But those are quotes directly from the subject. There is another category aside from the ones found in obituaries made by the subject and thrown in as a bit of what is called a kicker, and they are what I'll call the Embedded Quote.
These are quotes made by people about the subject of the obituary, or maybe any other profile piece found in a newspaper. The Embedded Quote fits the context of the writer's narrative. They can be from people living or dead themselves, but are about the subject. And since I love to read newspapers, particularly obituaries, I'm writing about a few embedded quotes I have just read.
This embedded quote comes from a profile piece, 'The Last of the Hollywood Squares' on Pat Boone in the Wall Street Journal. Pat Boone is only pretty much known to those who are now checking their zip codes and finding out if they can get a better Medicare Advantage Plan. He was on the cover of Life magazine in 1959, "The Million Dollar Idol of U.S. Teen-Agers."
Pat Boone is still with us at 88, so it is not an obituary. He was a pop singer in the '50s and '60s and so straight-laced and clean cut as they come, and remained so. An insulting remark (or curse) has still never escaped his lips.
Pat Boone is religious, quotes scripture to the interviewer, Matthew Hennessey, all while keeping a well-thumbed Bible on his lap for the whole interview. He is as pure as the driven snow. Dean Martin once quipped. "I once shook hands with Pat Boone, and my whole right side sobered up." (To those who don't know, Dean Martin, singer, actor and charter member of Sinatra's Rat Pack, always portrayed himself as a heavy drinker, true or not.)
The next embedded quote appears in an obituary for "Don Christopher, 88, Who Turned Lowly Garlic Into a Staple."
Don was a third generation farmer in California, who found growing garlic to be quite profitable as it gained a foothold in American cooking habits. He and several neighbors created the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Gilroy is a farming community 80 miles south of San Francisco, and a town well known for growing garlic. The town has been known for producing garlic for so long that Will Rogers once commented that "Gilroy was the only town I know where you can marinate a steak by hanging it on the clothesline."
I don't know how the obit writer, Clay Risen, found that quote to embed, but it's a beaut. Will Rogers (1879-1935) was a comedian, actor, columnist and vaudeville performer in the early 20's and 30's. He was a ladder day Mark Twain, and a predecessor to Bob Hope. The quote Mr. Risen makes use of does not appear in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, but it fits the narrative about garlic and the town of Gilroy.
You could fish out embedded quotes all day, but I'll use one more subject to mine from, Pelé, the legendary soccer player who just passed away. I read two obits on Pelé and both had the quote from Andy Warhol, the deceased artist who made paintings of Campbell Soup cans and himself famous.
Warhol is often famously quoted something to the effect that we all enjoy 15 minutes of fame in our lifetime, But he said of Pelé, he has "15 centuries of fame." The NYT obit shows a photo of Warhol with Pelé.
Today brings two more obits of famous people, Barbara Walters and Pope Benedict XVI. Some will claim that by adding Pelé's passing we now have "the three-in-a row" cluster (deaths come in threes) that happens when famous people die. Maybe.
I haven't yet read these latest obituaries, No doubt there are some embedded quotes there and some history. That's why I read.
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