You can add Suzanne Somers to the growing list of celebrities we’ve lost in 2023 …
She passed away on Sunday, October 15th, the day before what would have been her 77th birthday.
Suzanne, of course, is best remembered for her role as Chrissy Snow on the hit ABC television series “Three’s Company,” a television series that ran from 1977 – 1984 … and also a show that she was written out of after playing hardball thru her husband/manager, Alan Hamel, trying to negotiate a substantial salary increase due to her sudden new popularity. (It was more of a power play to earn equal pay to the series star John Ritter ... but Somers asked for a raise from $30,000 per episode to $150,000 per episode and they sent her packing.)
Suzanne also starred as the lead on the TV series “She’s The Sheriff” and “Step By Step,” opposite Patrick Duffy. She also famously posed for Playboy after they ran archive photos of her taken when she was still a struggling model and actress, eventually appearing in the magazine a total of three times. (Somers reportedly wanted to pose for the magazine again, naked, at the age of 75 ... but Playboy wasn't interested ... so she did her own Instagram posting instead!) She was, after all, one of the pioneers … and queens … of Jiggle TV!
And let's not forget that she was also the hot blonde in the White T-Bird in the popular film “American Graffiti.” Somers was also able to supplement her TV income ... she went on to make millions as the spokesperson for The Thighmaster, a popular exercise tool released in the ‘80’s.
Suzanne was diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2000 … and she fought a long, hard, aggressive battle against it for 23 years. When it returned this year, it was more than she could handle and ultimately … and sadly … did her in. (kk)
>>>Some almost-useless info for ya ... but since you mentioned the Kennedy assassination 60th anniversary the other day … Jack Ruby and his mom are buried at Westlawn Cemetery, just west of Harlem-Irving Plaza. I tripped over the graves by accident while searching for a relative of mine. I also noticed that Shel Silverstein is buried 660 ft. to the west of the Rubys, and Mike Royko is at 600 feet to the southwest.
(Mike Wolstein)
>>>Hmm … we’ll have to check this out for ourselves! (kk)
And that’s exactly what we did (once it finally stopped raining here this past weekend!)
I did some checking … and also entombed here are movie critic Gene Siskel and Leonard Chess, founder of Chess Records.
Unfortunately, we arrived right at closing time on Sunday and were made to leave … so we’ll have to make another trip up there one of these days. (That’s OK … we found an absolutely AWESOME barbecue place not to far up the road that we will DEFINITELY be visiting again! lol) kk
DIDJAKNOW?: Even though he gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald in front of an entire nation, broadcast live on tv as it happened and then shown repeatedly again and again and again, virtually non-stop throughout that weekend, viewed by countless millions of grieving and mourning US citizens, technically Jack Ruby died in prison an innocent man.
That’s because even though Ruby was found guilty and was sentenced to death by a Dallas jury, that conviction was later appealed and overturned, at which time he was granted a new trial. (The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Ruby’s oral confession of premeditation made while in police custody should have been ruled inadmissible because it violated a Texas criminal statute. The court also ruled that Ruby couldn’t possibly have been given a fair trial, as it took place in the same Texas county where the high-profile crime had been committed … and, as such, should have been moved to another Texas venue. Too many Dallas jurors could have already decided Ruby's guilt before they ever set foot in the courtroom ... like there was any place on earth where people didn't see him gun Lee Harvey Oswald down!)
Nevertheless, this ruling officially negated the original guilty verdict and cleared him of his death sentence.
Before a new trial could take place, Ruby got sick while in prison and died of a pulmonary embolism on January 3, 1967, at Parkland Hospital … the SAME hospital where both President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald had died before him … meaning that technically, he died an innocent man ... no matter what we all had witnessed first hand.
Jack Ruby (born Jacob Leon Rubenstein) was a Dallas night club / strip club owner. The world will never truly know if Ruby, with known ties to the Chicago mob, killed Oswald as a patriotic American, outraged that Oswald had assassinated our President just two days before … or if this was a means of keeping Oswald from talking and disclosing any details that might incriminate somebody else. (Ruby always maintained … and The Warren Commission agreed … that he acted out of grief and outrage. He even closed his clubs for three nights as a show of respect for our fallen President … and virtually everybody interviewed by The Warren Commission agreed that Ruby’s mob ties were so minimal, he would NEVER have been asked to pull off such a feat.) Like their findings on Oswald, it was determined that Ruby acted alone and of his own devices.
As Oswald was being transferred from one jail holding cell to another, the narrow basement hallway was filled with newspaper and television reporters, intent on bringing the American public every conceivable detail pertaining to The President’s assassination. Ruby was just a face in the crowd … until he pulled a gun, stepped in front of Oswald, and shot him to death in front of a room full of witnesses.
The rest, as they say, is history … and Jack Ruby’s story ends here in Chicago, right where it started. (He was born here on April 25th, 1911.)
November 22nd marks the 60th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination … and for those of us who were there … even this ten year old boy at the time … that memory is forever etched into our souls. We watched it again and again … there were no other TV options … and our local newspapers were publishing updates throughout the day right thru the funeral a few days later. It can only be described as a sad and numbing moment that will never leave you. (kk)
>>>And yes, WLS is still broadcasting at 890 on the AM dial ... although it's been an all-talk format for many years now. (kk)
And that's just the Listeners' Format where they're still talking about how sad it was switching from their highly-rated historical music format to their current low-rated talk format!
CB
Kent,
I couldn't help but wonder how many of your readers had heard of or knew of SHORTNIN' BREAD, the #1 record on WLS' first survey. To my knowledge and remembrance, it never made our local survey, even though I have a copy of the record. There were versions of SHORTNIN' BREAD by The Bell Notes that same year on Madison Records and later on in 1963 by a group called The Blisters on Liberty. Both of those versions made our survey. I have always been fascinated by those records which did very poorly nationally but were bigger hits in their markets.
