12/04/2009 7:00 am

Culture

Liz Smith: Looking Toward a Post-Oprah World

Also in Our Gossip Girl's weekend dish: High times with Marilyn? And JFK conspiracy theory holding water.

© AP

"As television executives look for a talk show host to replace Oprah when ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ ends its fun in September 2011, when will they figure out that ‘Oprah’ is not really a talk show but rather a reality show about Ms. Winfrey?" So comments Stuart Elliott in The New York Times.

***

If anybody cares what I think, I believe there is already a talk show that might well replace Oprah and it is up and running and very, very good. The more I watch it, the better I like it, and the guests are wonderful. That would be "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

***

Marilyn! She died at just the right moment, at just the right age, with just the perfect look. I do mean Marilyn Monroe, whose legend never seems to dim. It has been almost 50 years since her death.

Now we have old footage of Marilyn supposedly smoking a joint. The star looks quite luscious and casual and appears to be having a very good time with friends. Well, more power to anything that gave this essentially unhappy girl some minor pleasure. Probably a lot of folks are thinking: "Too bad she didn’t stick to pot!"



Perhaps you know about the Rx chloral hydrate. Toward the end, Marilyn took this regularly. Well, nothing could have been more debilitating than that pill, which she often washed down with champagne to drown out her various demons. If anybody ever needed to mellow out on a joint, it was the perpetually anxious and insecure MM.

***

I see my old friend the famous reporter Gabe Pressman appears in Vanity Fair for January – young Gabe, standing next to a young Elvis Presley in 1955. (You can see Gabe on page 56, the photo was taken by the famous Al Wertheimer.)

2009_1203_liz_gabe_pressman_elvis_presley.jpg

The last time I was at NBC, I ran into Gabe, who is still employed after all these years. He thinks NBC would like to get rid of him but he has one of those "Till death do us part" contracts.

Too bad NBC locally doesn’t make the best of it and use Gabe Pressman more. He is one of the last of the great investigative street reporters! But of course they are still Madison Avenue-fixated on hiring ingénues.

***

I continue to be a JFK assassination conspiracy buff and especially since the believable reporter Lamar Waldron keeps revealing things the U.S. government has been covering up and concealing for years. This Thursday, December 10, the Discovery channel will once again present the documentary "Did the Mob Kill JFK?" at 9 PM and then again at midnight.

If you tune in you’ll not only see author Waldron himself, but also his special Marcello mob family informant Jack Van Laningham, now 80 years old. The latter worked for the Louisiana mob intent on killing JFK, but was undercover for the FBI.

When Mr. Waldron published his first great conspiracy book, Legacy of Secrecy, he did not reveal Van Laningham as a source. The latter was gun-shy and didn’t want to be pointed out. In fact, during the taping of the Discovery show, he walked out of the interview at one point. But he is named in Waldron’s reissue of the just-released, expanded trade paperback of Legacy of Secrecy.
12next ›last »

71 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

BabySnooks

I learned for myself how the FBI lies when it suits their or someone else’s purpose in 2001 and had never believed a word of what the Warren Commission "officially" stated in its report and was shocked, to be honest, that Ted Kennedy gave his seal of approval to it but maybe he did so to protect his own and I will always believe there was more to the plane crash that killed John F Kennedy, Jr.  and that he was just one of many who happened upon the truth including Dorothy Kilgallen who probably wasn’t the first to go and wasn’t the last.  I also believe Robert F Kennedy happened upon the truth which is why he was killed and I think Jacqueline Kennedy knew he had which is why she fled for Greece and the security of Onassis.  Time will tell if the rumor of her leaving a letter, to be opened when the last of her grandchildren have died, is true. Acording to the rumor she reveals the truth about who was behind the assassination.  A truth she learned from Onassis. Whose son was also killed in a plane crash.  And there were questions raised about his daughter’s death may years later. 

As for the mafia no doubt they wanted both Kennedys dead for a variety or reasons, among them possibly because of their father who did well by them in Chicago and felt a sting of hypocrisy over the "law and order" position of his sons, but I suspect, if the truth ever is revealed, that they were merely partiicpants and merely accomodated someone else. Most likely the CIA.  

