It's Monday again (so soon?), but yesterday's demise of British Summer Time has at least given us more morning light (for a while), and it is indeed beautifully sunny out there...
The passing of Maureen O'Hara on the weekend has led to a flurry of interest in the few remaining "Golden Age of Hollywood" stars who are still with us - Miss De Havilland, of course, remains the oldest of the rapidly-diminishing bevy of "classic" leading ladies, but another on the list celebrates her 95th birthday tomorrow...
Miss Nanette Fabray (for it is she) was another "Vaudeville baby"; she overcame her deafness to graduate from theatre school and entered the studio system. On the big screen, she starred alongside Eve Arden, Gladys George and Bette Davis but it was only for one movie she is principally remembered (the rest of her long career largely made up of appearances on US TV shows) - The Band Wagon.
And here, on this Tacky Music Monday, she is - with the rest of the happy band (Fred Astaire, Oscar Levant and Jack Buchanan):
Everything that happens in life
Can happen in a show
You can make 'em laugh
You can make 'em cry
Anything
Anything can go...
The clown with his pants falling down
Or the dance that's a dream of romance
Or the scene where the villain is mean
That's entertainment!
The lights on the lady in tights
Or the bride with the guy on the side
Or the ball where she gives him her all
That's entertainment!
The plot and the hot simply teeming with sex
A gay divorcee who is after her ex
It could be Oedipus Rex
Where a chap kills his father
And causes a lot of bother
The clerk who is thrown out of work
By the boss who is thrown for a loss
By the skirt who is doing him dirt
The world is a stage,
The stage is a world of entertainment.
That's entertainment!
That's entertainment!
A philosophy that will - if anything can - get us through another week in the distinctly "un-entertaining" office...
Many happy returns, Nanette Fabray (born Ruby Bernadette Nanette Fabares, 27th October 1920)
