Happy Birthday, Eli Wallach!!!

[KansDem]

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, his wife of 60 years

Eli Wallach turns 92 today. Good liberal (he gave money to Paul Wellstone's campaigns), he comes from a progressive family. His brother Sam, a teacher, helped get substitute teachers into the teachers' union:

The Wallachs were from Brooklyn’s rough-and-tumble Red Hook waterfront, the only Jews in an Italian neighborhood. He and his brother — Eli Wallach, the actor — helping run the family candy store. Like a lot of young people at the time, Wallach became a radical at City College, from which he graduated in 1929. “How’s that for timing,” he says with a laugh.

He became a substitute teacher in 1932 when one of the hot-button issues was whether to allow subs into the union. “The Administration,” as the Linville group was called, said no. “It was a craft mentality,” Wallach says. “To their way of thinking, subs were akin to apprentices and, just as the printing, plumbing, carpentry and other trades didn’t allow apprentices, why should they? Of course, since the city was not appointing teachers, a lot of very qualified people were stuck as substitutes.

“I can’t get into their heads, but it seems to me that Linville thought the younger people were going to vote themselves into power,” says Wallach.

At any rate, when Linville walked out, Wallach and some 800 substitutes walked in — full-fledged union members.
http://www.uft.org/about/history/uft_story3/

An all-around class act. And he's been married to Anne Jackson for 60 years!

Here's to you, Eli! :toast:
Happy Birthday! :party:

[SoCalDem]

1. Whoa.. they are wayyy behind the curve on divorces.. they could NEVER

be republican "family-values" voters.. :rofl:

[brentspeak]

2. Happy birthday!

[izquierdista]

3. Not nearly as ugly as he used to be

[aquart]

4. I stood behind him on the Zabar's checkout line once.

Really careful not to bump into him and very very awed.

[thereismore]

5. One of the Magnificent Eight. nt

[Annces]

6. An entertaining actor n/t

[CatWoman]

7. *cue theme music from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly*

:)

[Paladin]

8. Happy Birthday, Mr. Wallach

Thanks for so many great performances. Stay young.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. One of my favs

I love to see this guy on the screen. It's amazing to me to think of an actor still around who played alongside Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Not only was Wallach in four of the greatest westerns ever made, but he had an awesome string of dramatic performances on the stage on live television back in the 1950s when TV wasn't dumbed down. Shows like Playhouse 90, Studio One, Dupont Show Of The Month, Hallmark Hall Of Fame, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, Kraft TV Theatre, Goodyear TV Playhouse, Armstrong Circle Theater, Philco TV Playhouse, Kaiser Aluminum Hour, among others. They don't make too many actors like this anymore.

[asdjrocky]

10. I was in an acting workshop taught by him years ago-

He is really a great guy, well informed, and he's got a great heart.

[Cronopio]

11. Way to go, Tuco! nt