Oh Kay! with Kay Westfall (1953)

[JSngry]

http://classicshowbiz.blogspot.com/2009/06...tfall-1953.html

I'd never heard the verse to "Try A Little Tenderness" before...but that's just one of many highlights....oh...my....god....

Edited June 13, 2009 by JSngry

[Larry Kart]

My father was one of group of investors that put some money into Westfall's first (and only?) film, "The Golden Gloves Story." I remember her show and its predeccesor, "The Bob and Kay Show." . Maybe I'm sick, but doncha want to just do her on that breakfast table? I mean, she's SO friendly.

[Matthew]

My father was one of group of investors that put some money into Westfall's first (and only?) film, "The Golden Gloves Story." I remember her show and its predeccesor, "The Bob and Kay Show." . Maybe I'm sick, but doncha want to just do her on that breakfast table? I mean, she's SO friendly.

Well, she does "like to exercise on the couch!"

[JSngry]

I guess if you were in Chicago at the time all these people and all these references were like "everyday hum-drum", but seen 56 years later, it's like some parallel fantasy universe that is only partially related to ours...yet it all hangs together...nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there...but definitely a nice, kinda psychotropic drugged-out middle class ephemeral place to visit.

And who's that piano player, David LeWinter? VERY nice, semi-Tatum-esque cocktailish version of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"...

Ah, Chicago, I'll never know you, and probably should have...

[Matthew]

Maybe it's a sign that I'm just getting old, but when I watch something like this, or read a book pre-1960, it just seems as if large chunks of American culture have disappeared.

Edited June 13, 2009 by Matthew

[JSngry]

Well, they have, either disappeared or evolved substantially. No doubt that is something that has always been the case. It's just that with media, we now have a chance to "relive" them instead of uninterruptedly and/or un-self-consciously going on about our evolutions. That's...something different. In the olden days we'd have "legends" and stuff. Now we can see the real thing - or how the real thing was portrayed. Oh well...life goes on anyway, no?

I found this comment interesting though...

http://store.tvdays.com/servlet/Categories...17&total=42

Chicago TV personality Kay Westfall starred in this short-lived series set in her apartment and produced by the same people who were behind SUPER CIRCUS. Actually, OH KAY is a sort of distant antecedent to the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, although the resemblance may be lost on anyone born much after 1955--both shows are about young, single career women and the rather eccentric men and women who people their lives. OH KAY is a supposedly candid look at Kay Westfall's daily life and the unpredictable events that can unfold in her apartment, which include her witty pianist friend David LeWinter (always good for a show tune on Westfall's piano), her sometime love interest Jim Dimitri, and various musical guests, along with minor domestic crises such as the party that Kay is having trouble preparing for etc. Note: The cast of SUPER CIRCUS shows up, playing themselves, at her apartment in one of these two shows.

Hmmmm....