TOM SNYDER

Tom Snyder
I was sorry to see the passing of Tom Snyder. I worked with him briefly in 1980-81, at WABC-TV. I was the “humorist” at the station and Tom was an anchorman for the news. He had finished a run as host of “Tomorrow” and he was very well liked. I was just starting out in the business.
He was a nice guy, not a big ego, he would talk to everybody.
I was an experiment at the station. Ending the 5pm newscast with a “funny” bit about living in New York. Only if the bit did not ring their chimes one particular day, I would get the cold shoulder.
Of course Tom had a big front office, suitable for a big name celebrity. But he used to wander out into the newsroom just to shoot the breeze with the regular workers. Like me. I can remember him coming up to my desk some days and hitting me with that smile and ask, “Okay, Houlihan. Who you gonna pick on today?”
One of the interns at the station told me an anecdote about Tom. A woman came in off the street and told the receptionist that she was a friend of Tom’s but did not want to give her name. So the receptionist phones Tom and tells him that a friend of his is here to see him, in the lobby. He comes down in the elevator. The intern said that, looking at Tom’s face, you could tell he didn’t know the woman.
“Have we met?”
“Well I watch you so much that I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
Tom did not blow her off. He was gracious and made small talk about what shows she had seen him on, where she was from, and said that it was nice meeting her. Then he got back on the elevator.
I’m going to miss him.

"Who Do They Think They Are?"

"Spring Is Here"

"Hmmm"

Got a call from my ex wife Linda last night. Reminising about the 30 year anniversary of the New York blackout of 1977. That was like going thru a war together. We had just flown back from a trip to San Franciso. We had our car at the airport, La Guardia. None of the traffic lights were working. In Manhattan there were some volunteers directing traffic. Long waits to get thru the intersections. Our apt. on 57th St. was pitch black. No elevator, sweltering heat. We live on the 5th floor. Lugging our bags up the stairs. A New York moment. One of our neighbors came out of her apt. and offered us a lit candle to light our way up the stairs. Gretchen. We didn't even know her. We becamed good friends over the years. Linda remembered we had no food in the house. D'Agostino's opened the next day and it was very cool inside. The New York experience. Trudging through life. Right alongside your neighbors.

 

"Red"

 

"Dark Passage"

 

Saw "Dark Passage" on dvd last night. With Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. What a gem of a movie! I think the best films were made in the 1940s and 50s. The plots were believable, the production values perfect. This was such a clever script written from the escaped con's point of view. Bacall looked so incandesently beautiful. And Agnes Moorhead I've never seen more sexy in a very bitchy, vindictive vein. The entire cast was spot on, esp the cab driver and the shady plastic surgeon. Even his best friend (to Bogie, "You're the only one who liked me.") who takes a big risk by putting him up in his tiny one room apt. for five days while he is on the run. The whole thing had such a down to earth realism. When Bogart finds his buddy dead on the floor when he returns from the surgery, he flees back to Bacall's apt, where he has to communicate by notes until his face heals. The whole thing had such a poignant quality about being in real trouble and the one friend you can trust.

When Bacall shows him the newspaper about Bogie being a suspect in the death of his buddy because his fingerprints were found in the room, he writes her a short note. "He was my closest friend."

I just loved it.

"Never Mind The Sex Pistols"

 

"Confident Diva"

 

"What?"

 

 

 

Big Diva

 

 

 

"Tony Rome"

 

Caught this early 60s Frank Sinatra flick on dvd last night. It was fun. Frank plays a private investigater in Miami who lives on a house boat, which he won in a card game. A rich guy's (Simon Oakland) daughter, who has a heavy heroin habit, hires Frank to find some of her missing jewelry. Of course he goes looking for it and finds lots of lowlife characters including a butch lesbian who slaps her glam girlfriend around the room, a woman who wants to hire Frank to find out why her pussy (cat) doesn't smile any more, which opens up lots of smiling pussy jokes, several murders and several hookers on the make. There is even a cameo by Shecky Green as a depressed mobster. The whole thing ends with an extreme closeup of Jill St. John's ass as she is bending over. It was that kind of a movie. A fun summer escape.

"Smoking Ladies"