Class Acts

We're getting excited here at Dolores Delargo Towers, as the whole day on BBC Radio 3 has basically been a warm-up/coundown to tonight's Last Night of the Proms - the season-closing classical music extravaganza, flag-waving, sing-a-long fest at the Royal Albert Hall that we look forward to every year!

Meanwhile, in complete contrast...

...it's the 80th birthday today of one of the original "sex kittens" who took 1960s/70s US variety television shows by storm [and "Tacky Music Mondays" stalwart], Miss Joey Heatherton!

Here she is - replete with safety gays - on one of her suitably unsubtle numbers, by way of a celebration...

Joey Heatherton - My Heart Belongs To Daddy

Many happy returns, Joey!

No-one knows better than Joey

We've had a lovely day in the sunshine - and without a single thought about work, as I booked a sneaky extra day off today. We took a trip to our local garden centre and bought several packs of spring bulbs, wallflowers and pansies, plus some gravel, to get started on prep for next year [the gardener's calendar never stops!], had a pub lunch and then I spent the rest of the afternoon washing pots and just enjoying the balmy weather...

I haven't forgotten, of course, that it is still a Tacky Music Monday. To that end, let's have another - ahem - understated number from the unavowed mistress of such things: today's birthday girl, one of the original "showbiz kittens" Miss Joey Heatherton and her safety gays!

Joey Heatherton - By Myself

Have a good week, peeps.

And it's turning out all wrong ma

Despite the fact that it is a concept lost on a Dowager Countess, we had a brilliantly sunny weekend - and a full-on one! The Downton Abbey film on Friday evening, then a trip to London's "horticultural mile" of Crews Hill on Saturday, followed by the finale of the Last Night of the Proms [on telly, of course], then Sunday almost entirely spent in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers, potting-up for Spring (oo-er), followed by a full-volume Pet Shop Boys extravaganza [on telly again] courtesy of Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park. I was dancing around the living-room for a good couple of hours to that...

Crash! Bang! It's back down to earth. Work again.

Hey ho. On this Tacky Music Monday, let's let last Saturday's birthday girl [she's 75, you know!] - a doyenne of all things "tacky" [in this context, OTT song-and-dance numbers] - Miss Joey Heatherton take the stage!

Joey Heatherton - Look What They've Done To My Song

Many happy returns, Davenie Johanna "Joey" Heatherton (born 14th September 1944).

I just wanna stand and cheer as they come

After a fab weekend, with Proms on the Park on Saturday and a "day of recovery" yesterday, both Madam Arcati and I are enjoying the start of a rare week off work at the same time...

It's raining, of course. A good start.

Still, it is a Tacky Music Monday - and who better to lift the clouds but today's birthday girl (and regular fixture in this slot, for obvious reasons), Miss Joey Heatherton?

Joey Heatherton - I Love a Parade

Joey Heatherton (born Davenie Johanna Heatherton, 14th September 1944)

She's got your number

Sixties "sex kitten" - and kitschy fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers - Miss Joey Heatherton is 70 years old!

Relatively unknown in the UK (we had our own set of "dolly-bird" entertainers such as Aimi MacDonald, Pan's People, Anita Harris, Lulu and the rest), Miss Heatherton's rise from "saucy ingénue" on variety shows with Perry Como and Dean Martin, to TV commercials and Las Vegas stints, and her equally spectacular fall (with assault charges and drug addictions splashed across the headlines) would make for a great daytime TV movie. But at least she's still here...

To cheer us up on this Tacky Music Monday is the lady herself at the peak of her powers, complete with the best safety gays in the business - it's I've Got Your Number. [And I bet she did, too...]:

Joey Heatherton - I've Got Your Number

Many happy returns, Davenie Johanna Heatherton (born 14th September 1944)

Hullabaloo, indeed

Another week, another Bank Holiday - yet, as always here at Dolores Delargo Towers it is still Tacky Music Monday!

Let's celebrate with the lovely Joey Heatherton and The Hullabaloo. (I expect you all to be learning these dance moves...)

Joey Heatherton - The Hullabaloo

Hullabaloo, indeed!

Sex Bomb

Another great weekend is over far too quickly - and now the sun decides to shine, just as we all trot off despondent to another week in work.

Thank heavens, on another Tacky Music Monday, for 60s sex-bomb Joey Heatherton!

Joey Heatherton - Light My Fire

"I love you! I want to bear your children!"

It is another Tacky Music Monday, folks! And here is a wonderful slice of campness courtesy of the lovely Lola Heatherton!

Who? I hear you ask...

A combination of kitsch US showbiz favourites Lola Falana and Joey Heatherton, our "Lola" was a regular character on the late 70s/early 80s Canadian comedy program SCTV, which also featured a variety of bizarre impersonations and characters played by the likes of John Candy and Rick Moranis. Catherine O'Hara, who portrays her, is a wonderful character- and voiceover actress who had roles (or voices) in such movies as A Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Home Alone and Over The Hedge.

SCTV - The Sammy Maudlin Show: Drugs & Hollywood

Excellent stuff!

Read all about SCTV

Lola Heatherton Wikipedia entry

Does this make me gay...?

... for liking these? Happy Sunday!

Lauren Bacall - gay bar scene from Applause

Angela Lansbury - Thoroughly Modern Millie

Joey Heatherton - I've Got Your Number

Read my blog last year on a very similar subject...