Old Postcard Wednesday--Queen Elizabeth II greeted at gala party by Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, and George Burns

With the upcoming royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton two days from now it was easy to select the old postcard for this week. Here is a 56-year-old Queen Elizabeth shaking hands with 67-year-old Frank Sinatra. Behind her is Nancy Reagan, then 61, and 58-year-old George H.W. Bush, chatting it up with 87-year-old George Burns, who died in 1996. Sinatra died two years after Burns, in 1998. Perry Como, age 70 in this image, passed in 2001, and Ronald Reagan (out of view in this scene) died in 2004, although his days out in society ended ten years before then.

The Queen celebrated her 85th birthday on April 21, 2011. Her husband, Prince Philip, whose face is obstructed by the Queen in this image, will turn 90 this coming June. A month later Nancy Reagan will also be 90. George H.W. Bush will be 87 in June. Dionne Warwick is now 70......

They had their days in the sun and their evenings of star shine......

Now most gala parties are enjoyed by those who are a generation and more behind the celebrities in this scene. But the celebrations honoring the marriage of William and Catherine on April 29th will be multi-generational, and worldwide. We need this royal wedding as an escape from all that plagues us, a day of real-time make-believe, broadcast to an international audience of people who are worried, wounded, and worn out. I am actually grateful to William and Kate for being such brave ones willing to place their marriage in view of a world that both loves and loathes royalty and will gush one moment and gossip the next. I have a tender feeling for this pair (made stronger by the fact that she and I share a birthday), and I think that those in the Queen's receiving line in this old postcard certainly would also. In fact, they left behind some prescient musical and comedic messages for future lovers, some who will be future kings and queens. These videos are for Prince William of Wales and Catherine "Kate" Middleton; long may they love:

{Note added after initial publication: I do not know why, but sometimes the Perry Como vid appeared twice and the George Burns vid was excluded altogether. This weirdness was corrected when I refreshed the page. Also, my feeds were also all whacky Wednesday morning after publication -- so I have pulled it back, swapped my original Perry Como selection to a different one of the same song, and republished in hopes this will shock the system into seeing things my way! My apologies if it did not work...}


Perry Como:

This was my favorite song when I was a child. I sang it to myself often and 
believed in it, believed that it was possible to have a pocketful of starlight.


Frank Sinatra:



Dionne Warwick:



George Burns:

How George Met Gracie
George Burns tells the audience how he met Gracie Allen. This is a clip from 
The Burns & Allen Show. Several episodes are available at HoughsVideos.50Megs.Com 



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