Featured in the TV program was Veteran actor, Charles Durning, who was a U.S. Army Ranger during WWII. Durning won the Silver Star for gallantry and was awarded three Purple Hearts for bravery at Normandy.

Buy Tea Are the World today and support America’s Mighty Warriors

Despite his remarkable achievements and sacrifices for freedom, still moved after all these years, Durning humbly stood at the podium and wept for his fallen brothers. Wow.  Do they make real men like Durning anymore?

After the TV program honoring Durning and other American heroes, the following program honored great American conscientious objectors.

Folks, it was quite annoying watching these guys, conscientious objectors, being portrayed as superior human beings while pontificating about the evils of war and why they chose not to participate. I thought, “You guys are free to enjoy success, freedom and spout your crap ‘in English’ because brave men like Charles Durning fought on your behalf. How dare you!”

Debbie Lee is the mom of Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. On numerous occasions, Marc stepped up putting himself at risk to defend his fellow soldiers. In response to the death of her decorated son and experiencing first hand the challenges facing the families of fallen soldiers, Debbie Lee founded AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

Almost a year ago, musicians, singers, and bands across America responded to my call to come together to record a song titled “Taking Back America” and donate their recorded songs for an album to celebrate America, honor our military, and benefit the families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, AmericasMightyWarriors.org.

The response was overwhelming. From Country music to rap by a black conservative and every genre in between, we selected the best 44 songs from hundreds of submissions. Jo Piazza at FoxNews titled the project Tea Are the World.”

Now, here is the truly heartwarming divine providence aspect of the project. We had no money for recording, manufacturing, distribution, or marketing. When asked about such details, my response was, “I don’t know?” I felt God only instructed me to put out the call to musicians. He did not fill me in on how it would all come together.

Remember the old Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movies? In the films a character would say, “Let’s put on our own show!” Another character would say, “That’s a great idea! My uncle has 500 chairs stored in his garage.” They would rally together and put on an amazing production.

Tea Are the World pretty much came together the same way. Get this folks–around 100 musicians across America flew or drove in on their own dime–to Deltona Records in Florida to record “Taking Back America.”

Emmy winning TV producer Norvell Rose informed me that he and his son, Conner, would be coming down from Virginia to attend the recording session to produce a music video and “Making of Tea Are the World” documentary, all for FREE. Both are included on DVD in the Tea Are the World package.

Deltona Records owner, music producer, and engineer Frank Starchak is famed for recording Tupac Shakur and numerous other celebrities. Starchak recorded and produced the 100 musicians singing, “Taking Back America.” Starchak also mastered the 44-song double-CD set included in the Tea Are the World package, completely FREE of charge.

Professional distributor Tom Horn offered to distribute Tea Are the World again FREE of charge.

Singer Lisa Scott Kelly and Debbie Lee, founder of AmericasMightyWarriors.org, shook the trees and found funds for manufacturing, which was our only expense.

Rev. Minion told me how his wife Danielle, a professional graphic designer, got involved. Upon hearing about Tea Are the World on the news, Danielle said, “Honey, I feel I am suppose to help these people.”

Danielle Minion designed the Tea Are the World package and promotional materials. She did all of the production artwork work needed to prepare the package for manufacturing.  Now here is the kicker, after Danielle committed to our project, she became pregnant.

Folks, I am pleased and grateful to announce that Tea Are the World is completed, beautifully packaged and available for purchase. Praise God.

100% of the proceeds from the sale of Tea Are the World go to AmericasMightyWarriors.org which benefits the families of our fallen soldiers.

Because of the sacrifices of our military which include brave women and men like Charles Durning and Marc Alan Lee, we are blessed to enjoy Memorial Day cookouts with our families. Please remember the families of our fallen soldiers.

Born in 1916 in Brooklyn, Gleason was no stranger to tragedy. His sickly brother died when he was three, and his mother died when he was nineteen. But it was his father vanishing that gouged the biggest hole in his soul. “I was about nine when one day my pop didn’t come home,” Gleason said in later years. “A few days before, my mom and he had a violent argument and he took every picture out of the house that had him in it. That should have been the tip-off, but I was too young to know.”

