G.H. Harding

MICKY & JIMMY — As we teased a few columns back, we can now officially announce that Micky Dolenz will be joining Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, February 27.

Micky will join Jimmy on the couch and talk about the generational impact of The Monkess and their music, which continues as strong as ever to this day. He’ll also discuss his forthcoming tour in April: The Monkees Celebrated by Micky Dolenz. He’ll also drop news on a sensational new project as well that will be of supreme interest to Monkee-fans and the public alike.

Dolenz last guested on the show, sitting in with The Roots in 2015. Will he rejoin them again? Stay tuned.

And, remember, the two seasons of The Monkees (1966-1968) was on NBC … as is Fallon. It should be a sensational homecoming. Congrats!

JOHN, YOKO AND MIKE — (via Variety) Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon have authorized Daytime Revolution, a documentary about the week John Lennon and Ono co-hosted The Mike Douglas Show in early 1972, a few months after the release of their single “Happy Christmas (War Is Over).”

The Shout! Studios, Creative Differences, and CBS Media Ventures feature docu uses archival footage from each of the five 70-minute shows as well as interviews with six surviving guests, including Ralph Nader, to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the unprecedented week. While Ono and her son did not participate on camera, the duo approved and creatively consulted on the project. Directed by Erik Nelson, the 108-minute docu recently wrapped production and is looking for distributor as Ono prepares to celebrate her 90^th birthday Feb. 18. 

“It’s become a cliche that Woodstock was the defining moment of the counterculture,” Nelson says, but “when I watched these broadcasts in their entirety, I realized that, in reality, this week in 1972, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono essentially hijacked the airwaves and presented the best minds and dreams of their generation to the widest possible mass audience of what was then called ‘Middle America,’ was as far as the counterculture would ever get. Not just music but a prescient blueprint for the future we now live in.”

Nelson believes that today’s viewers could learn from this remarkable week of programming 51 years ago. “Basically, this past points a way to our future,” he said.

Mike Douglas, Yoko Ono, John Lennon

When Lennon and Ono hosted the Philadelphia-based talk show alongside Douglas, it was the most popular show on daytime television, seen by about 40 million people a week. As hosts, Lennon and Ono broached controversial topics, including the empowerment of women, the deterioration of the environment, as well as police violence. The duo personally invited Black Panther chairman Bobby Seale, political activist Ralph Nader and comedian George Carlin to join them on the program. 

“We wanted to do the shows to show that we are working for peace and love and also to change the world, not with violence, but with love,” Ono explained in 1972. “And everybody that we selected is participating in efforts to change the world.” 

The shows also featured musical acts, with Lennon performing alongside Chuck Berry as well as delivering a poignant rendition of the now classic “Imagine.”  

“Let’s say that some of the people around the back of the show who were nervous about certain aspects of what we were doing were happy about it at the end,” Lennon said after completing his hosting duties.

But not everyone, especially the Nixon administration, was thrilled with the duo taking over as co-hosts.

“We heard that on February 4, just ten days before these shows were about to air, Senator Strom Thurmond went to Attorney General John Mitchell and wanted to warn the Nixon administration that John and Yoko were about to take sides,” says E.V Di Massa, an associate producer on “The Mike Douglas Show” in 1972.

I well remember this series of shows, which I believe were taped in just two days. Chuck Berry was a highlight for sure, but the site of John sand Yoko and Elephant’s Memory shook Philly like never before. I still have the box set of VHS tapes – a collector’s item for sure.

Douglas was a bit of an enigma himself. He was sort of like Jay Leno, but with a touch of Dick Cavett thrown in. He had great guests, but because the show didn’t originate from NY or LA, it didn’t have the same kind of clout. It was a great show to do, but only as a ladder to the Tonight Show or Merv Griffin.

I can’t confirm, but I believe Roger Ailes, who would go onto fame and fortune and controversy, as the chief of Fox News  (and MSNBC before that) was once of the producers. Eons ago for certain but a great piece of musical history.

RAQUEL RIP — (Via Deadline) What can you say about Raquel Welch. Just a sensational personality all round. She turned heads in 1000 BC and was rather extraordinary in Fantastic Voyage.

Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Welch’s family moved to San Diego when she was a toddler. She attended San Diego State on a theater arts scholarship and got her start as a local TV weathercaster before starting to land guest shots on such classics TV series as McHale’s Navy, Bewitched, The Virginian and others.

