Look Around You / All You See Are Sympathetic Eyes

This is my favorite bit from The Graduate, and within it much of why I so admired Mike Nichols.

Birthday Girl: What a Character

There is never not a good reason to visit this little moment of TV insanity...

Birthday Girl: New Faces Never Grow Old

I thought it would be nice to celebrate the birthday of one of the great character ladies by taking us back to where it all began, or as nearly there as we can. Alice Ghostley was one of the lucky young talents vaulted to stardom in New Faces of 1952, the Broadway revue that also put Paul Lynde, Eartha Kitt, and Carol Lawrence, among others, on the map.

Here, from the film New Faces, the surprisingly little-known 1954 film made from the stage show, she sings the hell out of Sheldon Harnick's "The Boston Beguine." It's miles away from her neurotic dithering on Bewitched, Mayberry RFD, and Designing Women, but pretty great stuff, no?