Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Gilda Radner

Lee Day on Life, Liver and the Hirsute of Happiness

09/18/2016

On a lovely early autumn Saturday (9/17) The Metropolitan Room hosted its first Pet Cabaret.  It may now take a modest bowwow.   I have never had much patience for clubbing baby seals; indeed I saw none today at the Met Room.  But when it comes to shooting urban animals, photographs that is, I’m your man.

img_3019-i-gotta-crowLee Day, “I’ve Gotta Crow”

Lee Day, sporting Milk Bone earrings and a “Lady and the Tramp” shirt, sang a mixed bag of animal-related numbers and shared bits of her life.  She opened with a clean verse of “Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals” (Michael O Donoghue) made famous, ahem . . . , by Gilda Radner.  She sang a bit from “Biscuits are a Dog’s Best Friend” – without apologies to Styne and Robin (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).  Then “I’ve Gotta Crow” (Charlap, Leigh), “Talk to the Animals” (Darin), etc.; you get the idea.

Day’s love of animals has gained her entrée to numerous experiences and celebrities – both before and after achieving some renown.  Early in her career she discovered she was a kind of “cat whisperer” when rescuing the feline of an opera singer from a precarious perch.  The singer was so grateful that she “gave” Day access to an idol of hers, Doris Day (no relation).  Doris Day called Lee Day at an appointed hour and they immediately hit it off over their common cause – talking at length. Doris encouraged Lee to pursue her dream – and she did.  They have spoken often since that day.

img_3025-lee-and-some-patronsLee Day and Metropolitan Room Patrons

Lee grooms, and entertains, pets; indeed, she provides grooming house-calls.  She has serviced, so to speak, pets of Frank Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, Joan Rivers and Mary Tyler Moore.  She has appeared on television with Regis Philbin, Sally Jesse Raphael and, in England, with Terry Wogan.  She was seen on the Terry Wogan show by the Queen and Princess Di who then asked to meet her; Day sang for the princes when they were smaller than she. Day is a proponent of pound puppies and does not subscribe to remote animal care; all animal care should be transparent to owners.   All of her grooming comes with pet entertainment, but not all entertainment comes with grooming.  For example, Lee does entertain at pet weddings and bark-mitzvahsTM.

Day explained in the course of her show that she suffers from Noonan’s syndrome, a condition affecting her learning capacity as well as her physical state (including, particularly the heart).  Still, most of us could benefit from whatever has affected Day’s heart; she is guileless and effusive, and she clearly loves animals.  She has built for herself a unique career and a remarkable life and, in the process, gained apparent contentment.

img_3048img_3046-day-lively-singing-hes-a-trampLee Day and Anna Lively sing “He’s a Tramp”

Lee Day was the name on the show marquee, but she was nicely supported by friend Anna Lively, a regular cabaret performer, who joined Day on stage for a lovely and amusing rendition of “He’s a Tramp” (lyrics by Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke, music by Oliver Wallace with an assist from Peggy Lee, baying by Lee Day).  Both were loosely accompanied on the Piano by Jeff Franzel, an uber-able musician who has played with Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Les Brown, among others, and now writes songs for the likes of The Temptations, Placido Domingo and Josh Groban, as eclectic a group of performers as one can cram into three personnae.

Following the show, doggy treats were made available (by the Met Room) to all comers.  In New York (unless it’s Trump) you blink and you miss it.  It was sweet, if a tad sentimental, and it may not come again.

Photos by Fred Cohen Photography

R.I.P Gene Wilder

08/29/2016

On August 29 the world became just a little less funny with the news that legendary comedian Gene Wilder had passed away at the age of 83.  Gene Wilder performed in several Broadway productions including Mother Courage and Her Children and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest before getting his first film role in the 1967 picture Bonnie and Clyde working alongside Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. But he didn’t really hit it big until The Producers (1968) written and directed by Mel Brooks where as Leo Bloom, Wilder played the straight man to Zero Mostel. Wilder was in a word magical; the scene where Mostel’s Max gets Leo dancing around in a fountain is one for the ages as is seeing the Jewish Leo having to wear a swastika banner on his arm.  Wilder was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Mel Brooks (And America!) had found a new Funnyman.

Gene Wilder’s iconic performance in the titular role of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor-Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. No offense to Johnny Depp, but no one, no one could play a peculiar, sad-eyed dreamer like Wilder could with those large haunting, melancholy peepers of his. In 1972, Wilder was featured in Woody Allen’s classic Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid To Ask. In 1974, Wilder starred in two movies for Brooks; Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein both of which are now universally agreed on as not only Brooks best work, not only two of the best comedies of all time, but as two of the best movies of all time. Period. (To this day my father has memorized the whole song and dance routine for Young Frankenstein’s musical number “Putting on the Ritz.”)

Then came the Richard Pryor years following the 1976 hit Silver Streak when Hollywood learned that Pryor and Wilder were a dynamite pairing. The two would go on to make three more films Stir Crazy (1980), See No Evil Hear No Evil (1989) and Another You (1990).  The last was the last major film either one of them ever starred in. Pryor became increasingly debilitated due to MS and died in 2005, while Wilder became more retiring in the wake of the death of his third wife Gilda Radner at the age of 42, from ovarian cancer in 1989.  He only had a few smaller television gigs, including the role of Mock Turtle in a live action version of Alice in Wonderland, and then retreated to private life completely. But oh what a run he had while it lasted!

Goodbye Gene, and I hope you’re riding off into the sunset now somewhere with Gilda, Richard, Zero, and Cleavon Little.

Photo from Bigstock