Gone With or Without fanfare

[jdb1]

And we have lost another . . . . composer Alexander Courage, who gave us the original "Star Trek" theme.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/arts/ ... obituaries

[Lzcutter]

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Mel Ferrer, whose career as a performer, director, producer and writer spanned six decades, has died at age 90.

Ferrer died Monday at his ranch near Santa Barbara, family spokesman Mike Mena said.

"It's a sad occasion, but he did live a long and productive life," Mena said Tuesday.

He appeared in more than 100 films and made-for-television movies, directed nine films and produced nine more.

Ferrer's most impressive film role came in 1953 in "Lili." He played a disabled carnival puppeteer with whom a French orphan (played by Leslie Caron) falls in love.

On the big screen, Ferrer was most recognizable for his performance as Prince Andrei in "War and Peace" in 1956 with Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. He was paid the then princely sum of $100,000. He appeared in "The Sun Also Rises" alongside Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn.

Ferrer was often cast in big pictures during the late '50s and early '60s: "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" with Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens; "Sex and the Single Girl" with Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis; "Paris Does Strange Things" with Ingrid Bergman; and "The Longest Day" with an all-star male cast.

Despite his aristocratic looks and versatility, Ferrer never hit stardom as a leading man. Later in his career, he starred primarily in TV movies and, living in Europe since 1954, he performed in a number of obscure European productions as well as intermittent U.S. exploitation fodder like "Eaten Alive" (1977).

Active in all forms of performance, Ferrer (with Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Joseph Cotton), founded the La Jolla Playhouse in 1947.

In film, Ferrer produced "Wait Until Dark," with Hepburn, his then-wife, as the female lead. Previously, he directed Hepburn, whom he met while they starred together in "Ondine" on Broadway, in "Green Mansions." Among his other noteworthy film accomplishments, Ferrer directed Claudette Colbert in the film "The Secret Fury" in 1950 and produced "El Greco" in 1966.

His foray into movie acting was notable. In his first film, Ferrer played the lead in "Lost Boundaries," starring as a light-skinned black doctor forced to pretend he's white so as not to lose his New England practice. Ferrer also distinguished himself in Nicholas Ray's "Born to Be Bad," which starred Joan Fontaine and Robert Ryan.

He wrote the book for the musical "Pickwick" in addition to producing and directing it.

Mel Ferrer was not related to Jose Ferrer (married to Rosemary Clooney at one time) or Miguel Ferrer (cousin to George Clooney).

[klondike]

In his first film, Ferrer played the lead in "Lost Boundaries," starring as a light-skinned black doctor forced to pretend he's white so as not to lose his New England practice.

Not to distract from this worthy performer's tribute, but it might be of interest to some that the events & situations of Lost Boundaries were indeed entirely factual, except for the name of the town where Ferrer settled down to practice.
The real-life mulatto physician he portrayed treated my mother for a sprained ankle in 1953; remembering that, my Mum often said that she always felt it was a known fact that he was part African; it just wasn't generally discussed around town, or often remarked on.
She did concede that not many people would go to him for treatment, although she found him "extremely polite, and very gentle."
I wonder what she'd have to say about our new Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.

[moira finnie]

Young George Bailey (Bob Anderson on the right) looking out for Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner) at a crucial moment in both their lives.

Bob Anderson, the handsome lad who played George Bailey as a boy in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) has died at age 75. Though best remembered by most of us as an actor, especially for his sincere and natural work in the iconic Jimmy Stewart film, Mr. Anderson had a long career as an assistant director, production manager and producer. His complete obituary in the LA Times can be viewed here.
His career as an actor is documented on IMDb here.

[CharlieT]

I'm surprised that there has been no mention (that I'm aware of) of Cyd Charisse's passing. And Stan Winston - Oscar-winning special effects guru of Jurassic Park.

Of course, I haven't visited the People of Film thread, so it might be there.

[CharlieT]

Just went to PofF and found her thread there. Guess I'm just used to finding that kind of info here.

Still no fanfare for Stan Winston.

