I read recently that Elvis Costello has written the score for a stage musical based on the Elia Kazan film, "A FACE IN THE CROWD", written by Budd Schulberg. It's the story of a country music drifter who becomes so popular with his base that he attempts to control how they vote and how they think. In the end, the woman producer who made him a star, appalled at what she has unleashed, causes him to self-destruct.
When I first saw the film. it reminded me of Arthur Godfrey, who once had such a grip on his TV fans. Seeing it again recently, I could not help but think of Trump.
The film features a great performance by Andy Griffith., who was much underestimated. as a talent.
He was a rare combination of intellect, integrity and a hilarious, down to earth, down home humor.
If you are young, you may remember him as a canny criminal lawyer named MATLOCK.
If you are middle aged, you remember him as the beloved star of the long running, bucolic sitcom, "THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW".
Those of my vintage, however, first knew him as a brilliantly funny stand-up comic
.Andy holds a special place in my heart because of what he did for me when I was first starting out. I was hired as a writer by Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear for an Andy Williams Special on which Andy was a guest. I was assigned to write a comedy monologue for him.
Under Norman's tutelage, I wrote a piece where Andy was the janitor cleaning up after a meeting of the UN Security Council. The mike had been left on so Andy addressed the absent members of The Council. He told the story of two brothers who won the milking contest at The Country Fair because they learned to pull together.
Not long after, Andy's UN monologue was on a CD of comedy spots by Norman Lear. No reference was made to me. I had already been through this kind of treatment on the Carol Channing Broadway revue, "SHOW GIRL" when the main writer kept my name off the billboards and advertising.
I complained to Andy's manager, Dick Linke. Norman apologized for the oversight but it was too late to be corrected. Andy was doing his comedy act in a club at Lake Tahoe. Dick flew me up as his guest. During the show, Andy introduced me to the audience as a talented young writer who wrote a very funny monologue for him for TV. That's the kind of human being Andy Griffith was. It was a kindness I have never forgotten.
A few years later, when Ilson and I became partners, we wrote and produced a TV Special for Jim Nabors, who had become a TV star playing a funny-talking country bumpkin named Gomer Pyle. Jim was a yokel when he spoke, but he sang with an impressive Metropolitan Opera baritone.
We booked opera star Marilyn Horne on the Special. Keeping true to Jim's country roots, we also booked Tennessee Ernie Ford and Andy Griffith as guests.
Jim and Marilyn sang an aria from one of the classics. Andy introduced it by telling the story of the opera. Key to the drama was the heroine being caught in a murderous rain storm. Andy characterized the torrential downpour as a "a real frog strangler".
I have always got particular pleasure from comedians like Andy Griffith who could blend intellectual material with down home humor. If you have never experienced Andy Griffith when he was a stand-up, do yourself a favor. Go onto You Tube and watch him do "WHAT IT WAS WAS FOOTBALL", describing his first exposure to the game to the folks back home.
As Andy used to always say, "I would 'preciate it."