Copy Editor Joe Westerfield recently came across a practitioner of a dying art. His report:
At a friend's party recently, there was a knock at the door. In walked a woman about four-foot-ten in a blonde wig. After a few whispers she ran over to the guest of honor and sang in her breathiest Marilyn Monroe voice “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.” That my friend was nothing like a president of anything nor that the woman was not a professional singer didn't matter. The point was the novelty, and the singing telegram was the hit of the evening.
Everyone was surprised to find that there was still such a thing as a singing telegram. My knowledge of singing telegrams seems to begin and end with “The Hardship of Miles Standish,” in which Elmer Fudd tries to sing “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” to Edna May Oliver. I can't even recall another scene in a movie with a singing telegram, and no one I knew ever got one. Yet somehow or other they just seeped into my unconscious.
I've since found out that Western Union offered them from 1933 to 1974. Since then several independent companies have been doing so.
Mini Marilyn, as she is known professionally, also plays several other characters. She works for Big Apple Singing Telegrams, the brainchild of Jon Shipley, which employs more than a dozen performers, mostly in the New York area, who sing at offices, parties, bars and restaurants. Other characters include a Mini Elvis, assorted chickens, belly dancers, gorillas and clowns. No Playmates? No Bunnies? Not quite but…
Mini Marilyn brings along a faux telegram with birthday greetings and/or lyrics as a memento. Most gigs go very well, but she offers one piece of advice: If you're thinking of proposing marriage to a woman, skip the telegram. Do it yourself-in person.
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You should note that this very week the following pictorial was posted in the Cyber Club:
http://cyber.playboy.com/members/magazine/classics/melani/