8 Advance to Citywide Finals : Seniors Show They’re Still Entertaining

Jean Blackwood usually plays her ventriloquist act to children’s groups and at convalescent hospitals.

“Those people aren’t too aware of what’s going on,” she said.

But her audience Monday was alert. Blackwood stood before them dressed in blue sequins and clown-face, with a wolf puppet on her knee. The 70-year-old Tujunga woman told jokes about airplane crashes and rectal thermometers.

And they ate it up.

Blackwood took first place among comedians in the San Fernando Valley-area Senior Citizen Talent Show. She and 28 other elderly contestants sang, joked and danced for judges and friends in a stuffy auditorium at Van Nuys-Sherman Oaks Park.

Contest rules prohibit professional entertainers.

“They have to be rank amateurs,” said show organizer Bruce Roberts of the Los Angeles city Recreation and Parks Department. “Some of these acts are pitiful.”

Nevertheless, appropriate dignitaries were in attendance. Gas company executives were there; they paid for the trophies. Miss Senior America 1988 showed up in her tiara and sash. Dick Wilson--known to millions as “Mr. Whipple” of television toilet-paper commercials--acted as master of ceremonies.

“Every minute these people are up on stage is a minute they aren’t vegetating,” Wilson said before stepping to the microphone and reminding members of the audience to turn up their hearing aids.

The mood was light-hearted as act after act passed across the stage in 3-minute intervals.

One man wearing a bright orange shirt and gold earring offered a dramatic reading on growing old. Another man whistled “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.” A woman in pink frills danced the “Ban-Con-Tim” cha-cha-cha.

Phil Munet, who didn’t want to say his age, did stand-up comedy.

“The traffic was bumper-to-bumper,” he told the audience. “I pushed my cigarette lighter in, and the guy in front of me went ‘Oowww!’ ”

Manning Wein, an 86-year-old from Van Nuys who recently ran in the Los Angeles Marathon, and his partner won the “dance-couple” competition for the second year in a row. Others were taking the stage for the first time.

“Am I nervous?” said Mel Wolfe, who insisted that he was 28 as he prepared to sing Al Jolson. “All my hair fell out this morning. My arches fell. I lost my hearing.”

A number of performers never showed, perhaps victims of stage-fright. One man warmed up on stage, then shook his head and left before the competition began.

BobbyRuth Mann took a more confident approach.

“I’m so fabulous. I’ve been on ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’ I’m also a nudist,” the stand-up comedian said. “I’ve practiced on my friends, and they think I’m good.”

Rose Matloff and her friends decided that they were in it for fun. They tap-danced through the “Sheik of Araby” in fishnet hose, black leotards and plumed headdresses.

“We feel sexy,” Matloff said after accepting the first-place award for group dance. “I’m just glad we didn’t fall. At this age, if you break a bone. . . .”

The first-place finishers in eight categories will compete next month in citywide finals at Fairfax High School. One loser stalked out of the auditorium swearing and waving his arms, but most of the others weren’t all that concerned.

“It’s silly, I guess,” Wolfe said. “Maybe I wanted to prove something to myself.”