Tale 41
The Dinah Shore Story
personal gift of American cartoonist
Dan Dowling to Fred Waring
poking fun at the amazing diversity
of Fred’s talents
including even inventing world-famous
household gadgets
like the Waring Blendor (‘the mixer’)
Many Huron drew an
analogy between Jesuit descriptions of hell and their own
ritual torture...[1]
After the Jesuits had
baptized an Iroquois captive whom the Huron were torturing,
the Huron burned holes through his hands and feet with a red
hot iron in mockery of the crucifixion, and after they had
killed him they threw one of his hands into the Jesuits'
cabin, as if giving them their share of the feast.[2]
Bill's sequence of
handouts showed logic at last. He passed mj another promotions
gimmick he had designed himself, the 1972 Press Book version
of Fred Waring's life, so the poor interviewer would have
something solid and positive to hold onto during the final
enervating stages of torture.
F R E D W A R I N G
Born at
Mother: Jessie
Calderwood
Father: Frank
Waring
Attended the
Mj was tired. The
clock by the kitchen showed 3:30 A.M.
Bill was more
tired, but it didn't matter. He had to finish his day in
hell’s court with Fred.
"Before the show,"
Bill said, drained of energy, "I had called
"A few days later
–," he paused to recall. "Yeh, I called
"And she said, ah
'Organic’, not organic, ah...," Bill sighed.
A few years ago
he was given a Doctor's Degree at The
"Not organic?" mj
helped.
"No, the eggs that
haven't been, haven't been, ah –."
"They haven't
gotten them from chickens?"
He was Trustee
of the
"No, they're
without all these –! And he liked –."
"'Natural'," mj
helped the absurd tale at last.
"Yeh: 'natural
grape jam’ on his toast. And he wants his coffee er, ah better
yet tea. He wants 'R.V. mixed with such-and-such’, some kind
of health recipe. I called up the dietician – on the Dinah
Shore Show they have a staff dietician – and laid out exactly
what he wanted. And when we arrived at that studio –. See, she
does three shows in one day. And he was in make-up. And y'know
complaining about this 'n –."
As the headmen of these
villages pondered what the Jesuits had said and done since
their return, their distaste for the Jesuits' teachings grew.[3]
"I walked up and
handed him his tray. I said," Bill's tone was parental and
I-told-you-it-wouldn’t-be-so-bad: "'Now, here's your
breakfast. I told you, you'd have a breakfast when you got
here’. When he was pullin' in I'd said, 'You'll have somethin'
to eat just as soon as we get to the studio, what you have
every day’. It was the same mothering or hospital nurse tone
Bill had used before when portraying how he dealt with the
impossible man.
They began to argue that
mankind could not have come from the Garden of Eden, as the
Jesuits claimed, since the Indians could not have crossed the
ocean in their frail canoes...[4]
"'Yeh’, he said.
'Probably juicy hamburgers'." Fred was putrid adolescence at
its worst.
He was presented
"The Gold Medal" of the
Bill was
restrained, polite: "I said, 'Misterwaring. You'll be very
pleased if you'll only believe’.
"Well, I handed him
his tray.
"He looked at
this." Bill got louder. "And he said, ‘Well, on my toast I
like’ –.
"I said, 'Natural
grape jam’. And I went right down the list. And he was,
y'know, he's gonna find somethin' wrong."
When life-size paintings of Christ and the Virgin Mary were exhibited at Ossossané in 1637, these were said to cause illness. Illustrations of hell were interpreted as representations of the fevers and other torments that afflicted the Huron.[5]
"So he said
something, I don't remember what, and I turned to the make-up
artist and I said, 'D'you b'leeve that? All he does is sit,
and ya give 'im the best of services in the world’."
Mj saw in the
mirror, upon this remark, a man descend the risers to a
microphone. Fred was still not visible conducting. Now a
baritone sang with the voice of a black man,
Col-ored folks
work on de Mis-sis-sip-pi,...
Col-ored folks
work while de white folks play,...
Bill broke into a laugh, "And he had to smile. And I
said that, again, in a joking manner. It was not –." Bill
slashed his throat with an imaginary knife, making a slicing
noise, "Shhhhl-, y'know, but was telling him, 'Hey. Whoa.
