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Jacqueline Kennedy's White House


Fri, Feb 10, 2012

Fifty years ago, in the simpler days of television, all three networks aired a tour of the White House led by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, a stunning number of Americans tuned in and took notice. Here is the next Fishko Files.

 

A clip from Jacqueline Kennedy's Tour of the White House.

 

 Publicity photo with Kennedy and CBS' Charles Collingwood.

 

 

To take a look at what other items First Ladies have added to the White House, read “50 Years of Decorating the White House� at WNYC Culture.

 

 

When JFK requested a re-take of his address at the end of The White House Tour, the CBS cameras were about to leave for the 13th annual Pillsbury Bake-Off in Ohio. The Pillsbury Bake-Off is a much-hyped, annual contest run by Pillsbury that started in 1949, and continues to be popular today. By the way, the grand prize-winning dessert in 1962 was Apple Pie '63 by Julia Smogor.

 

Much attention was paid to Jacqueline Kennedy’s distinct voice throughout the White House Tour broadcast.

Vaughn Meader, comedian and JFK impersonator, made light of Jackie’s delivery in “The First Family� (1962), a comedic album lampooning The Kennedys and current events at the time.

With the release of Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy this past fall, Jackie’s voice is still on people’s minds, and on the airwaves.  

 

Voices of the First Ladies

We took a listen to the voices of Mamie (Eisenhower), Jackie (Kennedy) and Lady Bird (Johnson).

 

Mamie Eisenhower

Few recordings of Mamie Eisenhower are available. Courtesy of the Eisenhower Library, here is Mamie on her 61^st birthday, blowing out candles and thanking guests for attending the celebration.

Mamie Eisenhower

“I wanted to tell you how happy you’ve made me today and I appreciate this birthday party to no end. Good start for 61…�

 

Jackie Kennedy

This is a selection from Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. Jacqueline Kennedy talks about her first tour of the White House, while in recovery after a caesarian section. Mrs. Eisenhower did not provide a wheel chair.

Jackie Kennedy

“I’d read in the paper that it was customary for the first lady to show the new one around…We were to leave at 2:30 for Florida. I didn’t want to go. After a caesarean it’s hard to walk after that. Like a fool I said I’d go. I wish I hadn’t. They said they’d have a wheel chair and everything. You were dragged around every floor and not even asked to sit down. And when I got back I really had a weeping fit. And I couldn’t stop crying for about two days. …so that wasn’t very nice of Mrs. Eisenhower.�

 

Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Johnson was more willing to enter the spotlight than Mrs. Kennedy. In fact, Mrs. Johnson accepted Mrs. Kennedy’s honorary Emmy for The White House Tour on Mrs. Kennedy’s behalf. Although there isn’t a recording from this acceptance speech, Mrs. Johnson took to television to promote causes such as the Women’s Movement throughout her time as First Lady.

Lady Bird Johnson

“I once thought the women’s movement belonged more to my daughters than to me. But I’ve come to known that it belongs to women of all ages.�

 

WNYC Production Credits

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko
Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer
Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister
WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Awards season is in full swing; still to come: Annies (for animation), Grammies and Oscars. Winning one can be a thrill. But as WNYC’s Sara Fishko found out, how you handle winning the prize can be an art in itself. (Produced in 2001).

WNYC Production Credits

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Next week, a 1950s English play opens off-Broadway that was more than just a play, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko. It was a cultural landmark that shook English class consciousness to its foundations.  A trip to post World War II Britain –in this episode of Fishko Files.

 

 

 

 

A revival of Look Back in Anger opens on February 2nd at the Roundabout Theatre. For more information, visit the Roundabout Theatre Company’s website.

England was in dire straits when Look Back in Anger premiered at the Royal Court Theater in 1956. Playwright John Osborne was a product of this climate. Osborne’s biographer, John Heilpern, explains…

"He grew out of post-war depression. I mean, it’s almost hard to imagine an England that was really broke. That had lost its empire. That had rationing. That believed in capital punishment, still. Where homosexuality was a crime. You could be imprisoned for it. This is bleak! This is a bleak place! And Osborne was the first really to mirror a class war in England that was going on at the time -  in my view, still does. But nevertheless it was at its height then, of working class or even lower-middle class of England, who were ignored."

