He was regular sight around Kings Cross where his name is immortalised in stone on the footpaths- the diminutive jazz singer Edwin Duff who passed away last Monday at a nursing home in Vaucluse at the age of 84.
Barry Crocker & Edwin Duff
Edwin emigrated from Scotland in 1938 at the age of 10 as a 'ten pound Pom". On board the ship he won a talent quest impressing the audience with his soulful voice. One of those in the audience was associated with the Melbourne radio station 3KZ. He invited Edwin to sing on air with a group of children and he was such a success that he was soon invited to sing in variety concerts. leaving school at the age of 14 he became a regular entertainer in coffee shops, restaurants and clubs.
During the 1960s and 70s Edwin was part of trio of singers who appeared regularly on TV shows including Graham Kennedy Tonight in Melbourne and the Don Lane Show in Sydney. One of the them, Norm Erskine became a club regular while the other Tony Monopoly went to the UK where he found fame as the winner of the Opportunity Knocks talent quest. All 3 teemed up for Edwin's 60th birthday in 1988 for a concert at the East's Leagues Club.
Edwin was small in stature at 5'3" but his smooth jazz vocals made him a popular act around the smarter Sydney nightclubs like Quo Vardis, Abe Saffron's RooseveltRoom and Denis Wong's Chequers where Duff crooned one night for an hour along with Frank Sinatra. And at the age of 72 he hired the Darlinghurst Theatre and appeared for 5 nights to a capacity audience. Today he was cremated with singers BarryCrocker and Delilah officiating at the service.
Here is Edwin singing with Peter Kaye, host of the show Saturday Night Live.
She's not the shyest gal in town- Italian Australian singer Maria Venuti, she of the colourful outfits and the ginormous bosom.
Maria has hit 70 years of age and she's happy to tell everyone about it with a tell-all book : A Whole Load Of Front.
She told the Shuttle on Friday that she had an affair with the late American entertainer Don Lane.
It was an affair she had forgotten about as it happened in the 70's when she kept detailed diaries written in shorthand. Maria had forgotten how to read shorthand over the past 30 years and recently had them translated while researching her book and the memories came flooding back.
La Venuti is a regular in the clubs around the country and has a big fan base in Italy, Greece and Dubai where she is regularly flown to by Emirates Airlines.
Maria was also entertaining at the Cornucopia Committee's charity day at Swifts. She just started her set as the Shuttle left to the sounds of Volare screaming over the treetops of genteel Darling Point. Windows were being shut furiously.
Here's a treat for you-Maria singing All That Jazz !
Professional sceptic James Randi has issued a press release telling all another of the world's worst keep secrets. At 81 Randi has announced he is gay.
And because no-one picked it up, or at least commented on it before now,
therefore, according to Randi this proves that the paranormal
doesn't exist in any form. There is an interview with Randi here.
On Randi's website (where you can
apply for a special Randi visa card and donate $50 to Randi's
'non-profit' organisation) you can book for something called the
Amazing Meeting, a seminar to be held, suitably, in a casino in Las Vegas in July.
Featured guests include the world's most humourless man Richard
Dawkins , author of the world's most unreadable book The God Delusion,
and the crude and misogynistic illusionists Penn
& Teller amongst a host of others who will get together and discuss
all the things they don't believe in. Religiously. And do a lot of
magic tricks.
Some forums you may not want to miss: Feminist Scepticism – Rebecca Watson hosts an interactive panel
discussion with several activists and experts, covering topics such as
the lack of women at sceptical events and how feminism is compatible
with scepticism.
and one perhaps the former closeted Randi may be at : Scepticism
and Sexuality – Join JREF Challenge Coordinator Alison Smith and a
panel of guests on a journey through the myths of sex that will take
you through misconceptions about STDs, homosexuality, pregnancy, and
even basic anatomy.
If that doesn't grab your fancy try this Learn
to Juggle! – Do you want to learn to juggle? Join famous juggler
Michael Goudeau in a hands-on training session that will leave you
juggling like a pro.
The only person missing in the stellar
line-up is Christopher Hitchens. He'll be at the Sydney Writer's Festival
next month where he plans to tell us how he is going to
arrest Pope Benedict XVI.