The sudden loss sent both him and his mother into an emotional tailspin. “On Christmas Eve, Mom and I went to midnight mass at Our Lady of Lourdes church. I prayed that Pop was still alive — and that he would come back to us. I was scared to death.” But all the prayers came to naught, and his dad’s disappearance haunted him for the rest of his life:

If he had only dropped by once to say hello. Surely, he must have seen me on TV. Everybody else in the country did. I never was angry about Pop leaving us. I figured there must be something between him and Mom that I didn’t know about. He always was OK with me. He had a great sense of humor, that I do remember.

If he had just dropped by once. Just once.

Gleason’s school years were rebellious, but performing in an eighth-grade play changed his life. At one point a microphone tipped over and the school principal ran out to set it aright. Almost without thinking Gleason looked out at the audience, pointed at the departing principal with his thumb in classic Ralph Kramden fashion, and quipped, “That’s the first thing you have ever done for this school.” It brought the house down, and on the way home his Mom gave him his first review: “You were good — but too damn fresh.” At that moment he knew he wanted — needed — to be on stage.

He began emceeing local auto shows, and by age twelve was frequenting billiard halls and developing into a competent pool shark, a skill that would lend authenticity to his Academy Award nominated performance in The Hustler decades later. After his Mother died he went to downtown New York and began seeking out gigs at bars and nightclubs, and quickly he realized that he was far funnier drunk than sober. Alcohol would become a crutch, a salve, and a joy for the rest of his life.

Through dogged perseverance he clawed his way up to Broadway shows, and eventually caught the attention of Jack Warner, head of the Warner Brothers movie studio, who signed him to a Hollywood contract. Bit parts in movies followed, but it was the budding medium of television that really sent his career into high gear. A series of increasingly successful shows led him to his career triumph, The Honeymooners:

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The now-legendary program was a perfect storm of talent and genius. Various lines from that show and others — “And away we go!”, “How sweet it is!”, “Do you wanna go to the moon?”, “POW! Right in the kisser!”, “Baby, you’re the greatest.” — all became a part of the national vernacular. Gleason became known as a fun-loving carpe diem celebrity and a comedian nonpareil. But by the Seventies, his glory days were long behind him.

Then one day he got a script in the mail from Hal Needham.

The part as written was small and fairly nondescript, but Needham promised he could improvise — every word if need be. Gleason, an improv master who disdained following scripts, was intrigued. Here was a rare, late-career chance to build a character from the ground up, just like in the old days. Just about any other screenwriter/director would have balked at letting an actor toss out the screenplay, but Needham figured that “You’re messin’ with perfection when you try to tell Jackie Gleason how to be funny.”

The movie’s other big star agreed. Since both actors lived in Florida, Burt Reynolds paid his elder a visit. When he asked the old master how he thought the sheriff should be played, Gleason replied with an emphatic, “I see him as talking filthy!” According to Reynolds, he then “did an impression of a Southern sheriff that caused me to fall down laughing. Overly polite to women, Jackie explained, those sheriffs would get the man and say, ‘Look, you sumbitch, what the f*** you think you’re doin’?”

“I knew when Burt and Hal Needham the director wanted me to play that sheriff, I had to come up with something different,” Gleason said later. “The redneck sheriff had been done too often before. That’s why I drew the pencil mustache and came up with the expression ‘sumbitch.’”

There’s a perception among many critics and even fans that Buford T. Justice is a ridiculous clown of a character unworthy of the same respect Gleason gets for earlier roles like Ralph Kramden, Joe the Bartender, and Reginald Van Gleason the Third. In truth, the performance is hardly one-note, or even particularly outrageous. Far from being a hopeless doofus, Sheriff Justice starts out as a formidable adversary. His opening scene shows him (aside for the antics of his dumb son) expertly handling a bunch of kids stripping his son’s wedding car. Throughout the film he veers between the outward politeness and decorum expected of a respected officer of the law, and explosions of frustration at barely missing his wily quarry. It’s a character that has a surprisingly realistic core despite the lunacy of the stunts and the high-octane chases, just as Ralph Kramden could get caught up in the silliest situations and yet always come across as a true, emotionally resonant personality and not a cartoon.

Of course, just like with his past great characters, Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit gave audiences a host of new lines of dialogue to add to the pop-culture vernacular:

“What we’re dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the Law.”

“Put da evidence in da car.”

“I’m gonna barbecue your ass in molasses!”

“Where are you, you sumbitch!?!”

