Afleveringen

  • In Episode 43 ("Love and Marriage"), Rabia and Felix watched the infamous televised 1955 musical version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, starring Frank Sinatra as the Stage Manager. The songs were so terrible, and the acting so bad, that Wilder personally called the station and ensured that it would never air ever again. Neither Rabia nor Felix had ever seen the play before, nor even heard of it. While a beloved cultural mainstay in the US, Our Town somehow never made it to Australia. Now, in his first solo episode, Henry explains to Australians what we're missing out on and why Our Town matters.

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  • We think of Sinatra as emerging as a serious dramatic actor from the early 1950s onwards, shedding his clean-cut MGM image for the first time when he takes intense roles as mentally disturbed soldiers in From Here to Eternity and Suddenly. But there's a part of the story we've all forgotten. In January 1945, at the height of the bobby-soxer era and months before tapdancing in a sailor suit for Anchors Aweigh, Sinatra made his actual dramatic acting debut on the radio horror anthology series Suspense. This week, we listen to "To Find Help", shockingly ahead of its time, where Sinatra briefly shed his squeaky-clean status to play a violent and mentally ill man terrorising an old woman in her home.

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  • In the Wee Small Hours is often considered Sinatra's best work and arguably the first concept album. The "concept" is something along the lines of “I am awake at 3am and I am feeling deeply sad about a lost love.” And that's really it. Just when you think there couldn't possibly be any more songs about the nuances of that kind of misery, there are seven more. It's relentless, it's brutal, it borders on self-harm and it changed the way we all listen to albums forever. So many emotions, such beautiful music, so much history, such an enormous legacy. And yet, what is there to say? Sometimes it's best just to listen - not just to Sinatra, but to the people out there in the world, all with their own problems, who heard this and felt something.

    Selected resources:
    * Woody Guthrie - Dustbowl Ballads (1940) (featured: "Dust Cain't Kill Me")
    * Gordon Jenkins - Seven Dreams (1953) (featured: "The Cocktail Party (The Fourth Dream)")
    * The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (1967) (featured: "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "That's Not Me", "Caroline, No")
    * Paul Kelly - How to Make Gravy (autobiography, 2010)
    * Jane Russell & Hoagy Carmichael - "I Get Along Without You Very Well" (from Las Vegas Story, 1952)
    * Bob Crosby and His Orchestra (with Marion Mann, vocal) - "Deep in a Dream" (1938)
    * Laurie Anderson - "Smoke Rings" (from Home of the Brave, 1986)
    * The Berlin Patient (podcast hosted by Joel White, 2016-17) (Complete series available on YouTube and Internet Archive)
    * Sophie Calle - Take Care of Yourself (book and art project, 2007)
    * Nick Hornby - High Fidelity (novel, 1995)
    * Marian McPartland Trio - "This Love of Mine" (from self-titled album, 1956)

    Special thanks to W.M. Akers.

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  • "Love and Marriage" was one of the worst songs Sinatra ever recorded, and the toxic ideas about marriage that it perpetuated left a negative impact on the world. This week, we look into the song's unlikely origins in a televised musical version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town and its shameful legacy as the theme song for the vile 1980s-90s sitcom Married... with Children. Watching this show for the first time in 2024 is a jaw-dropping experience, not least because of the jeering, catcalling studio audience. And of course, we've sought out the transphobic episode. Join us, won't you, as we travel down the "Tender Trap" to Al Bundy pipeline. This one made us feel bad.

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  • The phrase "tender trap" essentially didn't exist before the mid-1950s, entering common usage from the film and song which were both popularised by Frank Sinatra. The image of being lured into your downfall by a thing pretending to be soft speaks to a basic element of what it is to be human, and people all over the world have projected their emotions, hangups and life experiences onto this simple concept. This week, we examine Sinatra's classic film and song, plus the original play, then take a look at the many manifestations of the "tender trap" ever since, exploring 70 years of human sexuality and emotion.

