What'll I Do?

I enjoy all the singing the girls do. Really, they might not be the most stunning vocalists, and we often only get to hear bit parts of the songs, but there is something great about their musical performances that I just can't put my finger on. It might be that they remind me of family, my family. My mother and my aunts, and every family get together over the last 30 years. One will start humming, another will butt in with a few words from the chorus, and before any one knows exactly how it's started they've been singing mouldy-oldies for an hour.

This performance is hands down my favourite. Dorothy has accompanied Blanche to the Rusty Anchor, tired of being single and alone, and is promptly dumped by Blanche in favour of getting as much attention possible (from as many men as possible). Dorothy sits down next to the piano and eventually begins to sing, gaining all the attention that Blanche was aiming to get.

Dorothy may not be the first songstress you would think of having sing Irving Berlin's "What'll I Do", and so many others have covered it who would seem more apt to do so, but as far as I am concerned Dorothy's version is the best. It both makes me cry and laugh, and her emotion shines through with every word. You can't help but love her, and her showmanship right there at the end always makes me smile. And as Blanche said "Dorothy, when you sing you light up the room. You do. You positively glow, you're beautiful."

Rest in Peace, Pussycat. You touched my heart.

5 Little Facts- Bea Arthur

• She was born Bernice Frankel, in her youth she married Robert Alan Arthur. She later married Gene Saks.
• Bea did not like to watch her own performances in film or television.
• Before she was a successful actress and a comedienne, she was a truck driver and a typist in the Marine Corps.
•  According to a television interview, Arthur claimed that her start in comedy came when she was only a lounge singer. Apparently, when she got up on stage to sing torch songs, the audience would laugh at her because of her deep voice and her height. The nightclub manager then approached her and told her she was in the wrong business. She should be doing comedy instead.
• Was best friends with Angela Lansbury and Adrienne Barbeau

So Blanche is Steve's Grandma?

I never would have guessed, he doesn't sound one bit Southern.

 

Season 3, Episode 1 : Blue's Big Treasure Hunt. If you couldn't have guessed, it's about a treasure hunt...a big one. Also starring the voices of Carol Kane and Gregory Hines.

 

Reverend Mackenzie and Millie Beasley

 Rose remembers her rebellious stage:

I cringe at some of the stunts I pulled when I went through my rebellious stage. Like climbing out my bedroom window and stealing my father’s truck to drive to a bar in the city to meet Clel Lightener. Oh, Clel was the cutest boy at our high school. He was also the only sophomore old enough to get into a bar. I sat in the truck for hours, paralyzed with fear. I kept thinking to myself, “What is a simple Protestant farm girl doing in the parking lot of a gin mill in a flashy, fast-paced city like Tyler’s Landing?”.

I marched up to the door, and I ran right into Reverend Mackenzie coming out of the bar on the arm of Millie Beasley, wife of Emmett Beasley, our town’s most decorated war hero. Emmett received three Purple Hearts…all for head wounds. He ran the feed store in our town. ‘Course, if the truth be known, Millie was the one who had to make change for the customers. 

Oh, sorry. Anyway, Reverend Mackenzie made a deal with me. He said if I didn’t tell on him, he wouldn’t tell on me. So, I went home. He kept my secret, till the day he died. Which was two days later. Emmett found Millie and the Reverend skinny-dipping in the church’s fountain and he shot the both of them. A week later we became Lutherans.

Golden Eggies!

Chocolate eggs? Faberge eggs? Hecks no! Golden Eggs!

 I like the egg bodies, they make them all look really fat, or really pregnant. Also, it looks like you can get them in a few different designs! And there only $99! For eggs. Painted eggs.

I wonder if she takes requests?