Alaska
When a TV star arrived up in 1970 Anchorage to record a commercial, the whole town showed up
Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.
On Dec. 14, 1970, the portly, hirsute Sebastian Cabot, star of the long-running “Family Affair” sitcom, exited his plane and entered the Anchorage airport where a throng of waiting fans immediately engulfed him. The actor was in town to record a commercial for the Hotel Captain Cook, and his arrival had been trumpeted for days with large advertisements printed in the local newspapers.
Anchorage had been the largest city in Alaska since its 1940s military buildup and construction boom, but cultural relevance was something apart and slower to obtain. In 1970, Anchorage had only just begun to acquire some of the touchstones long since familiar to significant Outside cities. The first live satellite broadcast here was the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969. The next such live broadcast was a Jan. 3, 1971 NFL playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys. The first McDonald’s here opened in the summer of 1970, but the first local multi-screen movie theater was still two years away. It would be more than a decade before Anchorage had an arena nice enough to entice major performing artists, those not content to play at a high school. So, a visiting TV star was like an unexpected holiday in 1970 Anchorage.
The London-born Cabot had acted for years before unexpectedly finding popular acclaim with a television comedy. There were minor movie roles and guest appearances on shows like “Bonanza,” “Beverly Hillbillies,” “My Three Sons,” “Red Skelton Hour,” and “The Twilight Zone.” Then he won the breakout role on “Family Affair,” which aired from 1966 to 1971. Longtime residents might recall it playing on KTVA Channel 11. He played Mr. French, an effete manservant for a committed bachelor. When the bachelor’s nephew and two nieces are sent to live with him, Mr. French became a combination butler and nanny. Heartwarming comedy ensued.
The Mr. French role was of a once common trope, the butler or nanny to an extended or found family. Later examples include Robert Guillaume as Benson on “Soap” and its spinoff “Benson,” Christopher Hewett as Mr. Belvedere on “Mr. Belvedere,” and Fran Drescher as the nanny on “The Nanny.” Indeed, television butlers were once so prominent on sitcoms that it raises the question: were butlers ever common in upper middle- and higher-class American families? Long ago, yes. In recent decades, including when these shows aired, not so much.
Younger media consumers are more likely to recognize Cabot from his voice. He was Sir Ector and the narrator in the 1963 animated Disney feature “The Sword in the Stone,” which was coincidentally playing at the Fourth Avenue Theatre when the 1964 Good Friday earthquake struck. Arthur was not pulling Excalibur from the stone when the quake hit, despite an enduring urban legend. Cabot was also Bagheera in the 1967 “Jungle Book.” And he was the narrator for several 1960s and 1970s “Winnie the Pooh” films.
Cabot was in Anchorage, his first visit to Alaska, to shoot a commercial for the Crow’s Nest restaurant at the Hotel Captain Cook. Management there chose Cabot for two main reasons. First, his urbane public persona mirrored the sort of mannered, high-end clientele they sought. In other words, they wanted the rub, the positive association with some as obviously cultured as Cabot. He had already recorded several radio commercials for the hotel. Second, he was willing to travel to Anchorage in December. Preferences and practicalities rule all our lives.
The Hotel Captain Cook was constructed in a downtown Anchorage devastated by the 1964 earthquake. The original building and the Crow’s Nest opened in 1965. The second and third towers were completed in 1972 and 1978.
Upon Cabot’s arrival, fans noted he seemed notably older in appearance and shorter than expected. The quality of television broadcasts then hid many a blemish and wrinkle. And production magic continues to make many actors seem taller than they are in reality. More importantly, he acted like a generous star, professional and kind to everyone he met.
He landed Monday evening with his wife Kay and their 13-year-old daughter Yvonne. On Tuesday, he appeared at the Jesse Lee Home and elsewhere around town. On Wednesday, he and family enjoyed a flight to Talkeetna where they lunched. Back in Anchorage that afternoon, he signed more than 1,000 autographs at a public event in the hotel’s Discovery Room. That evening, he charmed the local press at a cocktail party. The event featured hors d’oeuvres personally prepared by Cabot, who had worked as a chef before the acting career took off. He also shopped for some of the ingredients and was shocked at the fresh vegetable prices.
His Wednesday schedule focused on the commercial shoot, but he found time to try mushing. Unsurprisingly, he struggled and was dumped on his rear at the first turn. His daughter, however, ran her six-dog team around the course with little issue. Work and fun concluded, the family returned home that Thursday.
The commercial thankfully survives as a record of this time. A young, fashionable couple visiting the hotel for a meal at the Crow’s Nest enter and encounter Cabot several times. He is exiting an elevator when they arrive. At the entrance to the restaurant, he is the maître d’. As the increasingly bewildered couple is led to the table, they pass Cabot as the bartender and are then greeted by Cabot as the waiter. The commercial cuts to the kitchen to reveal Cabot as the chef.
