From: "Alan Cook" <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:47:36 GMT
Subject: [Puptcrit] Pady Blackwood


For anyone at that 2-Day Bil Baird Auction in Greenwiuch Village, it was a memorable experience, made moreso by Pady (ever the performer). There was a marionette (maybe a ballerina??)  that HE wanted, but the audience response to his marionette manipulation was too tempting for him, he showed off many different moves the marionette was capable of, and the price rose with each different movement, and finally went out of his price range. That was a quintessential PADY MOMENT.

Like many others, I am still reeling from the news of his death Tuesday evening, while he was driving his GMC truck, suffering a massive heart attack. To learn that the truck jumped the curb, crashing into a pole in a Target Store Parking Lot at approximately 7:15 p.m. certainly adds to the sense of shock. At least no-one else was injured---Pady would not have wanted such further complications. And I suppose you could say it was a showbiz moment.

I first met Pady in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri while I was stationed at Ft Riley near Junction City and Manhattan, Kansas in 1955---a long bus ride on a weekend pass. Pady was 14 or 15, still in high school. But both Pady Blackwood & Charles Van Snowden had already performed professionally doing Christmas Window marionette shows with a Kansas City puppet troupe. Thanks to Pady, I visited the Hazelle Marionette Company twice, his family put me up for a couple of weekends, and I learned Pady had never gone to a Mexican restaurant, so we went to what may have been the only one in Kansas City. By California or Texas standards, the food was not too spicy/hot but Pady got sick and threw up. Well, he was not afraid of new adventures, and had many of them.

On his room's walls he had 3 or 4 theater lobby pictures from MGM's 1953 musical, LILI with Walton & O'Rourke's hand puppets. He'd gotten them from a KC MO movie theater manager. 

Pady worked for so many different puppet companies, and the Nelson Art Museum puppet classes (and performances)---Bil Baird, Sid & Marty Krofft benefitted from his puppetry talents. 

He was important to the later years of "Howdy Doody", as Howdy's animator (following Rufus Rose). Thanks to Pady, I was part of the Howdy 40th Anniversary TV Special, filmed at the Chaplin Studios on La Brea Avenue, Hollywood. The script was hokey, but getting to meet Milton Berle on the set, being in a historic Hollywood studio, and working with Pady, Bill LeCornec (Chief Thunderthud) and others really was more interesting than the final edited TV footage the public saw. If someone had made a documentary of shooting that Special, it would have been more interesting than the Special.

Pady constantly was changing the length of Howdy's strings during that Anniversary show--One time we were high up just under the ceiling in a  pea picker, the next time working on floor level. At one point we moved puppets MANUALLY rather than by strings, because the set decorator had stuck a prop tree in the wrong place.  Pady was adaptable. And he was brilliant.

In his heyday (and it was a long one) Pady contributed so much to puppetry. I lament that his energy dwindled at the end as a result of heart problems---we don't get to stay young forever---but in our collective memories, Pady will be young forever.

Goodbye, Pady. And Thanks! You really, really, really will be missed.


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Rogers
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 6:31 AM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: [Puptcrit] Pady Blackwood

One reason why I will always remember Pady Blackwood has to do with that famous 1980's auction of Bil Baird's puppets.  The auction house was filled with theater buffs, devotees of puppetry, puppeteers, collectors and some celebrities.  When each lot (marionette) was brought forward, Pady was on hand to manipulate it to the great amusement of the bidders, who frankly, responded like gleeful children.  As a result, the prices soared well beyond their original estimates.  My heart sank because I felt that I would not be able to afford one.  I had set my sights on the character Snarky Parker (there were several versions), but suddenly my limited funds seemed inadequate.

For some strange reason, when Pady brought Snarky out, he seemed distracted  He held the control bar in one hand and grabbed all the strings in the other which made Snarky hang lifeless.  The bidding was therefore unenthusiastic.  I took a deep breath as I raised my paddle and fervently hoped that Pady would not remember what he was supposed to do.

To make a long story short, I did win that puppet - although the auctioneer was afraid to bang his gavel, knowing that the price was relatively low, and fearing that I was too young to have the money to pay for it.  But I was single at the time, working like crazy and living in an apartment that only cost me $95.00 a month.

Later that day, I visited my mother who was a patient in a nearby hospital.  My grandfather was there, and when I told him that I just spent $1800.00 on a marionette, he almost fainted.  I know that he thought it was a waste of money, but I could also tell that he was proud that his grandson the puppeteer actually had that money to spend.

Thank you Pady, for your puppetry and your humanity.  And the precious minute in which you did not pay attention made my dream come true.

Robert Rogers
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