Category: People

In 1892, Angelo Siciliano was born in in Calabria, Italy. Thirteen years later, he and his family moved to Brooklyn. Like many Italianos, he Americanized his name. He became known as Charles, and became a leatherworker.

Charles was on the scrawny side. One day, on a visit to the zoo, he noted that big cats stayed extremely muscular, even in the confines of cages, without the luxury of running free. He concluded that the animals gained and maintained their strength by pitting muscle against muscle.

He tested his theory by devising exercises that did the same thing. They worked. Adding muscle mass as he stayed with his program, he eventually took the name “Charles Atlas” after a friend told him he resembled the statue of Atlas on top of a hotel in Coney Island.

Atlas had just achieved the title of The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man by Physical Culture magazine. That was big stuff in 1922. So Atlas began marketing his secret workout routine to the general public. It sold like, well, Edsels.

Why on earth wasn’t the public snatching up his secrets?

It was all in the presentation of the product. In 1928, he hired adman Charles Roman. The first thing Roman did was give the workout a name. He called it “Dynamic-Tension.” Catchy. Next, he created advertisements that took the form of single-page comics, in which a skinny kid gets picked on, begins using Dynamic-Tension, and bulks up. “Mac” gets revenge on the bully by popping him one in the jaw. The girls, of course, swoon with delight.

The ad began going into pulp magazines, the predecessors of comic books. That was sheer genius. Who reads the like of pulps and comics? Why, skinny kids, of course! Hey, I’m speaking from personal experience! Soon, 98 lb. weaklings from all over the country began sending in their money in droves to get the course that would allow them to look like Mr. Atlas themselves.

As the pulps gave way to their more colorful successors, the “Mac” ad became one of the most recognized in the free world. As the decades passed by, the look of comic books changed, but the Atlas ads continued to appear, virtually unchanged.

As the 80’s dawned, comics made one of their most dramatic changes. While once inexpensive and printed like newspapers, they had entered a more mainstream market, and now bore a slick look (that cost a lot more to produce). The audience had become more sophisticated. Gone were the classic ads for Sea Monkeys, X-Ray Specs, and, sadly, Charles Atlas courses.

In 1997, Marvel reintroduced the ads, but political correctness had once again reared its ugly, ugly head. Mac, instead of popping the bully the well-deserved sock in the jaw, now simply waved his fist while the bully cowered in fear.

(heavily heaved sigh)

Nowadays, you can still order the venerable Dynamic-Tension course from charlesatlas.com. And guess what? Mac still decks the bad guy at the official website. Hooray!

A mention should also be made of one Tom Manfre, who was frequently illustrated in the comic book ads. In the days before steroid use turned bodybuilders into grotesque parodies of themselves, Manfre won the 1953 Mr. World contest after training with the Atlas course. Manfre is still around, and is in the process of redesigning Dynamic-Tension into something more appropriate for senior citizens. How cool is that? Read his bio at the Atlas site.

Oh, and I’m no longer a 98 lb. weakling. Nowadays, I’m trying hard to stay under the 190 lb. mark.

About fifteen years ago, I was stunned by the sight of a bald eagle that flew across the road while I was driving. I had never seen the gorgeous creatures outside of zoos. Now, they are a common wintertime sight in northwest Arkansas, and we even have year-round residents that nest at nearby lakes.

We have Rachel Carson to think for the resurgence of bald eagles, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, and countless other bird species whose numbers were rapidly dwindling during the 60’s. In 1962, she shocked the world with Silent Spring, a book that turned an entire generation into environmentally conscious individuals.

Rachel Carson was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania in 1907. She was interested in nature as a child, and pursued a degree in marine biology and zoology, eventually earning a Masters. She also landed a government job during the Depression writing radio scripts and picked up some side income writing articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. The writing bug was pretty persistent, so in 1952 she quit her lucrative government gig to pursue the muse full time.

That year saw her publish a book called The Sea Around Us. Three years later she penned The Edge of the Sea. Both tomes were successful, but the best was yet to come.

Rachel was very environmentally conscious, and was uneasy with the greatly increased use of pesticides that followed WWII. This stand climaxed with the 1962 release of Silent Spring. Her primary target in the work was DDT.

