Time Warp

Picture it, New York, 1978: Merv Griffin and his guests -- Ethel Merman, Shelley Winters and Alexis Smith -- discuss Broadway, Chita Rivera, "A Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts," disco, Studio 54, Bob Mackie, and the opening of Smith's cult flop musical, Platinum, in what may be the gayest 13 minutes you'll ever spend in your life.

Carny Girls

A Lady Reveals Nothing

But we can still spot a tramp a mile away. We love Gloria Grahame!

Natural Progression

Who's Sorry Now?

She could sing pop, rock, country, jazz and R&B. She translated her hits (all 35 million records' worth of 'em) into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and German. She was the first female pop-rock superstar, one as comfortable on the set of American Bandstand as she was on the stage of The Sahara in Vegas. She was the girl next door in a prom dress and pearls, and a larger than life diva with hair to match. She is Connie Francis, and she was our latest Mystery Guest!


It's this dichotomy in her public image -- Doris Day, by way of Annette Funicello, with a large helping of Agnes Moorehead-as-Endora anachronistic glamour -- that make Connie Francis' paper dolls so much fun, along with your guesses! Any one celebrity whose wardrobe calls to mind perky Debbie Reynolds, wacky Lucille Ball, frilly Loretta Young and Amazonian Julie Newmar is tops in our book.


From the start, there was something different about Connie Francis. Among the homogeneously pretty, blond-and-blue-eyed ingenues crowding the music, television and film industries when she came along in the 1950's, Connie, with her proud Italian-American heritage and dark, ethnic beauty, stood out among the Tuesday Welds and Sandra Dees. And then there was that voice -- a voice which seemed to incongruously belong to a junior Judy Garland or a femme Al Jolson. Like her equally talented contemporary, Brenda Lee, Connie was the proverbial Little Lady with the Big Voice -- but, unlike Brenda, Connie's versatility was so astonishing, it was almost self-parody. Connie Francis Sings Italian Favorites. Sings Jewish Favorites. Sings Irish Favorites. Sings German Favorites. Sings Folk Songs Favorites. There were Fun Songs for Children, and Award Winning Motion Picture Hits, and Country Music, Connie Style. In a delicious bout of musical schizophrenia, she was Hawaii Connie and Connie Francis On Broadway Today and Connie Francis at the Copa and A New Kind of Connie. If you were a Connie fan, you could Do the Twist!, or indulge in Greatest American Waltzes.


Frankly, we find Connie the most interesting after her chart success fell into sharp decline around 1964. All of her major, teen-oriented hits were well behind her ("Who's Sorry Now," "Stupid Cupid," "Lipstick on Your Collar," "Where the Boys Are"), but Connie continued to be a major concert and nightclub draw, as well as a prolific albums artist. She always had a hipper cachet than, say, Vikki Carr or Eydie Gorme; but listening to her splendid recordings of such standards as "Stardust," "The Shadow of Your Smile," and "Where Can I Go without You," or watching her performances on the variety shows of the day, it's clear that Connie relished the chance to really show off her jazzy, cabaret bent.

There's an image embedded in the public consciousness of a maudlin Connie Francis sobbing her way through a soggy ballad; and it's undeniable that quite a few numbers in the Franconero repertoire have a healthy dollop of sentimentality. The singer's own well-publicized woes -- a brutal 1974 rape which effectively ended her performing career for half a decade; her brother's murder at the hands of the Mafia; four failed marriages and seventeen involuntary stays in mental institutions -- only serve to burnish her reputation as, if not necessarily tragic, a tragedienne in the most dramatic sense. But Connie Francis is made of stronger stuff than that. What we love most is her chutzpah -- the ballsiness and salty humor she hid behind the bouffants and crinolines, which served her well in going toe-to-toe with MGM Records executives, truculent musicians and songwriters, and her irascible father, with whom she shared a complicated, love-hate relationship. She blazed a trail for every female pop-rock star to follow, and she did it on her own terms, called all the shots, studied every detail -- and still remained a lady. Not incidentally, she also did it in a variety of fabulous Don Loper frocks, with enough chiffon swags, net panels and fur trim to make Danny LaRue sigh with envy.

The mysterious Plum was the first to correctly guess Connie's identity -- so we extend our congratulations and huzzahs as we pack Plum off on full scholarship to the Joey Josephs Connie Francis Impersonators Academy. We can scarcely wait to see the results!

As always, thanks for playing, darlings! We had a lot of fun with this one. Here's a little more Connie Couture for inspiration.

The Lizard of Roz

Just Three Little Girls with a Dream

Geometry Lessons

Miss Stanwyck appears courtesy of MATTADORE!

Still a Mystery

Darlings, we had fully intended to reveal our latest Mystery Guest's identity this morning, but, alas -- Real Life and its encroachment on our time continues unabated. We will endeavor to satisfy your burning curiosity by Wednesday at the very latest; in the meantime, why not throw a few more guesses into the pool?

Have a Diller of a Weekend!

HAH!!!

Guess Who?

Which living doll inspired these ensembles?

Raye of Hope

Proof that, when called upon, even The Big Mouth could serve up some serious glam.

Cutting Edge Fashion

Don't cut yourself on her talons. Or her hair. Or her eyeliner.

When Bombshells Meet...

Jayne Mansfield and Cleo Moore

Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell

Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe

Jayne Mansfield and Eva Gabor

Jayne Mansfield and Diana Dors

Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins

Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren

...it's usually a bust.

Amayezing

Marvelous Marilyn Maye and her brilliant musical director, Tedd Firth

What do you get when you perfectly blend Kay Thompson's wildly clever wordplay and tempo-changing fearlessness; Peggy Lee's precise attention to every detail of lighting and presentation; Julie Wilson's sly rapport with the audience; the interpretive wisdom of Sylvia Syms; the chiffon-and-shot-silk huskiness of Rosemary Clooney; Doris Day's immediacy, Ella Fitzgerald's swing, and Judy Garland's throb? You get the complete nightclub performer, one who ultimately renders all comparisons moot because she is uniquely Miss Marilyn Maye.

Having witnessed Miss Maye's triumphant closing night performance at The Metropolitan Room yesterday (read our recap of her Sunday night show here), we are now sated but weary: from chafing our hands raw from clapping; from running our vocal cords ragged from cheering.

Never one to rest on her laurels, Miss Maye continually delights and astounds. We've seen this current show, "Her Kind of Broadway," four times -- and each experience is a surprise. The four songs which form the emotional core of a show with a higher ratio of upbeat swingers are the radiantly hopeful "Ribbons Down My Back," the bruised "I'm Thru with Love," the wistful "Joey, Joey, Joey" and the naked "Losing My Mind." Miss Maye devastates the audience with these numbers each and every time, but the interpretation is constantly evolving. One night, "Losing My Mind" might seem rueful, the next painfully desperate. "Joey, Joey, Joey" might evoke the title character's wandering soul one night; another, the quiet longing of one special "lady in the neighborhood" who cannot tie him down. "Ribbons" and "I'm Thru with Love" seem to always come from the same place in Maye's interpretive soul, but a flick of a phrase here, a switch in emphasis there, and the same song sounds entirely different from the previous performance.

We realize that we're cheerleading here, but Marilyn Maye is the one ticket in town which we will always vouch for with the utmost confidence. She's making an rare, unscheduled return on December 13, again at The Metropolitan Room, in a one night only holiday-themed show. If you haven't seen her yet, we can think of no better Christmas present to give yourself!

Big Eydie and Rittle Eydie

Let it Bea

Friends of Dorothy

Malone, darlings!