    Selected references:

    Pamela Robinson Wojcik - The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film (2010) The article about the musical they do in High School Musical Marjorie Holmes - I've Got to Talk to Somebody, God (1969) and Second Wife, Second Life (1993) Michael Walsh - How to Undo a Maiden (1971) Transvestia magazine, issue #110. "The Gift" by J. Reviere. (1971) Howard Cosell - Like It Is (1974) Seductress magazine, issue #6 (pornography) (1970s?) The Tender Trap (1978) (pornography) Gay Barchives - Interview with Doug Rehrer about The Tender Trap, Pittsburgh (2020) Ron Nyswaner - Blue Days, Black Nights (2004) Jay Matthews - “Youthful Lovers in China Find They Are Caught in a Tender Trap” 17 December 1978, Washington Post Alexander Abdennur - The Conflict Resolution Syndrome: Volunteerism, Violence, and Beyond The Sapphire Room (1997) Dave Damiani - "The Tinder App" (2016) Madeleine Davies - “Don’t Fall for the Tender Trap” 13 July 2017, Jezebel The Tender Trap (2021, New Zealand) Interview with Sharon Armstrong, Woman Magazine NZ, 1 March 2021 Death Trap aka The Tender Trap (1974) starring Vincent Price

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  • In a special emergency episode, we examine Frank Sinatra's long history with Israel, Palestine and Zionism. Many don't realise just how connected these topics are. This week, we weave a story all the way from Sinatra personally helping run guns to the Nakba in 1948 and his starring role as a fighter pilot for the IDF in 1966's Cast a Giant Shadow, all the way to the bombing of the Frank Sinatra International Student Centre by Hamas in 2002. Henry joins to share his experiences and thoughts from a Jewish perspective, and Rabia has a personal announcement.

    Selected sources:
    * Rabbi Dovid Weiss - We Cry for the Palestinians (Interview with Let the Quran Speak, October 2023)
    * The House I Live In (1945, anti-semitism PSA starring Frank Sinatra)
    * Paul Robeson - "The House I Live In"
    * Hasan Hammami, Nakba survivor, interview with Middle East Eye, 2023.
    * Mahmoud Salah, Nakba survivor, interview with Democracy Now, 2018.
    * Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948?, Al-Jazeera, 15 May 2022.
    * Eddie Cantor in Israel (1950, short film)
    * Exodus (1960)
    * Pat Boone - "This Land is Mine" (Theme from Exodus)
    * Shalom Goldman - Starstruck in the Promised Land (2019)
    * Sinatra in Israel (1962, short film)
    * Sinatra: Supporting Israel "His Way", Friends of Zion Museum profile.
    * George Jacobs - Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra (2003)
    * Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
    * Making the Desert Bloom: Why Europe Clings to the Colonial Mindset, Emile Badarin, Middle East Eye, 5 May 2023.
    * Melville Shavelson - How to Make a Jewish Movie (1971)
    * "The Shadows and the Light", Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 5 episode.
    * What'll It Be? Sinatra or Woody Allen?, Jack Engelhard, Israel National News, 8 July 2004.

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  • Who burnt down West Melbourne Stadium in the middle of Sinatra's 1955 Australian tour, and why did this happen? This week, on our final episode of the year, SUDDENLY investigates. And we're joined by David Nichols - Australian history expert, senior lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, and author of Dig: Australian Rock and Pop Music 1960-85 - to help us put together the pieces. We also learn about West Melbourne Stadium's second life as Festival Hall, and weave a story spanning seven decades that that takes us all the way up to 2023.

    Selected media discussed in this episode:
    * Frank Hardy's novel Power Without Glory (1950)
    * Howard Cosell's introduction of Frank Sinatra from The Main Event (1974)
    * Ben Folds Five's "Boxing" from Ben Folds Five (1995)
    * Newsfront (1978)
    * Recordings of The AMPOL Show from 1957, documenting early Australian performances of Bill Haley and the Comets, Litltle Richard and others. Released as Rock n' Roll Radio Australia 1957. Available in full on YouTube.
    * The Beatles' concert from Festival Hall, Melbourne, 1964. Filmed in full and available on YouTube.

