maly, too

Friday, December 30, 2016

By RON MALY

I was intending to write something about movies before the year ended, and today I'm keeping that promise.

But this is not what I was planning to write.

This one is about Debbie Reynolds, and it is with a heavy heart that I am writing it.

Let me start by stating that present-day movies don't interest me much.

I think it's been more than a year since I've seen one in a theater.

I can't tell you the name of one movie that's popular now.

The golden age of movies for me was when I was a kid and a young adult.

That's where Debbie Reynolds enters the picture, so to speak.

Unless you've been on Jupiter or Mars lately, you know that 84-year-old Debbie Reynolds died this week--the day after her daughter, 60-year-old Carrie Fisher died.

Like her mother, Carrie Fisher was quite the entertainer.

But Carrie obviously grew up in a different era than Debbie and a different era than me.

I didn't know and didn't care that much about Carrie.

I'm sure she was very talented, and I join many others in saying she died much too young.

Now to Debbie Reynolds....

To me, Debbie Reynolds was every young man's girlfriend.b

I know she was my girlfriend--imaginary, of course.
Oh, sure, Debbie was older than me. But, hell, maybe I liked older women in those days. I guess they call 'em cougars now.

I was talking to one of my sons the other day after we both saw the movie Singin' In the Rain on TV.

It was about the 65th time I'd seen Singin' In the Rain. It was my son's second or third time.

I told him about the strong attraction Debbie Reynolds had on us back in the good old days.

She was pretty, she was cute, she was lively, she was intelligent, she said all the right things, she smiled all the time, she could sing, she could dance, she would always be 18 years of age.

As far as I was concerned, Debbie Reynolds never married singer Eddie Fisher and two other guys after that.

Like I said, she always stayed 18, she always was my 18-year-old girlfriend.

Debbie Reynolds was still a teenager when she virtually stole the show in Singin' In the Rain.

She played the role of Kathy Selden, which called for her to sing and dance alongside the legendary Gene Kelly and the not-so-legendary Donald O'Connor.

Kelly and O'Connor had been dancing professionally for years. Debbie Reynolds could do neither very well.

Debbie would later say that Kelly had little patience with her during the filming.

"My feet were bleeding from all of that dancing, and when I pointed it out, Gene would say, 'Clean it up!'" Debbie was quoted as saying at the time.

Much later, in 2012 at the American Film Institute, she said, "You know, I was so dumb that I didn't feel I could fail. I felt the role in Singin' In the Rain] was me and I marched straight ahead."

March she did, straight into the hearts of America's movie fans.

Debbie Reynolds was in many more movies after that, including

Tammy and the Bachelor, in which she sang her famous Tammy song in 1957.

Tammy rose to No. 1 on the charts that year, and stayed on top for five weeks.

Obviously it was played, and danced to, over and over on Friday and Saturday nights in dance halls throughout America--including Iowa hot spots such as Danceland in Cedar Rapids, the Dance-Mor Ballroom in Swisher, the Legion in Solon and the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines.

I certainly recall Debbie Reynolds singing Tammy in that era, and it's fun today locating her singing Tammy on YouTube.

Every Tammy fan will recall how the song began:

"All I hear the cottonwoods whisp'rin' above

Tammy...Tammy...Tammy's in love

"The ole hootie owl hootie-hoo's to the dove

Tammy...Tammy...Tammy's in love

"Does my lover feel what I feel
When he comes near?

"My heart beats so joyfully
You'd think that he could hear

"Wish I knew if he knew what I'm dreaming of

"Tammy...Tammy...Tammy's in love...."

Great stuff, huh?

At least when all of us were teenagers.

Well, thanks to outfits likeTurner Classic Movies and YouTube, Debbie Reynolds, her movies and her songs will never be forgotten.

She was one of a kind.

Thanks for the memories, Debbie.

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.