It's been too long since I've posted a "Mystery Guest" segment from What's My Line? And this is a great one to jump back in on. That's because it's a twofer. With two celebrity guests. The first celebrity guest is legendary songwriter Johnny Mercer. However, he’s not officially that week’s Mystery Guest. The panelists do have to wear a blindfold, since they’d know him, but he’s not really recognized or known much at all by general audiences from his appearance or even name. I won’t try to name all the great songs he wrote, but for starters he won four Oscars, which is impressive enough, but it’s one of the rare cases where his number of nominations is almost more impressive than his wins – since he has 18 nominations! He won the Oscar for “Moon River” (and you could probably stop right there and say he had a great career…), “The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening,” and "The Days of Wine and Roses.” However, among just some of his other work, he also wrote – “Autumn Leaves,” “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” “Hooray for Hollywood,” “Satin Doll,” “Fools Rush In,” “Jeepers, Creepers,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “That Old Black Magic,” “Laura,” “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” “The Glow Worm,” “I Wanna Be Around (to Pick Up the Pieces),” “Something’s Gotta Give,” “Charade,” and the lyrics to the Broadway musical “Li’l Abner.” Not shabby, hunh? And again, that's just some work, and not "only" his well-known songs. He comes along at the 4:00 mark. As for the official “Mystery Guest” segment, the contestant is Jane Fonda from 1964, almost 60 years ago. So, this is really early in her career. Which, regardless if you like her or not, is incredibly impressive having a career that long -- whatever the business, but especially Hollywood where careers have short shelf lives, particularly for women. And all the more when you add that it's not stayed active because of occasional supporting roles, but she starred in two movies the past few months alone -- 80 for Brady and The Book Club sequel opening soon. And just finished an 8-year run starring in the series Grace and Frankie.) A fun moment comes when she’s asked a question she finds so unexpected and odd (clearly, the panelist has a suspicion who the guest is, but is wrong), she breaks her hidden character and bursts out laughing. If you want to jump to her “Mystery Guest” segment, it starts at the 16:45 mark. And to make the episode more fun, it's also worth noting that one of the panelists is Bobby Darin.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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