Diane Keaton (1946-2025)

I loved seeing her, on-screen.  Her talent, at both comedy and drama, was awesome. She was brilliant--so deeply funny, and charming, and serious--in 1977's Annie Hall, with Woody Allen (for which she won a Best Actress Oscar). And superb in so many other roles--including the 2003 romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give, with Jack Nicholson (which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination).

There is a significant scene in Annie Hall which I particularly enjoy, and admire.  It is not a comic scene. She sings in a nightclub, for about two and a half minutes, the 1940s song "Seems Like Old Times." Her vocal, at the link below, is really lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p32OEIazBew&list=RDp32OEIazBew&start_radio=1

October 7th

Remembering, on the second anniversary of October 7th, the sickening, gruesome attacks which took place in Israel: the twelve hundred people who were murdered by Hamas (aided by such terrorist groups as Palestinian Islamic Jihad). Some civilians, it has been reported, also took part in the attacks.

And, remembering the breathtaking extent of the cruelties, the terror, that day: the burning of homes with their residents inside, the hunting of victims, the rapes (which, it has been reported, included gang rape), the reported acts of mutilation of victims' bodies, the countless other depravities. 

And, of course: the kidnappings of some 250 people--babies, children, adults, and elderly people, taken into Gaza as hostages.

Twenty hostages are believed to still be alive in Gaza; it is also believed that the bodies of twenty-eight others, who were either killed on October 7th or who died afterward, remain held by Hamas.

One prays that the peace deal currently on the table will be agreed to (or at least mostly agreed to), that all of the hostages (living and dead) will be released to their loved ones, that Hamas will lay down its arms and will leave Gaza, and that we will see the beginning of the end of the suffering of the Palestinian civilians.

Rob Reiner, and early television

The noted film director and actor Rob Reiner was interviewed on 60 Minutes Sunday night.  He talked about his life and career, and his new film, Spinal Tap II, a sequel to the original Spinal Tap movie, which was released in 1984, and was the first film he directed. He later directed such movies as A Few Good Men, The American President, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, and Stand By Me.

Mr. Reiner, who is 78, was also interviewed in the September/October issue of the AARP Bulletin.  He was asked about his father, Carl Reiner, who had a long and distinguished show business career--as an actor, comedian, writer, and director. He created television's Dick Van Dyke Show--and, memorably, acted on the show, as TV star Alan Brady. He also appeared as a performer in early television--which included his starring role on Your Show of Shows, which aired Saturday nights on NBC, from 1950 until 1954.

Rob Reiner said this, in the AARP interview, about early TV: "Oddly enough, my father was on television before we had a television.  We bought one in 1951 so we could see him on Saturday nights." 

I have no doubt this was true of many television performers of the era--that they may not have had a TV set when they began performing in the new medium.

In 1949, my mother was living with her parents; she had graduated from college in 1948.  She had appeared in a Broadway music and comedy revue, Small Wonder, from the fall of 1948 until the show closed in January of 1949. Soon after, she began singing on The Stan Shaw Show, a weekday musical program on TV's DuMont Network; she sang on the show until early March, when the program left the air. From March until July, she sang on a weeknight musical show on the network, Teen Time Tunes, with the musical group The Alan Logan Trio.  Shortly after Teen Time Tunes began airing, she turned twenty-one. 

Her family, at the time, didn't own a TV set, and so my grandparents would go to Macy's, in New York City, to watch her on the store's demonstration models. 

Early in the year, my parents had met at a party, and began dating; they would marry in August of 1949.  My father was in his medical residency at the time, and he didn't have a TV set either. In order to see my mother sing on Teen Time Tunes, he would often go to the DuMont Network studio on Madison Avenue, and (while there was no studio audience for the program) would watch the show in person.