My Sunday column for the Glendale News-Press posted here explained how I’m always saying “yes” to just about everything, even when a good friend like Leslie Dutton asks me to appear at her annual Full Disclosure Network’s fund-raiser as George Washington in full costume.
It was a spontaneous decision that I immediately regretted but her cause — restoring public access television which was killed by the LA City Council and the $5 million a year that cable subscribers pay for it confiscated by City Hall to pay salaries of a bungling technology department — is dear to my heart. A deal is a deal.
I did try to weasel and suggest that keynote speaker Scott Minerd, chief investment officer for Guggenheim Partners, the equity firm that just brought the Dodgers, would carry the program with his commentary on Washington’s inspiring Farewell Address so I would make a few funny remarks and run for my life before the audience stoned me or thought I must be stoned to be such a fool
Leslie would have none of it, insisting that I lived my whole life for thie singular moment of theater, read everything about Stanislavksy in my youth, practiced method acting in creating the newsroom character Ron Kaye and even took an improv acting class last year at Pierce College.
So I suffered weeks of anxiety before immersing myself in everything I needed to know about the father of our country, could hardly sleep the night before my debut as an actor on Saturday and, as we say in the theater, and went out there and broke a leg.
You can watch a full report at the Full Disclosure Network.
Ron, I am glad you accepted Leslie Dutton’s invitation. It did us all good
to remember America’s history. Wish I had been there. Thank you
both for observing President’s Day.
Ron’s being considered for a Tony Award, word has it. Leslie offered me the Role, but after she found out I was going to do it in Blackface, she turned to Ron. Ron would like the song by the late Sammy Davis, Jr. “What Kind of Fool Am I.” Go to YouTube and type in “Letterman Sammy Davis Last TV appearance.” YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID! What a talent!
Ron, who dressed up as Benedict Arnold?
Actually, if it were not for Arnold, the Revolution would have failed in the early years and George Washington would have been sent to the gallows.
Mr. Hatfieldd, where did you learn what you just wrote. Every
history book I own is doen on Benedict Arnold. He was a
disaster./
Arnold saved the northern army from disaster when it was retreating from his ill fated invasion of Quebec. Then he led the remnants to the most strategic victory of the war at Saratoga. That victory prompted France’s recognition of the united colonies. Without French help, there would have been no decisive victory at Yorktown.
Yes, Arnold betrayed the cause, but he also saved it.
THE FRENCH WERE OUR FRIENDS BECAUSE WE HELPED THEM.
YES, WE DID. OUR REVOLUTION ENCOURAGED THEM. I HAVE
ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN THIS PART OF OUR HISTORY.
I would bet I have made a fool of myself. I beg your pardon.
We love Ron Kaye.
We love Ron Kaye
Loved the Marie Antoinette rouge and the speech even more.