He couldn't dance. He didn't sing. And he bungled jokes. His malaprops and mannerisms endlessly inspired comic impersonators. "Let's hear it for the Lord's Prayer," he once croaked, after a tenor had sung it. During a lavish encomium to the Supremes he forgot the trio's name and concluded lamely: "Here are the girls." Looking somewhat like a Great Stone Face transplanted from Easter Island to Broadway, he would rock back and forth onstage, hands across chest or clutching his kidneys, while in baleful voice he introduced a succession of comedians, jugglers, rock bands and animal acts.
If charisma were all that...
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