Sunday, February 02, 2014
Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014)
Boogie Nights marked Hoffman's second film with Anderson following Hard Eight. They would team again in Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and The Master, which earned Hoffman an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor, his fourth overall. He also received supporting nods for Doubt and Charlie Wilson's War and won on his first try, his only nomination in the lead category, for Capote.
Though his film career only began in 1991, it proved to prolific. Once his fame and reliability grew, even if some of the films he appeared in weren't so great, I never saw him give a bad performance. A cattle call of some of my favorite Hoffman performances: Happiness, The Talented Mr. Ripley, 25th Hour, The Savages, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Moneyball and The Ides of March.
The performance perhaps closest to my heart was his turn as legendary rock journalist Lester Bangs in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. I also loved his work in two less well-known films: Owning Mahowny and Jack Goes Boating, a role he originated in the off-Broadway production and he also directed the film.
He appeared on Broadway three times and received a Tony nomination each time. His first came in the inaugural Broadway production of Sam Shepard's True West, where he and John C. Reilly alternated the lead roles at different performances. He earned a featured actor nod in the star-studded, highly praised revival of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night starring Brian Dennehy and Vanessa Redgrave. His third nomination came for taking on Willy Loman in a revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
RIP Mr. Hoffman.
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Labels: Arthur Miller, O'Neill, Obituary, Oscars, P.S. Hoffman, Shepard, Theater, Vanessa Redgrave
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Saturday, February 01, 2014
Maximilian Schell (1930-2014)
Schell received two other Oscar nominations in his film career as best actor: in 1975's The Man in the Glass Booth and as supporting actor in 1977's Julia. He also received two Emmy nominations for the TV films Stalin and Miss Rose White in the early '90s. He appeared on Broadway three times, the first time in 1958 in Interlock, the same year his first English-language film, The Young Lions, came out. His third appearance came in 2001 in a stage production of Judgment at Nuremberg, this time playing the role of Dr. Ernst Janning whom Burt Lancaster played in the 1961 film.
Shortly after his Oscar win, he joined the cast of thieves in Jules Dassin's 1964 Topkapi. The first exposure to Schell's work for many in my generation probably came from silly 1979 sci-fi flick The Black Hole. He also played the erstwhile villain opposite James Coburn in one of the lesser Sam Peckinpah effort, 1977's Cross of Iron. He appeared in many films and roles for television both in the U.S. and abroad, including a six-episode stint on Wiseguy.
He also directed, most notably the remarkable 1984 documentary Marlene, where Marlene Dietrich reflected on her life without ever letting herself be seen in her current state.
Of all Schell's roles though, I always maintain a soft spot in my heart for his role as eccentric chef Larry London in Andrew Bergman's great comedy The Freshman with Marlon Brando doing a pitch-perfect parody of his own Vito Corleone.
RIP Mr. Schell.
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Labels: Awards, Brando, Dassin, Documentary, James Coburn, Lancaster, Marlene, Obituary, Oscars, Peckinpah, Television, Theater
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Thursday, August 08, 2013
Karen Black (1939-2013)
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Karen Black occupied a singular place in movies, hovering in that rarefied atmosphere that placed her somewhere between character actress and star. It landed her roles in many of the decade's classics as well as some of its silliness (such as Airport 1975) As the '80s came along, more of her work came on television and in low-budget horror films, but her early work kept her a recognizable name. Black died today at 74 after a battle with ampullary cancer diagnosed in 2010.
Born Karen Ziegler in Park Ridge, Ill., the actress attended Northwestern University before heading east and attending The Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg. She appeared in several off-Broadway plays and as an understudy in the 1961 comedy Take Her, She's Mine starring Art Carney before making her starring debut in 1965's The Playroom whose cast also included Bonnie Bedelia and Richard Thomas. Her second feature film made a mark for many people when she joined the cast of Francis Ford Coppola's 1966 comedy You're a Big Boy Now starring Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn and Tony Bill, among others. She made lots of episodic television appearances until she gained noticed in the small role of a hooker named Karen who drops acid in a cemetery with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 1969's Easy Rider. Her counterculture journey continued the following year when she played the role of Rayette, the country-music loving waitress who becomes crazy in love with the alienated Robert Dupea (Jack Nicholson) in Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces. The part earned Black her sole Oscar nomination as supporting actress.
Black teamed with Nicholson again the following year, only Nicholson sat in the director's chair as she starred opposite Bruce Dern in Drive, He Said. She soon followed that by assuming the part of the Claire Bloom surrogate Mary Jo Reid or The Monkey opposite Richard Benjamin in Ernest Lehman's adaptation of Philip Roth's comic novel Portnoy's Complaint. In 1974, she joined Zero Mostel when he brought his Tony-winning role from Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros to the big screen co-starring Gene Wilder. That same year she assumed the role of Tom Buchanan's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, in Jack Clayton's version of The Great Gatsby starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow and the film won Black a Golden Globe for best supporting actress — and she did it in two dimensions! Finally, she completed 1974 by playing the scrappy stewardess trying to fly a crippled jumbo jet whose flight crew got taken out when a small plane crashed into its side in the funniest of the Airport movies, Airport 1975 (which I'll always love for having Gloria Swanson playing herself dictating her memoirs into a tape recorder as the plane is going down).
Black found herself busy again in 1975, beginning with the cult classic horror film Trilogy of Terror where she starred in three shorts all based on stories by the recent passed Richard Matheson. She also co-starred in John Schlesinger's film of the Nathanael West classic novella Day of the Locust. Her epic piece for that year though involved her first collaboration with Robert Altman in his masterpiece Nashville. Black played country superstar Connie White, filling the bill for another ailing star Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakeley), during events surrounding the political campaign of Replacement Party candidate Hal Philip Walker. In 1976, Black worked again with Nashville co-star Barbara Harris and frequent co-star Bruce Dern as well as William Devane to appear in what would be the final film of the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's darkly funny tale of crooks, con men and kidnapping, Family Plot. In 1982, she returned to Broadway under Altman's direction as part of the ensemble of Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Altman's impossible-to-see film version featuring Black came out later that same year. Aside from some notable television appearances, most of her post-1982 career has been in horror and science fiction, but Karen Black delivered so much great work when her career was hot, she won't soon be forgotten. RIP Ms. Black.
