Father's Day Revisited

On Sunday, June 18, 2017, I wrote a blog post (Father's Day) about my father, Harry Lasky, born September 7, 1901 in Troy, NY and died September 17, 1981 in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  His remains lie somewhere in a cemetery in Broward County, FL.  I want to re-examine our relationship and how it affected me during my youth.

In school, I did very well and developed academic self-confidence.  My older brothers Joel and Paul had also done very well in school and I felt it was incumbent on me to match their performance.

On or about 11 years old, I started noticing girls.  I wanted to have relationships with girls, but I developed a shyness around them.  My lack of social self-confidence did not match my academic self-confidence.

Negative experiences reinforced my shyness.  I began to feel it was better not to even try to overcome this lack of social self-confidence.  Nothing ventured...nothing lost.  

As I grew into adulthood, I started having positive experiences which overcame my shyness and I developed social self-confidence, especially with females.

I firmly believe that instilling self-confidence, in all its aspects, is very important for children.  Bonita and I did that with Rachel and Bret.

According to Psychology Today, people are not born shy.  "Babies are born with different temperaments, and those with an extremely sensitive temperament are more likely to go on to be shy. Yet supportive, sensitive parenting can buffer against developing shyness or social anxiety."

My mother tried on several occasions to reinforce my social self-confidence.  For example, she signed me up for dancing classes... with girls.

Unfortunately, I did not have much of a relationship with my father.  He believed his only role as a father was as a bread winner.

My father did boast to me on at least one occasion that he was somewhat of a ladies' man.  He was a good looking guy with money in his pocket.  He was attractive to females.  I wish he could have told me that I, too, was a good looking guy who was attractive to females.  It would have helped. 

Hiding in a Hotel Room

 As I have previously mentioned, my spring break trip with my parents to Miami Beach in 1963 was a many faceted experience for me.

I met Cassius Clay, soon to become Muhammed Ali, at the Fifth Street Gym.

I won a dance contest at a night club doing the twist.

I went with my Uncle Sam Friedland (really a cousin by marriage) and a couple of teenage girls from Rochester, NY on a trip to the beach in Fort Lauderdale to check out who was wearing Champion clothing.  He was a salesman for the company.

I recently mentioned an anecdotal story related to a waitress in the hotel coffee shop.

Now, I want to talk about an embarrassing memory.  The hotel where we were staying was throwing a party for its teenage guests.  As a seventeen year-old, I qualified.

My reaction at the time was fear, fear of being in an uncomfortable situation (a party with boys and girls).  I thought it best to avoid uncomfortable situations.  I should have felt that this was a wonderful opportunity that I had to take advantage of.

So, what did I do?  I hid in our hotel room.  But that did not prevent a young girl from doing her best to rid me of my fears.

Somehow, this girl, who was also a guest at the hotel, discovered where my room was.  She had the courage to knock on the door of a complete stranger.  I let her in.  We were all alone.  

As best she could, she tried to convince me to come to the party and that if I did, I would have a good time.  And how did I reward this girl who risked humiliation and embarrassment?  

I didn't go to the party.  I stayed in the room all night.  What a dope.  She must have thought me a coward.  And I was.  I shouldn't have let fear control my behavior.

Witness for the Prosecution

I have always found courtroom dramas to be very entertaining.  My favorite is Anatomy of a Murder (1959) pitting James Stewart against George C. Scott.  Other good ones are To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Caine Mutiny (1954) and Adam's Rib (1949).

Today I'd like to talk about another such drama, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) starring Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Elsa Lanchester.  

It was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning none:  Best Picture (won by The Bridge on the River Kwai), Best Director (Billy Wilder, won by David Lean for The Bridge on the River Kwai), Best Actor (Laughton, won by Alec Guinness for The Bridge on the River Kwai), Best Supporting Actress (Lanchester, won by Miyoshi Umeki for Sayonara), Best Film Editing (won by The Bridge on the River Kwai) and Best Sound Recording (won by Sayonara).

Senior barrister (UK legal system) Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Laughton), who is recovering from a heart attack, agrees to defend Leonard Vole (Power).  Vole is accused of murdering a wealthy, childless widow who had become enamored of him and had named him as the main beneficiary in her will. 

Strong circumstantial evidence points to Vole as the killer, but Sir Wilfrid believes Vole to be innocent.  Vole's German wife Christine (Dietrich) provides an alibi, although it is not entirely convincing.

During the trial, Christine is called as a witness for the prosecution as she is not legally married to Vole.  She testifies that Vole privately confessed to her that he had killed the victim, and her conscience forced her to finally tell the truth.

During the trial, Sir Wilfred is contacted by a mysterious woman who has evidence that Christine perjured herself.  This convinces the jury that Vole should be acquitted and he is.

However, that is not the end.  There is a surprise that I don't want to divulge.

This was Tyrone Power's last finished movie.  He died of a heart attack (while making another) at age forty-four.

In real life, Laughton and Lanchester, who played Sir Wilfred's nurse in the film, were a married couple.   

    

Yearbook, Chapter 2

 "I love root beer floats," said Bubbles, while we were sitting together in a booth at Whelan's Drugstore.

"Me, too.  My aunt turned me on to them years ago."

"So...what are we doing here?"

"I thought you were hungry."

"Yeah, but...why am I so lucky?"

"You mean...why did I invite YOU?"

"Yeah...exactly."

"Well...I guess it was my nose."

She started laughing hysterically.

"I'm not used to getting such compliments (I said); my brain, yeah, but not my looks."