Whoa'."
The way you would talk to any animal in need of taming, in
other words.
He was Shepherd
of The Lambs Club,
Bill showed
self-control, at least for the moment. "I said, 'Now if you'll
allow me, I have to help get prepared for the show, the
production staff. I can't, cannot serve anymore, I've seen to
your needs in the dressing room and everything else'."
...Pull-in' dose
boats from de dawn to sun-set,...
Git-tin' no rest
till de judge-ment day....
Bill's Fred said,
"'What-shall-I-wear? Oh-The-Great-Producer'?"
Bill controlled
himself. "And I say, 'Whatever you want to wear. You've had a
lot more experience in television than I’.
Fred: "'Whaddathey
wan' me-ta-wear?'!" It was high-pitched and demanding.
"'Sport coat'."
Bill was stoical.
Bill Blackburn was
the pride of the Huron tribe, always respectful toward his
elders, good-natured and jovial throughout his days,
restrained and patient with the frailties of others, tested
and proven in peace, war, and the dressing rooms of hell.
"I said,
'Informal’.
"'O-, -Kay’!"
He has been a
member of The National Council of The Boy Scouts of
"So I go off and I
take care of things." Bill's tone was terminally weary. "I'm
dealing with the Waring Blendor people that are there. He
invented it, that's another story, steam iron too, partially,"
Bill sighed.
His pitch and tempo
rose. "They're fightin' against a weak man and he hates their
guts, he's at war with them. So I'm going from the Waring
Blendor[7]
people back to Fred Waring, y'know, keeping them at arm's
length to protect him. Tension! Fever-pitch tension."
As the Huron became
convinced that the Jesuits were responsible for their
illnesses, supernatural evidence began to accumulate against
them.[8]
...Don't look up
an' don't look down,...
You don't dast
make de white boss frown...
"He goes and does
the show. Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. The whole show went
just like this!" Bill snapped his fingers.
The talk show
interview with Dinah, in other words, her asking about the
Waring Blendor Fred had helped put on the market and other
nostalgic things.
He has been
trustee of the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship, Inc. from
1953 to the present.
"We went back to
his dressing room and he likes to pack his own and all that."
...Bend yo'
knees an' bow yo' head,...
An' pull dat
rope un-til yo're dead....
"So," Bill said
wearily, "I went around and I went back to these different
people on the show. Producers, people like that. ‘Thank you
very much. Really enjoyed the show, I enjoyed working with you
people you're... professionals’. And I was telling them the
truth. They really were unbelievable pros. No hassles, no
tension within." Bill looked almost angry. "They were gettin'
their job done. Everybody knew what was expected and they did
it. The director didn't scream at everybody y'know."
Like Fred screamed.
...Let me go
'way from de Mis-sis-sip-pi,...
Let me go 'way
from de white men boss....
"And," Bill sighed,
"when I said this, one of the people said, 'Would you tell
that to Dinah’?
"I says, 'Of
course, I'd be more than happy to’. They took me to Dinah's
dressing room."
He was Chairman
of The
"Now –! By the way,
I called Waring Blendor and had them provide a limousine to
pick us up at the studio: with a sofa; so when he's finished I
can get him right to the hotel. And I thought, 'They should do
this, by God, they're gettin' all this free publicity by him
talking about it on the show’. Right? Now all of this: not a
dime is comin' out of his pocket. It's so well organized it's
ridiculous."[9]
He was Chairman
of The Pennsylvania Society for Crippled Children and
Adults, Inc. in 1958.
"The Dinah Shore
Show is in one of the old big large sound stages on one of the
old big lots. You could play, oh possibly two football games
inside this sound stage, and
It was a typically
outfitted, standard-sized Huron chief's thirty-family
longhouse, sterilized and adapted for TV, in other words.
Hell, in other words, as it felt right now to one or two, or
three.
"So they asked me,
'Would you tell Dinah this?' "And I said, 'Certainly. I'd like
to thank her anyway. I mean, I talked with her before the
show, but I never got a chance to, y'know, really –.' So they rushed me
over to
...Show me dat
stream called de riv-er Jor-dan,...
Dat's de ol'
stream dat I long to cross....
