The death of Betty Hutton reminded us of how much we envied her cowgirl clothes in pictures of her Annie Get your Gun days. She wore spectacular parade quality fringed rhinestoned two piece gabardine outfits in colors that make your mouth water. And those fancy fringed gloves! Not to mention the hand tooled colorful cowboots! We hope the cowgirl look make a comeback.
The news that Anna Nicole Smith WANTED TO BE BURIED ALIVE with her son Daniel’s lifeless body has made us think about the distressing rumor we presented a few weeks back. According to The New York Post, Anna freaked out at Daniel’s funeral and sobbed to Howard K Stern “If Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him!” In the weeks after the funeral, Stern said that the inconsolable Anna “cuddled with a picture of Daniel in her bed and cried herself to sleep. This was a constant thing.” We can’t help but note that these revelations make our ‘rumor” seem more plausible as time goes by….
We’re shocked by the sudden loss of James Brown, but we’ll never forget the day we spent with him. It was back in the 60’s in Chicago and we were HUGE fans. When it was announced that he would appear at the Regal theater on the South Side of Chicago, we could hardly wait. The Regal was like the Apollo theater in New York – it catered to the black audience and featured the best musical acts of the era. James Brown always drew long lines. Visions of his shiny tight silk suits, pompadour hair and amazing moves, plus that big orchestra, danced in our heads as we got in line in the rain IN THE MORNING at the Regal. In those days we were the only white people there. Brown performed several shows a day with a movie in between. You paid once and could stay all day! We sat through the movie several times and were able to move up to the front for Brown’s evening show. He did the camel walk and the splits. The audience was shrieking and swooning as he fell to his knees wailing and his cape guy came out and wrapped him up. He tossed his rhinestone cufflinks into the adoring audience and we managed to GRAB one (which we still have to this day.) After the exhausting show, we finagled our way backstage, determined to meet our idol. James couldn’t have been nicer. We were surprised that he was wearing pink foam rollers in his hair – and was about to go under the hair dryer to prepare for his next show. We talked about his silk suits, he introduced us around , offered us food, and gave us an autographed photo before we left. It was an unforgettable day. We expect to see Eddie Murphy at the funeral.