Mannix (1967-1975) was a long-running private-eye American TV show from the dynamo team of Geller-Link-Levinson. It was popular for several reasons, one being Mike Connors’s Hirsute Sex Appeal (here pictured); not to mention the show’s viscerally satisfying action scenes (Mister Beefcake gets beaten up a lot); its swingy, sexy theme composed by none other than Lalo “Mission: Impossible” Schifrin; and, not least, for Joe Mannix’s lovely secretary, Peggy Fair.
Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher) was a character very much in the tradition of capable cool-headed female helpmeets to the main investigator guy (think Della Street or Effie Perrine). In the mid-60s there was a bouquet of gorgeous black actresses in regular roles on prime time: Fisher; Diahann Carroll starring as Julia; and of course, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura in Star Trek. Not to mention there were frequent small-screen guest appearances by stage stars like Ruby Dee and Diana Sands and TV stalwarts like Mimi Dillard. And you know, looking back, I think I noticed these actresses particularly because they all reminded me of one particular black girl I had a crush on from her photos and her work, who’d died in the mid-60s only a few years after her historic stage triumph:
Above sweet Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), playwright, author of the seminal American stage drama, A Raisin In the Sun: Lalo Schifrin’s tuneful syncopated 6/8 that’s the theme for Mannix, played by his orchestra.
Remembering the TV show Mannix also brings me back to something I quickly realized after moving to the Golden State: When you come to California, more sooner than later you will run into an Armenian. Heck, one of my first secretarial jobs in LA was for Tbilisi-born Rouben Mamoulian. Connors (1925-2017), who was born Krekor Ohanian in Armenian-strong Fresno, claimed to be a distant cousin of William Saroyan, author of The Time of Your Life and The Human Comedy, among other classic dramas of mid-20th century America.
Saroyan once made a memorable statement, “Wheresoever two Armenians meet, there is Armenia.” Which is something I’d like to apply to Filipinos as well.
- “The Story So Far, with Conductor John Wilson”
- “The Story So Far; Or, Conductor John Wilson—His Limits”
- “Cantara Christopher Gives Her Beloved Conductor John Wilson Crib Notes on Todd Field’s Screen Masterpiece, Tár: Love, Teshuvah, and Filipinos Will Save Classical Music (PDF)”
FULL DRESS // A gifted mesmerist—a sinister composer—a naive young conductor from the north…inspired by an episode from the life of Rachmaninoff // DOWNLOAD FREE BOOK POSTER
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 