Sybil Bruncheon’s “My Merry Memoirs”… keeping busy in the Summer of 1989...

Unexpectedly (and quite annoyingly!) my plans and employment for the Summer came to a crashing end in April of 1989!... literally just a week before I was to leave for Fire Island and the little cottage set aside for my living there while I managed an adorable gourmet wine and spirits store. When my head finally cleared and I had gotten up off the ground and brushed myself off, I resolved as I often do to turn the proverbial “lemons into lemonade”… or maybe into an entire World’s Fair Pavilion based on lemons, their culture, history, heritage, and influence on all aspects of civilization! Yes, that IS hyperbole, but you get the idea.

You find, as you get older, that people sometimes screw your hopes and dreams up accidentally, innocently, and clumsily… and sometimes they do it willfully, deliberately, and even gladly… having been raised in my family, I had experienced it early… and repeatedly, so I guess, although it stung in 1989, I was somewhat inoculated you could say. So, I sat down, bruised but not broken, and doodled around with some ideas I had for a show… and I imagined a radio broadcast musical set in "a revolving ballroom" in the tower of the iconic Chrysler Building in the middle of Manhattan in 1933; an Art Deco pastiche of Busby Berkley and Florenz Ziegfeld, Harpo Marx and Bela Lugosi, corny commercials, serial mysteries, advice for the lovelorn and housewives, and new special guests changing from one week to the next. We had scenery and costumes, (and scenery and costume changes during the performances), and programs that sat like menus on the tables.

The show in all its incarnations ran for three years, first at Eighty Eights down a 228 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village, then at The Duplex in Sheridan Square, and finally at Don’t Tell Mama in the theatre district. We even printed T-shirts and had beautifully embroiderd “show jackets” that folks clamored for… just like the Broadway shows!

We could never have done it without the talents of Bob Gutowski, Michael McQuary, Jay Rogers, Jeffrey Wallach, Tom Stoehr, Stephen Borsuk, John Sheehan, Virginia Farley, the backing of Michael Margulies and Carl Smith, and the support of Karen Miller, Maggie Cullen, Rochelle Seldin, Shawn Moninger, Matt Berman, James Takos, Marty Santoro, and the love and endless sacrifice of my partner Rick Cook. Some of these wonderful people are gone now as the AIDS crisis and life’s careless whimsies took their toll. But at that time, it was, for all intents and purposes, the first “cabaret show” done in an accredited cabaret house performed with all the amenities and accessories of an actual theatrical play… ah, good times… good times.

(Cast photo by Barbara Nitke)

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Sybil Bruncheon's WHO'Z DAT?... Happy Birthday to Marni Nixon (February 22, 1930 – July 24, 2016)...

Born Margaret Nixon McEathron, and known professionally as Marni Nixon. She was an American soprano and ghost singer for featured actresses in musical films. She was the singing voice of many leading actresses and stars on the soundtracks of several musicals, including Deborah Kerr in THE KING AND I, Natalie Wood in WEST SIDE STORY, and Audrey Hepburn in MY FAIR LADY, although her roles were concealed from audiences when the films were released. Several of the songs she dubbed appeared on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list.

Besides her voice work in films, Nixon's career included roles of her own in film, television, opera and musicals on Broadway and elsewhere throughout the United States, performances in concerts with major symphony orchestras, and recordings.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Marlon Brando (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004)

Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American screen and stage actor. He is widely regarded as having had a significant impact on the art of film acting. While he became notorious for his "mumbling" diction and exuding a raw animal magnetism, his mercurial performances were nonetheless highly regarded, and he is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential actors of the 20th century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." An enduring cultural icon, Brando became a box office star during the 1950s, during which time he racked up five Oscar nominations as Best Actor, along with three consecutive wins of the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

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Sybil Bruncheon's "Who'z Dat?"... Happy, Happy Birthday to PINOCCHIO (February 23,1940)...

On February 23rd, 1940, Walt Disney's PINOCCHIO was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures. It wasn't just the children who sat thunderstruck at the visuals, imagination, and deeply moving story of a little toy that wanted to "be real".... When Monstro the Whale swept onto the giant movie screens of America with surging waves and tiny seagulls skittering out of the way to emphasize the appalling scale, when the ironically named Pleasure Island towering over the boys began to whirl into a terrifying nightmare of glittering lights and donkey-ears, and when the final resolution of death and transfiguration took place with the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket standing by, gasps, screams, and tears flowed freely...

Whatever Disney's personal issues and prejudices were, his ability to mobilize the great talents that made one iconic piece of art after another at his studios remains fixed. 82 years later, even the stills from this and so many of his other films are spellbinding... "Cartoon"??? "Cartoon"... The word is laughable...