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  • Frank Sinatra's first Australian visit in 1955 followed shortly after the repeal of decades-old laws preventing "coloured" musicians, or any foreign musicians, from performing in the country. The tour was part of the initial run of the now-legendary "Big Shows" put on by mysterious American promoter Lee Gordon, who took advantage of the newly-liberated times to bring acts like Ella Fitzgerald, Johnnie Ray, Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong to Australia for the first time. But how did we end up with such racist, bizarre laws in the first place? To understand that, we need to go back to the 1928 Australian tour of an African-American jazz band called Sonny Clay's Coloured Idea, and unravel the elaborate conspiracy that faced them when they arrived. This week, we're examining Sinatra's 1955 Australian tour by putting it in its proper historical context - with a cliffhanger ending you won't see coming.

    Selected media discussed this week, with links:

    AI Frank Sinatra cover of the theme from "Five Nights at Freddy's." AI Eric Cartman cover of Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life." Deirdre O'Connell's book, Harlem Nights: The Secret History of Australia's Jazz Age, published in 2021 by Macquarie University Press - a key source for this episode, and a highly recommended read. Two iconic photos of Sonny Clay's Coloured Idea arriving in Sydney at Circular Quay, 1928. Viewable through the State Library of New South Wales website. Photo 1, Photo 2. Photo of Central Station concourse in Sydney, taken in 2017, via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of a shelf full of Sex and the City DVDs in a Melbourne op shop, 2023. Little Man, What Now? Illustration by Jim Russell from 1935 edition of Australian Music Maker and Dance Band News. Sourced from Harlem Nights, available to view via Google Books. Kay Dreyfus' book, Silences and Secrets: The Australian Experience of the Weintraubs Syncopators, published 2013 by Monash University Publishing. Photo: Dancing the Jitterbug at the Booker T. Washington Club (Albion Street) 1943 [Photo by Bullard for The Sun, ID: FXB266504] - pictured: Private Eli Walker and Kathleen Cavanagh. Sourced from Murders Most Foul: Sydney True Crime History Tours website. Ella Fitzgerald - "A Foggy Day (In London Town)" Live at Bushnell Memorial Hall, 1954. Johnnie Ray - In Concert. Filmed in Stockholm, Sweden, 1958, including "Such a Night" and "Up Above My Head." Louis Armstrong - Live in Melbourne Australia 1954 and 1956. Full live recordings available on Soundcloud, including "Back Home in Indiana" as featured in this episode. Australian newsreel, 1955 - Sinatra Gets Tumultuous Welcome, documenting Sinatra's arrival at Mascot airport in Sydney. Frank Sinatra - Live in Melbourne, Australia. Recorded on January 19th, 1955 at West Melbourne Stadium. Full concert audio available on YouTube. Footage of Felix playing Overwatch while listening to the above. "God Save the Queen" - Variant of the 30-second film reels that played after movies in Australian cinemas, 1950s and 1960s. News story about the Pleasant Point Museum and Railway in South Canterbury, New Zealand, where the cinema still plays "God Save the Queen" before movies as of 2022, even after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

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  • Surprise! We're joined from Los Angeles by the legendary Karina Longworth, renowned film historian, author, critic and host of the iconic podcast You Must Remember This. This week, we're jumping ahead to discuss HIGH SOCIETY (1956). Louis Armstrong definitely deserved better, and we tackle the explicitly racist treatment of his character in the context in which 1950s Australian audiences would have received it. Also, what's with the old-timey trope of old men singing to little girls about how they'll be hot when they grow up? This week, opinions, perspectives and historical insights vary significantly between the four of us, but all come together to form a cohesive picture. As Karina says, "Your mileage may vary."

    Deirdre O'Connell's Harlem Nights: The Secret History of Australia's Jazz Age is available from Macquarie University Press.

    Dream Empire (2016) is streaming on Vimeo On Demand.

    Listen to Henry's new show with W.M. Akers, I'll Watch Anything.

    The new season of You Must Remember This - a continuation of the Erotic 90s series - begins on September 5th.

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  • Because six hours wasn't enough, it's a special, informal bonus episode where Henry and Rabia discuss some leftover elements of our GUYS AND DOLLS series we didn't find time to discuss. Here we finish off the story of Damon Runyon's life and his legacy today, discuss the critical reception of the 1955 film, and spend some time thinking about the unsung victims of all of this: horses.

