Gone With or Without fanfare

[feaito]

Rest in peace dear Jennifer Jones, for "Portrait of Jennie" alone you deserve the sun, the moon and the stars.

[CineMaven]

The passing of JENNIFER JONES has been one of the saddest pieces of news I've heard in a long
long time. There was a luminescence and vulnerability about her that touched me in many of her
performances...particularly in "LOVE LETTERS."

Geez, this is very sad news. Folks, if you have any Jennifer Jones films in your private libraries...
why not have your own mini-festival as a tribute to one of Hollywood's most beautiful and grace-
ful screen icons.

The TCM REMEMBERS montaged tribute to her is the cherry on the cake. (The color shot of her
from "Duel In The Sun" is breath-taking).

[charliechaplinfan]

I agree with you Cinemaven, it would be a good idea to start a thread. I have a few Jennifer films that I haven't watched. Portrait of Jennie, Song Of Bernadette and Gone To Earth. I've added Since You Went Away and Cluny Brown to my rental list. I wasn't that keen on Duel in the Sun but liked An Indiscretion of an American Wife. Can't get hold of Love Letters or Madame Bovary here.

[charliechaplinfan]

I was looking on the imdb for some information about Jennifer Jones when I saw that Brittany Murphy had died at 32. I haven't the faintest idea of who she is but how young to die at 32. Do people die at 32 of natural causes? I hope the media respects her family's privacy but know that they won't, they'll need to know every last detail.

[SSO Admins]

Brittany was way too young to die. My favorite role of hers was as the voice of Luann on "King of the Hill."

[jdb1]

Brittany was way too young to die. My favorite role of hers was as the voice of Luann on "King of the Hill."

You are too right. I'm full of mixed emotions about Murphy, a talented young woman, a very deft comedienne, and a serious drug user. I feel sympathy and exasperation. How can one's life be so very unbearable when one has so many assets? When I hear about young performers (and she started out quite young) who go so far off the rails, I can't help but think that the fault in great part lies elsewhere -- lack of support from family, lack of proper role models, and excess of exploitation. The girl looked so very awful in the last photos taken of her -- thin as a rail, and about 20 years older than her actual age. Like they say -- What price Hollywood? Is it really worth your life?

[feaito]

It's a pity about Brittany Murphy. Although I'm not much interested in contemporary films, I will always remember her as Alicia Silverstone's pal in "Clueless", a guilty pleasure if there ever was one. She was indeed very funny in that one. I never saw her in anything else after that particular film -she was very young then.

[charliechaplinfan]

The short article I read didn't say anything about drug use but it's not a surprise. I agree with your sentiments about people who start acting at a young age in Hollywood. Such a shame, 32 is too young.

[jdb1]

Another stalwart character actor has passed. 'Tis the season, unfortunately. When I was a kid, I just loved Arnold Stang, who talked like (and looked like, actually) so many of the obnoxious little boys I knew at school. My favorite were his commercials for Chunky chocolates -- "Whatta chunka chocolate!!" He always spoke as though he had a mouthful of those chocolates. A made long and venerable career out of being a nerd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/arts/ ... g.html?hpw

[movieman1957]

She is only from TV but another one this week. Connie Hines from "Mr. Ed" passed away.

http://www.popeater.com/2009/12/22/conn ... r-ed-dead/

[ken123]

Another stalwart character actor has passed. 'Tis the season, unfortunately. When I was a kid, I just loved Arnold Stang, who talked like (and looked like, actually) so many of the obnoxious little boys I knew at school. My favorite were his commercials for Chunky chocolates -- "Whatta chunka chocolate!!" He always spoke as though he had a mouthful of those chocolates. A made long and venerable career out of being a nerd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/arts/ ... g.html?hpw

[srowley75]

Another stalwart character actor has passed. 'Tis the season, unfortunately. When I was a kid, I just loved Arnold Stang, who talked like (and looked like, actually) so many of the obnoxious little boys I knew at school. My favorite were his commercials for Chunky chocolates -- "Whatta chunka chocolate!!" He always spoke as though he had a mouthful of those chocolates. A made long and venerable career out of being a nerd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/arts/ ... g.html?hpw

Judith, I'm glad you posted about Arnold Stang. I was just checking to see if he'd been remembered in our obit thread. He's another of several actors who've passed this year that I desperately had hoped to see in person or meet someday. I always loved his brief bit in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as well. And, of course, his appearance in Arnold Schwarzenegger's film debut, Hercules in New York. I remember Danny Peary noted that the combo of Arnold Stang and Arnold Schwarzenegger sounded like something you'd read in a Mad magazine parody.

-Stephen

[Lzcutter]

The man who produced Police Story and kept Joseph Wambaugh employed writing scripts while he worked on his novels has died. David Gerber produced some of the best television of a generation.

Award-winning television producer David Gerber, who worked on a range of programs from series like 1970s hit "Police Woman" to 2006 TV movie "Flight 93," has died at age 86, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

Gerber succumbed to heart failure at the University of Southern California Medical Center on January 2 with his wife of 39 years, actress Laraine Stephens, by his side.

