It Takes More Than a Pretty Face to Play Abraham Lincoln

“In his day, he was considered ugly,” Charles Brame says. “Now it’s called ‘Lincolnesque.’ ” And not a moment too soon for Charlie Brame, whose resemblance to the 16th President falls only a mole short of eerie.

Lincoln, had he lived, would be 180 years old today. Brame of Alta Loma is only 62, but already he knows more about Abe and his times than anyone, including Mary Todd, has a right to. Retired from teaching history, Brame now makes a comfortable living representing Lincoln in one-man shows for schools, lodges, TV audiences--233 appearances in 1988 alone. A consummate scholar, he not only can quote Lincoln’s responses to the issues of his day but in “meet the press” sessions can project Abe’s probable opinions on contemporary causes.

Brame’s fame, though, reposes less on erudition than on likeness. “Lincoln said that in his prime he was almost 6 feet 4, weighed 200. In my prime I was 6-2, 180. So I wear two-inch lifts (black garb accentuates the height), and dye my hair and beard to Lincoln’s dark brown. Abe had huge bunions and his feet hurt like the dickens. I’ve got arthritis in my hip, so I limp too, and blame the bunions. Take your lemons and make lemonade. . . .”

Raised in Missouri just across the river from Lincoln’s Illinois, Brame even sounds like Lincoln--”a Midwest twang by way of the South: Lincoln was born in Kentucky.” As an actor, “I’m improving every year. I’m not a butcher, either, but I can cut meat.” And he keeps updating his act, even to the point of a rap: “Listen my children, gonna tell you a sto-ry, ‘bout an old slim boy, bound for glo-ry. . . .”

Lincolnesque, indeed, right down to the raucous humor: “I love what I’m doing,” Brame says. “I have a good time doing it. And it beats going to the theater.”

Even the Wildest Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Rolled ‘Em Like This

In musical chairs, whoever doesn’t find a seat when the music stops, drops out. In musical wheelchairs, everybody has a seat, nobody drops out, and by the time the music stops, everyone’s a winner.

They’re having a Valentine’s Day dance Tuesday for orthopedically disabled teens and young adults--with a deejay, square-dance caller, the works--and they’re playing for keeps: prizes for best fast-dancing couples, best slow dancers, the person who dances with the most partners, even the dancer showing the greatest enthusiasm and/or creativity. And why not?

“This is an ‘up’ organization,” says Edith Ryan, executive director of IDENTITY, sponsor of the dance at its facility in Woodland Hills. “We’re a total-support system--physical therapy and social activities--for physically disabled youths. Our program is completely free, the only one in the L.A. area. The dance is a first for us, but we’ve already gone places where nobody else has rolled.”

Like camping, or trips to the beach, “and I don’t mean sitting in the parking lot watching,” Ryan says. We get ‘em all the way over the sand, wheelchairs and all; we put plastic gutter rails in front of the wheelchair, push 10 feet, then reposition the rails. . . . Where anyone else can go, we can go.”

As for dancing, “People have been dancing since time began, and who says it’s exclusive to the healthy-limbed? Just because the feet no longer dance is no reason to give it up. Pure and simple, dancing is movement to music--in some cases, considerably less pure than simple. You think shoulder-to-shoulder can’t be sexy?”

For Nora, It Would Have Been One More Day of Raising Cain

Postscript: The Culver City Fire Department had it all set up (Short Takes, Jan. 22). They were going to pick up Nora Page at Country Villa South, a West L.A. nursing facility for the elderly; hoist her atop a shiny red Peter Pirsch pumper and ride her down to the station. The chief would present her with a citation as the daughter of one of the city’s first firemen. To cap the day, Chippendale’s had a special evening planned for one of its favorite clients--”if I live that long,” Nora laughed.

In a telephone interview, Nora vividly recalled horse-drawn wagons, firemen’s poles, wild rides “with nothing to hold onto” behind her father, first in Springfield, Ohio, then in Culver City, “a nice little town in the middle of nowhere.”

Nora looked forward to the fire-engine ride to the Chippendale’s do: “I’ve been raising hell all my life,” she said, “and I’m not about to stop now.” She did stop, though. We all do.

Nora died nine hours before the ride, 70 minutes shy of her 95th birthday.

After the news, we replayed Nora Page’s last tape. “Never missed a fire,” she brags, loud and clear. “Never missed much, really. At least nothing worth while.”

Amen.