In Heilpern’s authorized biography of Osborne, “John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Man� (2006), he zeroes in on the direct impact England’s hardship had on Osborne’s work. Osborne pinpointed one of England’s many problems as a faltering of ‘feeling.’ From Heilpern’s book…

“’What is most disastrous about the British way of life is the British Way of Feeling,’ Osborne wrote soon after Look Back in Anger’s premiere, ‘and that is something theatre can attack. We need a new feeling as much as we need a new language. Out of the feeling will come the language.’�

Osborne repeated his call for “a new feeling� in his 1957 “Declaration� essay entitled “They Call It Cricket."

 “I want to make people feel, to give them lessons in feeling. They can think afterward. In other countries this could be a dangerous approach, but there seems little danger of people feeling too much – at least not in England as I am writing�

 Look Back in Anger opened to mixed reviews, to put it mildly.

Ivor Brown, of BBC Radio’s “The Critics,�
“[The setting is] unspeakably dirty and squalid. It is difficult to believe that a colonel’s daughter, brought up with some standards, would have stayed in this sty for a day…I felt angry because [Look Back in Anger] wasted my time.�

Kenneth Tynan, The Observer
“I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger. It is the best young play of its decade.’

Harold Hobson, The Sunday Times
“[John Osborne is a] writer of outstanding promise, and the English Stage Company is to be congratulated on discovering him.�

What really got the play seen by a larger, non-theater-going, audience was an excerpt aired on British TV. Heilpern explains…

"The young didn’t go to the theater. They watched the telly, you see? And then they saw it. They saw this man talking their language! This furious Jimmy Porter - and they, in a way, themselves: their resentments in life about class, and their resentments about emotion and marriage, and whatever the state of England was at the time. It was all mirrored in the play."

Look Back in Anger touched off a new movement in British theater and film, known as Kitchen Sink Realism. These films embraced the initially controversial realism seen in Osborne’s work. Here’s a selection from the era, below.

 

• Look Back in Anger, 1959
  A film adaptation of Osborne’s play.
  Director: Tony Richardson; Starring: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Mary Ure

• Room at the Top, 1959
  An ambitious young social-climber schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter.
  Director: Jack Clayton; Starring Simone Signoret, Laurence Harvey, and Heather Sears.

• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1960
  A rebellious, hard-living factory worker juggles relationships with two women. Director: Karel Reisz. Starring Albert Finney, Shirley Anne Field, and Rachel Roberts.
• A Taste of Honey, 1961
  A plain young girl matures after becoming pregnant by a sailor.
  Director: Tony Richardson; Starring Dora Bryan, Robert Stephens, Rita Tushingham.

• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 1962
  An unruly boy, sentenced to a reformatory school, survives the institution with his talent as a long distance runner.
  Director: Tony Richardson. Starring Michaeld Redgrave, Tom Courtenay, Avis Bunnage.

• Bill Liar, 1963
  A lazy young clerk in provincial Northern England lives in his own fantasy world.
  Director: John Schlesinger. Starring Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, and Wilfred Pickles.

• Alfie, 1966
  An unapologetic ladies' man learns the consequences of his lifestyle.
  Director: Lewis Gilbert; Starring Michael Caine, Shelley Winters, and Millicent Martin.

 

For more on John Heilpern…

John Heilpern is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, where he writes the Out to Lunch column. Heilpern’s biography of Osborne, “John Osborne: The Many Life of the Angry Young Man,� is available here.

Fishko Files Production Credits

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

We got word today that renowned jazz musician-turned-manager, John Levy, has died– just three months shy of his 100^th birthday. Levy made a profound impact on the jazz world. As a bassist he jammed, played and recorded with Ben Webster, George Shearing, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum and many other greats. But later, Levy took his love of jazz and applied it to the business side of music: He became the first African-American Jazz artist’s manager. His management roster featured Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Ramsey Lewis, and Shirley Horn, to name a few.

Levy achieved much in his career, perhaps because his work as a musician had given him an “insider’s� understanding of the music business and the needs of his clients. He was inducted into the International Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997. And, in 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts named Levy a Jazz Master. This archival Fishko Files, “John Levy, Jazz Master,� was produced on the occasion of his 2006 Jazz Master honor.

 

To read more…

• From NPR Music: “The Extraordinary Career of a Man Who Managed Jazz Musiciansâ€�

• Lushlife: The Website of John Levy

 

With the much praised film The Artist gathering steam this awards season, here’s a related “Fishko Files�:  WNYC’s Sara Fishko explores Charlie Chaplin and the power of silence and sound in film (Originally produced in December 2003).