There are comic moments in this movie that have seldom been equaled, and I can still remember the thunderous explosions of laughter that erupted from 1977 audiences watching Gleason on screen. At one point, when a rival sheriff tells him that something “isn’t germane to this situation,” Gleason replies with a seething, “The goddamn Germans got nothing to do with it!” At another juncture, as a long funeral procession has temporarily halted the pursuit, Gleason reluctantly stops his car, removes his hat in a sign of respect, and growls under his breath: “If they’d cremated the sonofabitch, I’d be kickin’ that Mr. Bandit’s ass around the moon by now.”

All of these lines, great and small, were improvised by Gleason on the set, frequently accompanied by gales of laughter from the cast and crew. No expert comedy writers, no years of developing drafts — just a grandmaster bringing forty years of experience to bear on a role with no interference.

“Jackie was brilliant on his own,” Reynolds says, “For instance, it was his idea to have the toilet paper coming out of his pant-leg when he left the Bar-B-Q, which put me on the floor.” A master improviser himself, the younger actor expertly played straight man to Gleason, letting him get most of the big laughs and in the process becoming Gleason’s finest comic foil since Art Carney’s Ed Norton from The Honeymooners. “I have always prided myself on being able to make chicken salad out of chicken shit,” Reynolds says with typical self-effacement, “but Jackie can make it into cordon bleu.”

Smokey and the Bandit helped Gleason as much as Gleason helped it, but it was for all practical purposes his last hurrah. The next year, he suffered a heart attack on stage and had a triple-bypass. He kept acting for another decade, a period that included two terrible Smokey sequels. Smokey II did well (even the thoroughly awful Smokey III made a bit of money) but his other movies flopped, and his health deteriorated with them. He died in 1987, on the heels of his final role, Nothing in Common, with a young Tom Hanks.

In all probability, history will primarily remember him for two roles: Ralph Kramden (there’s even a statue of Gleason as Kramden in front of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey bus terminal) and Buford T. Justice. Of course, not everyone agrees with this assessment. In the single worst biography on Jackie Gleason (and, not coincidentally, the one most embraced by critics and fans on the left), the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author William A. Henry III provides us with an uncharitable description of the aged comedian during the period of his Smokey and the Bandit renaissance. Deriding the often-sweet Bandit as “a coarse movie,” Henry sees the sixty-year-old Gleason as

a pathetic sot. Trapped in the lifestyle and bad habits of the forties while living in a society obsessively self-absorbed with the health consciousness of the eighties, this Gleason was merely a clown, the only interesting element about him the hint of willful self-destruction in his sprees.

With a sneer, Henry goes on to reluctantly grant that, “Gleason claimed to have improvised much of his role, which is not implausible given the general state of the script, and he inspired Burt Reynolds to describe him as the greatest genius Reynolds had worked with (one must note that Olivier, Gielgud, Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman do not adorn Reynolds’ resume.)”

Yes, “one must note,” mustn’t one? This line of attack always cracks me up. Which great American actors, pray tell, have Bergman and Kurosawa adorning their resumes? And are Laurence “Clash of the Titans” Olivier and John “Arthur” Gielgud really not to be spoken of in the same breath as (to take a sampling from Reynolds’ resume) Lee Marvin, Dana Andrews, Darren McGavin, Harry Dean Stanton, Howard Keel, Ossie Davis, Melvyn Douglas, Yul Brenner, Jon Voight, Woody Allen, Gene Hackman, Lotte Lenya, Myrna Loy, Pat O’Brien, Charles Durning, David Niven, Jessica Tandy, Julie Andrews, Clint Eastwood, and Hal Holbrook?

The truth is that Jackie Gleason was a genius, Reynolds’ pride in starring alongside him is perfectly valid, and it is a truly uncharitable soul who sneers at the “lifestyle and bad habits of the forties.” At one point during the filming of Smokey and the Bandit, Gleason was well into his lunchtime cups (friends recall his usual noon repast as being “six double scotches with no ice, no soda, no water, and no food”). Suddenly there was a loud crash — Gleason had fallen backward in his chair, upending it and tumbling to the ground. Heart attack? Stroke? Reynolds and the rest of the crew rushed over. There was the fallen chair, with Gleason’s two legs sticking up in the air behind it and one arm stretched skyward like the Statue of Liberty, holding aloft a cup brimming with booze. From behind the wreckage came muffled laughter and a slurred cry of triumph: “I didn’t spill a drop!”

They called him The Great One for a reason, folks.

