tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2398796842887862508.post5256155758083255931..comments2024-03-20T19:06:59.758-07:00Comments on Classic Television Showbiz: An Interview with Bobby Ramsen - Part OneUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2398796842887862508.post-22627181804489142542018-04-17T14:51:10.901-07:002018-04-17T14:51:10.901-07:00Enjoying the interview. Got to know Bobby's wo...Enjoying the interview. Got to know Bobby's work through his Bob Newhart Show appearances as Johnny Carson Jr once as their landlord, once as a bartender.<br />When Bobby references The Holiday House in Port Tucket, Rhode Island that really should be PAWTUCKET, Rhode Island, just down the road from my RI hometown: Woonsocket.<br />Show biz people from Woonsocket: Eddie Dowling (1889-1976) Broadway actor, screenwriter, playwright, producer, songwriter and composer. Born in Woonsocket. There's an Eddie Dowling Highway in the next town: North Smithfield. <br />Eileen Farrell (1920-2002) grew up in Woonsocket. A soprano who had a nearly 60-year-long career performing both classical and popular music in concerts, theatres, on radio and television, and on disc.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2398796842887862508.post-61244722927547878172011-04-02T21:24:15.881-07:002011-04-02T21:24:15.881-07:00Another fantastic Bob Hope story I'd never hea...Another fantastic Bob Hope story I'd never heard. And the Dangerfield anecdote was something, that's a side of Dangerfield I never knew. The Fields story is certainly in character with Fields' reputation in his early era, like the reprehensible night when he smashed someone over the head with a pool cue right on stage for catching flies during his pool hall sketch (one version has the stagehands dragging the unconscious guy off the stage, bleeding profusely, while the audience gasped in horror). <br /><br />I sometimes wonder about the veracity of that ubiquitous tale about Fields throwing up in the parking lot after every Chaplin film he ever saw because he knew he could never be that good no matter what. It's certainly believable, Fields was setting a very high bar but Chaplin was in a different league. I predict that the current critical preference for Buster Keaton over Chaplin, by the way (kind of like choosing Rube Goldberg over Philo Farnsworth as an inventor), will eventually melt away and be regarded as a most curious anomaly by future generations, although we may not quite live to see it.Michael Powersnoreply@blogger.com