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Post by theguvnor on Dec 11, 2023 18:51:24 GMT
This is for the older Americans. My wife found this old show on Amazon and regards it as ideal light entertainment stuff. I was more interested because I noticed the father of the actress Marlo Thomas was this bloke: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Thomas#MusicI wasn't aware of him as he has little presence in the UK and the shows he is connected with were not ones that were shown here. However, I noticed he was a very devout Catholic and a Knight Commander in this order: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Holy_SepulchreI'm sure Bear who likes older TV stuff like this is probably well aware of him but given the huge amount of work he did with regards to pushing for hospital care for kids I found him an interesting figure. Especially as he is a Maronite Catholic.
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Post by tisbearself on Dec 11, 2023 19:52:22 GMT
Yeah I watched that show as a kid and occasionally in reruns. Marlo Thomas was a big TV star in her day (she also appeared in various TV movies and specials), and one of those ladies who'd crop up in the fashion magazines giving interviews and showing off the latest looks and styles. By the time I hit puberty I had realized that "That Girl" was a very chauvinistic show as the plots often revolved around how Marlo's character was going to keep her grumpy and controlling executive boyfriend Donald from being upset over something. I'd have kicked that dweeb to the curb in 5 minutes if I bothered to date him at all.
Setting all that aside, I became aware from my mom's magazines that Marlo's dad was named Danny Thomas and that he had been a popular entertainer in some earlier era before my time and had founded St Jude Hospitals for children and was well known as a Catholic star, similar to Loretta Young, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
I have given to St Jude Hospital off and on, At one point they were involved in at least one fundraiser that involved animal abuse (a "hunt" that was not a normal sporting hunt but involved young boys torturing small animals) so I don't donate to them much. But I did send them a donation in memory of my late friend T who had Marfan syndrome and was essentially saved from early death as a kid by St Jude Hospital in which he spent considerable time. He always credited St Jude with his survival. He made it to about age 60 and died in his sleep a couple years back.
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Post by theguvnor on Dec 11, 2023 20:04:20 GMT
You know what's funny is the show's Wiki entry notes that Marlo made it to promote feminist ideas. Honestly, I prefer the next-door neighbours where they are a Doctor and his wife as they seem to have a much healthier relationship. Danny Thomas was of Lebanese descent and his real name was Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz - his family came from this town in Lebanon originally I noticed when I looked him up: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bsharri#Notable_residents
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Post by tisbearself on Dec 11, 2023 20:27:19 GMT
At the time "That Girl" began (1964), it actually was somewhat feminist, in that the protagonist was living and working on her own in NYC. Many families of that era would have expected their daughters to live at home till they got married; if they moved out they might have been expected to live in some residence for women or with a relative. It was a bit weird because my own mom and her sisters were all Greatest Generation and all of them had office jobs or nurse jobs, one had been in the military before getting married, and my mom had lived all over the US for years working for different government agencies and had lived by herself or with female roommates and often her parents were so far away she sometimes couldn't even visit them for Christmas. So to me there was nothing "liberated" about That Girl, but not every girl had a mom and aunts like mine. I note that my mom's family was of course Irish-American and the average woman of that background didn't need women's lib to be independent, they just were that way naturally and it was part of the culture.
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Post by RN69 on Dec 12, 2023 3:30:17 GMT
Marlo Thomas appeared in a 2022 Hallmark Christmas movie called 'A Magical Christmas Village'. If you remember her from That Girl, unless you read the credits, you probably wouldn't have recognized her due to all of the plastic surgery she has had. The movie was a typical formula Hallmark made for TV movie with generational conflicts and romantic relationships. It was okay, the story line caught my interest with the magic and the acting was acceptable although I did prefer Alison Sweeny who played Marlo's adult daughter to Ms. Thomas.
BTW she is the wife of Phil Donahue who was a liberal TV talk show host in the 70's-80's. Looked them up and they are still a married couple of 44 years. Ms. Thomas is involved with her father's St. Jude Research Hospital and helped in the development of its holiday Thanks and Giving campaign. She serves on the hospital's board and acts as an ambassador for St. Jude. Yes, That Girl is a dated comedy concept but I used to watch it in the 60's as I did watch her father's family sitcom from the mid 50's Make Room for Daddy. Danny Thomas was a talented comedian and vocalist.
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Post by theguvnor on Dec 12, 2023 7:29:23 GMT
I know who Phil Donahue is. He was never popular in the UK. I recognize his name from American comics and books I read in the 80s and 90s. I've watched the odd interview with him, we had similar people in the UK such as the late Michael Parkinson and the 'professional Irishman' Terry Wogan. Terry was most famous for doing the narration for the Eurovision song contest for many years in a particularly tongue in cheek style. There's an interview on YouTube with Marlo from a month ago and it is plainly obviously she has been keeping an army of plastic surgeons in work as she is approaching 87 years at this point.