Her breakout role came as Cora in the wild 1966 sci-fi pic Fantastic Voyage, also starring Stephen Boyd, Edmund O’Brien, Donald Pleasance and Arthur Kennedy. It followed the adventures of a group of people who are miniaturized along with a submarine and injected into the bloodstream of a nearly-assassinated scientist in an effort to save his life. But they only have an hour before they return to real size.

The film won Oscars for its visual effects and for Art Direction/Set Decoration and became a cult classic. It maintains a 91% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Welch then starred as a clan cavewoman in the 1966 British film One Million Years B.C., another wild tale set in an age when humans and dinosaurs existed together. A slightly censored version was released in the U.S., and the film became a TV staple in later years.

She went on to star with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook in the London-set 1967 comedy Bedazzled and opposite James Stewart, Dean Martin and George Kennedy in the 1968 western Bandolero! Welch’s next major film was with Mae West and John Huston in the title role of Myra Breckinridge. Based on the satirical Gore Vidal novel that reportedly was the first whose main character underwent a sex-change operation, the 1970 film followed her character’s journey to Hollywood in search of stardom and a cut of her wealthy uncle’s estate. It was West’s final major film and Farrah Fawcett’s first.

Firmly established as a movie star, Welch continued her big-screen career opposite some of the era’s biggest stars. She appeared with Burt Reynolds in the 1972 cop comedy Fuzz; with Richard Burton in Bluebeard the same year; with James Coburn, Richard Benjamin and others in Herbert Ross’ The Last of Sheila, written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins; and opposite Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed and Michael York in 1973 The Three Musketeers.

That pic earned Welch a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical and spawned a 1974 sequel, The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge. She also starred with Bill Cosby and Harvey Keitel in the L.A.-set 1976 ambulance-crew romp Mother, Jugs & Speed.

Among her other films of the era was Kansas City Bomber, the 1972 drama set in then-popular world of roller derby, along with The Beloved (1971) and toplining the western Hannie Caulder with Robert Culp and Ernest Borgnine, also in 1971.

Welch never was shy to fight for herself and her place at the Hollywood table. In that context, she made a very different set of headlines in the 1980’s when she sued MGM over being dumped from starring with Nick Nolte in Cannery Row.

Set to play an empathetic prostitute in the David S. Ward-helmed movie based on the work of John Steinbeck, Welch was booted off the project by the studio over a contract violation. She insisted on having her hair and makeup done at her home before coming to set every day.

MGM said no and replaced Welch with Debra Winger.

After trying to make peace by taking another role and being rebuffed by the studio then run by David Begelman, Welch hit back and sued MGM for $24 million.

Making headlines all over the world, Welch alleged in her suit that the studio had built the movie and its financing around her and then used the hair-and-makeup dispute as a way to get a younger actress in the hooker role.

The matter dragged on through the courts and appeals, but Welch ultimately was awarded a $10 million verdict in 1987 — which, of course, generated a whole new set of headlines for her.

Welch’s film career had ebbed by the late 1970’s, and she began to do more TV work. She appeared in a couple of Season 2 Mork & Mindy episodes with Robin Williams in 1979 and continued to appear in telefilms throughout that decade and the 1980’s.

Among her higher-profile roles of the era was the title character in The Legend of Walks Far Woman, the 1982 NBC telepic about a woman who kills her abusive husband. Another was in Right to Die, in which she toplined as a successful woman whose life is changed forever after her ALS diagnosis. The role earned her a Golden Globe nomination.

She later did a memorable cameo as herself in 1994’s Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, getting into a wrestling match onstage at the Oscars with Leslie Nielsen’s Lt. Frank Drebin, and briefly appeared as Mrs Windham-Vandermark in 2001’s Legally Blonde.

Welch also played herself in the classic 1997 Seinfeld episode “The Summer of George.” It featured the actress mistakenly presenting a Tony Award to Michael Richards’ Kramer, with unexpected repercussions. The final episode of the all-timer series’ penultimate season also featured the classic “catfight” between Welch and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine Benes.

Other 1990’s TV guest roles included Evening Shade — reuniting with Reynolds — Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Lois & Clark and multiple episodes of Spin City and C.P.W. Her small-screen credits since then include a recurring role on the 2002 PBS series American Family, which starred Edward James Olmos and Sonia Braga, along with 8 Simple Rules, CSI: Miami, telefilm House of Versace, the short-lived CBS sitcom Welcome to the Captain and the Canadian comedy Date My Dad.