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Labels: Altman, Awards, Coppola, Geraldine Page, Gloria Swanson, Hitchcock, Hopper, Mia Farrow, Nicholson, Obituary, Oscars, Redford, Rip Torn, Roth, Television, Theater
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Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Eileen Brennan (1932-2013)
Eileen Brennan, one of our most treasured character actresses, particularly when it came to roles with a comic spin, lost her battle with bladder cancer Sunday at 80. Her death was announced today. The prolific actress turned in many memorable performances, but probably will be best remembered as Capt. Doreen Lewis in the 1980 comedy Private Benjamin opposite Goldie Hawn and the subsequent television spinoff where Lorna Patterson took over for Hawn. The role of Capt. Lewis earned Brennan her sole Oscar nomination and three consecutive Emmy nominations, one of which she won.
After moving from her native California, Brennan performed some stage work with the Mask and Bauble Society at Georgetown University in Washington before returning west and beginning her film and television career. In 1966, she made her first television appearance in a production of Maxwell Anderson's play The Star Wagon where she starred opposite Orson Bean and whose cast included Dustin Hoffman and Marian Seldes. The next year, she made her film debut in Bud Yorkin's 1967 comedy Divorce, American Style with a cast that included Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Reynolds, Jason Robards and Jean Simmons. She was a regular on the first 14 episodes of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In in 1968 and put in guest appearances on the TV series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and The Most Deadly Game. With 1971 came the release of her second feature film and a true classic. This showed more of Brennan's abilities on the dramatic side of things as Genevieve the waitress in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show. She even earned a BAFTA nomination as best supporting actress, quite a feat given the spectacular assemblage of female performers Bogdanovich gathered for his film. Along with her many episodic TV appearances, around the same time she appeared in the memorable All in the Family installment "The Elevator Story." In 1973, she had roles in two significant films: Scarecrow starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino and that year's Oscar winner for best picture, the delightful caper comedy The Sting opposite Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Brennan appeared in both of Neil Simon's 1970s film spoofs, usually attached by the hip to Peter Falk, in Murder By Death and The Cheap Detective. She guest-starred in a particularly memorable episode of Taxi, "The Boss's Wife," and earned an Emmy nomination as lead actress in a comedy series (the same year she won supporting actress for Private Benjamin). To get even with her husband, Mr. McKenzie, once a year, Mrs. McKenzie (Brennan) picks an employee of the Sunshine Cab Company to have an affair with, resulting in her husband's anger and the worker's firing. Louie (Danny DeVito) delights in the annual ritual — only this time she picks De Palma. Guest appearances on Newhart, thirtysomething and Will & Grace also brought Brennan Emmy nominations. Back on the big screen, she brought the game piece Mrs. Peacock to life in Clue and reprised Genevieve in the 1990 Last Picture Show sequel Texasville.
RIP Ms. Brennan. When you appeared on screen, I knew that whatever I was watching would be getting a lift.
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Labels: Bogdanovich, Debbie Reynolds, DeVito, Dustin Hoffman, Hackman, Jean Simmons, Newman, Obituary, Pacino, Redford, Robards
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Monday, July 22, 2013
Dennis Farina (1944-2013)
Dennis Farina tended to be typecast as a cop or a crook — and having served 18 years on Chicago's police force before turning to acting had a lot to do with that, but like so many who come to performing from other lines of work, you'd hardly notice the difference. By the premature end of his 31-year acting career, just seeing his name brought a smile to my face because I knew that he'd provide some good moments in the movie or TV show I was about to watch, even if the production itself didn't turn out to be that great. He garnered two acting nominations in his film career, both for Get Shorty. The American Comedy Awards nominated him as Funniest Supporting Actor in Motion Picture and he joined the other members of the ensemble up for the 1995 Screen Actors Guild Cast Award, including James Gandolfini.
Farina made his film debut in 1981 in Michael Mann's often overlooked gem Thief. He did many guest shots and small roles in movies until he teamed with Mann again as the original screen incarnation of the FBI's Jack Crawford in Manhunter, based on Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon, which introduced the world to Hannibal Lecter. That same year, Mann gave Farina the short-lived starring role in the 43-episode run of the period TV series Crime Story as Lt. Mike Torello. Atmospheric, vibrant and wonderfully scored — Crime Story couldn't last back then, but imagine if it had premiered a decade or so later on cable. The year Crime Story ended its run, Farina played memorable comic bad guy Jimmy Serrano in the great buddy movie Midnight Run, which just marked its 25th anniversary. Other comic bad guys would follow such as Ray Barboni in the film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty and the hit man Henry De Salvo in the underrated Big Trouble, based on the novel by Dave Barry.
On the good guy side of things he played Marshal Sisco, father of Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco in Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Leonard's Out of Sight. He turned up briefly as one of the recognizable faces fighting World War II, in this case as Lt. Col. Anderson, in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. He also
put in two seasons as Detective Joe Fontana on Law & Order following Jerry Orbach's departure. His other television work includes the short-lived, quirky detective series Buddy Faro created by Mark Frost, which I enjoyed but ended quickly. Farina also put in a nice turn as an annoying fitness center owner in HBO's adaptation of Richard Russo's novel Empire Falls. Finally, in another case of a series that ended prematurely (and unnecessarily) he landed the great role of Gus Demetriou, right-hand man and aging strong arm for horse racing-obsessed prison parolee Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) in HBO's Luck, an ill-conceived partnership between Mann and David Milch whose cancellation got blamed on the unfortunate deaths of three racing horses in the same sort of incidents that happen at real race tracks across the U.S. daily. It's a shame, because the nine episodes of Luck that aired were excellent. HBO should have had the guts to buy either Mann or Milch out and let the series proceed. (My vote would have been to keep Milch).RIP Mr. Farina. Another gone too soon.
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Labels: Dustin Hoffman, Farina, Gandolfini, Hannibal Lecter, HBO, Michael Mann, Milch, Obituary, Soderbergh, Spielberg, Television
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
James Gandolfini (1961-2013)
Sometimes, when the greatest of our artists mark the upper reaches of their golden years or they've announced an ominous health prognosis, I plan in advance what type of appreciation to write. However, when an unexpected death such as James Gandolfini's occurs at the age of 51, the task proves harder — I expected a lot more to come from this gifted actor, not this sudden, cruel punctuation mark of finality stamped on a career that promised us so much more.
