Earl Long - Bill Dodd Analyzes Earl Long

Bill Dodd Analyzes Earl Long

Long's first lieutenant governor, the late William J. "Bill" Dodd, in his memoirs entitled Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics (named for Earl Long's "Peapatch Farm" in Winn Parish), assesses Long this way:

"He had no formal speech training, but he was a great, forceful, and effective speaker. He had no university background in psychology, yet he practiced psychology in his political life, which was his whole life. He had no training in either economics or governmental administration, yet as governor he was an expert in both. Somewhere along the line, Earl Long changed from an amateurish shoe-polish salesman and political camp follower into a sound businessman and excellent government administrator. Other governors . . . drew from their formal educational training and varied business and political experiences to operate the governor's office. But none of them surpassed old Earl in the politics of getting elected or handling the job after being elected."

Dodd said that Long "was as conservative as Ronald Reagan and as prejudiced as a Cyclops in the KKK about blacks, but he gave the state many liberal laws, was good to blacks, and strong for welfare. He called the women lobbyists in various groups "poor things who couldn't get enough at home" and "man-crazy nuts".

Dodd also repudiated the 1989 film Blaze about Blaze Starr, a burlesque performer who has an affair with Earl Long, played by Paul Newman, with Lolita Davidovich as Starr. According to Dodd:

Blaze has done much to distort the truth about Earl Long...He never loved Blaze or any of the many strippers and camp followers who came when he whistled...The vulgar language and lurid sex scenes are bad enough to get this movies rated too bad for young people. The unreality of the events and actions of Earl Long make it worthless as a true picture of Earl or Louisiana politics. On a scale of nothing to something, I would rate Blaze a perfect zero.

Yet, it was widely reported at the time that Earl Long, on more than one occasion, introduced Ms. Starr to the press as "the future first lady of Louisiana". Earl Long left her $50,000 in his will, but Starr refused to accept the money.