Randi has kept some strange
bedfellows, so to speak, over the years. He's a fellow of the Committee
for Sceptical Inquiry, an assorted collection of academics and stage
illusionists along with a host of well known names like science fiction
master Isaac Asimov, Dawkins (has this man ever laughed in his life?) and
Carl Sagan (always suspected of being an Alien). You can even book for lunch with Dawkins and Randi. Or you could stick pins in your eyes. tSS once visited the
late writer Arthur C.Clarke in Sri Lanka when Randi had just departed
after staying with Clarke for 2 weeks. Clarke was considered a sceptic in public but in private
he said he didn't know what to believe in. Although he did say he was
glad to get rid of Randi who had landed on him and kept ogling the
house boys whose warm smiles he mistook for invitations.
The
local version, The Australian Septics boasts the superb writer Phillip
Adams as a member. Adams was head of the Australian Film
Corporation for decades and helped get off the ground the careers of
thespians like Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. He writes a
weekly column for Rupert Murdoch's personal favourite publication the Australian. Adams is also fascinated, in a strange schizophrenic
fashion, with ancient Egyptian culture and in particular their beliefs in the
afterlife. His house and country farm are packed with precious Egyptian
antiquities including a sarcophagus.
charming bender
But back to the old and
gay Randi . He's spent a lot of time attacking spoon bender Uri Geller
over the years. Geller sued Randi once and lost but as part of the
evidence introduced by Geller's lawyers were some phone tapes of some
young lads discussing with Randi various payments they were demanding
in a purported blackmail attempt .The boys claimed they had had sex with Randi. Randi says he was never charged, others say differently but it was in 1968 so who knows ?.
Lady Mary: 'stick it next to the Rodin'
tSS once attended a dinner at
Lady Mary Fairfax's house where Geller was a guest. Lady Mary asked her
butler to fetch the "best family silver" which Geller held aloft and
bent within seconds. He announced that people should check their
pockets and watches. Some watches had stopped, one guest who brought along a watch that had ceased ticking years ago found it had started again and 2 people found their house
keys twisted in strange shapes. If it was a trick we couldn't see it from 3 feet away. Lady Mary had the bent silver with the Fairfax crest, framed and hung next to her Rodin statue.
Later we buttonholed Geller
over drinks. As we pointed out who were the richest people in the
room at his request, we asked the extremely charming bender about his contact with his critic
Randi and he replied-"I'm so sick of that old queen-he never shuts up
about me".
Sorry Mr Randi-everyone's known for decades.It isn't news to us.
A funny little film : the late TV host Don Lane was a believer in
Spiritualism and put the famous British medium Doris Stokes on the
map-he throws a tantrum and tells James Randi to get off the set of his show.
He only came to Australia to host a brief series of a 'tonight' style shows in the 1960s and stayed until he passed away today at 75 from a dementia related illness.
Don Lane was born in the Bronx as Morton Donald Isaacson in 1933 and was a moderately successful lounge singer in Las Vegas before an offer came out of the blue to host 6 variety TV shows in Sydney which the producer thought Don could fit in between some Hawaii nightclub appearances. He was to be a replacement for host-Irish comedian Dave Allen who had been sacked for appearing drunk on his first show.
He had been recommended as a suitable candidate by singer Wayne Newton who was in the country at the time. The Lanky Yank never left and became one of the most loved and popular show biz personalities.
In the 90's he became the voice of American NFL broadcasts for local TV with his American accent and passion and understanding of the sport. From the 60's to the late 90's Lane never stopped working in entertainment,becoming a successful talk-show host until sadly he was diagnosed with altheimers in 2008. The end came quickly today.
Memorable moments inLane's career included being invited to join Frank Sinatra and Sammy DavisJr on a tour and his run-in with skeptic James Randi. Spoon bender Uri Geller and British psychic medium Doris Stokes were regulars on his shows discussing the paranormal.
When Randi began to make derogatory remarks about Doris Stokes who Lane adored, he said to the skeptic :"we're going to acommercial break now and you can piss off". As a stunned Randi stared-Lane swept props off a table and to audience applause, stormed off his own set. He was corny, he was too American, he couldn't sing that well but Don was loved by all.
