Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney
in "Mandy, the Minstrel Number" from
White Christmas
Danny Kay to Rosemary Clooney to John Paul II
See the post on Bing Crosby to find Rosemary's connection to Pope John Paul II. Rosemary Clooney was connected to Danny Kaye through the film White Christmas. Here's one of the numbers from that film. Rosemary Clooney is seated by the window on the left as your watch this clip.
Danny gives an extra degree to Louis Armstrong and Gene Kelley who are thus...
3 degrees from Pope John Paul II.
Click to see "Make 'em laugh," the most awesome routine in the history of musicals on film. Danny Kaye gets Gene Kelly and Louis Armstrong a degree closer to Pope John Paul II! We're not only in the month of fools, but the month of April showers. Why not sing in the rain? Enjoy!
"Any girl can be glamorous, all you have to do is stand still and look stupid," said Hedy Lamarr, the beautiful scientist whose inventions make your cell phone possible!
In 1942, Ms Lamarr, whose birth name was Hedwig Eva Maria Keisler, and her endocrinologist/composer friend, George Anthiel, patented a torpedo guidance system. This new radio control system with alternating signal could be controlled by a plane overhead and not heard or intercepted by others. This technology is what makes cell phone calls private and able to roam.
In this article, learn how Ms Lamarr almost left acting to persue a career in inventing, how her first husband, an arms maker, (Jewish but made Ehrenarier,) cavorted with the like of Hitler, and how her invention was shunned by the US military until the blockade of Cuba.
5 Degrees
Fifth Degree: Hedy Lamarr
In this clip, we learn about German and Austrian people who fled to the United States in the 1930s. Hedy Lamarr was among them. This film is in French with English subtitles. Very interesting.
Fourth Degree: Mel Brooks
Ms Lamarr was not thrilled with the character, Hedley Lamarr in the film, Blazing Saddles. She sued the producers of the film and they settled out of court. For an excellent podcast about Ms. Lamar that mentions the lawsuit, click here.
Third Degree: Johnny Carson
Mel Brooks appeared many times on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This is one of those appearances.
Second Degree: Red Skelton
As mentioned in a previous post, Red Skelton had Johnny Carson fill in for him on his show when Red was off in Europe meeting Pope Pius XII. Red honored Johnny by inducting him into the Television Hall of Fame.
Caesar's adopted son, Augustus (or Octavian) was the Caesar Augustus of the bible. We explored his relationship to Jesus last December 19th. Beware the ides of March, Caesar. You got a bit too big for your breeches and were cut down to size. No kids either, his love child with Cleopatra, Caesarian, was murdered at age 17, and his baby girl died the week she was born. Caesar is 5 degrees from Pope John Paul II.
Caesar to Augustus to Jesus to Saint Peter to John Paul.
We take a break from women and holocaust remembrance for various and entertaining explorations of Julius Caesar, who met his end a few thousand years ago, today.
Elizabeth Taylor is the face most people think of when they think of Cleopatra
There's just nothing like a Cecil B. Demille epic scene with thousands of extras.
Fifth Degree: Elizabeth Taylor
Famous for her violet eyes and many husbands, Ms Taylor is an icon of the American cinema. Her career was at its height in the 1960s when she appeared with..... Fourth Degree: Burl Ives,
in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." We already reckonned Burl Ives at 4 degrees from John Paul II in the post on Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Here's the trailer to "Cat".
"From the 1940s through 1960, Burl Ives was considered America’s most authoritative interpreter of American folk songs. A mainstream figure (better known than Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie), his penetrating, tenor voice with its unique timbre was recognized by millions." -Ellen Harold and Peter Stone
Ives is remembered for his novelty songs from the 1960s, but his impact on American music is much deeper than that. For a great article on Ives, go to the Association for Cultural Equality site. This Alan Lomax site is dedicated to Lomax' lifetime passion, folkmusic. While I'm sure that Ives and Lomax met, I cannot find a picture of it or any quotes from a meeting. So I'm going to link Ives to Lomax via...
