Category: Life with Pratts

I hope you’ve seen the post about my late mother’s friend, the character actor Vince Beck. If not, please click here. The New York Times has put its obituary archive online. Here is Vince’s obit.

Published: July 27, 1984

Vincent Beck, an actor and an official of two actors’ unions, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 56 years old. Mr. Beck appeared in television commercials, films and several Broadway and Off Broadway productions.

He made his stage debut in ”A Flag Is Born” on Broadway in 1946. He also appeared in ”Peter Pan,” ”The World of Sholom Aleichem,” ”The Merchant of Venice,” ”Oliver,” ”Irma la Douce,” ”Gypsy” and ”Bells Are Ringing.” He had been president of the New York branch of the Screen Actors Guild since 1983 and third vice president of Actors Equity since 1982. Mr. Beck is survived by a sister, Carol Joyce.

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Vincent Beck was a character actor who appeared on many TV shows in the 60’s. He also appeared live in our living room when I was a kid. Beck was a friend of my mother’s from her time at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Click the thumbnail pictures to see scans from her yearbook. Look for the name Joanne Waffle.

I’ve placed thick double borders around the pictures of my mother and Vince Beck. A third picture I’ve highlighted has a thin outside border. That’s David Andrews, or “Tige” Andrews. He was on an episode of “Star Trek” and he was one of the principal actors on the unforgettable “The Mod Squad.” I remember my mother once making light of Tige’s toupee.

Vince Beck’s resume of 60’s TV shows includes:

• Bonanza
• Get Smart
• Gilligan’s Island
• Gunsmoke
• Lost in Space
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• The Monkees
• The Time Tunnel

Vince excelled at playing broad comic villains, particularly Russians. He was cast in no fewer than three episodes of The Monkees, which is one of my all-time favorite childhood shows. A clip from the Monkees episode “Royal Flush” is at the top of this post. Beck played the chauffeur.

Vince Beck’s worst movie credit is undoubtedly “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” His best is perhaps “… And Justice for All,” despite the profanity the part called for, which you won’t hear in this clip.

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You can imagine what a kick it was for us kids, having Beck visit! He stopped by our house in Norwalk, CT on his way to spend the summer at a theatre in Boothbay, Maine. I think he had a financial interest in the place.

I don’t know if Beck was just a friend of my mother’s, or if he was a former boyfriend. Vince Beck was a character actor and not a star, yet in person he was decidedly larger than life, and his presence added to the aura that my mother’s past retains to this day.

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I had mentioned my late mother was a fan of Phyllis Diller. Another comedienne she enjoyed watching was Carol Burnett. Before Burnett’s long-running variety show, she did a series of TV specials with Julie Andrews.

One of shows included a musical sketch with Andrews making fun of her role of Maria in The Sound of Music. The only catch was, the movie wasn’t yet in production and she hadn’t even been cast for the part!

A little wordplay turned the large Trapp family into the Pratt family. We had only six kids in our Pratt family!

The video quality is shaky, but the sound is very good. Burnett looks concerned at the end after hitting Andrews because Julie was pregnant.

Compare this scan to the MRI of my ankle at this link. Better, eh? I placed my portable light box face down behind the film during scanning. A simple and effective trick. Why didn’t I think of it before?

“Intrinsically normal posterial tibial tendon.” The previous doctor went along with this! And they were both wrong, wrong, wrong. Four months, two doctors, six weeks of physical therapy — with a $180 co-pay — and here I am, starting all over again. If my ankle had been locked in the orthotic boot at a 90° angle back in July, I would have been able to run the Boston Marathon in April! Grrr…

My wife just suggested the radiologist must have viewed the film without a backlight, so it looked liked my first scan. HA! Wouldn’t doubt it. At least the money spent on the MRI was worthwhile, now that a competent clinician is involved.

Like my new shoe?? Walking — or, I should say hobbling — across Boston Common from the underground parking garage to the Orpheum Theatre to see Brian Wilson (see previous post) wasn’t easy. Six weeks I have to wear this thing, every waking hour.

The previous doctor had it wrong. All wrong. No Boston Marathon for me, this year, but I’ve been promised that I will run again, without having surgery. I’ll explain it all later. Have to ice my ankle before going to bed.

This didn’t scan well, but it’s one of many MRI views I have of my right ankle. I have a running injury, my first in 33 years of pounding the pavement. Frankly, I started blogging because I couldn’t go running every evening, as was my habit for many years.

Initially I was told it was tendonitis, and I went through six weeks of physical therapy. It still hurt, so a second doctor ordered the MRI. He said it looked fine. But the truth is, it isn’t fine, it still hurts, I can’t run on it, and it isn’t getting better.

Friday afternoon I’m taking the MRI films to a podiatrist surgeon who comes highly recommended. If I’m going to run the Boston Marathon, the week between Christmas and New Year’s I must start 16 weeks of hard training. I need to know if I can do it. Indeed, I need to know if I’ll ever run again.