"A Funny Thing Happened..." - A Memoir by Lester Colodny

What is more fun than a barrel of monkeys? The question is asked, and hilariously answered, in a new memoir by Lester Colodny of Westport, Connecticut. “A Funny Thing Happened - Life Behind the Scenes: Hollywood Hilarity and Manhattan Mayhem” was recently published by SciArt Media, written by Mr. Colodny with Susan Heller.

Mr. Colodny kindly granted me a phone interview and discussed his long and varied career as a writer of plays, ad copy, of news précis, and screenplays. He stumbled into acting and stumbled into Mae West, touring with her show “Diamond L’il”. He worked as a literary agent, a talent agent, and director of television commercials. He won an Emmy Award for a special with Jack Benny he wrote, directed and produced. He won several “Clio” awards for his unique “Xerox” commercials. Now, at 85 years old, he directs community theatre plays in Connecticut, and has written this fun memoir of a life of many career twists and turns, usually unexpected and often under the silliest of circumstances.

“When I look back, I say, “Who is that fellow, Les Colodny, that did all that?”

The monkeys, incidentally, involved the completely unprepared cast of NBC’s “The Today” show, with a clownish Dave Garroway, and his terrorized compatriots: Frank Blair, Jack Lescoulie, and a very young, beautiful, and horror-stricken Florence Henderson. Mr. Colodny was the show’s writer and associate producer at the time. You need to read the book just for this story alone.

He is a multi-talented raconteur and teller of stories, which feature Frank Sinatra, Mel Brooks, Jerry Lewis, and many more. Mr. Colodny’s granddaughter, actress, Elizabeth Hendrickson (“The Young and the Restless” and “All My Children” - 2002-2007) wrote the foreword.

“My life is funny,” Mr. Colodny remarks, noting that the parade of comical incidents, improbable twists of fate, and the sometimes exasperating over-the-top characters that have passed through his life is like, “God played a joke on me.”

For more on Lester Colodny’s work in theatre, including his new avocation as a director of community theatre plays in Connecticut, have a look at next week’s Tragedy and Comedy in New England blog. For more on his adventures in film and television, join us in a couple weeks at Another Old Movie Blog.

For more on Lester Colodny’s book and to order your copy, have a look here at the SciArt Media website. SciArt Media is a new publishing company in New Hampshire, which specializes in books by New England authors.

The Wreck of the SS Andrea Doria

In late July 1956, the ocean liner SS Andrea Doria sank on the last night of its transatlantic voyage from Italy to New York City when another ocean liner, the MS Stockholm, collided with her.

It seemed a watershed moment, almost as if morosely heralding the end of the leisurely elegance of ship travel (the first jet was to cross the Atlantic two years later), and the beginning of instant news as still photographers from Life magazine and others, newsreel cameramen, and reporters scrambled to the site to watch the vessel sink. Topping any newspaper “extras,” the film was developed and shown on television.

Most amazing about the story of the sinking of the Andrea Doria is rescue operation that began in such an impromptu fashion, among a variety of vessels and participants, and became one of the most successful rescues at sea in history. The death toll of 46 from the Andrea Doria and 5 from the Stockholm was a tragedy. That there were not more was a triumph.

Much of the information from this post comes from Richard Goldstein’s fine book Desperate Hours - The Epic Rescue of the Andrea Doria (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., NY, 2003), as well as the interesting television documentary, Secrets of the Dead - The Sinking of the Andrea Doria (PBS 2006).

Her last voyage was to be a nine-day journey from Genoa, Italy to New York City in this era where travel was leisurely. The trip enjoyed clear weather, and a peaceful crossing until its final night when disaster struck off the New England coast.

An excellent book called Shipwrecks Around Cape Cod by William P. Quinn (Lower Cape Publishing, Orleans, Mass. 1973), notes centuries of nautical disasters off the shores of Cape Cod where a variety of circumstances have made these treacherous waters. Survival rates, in days long gone by, were not very good.