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  • Fall in love with people, not with gamblers. It's all too strange and strong. Sit down, you're rocking the boat. This week, Henry leads us through the third and final part of our epic GUYS AND DOLLS series. We've got a spectacular supercut of Sinatra recordings of "Luck Be a Lady" through the ages, and a climactic 10-minute mashup that brings together all the themes we've explored throughout this six-hour odyssey.

    Henry's new podcast I'll Watch Anything will be out soon. Check out his website here.

    Watch Sinatra's version of "Luck Be a Lady" from A Man and his Music on YouTube.

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  • Why can't Nathan Detroit remember the colour of his own tie? In the second part of our GUYS AND DOLLS series, Henry begins taking us through the musical (and the 1955 Sinatra film) proper, beginning with "Fugue for Tinhorns", "Oldest Established" and "I'll Know." We discuss the intertwined relationship between gambling and religion, and finally come across some real life catgirls to justify the podcast logo in "Pet Me, Poppa." There's gender politics, weaponised incompetence and the beauty of the pre-dawn hours. Then, finally, we talk about the thing you've been thinking this whole time.

    Next week, DOLLS.

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  • Henry Giardina takes the lead as host for the first time as we begin our month-long GUYS AND DOLLS odyssey. In this first installment, the stage is set as we're introduced to the world of legendary short story writer, journalist and master of the "historical present", Damon Runyon. Best known today as the author whose stories inspired the musical Guys and Dolls (later adapted into the 1955 film starring Sinatra), Runyon was a lifelong and loving observer of human nature whose work sprang from the journalistic climate of the early 20th century in America. This week, the world of William Randolph Hearst and his "Gee Whiz!" headlines, Runyon biographer Jimmy Breslin, the struggles of addiction and the budding mythology of a street called Broadway... as we find out what Guys and Dolls really is, where it came from, and why it matters.

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  • It's 1955 and we're deep into the masculinity crisis. It's an era of lofty 800-page novels adapted into 2-hour-plus movies. We've got navel-gazing middle-aged white men, coming out of a period of deep repression and trauma, wondering who and what they really are. Sinatra is one of their icons, as here is Robert Mitchum. This week’s film could have been a later-season episode of Rocky Fortune, and it also could have called From Here to Eternity 2: Dr. Maggio’s Revenge. Once again, Sinatra throws us a curveball in the form of a serious medical drama about the mental health of surgeons: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955). On this episode we deal with a lot of personal trauma, talk about the history of transgender surgeries, learn about Swedish immigration and drop an obscure racial slur that we're 90% sure we're allowed to say.

    Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish hero who saved thousands of lives during the Holocaust. He is commemorated in Melbourne, Australia in the form of a park in Kew and a tree in St. Kilda. Watch Raoul Wallenberg: Behind the Lines here.

    Henry Giardina's Substack.

    Longread article on "Butcher Brown" - Why Did He Cut Off That Man's Leg? The Peculiar Practice of John Ronald Brown by Paul Ciotti. Read here.

    The list of trans surgery GoFundMes is here.

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  • That's amore. Non paghiamo il fossile. And just like that... Boom, kiss, come on, God bless America.

    In 1966, a pilot for a potential Three Coins in the Fountain TV series was filmed on location in Rome. It only aired on TV once in August 1970, was not picked up thereafter and has never been made available ever since. Probably very few people have ever seen it at all. This week, we've unearthed it - and since it's turned out to be in the public domain, you can now watch it in full with English subtitles on the new SUDDENLY YouTube channel.

    In what somehow turns out to be our longest episode to date, Justin Gausman of TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast joins us to examine "Caesar's Ghost", the first and only episode of the rejected Three Coins series. Is this the best manifestation of the franchise? Could it have been the Sex and the City of the 1960s if someone gave it a chance? We say yes - and it also turns out that this very obscure piece of lost media has significant overlap with the Elvis movie universe.

