Sybil Bruncheon’s “What Ever Happened to???..... Lady Elaine Fairchilde??”...
True Story! Lady Elaine Fairchilde from "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" fame fell on fairly hard times after the passing of Fred Rogers and the end of the series. Her drinking problem had been obvious for years, even to the pre-K crowd. Children who visited the set complained that Fairchilde "smelled funny" and would say strange words ...backwards. Her on-air make-up had become more erratic or non-existent, and her complexion began to be more disturbing and even repulsive. At one point, an unruly stagehand pinned a large picture of Karl Malden on her dressing room door with a note stating that her "twin brother" was coming for a visit! The cast was very excited until it was revealed that it was a prank....and that Karl Malden in fact was prettier.
Fairchilde was often claimed to be the illegitimate child of J.P. Morgan and Carry Nation.... After the series ended, she offered to do after-school recitals and safe-sex shows for grade schoolers using poodle-balloons and confetti guns, but the U.S. Department of Education barred her for life from appearing within a 100 yard radius of any school ....even obedience schools for pets.... She now lives quietly in The Screen Actors Retirement Home For Novelty Performers & Actresses Made Out Of Alternate Materials. She is estimated to be 118 years of age, but only because a tree surgeon counted the rings in her leg when he reattached it after her drunk-driving accident last year. She enjoys collecting paperweights with embedded insects, reciting haikus about crumbled leaves, and baking cookies for The Paul Bunyan Trade School Fair. Her boomerang has been confiscated….permanently.
(postscript: This bulletin just in. It appears that Lady Elaine Fairchilde may have had a checkered past as a young…er…woman, whatever, in Hardscramble, North Dakota. It seems she was an inveterate shoplifter of discounted lip sticks, rosacea concealers, spackle, and Crayola crayons at the local Woolworth’s and spent much of her teen-age years in the Fargo Reformatory for Inconsiderate & Disquieted Ladies. After her release at 21 years of age, she began a downward spiral of abusing alcohol and/or drugs, possibly absinthe, mescal (including the worm!), and crème de menthe either drunk or snorted along with crack cocaine, heroin, and Lemon Pledge.)
.
