Book Review: Whatever Became of…? Vol. III by Richard Lamparski
The vast majority of my readers will have at some point encountered one of those clickbait articles titled something like “8 CW stars of the 1990s, what they’re doing now, #3 will shock you.” Nostalgia is a powerful force, and most humans have at least a little curiosity about people who were famous decades ago but you haven’t heard of lately. This series of books tapped into that curiosity.
Richard Lamparski realized there was a market for interviews with or short biographies of the celebrities of yesteryear in the late 1960s. Most of the interviews were broadcast on radio, but the books tended to trim it down to two small-print pages each, with “then” and “now” photographs. This typical entry in the series has a handful of politicians and athletes, but the vast majority were showbiz folks.
The opener is Sherman Adams, a former governor of New Hampshire who was “presidential assistant” to Dwight Eisenhower…until he got trapped in a favoritism scandal involving a millionaire friend. As of 1970, he ran a ski resort. The closer is Evelyn Brent, a silent film actress whose star faded and was living in a small apartment with a friend. There was a resurgence in critical acclaim for her film performances at the time of writing, but far too late to restore her fortunes.
In between, there’s people who are retired, went into another line of business, folks who still work in smaller venues, and those now in dire poverty. The younger reader will recognize few of the names unless they’re a big fan of old time radio or Golden Age Hollywood. Still, there are a couple of standouts like Jay Silverheels and Arthur Murray whose names still ring a bell. The most “recent” people covered are Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davis of the 1963 Profumo scandal. (They are both deceased now.)
Many people are also mentioned in passing, with asterisks if they were in a previous volume, or a quick side note. (“Killed in 1968 flying food to Biafra.”)
Some of the entries are rather dry, while others drip with scandal either detailed or vaguely referred to. One that’s particularly amusing given the 1970 date is Jerry Voorhis, the former congressman from California who was defeated by Richard Nixon in a particularly dirty campaign that was Nixon’s first federal win and who refused to comment on President Nixon at all.
It might be hard to track down a complete set of the books (there were ten volumes in all) but as a snapshot of nostalgia and American culture in the late 1960s-mid 1970s, they’re invaluable.
And to give you some more background information, here’s an interview revealing whatever became of…Richard Lamparski himself!