    That's right; because three-and-a-half hours wasn't enough, we're talking about Three Coins in the Fountain once again. We're back to talk about this obscure pilot, and also as a mark of respect to Ultima Generazione (Last Generation), the climate activists who turned the Trevi water black just weeks ago. During our record, we fire up the Trevi Fountain webcam once again and witness street sweepers, selfie-takers and a very special surprise that you'll love. Also, stay tuned after the closing theme for a bonus 45-minute discussion with Rabia & Justin about the future of AI in music, recorded spontaneously at 8am due to a timezone mix-up.

    Watch Three Coins in the Fountain ("Caesar's Ghost") on the SUDDENLY YouTube channel here.

    Tune into the Trevi Fountain webcam live as you listen here.

    Justin is the co-host of the highly recommended show, TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Podcast. You can also join his Patreon to watch the "Blue Suede Reviews", and check out his appearance on the YouTube show EAP Society here.

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  • The word "homosexual" was first uttered on American television on the night of October 21st, 1963. The show was Breaking Point, a drama series set in a psychiatric hospital. The episode was a confronting take on sexual harassment and toxic masculinity that directly posed the question to its audience: "What is a man?" Despite network objection, this milestone in queer history happened solely because of the determination of the show's producer: George Lefferts.

    This show was just one of many socially conscious, thoughtful and progressive projects from Lefferts, a man whose long life was defined by his writing and his deep empathy for others. In 1960, he spent hundreds of hours interviewing everyday women about their problems for a groundbreaking show called Special for Women. But it was in radio that he'd really cut his teeth in the early days, working on dramatised science fiction shows like Dimension X and X Minus One in the 1950s.

    In 1953, he worked with Frank Sinatra on a noir drama series for NBC Radio, Rocky Fortune. Together, they came up with a wacky noir premise for which almost every episode followed the same formula: Rocky is unemployed. Rocky gets a new job. It all goes wrong for him in some way, and he ends up implicated in a murder. Rocky talks his way out of it and catches the killer. Rocky ends up unemployed again. The show was not a hit at the time, and decades of Sinatra biographers have dedicated one or two pithy sentences to it at most.

    Today, with every episode widely available online in the public domain, Rocky Fortune sounds different. This week on SUDDENLY, we listen to two full episodes of the show plus one of To Be Perfectly Frank, Sinatra's other NBC show from the same period that saw him in the role of DJ. Looking at the work of Lefferts, Ernest Kinoy and Norm Sickel, we attempt to put Rocky Fortune in his proper context - and reclaim him as a hero for the marginalised, for women, and for the unemployed.

    Selected works of George Lefferts:
    * Dimension X: "The Professor Was a Thief" (1950) Radio episode, adapted from a story by L. Ron Hubbard. Available on Spotify, YouTube, Internet Archive.
    * Rocky Fortune (1953-54) Complete radio series available on Spotify, YouTube, Internet Archive.
    * X Minus One: "The Defenders" (1956) Radio episode, adapted from a story by Philip K. Dick. Available on Spotify, YouTube, Internet Archive.
    * World Wide '60: "The Living End" (1960) TV film about senior citizens, cast with nursing home residents. Lost or unavailable.
    * Special for Women (1961) TV series, either unavailable or lost. Book of original scripts available to read in full on Internet Archive. One episode, "The Lonely Woman", is available on film at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
    * Breaking Point: "The Bull Roarer" (1962) First use of the word "homosexual" on TV. Watch the full episode on YouTube.
    * Teacher, Teacher (1969) TV movie about an underqualified and ill-tempered teacher taking on the education of a disabled child. Watch on YouTube.
    * Family Album, U.S.A. (1991) Sitcom designed for English learners. Complete video series available on YouTube.

    Norm Sickel was a writer active in 1950s American radio. He wrote banter for Sinatra's 15-minute DJ series, To Be Perfectly Frank. Later, he wrote for Rocky Fortune, apparently at Sinatra's request. His episodes were among the most dramatic and socially conscious of the series. They differed in tone considerably from the comedic noir that Rocky Fortune became most known for. Later, his poems inspired the 1956 instrumental album Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color. Little else seems to be publicly known about Sickel. If you have any more information on what else he might have done creatively or where he ended up, we'd be interested in hearing from you.

