This week’s popular
celebrity is actor Jack
Black. I’m surprised how
little there is to know
about this person. He
basically didn’t do well in
school, dropped out of
college and started acting.
Over the last few years
he’s become a huge success.

Next week – Back to
humor – It’ll be
Jerry Lewis.

This week’s subject is another humorous writer, Groucho Marx. Most know him for his movies or ‘You Bet Your Life’. He was also one heck of a writer. If you ever find ‘Groucho and Me’, ‘Tales of a Mangy Lover’ or ‘The Groucho Letters’, read ’em and weep – with laughter!

Groucho has been the celebrity that I most admire. His cunning wit and quick delivery are not to be equalled.

Next week: It’s back to current celebrities – Jack Black.

This week’s celebrity involves an internet group I joined back in May 2006 while serching for a theme song from the program. The first season of the series ‘Simon and Simon’ was playing on the ‘Sleuth’ cable television station. I knew the standard theme for the series but not the first season’s. Finding this ‘Yahoo’ group I noticed they had a caption contest, which is something I had been looking for as a casually challenging game. So I joined and started getting a lot more practice writing captions. Along the way it was asked, noticing my being a caricaturist, why I hadn’t drawn the Simon brothers (Jameson Parker and Gerald McRaney). So I added their names to the current celebrity cup six months ago. The first came up last week and here is the drawing.

I’m not real nuts about the final result. I really struggle with the so-called “beautiful people”. He must be one of them. Simple features arranged in an almost non-defined way. My struggle is not to overly define them. Which I did here. However, I was running out of time, so I wrapped this as it is.

Florida connections: I’ve since learned that the Simon & Simon series was originally to be based in Florida somewhere between Florida City and Key Largo. The original pilot was partially shot in and around Everglades City. While we were doing other research down there, I found a few of the locations. Apparently cost relocated the series to San Diego. Watching the first season, the storylines seemed to be retooled from Florida to fit in California.

Also, Gerald McRaney is now married to Orlando native Delta Burke.

Next week: Back to the humor cup and, finally, one of my very favorites, Groucho Marx.

This week it’s from the humor side with Harpo Marx from my favorite comedy team – The Marx Brothers.

I’ve loved the Brothers since I first saw one of their films on Channel 9 in Orlando in the ’70s when I was small. I specifically remember watching Marx Brother marathons overnight after the start of the new year on Channel 9. That early appreciation of satire has me appreciating the sharp humor of Dorothy Parker, S.J. Perelman, George S. Kaufman today.

This year I was away for New Years Eve in Fort Lauderdale. When I returned to my hotel room I pulled from a DVD set I had brought with me and started my own Marx marathon by slipping ‘Go West’ in my portable computer.

 _____________________________________________________

Next week: Jameson Parker (Simon & Simon) – and the story of why I’m drawing him!

This week it’s a current celebrity. Reading about Beyonce Knowles I learned she is unlike other popular current female singers and so-called stars. She’s been working at keeping her private life just that- Private. While drawing her I found it interesting that she has similar features to the international pop princess, Kylie Minogue.

 

Next week it’s someone from the humor world – and part of my favorite brothers – Harpo Marx.

This week’s illustration is of writer/comunist/Algonquin Round Table member, Heywood Broun. He helped start the round-table meetings with contemporaries Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. He also was well known for standing up for the little guy.
Here’s a concise biography:
http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/broun-heywood.cfm

Here are some quotes of Broun’s:
http://www.quotationspage.com/search.php3?Author=Heywood+Broun&file=all2

Time magazine’s story of Broun’s death in 1939:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,763317,00.html

Each week I draw a caricature illustration of someone. The original intent was to draw my favorite humorous literary figures. Then the idea came to draw current celebrities and learn a bit about them. So I alternate every other week between literary and current celebrities. This week it’s a current celebrity, Lance Armstrong. Bicycle enthusiast and brave conqueror of the Cancer monster. Leaving Cancer in the dust.