People: Art still does the darnedest things
During the past six weeks, Art Linkletter has sailed on the Queen Mary 2, flown to Washington, D.C., on business and traveled to Rome for a cruise through the Mediterranean, making speeches everywhere he went.
Today – his 94th birthday – he releases his 28th book, “How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life” (Nelson, $24.99).
And, yes, he plans a nationwide tour to promote it.
Linkletter has been on the move ever since he was born in the Saskatchewan hamlet of Moose Jaw in 1912 to a couple who promptly gave him away. He got a new name from his adoptive parents, a middle-aged couple named John and Mary Linkletter.
During his teen years he rode the rails in freight cars along with other Depression victims searching for jobs that didn’t exist.
After graduating from San Diego State University, where he was captain of the basketball team, he found his niche by staging shows at the San Diego and San Francisco world’s fairs in the late 1930s. That led to radio and then television.
He once had TV shows on NBC, CBS and ABC – all at the same time. The weekday “House Party,” which lasted on radio and television from 1945 to 1970, originated the memorable “Kids Say the Darnedest Things.”
These days, Linkletter speaks on three or four cruises a year, often accompanied by his wife, Lois. They’ve been married 70 years, which has to be a Hollywood record.
When he’s not on the high seas, Linkletter’s often in an airplane, averaging 60 speaking engagements a year.
Media historian Leonard Maltin theorizes that one reason Linkletter has been so widely embraced by the public for so many years is because “he always presented himself as Everyman. I think that was a big part of his appeal. People felt comfortable with him, both kids and adults.”
Linkletter, who looks and acts a good 20 years younger than his age, was asked the usual nonagenarian question: How does he do it?
“I believe that lifestyle is 70 percent of the answer,” he replies. “The genes account for 30 percent.
“I’ve never smoked. I don’t drink, never have. I get plenty of rest; usually I go to bed at 10 and rise at 7:30. I get lots of exercise. I start by working my arms and legs while I’m still in bed. Then I rise and I work out with 10-pound weights.”
Linkletter also gives credit to Lois: “I have a good marriage, which reduces a great deal of stress. I don’t think we’ve ever had a serious, name-calling, hurtful argument.”
Their union has produced five children, seven grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. Each year the clan gathers for a grand reunion at a vacation resort.
One daughter committed suicide, while a son was killed in an auto accident. But Linkletter has kept moving on.
“I’m not a Pollyanna thinker, but I am a positive thinker,” he says. “That makes you able to dismiss tragedies and failures and try again.”
The birthday bunch
Comedian Phyllis Diller is 89. Actor Donald Sutherland is 71. Actress-singer Diahann Carroll is 71. Actress Lucie Arnaz is 55. Actor David Hasselhoff is 54. Singer Phoebe Snow is 54. Christian singer Susan Ashton is 39. Actress Bitty Schram (“Monk”) is 38.