PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY PRE-INAUGURAL GALA TELECAST MAHALIA JACKSON LAURENCE OLIVIER GG28665a

[Music] Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Nelson Riddle. [Applause] gentlemen. [Applause] Good. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Here we go. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Rockay. Hey, I'm going [Music] to walk you through my Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. They're over here. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Mahalia Act [Music] proud brought in bright star through the perilous. Oh my watch was so gall [Music] through the night that I'll play till there. Oh, say that ex away. Oh, the land of the free. [Music] I'm the bra. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. And I hope that no one will think it presumptuous for some of us in the entertainment world to have come here to pay tribute to the president-elect of the greatest nation in the world under the opaces of one of its greatest political organizations, the Democratic Party. We know it's a great party because who else could run up the debt of $2 million in three months without a cart blanch card? We haven't had too much rehearsal for the show because of the weather and such. It may be a little ragged, but four years from now, we'll really have it in shape. [Applause] Seriously, we hope you all enjoy yourselves tonight. We have some of the finest older talent in the country to entertain you. There's hardly anybody on this show young enough to get into the cabinet. Our performance will be over in a couple of hours, but the president-elect is going on stage for at least four years before an audience that has been known to bang on the desk with a shoe. We hope he's a smash. We wish him good luck and may God be with him. [Applause] To get on with our show, may I introduce Miss Betty Davis? [Applause] >> There was a time when the stock phrase to describe the extent of the United States was from the rock bound shores of Maine to the golden sands of California. But that obviously won't work any longer. Now it would have to read from the rockbound shores of Maine to the coral reefs of pure in the western Hawaiian archipelago 2 degrees east of the international date line. In much the same way, there was a time when the dimensions of political life were much narrower. The state of the nation was more or less the concern of career men. But in recent years, the people at large and especially the profession have taken an increasingly proprietary interest in the candidate, issues, elections, and the whole complex procedure of getting along with each other and the rest of the planet. The world of entertainment, show biz, if you please, has become the sixth estate, just as Hawaii became the 50th state. Nowhere is there better proof of this than right here tonight where so many representatives of the arts, writers, directors, producers, singers, actors, musicians, dancers, technicians, and Joey Bishop have come from so many parts of the country to express their happy involvement and solidarity as Democrats and Americans. But enough of this harmless fragidio and onto the program. Beyond the anthem that we have just sung, there will be very little of a serious nature on this program except for the first item. And not all of that will be solemn either. It's called Cloud Sandwich in four parts and was written and compiled for this occasion by Norman Cow. It will be performed by Mr. Anthony Quinn, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Mr. Sydney Poier, and Mr. Frederick M. [Music] For the hooping cheers we give him. N is for the uh knowhow the loader. F is for the phenomena which he is. I is for Eisenhower the previous tenant. T is uh for domain which we hope nobody gets at political banquet. Uh Z is for u uh uh secretary of health Mr. Abu Bakov. Uh G is for Jacqueline, the beautiful first lady. E is for Arizona, whose junior senator is thinking of us tonight. R is for the wrong shoes that Carolyn wore at the press conference. A is for the uh uh uh 11th cabinet post, meaning Adeli. L is for Eleanor Roosevelt, whom we dearly love. D is for the devaluation of the recount in Hawaii. K is for the cash we'll raise this evening. E is for um Alaska. May she do better next time. N is for the knack Jack has of making history. N is also for the knowledge in his noggin. E is for the um uh well, it's already stated above. Uh D is for uh Derry Truman. Uh Mary uh may he long give them hell. Y is for the wise of the Democrats. Long may they wave too. Put them all together. They naturally spell Lyndon Baines Johnson, vice president of the USA. Starting tomorrow. [Applause] [Music] Sir, ladies and gentlemen, I fear it may seem impertinent in me to address you, sir, on the subject of yourself and of your country, but I must humbly submit that to talk of anything else would seem irrelevant. Though I am here as a stranger, I am by no means one to your country, as I have known and loved it for more than 30 years. But to these festivities, I must be accounted, I hope, not in the worst sense, an outsider. That declenion almost places me like a visitor from another planet. And in that stratospheric position, I feel free and proud to take it upon myself to voice the sentiments not only of my country but of all countries in this world who feel most friendly towards you. I have this incident because of this precise moment and place. It seems I am the only means through which those forces can make themselves articulate. Also, quite simply, sir, because there seems nothing else that I can do, what do we regard we who see through the eyes of a stranger from another planet? We see a great high crust of Earth's surface in which exists stretches of almost incredible beauty, large areas of which are enriched by resources of every and most fabulous kind. We see these put to their most ingenious use by a people who must, whatever their private choice, must now exalt in the freedom of expression through which the man about whom the world is thinking tonight has been placed at their head. We see a great nation and we are happy and confident that they have picked a great man for the job. [Applause] A man in whom is vested not only every interest which exists from the rockbound coasts of Maine to the sun-kissed shores of you knowhere, but in whom is vested a tremblingly large proportion of the interests of the world. We see him entering these Olympian lists at a moment which must be as thickly crowded with hazards as any yet known to the history of civilization. May I say that we appreciate small word for such vast quantity the limitless wealth of energy, ingenuity, courage and understanding that he will need to exercise. We are grateful to America for a multiplicity of wondrous benefits to humankind. And at this moment we are grateful that world affairs have been provided with such a man and to him for being on the spot. May we outsiders sir greet and salute you in warmest respect upon your ascendancy to your mighty task. And we beseech you to be of good cheer. For we tender you strong heart, brave hopes, firm faith. [Music] Every four years there springs from the vote created by a whole people, a president over that great nation. I think the whole world offers no finer spectacle than this. It offers no higher dignity and there is no greater object of ambition on the political stage on which men are permitted to move. You may point, if you will, to governments based on prescription or on conquest, to separan legions and subject realms. But to my mind, there is nothing more worthy of reverence and obedience, and nothing more sacred than the authority of a freely chosen magistrate of a great and free people. And if there be on earth and amongst men any divine right to govern, surely it rest with a ruler so chosen and so appointed. [Applause] [Music] Let us Before the words and music say a good word for silence. Tonight on this eve of a new time, the same moon of all previous administrations looks down silent on all lands and parties. Man's most aspiring hardware is probes in space wheeled soundlessly through the heavens. The stockpiled atoms keep to their fevered orbits in a very secret silence. Grass grows quietly over grave of fathers of fathers in the womb of a 100 million mothers. The marrow of nations is tendered softly into being. And God himself, who makes no loud and brassy judgment, and who prefers our prayers to be clear of static, hears us through the patient hush of ages. Perhaps while the room is still silent, it might be well to beg a boon of him by whose grace in this world of dangers we meet in peace. Give us new skills against old adversaries, whether in the shape of men or the elements or wasting diseases of the body or corruption of the soul. Give us ever renewing strength and the wisdom to use it wisely for freedom's sake. Give us zest for new frontiers and the faith to say unto mountains, whether made of granite or red tape, remove. Give us the power and the passion to keep the peace so that the silences of this earth may not be those of final desolation but of abundance wholesome like the repose of healing sleep. Give us new days and new awakenings. Give us new cities to build and new people to fill them greatly.