And does the rise in cremation in America parallel changes in demographics? Gillis: I tried to help you, Riley, but I'm through. He's a man who's understood In Brooklyn or in Hollywood. According to the obituary, Digger was born in Georgia in 1915. It's that time of year again when gardeners all over the world are planning what to grow in their gardens. "; from "what are we going to buy?" Everything seems to fall into place. It's a culture that doesn't like to be reminded of mortality. It then went into syndicated reruns. Today he is just living the life of RileyThis is the story of Chester A. Rileywho is just livingin Los Angeles California." But then I can read the work of Barbara Brown Taylor or St. Paul or C.S. Jim Gillis: She'll be back in a couple or three days. He would announce himself with, "'Tis I, Digger O'Dell, your friendly undertaker. We'd just say, "Well, let's not think about that anymore." At the beginning of the November 11, 1949 radio episode the announcer explained that William Bendix had strained his voice while performing the role of an umpire for an upcoming film (Kill the Umpire) and Gleason substituted for him that one night. It was a sudden inspiration brought on by ownership of a tuxedo T-shirt! After the boorish Monahan orders the most expensive items on the fancy French menu, however, Riley barely has enough to cover the check. Riley's annoying co-worker, Gillis, was also voiced by Brown. Peg Riley: No. My, you're looking fine today; very natural" and leave stage with ""Cheerio, I'd better be shoveling off", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Riley. To Babs's delight, Jeff, who has just moved in next door with his aunt, is a dedicated pre-med student. O'Dell was a character hastily written into the long-running radio (and, later, television) show, "The Life of Riley," which had its debut on radio in 1944, while Americans were dying by the thousands in Europe and the Far East. Not a day went by that I wasn't kept in after school. I've always been touched by the fact that there seems to be as much laughter as weeping at the big life events. I said NO! I mean, there are good funerals. [Riley believes Junior stole five dollars]. And is that the purposefulness in the ebb and flow of a wake and a funeral? The Life of Riley, 1944 to 1951. I cant even blame my wife too much. Well. But when people go with us, it's at the back end of an industrial park in Lavonia, near a railroad track, so it's unlike the kind of commemorative surroundings that we have in our local cemeteries -- more is the pity. Ferguson: That's the type of citizen we're sworn to protect. Years later I had audio tapes to which I listened to repeatidly and learned to really admire Digger's council to Reilly via puns related to the profession of undertaking. The expression "life of Riley" or "living the life of Riley (Reilly)" emerged in the early 1920s, and was probably derived from turn-of-the-century Irish songs, such as "The Best in the House Is None Too Good for Reilly." And it works; it does work. Brecher Productions, Inc.; Universal-International Pictures Co., Inc. "Digger" O'Dell, "the friendly undertaker", William Bendix came to the attention of the public in the 1944 Alfred Hitchcock film, Lifeboat , playing a dim-witted sailor who doesn't survive the ordeal. Not wanting to uproot his family, Riley determines to come up with the $1,500 down payment and goes from bank to bank searching for a loan. Whats more, said one newspaper, in his heyday, he could knock down $15,000 for a 60-day burial. At the mobile home park, the only money he brought home came from contributions. And I have found that, whether I'm walking in the door with a stretcher and one of my own to help carry their dead out, or if I'm going to the hospital to visit a sick relative or friend, or if I show up for a funeral at another place, you know, at a distance, they thank you for that. Digby 'Digger' O'Dell: Why, I was just taking a stroll around the pond. Copyright 2022 Memphis Magazine. It gives me room to do either, all along this sort of emotional register. Where is the meaning? I found an old newspaper article that said he was born in 1915 and called him a professional endurance man. Among other things, back in the flagpole-sitting days, he stayed aloft 109 days. Dear j.b.: Well, for starters I can tell you that this interesting fellow (and Im certainly not disputing that) was not a Memphian, and his name wasnt really Digger ODell. It earned $1.6 million in the U.S. and Canada,[4] preventing him from starring in the TV series that began in the same year. : Commissioned in 1932 by Memphis Chapter 1 of the American War Mothers, this large bronze plaque carried the names of 27 Memphians who had lost their lives in World War I. Gillis: Don't argue, because I hate family arguments. [6][7], The NBC adaptation, also created by Irving Brecher, was a single-season The year before he died, Digger told reporters that he had probably spent six years of his life underground, earning as much as $600 a week for his efforts. And there's somebody else digging the hole in the ground. Question #48486. I've never lost a father yet! The latter portion of the fifth season, broadcast between April and June 1957, was filmed and originally broadcast in color, although only black-and-white film prints of those episodes were syndicated. He had a very good sense of that. So yeah, I do find that people who have dealt with their