Hollywood Funeral Quip

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

I'm not sure what Fred has on this (this may be old news to him), but I see
that Ralph Keyes has a small treatment of that Tinseltown observation that,
with respect to some funerals of the famous,

"It only proves what they always say -- give the people what they want to
see and they'll come out for it."

Keyes notes that "[c]omedian Red Skelton's much-repeated comment about Harry
Cohn's well-attended 1958 funeral has also been attributed to comedian
George Jessel and director Billy Wilder.  According to Bert Lahr's son John,
his actor father said much the same thing a year earlier, about Louis
Mayer's funeral:  "If you want a full house, you give the public what it
wants."  [Pg. 198 of _The Quote Verifier_.]

Actually, I think it bears noting that George Jessel has been credited with
an earlier expression of the same sentiment (though obviously not with
respect to Mayer or Cohn, who, as noted, died in 1957 and 1958,
respectively).

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[From Katharine Brush's "Strictly Screwball" column, *The Washington Post*,
8 March 1942, Pg. L1.]

And there was George Jessel's box-office-ish remark about a funeral which
was drawing enormous crowds of people into a church door as he passed --
"Well, there you are, you see," said Jessel. "Give 'em what they want."

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[From Louis E. Martin's "Dope and Data" column, *The Chicago Defender*, 27
August 1955, Pg. 9.]

Figuring out what the people want is not always difficult. Goodman Ace, TV
and Radio critic, has an excellent article on this subject in the current
issue of the Saturday Review. Says he:

"They tell the story of George Jessel's once passing a funeral home where a
celebrity lay in state and the crowd waiting to file by for a last glimpse
was four-deep.

"'You see,'" said the veteran showman, 'give the people what they want and
they'll come.'"

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[And I'm not really sure what to make of Walter Winchell's 1967
recollection, which presumably refers to Harry Horowitz, an apparently
vicious New York gang leader who was executed in 1914. -- Bonnie]


[From Winchell's "On Broadway" column ("Oswald's Prints on Rifle Silent
Answer to Doubters"), *The [Reno] Nevada State Journal*, 18 March 1967, Pg.
4.]

Bob Thomas' fascinating book "King Cohn" (about Hollywood's late movie mogul
Harry Cohn) led many book reviews with the anecdote about the 2,000 or more
people who attended Cohn's funeral.  One actor said to another:  "I never
saw so many people at a funeral" and the other quipped:  "Give the people
what they want and they will go for it."

Very funny, but just as hilarious when it was told at MGM chief L.B. Mayer's
funeral years ago -- and decades before that -- at the services of Gyp, the
Blood, murderer.

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Can anyone turn up other (perhaps non-Jesselesque) versions that appeared
before, say, 1940?

-- Bonnie

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