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Some of the major struggles and victories of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s coincided with a most active period for jazz music.  In honor of Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday, WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks at a few cases where the movement and the music came together.  Here’s the next Fishko Files…

The music of Max Roach will be performed by The Willie Jones III Sextet at Dizzy's Club, a part of Jazz at Lincoln Center, next week. The program features Jeremy Pelt, Steve Davis, Stacy Dillard, Eric Reed, and Dezron Douglas. For more information, click here.

 

 

 

 

The liner notes of “We Insist! Freedom Now� -- which were written by Nat Hentoff -- offer an inside perspective on the creation of the suite.

“In this intensely expressive performance, Coleman Hawkins plays the male counterpart to Abbey Lincoln. Hawkins was intrigued by the work as a whole and stayed long after his own part was finished. He kept turning to Max Roach, commenting on the strong, bold melodies. ‘Did you really write this, Max?’ Hawkins kept asking. ‘My, my!� 

More on Hawkins:
"It is Coleman Hawkins who solos after [Lincoln's] opening. There was a squeak in this, his best take. ‘No, don’t splice,’ said Hawkins. ‘When it’s all perfect, especially in a piece like this, there’s something very wrong.’�

Hentoff ended the liner notes with this statement:
“...What this album is saying is that Freedom Day is coming in many places, and those working for it mean to make it stick. In 1937, a Negro who still remembered slavery spoke of what it was like in 1865. ‘Hallelujah broke out…Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes, and nobody had make us that way but ourselves.’ It’s happening again.’

Playlist for Three  Jazz Works

• Max Roach, Oscar Brown. “Freedom Day.â€�
• Max Roach. “Tears for Johannesburg.â€�
• Duke Ellington. “My People Narrated by Duke Ellington.â€�
• Duke Ellington. "Come Sunday/David Danced Before the Lord"
• Duke Ellington. “King Fit the Battle of Alabam.â€�
• Duke Ellington. “What Color is Virtueâ€�
• Dave Brubeck. “XI. His Truth Is a Shield.â€�
• Dave Brubeck. “IVb. Except the Lord Build the House (improvisation).â€�
• Dave Brubeck. “VII. Shout unto the Lord.â€�
• Louis Armstrong, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks. The Real Ambassadors.  Sony, 1994.
• Max Roach. “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace.â€�

 

Where to find the music from Three Jazz Works

• Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now is out of print. However, you can download digital copies of the suite here. The digital album was produced by Candid Records in 1998.

• Duke Ellington's My People was originally released in 1960. It's currently out of print -- we tracked down an LP at The Jazz Record Center -- but you can hear an excerpt from it in this video, below.

• Dave Brubeck. The Gates of Justice. Naxos, 2004.
• Louis Armstrong, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendricks, and others. The Real Ambassadors. Sony, 1994.

 

Many other jazz musicians wrote provocative and compelling Civil Rights music. One of the pieces considered barely publishable was Charles Mingus' “Fables of Faubus" (Orval Faubus was the governor of Arkansas from 1955 through 1967). Columbia Records refused to record these lyrics. In 1960, however, Mingus recorded the song for Candid Records, lyrics and all, on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus.

Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

Name me someone who's ridiculous, Danny.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won't permit integrated schools.

Then he's a fool! Oh Boo!
Boo! Nazi Fascist supremacists
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Danny.
Faubus, Nelson Rockefeller, Eisenhower
Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
H-E-L-L-O, Hello

 

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister and Paul Schneider

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

This Saturday the Preservation Hall Jazz Band celebrates its 50^th anniversary with a performance at, of all places, Carnegie Hall.  As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us in this archival edition of Fishko Files (recorded in pre-Katrina New Orleans), Preservation Hall is about as far from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center as a concert space can get. 

 

For more information on the Preservation Hall Jazz Band's concert this weekend, click here.

 

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Actress Michelle Williams has received multiple nods this awards season for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn.� For WNYC’s Sara Fishko, it’s another in the chain of actresses trying to capture the essence of the iconic blond star of stars. Here’s “Marilyn,� a holiday highlight of this year’s Fishko Files…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Williams as Marilyn in "My Week with Marilyn."

