Explain Mr. Blackwell to me please?

Cafe Society
1

Once a year he rears his head to spout off his list of worst dressed celebrities, complete with silly rhymes and crazy consonance, but not much is heard from him the other 364 days of the year. I suppose he does a “best dressed list”, but I don’t know for sure.

Is he qualified to do such a list? I mean, was he a top designer back in the day or something? Or is he just some loon who gets attention because he’s been trotting out his one trick for so long that people just put up with him, sort of like the cousin no one sees except for Thanksgiving time and who makes the same dumb joke at the dinner table every year (“Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat”)?

Will he be missed when he’s gone? Will he ever go away? Seems like he doesn’t even bother trying anymore. It’s not all that hard to put Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Anna Nicole Smith, etc. on a list every year and call a press conference to call them bad dressers.

2

He hit on a gimmick in the 60s and he’s been riding it for 40 years. I don’t think anyone pays attention any longer. I can’t even remember the last time I heard him mentioned.

3

I was surprised to see this is the 46th annual list. Weird.

4

I’m shocked, shocked! Attention paid in the trash media to someone trivial and stupid?

5

Anyone got a link? I, personally, love to make fun of people who dress worse than I do and spend a whole lot of money doing so. :slight_smile:

6

Remember when Harry Shearer used to do an impression of him? I think it was on Saturday Night Live during the time when he was a cast member. I always thought Shearer’s version, as ridiculous as it was, was more of a real human than the original.

I haven’t seen Mr. B’s latest list, but in the past I always got the impression that it was drawn from pictures that were printed in places like People magazine. He would declare someone “Worst Dressed” based on one unflattering outfit that the papparazzi happened to catch them in. Not clever, not funny.

7

Huh. I thought he was dead.

8

Actually, he does do a best-dressed list: 404 Not Found | wfmynews2.com

9

Google is your friend!

Here is a transcript of a radio interview he did 10 years ago, upon the release of his autobiography, From Rags to Bitches.

10

From the article linked above:

11

Here’s this year’s list.

12

Back in the fifties, Mr Blackwell (whose real name is Richard Selzer) was a fashion designer. But not a very successful one. In 1960, in an attempt for some publicity, he released a list of what he claimed were the worst dressed celebrities (the first list had nine women; every subsequent list has named ten). The list got a lot of attention although it didn’t really do much for Blackwell’s reputation as a fashion designer. But it was successful enough that he repeated it and it eventually became an annual event.

His original 1960 list:

Anna Magnani
Brigitte Bardot
Yvonne De Carlo
Lucille Ball
Anita Ekberg
Shelley Winters
Carolyn Jones
Kim Novak
Anne Baxter

13

So basically he just names 10 random popular celebrities, finds unflattering pictures of each one, and becomes a nation-wide celebrity himself.

Sweet gig.

14

Dibs on this gig when he dies. How much does he make?

15

A few years back, he included the First Lady (the US president’s wife) on his List Of The Ten Worst Dressed Women. The host threw his sorry butt off the set. I take my hat off to that.

16

It’s one of the definitions of genius: thinking of a simple idea before any one else thought of it.

17

Which First Lady?