Carol Wayne's World (Party Time! Excellent!!)
Celebrating a Deathday™: Platinum-blonde sweater-filler-outer actress Carol Wayne died on this day, January 13, 1985. The famously full-figured foil on 70's television's "Tea Time Movies with Art Fern" was born Bootsie Nightingale in the Second-Tier City™ of Chicago, and departed in her late teens for a top-heavy turn as a showgirl at the Tropicana Orange Mango® in Las Vegas alongside her leggy, look-alike sister Nina (later of “99 Luft Balloons” fame). Wayne then pointed her high beams west where she met the likes of "feature film freak" Art Fern, a loud-jacketed lothario cut from the same plaid-patterned cloth as "Tonight Show" phony Johnny Carson. Fern was more car dealer than movie reviewer and, for her part, Wayne was the willing sidekick, cooing and battling her eyelashes and heaving her outsized personality at the jelly-haired, moustachioed Fern, but somehow it all worked. Wayne was Matinée Lady in over 100 episodes of Fern’s show, the two of them bumbling their way through reviews and sponsorships with dumbbell appeal. ‘Twas a far cry from most on-air critics — chatty misfits named Gene — not to mention the legion of keyboard-pounders nowadays who fancy themselves Cecil B. DeMillionaires but couldn’t film so much as a children's birthday party themselves. Ms. Wayne bid adieu to movie reviews and went on, like so many B-level, C-cupped celebrities, to appear in harmless nonsense such as “I Dream of Jeannie (With the Light Bottle Blond Hair and Exposed Midriff),” “I Spy (A Serial Abuser In Sheepskin Clothing)" and "I Love Buggery, American Style.” Alas, in 1985, with her television career in decline, the thrice-divorced Wayne went on vacation in Mexico with an actual bloody car salesman — not Art Fern, but a ne'er-do-well named Ed Durston – and never returned, as she was found dead on the beach of a questionable drowning. It turns out in years prior, Durston was involved in another celebrity tragedy: He was the boyfriend of Diane Linkletter, daughter of Art (Linkletter, that is), and was in her apartment when she attempted to fly out a window with little success. Two more unhappy endings in the hell-on-earth that is Hollywood celebrity, if you ask Yours Truly Dooley®, but let's not shed too harsh a light on the dearly departed Ms. Wayne’s special day. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, darlin’.
Celebrating a Deathday™: Platinum-blonde sweater-filler-outer actress Carol Wayne died on this day, January 13, 1985. The famously full-figured foil on 70's television's "Tea Time Movies with Art Fern" was born Bootsie Nightingale in the Second-Tier City™ of Chicago, and departed in her late teens for a top-heavy turn as a showgirl at the Tropicana Orange Mango® in Las Vegas alongside her leggy, look-alike sister Nina (later of “99 Luft Balloons” fame). Wayne then pointed her high beams west where she met the likes of "feature film freak" Art Fern, a loud-jacketed lothario cut from the same plaid-patterned cloth as "Tonight Show" phony Johnny Carson. Fern was more car dealer than movie reviewer and, for her part, Wayne was the willing sidekick, cooing and battling her eyelashes and heaving her outsized personality at the jelly-haired, moustachioed Fern, but somehow it all worked. Wayne was Matinée Lady in over 100 episodes of Fern’s show, the two of them bumbling their way through reviews and sponsorships with dumbbell appeal. ‘Twas a far cry from most on-air critics — chatty misfits named Gene — not to mention the legion of keyboard-pounders nowadays who fancy themselves Cecil B. DeMillionaires but couldn’t film so much as a children's birthday party themselves. Ms. Wayne bid adieu to movie reviews and went on, like so many B-level, C-cupped celebrities, to appear in harmless nonsense such as “I Dream of Jeannie (With the Light Bottle Blond Hair and Exposed Midriff),” “I Spy (A Serial Abuser In Sheepskin Clothing)" and "I Love Buggery, American Style.” Alas, in 1985, with her television career in decline, the thrice-divorced Wayne went on vacation in Mexico with an actual bloody car salesman — not Art Fern, but a ne'er-do-well named Ed Durston – and never returned, as she was found dead on the beach of a questionable drowning. It turns out in years prior, Durston was involved in another celebrity tragedy: He was the boyfriend of Diane Linkletter, daughter of Art (Linkletter, that is), and was in her apartment when she attempted to fly out a window with little success. Two more unhappy endings in the hell-on-earth that is Hollywood celebrity, if you ask Yours Truly Dooley®, but let's not shed too harsh a light on the dearly departed Ms. Wayne’s special day. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, darlin’.