 

One Blonde Leads to Another 

PHOTO CAPTION:
Clockwise from top left: Catherine Hicks played Monroe in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980); Diana Dors had a career in Britain in Marilyn’s day; Mira Sorvino played Marilyn in Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996); Theresa Russell played a character modeled after Marilyn in Insignificance (1985); Poppy Montgomery played a fictionalized Marilyn in Blonde (2001); and Jayne Mansfield was a Marilyn-inspired entertainer in Monroe’s time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more from the speakers featured in this episode of Fishko Files...

*Susan Doll is a writer and editor at Facets Media. You can read a selection from her book, Marilyn: Her Life & Legend here.

*Lois Banner is currently at work on her second biography of Marilyn Monroe. To see her first book, MM-Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe, click here.

*Joyce Chopra's 2001 mini-series about Monroe, Blonde, is available here.

 

Assistant Producer Laura Mayer went to Times Square on a buying trip. She came back with one Marilyn Monroe salt and pepper shaker, four postcards, two magnets, and a framed photo spread of Marilyn images. 

 

 

WNYC Production Credits

Mix Engineers: Paul Schneider and Bill Bowen

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

WNYC Newsroom Editors: Karen Frillmann and Gisele Regatao

Sometimes, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko, you have to be far away to see something clearly.  In this year-end edition of Fishko Files, thoughts on distance

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

 

 

 

Best of Fishko Files 2011

Aired April 29, 2011: May 2^nd marked 75 years since the first performance of Prokofiev’s children’s piece, Peter and the Wolf.  As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, the millions of children listening over the decades knew only part of the story.

 

Aired May 6, 2011: May 9^th marked 50 years since a now-famous speech rocked the broadcast world.  Newton Minow described television as a “vast wasteland,� and the rest is history.

 

Aired May 27, 2011: Sometimes artists, seeking inspiration, find it in the very thing that challenges and haunts them most.  WNYC’s Sara Fishko talked with visual artist Frank Stella, about some very productive pain.

 

Aired July 1, 2011

 

Aired July 15, 2011: Professor Marshall McLuhan rose to stardom in the 1960s as a pop culture guru. In honor of the McLuhan centenary in July, WNYC's Sara Fishko took us back to McLuhan's futuristic thoughts.

Aired September 9, 2011

Best of Fishko Files: The tradition of siblings singing together is as old as song. WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks at brothers, sisters and sibling harmony, in this edition of the Fishko Files...

Cultures the world over have long recognized the power of individuality in the creation of art.. But when the individual artist is threatened, can there can be creative power in groups?  WNYC’s Sara Fishko explores the world of  “Tunisian Collaborative Painting� –in this edition of Fishko Files

 

 

 

 

 

Best of Fishko Files: Tis the season to make music. And, as WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, music is sometimes best made with what you have available -- your voice. (Produced in 2001)

Best of Fishko Files: WNYC’s Sara Fishko explores the contradictory career of the Russian composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff in this episode from 2001. 

 

 

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

This Sunday at the Greene Space, as part of what is being called “Beethoven Awareness Month,� a lineup of pianists will perform a marathon concert of the 32 piano sonatas by Beethoven.  As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, these pieces provide a particular window into the soul of one of our greatest composers. Here is the next Fishko Files…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beethoven sonata marathon presents all 32 sonatas played by a lineup of pianists, this Sunday (11/20) at The Greene Space, from 11 AM to 11 PM.  For tickets and more information, visit The Greene Space's website.

 

For more about Beethoven, visit WQXR. They're celebrating Beethoven Awareness Month all November.

 

For more from the speakers in this edition of Fishko Files...

• Read "Playing the Beethoven Sonatas" by Robert Taub
• Listen to pianist Garrick Ohlsson's Beethoven Sonatas
• Listen to pianist Mitsuko Uchida's Hammerklavier.

 

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

Best of Fishko Files: Chick Corea, pianist, composer, improvisor, bandleader, is coming to town this month. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, he’s had a career filled with variety, and he’s managed to do it without all that much forward planning involved. 

 

Chick Corea is playing a series of shows at The Blue Note - now, through the end of the month. For more scheduling and ticket information, visit their website.

 

 

 

Executive Producer: Sara Fishko

Assistant Producer: Laura Mayer

Mix Engineer: Wayne Shulmister

WNYC Newsroom Editor: Karen Frillmann

This Author: Sarah Fishko

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