3. “A toast to the Blashette Foundation. Just think of all the good you will do now!” Andrew Bloor to Jonathan Blashette, 15 November 1947.
4. Within the first two weeks several checks had been written. Some of Jonathan’s many causes and charities were simply too strange not to earn at least passing mention in these notes. Among them was donation of over $10,000 to the Goebel Art Company and Siessen Convent in the Swabian Alps to silence a blackmailer who threatened to besmirch the good name of Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, the Franciscan nun responsible for the delicately hand-painted porcelain child figurines of the same name that even today command respectable collectible prices. In late 1947 the blackmailer, whose name was either Cutberth or Cuthbert, sent Sister Hummel photographs of a “hummel” that had recently fallen into his possession — one which displayed none of the jolly innocence that characterized her work — yet one that had apparently been signed by the Sister and stamped with Goebel’s distinguishing “bee” trademark. The piece depicted a young girl sitting at the knee of a very obvious Satan — pitchfork, spiked tail and all. It is hard to tell from the photograph I came across just what the young girl is doing to the devil’s hooves. She may be buffing them or she may be measuring them for shoes. Whatever is taking place, the girl seems happy to be performing this service for the Prince of Darkness.
No one knows how this double-figurine found its way to Cut(h)bert(h). Was it a counterfeit, or did Sister Hummel, in some dark night of the soul, craft it from a nightmarish vision of Satanic thrall? However it came into being, its existence threatened an enterprise that was making a great deal of money for the Siessen Convent and creating thousands of fans throughout the world. The “devil’s hooves” hummel, had it come to the world’s attention, would have had disastrous consequences for all concerned. Jonathan’s money, along with — it is believed — a large contribution from the Vatican, kept this from occurring.
Along these same lines, Jonathan is reputed to have spent $35,000 in 1960 for a painting of two young girls with very tiny dots for eyes, allegedly painted by Walter Keane on an off-day and potentially so offensive to devotees of Margaret and Walter Keane and their big-eyed offerings that Jonathan took no chances and destroyed the painting upon purchase. “It would have ended my career if word of that painting had gotten out,” a very grateful Keane supposedly confessed to Jonathan. “Why didn’t you just dispose of it yourself?” Jonathan asked. “I needed the 35 g’s,” Keane allegedly responded. “I need paint and canvas for my new series — all the American presidents, each with large sad eyes.” (Interview with Patsy Esposito, former president of the North American Keane Fan Club, 14 August 1998—two weeks after her family’s successful intervention.)
5. The Blashette Foundation rarely declined a legitimate request. One of the rare occasions on which Jonathan did turn down a legitimate application for financial assistance involved the Chamber of Commerce of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, definitely not, in Jonathan’s opinion, one of the legendary Seven Cities of the Cibola. The businessmen of the town had sought his help in financing a public swimming pool for use by the town youngsters. “It gets so hot here, especially in the summer, you understand,” wrote a member of the Chamber, “and the kiddies would appreciate whatever generous gift you might offer to help us provide them with a cool place to splash and play when the mercury licks the tip of the thermometer.” To which Jonathan, according to Rowan, is said to have responded, “I don’t send money to idiot towns that name themselves after stupid radio programs. Go put the squeeze on Ralph Edwards.”
Sybil Rowan in her ‘Tis Better to Give: The Story of Twentieth Century Philanthropy (Tucson: Holiday-Hays Press, 1981) contends that Jonathan had never been a fan of Edwards. The story, probably apocryphal given that Rowan’s corroborating source is untrustworthy, is that Jonathan had been nursing a grudge against the radio and television personality ever since Edwards allegedly spattered urine on Jonathan’s shoe as the two men stood at side-by-side urinals in Radio City Music Hall men’s room following a screening of The Farmer’s Daughter. According to the men’s room attendant who supposedly shared the story with Louella Parsons (it was unearthed years later in her “Not for publication” file), Jonathan pointed out to Edwards that he had just peed on his foot.” “Which one?” Edwards had replied. “You have so many.” Jonathan, peeved and now somewhat ammonia-smelling, left the washroom in a huff, but not without flinging on his way out, “Don’t do my life. You put me on This is Your Life, you big giggle-turd, and I’ll tell the world you piss on shoes. Don’t you dare test me on this.”
I can’t believe that Jonathan would have demonstrated such animosity toward a man so loved by millions, and especially given the fact that Jonathan was known to urinate on his own feet on occasion when his mind would wander. Nor do I find Jonathan to have ever been the vindictive type. My guess is that he simply felt the Chamber of Commerce could easily raise money for the pool on its own.
In any event, Jonathan Blashette was never a featured subject of This is Your Life.
6. “Je suis debout.” “I am standing up.” The four-foot ten-inch Miss Piaf didn’t see the humor.
7. This was followed by another visit from Mister Zoster. The shingles was much more localized this time, confined almost entirely to the right testicle.
8. Davison left the lunch meeting much later than the others. While Jonathan was battling his third outbreak of shingles, Davison was experiencing a new bout of dietary priapism, a condition which generally kept him in phallic straights for several hours at a time. Especially troublesome was the fact that the causal meal took place in the dining room of the Manhattan Tennis Club and Davison hadn’t had the foresight to change out of his tennis shorts. Abashed and dangerously crotch-tented, Davison was eventually able to draw a favorite waiter into his confidence and enlist the gentleman in securing an accommodating sweatshirt — in this case one that had been left on the premises by either Sydney Greenstreet or Alfred Hitchcock. However, the rescue wasn’t effected without a little good-natured fun at Davison’s expense. “Trick knee acting up again, Mr. Davison? Can’t get up?” “That’s right, Benito. It’s hard. Very hard. Now will you hand me the damned sweatshirt before I get myself arrested?” (Cubby Tertwillinger, Victual Viagra: Fifty Stories of Dietary Priapism, Fully Illustrated [Knoxville: Ogilby and Bibb, 1999]).
9. “How often do you masturbate?” Jonathan’s Diary, 13 February 1948. The question came out of the blue. Jonathan responded by removing himself to a seat on the other side on the train. It was several days later, after reading an article in the newspaper, which was accompanied by a photograph of its subject, that Jonathan was able to identify the man as Indiana University professor Alfred C. Kinsey, author of the recently published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. The question, as it turns out, had been strictly and innocently academic.