Darth Vader’s Voice Would Have Been Great Even in a Tin Can

James Earl Jones died. He was, of course, one of our great actors, set apart by his iconic voice. The voice of Darth Vader, for goodness’ sake (I mean, badness’ sake) and did you know he recorded the lines for Vader in a three-hour session for which he was paid $7,000? No one was expecting Star Wars to be a monster hit. New director, no major stars, with the exception of Alec Guinness, but by that time kids were asking, “Who’s Alec Guinness?” which is a shame because I’ll tell you who Alec Guinness was, another of the great actors, an Oscar winner for The Bridge on the River Kwai. 

And so it goes in the world of actors. I was part of that world for several years, and learned that there are five phases in an actor’s life (as viewed through a producer’s eyes):

1.    Who is James Scott Bell?

2.    Get me James Scott Bell.

3.    Get me a James Scott Bell type.

4.    Get me a young James Scott Bell.

5.    Who is James Scott Bell?

James Earl Jones became a star in the play (and movie) The Great White Hope, which was a fictionalized account of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and his fight with former champ Jim Jeffries in 1910. The fight lasted 15 rounds, with Johnson winning after knocking Jeffries to the canvas twice, and Jeffries’ corner throwing in the towel.

Jimmy Pelham, Jane Alexander, James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope (Broadway production, 1968)

That’s where we get the saying “throw in the towel”— from boxing. In the 1800s we had bare-knuckle boxing that would last until one fighter was knocked out or gave up. In the latter case, his corner would toss a towel into the ring to indicate they’d had enough.

In those days the greatest bare-knuckle brawler was John L. Sullivan, who was declared the first Heavyweight Champion of the World. He was big, brawny, brash and a bull in the ring. He was undefeated until a championship fight with “Gentleman” Jim Corbett in 1892. Corbett was a “dancer,” meaning he was fast on his feet and able to dodge Sullivan’s deadly right hand. Corbett knocked Sullivan out in the 21st round.

Warner Bros. made an entertaining movie about all this, Gentleman Jim, starring Errol Flynn as Corbett and Ward Bond as Sullivan. 

Speaking of Errol Flynn, he’s often associated with the phrase “In like Flynn,” which means someone’s made it. They have success, they’ve landed in the perfect spot. 

It’s sometimes thought this was a sly reference to Flynn’s offscreen dalliances with young women. That much is true. Indeed, Flyyn was put on trial for statutory rape in 1943. His attorney was the noted L.A. lawyer Jerry Giesler, who in those days was the go-to counselor for Hollywood stars, so much so that yet another phrase arose, “Get me Giesler!” Flynn was acquitted.

Jerry Giesler and Marilyn Monroe during her divorce from Joe DiMaggio

There is evidence of usage of the phrase before Errol. One source may have been a 1930s Democratic machine politician from the Bronx, Edward J. “Boss” Flynn. Since his candidates always “won” it was said that if he picked you to run, you were “In like Flynn.”

In any event, it has a nice rhyme scheme to it and seems to have caught on with GIs during World War II, who preferred it over “Smug like Doug” or “Blank like Frank” or “Meretricious like Aloysius.”

Which brings me (don’t ask me how) to a random word from the dictionary: telephony. n., having to do with telephones. Remember telephones? They had wires, and we had to have millions of miles of wires on poles in order to talk to each other. 

Originally this was done with two tin cans, a string and a couple of buttons. You put a hole in the bottom of each can, put the string ends through them, attached the buttons to the ends of the string and pulled the whole thing taut. Then you could put your ear on one can while another person talked to you though their can (the French invented a dance to celebrate this, called the Can-Can).

It worked pretty well until the Civil War, when Abraham Lincoln attempted to place a can-to-can call to Ulysses S. Grant and ran out of string. 

So Alex G. Bell invented the telephone, and the wire business took off. In 1955 they got it in their heads to put a wire across the Atlantic Ocean so people in New York could talk to people in London, or vice versa, whichever occurred first.

So how do you lay cable across the Atlantic Ocean? You can’t just call a cable company and say, “Send me a 3,000 mile spool.” And what happens when you lay it down? Does it rest on the bottom? I mean, that’s kind of deep, right? What if you drape it across a sunken pirate ship? What if a shark bites it? 

I still wonder about this. There is something like 750,000 miles of fiber optic cable in the ocean. That's like going to the moon and back—twice.

Telephony is not the same thing as tell-a-phony, which is the art of figuring out who’s trying to rip you off. It was pretty easy to tell a phony when you got that email offering you millions from a Nigerian prince. What a sweet guy, you might have thought, but it was easy to spot the ruse because we know all the generous princes abide in Ethiopia. 

Then there were those robo-calls that warned you in computer voice that a judgment has been entered against you and you need to respond to this number before the IRS repossesses your first-born child.  

Or an email to the same effect. Almost always it’s easy to spot the fraud because the use of the English language is, shall we say, a challenge, along the lines of “All your base are belong to us.” (Look that one up.) English is hard enough for those of us who do speak it. 

I recall (this is true) the well-known basketball player years ago who said in an interview, “I can go to my right or to my left. I’m completely amphibious.”

Quite a skill, I say.

Quote of the Week: “In some cultures they don’t name their babies right away. They wait until they see how the baby develops. Like in Dances With Wolves. Unfortunately, our kids’ names would be less romantic and poetic. “This is my oldest boy, Fall Off Tricycle, his friend, Dribbles His Juice, and my beautiful daughter, Allergic to Nuts.” – Paul Reiser

Note to my paid subscribers: In a couple of days look for a new spotcast (my name for a short podcast, because most podcasts are too long, IMO) which is guaranteed to bring you a much needed and relaxed smile, and also includes a micro-story by yours truly.