Thursday, October 15, 2009

O Captain! My Captain...Lou!

As most of you have heard, 80's wrestling kitsch sensation, Captain Lou Albano passed away yesterday at the age of 76. His wrestling career started in the 50's, gained momentum in the 60's as part of a tag team called "The Sicilians", rockin' the Italian cliches as their schtick (awesome), and by the 80's he was known as "Captain Lou Albano". Plus, he rocked a Hawaiian shirt like nobody's business!

Honestly, I don't even like wrestling, whether real or that fake WWF stuff. But I will remember him in the only way I know how: from his Cyndi Lauper days. I have sparse memories of him from the 80's, when I was a wee lass. But I recall his guest appearance in Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun video, playing her uptight father. I guess their bond was very tight and very real, because there used to be a rumor going around that they were really father and daughter. (Not true, of course.) Fact-o-rama: that video won the first ever award for Best Female Video at the 1984 Video Music Awards on MTV.

Captain Lou also appeared in Cyndi's video for The Goonies "R" Good Enough--I didn't know there was a video for the song until I bought the dvd of The Goonies movie. There's an option on the dvd to play her video and I was all "say WHA?". It's incredibly cheesy- terrible, even- but in a good way. I couldn't find any decent stills, so here's the video, chock full of crappy acting, kickass vintage clothing from the 50's & 60's, and of course, Captain Lou:




And from their very sweet photo shoot for Life magazine, September 1984:

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2 comments:

  1. wow...I thought it was Ron Jeremy that played Mario...anyways, its one of those people u dont expect to die..mario?!

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  2. Thanks for posting...I grew up in the 80's and loved the Goonies as well as the cartoon Hulk Hogan's Rockin Wrestling! I was So Sad to hear about Captain Lou.

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