Genial television host Art Linkletter has died at 97.
I was on the "Kids Say the Darndest Things" segment of his House Party talk show, where he interviewed four grade school children, back around 1969 or 1970 when I was ten or eleven.
I contrived some lines that got pretty big laughs from the studio audience, but, truthfully, I was a little too old, knowing, and show-offy. For example, before our appearance, the lady producer asked the kids to say what they thought were the definitions of various words, but I knew what all the words meant, except "boudoir."
I suspect the little me was fairly insufferable. It's a testimony to Mr. Linkletter's famous amiability that he didn't throttle me on nationally syndicated television.
I suspect the little me was fairly insufferable. It's a testimony to Mr. Linkletter's famous amiability that he didn't throttle me on nationally syndicated television.
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I was nearly as astonished by Art Linkletter's death as I was by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek's back in 2003, since I assumed that both people had passed away decades ago.
I wonder what Linkletter thought of our age.
Speaking of long time lifespans, I'm reminded when I drive my dad to the doctor to get an x-ray that his father was Roentgen's delivery boy in the late 1800s when the great physicist (the 1902 Nobel laureate) invented the x-ray machine.
Wow, check out his Wikipedia entry:
Linkletter was born Gordon Arthur Kelly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada...
He was adopted by Mary (née Metzler) and Fulton John Linkletter, an evangelical preacher. Later moving to the United States, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1934 from San Diego State Teacher College (now San Diego State University) (SDSU) where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. While he attended San Diego State, he played for the basketball team, and swam for the swim team. He had previously planned to attend Springfield College, but did not for financial reasons. He later served for many years as a trustee at Springfield College, and donated money to build the swim center named in his honor...
A Republican, he became a political organizer and a spokesman for the United Seniors Association, now known as USA Next, an alternative to the AARP...
Art Linkletter died on May 26, 2010 at his home in Bel Air, California...
Linkletter had one of the longest marriages of any celebrity in America (it lasted for 74.5 years, until his death). He married Lois Foerster on November 25, 1935, and they had five children: Arthur Jack (known as Jack Linkletter, a TV host), Dawn, Robert, Sharon, and Diane. He was also a good friend of Walt Disney...
Sounds an awful lot like Ronald Reagan's career - starting with the sports in college and ending with the home in Bel Air.
Sigh.
America really was a better place when Republicans were still allowed to work in Hollyweird.
John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Charlton Heston - all the great actors from the Golden Age were GOP.
It was always hard to believe he was from Canada, as nobody on TV appeared more middle-American.
He became a tireless anti-drug campaigner, though for the wrong reasons. The true causes of his daughter's suicide were apparently too much for him to face; otherwise he could have aimed his efforts toward preventing the same tragedy in other families.
If Art was the most American person born in Canada, Diane suffered the most Manhattanesque demise in low-rise California, choosing the route later taken by Donny Hathaway, Susannah McCorkle and Carter Vanderbilt Cooper in more obvious surroundings.
Damn,... we have got to find that episode.
Clark Gable too.
It's funny how Steve continues to say the darndest things.
Was the little black kid with the bow tie Louis Farrakhan in younger days?
So how old was the delivery boy when he sired the future doctor?
This is similar to President Tyler's grandsons: two of them are still alive.
John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Charlton Heston - all the great actors from the Golden Age were GOP.
I'm thinking Rock Hudson wasn't.
"Speaking of long time lifespans, I'm reminded when I drive my dad to the doctor to get an x-ray that his father was Roentgen's delivery boy in the late 1800s when the great physicist (the 1902 Nobel laureate) invented the x-ray machine."
Steve, why don't you let your father do a guest post here occasionally? It would be interesting to hear the perspective of a near-centenarian on current events.
"America really was a better place when Republicans were still allowed to work in Hollyweird."
Reagan didn't start out Republican. He voted for FDR first. He was also a lot more pragmatic than most of the wingers who continually invoke his memory today.
I've got a "topper" for you, which information I gleaned from a C-span
show some 20 years ago or so.
As frame of reference, I'm 73 and my grandfather was born in 1895.
President Tyler ("Tippicanoe and Tyler too") was born 100 years previously--in 1795--and was elected President in 1740. Yet he has a grandson alive NOW, younger than I by about 5 years or so.
