Abraham Lincoln Plays the Bowl in Form of Duke Russell

Duke Russell, my Hollywood correspondent, phoned me early on Friday morning, Lincoln’s birthday. I was still in bed.

He had told me he had liked my Lincoln column. “Best thing you’ve ever done,” he said.

Well, actually, Lincoln had written most of it. Hard to beat.

Duke said he was dismayed at the lack of interest in Lincoln’s birthday. He said he had called the mayor’s office and found that no celebration was planned. Neither were the major TV stations going to do anything.

Duke said he thought the city ought to take some notice of our greatest President’s birthday, even if Duke had to do it by himself.

That was exactly what he had decided to do, Duke said. He was going to deliver the Gettysburg Address in the Hollywood Bowl.

“All alone?” I asked.

“Yep. All alone. Unless you want to come.”

He said his daughter, Colleen, was going to come along and tape-record the event, and Duke was going to try to get some TV stations to show it.

Duke lives in Hollywood not far from Hollywood and Vine. He used to work on movie sets. Had something to do with lighting. I’ve never been sure. In 1948 he was a Dodger rookie, playing shortstop. In his hallway he has a Life magazine cover showing him standing among a bunch of 1948 Dodger rookies. Duke is a stylish man. He still has good moves. I thought he would make a good Lincoln. He is tall and gangly and has a long bony face with a prominent nose.

We had breakfast at a Chinese coffee shop on Larchmont and drove to the Bowl, where Colleen was to meet us at 10 o’clock. There were a couple of busloads of tourists shuffling around the park. We took the escalator up to the Bowl. Two groups of tourists were inside it, looking down at the empty stage. I saw a house perched on the rim of the hills above the Bowl. I wondered if that was where the man lived who blew the whistle on John Carradine. Carradine used to come to the Bowl at night and recite Shakespeare from the stage to the empty seats. However, his stentorian baritone disturbed a neighbor, and Carradine was obliged to give up his nocturnal recitals.

Colleen showed up exactly at 10 a.m. She teaches school at the UCLA Elementary School, but she had the day off. She wore a white sweat shirt and black knee-length leggings. She was packing a camcorder.

She was going to shoot Duke standing in the gallery with the box seats and the stage in the background. The tourists had gone. The Bowl was empty. She asked if I wanted to be in the picture, listening to Duke. I knew my bald spot would show but I obliged.

Duke cut a handsome figure in gray pants. a white shirt, a red, gray and blue necktie, and a blue blazer. Lincoln had been somewhat a comical figure as he rode from the town square to the cemetery on a horse that was too small for his long legs.

Duke read a brief prefatory remark, noting that “this is Lincoln’s birthday. Washington, D.C., Springfield, Ill., and other cities honor him. Los Angeles has forgotten him.”

He then proceeded to read the address from a volume of the Harvard Classics.

“Four score and seven years ago. . . . “

I wondered why Lincoln had chosen that orotund way of saying “eighty-seven years.” It was not like him to use unnecessary words. But mine is not to question an American classic--the most quoted 268 words in our history.

” . . . our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. . . . “

Though Duke spoke to an empty amphitheater, the force and fervor of Lincoln’s words came through.

” . . . that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

Duke’s reading took less than 2 1/2 minutes. Lincoln had followed the great orator, Edward Everett, who had harangued the crowd for two hours. The crowd numbered 15,000, about the capacity of the Bowl. When Lincoln sat down, they could hardly believe he was finished. Applause was tentative but respectful. The Democratic Chicago Times called the speech “silly, flat and dishwatery . . . the cheek of every American must tingle with shame.”

I clapped. It made a puny sound in the vast empty Bowl.

Colleen checked her tape and said it looked good. Duke was going to take it to various TV stations. Maybe both of us would be stars.

“Next year,” Duke said, “we’re going to have the March Field Air Force Band here. That’ll bring ‘em in.”

If Abe Lincoln isn’t remembered in Los Angeles, it won’t be Duke Russell’s fault.