Some of the films Gandolfini made during his time on the show weren't always the best, but he seldom failed to deliver whether it was his military prison warden in The Last Castle, his philandering husband in the Coens' The Man Who Wasn't There or, most especially, his gay hit man in The Mexican. Perhaps his finest screen work came in In the Loop, the satire about an attempt by D.C. insiders to stop hawks from starting a war. He also did a fine turn in the HBO movie Cinema Verite about the making of the landmark TV documentary on the Loud family in the 1970s that could be called the first reality show. His voice also proved perfect in Spike Jonze's film of Where the Wild Things Are. Among recent films, he and David Chase reunited in Chase's feature directing debut Not Fade Away, and he appeared in Zero Dark Thirty.
I wish I could have seen Gandolfini's Tony-nominated performance in Yasmina Reza's play God of Carnage. Gandolfini also didn't limit himself to acting, serving as producer and interviewer for two great HBO documentaries related to war: Alive Day Memories and Wartorn: 1861-2010.
Several works lay in various stages of production, so I expect we have some more James Gandolfini performances to anticipate, but not remotely as many as we should. RIP Mr. Gandolfini.
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Labels: Alec Baldwin, Coens, David Chase, Gandolfini, Geena Davis, HBO, J. Lange, Obituary, T. Scott, Television, The Sopranos, Travolta
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Monday, April 29, 2013
Leland Palmer Copeland (1999-2009)
By Edward Copeland
I want everyone to know what a good girl Leland was.
Some idiots abandoned the poor girl at a vet's and some friends rescued her for me as an early Christmas present in 2001. The vet's best guess was that she was 2. She was well-trained and had already been spayed. You could tell by her body language that she'd been abused. It was a long time before we ever heard her voice, but once she found it again, she used it a lot.
When I had a house of my own and she was younger, she'd jump on the couch and make herself comfortable. If she let me sit next to her, sometimes, she'd rest her head on my leg.
She never paid much attention to TV unless she heard dogs barking or guns firing. There were only two programs she ever seemed to watch. She sat on the couch and seemed to stare at The Wizard of Oz from start to finish. The only other time was an episode of Ed, where she seemed particularly interested in scenes set in the bowling alley.
As my own health started to diminish, I'd catch her watching over me. When I was using a walker to get to the bathroom or the bedroom, she'd watch at a safe distance to make sure I got there OK. Later, when we had to move in with my parents and I began to fall more and more, she'd always run to me on the floor and start licking my face. Whenever paramedics came to have to take me to the hospital, you could always tell she was worried about me.
When I came home from the hospitals in August, stuck in this bed, I'd catch her sneaking through the bathroom in the middle of the night, just like she was still watching over me. I wish I could have done the same for her. She was my baby.
Labels: Obituary
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Saturday, June 02, 2012
Kathryn Joosten (1939-2012)
After an 11-year battle against lung cancer, character actress Kathryn Joosten died Saturday at 72. Joosten became one of the most recognizable faces on television following her two-season role as the president's secretary, Mrs. Landingham, on The West Wing. Eventually, she won two of her three Emmy nominations as guest actress in a comedy for her recurring role on Desperate Housewives. The amount of work and identification she garnered truly was remarkable given that she didn't pursue acting until she was 42 and didn't arrive in Hollywood until 1983 and did so without an agent.
Joosten relocated to the West Coast from Illinois where she worked with the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Her first television appearance came on the short-lived cop drama Lady Blue in 1985. The shows she landed small roles on in the early days of her career included Family Matters, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, Grace Under Fire, 3rd Rock From the Sun, ER, Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Seinfeld, Frasier, NYPD Blue, Just Shoot Me, The Nanny, Tracey Takes On, Home Improvement, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Becker, Ally McBeal, Spin City, The X-Files and a recurring role on Dharma and Greg. Then she landed Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing and if her name wasn't immediately a household one, her face certainly was. Unfortunately, it was soon after Mrs. Landingham reached her untimely end in a car accident at 10th and Potommac, Joosten received her cancer diagnosis. If anything, that increased her workload instead of lightening it. She did a few episodes of General Hospital then she began popping up all over prime time in series such as Judging Amy, The Drew Carey Show, Charmed, The King of Queens, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Will & Grace, Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, Malcolm in the Middle, The Closer, Monk, The Mentalist and a recurring role on Joan of Arcardia as "Old Lady God."
Two of my favorite Joosten appearances came in NBC comedies. The first, in the first season Scrubs episode "My Old Lady" as Mrs. Tanner, J.D.'s patient with the failing kidneys who chooses death over dialysis and whom Dorian (Zach Braff) tries to talk out of her decision only she ends up having to comfort him. She even appeared two more times, once when J.D. envisioned patients who died and wondered if any of the deaths were his fault, and in the show's finale as one of the many past character and guest stars who appear in the hallway to bid farewell to J.D. as he leaves Sacred Heart for the last time. The other series was an episode of My Name Is Earl when Earl makes it up to a former friend who went to jail for a crime he committed. Earl thinks his list item has been completed but the friend's mother (Joosten) knocks Earl out, demanding the years with her son back that Earl stole from her. I never watched Desperate Housewives, so I can't attest to her work there, but given all the other examples I've seen, I'm certain she delivered stellar work. Be it comedy or drama, Joosten demonstrated a modern example of the kind of old-style pro that you could plug into any character situation and end up with a better result.
RIP Ms. Joosten.
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Labels: Awards, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Obituary, Seinfeld, Television, Theater
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Friday, February 03, 2012
Ben Gazzara (1930-2012)
We've lost yet another of the unofficial John Cassavetes repertory company with the news that the great Ben Gazzara lost his battle with pancreatic cancer Friday at the age of 81. Gazzara left his mark on stage, screen and television throughout his long career and never abandoned his taste for taking risks beyond the works of Cassavetes, who directed Gazzara in three films and co-starred with him in two movies directed by others, eventually appearing in films by directors such as David Mamet, Vincent Gallo, the Coen brothers, Todd Solondz, Spike Lee, Lars von Trier and Gérard Depardieu.