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, we dig into the production of Smokey and the Bandit, and look at how a neophyte director and a largely improvisational cast managed to create a comedy classic.

Previous posts in the series “Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Smokey and the Bandit”:

Part 1 | Part 2

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Jackie Gleason in Modern Drunkard magazine: One of the joys in researching Gleason was discovering this wonderful journal. Part serious effort to turn back the relentless encroachment of the nanny-state where drinking and fun are concerned, part Mad Magazine/National Lampoon laugh-fest, editor Frank Kelly Rich clearly has a blast tweaking the tender sensibilities of the humorless, life-crushing, nightmare Utopians on the Left. But under the jokes and parodies lies a serious and principled defense of basic freedoms and one’s right to engage in a healthy enjoyment and relish of life. Definitely read his excellent overview of Jackie during his prime, and also check out the hilarious “Clash of the Tightest” elimination tournament staged to determine the greatest boozer of all time. You think Gleason has a chance to take the title from the likes of Hemingway, Poe, Bukowski, Thomas, Fitzgerald, Byron, Burton, Ruth, and Bogart? Click on the link to find out.

Here’s a rare YouTube video showing Jackie Gleason coming out for Richard Nixon for President in 1968, at the very height of the hippie madness. “How sweeeet it is!”:

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There’s tons more Gleason material on YouTube — interviews, television clips, even musical numbers he composed. Grab a cocktail and happy browsing.

Psychologists say that a parent’s grief over the death of a child is “the most difficult loss to endure and surely among the most difficult to integrate into one’s life” because our children are an enormous part of our legacy, and “in their deaths, a large part of our own future dies.”  The natural order of our lives has been turned upside down, bringing on an emotional chaos.

For the parents of military men and women who have died after volunteering to serve their country and walking into the face of death in the 21^st century’s war on terror, this grief and chaos has been exponentially multiplied by liberal Hollywood.  But one has to actually walk this path to understand it.  The anti-war sentiment and films that have spewed from liberal actors, producers, and directors have burdened our hearts unspeakably as they have served only to aide the greatest enemy our country has ever faced and to deface and demoralize the greatest ambassadors our country has: the men and women who wear the uniforms of the United States military.

Two years following the death in Iraq of our son, Sergeant Patrick Tainsh, age 33, my husband’s only child and namesake, Dave and I walked through the Smithsonian’s history section.  On the walls hung reminders for the reason America fights wars.  One such display read:  “The Axis Powers”:  “Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan pursued territory and power. Underlying Axis ambition were strong beliefs in racial and ethnic superiority that were used to justify wanton slaughter.  When allies joined forces to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan they did so with the resolve that the war could never end in a truce.  The battle required unconditional surrender and replacement of enemy governments.”

As I continued reading the history of that time, I came to the section regarding Hollywood and its great contributions to support the war effort, show American pride and a call for no less than victory.  One display read: “In early 1942, Hollywood released its first patriotism by building morale-boosting movies produced in close collaboration with the U.S. office of war information.  The films pitted heroic Americans against villainous Nazis and fanatical Japanese, depicting a home front united for victory.  Top Hollywood directors made motivational pictures for troops.”

With this reminder of all that had been great about Hollywood, tears of betrayal and anger flowed down my face.  Where was that Hollywood?  Where were the new true Hollywood heroes who could follow their great and brave predecessors like Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Tyrone Power, Steve McQueen, Hugh O’Brien, Sterling Hayden, Gene Hackman, Ed McMahon, Charles Durning, and others who served in the United States Marine Corps? Where were those heroes of support like Ronald Regan, Betty Grable, Jimmy Dorsey and the great Bob Hope?

Why does the 21^st century Hollywood not work to help our troops win our new wars on radical terrorism instead of dividing our nation divided and providing encouragement for the enemy to kill more allied troops and innocent Iraqis?  Instead, top producers and directors turn their backs on the very military men, women, and families that were and still are willing to voluntarily sacrifice to the death to defeat an enemy who would as soon set a bomb to their ostentatious homes or behead their loved ones.  Along with news media, liberal Hollywood has helped paint a false picture for America’s public who continually hears negative information instead of the positive strides that our military has made and continues to make.

While channel surfing one evening I caught a glimpse of Stephen King, whose books have become major Hollywood films. In speaking to a college student audience, King stated that, to write, one must be a voracious reader. He went on to add that he encouraged reading and education so the students wouldn’t end up in places like Iraq.

