Camelot

Kitty Kelley said she is providing the text to "Capturing Camelot," a collection of photographs from the Kennedy White House by Stanley Tretick, who died in 1999. (AP) Two shows sued Two black men are taking "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" to court with a lawsuit that claims the reality shows are blocking contestants of color from starring roles. Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson filed a federal lawsuit in Nashville Wednesday. It says the popular TV shows are engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination.

Kitty Kelley said she is providing the text to "Capturing Camelot," a collection of photographs from the Kennedy White House by Stanley Tretick, who died in 1999. (AP) Two shows sued Two black men are taking "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" to court with a lawsuit that claims the reality shows are blocking contestants of color from starring roles. Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson filed a federal lawsuit in Nashville Wednesday. It says the popular TV shows are engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination.

It might be hard to imagine an upside to a $3 million fire that destroys a thriving theater. Yet for those who've long admired North Shore Music Theatre's winning ways with musicals, that's the upshot of the July 14 conflagration that drove the company temporarily out of Beverly and into residency at the Shubert (courtesy of the Wang Center). City sophisticates now have no excuse not to check out this exceptional suburban contender, which ranks among the country's top regional theaters.

JOAN VENNOCHI'S column criticizing the Kennedy Library — for presenting what she views as an uncritical assessment of John F. Kennedy's presidency that glosses over alleged sexual misconduct in the Kennedy White House — demonstrates a misunderstanding of the library's mission ("Telling the real story of Camelot," Op-ed, Feb. 16). Administered by the National Archives, the library houses the documents and artifacts of the Kennedy administration and provides access to them for study and discussion.

PROVIDENCE — After “Monty Python’s Spamalot,’’ is there any way to present a straightforward production of “Camelot’’ — knights in shining armor, demurely veiled maidens, all the other medieval foofaraw — without triggering widespread snickering and eye-rolling? Probably not. So Trinity Repertory Company artistic director Curt Columbus may have had little choice but to come up with a different approach to the venerable Lerner and Loewe musical. However, Columbus has made a theatrical virtue out of that necessity by creating a first-class production of...

In an especially revealing essay in this collection, the late novelist William Styron tells of what he shared with another American literary great, Mark Twain. "Our early surroundings possessed a surface sweetness and innocence - under which lay a turmoil we were pleased to expose - and we both grew up in villages on the banks of great rivers that dominated our lives," Styron writes in "A Literary Forefather," a 1995 essay that originally appeared in The New Yorker. Styron was referring to the Mississippi River of Twain's Hannibal, Mo., and the James River...

JOAN VENNOCHI'S column criticizing the Kennedy Library — for presenting what she views as an uncritical assessment of John F. Kennedy's presidency that glosses over alleged sexual misconduct in the Kennedy White House — demonstrates a misunderstanding of the library's mission ("Telling the real story of Camelot," Op-ed, Feb. 16). Administered by the National Archives, the library houses the documents and artifacts of the Kennedy administration and provides access to them for study and discussion.

The CW has “Smallville,’’ about Superman as a teenage hunk, and now NBC has what amounts to “Camelotville.’’ “Merlin,’’ a summer series imported from the BBC, chronicles the early days of Arthurian legend, when the fledgling magician was still honing his craft. Essentially, the show is a portrait of the wizard as a young man, with the impossibly handsome Prince Arthur as his best frenemy and Guinevere - “most people call me Gwen’’ - as his possible love interest.

WHEN NEOPHYTE Ted Kennedy ran for the Senate in 1962, he squared up against Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. McCormack who warned that "the office of United States senator should be merited, and not inherited. " Ted's candidacy should be a "joke," McCormack argued, "but nobody's laughing because his name is not Edward Moore. It's Edward Moore Kennedy. " Kennedy beat the McCormack by a margin of 2 to 1. Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil. Joe Kennedy III has just jumped into the race to succeed Barney Frank and, let's face it, the contest is over.

IT'S GETTING harder to ignore the wide gap between Camelot mythology and historical reality at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The disconnect is especially pronounced as the library promotes its latest exhibit, a collection of Jacqueline Kennedy's letters. It's timed to the 50th anniversary of Mrs. Kennedy's famous televised tour of the White House and comes just as a White House intern from that era reveals the details of a private tour that she received from President Kennedy.

