The Oldest Living Graduate images
While the Colonel lives much of his life in the past, he resists being targeted by his alma mater, a little Texas military school where he graduated before the turn of the century. His military memories are too clear and vivid (he's partially paralyzed, probably from the brain out rather than from the legs in). When he talks about his World War I experiences, it's the deaths of men and beasts that come out, I think the death of his own soul too. And the school's prize cadet, Whopper Turnbull, takes it all in, to the distress of the new commandant.
Ben O'Kelley is a wonderfully talented man who did impressions of other cast members. In suffering through the Colonel's grisly tales, his Whopper made a bridge between the old bastard and the audience. Maybe he functioned as the Colonel's psychotherapist too. It was a great experience working with him. And he could sing show tunes just like Ethel Merman, an inestimable gift.
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