A Note on the Passing of Merv Griffin, and a Small Discovery

[Glenn Anders]

In the Bloomberg.com obituary of Merv Griffin, who died over the weekend, there is the following observation:

"[Griffin] revealed that his favorite guest was actor and director Orson Welles, ``an awesome character'' who was ``conversant on any topic I could think of.'' Welles, who died in 1985, appeared as Griffin's guest almost 50 times during a nine-year period."

It would be nice to have those interviews available. So far as I know, Griffin only released an edited version of Welles' last appearance on his show, a few hours before our hero's unexpected death.

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Looking for something else, I came across an IMDb entry for a little 1940 film called HULLABALOO. It starred Frank Morgan as a Radio personality with a genius for mimicry. After his show about a Martian attack on the Planet Earth, he goes to Hollywood, where he supposedly impersonates a number of reigning stars of the era.

As the IMDb puts it:

"Frank Morgan supposedly does voice imitations of Al Jolson, Ted Lewis, Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Mickey Rooney and Hedy Lamarr. However, Rooney's and Lamarr's voices were dubbed by other actors, and Taylor's voice was so perfect it was probably from the soundtrack of one of his films or the actor himself. Morgan also impersonates Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert and Spencer Tracy in a scene from Boom Town (1940) which opened 3 months earlier. Again, the voices were so perfect they undoubtedly came from the soundtrack of that movie.

"The radio broadcast of "The Battle of the Planets" which caused such a panic in this movie was clearly based on Orson Welles' broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" on 30 October 1938, which did cause a national panic."

The film also stars Virginia Grey and a very young Dan Dailey, with support from solid character actors like Donald Meek.

Has anyone seen it?

[RayKelly]

Many, many years ago, Merv gave an interview where he stated he wanted to release a "best of" his talk show years. One volume would be dedicated to Welles, but alas it never happened

[colwood]

While others may already be aware, I thought it interesting to note that on CNN, they were interviewing Larry King and he mentioned that not only did Griffen consider Welles his favorite interviewee, but they apparently had some sort of deal. Griffin wouldn't ask him about certain aspects of his career, I think it dealt with the frequent question "what happend to welles?". But on the day of his last interview, the day before he died, Welles reportedly told Griffin, go ahead and ask anything you want.

[Michael O'Hara]

Many, many years ago, Merv gave an interview where he stated he wanted to release a "best of" his talk show years. One volume would be dedicated to Welles, but alas it never happened

http://www.amazon.com/Merv-Griffin-Show ... 699&sr=8-1

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, thank you, Ray, for that review.

Strangely enough, as I noted from Merv Griffin's obituary, he interviewed Welles 50 times in a nine year period, yet only an edited version of the man's last appearance is included in this box set. Because, as I believe, Welles was often given an entire hour, or most of it, there is a wealth of interview material which has still not been made generally available.

I also might add, as I have earlier, somewhere here, Griffin told the late Tom Snyder, in one of their last sessions together on TV, that he often had Welles as a guest at his home, and in a downstairs rec-room, wired for sound (and perhaps video), he recored hours and hours of their more or less intimate conversations. My memory is that Griffin claimed to have over 600 hours of unedited material from these sessions stored in a vault. He indicated that, one day, he would make these interviews available.

If so, we have a new lost Welles treasure to track down.

Glenn

[Lucy]

You're absolutely right, Glenn. The Merv Griffin Show archives by themself sound like a huge treasure trove of Orson Welles's opinions, anecdotes, etc. I believe it was Merv Griffin who persuaded Welles to move his family to Las Vegas, partly so that he could make appearances on the show easily. Maybe the Griffin estate can take a page from the Siskel/Ebert/Roeper show and put everything online.

http://www.atthemoviestv.com