    Join the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union (AUWU) at their website, or follow them on Twitter. AUWU member Jeremy Poxon is also a great Twitter follow to keep up with the latest around Australia's corrupt and cruel welfare regime.

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  • We found out what happened to Bobby Long. Mostly. And on this episode we're joined by Mark Cantor, America's leading jazz film archivist. Mark is an expert in "Soundies", the early music videos/short films that played on Panoram video jukeboxes in bars, cafes and other public places across America throughout the 1940s. Yes, they had video jukeboxes, and music videos, as far back as the 1940s.

    We've crossed paths with Mark because he's uncovered an obscure Soundie titled Club Lollypop that stars Bobby Long, the legendary child star and tap dancer who dropped out of public life after his appearance with Sinatra in 1947's It Happened in Brooklyn. (See Episode 13 for more on this.) This week, we have a fascinating chat with Mark about his friendships with Mel Torme and Bill Miller, his incredible collection of rare jazz footage and his lifelong appreciation for Sinatra. We learn all about Soundies - and then, finally, you all get to find out what happened to Bobby Long. Mostly.

    Soundies featured in this episode:
    * Count Basie Orchestra with Jimmy Rushing - "Take Me Back, Baby"
    * Nat King Cole - "Errand Boy for Rhythm"
    * Gene Krupa and his Orchestra with Roy Eldrige and Anita O'Day - "Let Me Off Uptown"
    * Toni Lane - "The Day of Hitler's Funeral (aka When Hitler Kicks the Bucket)"
    * The Four Ginger Snaps - "Keep Smilin'"
    * Barry Wood - "Any Bonds Today?"
    * Arica Wilde - "You Never Know"
    * The Three Heat Waves - "Heat's On Again"
    * Robert 'Tex' Allen - "The Fella with the Fiddle"
    * Bobby Long, Marlene Cameron, Baby Barbara & others - "Club Lollypop"

    Other clips:
    * Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong - "Lonesome Man Blues" (from The Frank Sinatra Show, December 31st, 1952)
    * Duke Ellington - "Take the A Train" (from Reveille with Beverly)

    Mark Cantor's book, The Soundies: A History and Catalog of Jukebox Film Shorts of the 1940s, is out now. To learn more about Soundies and watch a huge collection of them, check out Mark's website, Celluloid Improvisations, and join his The World of Soundies Facebook group.

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    ***SPOILERS AHEAD***

    A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BOBBY LONG

    Bobby Long (March 27th, 1932 - October 31st, 2005) (born Bobby Earl Logsdon, also known as Bob Logsdon) was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Hubert Earl and Lola Mae Logsdon. He began tapdancing at the age of six, and by age ten was performing professionally on the vaudeville circuit. He toured the country throughout his teenage years, including gigs at the Majestic Theatre in Paterson, NJ and Steel Pier in Atlantic City, NJ, working alongside some of the biggest names in the country.

    In 1942, he was featured in a Soundie named Club Lollypop, dancing alongside a young girl named Marlene Cameron who he had also worked with during his stage performances. He may have also appeared in other short films of this period. By 1946, he had moved to Santa Monica, CA. His big break came in the form of a starring role singing and tapdancing to "I Believe" alongside Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante in the 1947 MGM musical, It Happened in Brooklyn. He continued touring for several more months.

    Then, for unknown reasons, he seems to have quit showbiz and public life entirely. At some stage, he may have moved to New York and then back to California again. In 1951, at the age of 19, he enlisted in the United States Navy, most likely after being drafted. He served in the Korean War aboard the USS Philippine Sea as an aerographer's mate third class until 1955.

    He then led a quiet and private life for the remainder of the 20th century. He married once in 1960 and divorced in 1971. When That's Entertainment, Part 2 was released in 1976, he was miscredited in the "I Believe" segment as "Billy Roy." (This is the name of a different child star from It Happened in Brooklyn.) Decades went by and despite ever-increasing interest in Sinatra, Old Hollywood and the MGM story, the story of Bobby Long was apparently never investigated. Logsdon seems to have done no interviews and did not speak publicly about his tapdancing career.

