Mark Nadler and 1961

"Please be responsible for the energy you bring into this space"
Quote heard on Oprah Winfrey's Final show

Happy Thursday!
I heard the above quote yesterday on Oprah Winfrey's final show. It was like attending a master class on moving on with dignity and grace. She has demonstrated what success SHOULD BE for 25 years!
Giving...not taking.
Oprah is my role model in terms of how to lead a career. The words that Oprah spoke yesterday resonated loudly with me. My hope is that every artist takes responsibility for the energy they bring into the room.
One person I know who ALWAYS takes responsibility for the energy he brings into the room is Mark Nadler.
I remember the first time I saw Mark. It was at The Five Oaks. He came into the room like a whirling dervish with sequined tennis shoes with taps on them. He played the piano like Liberace, sang like Pavarotti, and danced like Eleanor Powell.
There would be no forgetting this guy. I've watched him grow as an artist over the years, both solo, and as a duo (mostly with KT Sullivan). I loved and miss his Broadway Hootenanny's at Sardi's. THAT was a party! I have enjoyed him at The Algonquin over the years. He has also become a supportive friend over the years. We've sat in the audience of each other's shows. We have broken bread in each other's homes. I was even at his dog's Bark Mitzvah many years ago with our dog Chip. His dog and ours have since gone on to doggie heaven. At the time of that, we ended up in the NY Times!
Well, tonight, Mark is premiering a brand new show for ONE NIGHT ONLY!It is a celebration of 1961, the year we both were born! Maybe we should do a duet at the end of the show of "I'M STILL HERE".
Mark Nadler: Crazy 1961
Lots of exciting things happened in 1961: ,JFK became president:

On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas.
Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die.
Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety.
Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history.
In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for President. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President.

Yuri Gagarin became the first man to venture into space.
Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and honors, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honor. Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when a MiG 15 training jet he was piloting crashed.


Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space and the first man to orbit the Earth making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft.
Yuri A. Gagarin was born in a village of Klushino near Gzhatsk (now in Smolensk Oblast), Russia, on March 9, 1934. His father was a carpenter. After graduating from secondary school in 1949, Gagarin went to several technical schools before joining the Orenburg Higher Air Force School (Russian Air Force) in 1955.
He graduated with honors from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957. Soon afterward, he became a military fighter pilot. By 1959, he had been selected for cosmonaut training as part of the first group of USSR cosmonauts. He began his cosmonaut training in 1960, along with 19 other candidates.

Barack Obama was born:
Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009)

The performer, actor, and pianist Mark Nadler came into this world. Join Mark TONIGHT in celebrating his 50 years as he takes a trip down memory lane.
Mark Nadler has a range that goes from romance to comedy to manic energy. He’s known as “the crazy man on the piano.”
The year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. As MAD Magazine pointed out on its cover for the March 1961 issue, this was the first "upside-up" year—i.e., one in which the numerals that form the year look the same as when the numerals are rotated upside down—since 1881, and the last until 6009.January was a busy month in 1961!
January 17
President Dwight Eisenhower gives his final State of the Union Address to Congress. In a Farewell Address the same day, he warns of the increasing power of a "military-industrial complex."

Patrice Lumumba of Republic of Congo is assassinated.

Jan. 20: John F. Kennedy inaugurated as President of the U.S.

January 20 – John F. Kennedy succeeds Dwight Eisenhower as the 35th President of the United States of America.

January 24 – B-52 Stratofortress, with two nuclear bombs, crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina.

January 25
In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union has freed the 2 surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960 (see RB-47H shot down).

I was also born in February 1961!
Here is the Peanuts comic strip that ran on this day in 1961:

In January, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower announced that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.

At the National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho, atomic reactor SL-1 explodes, killing 3 military technicians.

Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marched into the U.S. Consulate in Rome, and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cemal Gürsel forms the new government of Turkey (25th government)

January 9 – British authorities announce that they have discovered a large Soviet spy ring in London.

January 7 – Following a 4-day conference in Casablanca, 5 African chiefs of state announce plans for a NATO-type African organization to ensure common defense. The Charter of Casablanca involves the Casablanca Group: Morocco, the United Arab Republic, Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.

January 8 – In France, a referendum supports Charles de Gaulle's policies on independence for Algeria.

In May 1961. Most college students are finishing final exams, securing summer jobs or preparing for vacations. Thirteen students, however, have different plans. They are getting on a bus, unsure of what lies ahead of them as they attempt to integrate buses traveling through the Deep South.

On television, Laramie was one of the hit shows. It was the era of the western.

On Broadway, audiences were flocking to see The Pulitzer Prize winning, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING:

50 years later, audiences are flocking to see Daniel Radcliffe in How TO SUCCEED...

1961 The cold war continued to worsen with the USSR exploding some very large bombs during testing and then masterminding the building of the Berlin Wall separating East from West Berlin, America sent a battle group to Germany and Americans and Russians Glared at each other across the border, due to this uncertainty many Americans built backyard fallout shelters in case of nuclear war. To make matters worse the Americans financed anti-Castro Cubans for an invasion at the bay of pigs which was an unmitigated disaster. Popular music included Chubby Checker's “Pony Time” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” by the Shirelles, and top movies included "West Side Story" and "The Parent Trap.”
Come celebrate Mark Nadler and 1961 TONIGHT at The Laurie Beechman at 9:30!
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Richard Skipper, Richard@RichardSkipper.com