The least we should be able to ask of the news media, since they obviously can’t be trusted to report the news competently, objectively or fairly, is to not make the public more stupid and ignorant than it already is. CNN’s Carol Costello, a prime offender in the incompetent and biased, can’t even clear this low bar.
This morning, as the networks interrupted their around the clock Robin Williams death coverage to note the passing of famed screen siren Lauren Bacall at the ripe old age of 89, Costello led her report by referencing Bacall’s “beauty, talent, and wit.” Her wit was represented by a clip of her famous line as “Slim” in “To Have and Have Not” (1944):
“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow. “
But this quote has no relationship at all to Bacall’s wit, and she was indeed witty. The line was written by Jules Furthman, or perhaps William Faukner, both credited with the screenplay, inspired by Ernest Hemingway, who wrote the novel and created the character Bacall was playing. A seven-year-old could have been just as witty, with these guys putting words in her mouth.
Incredibly, a ridiculous number of people really think actors are responsible for the lines they say on stage or on screen. This is, you’ll agree, idiotic and an embarrassment, and CNN should not be encouraging such a misconception.
And yet it did.
Ethics Alarms 
This misconception is not confined to the media. I remember Jack Klugman, whom I enjoyed as an actor, testifying before a Congressional committee, on some health issue; his “expertise” having been gained by playing a doctor on television.
Yes, and I have a post about this somewhere; maybe more than one. Drives me nuts.
Did CNN specifically say that the clip represented her wit? Perhaps it was her beauty and talent?
Yes. “beauty” (CLIP) “talent” (new CLIP) “wit” (“….just whistle.”) Thanks for making me clarify.
An example of her wit would be her reply to the Shah of Iran when he commented that she liked to dance. “You bet your ass Shah!”
I use that line whenever my husband makes an obvious statement.
Well, you’re right, in the main. Furthman/Faulkner created those lines (and created them very well) but, as with all scripts, they were just words on a page until Bacall brought them to life. I think, as an intrinsically witty person, she was able to call on that talent and turn them into a scene that will be forever associated with her. Still, you are right. Bacall may have refined those words some, but the fact remains that they were someone Else’s creation.
On a separate matter, an even more egregious example of celebrities being treated as experts on, well, just about anything they had opinions about was Meryl Streep. During the brief panic over Alar on apples and the threat that chemical MIGHT represent to our children, Streep, that well-known biochemist, was called on to testify before Congress. She had never performed as a biochemist, or even a scientist but, as a celebrity she guaranteed attention for those hearings. Why, is beyond me.
Very true, I see it a lot, I’ve been seeing it in tributes to Robin Williams. “So witty in (movie title)”. Is the line between real life and TV etc blurring for some people? When back to the US on one trip a few years ago, I heard three women in an animated conversation about what I thought was a friend of theirs. They were loud, and discussing what this person should do about their love life, in detail. It was getting heated! However, later in the day I heard the same conversation, same names, and it began to dawn on me that these women were arguing about the actions of a character on TV (this was when SATC was big, but it hadn’t made it here yet). I heard a lot more of it on that same trip, and thought it was really weird. Then, when I advised a niece that going Goth would perhaps limit her employment opportunities, she said ‘But Abby on NCIS is Goth and she has a good job!” I feel like screaming ‘A bunch of people sit in a room or in front of a computer and write that stuff! TV seems to be way too big a factor in people’s lives in the US, or did I just run into a bunch of TV addicts coincidentally?
Very true, I see it a lot, I’ve been seeing it in tributes to Robin Williams. “So witty in (movie title)”.
To be fair, in the particular case of Robin Williams, he is famous for going off script and getting on such a roll with his ad-libs that often it’s the words from the script that end up “on the cutting room floor”. It’s one of the things that set him apart from, well, every other comic actor there is.
–Dwayne
Yes, I was going to make the same observation. Williams was responsible for many of his own witty lines, and the screenwriters got the credit.
Yes, but there were a lot of people in the viewing audience who were under the impression that Williams ad-libbed everything. As one of the screenwriters from “Mork and Mindy,” once complained, “We wrote scripts and Williams followed them in a general sense. We didn’t just write ‘Mork does his thing for ten minutes.'”
Yes, and this is a general misconception that an amazing number of non-performers have. My theater company is doing a one-man Danny Kaye show recreation, and he was renowned as a spontaneous improvisational comic. The amazing actor who portrays him, Brian Childers, just visited the Kaye archives where almost all of his material was preserved. Most (though not all) of those spontaneous moments were scripted and rehearsed. I heard Joey Bishop rail on the radio, when Sinatra died, about the stories that the “Rat Pack” just winged their Vegas show. “Professionals don’t wing anything!” he grumped. “Professionals know how to make scripted stuff LOOK spontaneous.”
And thank God for small favors!! One of my favorite roles was that of Bob Ewell in “To Kill A Mockingbird”. And I am NOT a drunken, bigoted red-neck who may or may not have raped his own daughter. I am, however, a pretty good bad guy.