"You must know you're a good-lookin' guy."

"I figure I'm not ugly, but...good-lookin'?"

"Half the girls in school are jealous of me right this minute...trust me."

"Ok!"

"You had a girlfriend almost all year.  Didn't that show you something?"

"No, she liked me for my brain.  We never talked about looks.  Now she found somebody she thinks is smarter."

"Well...she's the loser."

She finished her root beer float.  

"So...what are WE...now, Bennie?"

I thought for a moment.

"Are you busy Friday night?"

Jackie

 Jacqueline (Jackie) Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929 in Southampton, New York.  Her family resided in Manhattan.

Jackie attended grades 1-7 at the Chapin School in Manhattan.  One of her teachers described her as "a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of the devil."

For 8th and 9th grades, Jackie attended the Holton-Arms School in Washington, D.C.  She finished high school at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, CT.

Jackie started her college career at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.  After spending her Junior year studying in France, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. earning a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in French literature.

Washington Times-Herald editor Frank Waldrop hired Jackie as a part-time receptionist.  A week later she requested more challenging work, and Waldrop sent her to city editor Sidney Epstein, who hired her as an "Inquiring Camera Girl" despite her inexperience, paying her $25 a week.

Epstein recalled, "I remember her as this very attractive, cute-as-hell girl, and all the guys in the newsroom giving her a good look."  The position required Jackie to pose witty questions to individuals chosen at random on the street and take their pictures for publication in the newspaper alongside selected quotations from their responses.

In addition to the random "man on the street" vignettes, Jackie sometimes sought interviews with people of interest, such as six-year-old Tricia Nixon. She interviewed Tricia a few days after her father Richard Nixon was elected vice president of the United States in 1952.  Eight years later, Jackie would be married to the man who would defeat Nixon for the presidency of the United States.  

Jackie was briefly engaged to a young stockbroker named John Husted. After only a month of dating, the couple published the announcement in The New York Times in January 1952.  After three months, she called off the engagement because she had found him "immature and boring" once she got to know him better.

In December 1993, Jackie developed symptoms, including a stomach ache and swollen lymph nodes in her neck, and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  By the following March the cancer had spread to her spinal cord, brain and liver and by May it was deemed terminal.  Jackie died May 19, 1994 (30 years ago) in her sleep in her Manhattan apartment at age 64.

The Waitress

During spring break 1963, I was with my parents at a hotel in Miami Beach, Florida.  I was seventeen years old and anxious to start my new life by going away to college a few months later.

Which college?  I had been accepted at six universities as an engineering student:  Penn, Michigan, Cornell, Brandeis, Georgia Tech and Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve).

One morning at the hotel, I woke early (before my parents) and decided to have breakfast alone at its coffee shop.  

As I entered, I remember there being few customers.  Near the front was a table populated by a bunch of teenage girls.  I decided to eat at the counter with my back to the girls.  I was my waitress's only customer.

I avoided turning around.  I looked straight ahead, gave my order to the waitress and ate the food when she brought it to me.  I tried to ignore the girls behind me as I assumed they were ignoring me.

For no particular reason, the waitress decided to do me a favor.  From her vantage point, she could both see and hear the teenage girls behind me.

Before I left the coffee shop, the waitress told me the teenage girls had been looking at and almost exclusively talking about me.  Suffering at the time from a lack of social self-esteem, I didn't believe her.  Why should I?  She was a stranger.  

In retrospect (from more than sixty years later), I should have believed the waitress and taken advantage of the very useful information she provided.  Maybe I should have had the courage to join the teenage girls at their table.  I had much to gain...perhaps a boost in my social self-esteem.

Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde is a 1967 American biographical neo-noir crime film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the title characters Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The film also features Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons.

Bonnie and Clyde is considered a landmark picture. It broke many film taboos.  The movie's ending became iconic as "one of the bloodiest death scenes in cinematic history".

The film received Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography.  It was ranked 27th on the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 100 greatest American films of all time and 42nd on its 2007 list.

During the Great Depression, Clyde Barrow (Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Dunaway) of Texas meet when Clyde tries to steal Bonnie's mother's car. Bonnie, who is bored by her job as a waitress, is intrigued by Clyde and decides to take up with him and become his partner in crime.

Bonnie and Clyde pull off some holdups, but their amateur efforts, while exciting, are not very lucrative. They turn from small-time heists to bank robbing.

Bonnie and Clyde's crime spree shifts into high gear once they hook up with a dim-witted gas station attendant, C.W. Moss (Pollard). Their exploits also become more violent.

After C.W. botches parking their getaway car during a bank robbery and delays their escape, Clyde shoots the bank manager in the face when he jumps onto the slow-moving car's running board.  Clyde's older brother Buck (Hackman) and his wife, Blanche (Parsons), also join them.

C.W. takes Bonnie and Clyde to hide out at his father's house, who thinks the couple have corrupted his son.  The father makes a deal with the police: in exchange for leniency for C.W.

The police set a trap for the outlaws.  When Bonnie and Clyde stop on the side of the road to help C. W.'s father fix a flat tire, the posse in the bushes riddle the couple with bullets. 

Bonnie and Clyde was one of the first films to feature extensive use of squibs—small explosive charges, often mounted with bags of stage blood, that detonate inside an actor's clothes to simulate bullet hits. Released in an era when film shootings were generally depicted as bloodless and painless, the Bonnie and Clyde death scene was one of the first in mainstream American cinema to be depicted with graphic realism.