JUST TED'S OPINION: 1/3/10

Happy New Year!

Now that the holiday season is officially over (yesterday was Twelfth Night or the feast of the Epiphany -- I get really annoyed when people don't realize that the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" actually starts on the 25th of December NOT the 13th) ... but I digress.

On an earlier blog, I got a lot of positive feedback when I posted pieces on the year's centenaries. So I figured I'd try to do something each month. I'm a day late for novelist nad photographer Wright Morris, who would have turned 100 yesterday.

Today marks the 100th birthday of a notorious politician (isn't that an oxymoron? aren't all politicians notorious?). Maybe it's because I've spent the last two years working on a project dealing with the history of the civil rights movement but Orval Faubus' name is not one that I would rank as one of the good guys.

He was the governor of Arkansas in 1957 when Central High School in Little Rock was set to allow African American students to attend, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the doctrine of "separate but equal" and paved the way for integration. It was certainly slow in coming, especially in southern states. Governor Faubus called out the state National Guard to prevent nine African American students from attending high school. The situation reached such a critical level that President Eisenhower was forced to send in federal troops to escort the students into the building. In hindsight, Faubus appeared foolish, but his actions won him the support of the people of Arkansas who kept him in office until 1967. He even made the cover of Time. Married three times, divorced twice, Faubus died of prostate cancer on December 14, 1994.

On a far lighter note, next week marks the centenary of funny woman Patsy Kelly who won a Tony Award in 1971 for the revival of "No, No Nannette". Born in Brooklyn as Bridget Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly, she was one of six children of a Irish immigrants. Her father became a New York City policeman and her mother encouraged her to sing and dance. One of her contemporaries in dance class was Ruby Keeler, with whom she would strike up a life-long friendship and with whom she would appear on Broadway in 1971. Kelly's brother Willy was working with comedian Frank Fay but once Fay met Patsy, he chose to work with her. Their working relationship was tempetuous at best -- Fay tended to ad-lib; Kelly preferred to work from a script. The pair was hired to perform their act as part of "Harry Delmar's Revels" in 1927 which marked her Broadway debut. While on tour, Fay made a romantic pass at the tomboyish Kelly who turned him down. Eventually they parted ways -- there are stories that Fay fired her after she refused his advances and then had the temerity to address him as "Frank" rather than "Mr. Fay".

Whatever the case, Kelly bounced back working alongside Will Rogers in "Three Cheers"; William Frawley (who later appeared on "I Love Lucy") in "Earl Caroll's Sketch Book" and later Jack Benny in "Earl Carroll's Vanities" and Al Jolson in "Wonder Bar". During the run of the latter, she was "discovered" by a film scout and began making comedy shorts. She returned to Broadway for the first time as a star in the revue "Flying Colors" in which she appeared with Buddy and Vilma Ebsen, Tamara Geva and Clifton Webb.

When she left Broadway in 1933, it was with a contract with producer Hal Roach. Moving west, Kelly was certain her film career would be a bust. But Roach saw something special in her and teamed her in a series of short films with Thelma Todd. The pair worked magic together and they might have gone on to greater things had Todd not died under mysterious circumstances in 1935.

In the meantime, Kelly was allowed to work in feature films and she earned critical praise for her comedic work in "Going Hollywood". But as with many of today's actresses, the studio was not happy with her weight and the actress struggled with the issue throughout her career. Even more detrimental was that she lived as an open lesbian. By the mid-1940s, her Hollywood career was over.

Kelly returned to the stage, touring in stock production and found work in the nascent television industry. For much of the 1950s, she lived with actress Tallulah Bankhead, sometimes pretending to be her maid as a cover for their romantic relationship. She returned to work in feature films as a housekeeper in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" (1960) and worked extensively as a guest actor in television. In 1968, she had a supporting role in "Rosemary's Baby" and then came her triumphant return to Broadway with childhood pal Ruby Keeler in "No, No, Nannette". After appearing as Debbie Reynolds' mother in "Irene", Kelly returned to California and appeared in "Freaky Friday" (1976) and was featured in the comedy "The North Avenue Irregulars" (1979).

In 1980, Kelly suffered a stroke and was forced into retirement. In September 1981, she died of pneumonia at the Motion Picture and TV Country Home and was buried in a plot near her parents in New York.

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Other notable figures who would have celebrated 100 this January are: