And yet someone's weeping because of the changed life that we're seeing before us. That's not what you don't want to see, because we can fix that all." If you havent visited this area of the park, you should. Copyright 2022 Memphis Magazine. One day, after paying out all but five of his fifty-dollar-a-week paycheck, Riley has to sneak into his house to avoid his landlady, Miss Martha Bogle, to whom he owes money. What can you tell me about this interesting fellow? His dramatic life story is so well-known that schoolchildren are taught to recite it for extra credit. His real name, it seems, was Herbert O'Dell Smith. It gives me room to do either, all along this sort of emotional register. The American Meat Institute (194445), Procter & Gamble (Teel dentifrice and Prell shampoo) (194549), and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer (194951) took turns as the radio program's sponsor. But when the entire conversation circles around and around about how much it's going to cost or how can you prevent this charge, I just find it silly after a while. On any given day, it's up for grabs. And we suspect there'll be more Riley movies. It is that everything changes and nothing changes. It just doesn't work out that way. While we would all agree that death is never funny, this show had an usual character in it by the name of Digby "Digger". Chester A. Riley: I'll tell you what harm there is! But by the time a couple days later he went in the ground, it was exactly the right thing to do. And you have mentioned the range of feelings and emotions at a funeral. UP AND UNDER ANNCR: Prell brings you "The Life of Riley"! I admire entrepreneurs and performers as much as the next guy, but it was surely a miserable way to make a living. And there's somebody else doing this, that. Well, I'll kiss you twice tonight. I like the connection, the sound of the word "process"; it suggests movement, a pilgrimage. Chester A. Riley: I'm just as much a show-off as they are, ain't I? So people come in to talk about arranging their parents' funerals or their own. But, you know, we used to say to my father, who directed a fair few funerals, "What do you want done with you when you're dead?," and he'd say, "Well, you'll know what to do." The CBS program starred Lionel Stander as J. Riley Farnsworth and had no real connection with the more famous series that followed a few years later. And for those who are unchurched or unfamiliar in any tradition that gives them sort of the framework for this, a funeral home is still a safe place to talk about matters mortuary and matters of mortality. Riley, Riley, what a guy! Peg Riley: All this plotting and scheming you remind me of a girl I once knew. There are several videos on line. So it's easy enough. But at some point it becomes more than a job, and I can see this happening to the young people who have come here to work as high school students on work-study programs. [citation needed], Bendix and Rosemary DeCamp reprised the roles in an hour-long radio adaptation of the feature film that was presented on Lux Radio Theater on May 8, 1950. She must have money. Did you hear me? I said what about a kiss?
It's that white-knuckled, socially enforced celebration [where] oftentimes the dead are absent from it, because that would be too compelling; that would be too much of a challenge. Anyway, I presume the Digger ODell weve been discussing here was eventually buried one final time, and I hope his gravestone wherever it is pays tribute to one of this countrys unique stuntmen. So what you've seen is what I've seen: that people who deal with their dead deal with death better. But then I can read the work of Barbara Brown Taylor or St. Paul or C.S. I've always been touched by the fact that there seems to be as much laughter as weeping at the big life events. WGBH educational foundation, How we've become estranged from death and the dead, The meaning and power of rituals and customs, The often-mocked tradition of an open casket, How the baby boomers will change the conversation about funerals. Thomas Lynch reads to camera his essay Tract (part II). Babs Riley: But Mother, this is the opportunity of my entire life! Gillis: I tried to help you, Riley, but I'm through. He had a very good sense of that. This is the edited transcript of interviews conducted with hin during the winter and spring of 2006-2007. Whether we consign our dead to scavenger birds, as they do in Tibet, or to the sea, as they do when the sea is around them, or the tree, as our Native Americans did, it doesn't make any difference. Who were the other musicians in that performance? Chester A. Riley: Besides that, he's nothing but a lazy loafer. Jackson.Amongst the student body, there was boy with the surname of O'Dell. Web. In 1907, a penniless farmer named Ruben Shipp discovered gold while plowing his field. So