After decades of enjoying Dion's The Wanderer, which was written by Ernie Maresca, who hit #6 on the Billboard chart in 1962 with Shout, Shout, (Knock Yourself Out), it finally occurred to me to look up the lyrics to see if I had them right. As I suspected, I was hearing a phrase incorrectly. What I thought it was is in parentheses: "Oh well I roam from town to town/I go through life without a care/'Til I'm as happy as a clown/With my two fists of iron (divine) and I'm going nowhere." Maresca, a Bronx boy, had an impressive career in the music industry, largely behind the scenes. He is one of the singers on the Regents' Barbara Ann, and he wrote several other hits for Dion: Donna the Prima Donna, Lovers Who Wander and Runaround Sue. He was also a record exec. He passed away in 2015 at 76. Here's a pic of the successful goombah:
As I was scanning with the remote control last night, I came upon an old musical with which I was completely unfamiliar, Career Girl (1944), starring Frances Langford, who I'm embarrassed to say I knew nothing about. She was known more for her singing than movie work. She has 34 titles under her name at IMDb, the most famous of which is a radio program, The Bickersons, in which she teamed with Don Ameche as one-half of a battling married couple. She toured with Bob Hope during WWII and the Korean War. Once, they were forced to leap out of a jeep to avoid fire from a German fighter plane. They jumped into a culvert, Langford landing on top of Hope. Another time they spent the night in the basement of a hotel in Algiers as bombs burst above them. She was invited to take a ride in a U.S. army fighter plane. During the flight over South Pacific islands, the pilot spotted a Japanese ship and strafed it. Langford sat "completely terrified" in the back seat. She wrote a weekly column titled Purple Heart Diary in which she described her USO visits to wounded soldiers in hospitals in the U.S. and overseas. She used the column to provide a "voice" for the soldiers, relaying their feelings and gripes to the general public. Here are two quotes attributed to her: "Entertaining the troops was the greatest thing in my life. We were there just to do our job, to help make them laugh and be happy if they could." And: "I'd sing a song, and I could just see the guys getting this faraway expression. I knew they were going home in their minds." Awesome, madam. She passed away in 2005 at 92. (Edited from her bio at IMDb by yours truly.) Here's a pic of the plucky Hollywood heroine:
My thanks to the lovely young woman who bought Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, to the middle age one who chose The Last Detective: Dangerous Davies #1 by Leslie Thomas; to the elderly one who selected Legacy by Danielle Steel; and to Bad News Billy, who purchased five CD's. For a change he had good tidings to relate. His patent has been accepted. He now awaits interest in it. It's a device that makes roofing easier. Good luck, sir.
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