Mork & Tracy

Jonathan Winters and Tracy Austin

Here's a blast from the '80s past my brother Bill dug up for me yesterday. And I'm not gonna lie -- if I learned how to make gold, I'd hire Tracy Austin as my tennis instructor, too! Love, love, love the Gunze sportswear and Spalding Tracy Austin Autograph racket, not to mention her hair. And her line was a classic: "Come on, Mearth. I'll show you how to blink back the tears when the line calls go against you." 

I once had tickets to do a clinic with Trace at the Ahwatukee Tennis Center by my parents' house in Phoenix, but my plane arrived late and even though I made it to town just in time, I couldn't bring myself to say hi to my mom -- after not seeing her for a year -- and then immediately ditch her, so missed it. (Molly probably would have understood given my lifelong fandom, but it just felt wrong at the time.) Who knows, maybe one day I'll strike gold ...

Robin Williams "presents" Tracy with an Emmy for her work!

Original air date: April 15, 1982 (long after I'd stopped watching the show)

A mention of the appearance in the Gus Goodsports' Report

P.S.

Did you see Billie Jean King get hired as Emery's coach on "Fresh Off the Boat"? She was hilarious!

(Listen to the full audio above)

UPDATE: May 14, 2024: I posted the clip of Tracy and the "Tennis Channel Live" gang discussed it HERE!

New Book Goes Inside Studio 54

This shot alone of Bjorn Borg and Bianca Jagger would make photographer Hasse Persson's upcoming "Studio 54" worth the price of admission. Somebody's got a birthday coming up in June ...

Order now HERE.

Description:

In 1977, at the height of the disco craze, a club opened at 254 West 54th Street in New York City. Studio 54 was-and, arguably, remains-the world's most renowned and legendary disco. Regularly attended by celebrities such as Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones, Michael Jackson, Calvin Klein, Elton John, John Travolta, Brooke Shields and Tina Turner, the club fostered an atmosphere of unadulterated hedonism for New York's art and fashion set. Hasse Persson and his camera were frequent club guests from 1977-80. The images he photographed there have become legendary, capturing the club's famed revelers, dancers in costume and general, drunken exhilaration-and yet, incredibly, Studio 54 marks the first time in history that they have seen publication. Almost 35 years after the club's unceremonious and sudden closure, this beautiful hardback volume superbly documents the zeitgeist.

'Boulevard' of Broken Dreams

Wow. Sure hope "Boulevard" -- one of Robin Williams' last films, in which he plays a married man who picks up a gay hustler and begins to confront and accept his suppressed homosexuality -- gets picked up for distribution. Had never even heard about it, but it sounds like it could surpass "Popeye" as my favorite film of his. Watch scenes from red-carpet premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival from earlier this year HERE.

Page 1 Consider (08/13)

Page 1 Consider (08/12)

BREAKING: Robin Williams Is Dead at 63 From Apparent Suicide

Adored him as a child -- Mork From Ork! -- respected his transition into films -- "Popeye" (his best film ever), "Dead Poets Society," "Good Will Hunting" -- then found him unbearable to listen to on talk shows, where he rambled like he was on drugs and audiences seemed to laugh before he even said anything. Sad to hear that he was suffering so. RIP, Mrs. Doubtfire.

'Shark' Attack

 Don't ask me why -- perhaps I was becoming delirious from hypothermia when Larry got up to eat -- but I was thinking in bed this morning how strange it was that people thought Fonzie jumping over a shark was the point where "Happy Days" went south, but nobody had a problem with a suspenders-clad alien from the planet Ork -- with a Boulder accent -- dropping by Milwaukee and hanging out with a bunch of 35-year-old high school students the season before?