yeah, it is the good news and the bad news. Whats more, said one newspaper, in his heyday, he could knock down $15,000 for a 60-day burial. At the mobile home park, the only money he brought home came from contributions. Riley is overjoyed by his unexpected "step up," unaware that Babs asked Burt to offer him the job, and that he did so without his father's knowledge. Whether in the most abstract sense or in the most particular, this is a safe harbor, a place they can have that conversation. Rosemary DeCamp (as "Peg Riley"), Lanny Rees (as "Junior Riley") and John Brown (as "Digger O'Dell, the Friendly Undertaker") all reprised their movie roles in the original The Life of Riley (1948) TV series. My, you're looking fine today; very natural" and leave stage with ""Cheerio, I'd better be shoveling off", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Riley. I do not care but that they do it honorably. Gillis often gave Riley bad information that got him into trouble, whereas Digger gave him good information that "helped him out of a hole," as he might have put it. And at least so far as my experience is concerned, the living who bear those burdens honorably are better off for it. Last updated Jun 12 2013. Give me a sense of the changes in attitudes toward death in America. You're sweet, though. When he his first line, it was usually greeted with howls of laughter and applause from the audience. It seems Digger ODell was a friendly undertaker character in The Life of Riley , a radio soap opera that aired back in the 1930s, but that still doesnt explain the curious popularity of the name, if you ask me. There is a fee. He'd made a few films, like Lifeboat, but he was not a name. But more and more, when we say to them, "You may, and maybe you ought " or, "Maybe someone in your family should be designated, just to go in as your proxy, to say, 'Everything was done as it should be done,'" they do it. Oh, yeah. What a revolting development this is! In the 19551956 season, the Riley family moved and were given new neighbors portrayed by Florence Sundstrom and George O'Hanlon.[8]. Chester A. Riley: I got troubles, Digger. I always knew I'd bring up my daughter to be somebody someday. In terms of the practical details, what are some of the things you learned from your dad? And most good customs allow for some wiggle room, you know. So it's not like you do things for them as much as you do it with them and embolden them to do for themselves. Web. The last mention I can find of his exploits came from a 1979 newspaper published in the little town of Phenix City, Alabama, which reported that Digger was performing his 158th burial in the parking lot of Macks Mobile Homes there. I got my picture in the paper! It's not that you don't want to see them dressed up or laid out or with glasses on, or too much makeup or their hair done in a clumsy way. Dunning, John On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio The Internet Movie Database
Opening credits conclude with the following written statement: "America! But even people who do not believe or claim no religiosity or no particular faith, they are not without some text, some book they regard as, if not holy, it is the handle they're trying to hold onto to get through this. That is a wheel we can only invent at the time it happens. These included Molly's drunken Uncle Dennis and Myrt, the town's telephone operator with whom Fibber shared many a Years later I had audio tapes to which I listened to repeatidly and learned to really admire Digger's council to Reilly via puns related to the profession of undertaking. STANDS4 LLC, 2023. All these things are part of the ongoing conversation that we here have. Vance Lauderdale is the history columnist for Memphis magazine and Inside Memphis Business. But there's no question that cremation has become normative in a way that it used to be exceptional. Jackie Gleason starred as Riley during the show's first year, while DeCamp and Lanny Rees reprised their film roles for the series. It's Prell! 2023 Turner Classic Movies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The trouble is, in our culture we try to have one or the other -- either/or -- and it's both and then some in real experience. But you have to do that first, because people will sense if you're not willing to do that, if you're just sort of going through the motions. And what about the formalities, the particular traditions and customs that are a part of the funeral? "[2], The reworked script cast Bendix as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. 