Puppets for sale: $50 each, no strings attached.
These puppets are so lifelike, I bet you can’t tell which of these four is a real person, amirite?
Give up? It’s the one on the left. And it’s Ralph Lee, who created the others, along with many many others and many amazing masks. Sadly, Lee died last Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87. The obit in the NYT called him “a creator of giant crustaceans, lizards, skeletons and sorceresses.”
His puppets appeared in productions of his own theater company, Mettawee River, and in those of, among others, the Metropolitan Opera, the NY Shakespeare Festival, NY City Opera, and the Theater for the New City. His most famous puppet may be the “land shark” that devoured Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, et al, in SNL’s early heyday (starting in 1975).
In 1974, he created and staged the first Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village with the help of some theater friends. It started small but has grown into a major annual NYC event. He won an OBIE for it.
Lee was born in Middlebury VT and his first few years of education were in a one-room schoolhouse. He went to college at Amherst. He taught at Bennington in the 70’s and one of his first productions was called Casserole. Its scenes, which incorporated his puppets, were staged all around the campus, with the spectators transported from one scene to the next in hay wagons.
His first marriage ended in divorce, but he married Casey Compton in 1982 and they stayed married until his death. She also worked with him, and last February they jointly received a lifetime achievement OBIE award.
Lee is survived by Ms. Compton, as well as by three children from his first marriage, Heather, Jennifer and Joshua Lee; a daughter from his second marriage, Dorothy Louise Compton Lee; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. Much of his work survives him as well — the countless extraordinary characters. Which is good — “The sculptor in me wants to be immortalized in his work,” he said. “I think I always had the urge to build things for eternity.”
Today’s puzzle had a special “dirty old man” section. At 55D, the clue was “Mini display?,” and the “mini” was a mini skirt, because the answer was KNEE. Get it? A mini “displays” the knees. And placed right next to it, droolingly, was ASCEND.
Here’s a scary-looking woman wearing one.
Remember that episode on Cheers when the bar held a charity auction of the guys and a real man-eater type, chain-smoking cigarettes, won the bidding for Woody? “You better be good,” she tells him. Woody asks Norm if she seems “a little scary,” and Norm says, “The electric chair’s a little scary.”
Alana HAIM was in the puzzle, the co-star of Licorice Pizza. Hi Alana! She’s also in a rock band, Haim, with her two sisters. She’s from LA, 32, Jewish, and single. Her dad is an Israeli-born former professional soccer player.
It’s been a long, tiring day. Too pooped to chatter any more. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
The Wellington Files 