[moira finnie]

Just went to PofF and found her thread there. Guess I'm just used to finding that kind of info here.

Still no fanfare for Stan Winston.

In the improvisational way of the SSO, I guess that sometimes if a person creates a thread devoted to a person's death in another part of the site, it seems redundant to make one here. Since we tend to each contribute our own small tributes to those whose contributions to the arts and our lives have touched us, you, along with all members, are welcome to add anything about a person who meant something to you. Here's an appreciation of Stan Winston that appeared in the LA Times on Thursday, (I really didn't know anything other than his name prior to your mention and this article). I hope that you'll add any thoughts on his work, Charlie! Thank you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's sad, but inevitable news this morning about a writer and illustrator whose work enthralled me from before the time that I could read.

Tasha Tudor has passed away at 92.

My heart breaks a little, but celebrates the fact that in her small way, she made all who came in contact with her quietly magical illustrations and words aware of the power of observing the passing of the seasons and the natural world just outside of our back door, as can be seen on her family's lovely website here.

Here's her obituary from the New York Times:
June 20, 2008
Tasha Tudor, Children’s Book Illustrator, Dies at 92
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Tasha Tudor, a children’s illustrator whose pastel watercolors and delicately penciled lines depicted an idyllic, old-fashioned vision of the 19th-century way of life she famously pursued — including weaving, spinning, gathering eggs and milking goats — died on Wednesday at her home in Marlboro, Vt.

She was 92, if one counts only the life that began on Aug. 28, 1915. Ms. Tudor frequently said that she was the reincarnation of a sea captain’s wife who lived from 1800 to 1840 or 1842, and that it was this earlier life she was replicating by living so ardently in the past.

Her son Seth confirmed the death. He suggested that his mother’s more colorful remarks might be taken with a pinch of salt.

A cottage industry grew out of Ms. Tudor’s art, which has illustrated nearly 100 books. The family sells greeting cards, prints, plates, aprons, dolls, quilts and more, all in a sentimental, rustic, but still refined style resembling that of Beatrix Potter.

In her promotion of such a definitive lifestyle, Ms. Tudor has been called a 19th-century Martha Stewart. Books, videotapes, magazine articles and television shows illuminated her gardening and housekeeping ideas.

For 70 years her illustrations elicited wide admiration: The New York Times in 1941 said her pictures “have the same fragile beauty of early spring evenings.”

Her drawings, particularly the early ones, often illustrated the almost equally memorable stories she herself wrote. Some details: Sparrow Post, a postal service for dolls with delivery by birds. Birthday parties featuring flotillas of cakes with lighted candles. Mouse Mills catalogs, for ordering dolls clothes made by mice, who take buttons for pay.

The Catholic Library World said in 1971 that Ms. Tudor shed “a special ray of sunshine” with pictures that carry “the imagination of children into history, into the human heart, into the joys of family life, into love of friendship itself.”

Two of Ms. Tudor’s books were named Caldecott Honor Books: “Mother Goose” (1944) and “1 Is One” (1956). Ms. Tudor was just awarded the Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Association.

But it was her uncompromising immersion in another, less comfortable century that most fascinated people. She wore kerchiefs, hand-knitted sweaters, fitted bodices and flowing skirts, and often went barefoot. She reared her four children in a home without electricity or running water until her youngest turned 5. She raised her own farm animals; turned flax she had grown into clothing; and lived by homespun wisdom: sow root crops on a waning moon, above-ground plants on a waxing one.

“It is healthful to sleep in a featherbed with your nose pointing north,” she said in an interview with The Times in 1977.

Starling Burgess, who later legally changed both her names to Tasha Tudor, was born in Boston to well-connected but not wealthy parents. Her mother, Rosamond Tudor, was a portrait painter, and her father, William Starling Burgess, was a yacht and airplane designer who collaborated with Buckminster Fuller.

