91 Died today.

Sid Ceasar and Shirley Temple who died earlier this week were giants of show business in the fifties.
Now, they are mostly forgotten, Shirley's movies and Sid's comedy shows are seldom seen. I remember them though.Sid was a comic genius.

Shirley was a Silver Screen icon from the thirties! Not too many left from that era.
Mickey Rooney is still here at 92. Of course they were child actors of that era.

Still remember watching them on Million Dollar movie in NY as a kid in the late afternoon. In those days they also showed old black + white movies in the wee hours before dawn. Does anyone else remember that?

Its sad but as Geo Harrison wrote All Things Must Pass...

Yes, I remember the Million Dollar Movie. It played the same film every night for one week. I can remember watching King Kong over and over with my grandfather. Don't recall when they stopped it, I must have been pre-school.

Never saw much of Sid Ceaser, just clips of his old TV show. He is always mentioned as a genius when they talk to old comedians, but he had many demons himself. At least he lived to a good old age.

Everyone knows Shirley Temple from those sappy movies of 30's. I never got the cuteness angle, but for a 6 -9 year old I guess it was great to a depression era audience. After she matured she was just a bad actress and retired early, but she was very successful in the rest of her life.

Really sad to hear of so many well known people passing at this time, both young and old.

I used to find and sell old VHS videos and I once got a collection of "Your Show of Shows" with Sid Caesar so I got to see some of those. I actually would make copies for myself of the rarer stuff like that before I sent it out, so I have some still to watch, and hopefully will find the time someday.

They are very of the times, early 50's stuff, usually adapted from the most successful 30's and 40's radio shows and usually with the same stars, which is why they were given some of the first shows of the then new medium of television. Some went back to the days of Vaudeville in the teens and 20's. "Your Show of Shows" was kind of like an umbrella show since many great comic minds including Carl Reiner got their chops on the writing staff, and I want to say also the creators of "The Dick VanDyke Show" which led to the "Mary Tyler Moore Show", whose James L. Brooks co-created "The Simpsons", which has spawned the animated comedy series boom that continues to this day. Caesar was a legend in that way, but he's outlived so many others who could talk knowledgably about his influence, so you probably won't hear much of it. There should definitely be a nice remembrance for him at the Emmys, but that's almost a whole year off since they just passed. Maybe TV Land will put together a much deserved tribute to him.

Shirley Temple, in her little girl version, forever adorable, in those classic films, was to me, already to be from a LONG time ago, like a hundred years ago, even when I first saw her as a kid myself in the 70's. It just seemed almost to be adventures in another world. She was the highest grossing movie star for several years running, if I'm not mistaken, and I think was given a miniature honorary Oscar. Talk about museum material! She should also be noted generously in the remembrances at the Oscars presentation which is coming soon, and I'm sure she will generate an loving ovation. She scoffed at being iconic, but she simply was early 30's America. In so many movies, she was dealt a bad hand, like a lot of people in 1930's, but kept her chin up and somehow got through it, and was inspirational to many in that way.

Both of them were often found on those interchangeable internet wagsites with the slideshows in articles coarsely titled things like "Celebrities You Already Thought Were Dead!". Time to update those, and add a few others to it, I'm sure they will. Abe Vigoda must be on every one of these, but to be fair, he looked like he was 70 years old on "Barney Miller", and that show is from the 1970's! He was actually in his late 40's and early 50's when he was on that show. (Hang in there, Abe, no jinxes here!)
Time marches on and fame is a variable thing, often stretched thin by time simply running its course, and the odd occurrence of a once major star basically outliving all of their fans. Sid and Shirley, they already belonged to the ages, now the ground wanted them, and it surely does get what it wants.

quote:

Yes, I remember the Million Dollar Movie. It played the same film every night for one week. I can remember watching King Kong over and over with my grandfather. Don't recall when they stopped it, I must have been pre-school

That's right! Forgot that it was the same old movie all week... Think it was CH 9 WOR-TV but not sure about that.

quote:

Time marches on and fame is a variable thing, often stretched thin by time simply running its course, and the odd occurrence of a once major star basically outliving all of their fans. Sid and Shirley, they already belonged to the ages, now the ground wanted them, and it surely does get what it wants.

Are you a writer or author? You should be...!

Ha, ha, no, but thanks, Bill, I probably should be.

Me am long time agos mastered of English language talkings and using it real goodly in typinging it, for certainted, all the times.