I found the whole girls living at home bit meaning they weren't independent a bit hard to relate to in some ways as although my mother left home at 16 and lived on her from then until marriage a lot of the girls in this area of London lived with parents till marriage but were pretty independent and strong willed. It was common up until the early to mid 80s for girls to get married and move just around the corner from parents and you had families who were effectively giant clans spread out across several streets. Many of these girls also worked or held down careers as well and they were tough as nails. If you were rude to East End girls in this era you could expect a good kick in a certain era and I've seen a few incidents of that as they appreciated a gentleman's attentions if he was polite or they thought he was serious if they were looking for a boyfriend but if they thought they were being mucked about they would let you know very quickly. I think Anne Marie (the character in That Girl) is implied to be middle-class as the family has a housekeeper in several episodes.
I believe the show actually started in 1967 rather than 1964 according to its imdb data but it is is dated and it must have been looking very tired by 1971 which imdb lists as the year the last season showed. Some of the writing is contrived to say the least and Marlo Thomas's quirky character is what gives it some charm. Her boyfriend seems one of those 'cookie-cutter' boyfriends you get in sitcoms of this kind of this era. They all seem pretty similar. Marlo's very attractive but if she was real and I was dating her she'd drive me crazy as she constantly loses things or misplaces stuff and is totally scatty and that's only charming in small bursts in real life.
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Post by tisbearself on Dec 12, 2023 7:49:22 GMT
I looked up the start date as I recalled it already being an old and kind of dated show by the late 60s when I was watching it. It started in fall 1966 according to Wiki so we were both incorrect. I was too little to have been watching TV when it began, and wouldn't have been aware of it until at least a year later. It went until 1971 by which point as you mention it was definitely a relic from some earlier era even though they updated the clothes and hair to keep pace with the times.
Yes, Marlo's character was like the brunette version of a "dumb blonde" and it was annoying. She was sort of that era's version of a "manic pixie dream girl" stereotype.
Regarding leaving home at 16 or even 15, this was a UK thing. It was much harder for a US teenager to leave home at a younger age than about 17 and have any sort of productive life, even in the 60s. It got really hard by the 70s because the jobs that a person that age would have been able to get started to go away and more employers were requiring high school diploma or something beyond that to go to work. As a young person I used to be fascinated by various British books about school leavers and such just quitting school at 15 and getting on with their lives as adults, was a little jealous actually as I did not like high school and wished many times I could quit but that was not acceptable socially or any other way.
Phil Donahue is from my hometown LOL, I used to watch him but didn't like that he basically tried to incite everyone into an argument and then when it reached the point of people yelling at each other he would end the show. Later talk show hosts like Jerry Springer and Geraldo did the same thing even worse whereas there were later a lot of female hosts like Oprah Winfrey who tried to create a kinder more friendly atmosphere.
By the way, middle-class people in US in the 60s didn't have housekeepers. She was upper-middle class or perhaps Hollywood fantasy idea of middle class. I was always amused at the number of housekeeper characters on TV shows when in real life they were almost nonexistent.
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Post by theguvnor on Dec 12, 2023 8:31:42 GMT
Yes, these shows do seem to exist in fantasy versions of reality where people have huge houses and an aspiring actress has a rather nice flat that most people would be happy with. Marlo's character lives in a very nice apartment in New York and has endless changes of clothes.
My mother left school at around 16 and came to the UK to train as a nurse. Quite common in her era and many British hospitals held recruitment drives in Ireland in local hotels and through Churches to recruit girls for this. My father left school at around age 12 and worked as a farm labourer and then joined the army a few years later and came to the UK after he left that and worked as a Gas fitter and then in heavy industry and eventually retired at age 72 as his joints were getting to worn out for this sort of stuff any more.
I imagine some of the things my wife and I did as kids would now have people turning cartwheels. I was generally left to supervise myself at home from around age ten onwards quite a lot of the time and was expected to be able to make a basic meal and tidy and so forth if both parents were working. I actually used to get up between age 11 about 14 on Saturday mornings and do stuff like hoover while watching the TV as I enjoyed the peace and quiet as mum was at work till 2 or 3 p.m. and dad was often on a shift where he didn't come home till midday. I generally made myself toast and eggs or something and some coffee and did any homework I had as well. I also learnt to type this way as my father loathed the clacky noise from my manual typewriter so I'd only use it when he was out at work. My generation must be the last one to learn to type on manual typewriters I think. I learnt on an old Olivetti model. Hilariously the same models are now selling for quite a price.
