If you’ve ever wondered where Martin Short got his inspiration for his great talk-show host character Jiminy Glick, look no further than Skip E. Lowe, a public-access legend for years in Los Angeles. Lowe was a cut-rate comic, impressionist and MC who loved Hollywood lore and entertainers. His interview show began in 1978 and continued until shortly before his death in 2014. Above is a wonderful Lowe episode featuring Susanna Foster (she gets the first fifteen minutes) and then 84 year old Rudy Vallee. Foster’s story is one of Hollywood’s strangest–she was briefly an up and coming Universal star in the mid-forties, but she abandoned Hollywood to attempt an opera career. Alcoholism and mental illness followed and at one point in her life she was reduced to living in her car. She’s clearly recovered in this interview–she’s lucid and spins a good yarn. As for Rudy, he’s got a full head of hair (badly dyed) and a head full of anecdotes that he delivers at a breathless pace. Of the many projects the octogenarian Vallee is involved in, the most intriguing is a book on tooth care–Rudy insists that most people don’t know how to take care of their teeth but he’s going to fix that…and he assures Lowe that  ‘it’ll sell in the millions…it’s going to be a bible of personal care of the mouth and teeth’. No sign that the book was ever published, alas. But I dig Rudy’s spirit, his energy and his hair (except for the dye).  I dig his pants as well.