korla pandit had a daily afternoon music tv show in LA back in the 1950s where he played his unique percussive style of hammond organ while mystical cloud projections passed in the background and the camera focused in on his dreamy hypnotic eyes.
so dreamy & hypnotic, in fact, that wealthy women started sending him really expensive gifts, like grand pianos. rumors began to circulate that pandit was actually hypnotizing women through the tv & the concern got so great that the station cancelled him and he was replaced by and up and coming pianist – liberace.
korla slipped into obscurity, eventually playing organ at silent film revival houses in LA until tim burton cast him for a cameo as himself in ed wood.
watch this on videosift.
Tags: 50s, dream, ed wood, hypnotic, organ, turban, tv, videosift
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I watched Korla Pandit on television all the time when I was between 5 and 10 years old in Long Beach, California in the early 50′s. I really liked him a lot. I’m unaware of the hypnotic claims, but who knows. Thanks for the memory.
ghraydon
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lucky you for watching that show in a real time. thanks for visiting.
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Hm, just wondering: where did you get the info on Korla’s show being cancelled over concerns of televised hypnotism?
Multiple sites simply claim that renewed contractual obligations were too oppressive and Korla intentionally refused to re-sign. These two sources say as much:
http://www.korlapandit.com/historyparttwo.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korla_PanditRegardless, despite the illegible design in the korlapndit.com site History page (copy the page text to a text program and read from there), it’s a worthy read to glimpse a fascinating career of a musical and visual pioneer in a heady time of TV, early Hollywood, and beyond.
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interesting! the story is from the description of this video on youtube – don’t know where that came from originally.
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