[I EDITED; BUT THIS IS STILL JUST A SLEW OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS WITH THE ONLY CONNECTIVE THREAD BEING THAT THEY ALL APPEARED ON WHAT'S MY LINE] My grandparents loved What's My Line?, a TV game show that aired on CBS from 1950 to 1967, in which a blindfolded celebrity panel would question contestants in order to determine their occupations. The most popular portion of the show was when panelists were presented with a âmystery guest.â?  Along with Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Tyrone Power, Noel Coward, Stan Musial and Branch Rickey, the game show introduced TV audiences to: The Italian operatic bass, Ezio Pinza (1892-1957), who reinvented himself as the maile lead (Emile de Becque) in the original production of South Pacific. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtlk-I6Hz3c Pianist, Van Cliburn, fresh from rocking the world at the 1958 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lUFFZqXtoM Helen Traubel (1900-1972), the huge voiced Wagner soprano from St. Louis who went from Valhalla to Vegas with a second career in night clubs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wy3cqUQeGY Lily Pons (1898- 1976), coloratura extraordinaire, who sang at the Metropolitan Opera for thirty years and made movies with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. Pons defined glamour in opera. She defined glamour, period. Everyone knew her, if not for the opera then for her sexy ads for Pond's Cold Cream. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mlHDM_UMaE Woody Allen is on this panel, but not even he upstages the great Leontyne Price, fresh from opening the new Metropolitan Opera House in 1966: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpfOdXiYfhc And here is something a tad bizarre, but when was the last time you saw Seiji Ozawa at age 28. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8u6MoA7fv0 Are the days gone when classical musical greats appear on hugely popular TV shows, when they too were considered part of "popular culture?"
Christopher Purdy is Classical 101's early morning host, 7-10 a.m. weekdays. He is host and producer of Front Row Center – Classical 101’s weekly celebration of Opera and more – as well as Music in Mid-Ohio, Concerts at Ohio State, and the Columbus Symphony broadcast series. He is the regular pre-concert speaker for Columbus Symphony performances in the Ohio Theater.