Fred
demonstrates for
the Waring
Blendor he invented[10]
"Dinah's place has
like a little street. It's part of the set, and it really was
used. The rooms are little dressing rooms. They took me to
Dinah's dressing room."
The dressing room
of the queen of Hades, it had to be, the way mj felt by now.
"And they said,
'Wait here a moment, will you’? So we went inside and she was
in a conference about the next show. I guess there was three
people or so." Bill sounded tired of it all. "And they opened
the door. So I went inside."
In the summer of 1639
smallpox spread through the St. Lawrence Valley, killing many
Indians... The Jesuits baptized more than 1000 people who were
in danger of death; of these, 360 children under the age of
seven died, as well as 100 more children under the age of
seven who had been baptized in previous years. In addition,
many older children and adults died... By the time the
epidemic had run its course, the Huron population was reduced
to about 9000 people, or only about one-half of what it was
before 1634.[11]
...the Huron became
convinced that the Jesuits were responsible for their
illnesses...[12]
Bill perked up.
"Now there were no rooves on these little buildings y'know.
They only had a facade. Typical
It was a sterile
hell, made like a movie-set pharaoh's palace.
"So Dinah's sitting
in her couch and she said, uh, 'I hear you have something nice
to tell me'."
Persephone, queen
of Hades, waited for the answer.
"I said, 'Well I
guess so, I have never seen such a bunch of pros in my life.
You've accumulated the best staff I've ever seen. They have
been –,' and I named off the people, how gracious they had
been, how hospitable."
...Ol' man
riv-er,...
Dat ol' man
riv-er,...
"And all of a
sudden in the middle of all this I hear," Fred's voice
screeched down through the entire length of hell, exactly like
the screech of the wicked witch of the west, "'Bill Blackburn,
god-damn it, where are you'?!"
It was the rabid
sorcerer Dionysus, calling down his traitorous apprentice,
Hercules, for going off on some senseless, inexcusable spree,
implying the words: as
always. It was a self-righteous Moses of American
music, trying to find one more trick to play on a
persecuting pharaoh.
He was Trustee
of The Institute of Logopedics,
"And: everybody
came to a halt in the room."
"So I says," Bill
whispered, "'Do you hear God'?!"
He received The
Distinguished Alumnus Award at the
"Dinah says, 'Fred
hasn't changed a bit, has he’?
"I says, 'Yeh, he's
mellowed a lot'."
Another wave of
weariness hit Bill.
...He must know
sump-in',...
But don't say
noth-in',...
"I says, 'But
anyway I've told you what I had to tell you and I've gotta get
down there’. So Dinah's personal secretary said, 'Well I'll
walk you'."
"So this girl and I
walked the length of this place. And all the way down there
all you could hear is Fred Waring's mouth saying, 'You don't care about
me'."
It was the
irreverent leader of the world's chosen people, trapped in the
enemy's palace, railing against abuse of The Chosen, meaning
himself.
He was named Mr.
"'You don't care that
I'm tired'," he grew higher-pitched and querulous,
"'and I hada fly in
here, I have to go looking for you’. He was down
there in the place, carryin' on like this."
...He jus' keeps
roll-in',...
He keeps on
roll-in' a-long....
"So when I get
there, he says, 'Where in HELL
have you been'!?" The voice was falsetto,
spinsterish.
"And there's this
woman with me!
"I says, 'I was
thanking our hostess'." Bill remained calm and controlled. "'I
thought I should take care of that’. I said, 'They treated us
in a very hospitable way’.
"'He-hey, did, w –,
I-mean, where-is-she? I, I think I oughta do that’.
"And I said, 'It's
all been –'.”
...He don't
plant 'ta-ters,...
He don't plant
cot-ton,...
"And at that point,
the secretary said, 'No, Mr. Waring, Mr. Blackburn has done a
very good job of it'."
Bill paused. "And
he turned on heel and went out to the car."
He is a member
of the Board of the PGA.[13] He belongs to
"So we got in the
car, and it was, "Yup." Bill's Fred was curt.
...An' dem dat
plants 'em...
Is soon
for-got-ten...