A native Manhattanite from a working class family, once the acting bug bit Gazzara, he studied under Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 in Calder Willingham's adaptation of his own novel End as a Man which earned Gazzara a 1954 Theater World Award. In March 1955, he created the role of Brick in the original production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof under Elia Kazan's direction. Barbara Bel Geddes had the role of the original Maggie and Burl Ives put his mark on Big Daddy. Only Ives and Madeleine Sherwood as sister woman Mae made the leap to the 1958 movie version. Though the Pulitzer Prize-winning play was a huge hit, Gazzara departed it later in 1955 to take the lead role of Johnny Pope in A Hatful or Rain written by Michael V. Gazzo, who movie buffs undoubtedly know better as Frankie Pentageli in The Godfather Part II. The play concerned a Korean War veteran who came home addicted to morphine and how it tore his family apart, It earned Gazzara his first Tony nomination as lead actor and co-star Anthony Franciosa a nomination as featured actor as his younger brother. When it was made into a film in 1957, Don Murray got to play Johnny though Franciosa kept his part and earned an Oscar nomination in the lead category. Gazzara's final Broadway appearance in the 1950s was a gigantic flop. The Night Circus also was written by Gazzo, but it closed after seven performances. It did co-star Janice Rule, who Gazzara would wed in 1961. For the remainder of his New York stage career, he would receive two more Tony nominations (but never a win). One for playing George to Colleen Dewhurst's Martha in a revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the other for an evening of paired one acts: Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and David Scott Milton's Duet. In 2004, he received a Drama Desk nomination for solo performance for his off-Broadway play Nobody Don't Like Yogi about baseball legend Yogi Berra, which he took on tour. He received a 2006 Drama Desk Award as part of the winning ensemble for the Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!, his last stage appearance.
Concurrent to his stage work in the 1950s, Gazzara appeared frequently on television, almost exclusively on the many live theater programs that originated from New York, though some episodic appearances pre-date his Broadway debut and stretch back to 1952 on series such as Treasury Men in Action, Danger and Justice. He didn't make his film debut until 1957 in The Strange One, which is the title they gave to a reworked version of the play End as a Man with many of the original Broadway cast repeating roles along with Gazzara including Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman (not using the Peter yet), Paul E. Richards and Arthur Storch. His second film in 1959 though is one of his works that will keep his memory alive as the defendant in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder starring James Stewart. The film still plays well today, though it's hardly as daring now as it was in its original release. While Gazzara always bounced between the three mediums, his only regular roles on series took place in the 1960s. First, as Det. Sgt. Nick Anderson on the 30 episodes of Arrest and Trial from 1963-1964, then as Paul Bryan in the far-more-successful Run for Your Life which aired from 1965=1968 and earned him two Emmy nominations as outstanding lead actor in a drama series. He also was nominated in 1986 for the lead actor in the TV movie An Early Frost and won as supporting actor in a TV movie for the 2002 HBO film Hysterical Blindness.
Gazzara never stopped working and if I attempted to be comprehensive, I'd never finish this. It would be impossible to have seen everything he has made — I imagine even he never saw all of his films. I never realized how many movies he made in Italy. In The New York Times obit, it quotes a 1994 interview he gave to Cigar Aficionado magazine about those movies where he said, “You go where they love you.” So, forgive any omissions, because I'm finishing this fast.
You always want to start with the Cassavetes trilogy: Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night and how those working friendships spread to other projects such as Gazzara directing Husbands co-star Peter Falk in two episodes of Columbo and, many decades later Cassavetes' widow Gena Rowlands wrote a short film for her and Gazzara to star in that Gérard Depardieu directed as part of Paris, je t'aime . There was the incredibly goofy Patrick Swayze vehicle Road House where Gazzara played the bad guy, but he portrayed Brad Wesley in such a damn entertaining way you kept forgetting that he was the one you were supposed to be rooting against. His mysterious Mr. Klein, one of the many puzzling characters in David Mamet's puzzle picture The Spanish Prisoner. The magnificent duet of dysfunction that he and Anjelica Huston performed in Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66. The neighborhood boss trying to play peacekeeper and vigilante at the same time in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. Then he was part of the quirky ensembles that made up Todd Solondz's Happiness and the Coens' Big Lebowski.
Gazzara lived to take chances and loved to work and he did both about as well as anyone. RIP Mr. Gazzara.
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Labels: A. Huston, Albee, Awards, Cassavetes, Coens, Falk, J. Stewart, Kazan, Mamet, O'Neill, Obituary, Preminger, Spike Lee, Tennessee Williams, von Trier
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Friday, January 27, 2012
Ian Abercrombie (1934-2012)
Why is this man eating a Snickers bar with a knife and fork? You'll have to ask Tom Gammill & Max Pross who wrote the 1994 episode of Seinfeld "The Pledge Drive" that had Elaine's mercurial boss Mr Pitt do such a thing. Mr. Pitt was just one of a multitude of TV and movie roles played by the British character actor Ian Abercrombie, who died Thursday at the age of 77.
Most of Abercrombie's early work was on the British stage. He made his American stage debut in a production of Stalag 17 with Jason Robards. He made his television debut on an episode of Burke's Law in 1965 and his uncredited film debut the same year in Von Ryan's Express. In fact, all his early film work went uncredited — including some big movies such as Star, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Molly Maguires and Young Frankenstein. His first credited film role didn't come until 1978's Sextette, Mae West's final film co-starring Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Regis Philbin and Keith Moon, among many others.
During those 13 years of uncredited film work, Abercrombie did get credit (most of the time) for his many television series on shows such as Dragnet, Get Smart, Columbo, Barnaby Jones, Cannon and The Six Million Dollar Man.
While Abercrombie did do film work, television became his focus. Of his post-1978 feature films, the most notable ones include The Prisoner of Zenda with Peter Sellers, The Ice Pirates, The Public Eye with Joe Pesci, Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, Addams Family Values, Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park II, David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and the voice of Ambrose in last year's Rango.
When it came to TV, you could see or hear Abercrombie almost anywhere. Highlights of his post-1978 work (not counting Mr. Pitt) included: The original Battlestar Galactica, Quincy, M.E., Knots Landing, Happy Days, Fantasy Island, Three's Company, the soap Santa Barbara, L.A. Law, Moonlighting, playing himself on the "Fate" episode of "It's Garry Shandling's Show.", Murder, She Wrote, Dynasty, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother.
