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There is 1 message in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Wayne Newton
From: Phil X Milstein
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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:33:31 -0500
From: Phil X Milstein
Subject: Re: Wayne Newton
Mike wrote:
> Austin, thanks for your memories about Wayne Newton. From other
> people I have met that know Wayne, they only have the very best
> things to say about him. I saw him on interview show once, and
> he said something very interesting: "I am proof that if you can
> dream of it, you can do it." He sure is!!
Johnny Carson, however, would likely have disagreed. According to
legend, Newton, who'd came to national fame while still a scrawny
and squeaky-voiced adolescent, was pushed finally over the edge by
Carson's gags at the expense of Newton's (presumed lack of)
masculinity. (And, granted, Carson was hardly the only one at the
time to use Newton's name as shorthand for "gay," that is when
they weren't using Liberace's or Paul Lynde's.) He busted into
Carson's office one afternoon and in no uncertain terms told the
talk-show king that if he didn't knock it off, the now full-grown,
newly-buff and karate black-belted singer would knock his scrawny
block off. Thus ended that stream of humor, a turnabout which
helped signal the arrival of Newton as an adult star.
It's been a while since I read it, but I believe Newton addressed
this story in his autobio, "Once Before I Go." If anyone's
innarested, I could look it up.
--Phil M.
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