Title: The Greatest Actress Plays the Worst Singer Ever Recorded Source:
Gary North Specific Answers URL Source:http://www.garynorth.com/public/15096.cfm Published:Apr 19, 2016 Author:Gary North Post Date:2016-04-25 09:03:05 by Bill D Berger Keywords:None Views:143 Comments:1
I have waited 60 years for this.
Not really. That's because I would not, in my wildest imagination, have imagined it could happen.
There is a movie on Florence Foster Jenkins. Even more amazing, it is titled Florence Foster Jenkins.
It doesn't ring a bell, does it?
It rang a bell for me.
In 1956, I was working at a record store. It was my first regular job. Another employee, Lype O'Dell, who later became an actor, recommended that I listen to a 10-inch LP record. It was titled simply Florence Foster Jenkins. The cover was a tipoff, but I was naïve. I did not see what was coming. Then he put it on the turntable and had me listen. I could not believe my ears.
I read the liner notes. She was accompanied by pianist Cosme McMoon. That seemed reasonable at the time. It still does.
As a team, they made musical history. Then they were dropped down the memory hole. They were replaced in 1957 by Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, who produced a series of five albums over the next few years.
We heard this:
But there was a catch. The Edwards team was in fact pianist Paul Weston and his wife Jo Stafford. The album was a spoof, as were those that followed. Mrs. Jenkins and Mr. McMoon were not spoofs. They were the real deal.
Now Meryl Streep will make musical history as Mrs. Jenkins. Her husband is played by Hugh Grant.
I cannot imagine who put up the money for this movie -- what spending impulses lay behind this decision. But I can promise you this: he will get my ticket money. A movie like this is a big screen movie, with a sound system to match.
Note: Streep is a decent singer. Her performance in the closing scene in Postcards from the Edge was unexpected, and it was perfect as the close. She had fun with a Shel Silverstein song, "I'm Checkin' Out."
Groucho Marx had a guest on his show who sold a million copies of The Clown Song. It turned out that the flip side of that single was Rosemary Clooney's first recording.
