late April 2016, they made the pilgrimage to the site.

I remember seeing this commercial for The Lord of Flatbush, and even remember a 15-second version of the ad; I could sing that iteration of the theme song, and even the fact that the movie was rated PG.

Flatbush was a 1974 movie starring Henry Winkler (3rd from the left), released on 1 May, which, oddly, I never saw. He was looking very much like Arthur Fonzarelli, a minor character turned into a breakout star on a TV show called Happy Days later that year.

Another actor in that film was Sylvester Stallone (2nd from the left). I must have seen him in Bananas as Subway Thug #1 or in Klute as a Discotheque Patron. He was uncredited in both of those 1971 films.

The first movie I saw Sly Stallone where I knew his name was Rocky in 1977. Not only did he play the boxer Rocky Balboa, who gets a chance to fight the heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed, but he also wrote the story. I watched the film at a movie theater in Charlotte, NC with my mother. She liked it too.

Stallone was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Rocky was eventually “inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum.”

The only other films of Stallone’s I’ve ever seen involve him playing Balboa. Rocky II (1979) I liked, Rocky III (1982), with Mr. T was OK, but IV (1985), with Dolph Lundgren and Brigitte Nielsen, soon to be the second of Stallone’s three wives, I thought was schlock.

“Stallone’s use of the front entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the Rocky series led the area to be nicknamed the Rocky Steps. Philadelphia has a statue of his Rocky character placed permanently near the museum.” When The Wife and The Daughter went to Philadelphia in late April 2016, they made the pilgrimage to the site, though The Daughter probably didn’t get the significance.

“It was announced on December 7, 2010, that Stallone was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the non-participant category.”

Except for his voicework in Antz (1998), I never saw another Stallone film until Creed (2015), which was surprisingly good. Nope, no Rambo or Expenditures franchises in my viewing queue, most of which he also wrote.

My admiration for Stallone comes in part from this: “Complications his mother suffered during labor forced her obstetricians to use two pairs of forceps during his birth; misuse of these accidentally severed a nerve and caused paralysis in parts of Stallone’s face. As a result, the lower left side of his face is paralyzed – including parts of his lip, tongue, and chin – an accident which has given Stallone his snarling look and slightly slurred speech.” He’s a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for.

Happy birthday to Sylvester Stallone.

Cher is 70

“Their lounge act was so depressing, people started heckling them. Then Cher started heckling back.”

Two years back, on this date, one of my earliest online buddies, Greg Burgas, kvetched about me recognizing the late Joe Cocker’s 70th birthday. “It’s Cher’s birthday too. She’s 68 if I recall correctly. Much more important than Joe ‘Help me I’m constipated’ Cocker. Come on, Roger!”

Now the performer formerly known as Cherilyn Sarkisian is the big 7-0. But what shall I write? I have but one Sonny & Cher song on one compilation, and a Cher song on another. Though I realize I do own some Cher vocals:

“Cher met performer Sonny Bono in November 1962 when he was working for record producer Phil Spector… Sonny introduced Cher to Spector, who used her as a backup singer on many recordings, including the Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ and the Righteous Brothers’ ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin”.”

As I recall, my sister Leslie owned the debut album of Sonny and Cher, Look at Us, featuring the massive hit I Got You Babe, written by Sonny. But while they, especially she, became fashion icons, they were soon perceived as uncool. So how was it that they eventually got a television show?

Sonny repeatedly cheated on Cher, and by the end of the 1960s their relationship had begun to unravel. According to People magazine, “[Sonny] tried desperately to win her back, telling her he wanted to marry and start a family.” They married after she gave birth on March 4, 1969 to Chastity Bono… That year, the duo spent $500,000 and mortgaged their home to make the film Chastity. Written and directed by Sonny, who did not appear in the movie, it tells the story of a young woman, played by Cher, searching for the meaning of life. The art film failed commercially, putting the couple.. in debt with back taxes. However, some critics noted that Cher showed signs of acting potential…

At the lowest point of their career, the duo put together a nightclub routine that relied on a more adult approach to sound and style… “Their lounge act was so depressing, people started heckling them. Then Cher started heckling back. Sonny … reprimanded her; then she’d heckle Sonny”. The heckling became a highlight of the act and attracted viewers. Television executives took note, and the couple began making guest appearances on prime-time shows, in which they presented a “new, sophisticated, and mature” image. Cher adopted alluring, low-cut gowns that became her signature outfits.