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March 19, 1915: Happy, Happy Birthday to Patricia Morison!...

Click here for her wonderful story!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Morison?fbclid=IwAR3N_hIhY553NsNCx6UxF22pR6lasRGbxDsHr-gze60R2uHIZCGqVC8quGg

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A New Sybil's "WHO'Z DAT?"... GUY KIBBEE (March 6, 1882 - May 24, 1956).

Darlings! Mummy has made a decision! After reading dozens of posts and having hundreds of conversations with well-meaning folks who just don't know about the great CHARACTER actors who gave films the depth and genius that surrounded and supported the so-called "stars", I am going to post a regular, special entry called SYBIL'S "WHO'Z DAT??"....there'll be photos and a mini-bio, and the next time you see one of those familiar, fabulous faces that you just "can't quite place".......well, maybe these posts will help. Some of these actors worked more, had longer and broader careers, and ended up happier, more loved, and even wealthier than the "stars" that the public "worships"......I think there may be a metaphor in that! What do you think??? And while you’re considering it, here is one of the very most recognizable faces and voices in all Hollywood… and a person unlike any, ANY other actor; Guy Kibbee (March 6, 1882 – May 24, 1956)

Born Guy Bridges Kibbee in El Paso, Texas, he began his entertainment career on Mississippi riverboats at the young age of 13 as a singer and comedian. His father James was a publisher of small papers such as the Concho Times and Burnet Bulletin around El Paso, Texas, and Roswell, New Mexico. A few of his sons followed him into the trade, and Guy used to help out. The experience proved valuable during the early years of his stage career. Decades of obscurity awaited Guy Kibbee, who played in stock companies from San Francisco to Portland, Denver and Salt Lake City, Lincoln, Nebraska, Shreveport, Louisiana, and Wichita, Kansas. He managed the Wichita company, and his younger brother Milton joined that troupe in February, 1917.

Guy Kibbee played everywhere, taking a break only for the four years (probably just after his first marriage) that he operated his own printer’s shop in San Francisco. “I did go to Broadway once with Hugh O’Connell,” Kibbee recalled in 1932. “All that was available was small parts. O’Connell told him to stick it out, and he’d become a big success. But Kibbee elected to return to stock where he was known and could always get work. He wouldn’t play on Broadway again until called by an “actor proof part”, that of Cass Wheeler in TORCH SONG. Playwright Kenyon Nicholson introduced Kibbee to Arthur Hopkins, who was casting the play, though Hopkins got all of the credit for the discovery: “And now Mr. Hopkins magically produces an extraordinary talent in the person of Guy Kibbee,” critic Ward Morehouse wrote. When mentioning Kibbee in his review of TORCH SONG for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, critic Arthur Pollock kept it simple: “He is delicious.” It was a performance that brought Hollywood calling and a part that Kibbee would reproduce on a smaller scale in MGM’s adaptation of Nicholson’s play, retitled LAUGHING SINNERS with Joan Crawford, Neil Hamilton, and Clark Gable among those billed over Kibbee.

In the 1930s, Kibbee moved to California and became part of the Warner Bros. stock company; contracted actors who cycled through different productions in supporting roles. Kibbee's specialty was daft and jovial characters; not particularly bright businessmen, government officials, and stuffy lawyers with a secret weakness for showgirls. In musical comedies, he is perhaps best remembered for the films 42ND STREET (1933), FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1933), GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (1933), DAMES (1934), WONDER BAR (1934), BABES IN ARMS (1939) with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, and several others, usually with Dick Powell, Aline MacMahon, Joan Blondell, and Jimmy Cagney. As loveable and foolish as these characters were, his range and audience appeal could also make him a strong stand-out in dramas like MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939) with Jimmy Stewart, RAIN (1932) with Joan Crawford and Walter Huston, most especially as Mr. Webb, editor of the Grover's Corners, New Hampshire newspaper, and father of Emily Webb, in the film version of the classic Thornton Wilder play OUR TOWN (1940) starring a young William Holden and Martha Scott.

He appeared in swashbucklers like CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) with Errol Flynn and Westerns like FORT APACHE (1948) with John Wayne and Henry Fonda. His natural warmth and easy-going nature made him a perfect foil for major child stars like Freddie Bartholomew in LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY (1936) and Shirley Temple in CAPTAIN JANUARY (1936) where he played the title character. RKO studios loved his energy so much in BABBITT (1934) that they cast him in five installments in the Scattergood Baines comedies, a lighter-hearted take on Babbitt and less satirical.