    He lived around the Orange County area and worked in technical fields, including computer-assisted design, during at least the 1980s. He married again in the early 1980s and stayed in that relationship until his death on October 31st, 2005.

    In the late 2010s, interest grew in Bobby Long through comment sections on YouTube and other websites. Numerous people expressed awe at his prodigious ability, an interest in what might have happened to him, and surprise at his seeming to disappear from public life. In 2022-23, this was investigated by this podcast. It was determined where he ended up and that he seems to have led a quiet life by design, and so the case is now closed.

  • Millions know the song: "Forget your troubles and just get happy." But where does it come from, and what does it really mean? Why are we getting ready for judgement day, and how did Judy Garland end up associated with something that sounds so gospel? This week, we dive into the long and complicated multicultural (and especially Black) history of "Get Happy", the most memorably awkward track on Sinatra's first full-length collaboration album with Nelson Riddle, SWING EASY (1954). Our adventure through history takes us all the way from Art Tatum and the Tallahassee Bus Boycotts of 1956 to a 2008 episode of South Park and the "Diabeetus" internet meme.

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  • In 2007, Italian artist Graziano Cecchini poured red dye into the Trevi Fountain to protest the Rome Film Festival. "You wanted just a red carpet", he said. "We want a city entirely in vermilion. We who are vulnerable, old, ill, students, workers, we come with vermilion to colour your grayness." Escapism, tourism, power, vanity, royalty, memory, sex, romance - and water running blood-red. This week, a deep dive into the extended universe of Rome's iconic Trevi Fountain, spinning off from THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (1954) and Sinatra's hit title song. A three-and-a-half-hour odyssey recorded while simultanously live-commentating the coronation of King Charles III and monitoring a live webcam of the Trevi Fountain, spanning 10 films released over 56 years and centuries of history... it could only be an episode of SUDDENLY.

    Watch the live webcam of the Trevi Fountain here.

    Discussed in this episode:
    * Roman Holiday (1953)
    * Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
    * La Dolce Vita (1960)
    * The Pleasure Seekers (1964)
    * Three Coins in the Fountain (1970) (TV pilot filmed 1966, aired once in 1970 and now lost media. Watch the surviving 76-second clip here. We may be able to obtain this in full in the near future. Stay tuned for a follow-up episode!)
    * Coins in the Fountain (1990) (Out of print TV movie. Watch the mysterious extremely low-quality YouTube upload here.)
    * Sabrina Goes to Rome (1998)
    * When in Rome (2002) Olsen Twins
    * The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003)
    * 3oh3 ft. Katy Perry "Starstrukk" music video (2009)
    * When in Rome (2010) Kristen Bell
    * Pamela Krist - Memory and the Trevi Fountain: Flows of Political Power in Media Performance (2019)

    CONTACT: SUDDENLYPOD AT GMAIL DOT COM
    @SUDDENLYPOD on TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / MYSPACE
    Donate to the show @ ko-fi.com/suddenlypod

  • For almost the entire back half of the 20th century, Sinatra sang "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" over and over again. At every show, he would proudly call himself a "saloon singer" and paint a picture for the audience: a drunk, broken-hearted loser, in a bar at 2:45am, pouring his fool heart out to the unlucky bartender.

    Sinatra revelled in this imagery, and the seductively suicidal "saloon singer" schtick became a beloved cornerstone of his act. History records that this persona began with the film YOUNG AT HEART (1954). But where did it come from?

    This week on SUDDENLY, we sit down at the bar with the saloon singer - and meet Oscar Levant - before wrapping up with a hypnotic 11-minute "One for My Baby" supercut, sampling 47 years worth of performances from all over the world.

    Henry Giardina articles on Oscar Levant:
    Goodnight, Oscar Levant, Wherever You Are
    "Goodnight Oscar" is a Queer Letter to a Mental Health Hero

    Folding Ideas - "The Future is A Dead Mall: Decentraland and the Metaverse" video essay

    CONTACT: SUDDENLYPOD AT GMAIL DOT COM
    @SUDDENLYPOD on TWITTER / INSTAGRAM / MYSPACE
    Donate to the show @ ko-fi.com/suddenlypod