Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/06/leigh-french-aka-goldie-keif-on-the-smothers-brothers.html
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When I was a kid I would sometimes see Tommy & Dickie Smothers on TV and I just thought Tommy was a dummy. I felt the same way about Sonny Bono. Looking at clips like this I can see that Tommy and Sonny totally got the joke and I didn’t. Tommy was a real talent. Check out his Carson impression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oghxf-HS6go
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Rob Reiner played a biker with hippie overtones on The Partridge Family.
The Committee had a lot of players who stayed well known. It seemed like a farm team for tv and movies, “rent a hippie” But I don’t think all of them were acting, they were part of the counterculture, who performed. Hamilton Camp was a member, but he was also a folk artist, writing Pride of Man which was a big song for Quicksilver Messenger Service. Howard Hesseman got roles on tv, like Dragnet, but was also a real DJ on one of the underground radio station. The list goes on.
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Leigh doesn’t have a ton of screen credits. A big fave of is an episode of I Spy that takes place in 1967 San Francisco. Yup. She plays a a hippie gal.
Cosby’s mom on the same episode warns him about eating too many sugar cubes to avoid gaining too much weight. Nothing like mixing spy stuff with LSD references.
Leigh also shows up in an episode or two of St. Elsewhere. As I recall she plays a switchboard operator.
While I don’t always recognize her by sight I always know her voice. Its always a delight to find her on screen.
It’s hard for me to express how much I needed this laugh today. Thank you.
I loved this bit and had kinda forgotten about her. She was not my decade, but my “straight” parents used to be glued to this show. I’ve seen most all of the reruns. It was really good to “go back” to this.
Tommy was the brains, and the driving force, behind that show. Truly an amazing thing. It’s too bad there isn’t network comedy like this today.
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I like plant plants… but human plants have never been my cup of tea.
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Oh Boy, the hippie look, it was a thing… I never par-took.
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“Goldie Keif”. . . because calling her “Mary Jane” would have been too obvious.
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It was later changed to O’Keefe at the network’s insistence.
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