“Guy Kibbee eggs” is the name for a breakfast dish, which consists of a hole cut out of the center of a slice of bread, and an egg cracked into it, all of which is fried in a skillet. The actor prepared this dish in the Warner Bros. film MARY JANE'S PA (1935), hence the eponym. This dish is also known by other names, such as "egg in a basket". The movies proved easy work for “quick study” Kibbee, who was happy to settle down in one place for a change. “You can learn, between traffic light changes, all you’ll have to do the next day,” he said of learning his lines. “They do one scene over and over again, so many times that about all you need to do at first is read the part through.”

Kibbee was known as a big eater and “loved cards, golf, baseball, football,” remembered a friend, the columnist Henry McLemore. “He was an amazing golfer,” McLemore added (a ten or eleven handicap), and “a tough gin rummy player.” McLemore recalled pal Kibbee as an early riser, reasoning, “There just wasn’t enough time to live, and Guy didn’t want to waste any of it.”

Kibbee also became a regular on radio late in his career appearing on the Mutual Network’s comedy “Pal Rod and Gun Club of the Air” beginning in 1950. “You’d be surprised at the sympathetic mail I get as a result of the program,” Kibbee said. An avid sportsman, on the Rod and Gun show he posed as a completely helpless fisherman and hunter and spun tall tales that were sent to the show by its listeners. “Around here I can just take it easy, do this radio show and whatever other work I want to take on,” Kibbee said. He was also appearing in nightclubs at this time, just getting up on stage and telling stories about his days starting out in the riverboat shows and in the early days of Hollywood. Kibbee claimed in interviews that, “I did a couple of plays on the stock circuit this summer, played a couple of country fairs with my monologues and generally had a good—and profitable—time.”

He did a little television after this, but that medium wasn’t Kibbee’s cup of tea: “I’m not crazy about it. Too much work has to go into preparing for just one performance. I’ll leave that for the younger people.” He much more enjoyed his return to the stage where he headlined stock companies in titles like THE OLD SOAK and ON BORROWED TIME. “It’s a grand training ground for these youngsters,” Kibbee said of summer stock in 1950. “Takes the place of the old time stock companies in schooling them in the fine points of their profession.” He continued to appear on the Gun and Rod Club as late as March 1953, but it was later that year that the papers first reported Guy Kibbee was seriously ill with what was ultimately diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, and he finally retired.

He spent nine months at the Aurora Health Institute in Rye, New York, where Walter Winchell directed readers to send the lonely actor some letters. Guy wrote back from the Institute thanking Winchell “for the coast-to-coast hook-up.” He said he had received over 3,000 cards and letters. From Rye he was sent to the Percy Williams Retirement Home in East Islip, New York, for sick and needy actors that was supported by the Actors Fund of America. “I’ve come to the bottom of the barrel,” Kibbee told the board of directors when he entered on September 24, 1954. He was bedridden at the home for over a year. The superintendent at Percy Williams’ said they always had Kibbee in to the common room to watch any old movies he had appeared in.

Kibbee was married twice; to Helen Shay from 1918 to 1923 with whom he had four children and divorced, and Esther Reed whom he married in 1925 and had three children. He was still married to her at the time of his death in 1956. Kibbee finally died from complications arising from Parkinson's disease in East Islip, Long Island, New York, and was buried in Westchester.

Guy Kibbee was mentioned in the iconic "Hot August Night" concert/album performed by Neil Diamond in 1972 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, California. "Thank you people in the audience! Tree people out there, God bless ya, I'm singin for you too! Are you still there tree people? This is the place that God made for performers when they die, they go to a place called the Greek Theatre. And you're met there by an MC, wearing a long robe and smoking a cigar, looks like Guy Kibbee, and that's what it is. It's a performer’s paradise......"

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Sybil Bruncheon's "CHRISTMASES PAST!"... Ding-A-Ling!!!

.... this video clip is rarer than hens' teeth. How many of you have even heard of "THE DANGEROUS CHRISTMAS OF RED RIDING HOOD" (1965) let alone seen it? Starring a remarkably frenetic Liza Minnelli (sniff, sniff), the incomparable Cyril Ritchard (of Captain Hook fame) as the sophisticated and misunderstood wolf, the perfectly pallid Vic Damone as a distracted woodsman, the rock group The Animals as a wolf pack, and the NYC ballet company as all the forest animals and townspeople! The original color print of the complete Christmas special on ABC and sponsored by General Electric has been lost (some say that Minnelli herself bought all the copies and destroyed them). The music and lyrics are by Styne and Merrill, fresh from their mega-success of FUNNY GIRL.
Click here: https://youtu.be/IKm1zRywsuI

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