A Hoboken, New Jersey native and the son of Italian immigrants, Frank Sinatra was the Elvis, the Bieber, the Jagger, of the teenage generation during World War II. After a few years of bobbysoxer besiege, however, “Old Blue Eyes” slid… Read More ›
Presidents
Swedish Roots: Mamie Eisenhower’s Iowa-Sprung Ancestry
This article is the last in a series on First Ladies and ancestral identities. It began with Michelle Obama and has included Jacqueline Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Florence Harding, Pat Nixon, Hillary Clinton and Edith Wilson. In 1953, when the White… Read More ›
The First President Captured on Film: McKinley’s 1896 Campaign Song & Commercial
William McKinley is often seen as an important transitional President – at least to those interested in studying some of the real stories behind the headline version of history. It’s true he didn’t have the charisma or excitable speaking style of… Read More ›
Jimmy Carter’s Green “Country” Brand: His 1976 Campaign Song
Few run for President on a set of promises to the people which they then insist on keeping once they are elected, with such conviction that it then helps them lose re-election. It was an important storyline underlining the phenomena which… Read More ›
Bill Clinton’s Song: He Never Stops Thinking ‘Bout….
Amid the din of cheering and the shift in audio from the microphone back to the voice-over of news anchors, one would have had to listen closely after former President Bill Clinton finished his speech yesterday at the Democratic National… Read More ›
Dynasty to Fantasy Island: An Eighties TV Star Galaxy at Ronald Reagan’s White House
Sometimes looking at just what famous faces came to meet a President can suggest the man in the White House as being one who knows what’s up with the people outside the gates of what Harry Truman called, ‘the great… Read More ›
When Ann Romney & Michelle Obama Sat Down To Talk
Anti-Obama and anti-Romney voters won’t like it but the truth is that Ann Romney and Michelle Obama quite naturally and spontaneously found they shared more of the same views and opinions than they didn’t. At least that was the case… Read More ›
The Last Original Campaign Song: Jerry Ford’s Bicentennial Tune
Yesterday, it was learned that The Silversun Pickups directed its attorney to request that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stop using its song “Panic Switch,” as a campaign song, for political reasons. In the last quarter of a century, this… Read More ›
Mae West Nude, Getting Naked, Fighting Father Time…and Living
In her later years, Mae West spoke out against nudity in feature films – not on a moral basis but because she felt it didn’t allow the imagination to wander. “Never drop the seventh veil,” she once said about actors… Read More ›
My Chats with Gore Vidal on the Presidents & First Ladies
I did not know Gore Vidal well, but I’d read some of his books, and he’d read some of mine. We met three times: once at the National Press Club in Washington, a second time at the White House, and… Read More ›
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