Lingering Qs about Rodale's famed 1971 onstage demise
Radioacti...@hotmail.com
better known as J.I. Rodale (and correctly pronounced, I gather, "row-
DALE"), the founder of the Rodale Publishing mini-empire, succumbed
while taping an edition of The Dick Cavett Show in New York City
during June 1971.
And most of us also know that Rodale never responded to Cavett's
inquiry of, "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?" which Cavett jocularly
posed as an interruption to his ongoing interview with NYC columnist
Pete Hamill (who soon enough would not only be Jackie O's squeeze but
also earn a Grammy for his insightful liner notes to The Great
Inscrutable One's "Blood on the Tracks"). Rodale, who concluded his
own chat--including the ironic boast, "I'll live to be 100!"--prior to
Hamill coming out and sitting down between him and Cavett, was thusly
one slot "down the couch" to the right [from Cavett's perspective]
when he nodded off and started emitting sounds I'm told are common to
many people in their last moments.
All old news, I realize. But precisely WHEN did all this occur? I've
seen it listed as Saturday, June 5th, but did Cavett ever tape his
weeknight show on Saturdays in those days? More likely it happened on
Tuesday, June 8th, the date I've seen most often--but not invariably--
cited. And dig THIS: I've also seen it contended that Rodale did NOT
expire at the studio, but rather actually survived in a coma for about
a week before finally dying! So maybe all this ACTUALLY happened
during a taping sometime the week of May 31-June 4, and that the oft-
cited 6/8/1971 date is actually when he finally died? Anyone got the
facts here?
Specific times from that night would also be interesting--I mean, did
Cavett normally tape at dinner time, like Carson did for decades, or
usually later in the evening? And precisely how many minutes into the
show did this all go down? (I can't even remember if the Cavett Show
was using a 60- or 90-minute format in 1971.)
And how about a specific studio number at the ABC broadcast facility
in uptown Manhattan--anyone know what that particular studio was
numbered back then, and what its 2008 designation is, assuming it's
still used for production?
Now, everyone understands why the tape was never aired by ABC, so
first-hand information here is hard to come by. Cavett's own recent
blog-recounting of that night is, alas, short on facts and long on
warm-fuzzies--as you might expect, given his cloying and treacly
interviewing style.
Cavett has also made clear he's never gonna allow duplication of his
own sequestered copy. Still, I continue to check various video sites,
hoping some rogue engineer finally has publicly exploited his access
to one of the various other extant copies I suspect are out there
somewhere. (Everything I know about how the television business works
suggests there are as many as a half-dozen in existence; the only way
that's NOT the case is if Cavett in 1971 somehow managed to round up
every copy that had been variously generated--something I doubt he
ever attempted much less successfully accomplished.)
And while the video remains elusive, surely there simply MUST
additional still photographs from that remarkable night. I've seen
but a single photo published of the onstage scene. Anyone know of a
photo gallery from that night posted somewhere?
Always wondering why I've got a reputation for morbidity,
BRYAN STYBLE/somewhere
Bermuda999
> Okay, most of us herein are well aware that health guru Jerome Rodale,
> better known as J.I. Rodale (and correctly pronounced, I gather, "row-
> DALE"), the founder of the Rodale Publishing mini-empire, succumbed
> while taping an edition of The Dick Cavett Show in New York City
> during June 1971.
>
> And most of us also know that Rodale never responded to Cavett's
> inquiry of, "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?" which Cavett jocularly
> posed as an interruption to his ongoing interview with NYC columnist
> Pete Hamill (who soon enough would not only be Jackie O's squeeze but
> also earn a Grammy for his insightful liner notes to The Great
> Inscrutable One's "Blood on the Tracks"). �Rodale, who concluded his
> own chat--including the ironic boast, "I'll live to be 100!"--prior to
> Hamill coming out and sitting down between him and Cavett, was thusly
> one slot "down the couch" to the right [from Cavett's perspective]
> when he nodded off and started emitting sounds I'm told are common to
> many people in their last moments.
1. Cavett sez that the "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?" line is
fiction
2. The "I'll live to be 100!" was apparently not uttered on the show
-- It had been in an article in The New York Times magazine the Sunday
before the taping
http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/when-that-guy-died-on-my-show/
Radioacti...@hotmail.com
didn't say it. I've read somewhere that someone who saw the tape says
it's in there.
But you're probably right about the 100-year boast having been
conflated from print.
STYBLE/somewhere
Radioacti...@hotmail.com
sociological) question posed by the Rodale demise.
Pete Hamill of course wrote about the aborted taping in the next
edition of his New York Post column, (Or was it The Daily News? I've
never lived in Gotham.) Many, many people of course read that column,
a few surely wrote letters to the editor in response, and yet NObody
was looked down upon for having written about, read about, or
discussed this remarkable occurrence.