Abercrombie still was working on his final two roles at the time of his death: Playing Professor Crumbs on Wizards of Waverly Place and providing the voice for Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious on the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
RIP Mr. Abercrombie.
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Labels: Animation, Lynch, Obituary, Pesci, Raimi, Robards, Seinfeld, Shandling, Spielberg, Star Wars, Theater, Tony Curtis, Twin Peaks
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Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Harry Morgan (1915-2011)
Harry Bratsburg made his Broadway debut in the original cast of The Group Theatre production of Clifford Odets' boxing drama Golden Boy on Nov. 4, 1937. His co-stars included Lee J. Cobb, Howard da Silva, Frances Farmer, Jules Garfield (who would later act under the first name of John) and two men who would become better known later as directors: Elia Kazan and Martin Ritt. Of course, Bratsburg would change his name as well. After appearing in a total of eight original Broadway plays through 1941 (all but two Group Theatre productions) with up-and-comers such as Burl Ives, Sidney Lumet (when he started out as an actor), Karl Malden, Sylvia Sidney, Franchot Tone, Shelley Winters and Jane Wyatt, Bratsburg headed West for the start of a lengthy film and television career where he'd become much better known as Harry Morgan. Morgan died Wednesday at 96. Actually, when he made his film debut in 1942's To the Shores of Tripoli, he was credited as Henry Morgan as he was well into the 1950s when he started frequently being cited as Henry (Harry) Morgan because of the comedian Henry Morgan who was popular on radio prior to Harry's career, so his screen credit eventually became just Harry Morgan.
It didn't take long for him to land in a classic film once he left the stage for Hollywood. His sixth film was William A. Wellman's masterful 1943 warning against lynch mobs, The Ox-Bow Incident, where he played Henry Fonda's trail companion. His career kept him busy, not always in classics, but always working. Some of his other notable films:
Morgan's greatest fame came from his roles as a regular on several television series throughout his career, beginning with his role as Pete Porter on the comedy December Bride from 1954-1959, which earned him an Emmy nomination. The role was spun off into its own series Pete & Gladys, which lasted from 1960-1962. The first series that probably garnered Morgan the most recognition was when he took the role of Officer Bill
Gannon in Dragnet 1967, Jack Webb's resurrection of his early '50s police drama, that in my mind may well be the funniest show ever to appear on network television. Watching Sgt. Joe Friday square off (pun intended) with spaced-out hippies is hysterical. Morgan reprised his Gannon role in Dan Aykroyd's 1987 spoof movie and merely vocally on an episode of The Simpsons. Morgan also did many guest appearances on other series, TV movies and miniseries, most notably playing another Harry, President Truman in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House. However, the role that will hold his place in TV viewers' hearts is as Col. Sherman T. Potter, the second commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the last eight seasons of M*A*S*H. (We'll not talk about AfterMASH.) The role earned him eight consecutive Emmy nominations as outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series and he won once. He also received a nomination for directing an episode. For me though, I'll always love the performance he gave the year before on M*A*S*H in an Emmy-nominated guest appearance as Maj. Gen. Bartford Hamilton Steele in "The General Flipped at Dawn." Steele appears to be a by-the-book, high-ranking officer but everyone soon realizes, especially Alan Alda's Hawkeye who he tries to court-martial, that he's a raving loon. Morgan's hysterical performance was a thing of beauty. He could be just as funny as Potter but in a completely different way. Potter also frequently touched your heart as he drank a toast when the last of his old comrades died.We drink a toast to you, Harry Morgan. RIP.
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Labels: Alda, Awards, Aykroyd, H. Fonda, Jack Webb, Kazan, Lee J. Cobb, Lumet, Malden, Obituary, Shelley Winters, Sylvia Sidney, Television, The Simpsons, Theater, Wellman
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Monday, November 28, 2011
Ken Russell (1927-2011)
As a director, Ken Russell always has been a mixed bag to me. To say that he had a tendency to go over-the-top would be an understatement and I found very few of his films satisfying as a whole though he did produce many fine performances in his films even if the films themselves were so-so.
Glenda Jackson (who won her first her Oscar), Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in his adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love; Twiggy in the musical The Boy Friend (perhaps his most enjoyable and mainstream outing); the spectacle of Tommy bringing the landmark album by The Who to cinematic life with its eclectic cast including Oscar-nominee Ann-Margret as the deaf-dumb-and-blind boy's mom (covered in beans at one point), a brief bit by Jack Nicholson as The Specialist, Tina Turner's Acid Queen and the band's late drummer Keith Moon as Uncle Ernie, to name but a few; William Hurt's experimentations with mind-altering drugs and isolation chambers to a devolved consciousness in Altered States, based ion the novel by Paddy Chayefsky who wrote the screenplay as well, but hated the film so much that he disowned it and the film credits the script to his given first and middle name, Sidney Aaron; and the loony Crimes of Passion which contains a brave but great Kathleen Turner performance. However, what I remember the most about Russell was one of his many performances as an actor (check out his filmography), particularly his supporting role as Walter in Tom Stoppard's adaptation of John Le Carre's The Russia House starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, an incredibly underrated Fred Schepisi film from 1990. Russell gave an entertaining and compelling turn in his rather small role. For someone whose reputation mainly is that of a director, surprisingly, that might be what I remember about him most. To read the full New York Times obit, click here.
RIP Mr. Russell.
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Labels: Books, Chayefsky, Connery, Fiction, K. Turner, Musicals, Nicholson, Obituary, Oscars, Pfeiffer, Stoppard, William Hurt
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Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Charles Napier (1936-2011)
Charles Napier, a longtime character actor who was a favorite of directors as diverse as Jonathan Demme and Russ Meyer, died today at the age of 75. Since first appearing in episodic TV in the late 1960s, Napier seemed to always be a recognizable presence in roles, usually small in size but almost always memorable.
His first credited television appearance was on an episode of Mannix in 1968. Throughout his early career through the mid-1970s, he also appeared on the TV shows Hogan's Heroes, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, Kojak, The Streets of San Francisco, Baretta, The Rookies, Black Sheep Squadron and The Rockford Files.
