Hey, if you think I have to deal with a lot of obituaries, take a gander at what my buddy Leonard Maltin has to put up with.
Recently, I sat for a couple of interviews for the obits of famous folks who haven't died yet but probably will in the next few years. It's a creepy practice but probably necessary. And I kinda like the fact that when Bob Hope died in 2003, the obituary that the New York Times ran was written by Vincent Canby...who died in 2000.
My friend Dave Schwartz (not to be confused with the other Dave Schwartz I know or the other Dave Schwartz I know or even the other Dave Schwartz I know) writes...
I worked with Wayland Flowers and Madame on Solid Gold in the early 1980's. He was a really nice man. He got me tickets one night to see him perform at the Roxy and he was much, much funnier than he was on television. He did a more risque show than he could have performed on TV and it was very, very funny. I remember one of the jokes in the show had to do with a new home he had purchased and how run down it was. He called it, "Casa Tastrophe."
Anyway, just to add something to what you wrote on your site today... I spent some time as a stand-in on the Solid Gold show. That means if Wayland Flowers was going to do a routine with Andy Gibb or Marilyn McCoo, I stood in for the star while they were getting the lighting set on stage.
One of these times they brought Wayland out and I was standing on stage and we started a conversation. However, I didn't include Madame in the discussion. And that was the thing... if Wayland was operating Madame, you had better not ignore her. As Wayland and I spoke, before long Madame started darting around impatiently in front of me. And the more I talked with Wayland the more incensed she got at being ignored! I can't exactly describe it, but it was clear she had a personality completely distinct from Wayland and as long as Wayland had her on his arm, she came alive.
From my discussions with him, I can tell you that Wayland was an extremely nice man. I hope that somewhere there is footage of his live shows. It would certainly be worth seeing.
Apparently, there is. As a couple of folks have written to inform me, there is another performer — Rick Skye — who has inherited the act and who works with Madame, primarily in casinos and cabarets. He maintains this website and somewhere in there, you'll find an offer for a DVD of what they admit is not the best recording of a Wayland Flowers performance — but at least it's something.
By the way: This particular Dave Schwartz is the Dave Schwartz I've known the longest of all the Dave Schwartzes I know. Once upon a time, he was a production assistant on Solid Gold and I remember visiting the set one day there when the dancers were trying to teach him to do the dance routine that ran under the closing credits. This was a little like trying to teach a rhinoceros how to tightrope-walk but, hey, Dave gave it his all. He does a lot of daring things...and one recently was to make a video of a stand-up routine and —
Well, here: I'll let him tell you what he did. If you want to see an example of great courage, take a look.
Remember Wayland Flowers and Madame? Mr. Flowers was a devastatingly-funny puppeteer who moved from the gay cabaret scene into mainstream TV in the sixties and seventies. The act was the perfect example of the old saw that the ventriloquist's dummy can always get away with saying things that the ventriloquist could not. I never saw him perform live but folks who did all raved and said, as they do of some comedians, "You haven't seen him if you've only seen him on television."
I did briefly meet Wayland Flowers backstage when he was doing his 1982 TV series, Madame's Place on a stage that adjoined one where I was working. His program was being done on a very low budget...so low that they had to tape a couple of shows per day in order to bring it in for the money they had. That might have been fine but someone had forgotten something...which was that there's a simply physical limit to how long a puppeteer can keep the old arm extended in the air. The one time I got to spend any time with Jim Henson, I remember him talking about that and about the time Kermit filled in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Mr. Henson said, approximately, "It wasn't until I was out there doing the monologue that I suddenly realized, 'Oh, my God! I have to keep my arm up for ninety minutes.' We'd usually tape four or five minutes, take a ten minute break, tape four or five more..."
They figured that out when they started taping Madame's Place. The schedule simply demanded more of Flowers than he could handle. You remember those photos of Sandy Koufax after he pitched a game? The ones where he'd be in the clubhouse and they'd be packing his throwing arm in ice to bring down the swelling and pain? Well, one day I walked into the Make-Up Area on the show I was doing and Wayland Flowers was in there with his puppeteering arm soaking in a small Whirlpool of icy H2O, and he seemed to be in a great deal of agony.
We got to chatting...and I think he was talking to me mainly to get his mind off his arm, though we did talk about that, too. There was then, he said, talk of hiring a "stunt puppeteer" to switch off with him working Madame. When the other guy was doing it, Wayland would have been off-camera providing the voice. He didn't like that idea, he said. No one else had ever operated Madame...and puppeteers can get very protective and proprietary about their kids. He didn't want someone else's hand in there and he was also worried about maintaining a consistent performance. The precise way Madame moved — "her special rhythm," as he called it — was as much a part of the character as anything else. Then again, he was suffering a lot and they had something like fifty episodes left to shoot. I never heard if they wound up bringing in someone to relieve him or if he toughed it out.
That was in '82. Six years later, he passed away from one of those ugly, AIDS-related diseases.
According to his Wikipedia page, Flowers bequeathed his estate, including his puppets, to his manager, Marlena Shell. It also says there that Madame now resides in the permanent collection of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia...and sure enough, that institution's website lists Madame as being resident and as a gift of Marlena Shell. But either there were two puppets (quite possible) or the old broad's gone and busted out of the joint.
The auction house called Profiles in History is having a sale of Hollywood memorabilia next week and one of the "items" up for bid is Madame, as shown above, complete with "fainting couch." The estimated price is $25,000 to $30,000. I hope she finds a good home.
Some of you may have been wondering what the heck MeTV is. I was too until recently. MeTV is a channel that can be seen on cable in a handful of markets — Chicago, Racine, South Bend...one or two others. It features naught but reruns of classic TV, primarily sitcoms — The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Honeymooners, Mork & Mindy, Get Smart, McHale's Navy, Maude, etc. The same parent company also operates Me Too, which is a channel featuring drama — The Twilight Zone, Kojak, M Squad, Rat Patrol, etc. I'm guessing these channels (and the competing Retro Television Network) don't turn up on my DirecTV satellite feed because the rights to broadcast those shows are for limited areas so as not to conflict with something like Nickelodeon airing them. So all we get to see out here are things like this commercial with Mr. Reiner...
June 3, 2010