What's more, that grandson lives in the same house as did his own grandfather (Pres. Tyler), which had been built (on the James River
by the president's grandfather in 1621!
President Tyler lived to be 79 and sired a son at age 77. That son lived to be 77 and sired a son in his final year--that would be today's Tyler. And, for those who might suggest hanky-panky in those pregnancies, you couldn't tell today's guy from his grandpa's portrait done when in the WH.
First Anonymous:
It wouldn't surprise me greatly if some of those were originally, and for some time, Democrats (as was Reagan and, come to think of it, Ike--and I don't mean Turner).
Bob Dole was a "D" but, because that nomination was "locked up," became an "R." Same for Arlen Spector's original switch in the '60s (he'd been Philly's DA as a Democrat).
Fred:
Reagan was an economics (meaning mainstream economics) major in college. But, some time later--I couldn't say just when, though before running for Gov in CA--he was persuaded to the "Austrian" view of Mises and, as governor (and later, as President) read in that vein almost constantly, even
giving up all reading for pleasure to enable that preoccupation (as described in a 1976 interview I never saw until the mid-'90s). On taking office, he hosted a WH dinner for Mises' (d. 72 or 3) widow.
"Fred said.....
Reagan didn't start out Republican. He voted for FDR first. He was also a lot more pragmatic than most of the wingers who continually invoke his memory today."
And, befitting someone whom Republicans revere, he wasn't really all that conservative either.
John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Charlton Heston - all the great actors from the Golden Age were GOP.
Reagan and Heston were both liberal Democrats during their peak *acting* years (and seriously, while Reagan was a steady, dependable leading man, I think even he'd shy away from the "great" label in that Golden Age). Grant didn't get involved in GOP politics until he retired. Mitchum and Holden were hardly interested in politics, being far more concerned with the next toke and the the next bottle, respectively. Cooper's politics were very private. John Wayne I'll grant you, though he admitted voting for FDR and Truman.;
Reagan didn't start out Republican. He voted for FDR first. He was also a lot more pragmatic than most of the wingers who continually invoke his memory today.
May I assume that you know about his work with Olivia de Havilland in forcing out the [at least overt] communists from the Hollywood unions?
Or maybe that untidy historical fact cuts just a little too close to the bone for you & your ilk?
...While making a movie he was called to a telephone at a nearby gas station. The caller would not identify himself and said that if Reagan made a speech against the strike at an upcoming meeting of the full membership of the Screen Actors Guild a squad of people would be waiting for him. According to Reagan the caller said, "Your face will never be in pictures again.
Burbank police gave Reagan a gun to carry, and a twenty-four hour guard was put on his house...
That threat could just as easily have been delivered by one of Andy Stern's SEIU/Acorn goons.
Only this time, the police won't necessarily be on our side.
we're you in that youtube video of the 1959 episode?
In a lot of ways, Reagan remained a New Deal Democrat while the rest of the party moved further left (which Reagan himself acknowledged).
Fred said: "Steve, why don't you let your father do a guest post here occasionally? It would be interesting to hear the perspective of a near-centenarian on current events."
That would be fun/interesting!
I'd also like to read a guest-post or two from Mrs. Sailer. Her comment on what did Vincente Fox have on Bush really made me giggle at the time (although I don't remember the exact context now). :-P
From --
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001369/bio
A conservative Republican, [Rock]Hudson joined Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Irene Dunne and Raymond Massey in campaigning for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election.
Art Linkletter, RIP
Yes, he was one of kind.
Many good memories from the '60s of his TV work.
America really was a better place when Republicans were still allowed to work in Hollyweird.
Oh come on. I mean back then we got this, and today we get this. What's not to like?
Steve,when the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan,are you gonna tell us you were there fetching the boys' cigarettes??
"As frame of reference, I'm 73 and my grandfather was born in 1895."
I'm 52 and my paternal grandfather was born in 1877. ;) (I don't know when *his* father was born, just that he was "old" and died not too long after siring my grandfather and his twin sister.)
"I suspect the little me was fairly insufferable."
Wow, you know Steve, maybe there is something to this "nature trumps nurture" thing you're always hawking.
Pow! Zinggggggg!
John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Charlton Heston - all the great actors from the Golden Age were GOP...
The same held true for television, as well: Chuck Connors, Fess Parker [RIP], James Arness...
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