During the same period, Napier also was active in feature films, making his debut as the lead in a 1969 film called The House Near Prado. The same year, he played the title role in a Western made by the same director, Jean Van Hearn, called The Hanging of Jake Ellis.
In 1970, he played Harry in Cherry, Harry & Raquel!, the first of four movies directed by Russ Meyer in which Napier appeared. The quartet included that same year's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, whose screenplay was written by Roger Ebert.
In 1977, he worked in Handle With Care, the first of 10 films with director Jonathan Demme. Demme and Napier would go on to collaborate on Last Embrace, Melvin and Howard, Swing Shift, Something Wild, Married to the Mob, The Silence of the Lambs (where he memorably guarded Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter and ended up displayed on Lecter's cage), Philadelphia, Beloved and the remake of The Manchurian Candidate.
Those credits just start to scratch the surface of his work in TV and movie work. Among the other notable films in which Napier appeared include The Blues Brothers, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Miami Blues, The Grifters, The Cable Guy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Other television shows and TV movies he played roles in included The Incredible Hulk, The Blue and the Gray, Dallas, The Dukes of Hazzard, Night Court, The A-Team, War and Remembrance, L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Party of Five, Walker: Texas Ranger, The Practice, CSI, Monk and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Napier's distinctive voice also earned him much work in animated programming, most notably in the regular role as the Ted Turner-esque Duke Phillips on The Critic. He also contributed his vocal talents to animated shows such as Men in Black: The Series, God, the Devil and Bob, The Simpsons, Squidbillies and Archer.
R.I.P. Mr. Napier.
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Labels: Animation, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Demme, Ebert, Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins, Obituary, Remakes, Television, The Simpsons
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Saturday, September 10, 2011
Cliff Robertson 1923-2011
Ordinarily, when someone with as long and as illustrious a career as Cliff Robertson passes away, I would try to be as comprehensive as possible in my appreciation. Unfortunately, because I've been so underwater in projects, I didn't receive the news until much later than I should have and the due dates of the projects require that I can't take myself away from them for too long a stretch. Before I write my short look at the career of Mr. Robertson, who died Saturday one day after his 88th birthday, I'd like to express regret for not finding a better photo of him as the slimy and manipulative presidential candidate Ben Cantwell in the 1964 film adaptation of Gore Vidal's play The Best Man. His at-any-costs maneuvers to wrestle the nomination away from Henry Fonda's William Russell, for me at least, was the best work Robertson ever did on screen.
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Labels: Aldrich, Crawford, De Palma, DeVito, Fosse, H. Fonda, John Carpenter, Mailer, Mankiewicz, Obituary, Oscars, Raimi, Redford, Television, Tennessee Williams, Theater, Vidal, Walken, Walsh
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Monday, August 22, 2011
Jerry Leiber (1933-2011)
In lieu of a full-fledged appreciation of Jerry Leiber, the lyricist half of Leiber & Stoller, the songwriting team whose incredible string of hit songs from the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s virtually defined the sound of the era, I feel what would be more appropriate is to list a great many of their songs and mention some of the artists who recorded them (There were so many who covered the songs, that would take forever). Leiber, who was 78, is the man pictured at the back in the photo above. The man at the piano is his songwriting partner Mike Stoller. Also, it's worth noting that the team's work inspired one of the more successful "jukebox" musicals on Broadway, Smokey Joe's Cafe. RIP Mr. Leiber.
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Labels: Elvis, Leiber and Stoller, Music, Musicals, Obituary, Theater
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Monday, July 25, 2011
G.D. Spradlin (1920-2011)
G.D. Spradlin, the man who began his adult life as an Oklahoma oil man before switching careers in his 40s to become an actor, has died at age 90.
Among Spradlin's most notable film roles were as the corrupt senator in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II and Reverend Lemon, the minister who helped finance an Ed Wood movie in Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
He got his start in the 1960s with guest shots on many television series, especially Westerns. Throughout his career, he often was cast on TV and in film as politicians (Rich Man, Poor Man; Houston: The Legend of Texas; Robert Kennedy & His Times; The Long Kiss Goodnight) or military men (Gomer Pyle; Tora, Tora, Tora; Judgment: The Court-Martial of William Calley; MacArthur; Apocalypse Now; The Lords of Discipline; War and Remembrance).
He even worked with Antonioni on Zabriskie Point as well as films such as Monte Walsh, North Dallas Forty and The War of the Roses. His final role was as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in the 1999 Watergate spoof Dick.
To read The L.A. Times obit, click here.
RIP Mr. Spradlin.
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Labels: Antonioni, Coppola, Obituary, Tim Burton
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Saturday, July 23, 2011
Tom Aldredge (1928-2011)
When I was just beginning my years of obsessive New York theatergoing, the second Broadway show I took in was the last new Stephen Sondheim musical to premiere on Broadway, Passion, in 1994. I was still an amateur as far as theatergoing went so I got to the Longacre Theatre for the 2 p.m. Saturday matinee very early. Seated on the sidewalk by the stage door in a T-shirt and jeans wearing a baseball cap creased to the point it resembled a duck bill, was the actor Tom Aldredge. Throughout my theatergoing years, which basically ran from 1994 until 1999 with a handful later before ending permanently in 2002, I saw Aldredge, not by design, in more shows than any other actor. Readers who haven't attended New York theater regularly since Aldredge made his Broadway debut in 1959 probably know him best from his television work, be it as Carmela's father Hugh DeAngelis on The Sopranos, Patty Hewes' Uncle Pete on Damages or Nucky Thompson's bitter father Ethan on Boardwalk Empire. Aldredge died Friday after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.
As I said, I saw him more on stage than any other actor (not that it took much) seeing him in four shows between 1994-97. In addition to Passion, I saw Aldredge as Rev. Jeremiah Brown in the revival of Inherit the Wind with George C. Scott and Charles Durning. I got to see him perform Solyony (the Captain) in Chekhov's The Three Sisters, replacing Jerry Stiller in the role. Finally, I saw him play Stephen Hopkins in the revival of the musical 1776 with Brent Spiner and the late Pat Hingle.
