The Beatles released their second UK album, With the Beatles, on November 22, 1963. That same day in New York, actor Patrick O’Neal and his brother Mike opened their first restaurant, The Ginger Man, named after a play Patrick was in. They had a rough start.
On November 24, my family appeared in a Parade magazine article that was ignored along with everything else, because of what happened in Dallas on Friday. Another play that was on stage in New York in November of ’63 was an adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
The production lasted for only 83 performances, even with Kirk Douglas starring as McMurphy. New York’s attention would soon be turned away from JFK’s assassination by the arrival of the four lads from Liverpool.
There were other notable actors in Cuckoo’s Nest, including William Daniels. Ed Ames, who died a few months ago, played Chief. After the play closed, the following year Ames, who was Jewish, was stuck with playing an Indian once again, this time for the Daniel Boone TV series. I was surprised to see Gene Wilder’s name in the cast. Wilder, who was 30 at the time, played Billy. So he had Broadway experience when, four years later, he was Leo Bloom in The Producers. Douglas wasn’t able to get One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest produced for film, but his son Michael managed to pull it off twelve years later.
Wait, here’s another one!