Although he was never a Hollywood favorite during his tenure, President George H.W. Bush did have many memorable moments captured on video, ranging from news sound bytes to political gaffes to parodies of his tenure.
The latter were particularly evident via Saturday Night Live, which did 22 sketches on the president.
Most of those involved comedian Dana Carvey, who did an impressive imitation of Bush 41s speech and mannerisms. President Bush was a good sport about it, actually appearing with Carvey and later inviting him to the White House. The two became surprisingly fast friends, as Carvey attests in the video above.
But President H.W. Bush also will be remembered for several other moments that captivated world attention, some of them statements that came back to haunt him, some of them eminently human foibles, others harsh Hollywood takes on his political maneuvers.
Here are a few of his most memorable moments.
His “Read My Lips: No New Taxes” statement:
Checking his watch during debate with Clinton and Perot:
His disastrous MTV News interview on a train after Bill Clinton played sax on Arsenio Hall:
The 2012 HBO documentary “41”:
Vomiting on the Japanese prime minister:
Launched Operation Desert Storm, which played out on TV screens, boosting CNN and credited by many with creating the 24-hour news cycle:
Broccoli ban on Air Force One: In 1990, Mr Bush famously banned broccoli from Air Force One, explaining, “I do not like broccoli… And I havent liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And Im President of the United States, and Im not going to eat any more broccoli!”:
Scathing portrayal by James Cromwell in Oliver Stones W:
One of the more unlikely alignments in Bushs life was his close personal friendship with the music manager and film producer Jerry Weintraub.The two became acquainted through Weintraubs wife, the singer Jane Morgan, who was a fixture in Kennebunkport, where her brother founded a playhouse and she often performed.
Though Bush seemed a quintessential WASP, and Weintraub was a Brooklyn-born and Bronx-raised Jew, the two forged a bond that seemed only to grow stronger through the Bush vice-presidency and presidency. They shared long, loose-jointed after-hours phone conversations, trading political and Hollywood gossip, and defying the expectations of those who thought Bush too prim for the likes of the freewheeling Weintraub, or Weintraub too raw for Bush.
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