Aldredge was born Feb. 28, 1928, in Dayton, Ohio. He attended the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University. He married his wife Theoni V. Aldredge in 1953, a union that lasted until her death in January of this year. Theoni was an acclaimed costume designer for theater and movies who won three Tonys for her work (Annie, Barnum and La Cage Aux Folles ) out of a total 14 nominations and won an Oscar for her costumes for 1974's The Great Gatsby.
The first time I recall seeing Tom Aldredge actually combined theater and television. It was when PBS aired a filmed version of Sondheim's great Broadway musical Into the Woods in 1991. Aldredge played the dual role of the narrator and the Mysterious Man. Given Aldredge's prolific output in television and movies, I'm certain I ran across him before that, but it certainly was the first time he left an impression on me. The second time came courtesy of HBO, but not on the more celebrated series he's probably most recognizable from, but from what may be the first really good made-for-HBO movie: 1993's Barbarians at the Gate. Aldredge's part wasn't huge, but I remembered him in that great Larry Gelbart-scripted account of the takeover battle for RJR Nabisco starring James Garner and Jonathan Pryce. After that, most of my Aldredge performances were seen on stage.
Tom Aldredge's New York stage career began in 1957 and he landed his first Broadway show in 1959 in the musical comedy The Nervous Set which also featured Larry Hagman in its cast. It took seven years to land another Broadway role but when he did, what a cast he got to work alongside. The original comedy UTBU was directed by Nancy Walker and had an ensemble featuring Cathryn Damon (Mary Campbell on Soap), Margaret Hamilton, Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter. Alas, it only lasted 15 previews and seven performances. Fortunately, Aldredge was back on Broadway the next month in Slapstick Tragedy, which was an evening of two new Tennessee Williams' one-act plays. Aldredge appeared in the first, The Mutilated. The second one-act was The Gnadiges Fraulein.
In the seven year interim between his Broadway debut in 1959 and his return in 1966, Aldredge was by no means idle. He made his television debut in 1961 as part of The Premise Players on a Paul Anka special called The Seasons of Youth where Anka discusses a long-lost crush and the actors perform skits about young love. In 1963, Aldredge made his film debut in The Mouse on the Moon, the sequel to The Mouse That Roared. In 1964, many of the same members of The Premise Players, which now included Buck Henry who co-wrote the script, made The Troublemaker about a New Jersey chicken farmer who moves to Greenwich Village to open a coffee shop. Aldredge had a role in 1965's Who Killed Teddy Bear?, whose plot, as described by IMDb, is "A busboy at a disco has sexual problems related to events in his childhood. He becomes obsessed with a disc jockey at the club, leading to obscene phone calls, voyeurism, trips to the porn shop and adult movie palace, and more!" The unusual cast includes Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Jan Murray, Elaine Stritch and Daniel J. Travanti. Aired on TV in 1966 after Aldredge had returned to New York was a movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Ten Blocks on the Camino Real which Williams wrote and which starred Martin Sheen.
Back in New York, before he returned to Broadway, Aldredge took part in two of Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park productions in the summer of 1965. First, he played Boyet in Love's Labors Lost. Then he played Nestor in Troilus and Cressida, whose cast included James Earl Jones, Michael Moriarty and John Vernon. Throughout his career he would return to the Delacorte and Shakespeare. He played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet in 1968, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night in 1969, the title role in Cymbeline in 1971, the 2nd Gravedigger in Hamlet in 1972, Lear's Fool in King Lear in 1973 and John of Gaunt in Richard II in 1987. Ironically, the only time Aldredge received an Emmy nomination, it was a Daytime Emmy nomination (which he won) for playing Shakespeare in a 1973 episode of The CBS Festival of Lively Arts for Young People titled "Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare." Aldredge appeared in many off-Broadway productions but two to take note of are his role of Emory in the original production of the landmark play The Boys in the Band and the Joseph Papp production of David Rabe's Sticks and Bones, which transferred to Broadway and earned Aldredge the first of his five Tony nominations.
His 1972 nomination for lead actor in a play for Sticks and Bones, which won best play, was Aldredge's only in the lead category. His other nominations came for the revival of the musical Where's Charley? in 1975, the revival of The Little Foxes opposite Elizabeth Taylor in 1981, in the original musical Passion in 1994 and in the revival of the play Twentieth Century in 2004.
Throughout his Broadway career, he performed the works of O'Neill (The Iceman Cometh, Strange Interlude), George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan) and Arthur Miller (The Crucible) and created the role of Norman Thayer Jr. in the original production of On Golden Pond. His final Broadway show was a revival of Twelve Angry Men that closed in May 2005.
His many film credits include Coppola's The Rain People, a 1973 film version of his stage success Sticks and Bones directed by Robert Downey Sr., Lawn Dogs, Rounders, Intolerable Cruelty, Cold Mountain, the remake of All the King's Men, What About Bob? and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
He appeared in lots of episodic television and some notable TV movies including the miniseries The Adams Chronicles, Great Performances' Heartbreak House, playing Justice Hugo Black in Separate But Equal and O Pioneers!
Aldredge was a talented and prolific actor who needs to be remembered for more than playing Carmela Soprano's dad, but for Sopranos trivia buffs I'll toss in that Hugh and Carmela's mother Mary (Suzanne Shepherd) didn't appear until Livia was banned from the Soprano home. Who can forget him ripping into Livia at her wake? I wish YouTube had the actual clip of "Ever After" that Aldredge starts the cast singing at the end of Act I of Into the Woods, for I feel it's a fitting close. Click here and listen anyway,
RIP Mr. Aldredge.
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Labels: Arthur Miller, Boardwalk Empire, Buck Henry, Coppola, Durning, Gelbart, George C. Scott, HBO, J.E. Jones, Liz, M. Sheen, O'Neill, Obituary, Shakespeare, Sondheim, Tennessee Williams, The Sopranos, Theater, Thelma Ritter, Tony Randall
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sam Denoff (1928-2011) and Sherwood Schwartz (1916-2011)
By Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
Writer-producer Sam Denoff passed away on July 8 at the age of 83 and a foot in the door writing for WNEW Radio in New York (where he met partner Bill Persky) led to writing gigs on the Steve Allen and Andy Williams shows. Denoff and Persky then sold a script to The Dick Van Dyke Show’s Carl Reiner — one that has become a classic episode of the series, so funny that even my black-and-white-TV-adverse sister Kat remembers it fondly.
