Let us also not forget Ricardo Montalban’s magnificent contribution to the clash of civilizations. You’ll recall Sayyib Qutb, the middle-class Egyptian who many decades ago paid a visit to the United States and was so disgusted by what he saw that he returned to the Middle East, became the intellectual heavyweight of the Muslim Brotherhood, and set off a chain that led from Zawahiri to bin Laden to Afghanistan and around the world. As I wrote here:
[Qutb] had the misfortune to be invited to a dance one weekend and was horrified at what he witnessed:
‘The room convulsed with the feverish music from the gramophone. Dancing naked legs filled the hall, arms draped around the waists, chests met chests, lips met lips . . .’
Where was this den of debauchery? Studio 54 in the 1970s? Haight-Ashbury in the summer of love? No, the throbbing pulsating sewer of sin was Greeley, Colorado, in 1949. As it happens, Greeley, Colorado, in 1949 was a dry town. The dance was a church social. And the feverish music was “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” written by Frank Loesser and sung by Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban in the film “Neptune’s Daughter.”