I was curious to see what records were on the survey at the same time here in OKC. Our survey had about ten more records listed with a PIC-HIT.
Larry Neal
I, too, have also been fascinated with chart discrepancies from major city to major city (and, as we saw here in Chicago … and on the national charts themselves, within the SAME city or country!)
Incredibly we only share six Top 20 Hits between Chicago and Oklahoma City (and one of those, at #4, is an exact match.)
A couple of chart glitches were always to be expected … here in Chicago, WLS erroneously referred to Brenda Lee’s latest hit as “I Want To Be MARRIED” and The Chipmunks’ “Alvin For President” as “Alvin for Prexy.”
Interesting, too, are which SIDE of a record a radio station was playing. (Back then, we saw both sides of the same record chart separately, which has NEVER made any sense to me … how on earth did THEY know which song brought somebody in the store to actually buy the record … and what if they liked BOTH sides?!?!)
But here in Chicago, we charted “You Mean Everything To Me” by Neil Sedaka and “Somebody To Love” by Bobby Darin, while WKY ranked “Run Samson Run” and “Artificial Flowers” respectively for these two records … both of which would prove to be the bigger national hits as well.
Surprising was to see some genuine hits charting in Chicago but missing from our chart … Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now Or Never,” Ray Charles’ “Georgia On My Mind,” The Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run” and The Drifters’ “Save The Last Dance” are nowhere to be found on you WKY chart, nor are “Hot Rod Lincoln” or “Let’s Think About Livin’,” two other VERY popular tunes across the nation at the time.
It's discrepancies and omissions like these that make you wonder how they were ever able to calculate accurate national charts representing sales and airplay for the nation. (It is also why we simply have to accept whatever they came up with – as it was the best measurement of popular music at the time.) kk
From Tom Cuddy …
The 17 Best
Moments From Madonna’s Celebration Tour Opening Night in London
https://www.billboard.com/lists/madonna-tour-celebration-london-opening-night-best-moments/
However, Noise 11 published a report that Madonna’s London shows have been plagued with problems …
Two nights in a row, the show ended early due to “technical difficulties,” one of them being “past curfew” due to a late start …
https://www.noise11.com/news/madonna-kicks-off-the-problematic-celebration-tour-in-london-20231016
The tour itself was long-delayed due to Madonna’s unexpected hospital stay … and there may still be a few bugs to work out …
But it sounds like Madonna has put her all into this Celebration Tour … and we’re expecting things to only get better. (kk)
Here are some hits as a belated birthday present.
Bob Verbos
Kent,
Years ago it was suggested what or who you would get if you called the following numbers: 634-5789 and Beechwood 4-5789, depending upon what area code (of which there really wasn't any at the time.)
Also, back in the forties I believe, there was PENNSYLVANIA 6500. There have been others. but the two I specifically mentioned are the favorites I believe.
Also …
This weekend on the football games (college and pro), I saw a commercial for the first time advertising HONDA. Now I noticed that the music in the background (instrumentation), sounded very much like the music of DENISE from 1963 (Randy and the Rainbows.) To me, this was the same or a very close sounding rendition. I don't know if you have seen this commercial or not.
Larry
You may recall that after all the “Paul Is Dead” rumors started, it was reported that if you held the “Magical Mystery Tour” album cover up to a mirror, the word Beatles would spell out a phone number (backwards) and that if you called that number and asked for Billy Shears, the voice on the other end of the line would let you in on the secret of Paul McCartney’s death years earlier.
Hmm … interesting … what phone number do YOU get out this photo???
“Pennsylvania 6-5000” was a Top Five Hit for Glenn Miller in 1940. Accordingy to Joel Whitburn’s book “Pop Hits, 1940 – 1954,” the title on the label showed as Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand” … and the phone number itself belonged to New York’s Hotel Pennsylvania at the time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOUldTrk-A
The only other song with a complete phone number in its title that came to mind for me was “Echo Valley 2-6809 by The Partridge Family, an album cut that got airplay on their television series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP6HtTcYXuE
I haven’t seen the Honda commercial you’re referring to yet … shame they wouldn’t just use something by The Beach Boys, who did PLENTY of car tunes … and even a track called “Little Honda!” (kk)
So, a couple of weeks ago, Forgotten Hitter Timmy told us that he “listened to this cassette twice and that "Head Cleaner" is the worst band ever!”
I thought maybe it might best be monitored if I listened to it with my cassette deck’s volume turned up as high as it would go.
And I can report that after I listened to it twice, cranked up at full blast, it drove the Mime next door crazy!! (I think he came pounding on my door but I can’t be sure.)
BTW, we all know that audio cassette tapes have a Side A and a Side B and that while its disc successor only had music on one side, it was still called a “C - D!”
So, following that natural alphabetical progression, why aren’t mp3s called “E - Fs?” Aren’t they basically . . . “Electronic Files?!”
(OK! You have to come up with the next one --- “G - Hs!” I’m done.)
And you know that old question, “How many grooves are on one side of a Forgotten Hit 45 Single” and that most people usually guess anywhere from 45 to 55 to 105 or more when in reality, there’s only . . . one continuous groove?! With that in mind, here’s another one to ask them about audio tapes ...
How long is the tape in a 60-minute audio cassette? Nope, not 50, 75 or a 100 feet or so. The correct answer is . . . “about an hour!”
OK so, closing out now with Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round In Circles?,” the answer is: “Yes! They all do!”
CB ( which stands for “Cassette Boy!” )