Third Degree: Woody Guthrie
Guthrie and Lomax collected folksong together as we see in this photograph from the American South.
Woody Guthrie on left, Alan Lomax at the right
children unknown
Second Degree: Alan Lomax
received the National Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan.
First Degree: President Ronald Reagan
A former McCarthyist, President Reagan turned over a new leaf when he awarded Alan Lomax the Medal of Arts in 1986. During the time of McCarthyism in the United States, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and Alan Lomax were black listed.
Saint Paul
Blast from the East: Metania (Metanoia)
Ronald Reagan once tried to end the professional lives of Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and Alan Lomax, but he changed completely by the time he became president. He turned away from the sin of bearing false witness and praised those he had persecuted. This is very much like what Saint Paul did, only Reagan never acknowledged as president, his former McCarthyist work.
We are in the season of Great Lent. Many priests (Western) will be taking out their rusty Greek and using the word, "metanoia" in their sermons. In the East, we live this word physically in prayer. During Great Lent, we say the Prayer of Saint Efraim several times each service and during The Divine Liturgy. Prostrations are called "metania" in the Eastern Church. Crossing one's self is a form of prostration before God. Add a bow and it's more of a prostration. Touch the floor as part of making your cross, and you're making a metania. Get on your knees and face on the floor and that is a "full metania."
The word "metania" literally means to change direction 180 degrees. To switch direction, to go the other way. Spiritually we are turning away from sin and toward Jesus Christs. See here as Orthodox priests and deacons do full metanias and recite the prayer of Saint Efraim during Great Lent.
Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra 1934
She had a distrust of Technicolor and preferred to be shot in black and white.
She insisted on being shot with her face's left side to the camera.
Third Degree: Claudette Colbert's career spanned from the time of silent pictures into the late 1980s. When she died at the age of 93, she left no immediate family. Here she is as Cleopatra. Ooolala!
Second Degree: Gary Cooper
Claudette Colbert was friendly with Gary Cooper and attended parties with him and other Hollywood A-listers.
Charles Boyer, Claudette Colbert, and Gary Cooper
at a Hollywood party in the 1950s
This is the first in a series of January posts about the Greek connection to John Paul II and the papacy in our time. Enjoy!
3 Degrees
Third Degree: Tom Hanks married Rita Wilson in an Orthodox Christian ceremony in 1988. Here are a few pictures from their wedding reception. They had a big fat Greek wedding with this guy as their DJ and emcee.
Greek dancing at their wedding in 1988
The happy couple in Life magazine
After a childhood dabbling in Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, and various Protestant sects, Tom Hanks grew into the Orthodox Church via his love for Rita Wilson.
Second Degree: Father John Bakas, Dean of St. Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles, California.
Tom and Rita have received the body and blood of our Lord and Savior at the hand of this man, Father Bakas. Father Bakas is a fascinating character to me. I attended St. Sophia for the years of my graduate school education and a few beyond.
The tradition of the cathedral was to change priests every 4-6 years. Father Bakas came to St. Sophia just after I moved from Los Angeles in 2000 and has been there ever since. He seems to possess that illusive combination of piety and flash that is needed to survive the crowd in L.A. The people of his flock are amazingly wealthy, demanding, and can be very difficult at times. Father Bakas has struck a balance to lift every heart higher and challenge his flock spiritually without alienating them or rejecting them. This is truly a great gift from God and my hat is off to Father Bakas!
First Degree: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I
Father Bakas told me through email that he met the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople (Istanbul) on several occasions. His All Holiness was good friends with John Paul II. Click here for video of the two men.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope John Paul II
Did you know?
There is "one, holy, and apostolic church," and the Roman Catholic Church is just one part of it. There is an Eastern branch as well. Some elements of this branch are in full communion with Rome, they are Byzantine Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Maronites, Melikites, Chaldeans, Babylonians, and dozens of others. Some elements of the Eastern branch are not in communion with Rome, these are the Orthodox Churches.
