A Week of Deaths

It has been a weak of deaths. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Betty Allen.

Betty who?  Betty Allen, the mezzo-soprano who sang with Leonard Bernstein?

All of them made an impression on the popular culture of the last century, and all will be remembered for their contribution to the various arts of television, theatre, pop music and opera.

“Here’s Johnny,” was the rallying cry for the Johnny Carson Show.  Ed McMahon was a fixture and a good sidekick.  He was as much a part of The Johnny Carson Show as Johnny himself.  After he retired, he seemed to be making millions on selling Publishers Sweepstakes, but then tragedy stuck three years ago when he declared bankruptcy.  A case of mishandled finances. A familiar story for those who give up control of their financial lives to others, and who don’t pay attention to where the money goes.

Farrah Fawcett lived her life in the public eye right up until the end.  She was the pinup girl with the thick mane of hair that  made the Prell girls squeal with envy.   She was an Angel, as in Charlie’s, and forever was identified with it, even though she only did one season.  But it was her fearless quality playing battered and battering women, no makeup, no glamor, warts and all characters, that set her apart before any other glamor queens were doing these types of roles, except maybe Susan Sarandon, who is also a fearless woman.

Ultimately, Farrah played her most brutal role while dying of anal cancer, filming the entire sequence of events to her eventual demise.  She shared with the world the journey she made through life and into death, with the hope that it would inspire others to find a cure.   The weakness her illness created, in turn gave her enormous strength to deal with her inevitable death, which she seemed to have accepted when she refused further treatment.  It takes courage to confront and deal with death, so I salute her fearless quality.

Michael Jackson was a pop icon whose desire for self-mutilation and self-hatred was legendary.  His talents as a musician and dancer could not be denied, but his long history of self-abuse was a tragedy and I wonder if it could have been different.   His weakness was his inability to go beyond his family history, his father’s abuse, and his low self-esteem.  Michael’s life was tragic, but it will be the music that survives, and the memory of his ‘freak’ show face will disappear.   In a blog post by Deepak Chopra, he talks about his friend Michael, and how he was searching for answers, just like the rest of us. He said he was a devoted father.  Perhaps his children will vindicate his life.

Who knows Betty Allen?  I didn’t until yesterday.  In a week of spectacular losses, she was a minor story, but of all the stories I heard this week, this one resonated the most with me.  She died without much media fanfare the same week as Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, but Betty Allen age  82, courageously soared as a performer to the heights of international opera.

She was an American success story.  A mezzo-soprano who was in the same league and time as Leontyne Price.  She grew up poor in Ohio and was motherless by age 12, and after taking care of her abusive alcoholic father until she was fifteen, she left home and asked a judge to find a family to adopt her. In these days there were no orphanages for black children so you ended up in detention homes or foster homes.  She chose foster care and spent a year bouncing from one to another until at 16 she moved to a YWCA and got a job cleaning houses.  It took tremendous strength and courage to do both these things at an early age, and was a precursor to the strength she would show as a successful singer.

She won a scholarship to Wilberforce College in Ohio, and because she had a talent for language she studied German and Latin.  Both languages would serve her well in her career, but it was her German teacher, a baritone from Berlin, who also taught voice, thatrecognized the talent in Betty and encouraged her to apply to the Hartford School of Music in Connecticutt. She also studied at Tanglewood and it was here that she met Leonard Bernstein who featured her regularly with The New York City Opera.  She went on to travel the world and eventually came home to New York City to teach and become an administrator for the Harlem School of the Arts.

Betty was fond of saying that while all the singing and the adoration was nice, what she loved most was to come home to her family. She was married with two children. She never quite reached the same heights as Leontyne Price and others of that era  but Betty understood that fame was a double edged sword.  She said the security of her family allowed her to be fearless in the world.  Was there a weakness here. I don’t see one.  Betty Allen did what was right for her throughout her life, and she  fearlessly met the challenges with strength and courage rarely seen. At the end of her days, she was satisfied that she had given it her best.

Isn’t that what we all want at the end of our days?

Being Fearless takes courage, and strength. It takes knowing that whatever choices we make, there is always another opportunity to choose again.  All four of these people did the best they could with what they had.  It’s all any of us can do.

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