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Post by RN69 on Dec 12, 2023 14:10:19 GMT
My mother also stopped her education about age of 15 or 16 in order to go to work in NYC. She still lived at home in NJ with her family and both she and her older sister gave their earnings to their father. This occurred during the depression era and family members who were old enough worked at whatever they could to help support the family. My mother told me that she worked in an office that produced pencils. She travelled by herself into downtown Manhattan somewhere around the flatiron building. What I found inconsistent with this was that my German born grandparents let her go into NYC on her own but strictly prohibited her from dating until she was in her late teens. She was able to advance her education around the mid 1930's by attending a secretarial school in NJ. This provided her the ability to obtain a good position working in the clerical office of a large department store. She and her sister were allowed to date but we're asked not to consider marriage in deference to the financial needs of their family. My mother didn't marry until she was 29 years old on the eve of WWII. My parents were engaged in the summer of 1941 but weren't going to get married until the following year. When Dec 7th happened they decided not to wait and were married on 12/30/41. Once married she did not return to work and then my sister arrived in December of 1942. Different times and definitely different values.
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Post by theguvnor on Dec 12, 2023 14:42:53 GMT
My mother's half-sister Mary is still alive and nearing 90 now. She did a Doctor of Divinity degree in retirement and was a nurse as well for most of her working life. She married an Anglican who converted to Catholicism as otherwise her father threatened to not talk to her again if she went through with the marriage.
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Post by homeschooldad on Dec 13, 2023 1:09:05 GMT
I have had to wonder to what extent TG was inspired by Breakfast at Tiffany's. Stay with me on this. Struggling young ingenue living in an apartment of her own in Manhattan (who could afford that nowadays?), full of wonder, stylish brunette, has a boyfriend (Ted Bessell even superficially resembled George Peppard, and dressed similarly), kind of a free spirit... very similar.
And as to the subtext that Holly Golightly was, at the least, a woman of questionable virtue, this totally flew over my head in the film (I never read the book). I took it all at face value, just took her to be a bonne vivante constantly going to parties and entertaining for no apparent reason. In the show, there is absolutely no question of Ann Marie being in any way morally dubious.
And if you'll ever notice, Marlo Thomas has a lot of mannerisms of her father, hard to describe, facial expression, verbal tics, and so on.
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Post by tisbearself on Dec 13, 2023 2:38:11 GMT
Holly Golightly was an escort/ call girl/ whatever you call it. In the film version, the "writer" who falls in love with her is similarly some rich older woman's gigolo (this is not in the book). Ann on "That Girl" was a "nice girl". Ann and Donald are similar to Robert Redford and Jane Fonda in "Barefoot in the Park" except Ann and Donald are not married (yet). The producers wanted to marry them in the last episode and Marlo Thomas refused because she wanted to prove there was more to life than marriage or some such rot. That would have made more sense if she hadn't spent pretty much every episode since the very first one joined to Donald at the hip.
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Post by homeschooldad on Dec 13, 2023 4:09:53 GMT
Holly Golightly was an escort/ call girl/ whatever you call it. In the film version, the "writer" who falls in love with her is similarly some rich older woman's gigolo (this is not in the book). Ann on "That Girl" was a "nice girl". Ann and Donald are similar to Robert Redford and Jane Fonda in "Barefoot in the Park" except Ann and Donald are not married (yet). The producers wanted to marry them in the last episode and Marlo Thomas refused because she wanted to prove there was more to life than marriage or some such rot. That would have made more sense if she hadn't spent pretty much every episode since the very first one joined to Donald at the hip. Well, yes, once I was told, it was fairly obvious. But I went for the longest time taking it all at face value --- the only money that was ever exchanged was "$50 tip for the powder room" by the guy who said "doesn't that give me some rights?", after which he walked away dejected when Holly rebuffed his advances. That was probably about as explicit as the studios could be in the early 1960s. I took George Peppard's character to be a "kept man".
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Post by theguvnor on Dec 13, 2023 13:09:54 GMT
It's far more obvious in the book. Truman Capote starts the book with a bartender who was in love with her and reminiscing about her. That sequence in the book also suggests she may have been sleeping with an African bloke. The writer and the bartender are looking at a photo of Holly in Africa, at least it may be Holly, there's a lot of unreliable narration in the book.
British movies of this period tend to be more direct about prostitution. They are still fairly subtle by modern standards but Joan Collins early in her career appeared in a movie as a girl doing time in prison and it's plain she is there for streetwalking. But both British and American movies had to let you work this sort of thing out for yourself by suggesting it due to the various codes of conduct enjoined on them. To me, it was obvious Holly was a call girl but I grew up in an area where you'd see girls like this offering themselves to passers-by for a small fee. Some of them were decent neighbours as it happened and you'd run into these girls whilst doing messages for parents or you'd see them telling bullies trying to bother local kids to stop it.
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Post by tisbearself on Dec 13, 2023 14:40:35 GMT
I always heard Truman based the Holly Golightly character on his own mom. I guess there may be some similarities with the mom as she did leave a marriage in the rural South to move to NYC, changed her name there and lived via socializing with wealthy men, but it still seems weird to write one's mom into a novel as essentially a gold digger at best and a hooked at worst. Truman was a weird guy.
Further that many of the society women he befriended in New York claimed to have inspired the character. One even had it in her obit that she inspired the Holly character, another wrote about it in her autobiography. None of them were gold diggers or call girls, and most if not all of them had come from wealthy families.
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