"Now in his eyes I
had done this to purposely hurt him. But I had not done this
to purposely hurt him. I had done this to do my job as best as
I could, right? In his mind this was this competition thing
going, over Betty Ann." He sighed. "Over whatever."
...But ol' man
riv-er,...
He jus' keeps
roll-in a-long....
"So we got in the
car, and it –. For...," Bill swallowed, "ten miles it was
just, just silence."
He is honorary
member of The National Cartoonists Society.
"So Fred says," a
cartoon of his affected self, "'Well, was I good-on-the-Show,
or wasn't I’?
"Said, 'You were
great. I never got a chance to tell you. You were too busy
screamin' at me'." Bill sighed.
...You an' me,
we sweat an' strain,...
Bod-y all
ach-in' an' racked wid pain....
"He said, 'You
don't even care, Bill. I'm tired. I'm over –, I'm seventy
years old'!"
It was God's most
musical prophet, trapped in purgatory, accusing his best aide
of being his worst tormenter.
"I said, 'I care
very much'." Bill sounded caring. "'That's why I saw to it
that food was in the car, that your breakfast was just exactly
the way you want it'."
"He said, ‘You
didn't do that, the show did it’!”
..."Tote dat
barge!"...
"Lift dat
bale,"...
"I said, 'I did it.
And I went to thank these people in hopes that we could get
another shot on that show’.
"'Who says I wanna
be on that show’?
"I said, 'You had
to be. You've been constantly saying you wanted to be on that
show’.”
Bill did a profound
Fred silence.
...Git a lit-tle
drunk...
An' you land in
jail....
"By the time we got
to the hotel, now the Tour Bus is in. His road manager is in.
I said, 'Oh, do I have to go through this'?!"
...Ah gits
wea-ry...
An' sick of
try-in',...
"Fred says, 'Bill
Blackburn, I know how to deal with him'!"
He has been a
member of the
"So the Bus is at
the hotel. When we walked in, the road manager, this yo-yo
that was out for one year with 'im on the Tour – he had been a
lighting manager for him in his television days and he had
called him in as his road manager, and he and I had tangled
twice before he even went on the road – came on like
Gangbusters, a little guy. 'Oh Bill, what are you doin' here?'
"I said, 'I came
out to do the Dinah Shore Show with Fred’.
Three
brimstone-colored dog-heads barked, "'You're... not... needed'!"
...Ah'm tired of
liv-in'...
An' skeered of
dy-in',...
Bill was firm. "I
said, 'When I line up a deal, I follow it through all the
way’.
And Fred is
standing there listening to 'im."
He received the
Award for Excellence in the Performing Arts presented by the
Governor's Committee of 100,000 Pennsylvanians on January
19, 1970 in
Bill spoke in a
weary monotone. "So I said uh, 'By the way I need ten tickets
for tonight's show, for some members of the
"The road manager
says, 'You will write that! Put that in writing!! Will ya'!?"
It was a bark from
each of the three heads of Cerberus.
He is Chairman
of the Board and Owner of Shawnee Inn and Country Club.
"So Fred's standing
over there. I says, 'Hold it’. I walked over to Fred and I
said, 'Fred, I need ten tickets for tonight's show. That idiot
over there tells me I have to put it in writing. Now I'm
tired, I'm very tired, I'm tired of all this bullshit'."
He is owner of
Shawnee Press, Inc., a music publishing concern.
"And he walked
right over to 'im and said, 'Did Bill ask you to give 'im ten
tickets’?
Three hellish heads
answered, one after the other.
"'Yes. Everybody
should put it in writing. You know the rule’.
"He said this to
Fred Waring’!
"Fred said, "'I
don't put it in writing! Give this man ten tickets'!"
It was a prophet of
a Chosen People finally dishing out some justice.
He is the
inventor of the famous Waring Blendor.
He has been
married three times and has five children: Bill,
"Well this pissed
me off right away, because I shouldn't have to go to the boss
like Big Daddy, y'know."
He is a good
golfer and it is his favorite pastime. He hosts a yearly
tournament, Fred Waring Four Ball, inviting several hundred
golfers from all over the
He conducts the
Fred Waring Music Workshop each summer, an educational
experience for both adult and youth choral students and
directors.