1949. That they do it for themselves I think is very important. I have children at home; my wife had taken them home from the luncheon. And then one year it disappeared, and I fretted that someone had stolen it for scrap metal. Everything seems to fall into place. During cocktails, a bill collector from the electric company shows up, and after Riley sends him on his way, he disconnects the Rileys' electricity. Digger kept up his strange act for many years. Well. When families have gone to the crematory, has it made a difference? He later finds out it was an Indian girl who stood in for her and they are reunited at the end of the movie. Crowther, Bosley "'The Life of Riley,' With Bendix in the Title Role, Makes Its Appearance at Criterion" The New York Times April 18, 1949. His frequent exclamation of indignation became one of the most famous catch phrases of the 1940s: "What a revoltin' development this is!" The radio series greatly benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker." * TELEVISION: Except I want to send out those circulars, so bring me some round paper. He played "Al" on the radio series "My Friend Irma". This is standard practice when ordering from Ukraine, according to customers wh. All rights reserved. It was during this period that Gleason played Riley on one episode of the radio series. Executives, who immediately began production on a television series, did not share Crowther's opinion, but because Bendix's movie contract barred him from doing television (a not uncommon ban in the early days of the medium when studios wanted to discourage audiences from staying home and watching TV), Jackie Gleason played Riley for one unsuccessful season in 1950. What we don't want to see is our mother or our father dead, and that is the part we need to see. Question #48486. What are you doin' here in the park? I've seen it happen to Sean [his son], where you're swinging the door at night, helping people with their coats, directing them one place or another, carrying flowers, doing all the innocuous little things that add up to taking care of a family during visitation. He has been buried in a concrete vault for 36 days, sealed in glass 33 days, and spent 26 days underwater., But somewhere along the way, he decided to concentrate on burying himself in the worlds smallest apartment, as the various promotions called it. And are you a cremation or a burial man? He's where he's buried for good. It is a sadness and a shame that cremation, the fire in this context, is seen as an industrial process instead of an elemental one, in the way that earth is elemental. SOURCES:
What you're looking at [in the case of someone being there during that time] is everything's in order. Barbara 'Babs' Riley: But Dad, Simon's only 20. Well, it's showing up and just being there is worth an awful lot. Im five-foot-eleven. The program even utilized a stable of so-called "silent" characters, individuals referred to often but never actually heard. Chester A. Riley: Their gonna slit my throat from ear to ear and rip out my tonsils, and she says there's nothing to it! The CBS program starred Lionel Stander as J. Riley Farnsworth and had no real connection with the more famous series that followed a few years later. That's enough, isn't it? Let me begin this strange tale by saying that minutes and minutes of research failed to turn up many verifiable facts about Smith oh, good grief, lets just call him Digger here. But we are much more willing to go stand next to the hole in the ground than we are willing to stand next to the fire. The radio series also benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell , "the friendly undertaker." Brecher told Brown, "I want a very sepulchral voice, quavering, morbid," and he got it right away. Chester A. Riley: Babs, do you realize when I was 20, your mother was supporting me and a baby? Instead, Jackie Gleason starred, with Rosemary DeCamp replacing Paula Winslowe as wife Peg, Gloria Winters as daughter Barbara (Babs), Lanny Rees as son Chester Jr. (Junior), and Sid Tomack as Jim Gillis, Riley's manipulative best buddy and next-door neighbor. I think they used to call that "social death"; that actual death happens like that. It's not always the same thing, and for everyone it's different. Chester A. Riley: I'll go home right now. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: Why, I was just taking a stroll around the pond. Junior will be glad to pitch in. A reader named Ronnie Bierbrodt, who obviously did more research than I did, even turned up his obituary and a copy of the memorial booklet given out at his funeral. Ferguson: That's the type of citizen we're sworn to protect. t.r., memphis. Humans figured out both before they had backhoes and retorts. I think we act out things that are hard to put in words. Well, if you ask any group of ordinary citizens, "How many here have attended a cremation?" Even a criminal gets time off for good behavior. If you don't pay attention Peg Riley: Well, I'm trying to tell ya, he just moons around the house! They come in to talk about what to do with a child who's grieving because a schoolmate died, to talk about what will happen in the event of their own death, how to handle a dying parent, nursing home arrangements, elder care. Yeah, it's a mystery. But the strange case of Digby "Digger" O'Dell offers an elegant counterpoint. And that's very seductive, because, I mean, it's human-to-human contact. During a burial in California, a sudden earthquake caved in the sides of his "apartment" and he had to be rescued. I enjoy listening to the frogs croak. We are less grounded than our grandparents were. [1], Irving Brecher pitched the radio series for friend Groucho Marx under the title The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for Marx. Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine,