Yet it's almost universally considered unseemly merely to DESIRE to
actually WATCH this, which of course is why a copy of the tape has yet
to surface. So: why is it deemed morally proper to conjure up the
scene imprecisely in one's imagination, as we all are thusly forced to
do, whereas the desire to actually WITNESS a preserved perspective of
this vignette is somehow seen as morally repugnant?
Posing the unasked questions,
BRYAN STYBLE/somewhere
Matthew Kruk
news:a988a055-ceac-4d04...@o40g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> ...
> Yet it's almost universally considered unseemly merely to DESIRE to
> actually WATCH this, which of course is why a copy of the tape has yet
> to surface. So: why is it deemed morally proper to conjure up the
> scene imprecisely in one's imagination, as we all are thusly forced to
> do, whereas the desire to actually WITNESS a preserved perspective of
> this vignette is somehow seen as morally repugnant?
Good question. Personally, it would probably not be exciting to watch.
We're so used to watching TV/Movie deaths all the time and they are
"shocking" but the dead person appears as another character the following
week or month or ... so. This one wouldn't.
Bob Feigel
<Matthe...@Telus.net> magnanimously proffered:
I'm surprised that Rodale's death wasn't used in a storyline for Six
Feet Under.
--
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
King Daevid MacKenzie
> As for your assumption that broadcast practices mean there are at
> least six copies of the Cavett tape, I wouldn't bet on that. And if
> multiple copies exist, I also wouldn't bet that ABC or Cavett or
> whoever necessarily knows exactly where they are, though perhaps
> footage so infamous might be less likely to get lost...offset, of
> course, by a greater likelihood of simply being stolen.
...I was told by someone representing themselves as a former ABC-TV
technician that at least one such copy was used in a training course for
newbies at ABC TOC, as a "how would you handle this situation?" exercise...
--
kdm
http://kingdaevid.podbean.com/
http://amp.az/home/User/KingDaevid
peace 'n oranges...
Radioacti...@hotmail.com
> least six copies of the Cavett tape, I wouldn't bet on that. And if
> multiple copies exist, I also wouldn't bet that ABC or Cavett or
> whoever necessarily knows exactly where they are, though perhaps
> footage so infamous might be less likely to get lost...offset, of
> course, by a greater likelihood of simply being stolen.
Yes, I was imagining that of the several imagined extant copies, a
couple of which would likely have been purloined from whichever ABC or
production company exec or engineer who happened to initially have one
of 'em. But just because it's stolen doesn't mean it doesn't still
exist...and thusly may someday fall into the hands of someone who has
the same moral position I argued above regarding the legitimacy of the
desire to see the darned thing get out, legitimately or otherwise.
I suspect three or four copies were initially made by master control,
a couple of which were quickly ordered duplicated for the use of
producers or various executives, including the network's legal
department. And if the show was produced by a company (rather than by
the network itself, as I believe it was), that would have likely
resulted in a couple more copies at least. Even in his mostly-
unsatisfying blog account, Cavett himself says he presumes the
engineers with access to a copy of the tape had been occasionally
showing it to their girlfriends along the way.
And contrary to what a poster contended (and I fell for) above: a re-
reading of that blog by Cavett shows the viewing for his staff of the
tape in July 1971 revealed that the 100-year boast WAS indeed said
onstage.
Endeavoring to nail down the facts,
BRYAN STYBLE/somewhere
Bermuda999
> Well, Cavett states he doesn't REMEMBER it--that doesn't mean he
> didn't say it. �I've read somewhere that someone who saw the tape says
> it's in there.
Wow. That sounds a lot more relable than a first-hand-account-from-the-
guy-who-supposedly-said-it-and-probably-would-remember-if-he- did.
AndrewJ
> Terry del Fuego sez:
>
> > As for your assumption that broadcast practices mean there are at
> > least six copies of the Cavett tape, I wouldn't bet on that. And if
> > multiple copies exist, I also wouldn't bet that ABC or Cavett or
> > whoever necessarily knows exactly where they are, though perhaps
> > footage so infamous might be less likely to get lost...offset, of
> > course, by a greater likelihood of simply being stolen.
>
> ...I was told by someone representing themselves as a former ABC-TV
> technician that at least one such copy was used in a training course for
> newbies at ABC TOC, as a "how would you handle this situation?" exercise...
>
> --
evening's taping, and wrote about it later for Paul Krassner's THE
REALIST. I met Efron about 10 years ago and asked him about Rodale's
death; he told me he understood there were, in fact, surviving
videotapes of Rodale's demise floating around.
Louis Epstein
: <Radioacti...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
They also destroyed the negative of the on-set accident that killed
Brandon Lee.But at least they used the tape of the fight scene from
the 1997 version of Tom Jones where he really WAS knocked out (and
still unconscious when they got him to the emergency room).
I think that deaths in front of cameras are part of history and
history should not be erased.It's not like the cameramen killed
them.(And even if they did,it would be part of the trial record).
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.