Again, I was devastated and angry.  King’s words reflected his ignorance regarding the many college diplomas and “through the roof” IQs of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Special Forces, and Navy Seals who are responsible for providing him and those students the very freedoms they would never want to relinquish to radical terrorists.

Our son left behind a letter whenhe died in Iraq.  He said:

I came to help people who couldn’t help their situation.  Maybe someday they will enjoy freedom as we do.  As for me, it was an honor to experience that freedom.  It was an honor to fight and die with an American flag on my shoulder.  Honor.  That’s a big word and some people don’t know what it means.  It’s not something that happens right away, it’s something that builds up inside your soul.

What would Sergeant Patrick Tainsh now say about Hollywood?  Probably this:  “They just don’t know what true honor and freedom is.  That’s why those like me and my comrades exist, because we do know, and it’s our job to try and protect even the ignorant who just don’t ‘get it.’”

Yes, the pain experienced with the death of a child is indescribable, and to have our own country’s greatest powers aide the enemy instead of supporting our troops and families adds to the greatest burden we will ever carry. But as for my family, along with our grief, we are comforted through the memory of having a true hero come from our home to serve our great country – even with its flaws. A memory we can always live with and smile about.  But the memory and pain of the betrayal by a power such as Hollywood in the 21^st century’s fight against worldwide terror is a memory that will forever remain a dark place in our hearts and in history. And maybe this history should be written on the walls of the Smithsonian to remind all how Hollywood has changed from a power to help bring pride and victory for America to a power that is helping to aide the enemy and kill our own.

Deborah Tainsh, mother of Sergeant Patrick Tainsh, February 11, 2004 Iraq

This week’s Washington Times column:

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. | After spending two weeks on something akin to a fact-finding mission in depressed New York and depleted Washington, D.C., I found no answers to our nation’s mounting ills. I discovered that there is much to be angry about and unlimited reasons for deep concern. But on the evening after my return, the stars aligned on the outskirts of Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and for a brief moment I felt safe again in America.

On Saturday, my wife and I were privileged to attend the second annual “Celebration of Freedom Gala.” We joined more than 1,000 others who, like us, were electrified to honor 43 of the 98 living Medal of Honor recipients. We also gave our thanks to former first lady Nancy Reagan, war hero and actor Charles Durning, and Gen. David H. Petraeus.

In between courses, we heard rousing patriotic vignettes. One was Steve Amerson’s refreshingly traditional and soaring national anthem. Another was a tear-inducing “Freedom Never Cries” from John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. Scores of celebrities donning black ties and gowns mingled with our nation’s highest-decorated veterans and active-duty men and women.

Unlike at other awards shows, this star-studded crowd honored something bigger than themselves. I note this without taking anything away from the individual achievements of talented artists who have paid homage to every cause under the sun. But this event was different. The armed forces of the United States have fought and died to protect the freedom of expression that allowed these artists to ply their trade.

Before the program commenced at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, one prominent actor sang the praises of HBO’s “Taking Chance” to a Vietnam-era Medal of Honor recipient. The film is not just another Hollywood attack on the military. Quite the contrary. “I watched it with my son, and we both cried,” the well-known face from film and television told a true hero. “It is deeply respectful and not in the least bit political.”

The same could be said of the dinner. Partisanship was not on the bill as dozens of decorated veterans of unknown partisan stripe stood to accept the audience’s unconditional and rousing appreciation.

Tom Selleck presented the “Lifetime Achievement Award” to a frail yet still elegant Mrs. Reagan, who received the first extended standing ovation of the evening. The 87-year-old former first lady was making her first public appearance since fracturing her pelvis and sacrum in October. She summoned the courage to accept the award in front of a cross-section of people who have grown to admire her during her half-century in Hollywood and in public service.

Gary Sinise, a Presidential Citizens Medal recipient and the event’s co-sponsor, delivered the Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment to Charles Durning, whose courage and grit during World War II earned him the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. The 86-year-old star of “The Sting” and “Dog Day Afternoon” received a hero’s welcome worthy of both his military and film career.

Mr. Sinise asked attendees to commit themselves to entertaining the troops and singled out one actor/singer who had done so in spades: Connie Stevens, who labored for 40 years for the USO. Miss Stevens, still beautiful and radiant at 70, accepted the extended and deserved standing ovation.

You can read the column in full here.