In “That’s My Boy??” television writer Rob Petrie (Van Dyke) relates the story of how he became convinced that his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) brought home the wrong baby from the hospital, mostly due to a series of events in which Laura was confused with another patient also giving birth. Rob even goes so far — with the help of his best friend and next-door neighbor, dentist Jerry Helper (Jerry Paris) —to take a footprint of his newborn son in order to compare it to the official record. Finally, Rob calls the husband of the woman with whom Laura was repeatedly mixed up with to straighten the situation out; I won’t spoil the ending of this for those who haven’t seen it (though I’d be surprised if anyone hasn’t) but all I have to do is think about the punchline and I start laughing…and crying, too, since Denoff has shuffled off this mortal coil.
Sam and Bill became story consultants and producers for the Van Dyke show and shared an Emmy in 1964 with creator Reiner for their contributions to the series — and the following year, they would win a second Emmy statuette for another classic Van Dyke outing, “Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth.” In this one, Laura is tricked by a sneaky game show host (Dick Curtis) into revealing on national television that Alan Brady (Reiner), the man that employs her husband, is bald as a Crenshaw melon. The expression on Rob’s face when Laura tearfully admits her fox paw never fails to send me to the floor — if I had to pick a favorite episode of the series, I think “Big Mouth” would definitely take the top prize.
In the TV business, you’re considerably blessed if you enjoyed the successful association that Sam and Bill did with The Dick Van Dyke Show…but when the series left the air in 1966 they were fortunate to capture lightning in a bottle a second time when Marlo Thomas asked them to create a sitcom pilot for her to star in. It eventually became the hit series That Girl, a successful show (1966-71) about a struggling actress (who somehow managed to find a drop dead gorgeous apartment in New York and own a fantabulous wardrobe to boot) that not only employed Denoff (with Persky) as an executive producer but also as lyricist for the show’s theme song. Denoff and Persky also created Good Morning World — a sitcom similar to Dick Van Dyke (the main characters were disc jockeys who answered to an autocratic boss played by Billy De Wolfe) that had its occasional moments of hilarity but not enough to sustain the series past one season…if it’s remembered at all today (though the show’s entire run has been available on DVD) it’s for the participation of a young Goldie Hawn, a year or so away from her star-making turn on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.
When Persky expressed an interest in concentrating on directing after That Girl’s cancellation, Denoff went to work on his own, overseeing such shows as Lotsa Luck, the 1973-74 sitcom starring Dom DeLuise as an employee at a bus company constantly hassled by his mother (Kathleen Freeman), sister (Beverly Sanders) and sponging brother-in-law (Wynn Irwin). (Lotsa Luck never really lived up to its promise despite an impressive pedigree: it was an Americanized version of the long-running Britcom On the Buses.) Other shows worked on by Sam include The Funny Side, The Montefuscos, Big Eddie, The Practice (not the legal drama; the 1976 Danny Thomas sitcom), On Our Own, Turnabout, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, The Lucie Arnaz Show, Harry and the Hendersons and Life with Bonnie. R.I.P., Sam — you’ll most certainly be missed.
Sherwood Schwartz's long and amazing life came to an end Tuesday at the age of 94. The man whose name fellow OTR scribe Hal Kanter once described as sounding “like Robin Hood’s rabbi” got a birthday shout-out from TDOY last November, and so I’m going to crib what I wrote then about the man whose sitcom creations Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch will live on in television immortality:
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale about how a medical student decided to chuck his studies to write comedy on the radio — because that’s exactly what today’s birthday boy did, resulting in a lengthy show business career that was responsible for creating two of the most popular sitcoms in TV history. Sherwood Charles Schwartz was born 94 years ago on this date in Passaic, N.J., and was attending the University of Southern California when he got the chance to follow in the footsteps of his older brother Al, a scribe on radio’s The Bob Hope Show. Sherwood never gave medicine a second thought after that; after serving his apprenticeship on Hope’s program (and doing his bit during WWII at Armed Forces Radio) he found his services much in demand on radio series such as The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Alan Young Show and Beulah.
It was television, however, where Schwartz would find his fortune. He started out writing for I Married Joan, and then with brother Al was part of Red Skelton’s writing team for seven years (even winning an Emmy for his work). When Skelton fired Al and then learned Sherwood was still working on the show, he gave Sherwood his walking papers, too, saying to the effect “I’m not going to have any more Schwartzes working on my show.” Schwartz then conceived an idea for a series about a group of people marooned on a desert island and sold it to CBS in 1963 — but the show barely managed to get on the air. When it did, Gilligan’s Island lasted three seasons on the network (it would have ran for a fourth had CBS President William Paley’s wife not lobbied the network to keep Gunsmoke, which inherited its Monday night time slot) and despite being critically lambasted wound up as one of the biggest smashes in television syndication. The same thing happened with Schwartz’s other creation, The Brady Bunch — a series he sold to ABC that, while never establishing a presence in the Top 30 lasted five seasons and went on to greater glory (like its brother Gilligan) in reruns.
Of course, Sherwood couldn’t always hit them out of the park; his series It’s About Time and Dusty’s Trail — two shows that make Gilligan look like Shakespeare — each lasted only one season, as did the Saturday morning sitcom Big John, Little John…and Together We Stand, a 1986 effort came and went in about six weeks. But despite the critical brickbats, Schwartz’s television legacy was assured when he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2008.
I honestly think I could sit down and write a show tonight that the critics would love, and I know it would be cancelled within four weeks,” Schwartz once said in an interview with author Jordan Young, responding to the negative reaction awarded to both of hit shows over the years. “I know what the critics love. [I] write and produce for people, not for critics.” Whenever I hear that expression “laughing all the way to the bank” Schwartz is the person I always think of — and will continue to do so — because while there’s certainly room for argument as to how sophisticated his tastes were, he definitely found a TV formula that paid off in dividends. (And for the record — I think Gilligan’s Island is still funny. As one author observed: “Gilligan’s Island is an LSD trip without LSD.”)
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Labels: Awards, C. Reiner, Obituary, Shandling, Television
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