Developed in 1939, it was used during World War II to clear South Pacific islands of malaria-causing mosquitoes for U.S. troops, while elsewhere being used as an effective delousing powder. Its inventor, Dr. Paul Muller, was awarded the Nobel Prize.

But DDT was a little too effective. It was persistent. After it killed the nasty skeeters, it continued to do damage to other insects. And it had another ugly side effect: It made the eggs of birds who consumed creatures that had the long-lasting chemical in their systems paper-thin. That meant eggs would be crushed, and baby birds wouldn’t be born. The bald eagle, which ate lots of DDT-contaminated fish, eventually became quite rare in the lower 48.

Rachel decided something needed to be done. So she expressed her thoughts in her greatest work. It woke up an entire nation to the hazards of using chemicals to control pests that would also have a deleterious effect on other forms of life. Interestingly, there was also evidence that insects were becoming resistant to it. However, it continued to have its deadly effect on the eggs of raptors.

The chemical industry was not pleased. They praised DDT as one of the reasons we whipped the Japs. They pointed to how many millions of lives had been saved by wiping out malaria-laden mosquitoes since the war was over. An exec at the American Cynamid Company said “If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth.”

However, the public listened to Rachel Carson. DDT was eventually banned in the US ten years later, but the instant effect of her book was that DDT had a nasty reputation, and its use nosedived.

The last reported use of DDT was in 1994.

Among the many eagles that have been depicted on US coins have been actual depictions of Peter. Peter was a bald eagle that hung around the Philadelphia Mint in the early 19th century. By the 1960’s, the idea of seeing an eagle in the area was as far fetched as spotting a unicorn. But on March 17, 2007, it was announced that a bald eagle nest had been discovered within Philadelphia’s city limits.

Rachel Carson, who died of cancer in 1964, would have been very, very proud.

MAD magazine is too big a Baby Boomer phenomenon to write about in one sitting. Perhaps the greatest of its contributors was the immortal Don Martin.

Don Martin was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1931. He began his career with MAD in 1956. He soon became its centerpiece artist, with each issue containing two or three cartoons featuring the timeless look of Don’s characters. This included huge chins, bulbous noses, long, skinny legs, and, of course, the familiar hinged feet.

Going along with the look were the familiar sound effects. I remember a football player who was being interviewed by a sports reporter emitting sounds like “oont” and “groot.”

One of my favorite cartoons involved the town moron standing on a street corner with his finger in his ear. A nearsighted man, mistaking him for a telephone, uses him to make a call. You just have to picture it.

Don left MAD in 1988 in a dispute over his works which appeared in paperback compilations of previously published comics. He claimed to have lost over a million dollars. The feud with MAD publisher William Gaines ended up sending Martin to work for competitor Cracked magazine. MAD hasn’t been the same since.

Thanks to Martin, we know what various events sound like. For instance, a sword when it is pulled out of someone’s arm (BLIOMP), a man’s head being crushed by a woman with a large bottom (BPLFLT!), and a cannibal shuffling shrunken heads (SHWIK SHWIKA SHK SHHHSK SHASHWIK SHWIKA SHWIK SHASH SHAK). Oh, and one I particularly recall: Wonder Woman taking off her bra (PLOOBADOOP).

Don died in 2000 of cancer at the age of 68. The world misses him.

We Boomer kids watched a bunch of television. Familiar faces soon placed themselves permanently in our memory banks, requiring only a slight nudge to be brought back to life in our imaginations. Today, we nudge back into existence a cute, perky, helpful female plumber named Josephine.

Josephine the plumber was portrayed by actress Jane Withers. She was born in 1926 in Atlanta. The daughter of an actress, she was a precocious talent who made it onto a local Atlanta radio show as “Dixie’s Dainty Dewdrop.” She would sing and do impressions of adult celebrities. Her parents soon moved to Hollywood, and she was able to get work as a child actress doing bit parts.

In 1934, she played obnoxious Joy Smythe in Shirley Temple’s film Bright Eyes. It was the break she needed to showcase her talent. Fox signed her to a long-term contract.

A long string of films followed, and Jane was generally cast as a more mischievous version of Shirley Temple, with the sugary sweetness cut in half. It worked, and she was a Top 10 box office draw for three straight years, 1937-39. She ranked her own “name” costars, like Gene Autry and the Ritz Brothers.

