"Nothing has concerned man longer or more consistently than the future. Before we could write, perhaps even before we could talk, we scanned the skies for signs of sun or rain, made sacrifices to ensure the success of undertakings. Always the inner eye gazed with fear and trepidation on what John Milton called "the never-ending flight of future days." Always we have asked of no one in particular -- or anyone -- what will happen?
"In Roman times, it was the oracle who read the future in the entrails of sacrificial animals. Nowadays, we're more refined and we call the oracle the clairvoyant, but the idea is the same, and so is the purpose: to know what is coming tomorrow, the better to take the fear out of our eyes.
"What horrors lie ahead for us we do not know. We do not wish to know. We would rather stumble along blindly than know we are heading for disaster. And yet what joys are ahead, what happiness? Do we wish to know? Perhaps it is just as well that we do not know, that we wait, silent and patient for whatever the future brings."
The Clairvoyant, first broadcast over CBS Radio Mystery Theater on October 1, 1976. Written by Elspeth Eric.
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| Tammy Grimes |
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| Tammy Grimes dated singer Sammy Davis,Jr. at a time when such things were ... or were they? |
The protagonist of this radio play is portrayed by Tammy Grimes. A veteran of stage, screen and television as they say, she was the daughter of a spiritualist and a night club owner who made it big on Broadway, winning two Tony Awards for appearing in such plays as The Unsinkable Molly Brown, California Suite and 42nd Street among many others.
In movies, she starred in Play It as It Lays, Can't Stop the Music and Arthur? Arthur!, again among many others.
On television she acted in such series as Route 66, The Love Boat, Mr. Broadway and her own series, The Tammy Grimes Show.
Grimes also had a career as a cabaret and cafe review singer at such venues as The Downstairs Room and The Rendezvous Room in Manhattan. She performed a long-running one-woman show, Downstairs at the Upstairs. Three albums of her songs were released by Columbia Records: Julius Monk Presents Tammy Grimes, Tammy Grimes and The Unmistakable Tammy Grimes. She was the narrator for the BBC Radio production of Lord of the Rings.
Although she married two white actors, Jeremy Slater and Christopher Plummer, she dated several black entertainers, including impresario Julius Monk and singer/actor and member of the Rat Pack Sammy Davis, Jr., gaining some notoriety for doing so.
As you can see in the accompanying news article, from the March 12, 1965, Chicago Tribune, Grimes was involved in what the police determined to be a fake "hate crime" long before the term was invented. It seems there is a long history of some people really, really wishing that white people were strongly racist, far more than reality would indicate that they are.