Tickets are now on sale for the Downriver Town Hall Lecture Series' 41st season.
As usual, the 2007-08 season will offer an eclectic menu of five performances full of laughs, insights, information and entertainment from celebrity guests you've known for years to others you might not have heard of before, but you'll be glad to get to know as they discuss their fields of expertise.
All of the Downriver Town Hall meetings will begin at 11 a.m. Thursdays at Crystal Gardens, 16703 Fort St., Southgate. Each guest takes the stage for about an hour, followed by a luncheon, during which the speaker takes questions from the audience.
This year's series begins with a face and voice familiar to TV watchers for generations, when Bob Eubanks comes to town Oct. 18.
Eubanks — who, incidentally was born in Flint — is best known for his many years as the host of "The Newlywed Game," which debuted in 1966. In an age when broadcast censorship standards were much stricter than today, Eubanks hosted the show with a constant air of mischievous double entendre, making the phrase "making whoopee" one of TV's all-time most popular euphemisms.
In 2001, T.V. Guide voted Eubanks one of the top five game show hosts of all time. He is a multiple Emmy Award winner and is seen every year at the Tournament of Roses New Year's Day Parade.
Prior to TV success, Eubanks was a popular radio personality in southern California. He was responsible for bringing the Beatles to Los Angeles for their first performance at the Hollywood Bowl, which launched a 20-year business venture as one of the West Coast's biggest concert promoters.
The series moves from the concert stage to the world stage when David Lampton comes to Downriver Town Hall on Nov. 8.
Lampton, founding director of Chinese studies at The Nixon Center and a professor of Chinese studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Relations, is a consultant to various government agencies and corporations and is devoted to enhancing mutual understanding among the peoples of the United States, China's mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
He has appeared frequently on network news programs and is the author of numerous books and articles on Chinese domestic and foreign affairs, most recently "Same Bed, Different Dreams," looking at the past 50 years of U.S.-Chinese relations.
Lampton will offer clear insights into the underlying causes of the sometimes dangerous problems experienced in the past and offer sound prescriptions for how to make the relationship more constructive in the future.
The series turns from the future to the past when author Robert Kurston comes to town Jan. 17.
Starting as a data entry clerk at the Chicago Sun Times, Kurston became a features writer there. His award-winning stories have appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine and other publications.
His book, "Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything To Solve One of The Last Mysteries of WWII," brings the reader 223 feet underwater to the sunken remains of a German U-boat located just off the New Jersey coast. His tremendous research combined with a great historical narrative style results in learning not only about the lives of the two divers who discovered the sub, but the dead sailors on the submarine, as well.
Culinary historian Alexandra Leaf will be the Valentine's Day treat when she comes to speak Feb. 14.
Author of the award-winning "Van Gogh's Table at the Auberge Ravoux" and "The Impressionists' Table: Recipes and Gastronomy of 19th Century France," Leaf is a former chair of the Culinary Historians of New York and a member of the advisory board of The New York Food Museum. She is a combination detective, cook, linguist and scholar: all valuable skills to trace the travels, mythology and preparation of what the world eats.
With her knowledge of culinary history, French literature and the art of the impressionist painters, Leaf will illustrate this rich and colorful time in France's history.
The series will conclude with a distinctively Irish flavor when Carmel Quinn takes the stage March 13.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Quinn is an Irish entertainer who has appeared on Broadway, television and radio since coming to America in the 1950s. She began her career in her native Dublin, singing with local bands.
After coming to America, the red-haired teenager appeared on the "Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts" radio program and won the contest. She became a regular on the show, singing and telling her funny anecdotes about her life, and then went on to appear as a frequent guest throughout Godfrey's television career, as well.
Quinn performed for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Her annual Saint Patrick Day concert at Carnegie Hall has sold out for 25 years and has become legendary. She has starred on stage in "Wildcat," "Finian's Rainbow," "The Sound of Music" and many other shows.
Tickets to the Downriver Town Hall Lecture series are by subscription only, and are $55 for the entire series. "Patron" membership is $85, and includes all five presentations, priority seating and recognition in the season's program booklet as a supporter of the Downriver Town Hall.
Tickets for the luncheons, which follow each lecture, are $10.50 for each show and can be purchased on an individual basis.
For more information on the Downriver Town Hall Lecture Series 2007-08 season or to buy tickets, call 1-734-783-9224.
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