Theme: Center Parting - as the hint clue explains the four theme answers reveal a hair-related word at the start and the end of each one.
17A. 1949 Olivia de Havilland film : THE HEIRESS. She won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.
25A. Home of the Clinton Presidential Library : LITTLE ROCK. It's a pretty spectacular bulding:
36A. Bead in a necklace : CULTURED PEARL. As opposed to ignorant ones?
49A. Sam's Choice, e.g. : STORE BRAND. I rarely shop at Wal-Mart so this didn't jump out at me right away. The theme definitely helped me get this one.
59A. Nitpick, and what this puzzle's circled letters represent : SPLIT HAIRS
Maidin Mhaith to you all; I thought I'd exercise my Irish a little this morning! I know some of you won't have had the circles printed in your particular newspaper but I don't think they were necessary for the theme to become apparent. I thought this was going to be very tricky - on my first pass I was drawing lots of blanks until I got to the SW, and then things started to fall into place.
It didn't help that I always forget whether Reba McEntire or Kelly Ripa was Regis Philbin's co-host, and I also forget that the clue will indicate whether we're looking for the first or the last name, so that left me pondering the last few letters of the fill for a couple of minutes, especially with crosses that were also unknowns.
Let's see what else we've got:
Across:
1. 10% donation : TITHE
6. "12 Angry Men" actor : COBB. Lee J. was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
10. Credit card bill nos. : A.P.R.'S. The Annual Percentage Rate. Some credit cards have extraordinarily high ones.
14. Lucy's landlady : ETHEL
15. __ code : AREA. 818 in my case.
16. Sodium hydroxide, on a chem test : NaOH. Sodium's symbol "Na" comes from the Latin Natrium, which begs the question why we didn't name just the element that?
19. Kathryn of HBO's "Oz" : ERBE. No idea. Perps.
20. Dermatologist's concerns : RASHES.
21. Rowboat propeller : OAR
23. "Where __ sign?" : DO I
24. Cold drink brand : ICEE. I only needed four crosses to nail this one.
29. White House tween : SASHA. I usually blank on the Obama's kids. More perps to the rescue.
31. Delightful time : GAS. I had GAY initially until BESOTS came along.
32. Singer Shore : DINAH
33. Pope of 903 : LEO V. Crosses needed to decide between the possible I, V or X choices. I'm assuming there weren't enough Leos to get up into L or C territory.
35. Van Cleef & __: French jeweler/perfumer : ARPELS. Perps. Never head of this partnership. Interesting-looking watches though.
40. Small sword : RAPIER. Small as in slim, not short.
41. Corduroy ridges : RIBS
42. "__ Is Born" : A STAR. Barbra Streisand's Emmy-winning "Evergreen" was the theme.
43. Double-helix molecule : DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid is a bit of a mouthful, but it does have an elegant structure.
44. Coke and Pepsi : SODAS. Could easily have been COLAS also, so I waited for the crosses. Lots of waiting for crosses for me today.
52. Dramatic opening? : MELO. Was Romeo being melodramatic in 55A?
53. Blackguard : CAD
54. Small pop group : DUO
55. When, in Act III, Romeo cries, "O, I am fortune's fool!" : SCENE I
57. Course for Crusoe?: Abbr. : ANAG. I was wondering which direction Crusoe would have sailed to get from Chile to Más Atierra, and then realized Oh! Course is the anagram of Crusoe.
62. Actor Jared : LETO
63. What NHL shootouts resolve : TIES
64. Mountain ridge : ARÊTE
65. Galley order : STET. Enjoyed the misdirection here. Galley proofs are edited before going forward to final typesetting and publication.
66. Sound that fits this puzzle's theme : SNIP. "Bonus" tie-in.
67. Outmoded : PASSÉ
Down:
1. Shape-fitting game : TETRIS, This was all the rage at one time. I never played it, but I knew people who spent hours and hours playing it. It is credited with driving sales of the hand-held Nintendo Game Boy.
2. Cayuga Lake city : ITHACA.
3. Ph.D. hurdles : THESES
4. Dastardly chuckle : HEH HEH. Dick Dastardly's dog Muttley has the best chuckle:
5. Gen. Robert __ : E. LEE
6. Train unit : CAR
7. Mineral resource : ORE
8. Stupefies with drink : BESOTS. This was interesting - I'd never thought of it in this context before; I'd always associated BESOT with falling hopelessly in love.
9. __ metabolic rate : BASAL. Used to calculate how many calories your body burns when at rest.
10. "Wheel of Fortune" buy : AN "E"
11. The president, vis-à-vis one Thanksgiving turkey : PARDONER. I always think it's odd that the president "pardons" a turkey - it's not as if the turkey did anything wrong! At school we studied Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale - I can still remember the opening lines:
"In Flanders whilom was a company
Of younge folkes, that haunted folly,
As riot, hazard, stewes, and taverns;"
12. Autodialed electioneering tactic : ROBOCALL. Learning moment for me - I didn't know this word.
13. Arab tribal leaders : SHEIKHS. I stopped short after "SHEIK--" - I couldn't figure out why there were two spaces left and only one S in my hand!
18. Map speck: Abbr. : ISL. You can't get much more of a speck than this - the world's smallest populated isle (in Rhode Island).
22. Right, as a wrong : REDRESS
26. Lab assistant of film : IGOR. This clip from "Young Frankenstein" explains the correct pronunciation:
27. Greek café : TAVERNA
28. Longtime Philbin co-host : RIPA
30. Took in or let out : ALTERED
34. Andorra's cont. : EUR. Andorra's also a bit of a map-speck in Europe.
35. Msg. to the whole squad : A.P.B. The All-Points Bulletin usually contains details of a suspect to be detained if seen.
36. Hand-held clicker : CASTANET. I couldn't get the "people counter" clicker out of my mind for quite some time.
37. Current : UP-TO-DATE
38. Perjurer : LIAR
39. Gorilla observer Fossey : DIAN
40. "Good Lovin'" group, with "the" : RASCALS. I wasn't familiar with this song, nor the group.
43. Stop by unannounced : DROP IN
45. 1998 British Open champ Mark : O'MEARA. He beat Brian Watts by two strokes in a four-hole playoff.
46. Declares untrue : DENIES
47. Warnings : ALERTS
48. "That's quite clear" : SO I SEE
50. Some gallery statuary : BUSTS
51. Summer hrs. : D.S.T. It always makes me smile that there is somehow a way to "save" daylight by shifting the clocks around by an hour.
56. English guy : CHAP
58. Caught on to : GOT
60. Floral chain : LEI
61. AOL, e.g. : I.S.P. Internet Service Provider. We seem to have seen this a lot recently.
That's about it from me. As the sari saleslady said to her customer - "It's a wrap!"
Steve
