Heh--no, you're thinking of Rose Marie, who was a comedienne. Rosemary Clooney was a singer who did a few movie musicals, like "White Christmas," had a tv variety show, and later became a respected jazz singer. I always loved Rosemary Clooney's 50s era pop stuff, but I really love the jazz stuff she did later in life--she had that Johnny Cash-like talent of really stripping a song down and conveying its deeper meaning, and making it seems so effortless that you'd have believed they were just telling you a story that had come to mind.
Wow. You're right. I guess I never knew Rosemary. Somehow in all these years, I never came across her. Her background sounds a little bit like another songstress that I liked - Anita O'Day. I guess George Clooney is Rosemary's nephew. No word, though, on what connection Rose Marie had, if any.
I see Rosemary's son is Miguel Ferrer, the actor, who also plays the drums. ( He reminds me of that guy who played "My Favorite Martian" with Bill Bixby, for some reason. )
kuranes, I think nostalgia is a mixed bag. Always better in retrospect ....
Well, we couldn't have nostalgia for the future, and so we're kinda stuck having to look at it in retrospect.
It seems to come in twenty year cycles, fashion-wise. I can remember shopping when the hippy look came back and thinking, my gosh, this stuff people are paying big prices for which isn't nearly as well made as it was twenty-thirty years ago. And I had an attic full of the stuff!
And I think somewhere around here I told the story about in the seventies when the forties look came back in and I showed up at my mom's and she asked me why I was wearing such out-dated clothing!
My Mom used to talk to me as a kid about guys wearing "zoot suits", and one day, decades later, as an adult, I got to see one, as they had come back around in fashion briefly. Heh.
As far as the roadside kitsch, I truly mourn the loss. Everyplace had its own special flavor now everyplace you go you can eat the same food in the same restaurants and see the same clothing and haircuts.
A couple years ago I was talking to someone who lived outside of London about his first trip into that city in a long time, and so I mentioned that I was a tad jealous of his coming opportunities to see the old ivy covered bookshops and antiquarian places or coffee houses etc. He told me that they were all gone now. Replaced by chain stores like Starbucks and the other well known franchises. I had naively thought that Europe was spared this transformation. Or that they wouldn't stand for it, or something.
Speaking of London, I saw a James Bond movie last night. I remembered the first time I had seen it, as a little boy with my Dad. Funny to see it with adult eyes, after all this time. I wonder if they will someday have the now elderly Connery play a villain in the series ?
