#Bennett Cerf

[oldshowbiz]

1981.

A reference to What's My Line on an episode of Taxi with Martin Short.

[drallimylime]

i’ve probably watched 40+ episodes of What’s My Line? in the past month.

[jisforjudi2]

Every now and then I stumble on something I think it's really special. Eleanor Roosevelt as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line, October 18, 1953. Her appearance begins at 14:26

[softinsidewithroughedges]

tag yourselves I'm Mr. Cerf's bow tie

[brummie-man-interests]

"The Twilight Zone: Twenty Two" is based on an anecdote from the 1949 book, 'Famous Ghost Stories' by Bennett Cerf [Bennett Alfred Cerf] (May 25, 1898 - August 27, 1971) who is best known as the publisher and founder of 'Random House' books.

[gallimaufryish]

[travsd]

Booking Bennett Cerf

Among show biz buffs, Bennett Cerf (1898-1971) has become the poster child for How American Pop Culture Has Changed And Not for the Better. Cerf was the co-founder of the Random House publishing company; he was also a panelist on television game shows. We exaggerate perhaps when we claim that such things could never happen any more, but you must admit, it would be remarkable. Cerf was born with…

[oldshowbiz]

1962.

[thatwritererinoriordan]

I've already read Heart of Darkness and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. I'm going for the Katherine Mansfield.

What story/author would you read first?

[sohannabarberaesque]

Know this: The Mystery Guest in this particular What's My Line? episode (as originally aired January 11, 1953) was the vocal inspiration for Lippy the Lion and Peter Potamus, ultimately via Daws Butler.

(As reminder, John Charles Daly hosted; panellists were Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf, Arlene Frances and Steve Allen.)

[softinsidewithroughedges]

[vintage-every-day]

Mystery Guest: Hedy Lamarr. Panel: Arlene Francis, Robert Q. Lewis, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf.

[theempressar]

OH EM GEE 🤣 🤣🤣 I just watched this one...John almost falls out his seat laughing... Bennett gets so embarrassed... they are ADORABLE 🥰🥰🥰

5 October 1958

[challenger is a sheep shearer]

John [to Bennett]: Now, what does Miss Kurtz have to do with sheep?

Arlene [off-camera]: She pulls the wool over their eyes!

…

Bennett: Do you, uh, do you pluck sheep?

[John and audience lose it]

John: I’ll tell you what, Bennett, do you want to reach for another verb? Because I think you’ve got the right idea

[muppetydyke]

Muppet Mainstage, November 2nd, 2024

“Slimey to the Moon” is a parody of the jazz standard “Fly Me to the Moon” written by Bart Howard with new lyrics by Christopher Cerf. The song was performed by Tony Bennett in season 29 of Sesame Street (1998), detailing Slimey the Worm’s trip to the moon.

[alphaman99]

Follies Of God

9h  ·

Barbara Sinatra: "We were at a dinner party one night with Bennett Cerf and Betty Bacall when Frank wandered into a guest room to collect a pack of cigarettes from his overcoat. There he found the producer Arthur Hornblow finishing up a telephone call to a woman. 'I hope she's pretty,’ Frank said softly. Arthur replied that she was; it was his mother, Susie, who was in poor health in Florida but still excited about the latest Yankee scores.

'What I wouldn't give for one more telephone call with my mom,' Frank told him wistfully.

At his suggestion, they called Arthur's mother back and put Frank on the line. 'Is this really Frank Sinatra?' she asked. 'You sound too much like him not to be. I love your voice.'

'Well, I love your voice too, Susie,' Frank said. 'Tell you what—I'm going to call you every Saturday night at six o'clock, and we'll chew over the Yankees' performance, okay?' He kept his promise and never missed a Saturday evening call to Susie Hornblow until the day she died. For good measure, he sent flowers to her on Mother's Day and to other widowed mothers in the same hospital. Frank added her name to his list of lonely women he'd call on a regular basis. They included a relative of Freeman Gosden's and several single mothers. Few believed them when they claimed that Ol' Blue Eyes was a frequent caller, but they knew the truth and that was all that mattered."

[literaticat]

Does the literary world have superstars outside of authors? Like you hear a person's name and you definitely know who that is? Like a Tom Cruise?

There are definitely tons of "publishing famous" people that are NOT authors who I personally (or other publishing professionals) would hear their name and definitely know who it is.

Further, lots of those "publishing famous" people I probably have worked with in some capacity or at least met or somehow crossed paths with. Like -- the publishing/literary world is a very small one, actually; if you've been around for a while, you probably have crossed paths with MOST people in your area of the business, even the "famous" ones.

However, are "publishing famous" people ACTUALLY famous, like on a Tom Cruise level, where a random person NOT in publishing would know who it is? I don't think so. Maybe back in the day, like in the 1950s and 60s, people in the US would definitely have recognized Bennett Cerf, who was a founder and head of Random House -- but that wouldn't have been because he was the head of Random House, but rather because he was a panelist on an extremely popular TV game show every week for sixteen years!

The only people I can think of who might fit that Actually Famous description now are authors -- and probably there are only a handful of living authors that most people would consider truly recognizable or a "household name" -- like I *might* be able to come up with ten authors in that category and that would be pushing it. Realistically, though a real bookworm will know a lot of authors and maybe even some editor/agent/publisher names, the vast majority of people are NOT real bookworms, and know absolutely nothing about the publishing business.