WHEN NEOPHYTE Ted Kennedy ran for the Senate in 1962, he squared up against Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. McCormack who warned that "the office of United States senator should be merited, and not inherited. " Ted's candidacy should be a "joke," McCormack argued, "but nobody's laughing because his name is not Edward Moore. It's Edward Moore Kennedy. " Kennedy beat the McCormack by a margin of 2 to 1. Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil. Joe Kennedy III has just jumped into the race to succeed Barney Frank and, let's face it, the contest is over.

IT'S GETTING harder to ignore the wide gap between Camelot mythology and historical reality at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The disconnect is especially pronounced as the library promotes its latest exhibit, a collection of Jacqueline Kennedy's letters. It's timed to the 50th anniversary of Mrs. Kennedy's famous televised tour of the White House and comes just as a White House intern from that era reveals the details of a private tour that she received from President Kennedy.

Editor's note: This article first appeared in The Boston Globe on October 21, 1979. Dozens of those denizens who moved in and out of the Oval Office of the White House during the upbeat days of John F. Kennedy's presidency mingled yesterday on the wind-blown lip of land where the grandest homage to the era they shaped, the new Kennedy Library, now sits. The sedate ceremony of the dedication service was sandwiched, before and after, by the kind of affectionate hobnobbing and backslapping that characterized the JFK era. With the same emotional mix that accompanies a...

PROVIDENCE — After “Monty Python’s Spamalot,’’ is there any way to present a straightforward production of “Camelot’’ — knights in shining armor, demurely veiled maidens, all the other medieval foofaraw — without triggering widespread snickering and eye-rolling? Probably not. So Trinity Repertory Company artistic director Curt Columbus may have had little choice but to come up with a different approach to the venerable Lerner and Loewe musical. However, Columbus has made a theatrical virtue out of that necessity by creating a first-class...

The CW has “Smallville,’’ about Superman as a teenage hunk, and now NBC has what amounts to “Camelotville.’’ “Merlin,’’ a summer series imported from the BBC, chronicles the early days of Arthurian legend, when the fledgling magician was still honing his craft. Essentially, the show is a portrait of the wizard as a young man, with the impossibly handsome Prince Arthur as his best frenemy and Guinevere - “most people call me Gwen’’ - as his possible love interest.

In an especially revealing essay in this collection, the late novelist William Styron tells of what he shared with another American literary great, Mark Twain. "Our early surroundings possessed a surface sweetness and innocence - under which lay a turmoil we were pleased to expose - and we both grew up in villages on the banks of great rivers that dominated our lives," Styron writes in "A Literary Forefather," a 1995 essay that originally appeared in The New Yorker. Styron was referring to the Mississippi River of Twain's Hannibal, Mo., and the James...

Editor's note: This article first appeared in The Boston Globe on October 21, 1979. Dozens of those denizens who moved in and out of the Oval Office of the White House during the upbeat days of John F. Kennedy's presidency mingled yesterday on the wind-blown lip of land where the grandest homage to the era they shaped, the new Kennedy Library, now sits. The sedate ceremony of the dedication service was sandwiched, before and after, by the kind of affectionate hobnobbing and backslapping that characterized the JFK era. With the same emotional mix that accompanies a jazzman's funeral, the...

Jack Walsh was a relatively new Secret Service agent when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and he soon was assigned to protect Jacqueline Kennedy and her two young children, Caroline and John Jr. "Those were difficult times," said Jim Christian, a retired special agent in charge with the Secret Service. "The nation was in mourning, she was probably the most important person in the United States, and the country pretty much adopted the children. " The assignment brought Mr. Walsh more than the standard chores of missing his children's...

It might be hard to imagine an upside to a $3 million fire that destroys a thriving theater. Yet for those who've long admired North Shore Music Theatre's winning ways with musicals, that's the upshot of the July 14 conflagration that drove the company temporarily out of Beverly and into residency at the Shubert (courtesy of the Wang Center). City sophisticates now have no excuse not to check out this exceptional suburban contender, which ranks among the country's top regional theaters.