She kept making movies as a teenager in the 1940’s, and seemed capable of breaking out of the child star stereotype that so few were able to overcome. Instead, she took a hiatus when she was married in 1947.

Her break ended with a supporting role in the 1956 blockbuster Giant. She became fast friends with James Dean, who trusted her to wash his favorite cowboy shirt. He left it with her to launder when he took off on his Porsche ride to immortality. She still has it.

Jane went to work doing guest bits on TV shows after that. Advertising legend Milton Gossett approached her with the idea of portraying a Rosie-the-Riveter knockoff called Josephine the Plumber in a series of ads for Comet cleanser. I was unable to pinpoint the exact date in the 60’s when the commercials began, perhaps a reader can help? Anyhow, the ads were a hit with the public, and, more importantly to Procter and Gamble, they sold a slew of Comet.

Josephine the plumber was one of the most recognizable faces on 1960’s and 1970’s television screens. Always in a good mood, ready to help perturbed housewives, and full of energy, she became a cultural icon. And Withers even overcame the obvious stereotyping that committing to such a role brings with it.

After P&G decided to end Josephine’s run, she appeared in guest shots on several TV series, including The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, and others.

In 1996, she was chosen to finish voice-overs for Mary Wickes, who passed away before completion of Disney’s animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When the sequel came out in 2002, she kept the role of Laverne.

The real life Jane Withers is as perky and affectuous as Josephine herself. Now 88, she is a regular face at Hollywood functions, and boasts one of the largest doll collections in the world. (update: still with us in 2019!)

So here’s to Jane Withers, the actress, and Josephine the Plumber, a familiar face we grew up with.

One of the best things my parents ever did for me was to subscribe to Life, Look, and Post. The big, lavishly illustrated magazines gave me an appreciation for all sorts of things that I might have otherwise missed out on living in a small town.

For instance, Miami, Oklahoma didn’t have an art gallery. But Life and their ilk allowed me to develop an appreciation for art nonetheless.

An artist whose work appealed to a child like me was Andy Warhol.

Warhol was one of the most famous “pop art” artists. Pop art got it start in the mid 50’s. The unconventional style involved techniques like assembling collages of photographs, or painstakingly creating blown up reproductions of comic book scenes, accurate down to the individual color dots. Warhol’s style, at least in the early part of his career, used silk screens, photograph-like paintings of everyday objects like Coke bottles, and bright, unnatural colors.

A kid would love it. That’s why many art critics spurned Warhol’s art and dismissed it as juvenile and amateurish.

Warhol was born to his Slovak immigrant parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928. A construction worker, his father died in an accident when he was thirteen years old.

The young Andy had an artistic knack, After graduating high school, he studied art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in his hometown. Graduating in 1949, he got a job as a commercial artist in the advertising business. His work also appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other New York publications.

Warhol began exhibiting his works beginning in 1952. He was basically removing the line between commercial and traditional art. He once stated “When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums.”

While many critics sneered, the public loved it. Eventually, he dropped out of the commercial business and opened his own studio appropriately called The Factory in 1962.

The factory cranked out lots of art. Warhol would produce prints and silkscreens that could be replicated by his employees. He also designed shoes which they would assemble. Additionally, the gifted but eccentric artist produced many films there. They were pretty strange. For instance, Sleep, his first, was a six-hour film of a man sleeping.

In 1964, an art show called The American Supermarket was put on by Warhol and five other pop artists. In it, he debuted his famous Campbell’s Soup concept. The illustrated painting was available for $1500. He also sold autographed cans of soup for $6.00 each. Either purchase would have been a seriously good investment.

Warhol’s art appeared everywhere throughout the 60’s (including Life magazine and her sisters). But then, in 1968, everything changed with a gunshot.

I’m not talking about Bobby or Martin Luther King. Warhol himself was shot at The Factory by a nutty woman who had founded a group called SCUM (Society Cutting Up Men). Warhol was seriously injured, but survived.

However, his commercial-themed art days were done. When he got back to work, his specialty was portraits of the rich and famous. He eventually opened a nightclub and launched a magazine called Interview.

Warhol died in 1989. His legacy includes many great works of art, both “pop” and more traditional. But if you remember JFK, you likely also remember Campbell’s Soup cans, Coke bottles, or possibly purple Marilyn Monroes hanging on the walls of some of the places you visited, or perhaps illustrated in Life magazine.