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Gary the 'superstar'


Caewi
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I don't know much about Gary's reputation as a comedian around the time he married Lucy and soon after but I've noticed that a number of newspaper articles from the wedding time mention Gary as a superstar or a highly popular and sought after comedian. This has popped up quite a bit on the TV mirror articles and even if you watch any old password episodes from just a few years after they were married, he's described as a top rated star of comedy and supper clubs. e.g. From an article "A comedian who plays top-flight clubs from coast to coast must be away from home often, just as Desi was in those earlier years." Ive never gotten he impression from friends or family of either of them that he was that popular and I'm curious if anyone knows his reputation at the time and recently after they were married?

 

Did journalists blow it right up or, like Desi, was he very well known if a slightly different arena (e.g. Supper clubs rather than television)?

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Other than Gary's introduction on "Password", I don't know that I've heard the term "supper club" anywhere else.  Usually "night club" is the term for this venue.  Is the difference that a meal is served at a supper club and at a night club, you only get drinks?   One of Gary's Password intros described him as "star of RADIO and supper clubs", probably referring to his "Let's Talk to Lucy"* producer duties.  And maybe "star" of supper clubs just meant that Gary worked in a few jokes as he recited the dinner specials when taking your order.

 

And I cannot believe Gary's assertion that he never saw an I Love Lucy because he was always working.  You wouldn't think Monday night would be a big supper club night.  How can you be in show business and be unaware of the biggest draw of the decade?  Impossible.  Maybe Gary couldn't afford a TV set; or the work he was referring to was  his 2nd job: graveyard-shift security guard.

 

*PLEASE, I say to whoever has these,  release all 256 on CD!!

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I think it's called...publicity...and for whatever reason(s), it seems they wanted to "elevate" Mr. Golddapper's "stature" in the business.... be that as it may, given the era me thinks a lot of us here on this board would have known him -- had he truly been a comedian "superstar", etc. -- from appearances on shows like the Tonight Show and Ed Sullivan which...I don't, which doesn't mean he never appeared but I think I would have remembered him in that vein, along with other popular comics of the era like Shecky Greene, Rowan & Martin, Martin & Rossi, Don Rickles and of course, our own beloved late great Joan RIvers... but I don't ever remember seeing him on anything that wasn't "attached" or having to do with The Lady....so, there you have it. :blink:

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According to IMDB, his first television appearance was this one on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar on August 29, 1961.  By that point, he had been dating Lucy for awhile and was probably getting written about in the gossip columns because of that. The Tonight Show folks probably assumed he was somebody because, after all, Lucille Ball was dating him, so they booked him that night.  I would love to know how he got introduced when he made that appearance.

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3541236/?ref_=nm_flmg_slf_23

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Gary was never a draw on his own (at least until Lucy came along). He was a consistently working comic who opened for big name headliners like Nat King Cole, Johnnie Ray, Freddy Martin, Pat Boone, Vic Damone, Paul Anka, and the McGuire Sisters. He probably played every major city in the United States. Gary's material wasn't always praised, but the critics seemed to like his stage presence. Gary had very little TV work prior to meeting Lucy. He made several appearances on Bob Crosby's summer series in 1958, but his TV work was mainly telethons and local based programs. 

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