Cabot, of course, narrates. “There are some of us who simply do not enjoy the barbarism of rolling up our shirtsleeves and digging into a meal as if it were an excavation site.” Instead, Cabot suggests, “Take your regal appreciations to the Crow’s Nest of the Captain Cook Hotel. Besides the lavish dinner and wine menu, the Crow’s Nest offers a kind of aestheticism that you simply don’t often find in the colonies.” Yes, the term “colonies” stands out for its inclusion in a scripted commercial intended for an American audience.
Mike Ellis Advertising and Public Relations produced the commercial. While four and a half hours were scheduled for Cabot’s scenes, the crew completed shooting in less than half that. The director, Darrell Comstock, said, “Cabot was high professional. Many times we did just one take of a scene. He knew what was wanted and did it.” The Daily News quoted an unnamed crewmember: “Very pleasant, professional, not stuffy, competent, a real guy.” The couple there for dinner in the advertisement were filmed separately, later.
Most local commercials, particularly from before the internet, are now lost media, perhaps more so in Alaska than elsewhere. Copies, if they exist, are forgotten in closets and basements, or incidentally captured on similarly forgotten VHS recordings. More likely, any copies were long since trashed, taped over, or taped over and trashed. Anchorage’s lost media treasures currently include commercials for No Frills furniture and Mafia Mike’s Pizza Parlor, the original version of the local Pizza Hut jingle (“337-2-3-2-3”), the legendary 1989 match between Mr. Perfect and Bret “The Hitman” Hart at the Sullivan Arena, or anything Cal Worthington got up to. If you are sitting on a stash of local broadcast recordings, please reach out.
Still, there are the occasional surprise discoveries. The Cabot commercial for the Crow’s Nest was found on a VHS tape recovered from a dumpster and sold on Facebook, making its way to Elizabeth Kell and Kevin Allen of the YouTube channel Taku for Two, which is devoted to recovering and archiving analog media on Alaska. Kell and Allen digitized and preserved this odd little moment of local cultural history. Thus, old memories are recovered and new experiences are made.
• • •
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
• • •
The Anchorage Daily News welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
Alaska
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan’s primary challenger who has the same name is eligible for ballot, judge rules
A man with the same name and party affiliation as Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is eligible to challenge the senator in the August primary, a judge ruled Friday.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews’ ruling overturns a June 15 decision by Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher to disqualify the challenger and keep him off the primary ballot. Matthews’ ruling can be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
Attorneys for the state have said Tuesday is the deadline for a final ruling so that ballots for the Aug. 18 primary can be printed.
The judge ruled that the division’s decision to exclude Dan J. Sullivan because his candidacy was not “in good faith” was not based on the Constitution, Alaska law or the division’s own regulations. The retired teacher from the small fishing community of Petersburg filed to challenge the incumbent.
“Instead, the decision was based upon a new, previously unstated, ‘good faith’ criteria,” the judge wrote.
The division is appealing the decision, Sam Curtis, a spokesperson with the state Department of Law, said by email Saturday. Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney for Dan J. Sullivan, said in an email he expected the division to appeal and couldn’t comment until the Alaska Supreme Court rules on the case.
The controversy over the two Dan Sullivans has underscored the stakes involved in the incumbent’s reelection campaign. The Alaska race is one of about half a dozen U.S. Senate races expected to be highly competitive in the fall, and the seat is one Democrats are trying to flip in their efforts to try to regain the majority. But it’s expected to be an uphill battle in a state that President Trump won by 13 points in 2024.
The senator and allies, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have condemned the challenger’s efforts to join the race, arguing his presence could confuse voters. Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom earlier this month opened an investigation into the non-Senator Sullivan’s candidacy.
Under Alaska’s election system, the top four candidates from the primary, regardless of party, move on to the ranked-choice November general election.
The senator has accused the challenger Sullivan of working with Democrats and the campaign of Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola — who is considered the senator’s main opponent — to cause confusion and boost Peltola’s chances. The sitting senator brought the situation to reporters’ attention at the Capitol earlier this month, accusing Democrats of being “complicit in trying to trick Alaskans” to “rig an election in their favor.”
Peltola’s campaign and state Democrats have denied the allegation, as has the challenger.
Sen. Sullivan and Peltola are the highest-profile candidates in the crowded race and the only ones to report raising any money.
Beecher has said she determined the challenger Sullivan is not eligible to run because his candidacy was not filed in good faith and instead was done with an intent to confuse voters. She said he had registered to vote as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and, in conjunction with his candidacy, changed his party affiliation to Republican. She also cited similarities between his campaign website and the senator’s, and his work with a consultant whose clients have included some Democrats. She did not mention finding any evidence of alleged coordination.
In arguing to keep the challenger disqualified, attorneys for the state pushed back on suggestions the ballot could be designed in a way to reduce voter confusion over two candidates with the same name and party running for the same office.
