Wrinkles & white hair: Proof that both Marks know how to live
Mark Dawidziak in 2015 looks so much like Mark Twain in the 19th
century that it’s as scary as “The Mysterious Stranger,” Sammy boy’s final,
unfinished novel about good and evil.
And, as time passes, Mark has to use less and less makeup to
achieve the imitation.
The photo is of former BJ and current PD entertainment critic Mark
at the Mark Twain House & Museum last week in Hartford, Connecticut. Mark’s
first visit there was when he was 16 and living in Long Island with his twin
brother and the rest of the family.
Mark and Sara did the show and Mark did the book-signings where he
once showed up as a wide-eye teenager.
Monday, Mark and wife Sara Showman, the famous showbiz couple from
Cuyahoga Falls, did a show and book-signing (Dawidziak's latest, "Mark Twain's Guide to Diet, Exercise, Beauty, Fashion, Investment,
Romance, Health and Happiness") at the Auglaize County
Public Library in Wapakoneta, Ohio. At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 25 they’ll
bring their show and book-signing to the Barberton Public Library.
Mark has been playing the other Mark for 36 years, starting when he
was 22. You do the math and, as our Mark says, blame genetics and you’ll see
why he doesn’t need much makeup to be on the mark as the other Mark.
Hal Holbrook is the most famous Mark Twain impersonator nationally.
But I suspect that Samuel Langhorne Clemens might have more trouble telling
himself for Ohio’s Mark than from the actor’s Mark.
Sammy was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835, but Dawidziak is
keeping him alive in brilliant fashion. He died in 1910 at his Redding,
Connecticut home, which explains why the Mark Twain House & Museum is in
Connecticut and not in Hannibal, Missouri, where Twain/Clemens lived from age 4
to 17. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. Alas, the report
of his death is no longer a great exaggeration.
Paula and I visited the Twain grave site (I like to visit birth,
workplace and graves of writers during our travels to 52 countries and 43
states). His wife, Livy, and their children Langdon, Suzy, Jean and Clara are
in the same row.
Nearby, we saw the grave of Ernie Davis, the first African-American
to win the Heisman Trophy in college football. Davis starred for Syracuse, was
drafted by the Washington Redskins and traded to the Cleveland Browns but died
from leukemia in 1962 before playing a down in the NFL.
Some of my favorite Mark Twain quotes:
“A lie can travel
half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
“God created war so
that Americans would learn geography.”
And, as my final
tribute to our Mark and Hannibal’s Mark:
“Wrinkles should
merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
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