In Australia, Kerri-Anne Kennerley is the sort of effervescent B-list personality who inhabits morning TV shows, womens magazines and infomercials. She is the definition of a non-threatening, bland TV hostess. Which makes it rather surprising when I discovered today that a) she was part of the New York Studio 54 scene in the late 70s, b) she was married at the time to classic-era Stones producer Jimmy Miller, and c) she almost offed said husband with a rifle after suffering abuse at his hands for years.
This is like a dalek appearing on Game of Thrones, or David Brent showing up in Breaking Bad: they inhabit different realities in my head and I can’t assimilate them.
Any other examples? Here’s one to kick it off. In rural France in the fifties, WFGH Samuel Beckett used to give the young Andre the Giant a lift to school each morning. Apparently, they used to talk about cricket.
Jeremy Beadle set up Time Out Manchester in 1970 and managed a couple of rock festivals around then, I believe
Bickershaw, famously
There was a disturbing story on a recent “No Such Thing As A Fish” podcast about the time the presenter of the original Candid Camera prank show was on board a plane when it was hijacked and the other passengers were convinced it was just a wheeze and became more and more irritated at him as they waited for the reveal.
I can only imagine what sort of hell Beadle’s life was back in the day:
I’m down the supermarket and, arriving at the tinned spaghetti section, discover they only have hoops but no “alphabetti”. But then I see the GFAL star a little further up the aisle and naturally I scream “Beadle, you f***er! Get the alphabetti back out here you piece of sh*t! While I appreciate the potential televisual entertainment possibilities of your spaghetti-based prank, I have to be home in half an hour or it will be too late to feed the Gremlins”.