Throughout a long career, Gerber earned Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody awards for TV shows and movies. His Emmy-winning "Police Story" became a groundbreaking crime series and "Police Woman," which starred Angie Dickinson, was among the first successful cop shows with an actress as the lead character.

His hits included the series "That's My Mama," which was among the first prime-time TV programs with an all-black cast, and he produced the TV version of racial drama "In the Heat of the Night." His final TV movie was "Flight 93," which looked at the United Airlines flight that was hijacked and crashed into a Pennsylvania field on September 11.

Born July 25, 1923 in Brooklyn, New York, Gerber earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of the Pacific and joined the military in World War Two. He became a prisoner of war when his plane was shot down over Germany.

Following the war, Gerber worked in advertising and later as an executive in the TV business where he ushered hits such as "Room 222" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" onto the air in the late 1960s.

In 1972, he formed his own production company and after a string of hits including "Born Free" and "Medical Story," he joined MGM Television in 1981, where he rose to chairman and chief executive of the company's worldwide television group.

Gerber served in numerous industry and community groups, and developed a vineyard in northern California which produces wines named after his wife, Laraine, who is his sole survivor.

[Lzcutter]

The creator of Gumby has passed away:

From the LA Times:

Art Clokey, the creator of the whimsical clay figure Gumby, died in his sleep Friday at his home in Los Osos, Calif., after battling repeated bladder infections, his son Joseph said. He was 88.

Clokey and his wife, Ruth, invented Gumby in the early 1950s at their Covina home shortly after Art had finished film school at USC. After a successful debut on "The Howdy Doody Show," Gumby soon became the star of its own hit television show, "The Adventures of Gumby," the first to use clay animation on television.

After an initial run in the 1950s, Gumby enjoyed comebacks in the 1960s as a bendable children's toy, in the 1980s after comedian Eddie Murphy parodied the kindly Gumby as a crass, cigar-in-the-mouth character in a skit for "Saturday Night Live" and again in the '90s with the release of "Gumby the Movie."

Today, Gumby is a cultural icon recognized around the world. It has more than 134,000 fans on Facebook.

As successive generations discovered the curious green character, Gumby’s success came to define Clokey's life, with its theme song reflecting Clokey's simple message of love: "If you've got a heart, then Gumby's a part of you."

"The fact is that most people don't know his name, but everybody knows Gumby," said friend and animator David Scheve. "To have your life work touch so many people around the world is an amazing thing."

Clokey was born Arthur Farrington in Detroit in October 1921 and grew up making mud figures on his grandparents' Michigan farm. "He always had this in him," his son, Joseph, recalled Friday.

At age 8, Clokey's life took a tragic turn when his father was killed in a car accident soon after his parents divorced. The unusual shape of Gumby's head would eventually be modeled after one of the few surviving photos of Clokey's father, which shows him with a large wave of hair protruding from the right side of his head.

After moving to California, Clokey was abandoned by his mother and her new husband and lived in a halfway house near Hollywood until age 11, when he was adopted by Joseph W. Clokey. The renowned music teacher and composer at Pomona College taught him to draw, paint and shoot film and took him on journeys to Mexico and Canada.

Art Clokey attended the Webb School in Claremont, whose annual fossil hunting expeditions also inspired a taste for adventure that stayed with him. "That's why 'The Adventures of Gumby' were so adventurous," his son said.

Clokey served in World War II, conducting photo reconnaissance over North Africa and France. Back in Hartford, Conn., after the war, he was studying to be an Episcopal minister when he met Ruth Parkander, the daughter of a minister. The two married and moved to California to pursue their true passion: filmmaking.

During the day, the Clokeys taught at the Harvard School for Boys in Studio City, now Harvard-Westlake. At night, Art Clokey studied film at USC under Slavko Vorkapich, a pioneer of modern montage techniques.

Clokey's 1953 experimental film, "Gumbasia," used stop-motion clay animation set to a lively jazz tempo. It became the inspiration for the subsequent Gumby TV show when Sam Engel, the president of 20th Century Fox and father of one of Clokey's students, saw the film and asked Clokey to produce a children's television show based on the idea.

In the 1960s, Clokey created and produced the Christian TV series "Davey and Goliath" and the credits for several feature films, including "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini."

Gumby's ability to enchant generations of children and adults had a mystical quality to it, said his son, and reflected his father's spiritual quest. In the 1970s, Clokey studied Zen Buddhism, traveled to India to study with gurus and experimented with LSD and other drugs, though all of that came long after the creation of Gumby, his son said.

His second wife, Gloria, whom he married in 1976, was art director on Gumby projects in the 1980s and '90s. She died in 1998.

Besides his son Joseph, Clokey is survived by his stepdaughter, Holly Harman of Mendocino County; three grandchildren, Shasta, Sequoia and Sage Clokey; his sister, Arlene Cline of Phoenix; and his half-sister, Patricia Anderson of Atlanta.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests contributions in Gumby's name to the Natural Resources Defense Council, of which Art Clokey was a longtime member.

"Gumby was green because my dad cared about the environment," his son said.

[SSO Admins]

French New Wave director Eric Rohmer passed away today.