Bad Week for Party Comedians

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Mon, Sep 23, 2002 9:27 PM

Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 19:08:28 -0400
Subject: bad week for party comedians
From: "Br. Cleve"
To: <stang@subgenius.com>
CC: Byron Werner
Status:

September 18, 2002

LaWanda Page, 81, Actress and Comedienne, Is Dead

LaWanda Page, the acid-tongued comedienne who, as the cantankerous Aunt
Esther, traded barbs with Redd Foxx on the 1970's sitcom "Sanford and
Son," died on Saturday in Los Angeles. She was 81.

The cause was complications of diabetes, The Associated Press reported.

Ms. Page was a veteran of the black circuit of theaters and nightclubs.
She began as a dancer, added a fire-swallowing bit (billed as the
"Bronze Goddess of Fire") and moved gradually into skit and stand-up
comedy on the so-called Midwestern "chitlin circuit." Most of those
clubs, she later said, were dumps, the kind of places "where if you
ain't home by 9 o'clock you can be declared legally dead."

Her big break came when she was tapped for a supporting role in the
second season of Norman Lear's "Sanford and Son," which starred Foxx, a
friend from comedy club days, as Fred Sanford, an eccentric and
irascible junk dealer in the Watts section of Los Angeles. As the
ungainly, wisecracking, Bible-toting sister of Sanford's late wife,
Elizabeth, she quickly became one of the show's most popular
characters.

Her character, Aunt Esther, took her share of zingers from Foxx and
other cast members Sanford's friend Grady once quipped, "Nice having
her around, she makes the junk look so pretty." But Aunt Esther usually
responded with equally stinging rejoinders. "Watch it, sucker!" her
favorite catch phrase, was followed by a spate of sharp-tongued
invective. The exchanges between her and Sanford were among the weekly
highlights. "Sanford and Son," ran from 1972 to 1977 on NBC and
remained one of television's top rated shows, inspiring several
spinoffs in which she also appeared.

Ms. Page was born in Cleveland on Oct. 19, 1920, and began her dancing
career at age 15. After years on the club circuit with comedians like
Foxx and Richard Pryor, Ms. Page moved to Los Angeles in the 1960's and
joined the comedy group Skillet, Leroy & Co. She soon developed and
honed her trademark feisty comic approach more shrill but still
reminiscent of Moms Mabley's homespun wit. ("Honey, that old man
couldn't keep no kinda job. That's the only man I know that ever went
to the unemployment office and lost his place in line.")

She is survived by a daughter, Clara Johnson, of Los Angeles.

Throughout the 1970's and 80's, Ms. Page played cameo roles in a few
feature films and made guest appearances on talk shows and sitcoms.
Offstage, she was an advocate for equal opportunities and better pay
for black performers.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002 4:04AM EDT

Doug Clark, Chapel Hill musician

By ANNE BLYTHE, Staff Writer CHAPEL HILL - Doug Clark, who put Chapel
Hill on the music map with his original risque rock 'n' roll from the
1950s, old-fashioned rhythm and blues, beach music and cover tunes that
he and his band, the Hot Nuts, played at clubs, fraternity parties and
other social gatherings for nearly half a century, died Monday at UNC
Hospitals. Clark, 66, died after an extended illness.

Clark grew up in Chapel Hill, when the public schools were segregated.
He went to the former Lincoln High School, an all-black school, where
he was a drum major, played football, baseball and basketball, and
served as the stage manager for the theater club.

He made a career out of doing what he loved, playing music and
performing with Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts, a band that toured the
country for 47 years. Early on, they entertained their audiences by
telling lewd jokes onstage. Students started jumping onstage with them
and spinning a few of their own, further pushing the band along the
road to raunch at a time when most performers did not talk or sing
about sex.

"Their songs included subjects that in those days were taboo," said Cal
Horton, town manager of Chapel Hill. "They sang about sex. Of course
now, all of it looks very mild, in retrospect."

Carl Fox, district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties, remembers
being a teenager in Mount Olive when his sister sneaked their albums
into the house. Their mother did not like her children listening to the
music. "I would call it risque rock or risque soul," Fox said. "It was
like listening to Richard Pryor. It was really taboo to be doing that
back in those days."

Long after making a name for himself, Clark continued to live in the
Crest Street house that he grew up in. His parents lived next door. His
admirers describe him as an ambassador for Chapel Hill, as a humble
musician who represented his hometown well. "He's a legend," said Dick
Baddour, athletics director at UNC-Chapel Hill. Funeral arrangements
are incomplete.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nenslo <nenslo@yahooX.com>

"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote:
>
> LaWanda Page, 81, Actress and Comedienne, Is Dead

I stole that Connie Blow-job story from an 8-track tape of LaWanda.

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