Safety, and chances of survival, had improved a very great deal by the summer of 1956 when the Andrea Doria was completing her pleasant journey across the Atlantic. But a hurdle had been thrown out by the typically unforgiving New England weather on this last evening of the voyage, the notoriously fog-bound waters south of Nantucket.

There was the usual last night festivities on ship, with champagne and streamers, and a roast beef dinner, and “Arrivederci Roma” played by Dino Massa and Orchestra. Shortly after 11 p.m., the MS Stockholm accidentally rammed the Andrea Doria, and a drama of several hours began.

Ten minutes after the collision, a ship-to-shore radio station in Chatham, Massachusetts on the Cape received a distress call, first from the Stockholm, and immediately followed by the Andrea Doria. Closest to the scene were six other ships: a commercial freighter called Cape Ann; a military transport Private William H. Thomas; the Coast Guard cutter Hornbeam; a Navy destroyer escort ship Edward H. Allen; and a tanker, the Robert E. Hopkins; as well as another grand ocean liner, the Ile de France.

Fortunately, though the Stockholm was severely damaged in the collision, the ship was still seaworthy and also rescued passengers from the Andrea Doria. The Andrea Doria lost the use of half of its lifeboats due to technical glitch brought on by the listing of the ship. Had not so many ships raced to the rescue, an enormous tragedy similar to the Titanic could have occurred with not enough lifeboats for the passengers.

The freighter Cape Ann, owned by the United Fruit Company, was the first to arrive. The Coast Guard directed the rescue, with participation to varying degrees from military installations around New England, including the Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth and Coast Guard units at Woods Hole on the Cape; New London, Connecticut; and in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Some injured passengers were plucked by helicopter and taken to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital for first treatment before being taken to Boston.

Boston Daily Globe, July 26, 1956, p. 1

A total of 1660 passengers and crew were rescued. The Andrea Doria, after a dark night of terror, could not be saved, and sank at around 10 a.m. the following morning, in full daylight, in full view of the cameras. For more on the shipboard experiences that night and rescue of two Hollywood stars, have a look at this post at my Another Old Movie Blog.

For more in the story of the Andrea Doria, have a look at this website.

Out to Lunch

I'll be back next week.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse - Revisited

We had previously discussed the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine in this previous post of two years ago, but having just found this nice panoramic shot, we might as well take another look.

Close-ups of lighthouses are great, but what’s a lighthouse without a broad horizon of ocean before it?

Hartford's "Boat Building"

Here’s a look at the Boat Building. It’s the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building in Constitution Plaza, Hartford, Connecticut, built 1961 to 1963. It was the first two-sided building in the world.

Now on the National Register of Historic Places, it represents that Modernist architectural style identified with the early 1960s, designed by Max Abramovitz, who also designed the United Nations Building in New York City, as well as Lincoln Center.

It’s 13 stories tall, and its sides face north and south. A couple of months ago, this 47-year-old building became the first historic building in New England to earn certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for environmental achievement. Modern and progressive architecture, indeed, apparently. For more on the award, have a look at this website.

For more on the history of the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Building, have a look here.

License Plates

License plate on a roadster on exhibt at the New England Air Musuem, Windsor Locks, CT.

Maybe you can remember as far back as when new car license plates were issued every year.

Maybe you go back only as far as when they were issued every other year, in the early 1960s.

You probably don’t remember when Massachusetts was the first state to issue license plates in 1903 (New York was the first state to require them in 1901, but it was up to the car owner to obtain them.)

Here is a very interesting site run by a license plate collector, with Massachusetts plates through the years, and with samples of plates from all over the country, and some history about our license plates. They weren’t always made of tin, and they didn’t always come in a standard size. A lot of them are still made by prison inmates in many states.

How many of us entertained ourselves by searching out plates from different states on long car drives? You could call it an American pastime.

You Are Here: Portsmouth, New Hampshire

You are here: Portsmouth, New Hampshire on a summer day. I think Route 1, but I can’t quite exactly remember where. Maybe you can fill me in.