By BabySnooks on 12/04/2009 6:28 am
GreenTears
Life without Oprah? Oprah has never been a part of my life, but then again, neither has any other talkshow host. I know I’ll get through the big event just fine.
By GreenTears on 12/04/2009 8:41 am
BarbaraB3
I’m speculating of course but the  CIA was more likely behind it than the Mob.  Coming from Italian decent and members of my distant family once low guys on the totem pole of that group they would not touch something that high profile.  Plus the mob would of done this less proffessional and more out there.  Jackie knew the truth and she knew it was someone in government.  We all know what crooked, corrupt  people would do for power.  The Mob does it for money.  I still say that Johnson’s had something to do with it and the great politicians who had an agenda during the Vietnam War.  Lots of contracts and billions of dollars and Kennedy & Bobby were looking to pull out of Vietnam.  By the time Jackie’s letter comes out that Generation will not even blink at the news because we will all be dead & to them it will be like our curious minds about why Booth killed Lincoln.
By BarbaraB3 on 12/04/2009 8:47 am
WimDankbaar

Marcello, Giancana and Trafficante were indeed involved. But the story is much wider than that.  Too wide to tell here. My website is www.jfkmurdersolved.com

Wim

By WimDankbaar on 12/04/2009 9:04 am
WimDankbaar

By the way, Liz, Marilyn was done in on request of JFK, because she was pregnant with his child and refused to have an abortion and threathened to spill the beans in a press conference on august 5  1962. She didn’t make it. JFK asked Sam Giancana to solve his problem. He did. That was why RFK was there on august 4 1962. When JFK (and RFK)  later betrayed and doublecrossed Sam and Carlos and their CIA partners, he was taken care of by some of the same men that did Marilyn. One of those being Charles Nicoletti.

 Wim

By WimDankbaar on 12/04/2009 9:15 am
Mr. Wow

Dear Wim…with all due respects to you (and to Miss Smith whom I admire a great deal)  Miss Monroe was a suicide. Any casual glimpse at her entire life, not to mention her final years should erase any doubt.  There was no such thing as "giving a press conference" to expose the Kennedys.  If a press conference had been scheduled, why didn’t anybody know about it?—-these things are planned days in advance.  Monroe was disturbed, not insane.  She didn’t want to end her career, or end up locked away in a hospital, like Frances Farmer. Her own press people would have had her committed had she spoken of of such things!  To deny her suicide is to deny her humanity.  She was victim of her personal demons, not the Kennedys or the Mob

But Mr. Wow knows eveybody prefers a conspiracy. So, be my guest.  Anyway, whether she’s smoking pot ot not in this film, she looks great.

By Mr. Wow on 12/04/2009 10:16 am
BabySnooks
Haven’t you figured out how people lie? Especially those in power?  Bobby was in Los Angeles that day. The police officer who stopped the car came forward at one point. Suicide? The coroner may have said so. Not everyone else did. Then or now.  Go good a google on Dorothy Kilgallen.  Everyone said she committed suicide. The coroner refused to do so. Found in bed with  a book in her lap. Whoever murdered her didn’t know she used reading glasses. They were found later downstairs.  Some want to believe everything the government tells them. Including telling them that Marilyn Monroe committed suicide. I have never believed she did. And I have known people who knew her who also didn’t believe she committed suicide. 
By BabySnooks on 12/04/2009 10:53 am
Mr. Wow

Dear Baby…I know how people lie.  Mostly people like Jeanne Carmen and Robert Slatzer who claimed relationships they never had with Monroe and who are the basis of most of the conspiracy stories.  The cop who went on record saying he thought it looked "fishy?"  He had his own weird issues.  In the end, even writer Anthony Summers, after all his digging and speculating and putting MM and the Kennedy’s together, came to the ultimate conclusion she was either a suicide or accident.  He just thought there was a big cover-up after her death.  Which of course there was.  It hardly matters.  The poor girl died miserably. 

And, Baby, I too have known people who knew her.  And those people thought she was always "a suicide waiting to happen." 

I’d rather think of her as she is here, laughing with friends and maybe smoking some weed.

