Fans were weirdly attached to Rose Marie's bows on The Dick Van Dyke Show
It's one thing for an audience to recognize a performer by their face, but an entirely different thing for them to recognize an actor based entirely on an outfit. However, it seems that for some series, clothing is as important as any other part of the show.
Would Fonzie really be Fonzie on Happy Days without his leather jacket? Would Bonanza be as memorable of a series if it was devoid of any and all cowboy hats?
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Luckily, we never have to consider such possibilities seriously, but it's important to understand that the phrase: "The clothes make the man," isn't just an empty phrase.
Fame wasn't a new concept to Rose Marie when she began appearing on The Dick Van Dyke Show. A performer since childhood, Marie was known as "Baby Rose Marie," and had performed on stage and radio well before she even became an adult.
But once she became Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, viewers became so attached to Marie's character that they seemed to have some difficulty differentiating between the actor and the role.
Marie explained the situation in an interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette. She argued that, to a degree, the bows changed her life. Marie said, "First the hair bows, which as Sally on the show, I wear all the time."
While the accessories became a staple of Rose Marie's on the show, she hadn't realized just how important they were to viewers.
"Now if I forget to put one on in a show, we get letters asking what happened," she said. "I also get letters from people planning benefits asking if I'll send them some to auction off...Funny thing, when I was Baby Rose Marie, there were hair bows on the market then, too - and I never wore one."
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