I've sat with families who said, "Well, we want a closed casket," and I've often asked them, "Well, had they not died yesterday, would you not want to see them today?" And they won't forget, and that's the thing. Mar Dear Vance:What happened to the Memory Grove plaque an old war memorial that stood in Overton Park, in a stand of trees close to Poplar Avenue? He's resting. Alan Lipscott and Reuben Ship wrote many of the radio series' early episodes, and Don Bernard was the show's initial director. Let's see! The supporting cast featured Paula Winslowe as Riley's wife, Peg, and as Riley's mother-in law; Brown as O'Dell and as Riley's co-worker Jim Gillis; Francis "Dink" Trout as Waldo Binney; Tommy Cook, Bobby Ellis and Scotty Beckett as Junior at various times during the show's run; Barbara Eiler as Riley's daughter, Babs; Shirley Mitchell as Honeybee Gillis; Hans Conried as Uncle Baxter; and Alan Reed as multiple characters, including Riley's boss (Mr. Stevenson) and Peg's father. Then, his wife Peg receives a phone call from Sidney Monahan, a former flame from Brooklyn, their home town, and Riley impulsively invites him to dinner. For many people I know, when families are cremated, they feel as if they've in some sense kind of disappeared. While the ratio may not be ideal for tomatoes, it can still produce great results with some preparation and understanding of the plant's genetic potential. From NE Ohio to North Central Mississippi, everyone has their own ideas and preferences for what they will plant this year. Quotes.net. He was Herbert ODell Smith, and he conducted this buried alive stunt, along with countless other feats of endurance, across the South. Maybe the referee will give you a draw. MUSIC: THEME FILLS A PAUSE, THEN FADES OUT ANNCR: Procter and Gamble's new Radiant Creme Shampoo in the handy tube! By Lorraine LoBianco. For years, it was propped against a rugged concrete base, in a cluster of crepe myrtles on the southern edge of the park, close to the intersection of Poplar and Cooper. This character was extremelly successfull, with many puns based on his profession. j.b., memphis. Too often Bendix was cast as a mental case who enjoyed smashing skulls, or his roles would take his gentle giant exterior to the extreme and he would be cast as an overgrown child as in "The Babe Ruth Story". And there's somebody else arranging the flowers. What we have missed, however, in cremation in this culture is all the powerful metaphoric values provided by fire, its elemental worth. When Riley learns that the couple is to spend their honeymoon in separate rooms, he becomes suspicious. I prefer the dead languages. in Literary Quotes in Movie Quotes in TV Shows Though these things werent discussed in the Memphis newspapers of the 1950s or 1960s, later newspapers provided the details that Digger was equipped with a 60-gallon chemical toilet while he was underground, which must have made his living (and breathing) conditions horrible. Chester A. Riley: What do you mean the baby announcements? But maybe with the fact that 75 million baby boomers are working their way up to the bar of mortality now, it's dawning on them that this could happen to them. The question is not meant to mock; the question is to say: "What is it you don't want to see? One of my favorite characters from classic radio is Digby Digger ODell, the friendly undertaker portrayed by John Brown in THE LIFE OF RILEY. I found an old newspaper article that said he was born in 1915 and called him a professional endurance man. Among other things, back in the flagpole-sitting days, he stayed aloft 109 days. What age were you when you really seriously thought you might become a funeral director, and how much of your dad's influence was a part of that decision? One option is organic fertilizer made from chicken manure, which can be found at Menard's for a reasonable price of $10.99 per 25-pound bag. Digger O'Dell Buried For Good This Time. As a result, when Digger delivered his first line, it was usually greeted with howls of laughter and applause from surprised audience members. That's why I came over here tonight.