By Mr. Wow on 12/04/2009 11:05 am
BabySnooks
Someone said at one point, it may have been Frank Sinatra, that no one would ever really know. I’m content with that. Some claimed she was finished when 2th Century Fox let her go but in reality she was still top box office and as they did with Elizabeth Taylor, who also caused production problems with her ongoing maladies and maelstroms, a studio would have managed to get her insured again and she would have been back to work. I think the only person who really didn’t cause production problems was Doris Day. They all did from time to time. The 50s and 60s was a good time to be a psychiatrist in Los Angeles. Everyone fell apart here and there. People lost count of the attempted suicides. Most no one ever knew about.
By BabySnooks on 12/04/2009 11:28 am
LauraWard
Susan Strasberg mentioned she was witness to many of Marilyn’s drug abuse incidences when Marilyn stayed overnight at her parent’s apartment when she was growing up and later when they were both young actresses. Her mother Paula had to take Marilyn many times to the hospital. But at the time, Susan didn’t realize it was drug abuse because the danger about abusing medication wasn’t known in those times. She wrote a book about it, "Marilyn and Me." Marilyn was practically a sister to her and that’s why Marilyn left her estate to Susan’s father, Lee Strasberg who Marilyn felt took her acting seriously. Susan was not surprised that Marilyn died due to a drug overdose. She has witnessed too many "almosts." It’s too bad the stepmother ended up with Marilyn’s estate instead of Susan’s daughter.
By LauraWard on 12/05/2009 2:40 am
BabySnooks
Ted Kennedy said in his biography that there was no conspiracy and that he and the family accepted the findings of the Warren Commission. That merely raised more questions for some than it answered. Any time there are “loose ends” there are “questions” and there were some “loose ends” with regard to Marilyn Monroe. And there always will be. Just as there will be with regard to Princess Diana. There will always be the element of schadenfreude, however, which often muddles the “conspiracy theories” as it did with regard to Princess Grace. There were no loose ends. She was driving. She had a massive stroke. End of story. But still there are some who maintain Stephanie was driving and arguing with her mother and lost control of the car. Others who maintain Grace was drunk and shouldn’t have been driving. Others who maintain that despite the official investigation, someone cut the brake lines. And on and on it goes. Reality is Susan Strasberg wasn’t there. No one was there. No one knows. Not for sure.
By BabySnooks on 12/06/2009 8:08 am
SusanCrawford
Poor Marilyn. Nearly fifty years on, and still the speculation swirls: will she ever truly rest in peace? I suppose not, since her iconic status has firmly ensconced her in the public domain for all times. I believed immediately that she had died of a drug overdose, and I believed it was self-administered, either accidentally or deliberately. Over the years, I’ve read many theories, and while there are aspects of just about all of them that DO ring true, I still believe her death was self-administered. She was in a very bad state, as those who were working with her in the months preceeding her death ALL attest. She was using chloral hydrate, which is a horrifically dangerous drug to mix with booze, and she was at a mental low point in her life. There undoubtedly was a ginormous cover-up after her death. Those were very different times, and affairs COULD be covered up, or go unreported by the media. People actually could have privacy, including people in the public eye. It was a completely different culture. In Marilyn’s life, there were lots of things to be covered up, and lots of people to make sure the coverings were very deep. I was a teenager when Marilyn died, and I remember when the news broke that I felt very sad that this sparkling, lovely, talented woman was gone. To this day, when I watch the great film The Misfits, I end in tears at the loss of this wonderful, fragile being. And if a joint or two helped her relax and enjoy - good for her. The speculation will last forever, I know, but her true legacy - her amazing film work - is what truly counts.
By SusanCrawford on 12/05/2009 2:33 pm
Mr. Wow
Dear Susan Crawford…amen and you go, sister.  To make Marilyn the dumb crazy cog in Byzantine murder theories is so sad. And such a rejection of her life and efforts to rise above her sad beginnings.  Arthur Miller (whom I do not admire) accurately summed up Marilyn’s life and career—"heroic."   She was not some bimbo looking for revenge.
By Mr. Wow on 12/10/2009 4:23 pm
BelindaJoy

I think Ellen DeGeneres is great and I also like her show, but I just don’t see the masses (those that Oprah was able to cultivate over 20 years) turning on their heels and flocking to Ellen. Is it a case of race trumps sexual orientation? Maybe.

It is clear a Black Woman who is a Lesbian can not draw the numbers, as illustrated by Wanda Sykes new show. But Ellen has done really well for herself. My observation and opinion is backed-up by the way the nation is voting on Gay marriage. a perfect barometer to the acceptance level in the country. I could use California as a model and example, but truly if you look at any state, so many people have antiquated ideas about Gays/Lesbians it will still be a struggle for true acceptance.

And no matter how charming, funny and disarming Ellen is, there will always be a segment of society that will see her as Gay first, and a funny and sweet entertainer second.

But then again the same could be said about Oprah in regard to seeing her as Black first and an accomplished news reporter second. Although something tells me those who think that way were in smaller numbers.

By BelindaJoy on 12/04/2009 9:48 am
Mr. Wow

I don’t know if Ellen could ever become the cultural goddess that Oprah is, but Ellen’s popularity is enormous. She has been clever in presenting herself as rather sexless.  We all know she’s gay, all that long ago sturm und drang.  Now she’s just perky blonde Ellen.  She don’t talk sex. 

 If she was in the Wanda Sykes lay-it-on-the-table mode, Ellen’s show never would have survived.  The public is more comfortable with lesbians than with gay men (perhaps because women’s sexuality still seems to be such a mystery to…everyone!)  But the lesbian has to "behave." Indeed, so does the gay man.  Neil Patrick Harris vs.Adam Lambert—who do we want hosting your awards show? 

I think Ellen has been embraced with remarkable affection by the straight community. And that will continue. But Oprah is a once-in-a-lifetime phenom.  (Mr. Wow is not so crazy about the Big O, but can’t deny her affect and her good deed doing.)

By Mr. Wow on 12/04/2009 11:20 am
12345next ›last »