The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page D001

id Final The Palm Beach Post TC SECTION I THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010 PalmBeachPost.COm ACCENT CULTURE EDITOR: Larry Aydlette (561) 820-4436 pbaccentpbpost.com Natalie Portman trained for a year to play ballerina in film 'Black Swan' difficult to categorize, uz smith, 2d THE WALTZ KING Violinist Andre Rieu comes to the BankAtlantic Center. pulse. REVVED UP AT 90: Jazz gives Dave Brubeck more energy, 2D -u. LIVING WITH HOPE MAGENTA BLACK -7 'BABY, dying with dignity IT'S COLD But it's not about what you think it's about. By SCOTT EYMAN Palm Beach Post Staff Writer I really can't stay (But baby it's cold outside) I've got to go away (But baby it's cold outside) This evening has (Been hoping that you'd drop in) very nice (I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice) As headline writers around the country compete to come up with variations on Baby, It's Cold Outside, the crusading journalists at The Palm Beach Post want you to know the truth about the song, not to mention the phrase.

Like everything else in the world, it's got a tangential South Florida connection. But it has little to do with this week's blast of arctic air, or even the holiday season. "My father wrote that MARK DUNCANAssociated Press file photo THE AUTHOR, 2007: Elizabeth Edwards wrote two books about living with adversity, Saving Graces and Resilience. How Elizabeth Edwards defined her own legacy 0 song as a piece of special material for he and my mother to do at parties," says John Loesser, who runs the Lyric Theatre in Stuart, and is the son of legendary composer Frank Loesser Guys and Dolls, Loesser How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying) Frank Loesser's wife, Lynn, was a nightclub singer who had moved from Terre Haute, to New York in search of a career. She was singing in a nightclub when she met Frank Loesser around 1930.

The song itself was written in 1944, when Loesser and his wife had just moved into the Hotel Navarro in New York. They gave a housewarming party for themselves and when they did the number, everybody went crazy. "We had to do it over and over again," Lynn Loesser told her kids, See LOESSER, 3D B9kI' smmmWmmm By JAN TUCKW00D Palm Beach Post Staff Writer In the end, Elizabeth Edwards got one thing she desperately wanted: The last word. She was not defined by the dishonorable behavior of her husband, John. Nor was she defined by cancer, or the suffocating sainthood that often comes with cancer.

"Betrayed, sickly, saintly wife" was not going to be the first paragraph of her obituary. He does not get to determine her legacy. This mattered to her greatly, I know, because she said so on the Today show in June after she added an epilogue to her last book, Resilience. That epilogue was one way of having the last word, of writing her own "definition." We all deserve this, of course a legacy shaped by what we do, not what is done to us but not all of us manage it. It takes a strong dose of unromantic realism to get totally blindsided by your husband and still allow him the gift of your company.

I first glimpsed Edwards' pragmatic side when I read her foreword to Dr. Gordon Livingston's excellent self-help book Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now, in 2004 after her cancer diagnosis but before she knew of her husband's infidelity. Livingston is no sugar-coating Her Facebook farewell "The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like.

It's called being human. But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful." Elizabeth Edwards' post on her Facebook page Monday Frank Loesser in Hollywood in the 1940s. He was a famous songwriter who wrote many duets, including Baby, It's Cold Outside. SCOTT WINTROWGetty Images file photo WITH HER CHILDREN, 2007: In June, she said she wanted to live eight more years to spend time with Cate, Emma and Jack.

Emma and Jack were born after her son Wade's death in a car accident in 1996. shrink Edwards praised his "un-apologetic directness" which is clear throughout this book, with its lessons such as "Any relationship is under the control of the person who cares the least." If you read between the lines in Resilience, it's not too hard to see that John cared the least and Elizabeth mothered John a common behavior among See EDWARDS, 3D File photo See pictures of snow and chilly weather at our ClikHear blog: PalmBeachPost.comgocoldphotos INSPIRATIONAL TO THE END Local cancer survivors praised Edwards for her grace under pressure. One said it reminded her of Kristin Hoke's similar struggle. STORY, 3D IS w. Z.

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