They got their own TV show, first as a summer replacement, then as an ongoing series. I watched. AMERICA watched. It was an entertaining schtick. Meanwhile, Sonny kept pitching music that was commercially unpopular, even as producer Snuff Garrett picked hits for her, such as Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.

After her split with Sonny, Cher had her own show. Then another show with her now ex-husband, all of which I continued to view. Recounting the ups and downs of her musical and love lives, including a brief marriage to Greg Allman, would be exhausting. Suffice to say that it was during one of her down periods that director Robert Altman selected for the Broadway stage production Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, and then for the movie adaptation.

I saw a few movies featuring Cher, all in theaters, and she was consistently good. Silkwood (1983), about the union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., who was “killed in a car crash while on her way to meet a reporter”; Mask (1985); Moonstruck (1987), for which she won an Oscar; and Mermaids (1990).

Now she’s Cher the icon, giving advice to the Kardashians about transgender issues after Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn. She was reportedly asked because of her experience when Chastity Bono transitioned to Chaz.

Links

Ringo, I Love You – Bonnie Jo Mason. Phil Spector produced Cher’s first single under this pseudonym; it was commercially unsuccessful.

Do You Wanna Dance? – Caesar & Cleo. A late 1964 poorly-received single by Sonny and Cher.

Love Is Strange – Caesar & Cleo. Got all the way to #131 on the Billboard pop charts in 1965.

Let the Good Times Roll – Caesar & Cleo. Another non-hit.

Dream Baby – Cherilyn. Produced by Sonny, received airplay in Los Angeles.

All I Really Want to Do – Cher, Bob Dylan cover, #15 in 1965.

I Got You Babe – Sonny and Cher. “3 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States where it sold more than 1 million copies and was certified Gold. It also reached number 1 in the United Kingdom and Canada.”

Baby Don’t Go – Sonny and Cher, #8 in 1965

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) – Cher, #2 in 1966

The Beat Goes On – Sonny and Cher, #6 in 1967. The 2nd Cher-related song covered by Vanilla Fudge.

You Better Sit Down Kids – Cher, #9 in 1967

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves – Cher, #1 for 2 weeks in 1971

Half Breed – Cher, #1 for 2 weeks in 1973

Dark Lady – Cher, #1 in 1974

If I Could Turn Back Time – Cher, #3 in 1989

Believe – Cher, #1 for 4 weeks in 1998. The curse of Autotune took flight here.

TV: McLean Stevenson on the Cher show.

TV: Back in 1987, Letterman reunited the legendary duo of Sonny and Cher, to sit and talk on the couch — and to once again perform their classic hit, “I Got You, Babe.”

Coverville 1125: Cover stories for Bobby Darin and Cher.

Yours, Mine and Ours

I said, “If you do not know the title of the movie, I will not take you.”

I don’t always have a strong memory of movies I saw as a child. I had a vague memory of seeing a film called Yours, Mine and Ours, a 1968 film, starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda and Van Johnson, but I couldn’t have told you where or when.

From the IMBD:

When a widower with 10 children marries a widow with 8, can the 20 of them ever come together as one big happy family? From finding a house big enough for all of them and learning to make 18 school lunches, to coping with a son going off to war and an unexpected addition to the family, Yours, Mine and Ours attempts to blend two families into one and hopes to answer the question Is bigger really better?

It was “based loosely on the story of Frank and Helen Beardsley,” and makes the Brady Bunch, which came along a year or two later, seem like pikers. “The film was commercially successful, and even the Beardsleys themselves appreciated it.”

