Edward Jacobson of Kansas City, MO: “I was
Truman’s haberdashery partner.”
The media and
public took great amusement in the president’s history as an operator of a
men’s clothing store, even though the enterprise took place for only a short
time decades earlier and was a financial failure. Truman & Jacobson operated in downtown
Kansas City from 1919 until 1922. The
two men remained lifelong friends. So
much so that Jacobson had free access to the Oval Office during Truman’s
presidency. In fact, Jacobson’s
influence is credited in part with the
US becoming the first nation to grant diplomatic recognition to the new state
of Israel in 1948.
[Tom Hanrahan] of Stamford, CT: “I spent a
night in a harem.”
Special Guest Buster Keaton: “I threw a pie at
Hedda Hopper.”
Keaton’s
frequent appearances on 1950s television, following a career drought and a long
battle with alcoholism, are credited with reviving public interest in his silent
films of the 1920s. Keaton remained in the public eye with TV and film
appearances, often performing his own stunts well into his sixties. Today, he is considered one of the greatest
actor-directors in film history. Hedda Hopper was a well-known and somewhat
notorious gossip columnist whose work appeared in print from 1935 until her
death in 1966. Before that fame, however,
she was a budding actress who appeared in one of Keaton’s films where she took
that pie to the face. Though not
mentioned on the show, the movie is Speak
Easily (1932).
Dorothy Warren of Sacramento, CA: “My father
is in the audience.”
As Garry establishes
before the game begins, Dorothy’s father is Earl Warren, at the time the
governor of California who had recently campaigned to be the Republican nominee
for president. A little more than a year
after this episode airs, President Eisenhower, who had defeated Warren in the
Republican primaries, would appoint him Chief Justice of the United
States. Governor Warren comes out and
shakes hands with the panel and Garry at the end of the abbreviated game.
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