Thanks for the story of Kitt and Hubbard. Obituaries mention, too,
that Kitt could speak (and sing in) several languages. Remembering her
mainly for "Santa Baby" doesn't do her any kind of justice.
Pinter's death made me think also of Arnold Wesker whose early work
was on in London at the same time as Pinter's. (I saw "Chips With
Everything" twice--for about $1 a go. Was that the season Alec
Guinness was doing "Ross"?) Wesker's Web site indicates he published a
book of poems this spring, as well as other work. Pinter's been heard
from so much more in recent years. Is Wesker generally ignored?
Susan H.
On Dec 26, 2008, at 9:32 AM, Kenneth Wolman wrote:
> Susan Holahan wrote:
>> Just for the record: Pinter's death led the NY Times front page
>> here--until Eartha Kitt's knocked him off.
>
> Two major ones departing the same day reminds me with characteristic
> irrelevance of Aldous Huxley dying the same day as John F. Kennedy.
> In the current instance, who will get lost?
>
> I happened to like Eartha. To a teenage boy growing up in New York,
> the sound of her voice was like someone sticking her hand in my
> crotch. She had the most astonishingly sexual delivery I've every
> heard, and to this day I don't know how she got away with it, either
> on record or on TV. The she-cat persona worked for her, I suppose
> almost from the start, and continued to do so.
>
> Lesser know about her is her mentoring of younger performers. She
> took under he wing a young black operatic bass named Bruce Hubbard.
> Hubbard was hired to record Joe in a studio reference recording of
> the uncensored 1927 score of Kern's "Showboat." When I say
> uncensored, I mean that "colored folks" didn't work on the
> Mississippi, "niggers" did. And that obscene word was all over the
> score and script. Hubbard reportedly was horrified and didn't know
> if he could continue. Kitt was a counselor and friend who is
> supposed said that Hubbard owed it to his history, the history of
> his people, to show the ugliness as well as the progress made since.
> That word was part of his legacy and the legacy of drama, and for a
> recording that was as much an historical preservation project as a
> recording of a great musical play, keeping the words intact was
> critical.
>
> So Hubbard recorded it "come scritto." It's shocking no matter how
> often you hear it.
>
> Sadly, Hubbard died in the early 1990s of AIDS. But his delivery
> of "Ol' Man River" is surpassed only by Robeson's. Or so I humbly
> suggest....
>
> Ken, still out in Snow County
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