But my “baby” sister Marcia often recalls a whole lot that has left my synapses. She remembers me taking her to this movie. She wrote on Facebook: “I am sure that seeing this movie was not the most exciting thing for him to do that day..anyways…I was so excited to go to the movie with my big brother.

“For a second I could not remember the title. He said, ‘If you do not know the title of the movie, I will not take you.'” That sounds about right. “Well, I remembered as I have many childhood memories. One of my favorite memories with my brother Binghamton, NY.”

So I asked her, “OK, wise one. WHERE did we see this? Maybe the Strand or the Riviera on Chenango Street, near where Mom worked? Or the Ritz on Clinton St, which we could have walked to? Or the Crest on Main, which seems a little far unless we got a ride?”

She replied, “We walked…and the conversation about to go or not to go was standing at that little cut-through at the end of Gaines Street…so it would have been the Ritz on Clinton Street. I can remember that conversation like it was yesterday…” The “little cut was a driveway to a very cube-looking gray building that never seemed to have anyone living or working there.

“It was a cloudy day…omg.” NOW she’s just showing off. Funny thing about that driveway: it was next to the Greene’s house at 13 Gaines, a white-and-green structure. We lived at 5 Gaines, in a green house. We often got each others’ mail.

Happy natal day to my baby sister. She’s turning…some number less than 63.

The lesson of the birthday

THAT was my favorite birthday present this year.

One of the traditions in my office, when we have our monthly birthday party, is that the persons celebrating their natal day need to:

1. Say what they did on that day, and
2. Provide some words of wisdom.

What did I do on that day earlier this month? Mostly respond to all the kind comments from you all. This picture came from one of them. And I saw the video of the Daughter’s musical. More on that eventually.

Most people find the latter to be a difficult exercise. So what’s MY takeaway?

The day before my birthday, the sermon was a story about a fictional town, but with a very real message about unwarranted chastisement and forgiveness. I’m reminded of the cliche that you don’t always know what kind of impact you have on others, for good or for ill. This story, A principal met a student she expelled, and it changed her approach to discipline, is also in that vein.

One of those birthday comments I got from a friend of relatively recent acquaintance reads: “‘It’s good that you are alive…’ Thank you for your birthday blog quote, Roger! Happy Birthday! You have the gift of making people feel good to be alive — there were often times when I’d be feeling a bit false, and your cheerful, warm hello often made me feel completely present in the room again.”

And THAT was my favorite birthday present this year, better than the new backpack I desperately needed, or the certificate for snacks at the Spectrum Theatre.

The Lydster, Part 144: An Even Dozen

She’s now #1 in New York State in First in Math

Earlier this month, the Daughter appeared in the church musical, for the third year in a row. This year’s effort was called SPEAK LOUD, SPEAK PROUD, and had readings written by the performers, as well as dancing, and singing, and rapping. My daughter wrote something about me, which was only slightly mortifying because it was true.

She continues to excel in school, particularly in math. She may be a tad obsessed with First in Math. She’s now #1 in New York State with over 20,000 points, in the Top 20 for her grade nationally, and trying to make the Top 100 nationally. More importantly to her, she’s helping to close the gap between her school and the #1 school in the district.

She enjoys reading but is less than enthralled about writing about the readings. The class requirements DO seem to have a bit of mechanical feel to it, with X number of paragraphs, all starting with certain words such as First or Then or Next or Finally, and X paragraphs, each with Y sentences.

To my surprise, she’s given up the clarinet. I thought she was doing well, and that she both enjoyed it, especially playing with her mother, and that she was pretty good at it. The Wife wants to sell the Daughter’s instrument, but I’m opposed; I think she might come back to it.

She had to deal with a bullying incident in school, which has been resolved. The principal to him noted that his remarks were not only hurtful to others but, taken the wrong way, dangerous to himself. It was difficult for her to report him, as it seemed to draw attention to herself, and perhaps even harder to hear his apology.

Her room is…not as tidy as it might be, even by my fairly lax standards.

There’s undoubtedly more to say, but I’ll just note that I love the girl.