Jazz trumpeter Jones / SAT 8-15-15 / Glaziers supplies / Recipient of Argus's 100 eyes in myth / Peter Fonda cult film about acid experience / Relatives of Winnebagos / Singer-actress once called Black Venus / Group started as Jolly Corks / Italian admiral for whom several ships were named / Iconoclast stiflers

Constructor: Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: Lola FALANA (35A: Singer/actress once called the "Black Venus") —

Loletha Elayne "Lola" Falana (born September 11, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey) is an American singer, dancer, and actress. [...] While dancing in a nightclub, Falana was discovered by Sammy Davis Jr., who gave her a featured role in his 1964 Broadway musical Golden Boy. Her first single, "My Baby", was recorded for Mercury Records in 1965. Later in her career she recorded under Frank Sinatra's record label. In the late 1960s Falana was mentored by Davis. In 1966 Davis cast her, along with himself, Ossie Davis, and Cicely Tyson, in her first film role in the film, A Man Called Adam. // Falana became a major star of Italian cinema beginning in 1967. In Italy she learned to speak fluent Italian while starring in three movies, the first of which was considered a spaghetti western. She was known as the "Black Venus". During this time she was busy touring with Davis as a singer and dancer, making films in Italy, and reprising her role in Golden Boy during its revival in London. // In 1969 Falana ended her close working relationship with Sammy Davis Jr., though the two remained friends. "If I didn't break away," Lola told TV Guide, "I would always be known as the little dancer with Sammy Davis Jr. ... I wanted to be known as something more." The previous year, Sammy Davis Jr. was divorced by his second wife, May Britt, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with Falana. // In 1970, Falana made her American film debut in The Liberation of L.B. Jones and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress for her performance. That same year she posed for Playboy magazine. She was the first black woman to model for a line of cosmetics that was not targeted solely at blacks, in the successful Faberge Tigress perfume ads. In those early years, she also starred in a few movies considered to be of the blaxploitation genre. She appeared at the Val Air Ballroom sponsored by Black Pride, Inc., in 1978. // American TV audiences became familiar with Falana during the early 1970s. She often appeared on The Joey Bishop Show and The Hollywood Palace, displaying her talent for music, dance, and light comedy. These appearances led to more opportunities. // She was the first supporting player hired by Bill Cosby for his much-anticipated variety hour, The New Bill Cosby Show, which made its debut on September 11, 1972 (her 30th birthday) on CBS. Cosby had met Falana in his college days, when he was a struggling comic and she was a 14-year-old dancing for $10 a show in Philadelphia nightclubs.^{[citation needed]} Throughout the mid-1970s Falana made guest appearances on many popular TV shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Muppet Show, Laugh-In and The Flip Wilson Show. She also starred in her own television specials. // In 1975 her disco record "There's A Man Out There Somewhere" reached #67 on the Billboard R&B chart. That same year, she returned to Broadway as the lead in the musical Doctor Jazz. Although the production closed after just five performances, Lola was nominated for a Tony Award and won the 1975 Theater World Award. // With help from Sammy Davis, Falana brought her act to Las Vegas and became a top draw there. By the late 1970s, she was considered the Queen of Las Vegas. She played to sold-out crowds at The Sands, The Riviera, and the MGM Grand hotels. Finally The Aladdin offered her $100,000 a week to perform. At the time, Falana was the highest paid female performer in Las Vegas. Her show ran twenty weeks a year and became a major tourist attraction. // While still playing to sell-out crowds in Las Vegas, Falana joined the cast of a short-lived CBS soap opera, Capitol, as Charity Blake, a wealthy entertainment mogul. In 1983, Falana was appearing at Bally's hotel and casino in Atlantic City and, while playing baccarat, won a minority stake in the New York Mets, a stake she held until she sold it in 1988 for 14 million dollars to Frank Cashen. [emph. mine wtf!?] //  [...] From 1971 to 1975, Lola Falana was married to Feliciano “Butch” Tavares, one of five brothers of the popular R&B band Tavares. (wikipedia)

• • •

Tough without being much fun. Low word-count puzzles can get dicey, and while this one holds up pretty well for a 62-worder, it shows the strain and lack of sparkliness that most sub-68s show. THOUGHT POLICE is the only real winning entry (37A: Iconoclast stiflers). The rest just ... work. Reasonably well. Without too much grid trauma. But they don't entertain. They do, however, give a workout, and for some, that's what Saturdays are all about. The clues were highly vague and/or misdirectional, so I struggled quite a bit—in every quadrant but one (the SE, which mostly just filled itself in). In fact, at first, things looked bleak. Very bleak.

No, I don't know what I was thinking with TRAE, and I'll thank you not to ask. I think I had RETORT where TOUCHÉ was supposed to go, so I had maybe TREY as the 19A: Jazz trumpeter Jones (?). And I figured John Wayne something-ED UP to the bar. MOSEYED or the like. It was really the "with 'to'" in the 5-Down John Wayne clue that gave me the terminal "UP," which in turn gave me PEACOCK (which I probably would've gotten anyway, as my Greek mythology game is reasonably tight). I then proceeded to make some more mistakes, like CUT-UPS for PUT-ONS at 24A: Pranks and PASS ... OVER? PASS ... something I forget. Definitely *not* PASSER-BY, that's for sure. But I got GOAFTER FALANA CAL KNIFE-something pretty quickly, and then the SE fell with not much sweat.


Sweat came first, a little, in the NE, where I had to get DORIA piece by piece (14A: Italian admiral for whom several ships were named zzzzzz), and where I had to struggle to figure out that it was the MEAL that was HOT. And also the whole PASSER-BY stuff. So minor struggles there. More major struggles in the SW, where, despite getting a nice in with THOUGHT POLICE ...

... I had issues. Got CARTIER and OVOIDS but still got nowhere. So much so that I pulled OVOIDS. The ELKS clue was meaningless to me (52A: Group started as the Jolly Corks). I had that as ELIS for a bit. PUTTIES was baffling (34D: Glaziers' supplies). The "Apollo" in 28D: Apollo collection could've gone a lot of ways. God ways. Theater ways. "Rocky" ways. Or space ways. Having 27D: Sturm und Drang be a singular answer, that was rough. And lots of stuff is considered for college admission, so SAT SCORE, shrug, sure. Yes. True. Connection between sigma as SUM not known to me. Thought APOP could be EACH ('cause technically, it could) (33A: Per). Really loved (tough) clue on SENTRIES (41A: Ones with halting speech?). Somehow (from PUTTIES, I think, ironically), I finally got a head of steam in there.

That left the NW, which brutalized me. THAD? IN CLOSE? TAUCROSS? (15A: Symbol of the Franciscan order). All shrugs. Thought ASTI could be MOET (because, again, it could) (1D: Bubbly option). Thought OTOS might be UTES. Parsing ACTASONE, hoo boy. Rough (1A: Not diverge). Once I solved the oddness that was IN CLOSE, I pretty much had this one by the horns. But that "U" at TAUCROSS / TOUCHÉ was the last thing to fall. Big "D'oh!" on TOUCHÉ. Still, rough stuff. Puzzle was a worthy, if somewhat tedious, adversary.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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