Last night I attended the annual Burbank Chamber of Commerce gala, this one celebrating the City of Burbank’s centennial. One of the interesting things about living in Burbank is finding yourself in the same room as people you grew up watching on television. Case in point:  Two of the celebrity guests were Jo Anne Worley and Debbie Reynolds.

Now, if you’re involved in theatre in Los Angeles, you’ll run into Jo Anne Worley at least a few times, and you’ll know when she’s there. As her Wikipedia page notes, even as a girl she worried she was too loud. I saw a musical “Lord of the Rings” spoof a year or two ago here in town and part-way through it, as everyone laughed along, I realized, “Jo Anne Worley must be here.” And she was. I grew up watching her on “Laugh In.” I was too young to enjoy the show — back in the days of three channels plus whatever UHF qualified as, I remember wishing it would end so something else would come on — and now the show is too dated to enjoy in reruns or specials, so this is one zeitgeist I missed. But the “Laugh In” performers were clearly wonderful, including Jo Anne Worley, who last night unabashedly sang comic two songs (one of which my wife kept singing later — which had me wondering again when it would end and something else would come on).

I grew up knowing who Debbie Reynolds  was, but I can’t tell you why, except that my mother always spoke fondly of her. Pressed by my wife to name one of Ms. Reynolds credits, just one, I came up dry. Ms. Reynolds is clearly very smart, and aware of this situation, because she introduced herself as “Debbie Reynolds — Princess Leia’s mom.” Showing off her fine figure at age 78, she also had the line of the night:  “I would have shown you my tits, but my legs are better.” (I’ll take it on faith.) Debbie Reynolds was a 16-year-old student at John Burroughs High School, my son’s alma mater, when she was crowned Miss Burbank. Burbank has been good to many notable people. I think the most famous person to come from my birthplace, Mullica Township, was the Jersey Devil, and I hear that Port Republic is trying to claim him. She was a very good sport about her age, apologizing if her voice was raw (it wasn’t) because she’d been giving so many interviews on the occasion of Elizabeth Taylor’s death. (“They’re calling me,” she said, “because I’m the only one left.” She also made a couple of good jokes about Liz Taylor stealing her husband — the gist being that she could have him.)

Some years ago, my wife and I went to see Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca because I wanted to “while we still can.” (And, indeed, that turned out to be Imogene Coca’s last performance — and she was wonderful.) Valorie had no idea who they were. A friend and I got to see Charles Nelson Reilly’s amazing one-man show, which ran four hours (I’m not exaggerating) and which I wish was still going on, and that turned out to be not long before he died. I didn’t set out to see Debbie Reynolds in particular, but she and Jo Anne Worley both were fun and bawdy, and made for a great evening, and now I’ve got another memory of seeing great performers live and in the flesh.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 27th, 2011 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Theatre, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.