The split (schism) between the Orthodox east and the Roman west took about 500 years to complete and began around 900 AD. In that process there were many betrayals and sins committed by both sides against each other. One of the most egregious was the Fourth Crusade of 1205. In that event, Roman "pilgrims" sacked Constantinople in a gleeful, frat-party-like spree. The women were raped, men were killed for sport, holy sites were looted and desecrated, and the city was burnt to the ground. The photo above of Bartholomew and John Paul II is of a liturgy in celebration of the return of the relics of St. Gregory the Theologian to the Orthodox Church. Those relics were stolen during the Fourth Crusade.
As in any family, cruelty, indifference, arrogance, and lack of both humility and forgiveness are habits that feed upon themselves. The centuries of sinful separation, between the Eastern and Western churches, that precede us cannot be undone by a mere 50 years of good will and friendship. But, with the Holy Spirit, it is doubtful that we will have to wait 1000 years for a complete reconciliation.
John Paul II is the pope in apostolic succession from Saint Peter. Bartholomew I is the patriarch in apostolic succession from Saint Peter's brother, Saint Andrew. It is unnatural and very wrong that brothers should be out of communion. Both men strive to reunite the churches. John Paul II as a saint and Bartholomew as the current Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul.
For Christians on the old calendar, tomorrow is Christmas! Let's examine a connection to John Paul of a Russian Orthodox little girl, Natalie Wood.
3 Degrees
Third Degree: Natalie Wood
She's the last in the Christmas series of posts because of her iconic role of Susan Walker in "Miracle on 34th Street."
In 1960, while making "Splendor in the Grass," Natalie met and dated Second Degree: Warren Beaty. Mr. Beaty was fresh from Broadway, young, dewy, and really really really horny! More about that later. Here's the trailer for "Splendor in the Grass."
So, I mentioned Warren Beaty's sex drive. Warren Beaty found "splendor" in many "grasses." It's safe to say that anyone who's had sex is somewhere in Warren Beaty's sex web. He has directly or indirectly screwed almost the entire planet! Among those in his sex web are several first degreers like Queen Elizabeth II and John F. Kennedy. Warren Beatty's sex web is here.
Let's Talk About Sex:
As a general rule, the greater the gift that God gives us, the more chance of evil coming from the misuse of that gift.
It's easy to slam those who struggle with homosexual attraction or another sexual struggle that you may not have. But what about "the players." Promiscuity is a sin that tears at the hearts of both women and men. With each relationship, the heart grows colder.
Using another person for sex is a grave sin.
When we make the following comments about celebrities, we are participating in the sin and setting a really crappy example for our kids. I wrote the captions, so this is obviously a sin I need to address.
"Who can blame him, IT'S MARYLIN MONROE!"
"What a guy! He banged the prime women at their most beautiful!"
"I can't believe he was nailing those ugly girls when his wife was so hot."
Respect is respect, regardless of how attractive, powerful, rich, or talented a person is. All people deserve respect from their spouses.
If you would like to calculate how many sexual partners you are "related" to, click here. That site is put out by Lloyds Pharmacy, and it is humbling. It's also a great tool for teaching teens about sex.
Rosemary Clooney starred with Bing Crosby in the movie. Here they are in a still shot from the movie. Costumes by Edith Head, they are divine!
Dante DiPaulo was a dancer and choreographer on White Christmas and dozens of other films. He and Rosemary had a romance that spanned decades. Horrible events in Rosemary's life led her into a deep depression. When the depression lifted, there were the open arms of Dante ready to hold her.
Rosemary and her husband Dante DiPaolo at their November 1997 wedding. They married after a 50 year courtship. Rosemary certainly did "count her blessings" after that bout of depression lifted.
DiPaolo and Clooney went on their honeymoon to Rome and had an audience with this fellow. Read all about it on Rosemary's site here.
I love this man. He's a treasure. If you haven't seen "Life is Beautiful," you must. See it in the afternoon, it will be too upsetting before bed. You will cry like a baby! Here are Roberto's musings on Graham Norton, the trailer for the movie he wrote, directed, and starred in, and a favorite scene from it.