“The Constitution does not require States to place a sham candidate on the ballot and then attempt to mitigate the damage through design choices,” attorney Rachel Witty, with the Alaska Department of Law, and outside attorneys Christopher Murray and Michael Francisco wrote in court filings.
Attorneys for the challenger Sullivan argued that the Constitution lays out three exclusive qualifications for the Senate, addressing only age, citizenship and residency. They said Beecher lacked the legal authority to boot their client off the ballot.
The challenger Sullivan has said that sharing a name and party affiliation with the incumbent gave him “an instant megaphone.” But the 69-year-old retired teacher and former U.S. Forest Service employee said he had considered a run for some time and had grown frustrated with the senator.
He initially was certified on the state’s candidate list as Dan J. Sullivan, with the senator listed as Dan S. Sullivan and identified as the incumbent.
America 250 Baked Alaska
Delmonico’s
In the conversation about the world’s greatest steakhouses, Delmonico’s is always among the shortlist of names.
The Lower Manhattan institution is a destination for New Yorkers and tourists alike, an attraction as much as a restaurant. First opened in 1837, it is widely recognized as America’s first fine-dining restaurant. It was here that dishes that have become cultural symbols of this country as much as they are cuisine were born: the Delmonico Steak, Lobster Newberg, Eggs Benedict, and perhaps most famously, Baked Alaska.
Now, as the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, Delmonico’s is giving one of its signature creations, a dessert that’s as much a cultural symbol as it is a sweet ending, a patriotic makeover.
On July 4, the restaurant will debut the America 250 Baked Alaska, a reinterpretation of the classic dessert that celebrates both the nation’s history and North America’s native ingredients. The striking red, white, and blue confection has already earned the nickname “America’s Birthday Cake.”
The dessert was created by acclaimed pastry chef Miro Uskokovic of Hani’s Bakery + Cafe in the East Village, who also serves as Delmonico’s consulting pastry chef. While his interpretation is rooted in the original version, he has reimagined it with a distinctly American theme.
Pawpaw, the largest fruit native to North America, becomes a rich ice cream. Wild blueberry lemonade sorbet adds a bright, tart layer, while pecan cake- made with the only major tree nut indigenous to North America- forms the base. Mixed berry jam, toasted meringue, and fresh seasonal berries complete the dessert.
The cone-shaped presentation also pays tribute to history.
The original Baked Alaska dates to 1867, when the legendary French chef Charles Ranhofer, who headed the kitchen at Delmonico’s in the late 19th century, created the dessert to commemorate the United States’ purchase of Alaska from Russia. Epicurean lore goes that Ranhofer originally called the dessert “Alaska, Florida,” highlighting the contrast between frozen ice cream and warm toasted meringue. He later featured elaborate mountain-shaped versions in his 1894 cookbook, “The Epicurean.”
Today, nearly 160 years later, Delmonico’s is revisiting that theatrical presentation while looking ahead to its next chapter.
“This dessert is a piece of American history,” says Dennis Turcinovic, owner and executive culinary partner of Delmonico’s Hospitality Group. “Delmonico’s has never just served food. For nearly 190 years, it has served hope, opportunity, and the American dream. Today, we’re celebrating that with our red, white, and blue Baked Alaska.”
For Uskokovic, it’s both a history lesson and a celebration.
“America’s 250th anniversary presents an opportunity to celebrate not only our nation’s history, but the evolution of American cuisine,” he said in a release announcing the dessert. “We wanted to revisit one of the most important desserts in Delmonico’s history while showcasing ingredients that are uniquely American.”
According to a release, the dessert will be available as a serving for two for $40, with production limited to just 10 each day because of its labor-intensive preparation. Larger versions serving 10 to 12 guests can also be ordered for private celebrations.
The best part? For non-New Yorkers clamoring for a chance to try the dessert, the America 250 Baked Alaska is here to stay as a permanent fixture on the menu. And when Delmonico’s Reserve, the brand’s upcoming Midtown Manhattan restaurant, opens next year, New Yorkers and visitors alike can order it there.
-
Movie Reviews6 minutes agoA New Dawn Anime Film Review
-
Lifestyle56 minutes agoSunday Puzzle: That’s HOT!
-
Technology1 hour agoThe Cube is Jim Henson’s little-known proto-Black Mirror masterpiece
-
World1 hour ago33 rescued from Venezuelan rubble: Survival window desperately fading with nearly 50,000 missing
-
Politics1 hour agoWATCH: Biden appears confused about where to exit stage after Democratic gala remarks
-
Health1 hour agoCould ‘humanmaxxing’ actually help you live longer? Here’s what experts say
-
Sports1 hour agoWWE NXT The Great American Bash 2026 preview, predictions and more
-
Technology1 hour agoFBI warns Microsoft users about passwordless scam