Since the 1960’s and throughout her career, Welch appeared on scores of TV talk, game and awards shows. She hosted Saturday Night Live during its first season in 1976, was a presenter at multiple Academy Awards and Tony Awards ceremonies, appeared on Bob Hope comedy specials and toplined her own specials in 1970, 1974 and 1980. Her 1970 CBS special Raquel! showcased Welch’s comedy, dancing and singing skills, earning a 51% share.

She also was a guest on Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and talk or variety shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Craig Ferguson, Bonnie Hunt, Dick Cavett, Mike Douglas, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Merv Griffin and others.

Welch also appeared twice on Broadway. The first time in 1981, when she filled in for a vacationing Lauren Bacall in Woman of the Year. In 1997, she played the lead role of Victoria Grant in Victor/Victoria, replacing original star Julie Andrews.

Despite her Golden Globes win and nom, Welch never earned an Oscar or Emmy nomination during her long career. But other accolades include an ALMA Award in 2001, a Western Heritage Award for The Legend of Walks Far Woman and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996.

Welch is survived by her son, Damon Welch, and daughter, Tahnee Welch.

Raquel

SHORT TAKES — I’ve never watched an entire show of The Masked Singer on Fox. To me, it’s always looked a bit tawdry and the judges (Robin Thicke; Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg; Ken Jeong and Nicole Scherzinger) always looked like second-string choices, but Wednesday night, one of the unmasked figures was 97-year old Dick Van Dyke who always brings a smile. Good choice for sure … The movie Rust will resume in the spring. With all the legal wrangling still in the mix, it seems impossible, but stay tuned … From a Harvey Kubernick/Burt Bacharach interview via Forgotten Hits: “I started making my own records out of self-defense.  To protect.  Because I think (years ago) I ruined some good songs, because I trusted some of the A&R people.  I thought they really had to be good, or they wouldn’t have that job.  If I had a three bar phrase, then that really worked as a three bar phrase.  It’s like, let’s take a song like “Wives and Lovers.”  Thank God nobody suggested it in the A&R department, but if somebody had said, “We’ll get so-and-so to record it, it will be a single, it’ll go in the movie … but you’ve got to put it in 4/4. I’m very conscious of too much strings on records.  It’s an invasion of some territory that I’m very allergic to now.  First of all, you’ve got to have a lead going in.  So, when you know you have a situation that plays, then you can take the strings – “ … hey, let them play five bars and let’s bail.  Let’s bring ‘em out for that sweep down, and then, right on the modulation … ”  And, you know …  it’s like you have a great smile but you can’t use it all the time. Drop it in. I’ve gone 30, 40 takes. On Dionne’s first record, I had her on take four.  Maybe the difference now from what it used to be is that I know I’m going to be OK at 95 percent.  You can make yourself crazy going for 100 percent.  It’s not about what you get, but what you’re gonna get as a result.  Something is gonna be at fault in the record.  The guitar player played great, but you don’t do it all at the same time.  Played great on the one take, but the drummer made a mistake, or didn’t play as good, or didn’t go to the ride cymbal when you hoped he would.  Then the balance shifts and you didn’t get the performance on the next take.  It’s about compromising” …

The trailer for the third and possibly final season of Apple’s Ted Lasso dropped yesterday and its just brilliant. To me, the real beauty of it is that it drops no new information on this next season, but it’s uplifting just like the show. Check it out here:

The show returns on March 15 …

The trailer for Amazon’s Daisy Jones and The Six appeared this week and though it looks interesting, I immediately thought Almost Famous, The Affair and Vinyl while watching it. Based on the book, which I never heard of, it features Riley Keogh and Sam Claflin. Boy, Vinyl was a brilliant show. Check out the trailer:

Ryan Seacrest announced yesterday that he will be exiting Live With Kelly And Ryan. He’s hosted since 2001. I’ve known Ryan for years and he’s totally professional. He’d fly back-and-forth between LA and NYC for Live and his hosting duties on American Idol. With Disney laying off 7,000 people, I’m quite sure they immediately saw the savings in canceling those trips! Surprisingly in his farewell speech, neither he nor Kelly acknowledge original host Regis Philbin. Philbin for the record came up with the host chat segment …. which Barbara Walters stole for her View. Philbin did give Barbara his blessings. Shocking for sure.

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Jeremy Long; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; Barbara Walters; Donald Berman; Rick Nowels; Vinny Napolitano; Tony King; Reed Richards; Paul Rudd; Dan Rattiner; Peter Shendell; Barry Fisch; Ken Dashow; Joe Bonadonna; Jim Kerr; Derek Taylor; Maria Milito; Steve Walter; Race Taylor; Morgan Landau; and BELLA!