dying -- whether it was taking them to their chemotherapy or sitting those weeks through hospice care, or checking in those weeks through hospice care, because we can't always be physically present -- those people who were thoroughly engaged with this are thoroughly engaged with the rest of it. This is got to be one of the largest collection of a single classic show I have stumbled across. But you have to do that first, because people will sense if you're not willing to do that, if you're just sort of going through the motions. At the end of that column, in my lackadaisical way weary from all that writing and typing I said I didn't know what happened to Digger after his misadventures in Memphis. WGBH educational foundation, How we've become estranged from death and the dead, The meaning and power of rituals and customs, The often-mocked tradition of an open casket, How the baby boomers will change the conversation about funerals. Chester A. Riley: I don't have to be fair - I'm your father. You have to have real talent to be accepted at the Van Plantan Workshop Theatre. Chester A. Riley is back, with long-suffering wife Peg, trouble-prone kids Junior and Babs, moochy pal Gillis, and Digger O'Dell, The Friendly Undertaker in sixteen hilarious half-hour episodes. I planned the whole thing. At the mobile home park, a local reporter didnt have a very high opinion of the aging stuntman, writing, He has the flushed face and shaking hand of a man who has seen the sun rise over many an empty bottle. Digger showed up at the park wearing only a bathrobe. I can only take from that the sense that we're on the right track there. His dramatic life story is so well-known that schoolchildren are taught to recite it for extra credit. This is the edited transcript of interviews conducted with hin during the winter and spring of 2006-2007. Other photos show preparations for the publicity stunt. Made for Universal Pictures and directed by Brecher, who also wrote and produced the simple plot of The Life of Riley , revolves around Babs (Randall) learning that Riley is about to get laid off. Whether we consign our dead to scavenger birds, as they do in Tibet, or to the sea, as they do when the sea is around them, or the tree, as our Native Americans did, it doesn't make any difference. He has been buried in a concrete vault for 36 days, sealed in glass 33 days, and spent 26 days underwater., But somewhere along the way, he decided to concentrate on burying himself in the worlds smallest apartment, as the various promotions called it. Whether or not my family is involved with the care of my body, that's their business. Simon Vanderhopper: Well, you can't call it off! Stevenson's ne'er-do-well son Burt, meanwhile, is cornered at the picnic by a thug named Norman, who demands that he repay a $25,000 gambling debt. Junior will be glad to pitch in. But by the time a couple days later he went in the ground, it was exactly the right thing to do. Although Hollywood Reporter announced in January and February 1949 that the film would have its premiere in March 1949 in Cincinnati, no definite information about the premiere was found. After 13 days in his coffin, Memphis police showed up with shovels to unearth Digger. Irving Brecher's onscreen credit reads: "Written and directed by Irving Brecher." "[2], The reworked script cast Bendix as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. One option is organic fertilizer made from chicken manure, which can be found at Menard's for a reasonable price of $10.99 per 25-pound bag. I'll be the dead guy, and the dead say nothing. We already ordered the baby announcements. STANDS4 LLC, 2023. Help came from Digger O'Dell, the "friendly undertaker," who offered gruesome theories laced with repetitive puns, brilliantly delivered by John Brown. I was watching [author and cultural commentator] Christopher Hitchens the other day. It follows the changes in our species, certainly in our culture. Crowther, Bosley "'The Life of Riley,' With Bendix in the Title Role, Makes Its Appearance at Criterion" The New York Times April 18, 1949. The open casket, it is something that's often mocked. We are now without a mother or without a father. People will sometimes ask me about the connections between poetry and funerals, and I do see this huge connection between the use of language in the two of them and how both rely on ritual and symbol and metaphor. Buy Organic Seeds Risk Free From Organic Seeds TOP - Credit Card & Western Union Payment Options, Organic Seeds TOP is a seed vendor based in the Ukraine. Brief Synopsis A factory worker tries to cope when his daughter dates the boss's son. Comedy Romance A factory worker's family is thrown into an uproar when his teenage daughter starts to date his boss' son. It is that everything changes and nothing changes. He first started doing various stunts in 1932, a time when people were trying to make crazy money with dancing marathons, flagpole sitting, and other endurance feats. I went back to my father's house, and I remember thinking, "But life goes on." I know it won't matter, it will be others, but do you see yourself as the fire or the earth, or --? Whether in the most abstract sense or in the most particular, this is a safe harbor, a place they can have that conversation. Chester A. Riley: Oh, you're gonna count my blood? , back in the ground, it was a sudden inspiration brought by. 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