The piece appeared on November 22, the 54th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Thus, on the day people who might be thinking of Kennedy and the events of that era, a clever writer poses the question about Vaughn Meader. Was he in the limo as well? Absolutely not.
The writer, Jennifer Finney Boylan, who apparently has contributed to the page before, and who is an English professor at Barnard College, did an interview with Mr. Meader in 1999 over breakfast and drinks in Meader's town in Hallowell, Maine. Apparently Ms. Boylan lives in Maine, so her finding Meader was made a bit easier. But who was he?
I know who is was, but I didn't remember his passing, apparently in 2004, a long way down from the fame he achieved when he released a comedy album titled 'The First Family,' a 1962 spoof of Kennedy and the people around him, in a pitch-perfect imitation of JFK's voice and oral mannerisms.
His death was noted in a bylined obituary by Margalit Fox in the New York Times. Correctly, the obituary does tell us that of the 17 skits that Mr. Meader performs on the album, many are crushingly corny. But they do serve to use words that show off that New England accent.
Mr. Meader was from Maine, so a strong New England accent was already his. There was a game show personality at the same time, Orson Bean, who was born Maine, and had that accent. And that name, Bean. He was fun to listen to as well.
I remember when the album came out and it was a huge hit. Apparently it sold more than a million copies in its first two weeks. You could never forget JFK's accent when you heard him speak. I watched the debates with Nixon and was a bit in wonderment at the sound coming out of Kennedy's mouth. Who talks like that?
All the pundits had all their theories how JFK got elected. Nixon's heavy shadow, sweating on TV, etc. But I think they all missed giving credit to his voice, and that accent.
I recently caught a Graham Norton show and John Lithgow was on it with his acting buddies from the latest move release 'Daddy's Home 2.' Graham mentioned to John the Emmy he got for portraying Winston Churchill in the mini-series 'The Crown' and asked John about achieving Churchill's speech.
Lithgow gave a great imitation of Churchill's voice and separate examples of the components of the voice: the lisp way back in the mouth, the nasal speech, the honks that he emitted every 4-5 seconds. He called Churchill perhaps the most familiar face and sound of the 20th century in England, and someone who, he as the only American in a British cast, was honored to portray.
I never bought the album 'The First Family.' Of course in that time just before the assassination, Kennedy was popular, and the record was as well. It was the voice. The orator's voice that held your attention.
And in the aftermath of the assassination as high school students we joked at who was also out of luck now that JFK was no longer with us: Vaughn Meader. We correctly figured whatever career he had, it was over, at least as far as portraying Kennedy.
Google tells me Ms. Boylan was born in 1958, so she was too young to experience first hand the spell Kennedy had over the country. And probably too young to remember the void that the assassination created. Lenny Bruce is mentioned as telling his audiences how screwed Meader was now that Kennedy was dead. If Don McLean's 'American Pie' is an elegy to Buddy Holly and 'the day the music died," then November 22,1963 is the day the voice died. Meader would refer to as the day he "died."
The album was yanked. Hearing Kennedy imitated in jest was no longer funny. Perhaps a decade or so ago I was in Vermont and in that Kennedy Brothers' emporium in Vergennes, famous for selling just about anything used. I once spied a very dusty SS officer's hat high up on a shelf.
I flipped through the boxes of LPs and came across 'The First Family.' Everything was a $1, so I bought it.
And even though I still have an LP player hooked up, I've never been able to bring myself to play it.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
JFK said he thought Meader sounded more like Bobby.
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