Bill sighed,
overheated and plagued. Torturing somebody had to be hard
work, judging from the way he looked by now. "So I told his
son later, I says, 'Y'know, I've just had it. I'll do
publicity and stuff but I've had it. I'm not gonna go through
this bull shit. I can not afford, for my own nervousness, to
fight CBS and NBC and all the other little networks, and also
fight Fred Waring and his whole goddam Organization'!"[15]
Pharaoh, abuser of
the chosen people’s savior, had finally had enough of this
chosen people’s Moses and his weird and varied plagues.
...But Ol' man
riv-er,...
He jus' keeps
roll-in' a-long....
Suddenly Bill was
meek. "You can see where that's... pretty logical reasoning,
wouldn't you say?" He looked at his friend, mj.
"Mmm." But the poor
boy was not going to say out loud that Fred Waring should be
done away with. It still went against his grain.
Taretande visited the
Jesuits and denounced them as sorcerers.... The children of
Ihonatiria teased the Jesuits that they would soon have their
heads split; and the Jesuits began to fear from these taunts
that the headmen had already given orders for this to be done.[16]
Mj was through
rescuing kindergarten heroes, though. Fred had to go, God's
chosen or not. Bill was finished with him, and mj too. His
fairy tale was over, but he didn’t want to be the one to say
the condemning words out loud.
He had tried all
night long to save an ardent enemy of the Vietnam Anti-War
Peace Movement and failed. It made absolutely no sense, what
he had done.
"Warriors take strategic inventories," he said. "They list everything they do. Then they decide which of those things can be changed in order to allow themselves a respite, in terms of expending their energy.
I argued that their list
would have to include everything under the sun. He patiently
answered that the strategic inventory he was talking about
covered only behavioral patterns that were not essential to
our survival and well-being.[17]
Early in June Ondosson,
one of the most celebrated Huron war chiefs, and another
headman invited the Jesuits in Ossossane to attend a council
in Angoutenc to clear themselves of the accusations that were
being made against them.... It was clear that the
Jesuits were being summoned to Angoutenc to stand trial for
witchcraft.[18]
[1] Exact page not discovered by time of publication. The quote is from Trigger’s The Children of Aataentsic.
[2] Trigger, 568.
[3] Op cit, 538.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Op cit, 537.
[6] Meaning, president of a Manhattan-based private men’s club of high-ranking actors and entertainers.
[7] Variously known as the Waring Blender or Waring Blendor down through the years, depending on who is doing the naming, and when, and under what auspices.
[8] Trigger, 535.
[9] To this day (October, 2019) the Waring Blendor may be bought in upscale stores like Williams Sonoma (for a pretty good sum); and there are other products that carry the Waring name, like Belgian waffle makers, to name just one.
[10] Image is from “Fred Waring Presents Year 56,” program booklet for concert tour year 72-73. None of the annual programs, not even the 50th Anniversary program, gives its own publication data. (Could some have been published by Shawnee Press?)
[11] Trigger, op cit, 588f passim. See footnote 12.
[12]
Op cit, 535. In fact, the Huron accusers were right
about the French ‘causing the Huron illnesses and deaths’.
The French traders, trappers and missionaries had brought
germs from Europe to which the local tribes on the west
side of the Atlantic had never been exposed and therefore
had developed no immunity, so thousands died from
illnesses as unthreatening to Europeans as Measles. The
same happened in
[13] Professional Golfers’ Association of America, “one of the largest and most prestigious sports organizations in the world,” as they claim of themselves.
[14] Exclusive private club for the highest level Entertainers.
[15] Some of the tales told by Bill Blackburn during the third interview, and published eventually in mj lorenzo’s Exactly How Mrs. Nixon’s Legs Saved the White House Christmas Concert, would add support to Bill’s argument for his leaving Waring, especially the story told in the chapter “Mrs. Nixon’s Legs.” It describes a series of unpleasant things that occurred between Waring and Bill at the Bob Hope WBAL telethon, an event immediately after Bill and Betty Ann started dating, as Betty Ann explained earlier during this first-evening’s interview (in the chapter, "The Last Big Thing Bill Did for Fred.")
[16] Trigger, op cit, 538.
[17] Castaneda, The Fire from Within, 15.
[18] Trigger, 541.