Dwight Winston Ellis died in Bangor, Maine, at the age of 86. Three names, and each has a wandering connection for me.
Dwight was the first name of our 34th president, Dwight David Eisenhower. He was from a religious family and was named after the American evangelist Dwight L. Moody. His nickname was Ike, which came in handy when he ran for president, as “I Like Ike” was a catchier campaign slogan than “Dwight’s All Right” or “Eisenhower Has the Power.”
Eisenhower was, of course, the Supreme Commander of the American armed forces at the close of World War II. Two other generals—MacArthur and Patton—were also towering presences. All three had biopics made about them. Tom Selleck got off his horse to play Ike. Gregory Peck was MacArthur. But it was George C. Scott who stole the show as Patton. Scott famously boycotted the Oscars because he didn’t like actors being in competition. He called the Oscars a “two-hour meat parade.” When Goldie Hawn opened the envelope for Best Actor, she said, “Oh my God. The winner is George C. Scott.” And the audience went wild.
The second name brings to mind another hero of World War II, Winston Spencer Churchill. The best opening pages of a book I’ve ever read are in William Manchester’s majestic three-volume biography of Churchill, The Last Lion. What England needed after Dunkirk, Manchester wrote, was—
—an embodiment of fading Victorian standards . . . a tribune for honor, loyalty, duty, and the supreme virtue of action; one who would never compromise with iniquity, who could create a sublime mood and thus give men heroic visions of what they were and might become . . . a leader of intuitive genius, a born demagogue in the original sense of the word . . . an artist who knew how to gather the blazing light of history into his prism and then distort it to his ends, an embodiment of inflexible resolution who could impose his will and his imagination on his people . . . Such a man, if he existed, would be England’s last chance.
In London there was such a man.
Churchill was also known for his wit. Just one example: The playwright George Bernard Shaw, no fan of Churchill, sent him two tickets to the opening of his new play, with this note: “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend—if you have one.”
Churchill immediately wrote back, “Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second—if there is one.”
And the name Ellis makes me think of Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and a scene from the great comedy Lover, Come Back starring Doris Day, Rock Hudson, and Tony Randall. Randall plays the rich but worthless son of the founder of a big ad agency, where Hudson is an account exec. Randall is seeing a psychiatrist to improve his confidence. He complains to Hudson, “You don’t know what a handicap it is to be born rich.”
“Some handicap,” says Rock.
“Don’t sneer! Wealthy people are hated and resented. Look what's written on the Statue of Liberty. Does it say, Send me your rich? No, it says, Send me your poor. We're not even welcome in our own country.”
JSB’s Movie Recommendations:
Lover, Come Back and Pillow Talk are two of the best comedies ever made in Hollywood. Doris Day was an amazing talent. She could sing, dance, act in both comedy and drama. Her facial expressions are a riot in these movies, and she and her good friend Rock have tremendous chemistry together. Tony Randall as the feckless third wheel is hysterical.
For a similar trio, check out my favorite screwball comedy from the studio days, The Awful Truth. It stars Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, and Ralph Bellamy. Dunne is an underappreciated actress. Grant, of course, was in his element as a light comedian. And good old boy Ralph Bellamy is around to not get the girl…again…just like in His Girl Friday, also starring Grant and Roz Russell in a remake of the famous hit play, The Front Page.
Make some popcorn and enjoy.
And now a poem from your humble scribe:
Sometimes in life we find ourselves
Engaged in tense exchanges,
In meetings or at social fetes
That someone else arranges.
A stranger offers his opinion,
As if it were quite factual.
You beg to differ, have your say
With real facts, quite actual.
But then instead of answer calm
You’re accused of being wicked,
And told in no uncertain terms
Where your opinion can be stick-ed.
Thus it is, in Twitter world,
That conversations vex.
There is no thought or listening,
There’s only scrambled X.
Some day perhaps we shall go back
To conversations civil
Where substance is the main concern,
Not vitriolic drivel.
And so I say, my angry friend,
Fear not a new opinion.
Better ’tis to think than get
A right-cross to your chinion.