Ms. Tudor could not remember a time when she did not draw pictures or make little books. She was originally nicknamed Natasha by her father, after Tolstoy’s heroine in “War and Peace.” This was shortened to Tasha. After her parents divorced when she was 9, Ms. Tudor adopted her mother’s last name.

In an autobiography she wrote in 1951, Ms. Tudor said she did not start school until she was 9, although other biographies say she began as early as 7. She attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for a year, but said she learned painting from her mother. Her art was often framed by ornate borders like those from a medieval manuscript, but more whimsical.

Partly to protect her from Jazz Age Greenwich Village, where her mother had moved, Ms. Tudor was sent to live with a couple in Connecticut, drama enthusiasts who included children in the plays they put on. She soon developed a love of times past and things rural, going to auctions to buy antique clothing before she was 10. At 15 she used money she had made teaching nursery school to buy her first cow.

In 1938 she married Thomas Leighton McCready Jr., who was in the real estate business. A fiddler played the wedding march. Mr. McCready encouraged his bride to put together a folio of pictures and seek publishers. She was repeatedly turned down before her first published book, “Pumpkin Moonshine” (1938), was accepted by Oxford University Press. It was the start of a flood, many still in print.

Ms. Tudor’s favorite of all her books was “Corgiville Fair,” one of several she wrote about the Welsh corgi dogs she kept as pets, sometimes 13 or 14 at once. Her 1963 illustrated version of “The Secret Garden,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, tells of children enraptured by a mysterious garden. The volume of Clement C. Moore’s “Night Before Christmas” that she illustrated remains popular.

She rebuked those who said she must be enthralled with her own creativity.

“That’s nonsense,” she said. “I’m a commercial artist, and I’ve done my books because I needed to earn my living.”

She and her husband moved to a 19th-century farmhouse in New Hampshire that lacked electricity and running water, but did have 17 rooms and 450 acres. Ms. Tudor painted in the kitchen, in between baking bread and washing dishes. She created a dollhouse with a cast of characters, two of whom were married in a ceremony covered by Life magazine.

Ms. Tudor was divorced from Mr. McCready, who later died, and from a second husband, Allan John Woods. In 1972 she sold the New Hampshire farm and moved onto her property near her son Seth in Marlboro.

In addition to Seth, Ms. Tudor is survived by her daughters Bethany Tudor of West Brattleboro, Vt., and Efner Tudor Holmes of Contoocook, N.H.; another son, Thomas, of Fairfax, Va.; eight grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and her half-sister, Ann Hopps of Camden, Me.

Ms. Tudor, who could play the dulcimer and handle a gun, once promised a reporter for The Times that she could find a four-leaf clover within five minutes and came back with a five-leaf one in four minutes. She kept a seven-leaf clover framed in her room.

She told The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk in 1996 that it was her intention to go straight back to the 1830s after her death.

[klondike]

Wow!
I'd heard of Tasha Tudor (what children's book enthusiast hasn't?), but had no idea she lived so close by: Contocook, NH is just 31 miles ENE of Bellows Falls; the town of Marlboro, Vermont only about 25 minutes to the south of us!

[moira finnie]

Damn Mondays anyway! On top of all the talented people who've passed away recently, now comes news that George Carlin has died this morning of heart failure. A comic master of verbal dexterity, insightful and imaginatively profane, he punctured the inflated self-importance of so many things in modern society, becoming a bit more acerbic in recent years as he struggled with various health issues, and sometimes, I suspect, with his own pessimism. He gave me a thousand laughs and for that many thanks. To paraphrase his hippie-dippy weatherman who once said: "Forecast for tonight---dark." Forecast for comedy---dimmer. Here's the New York Times story:

The New York Times
June 24, 2008
George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71
By MEL WATKINS

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”

Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.

But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”

Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.

By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.

That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”

In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.

By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.

“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”

The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ’70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.

By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”

Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.



Pursuing a Dream

Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”

He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ’50s.

After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.

During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ’60s to counterculture icon in the ’70s. By the ’80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.

During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ’90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ ” (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.

Personal Struggles

During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ’80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.

In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.

“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).

His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.

Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”

Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.

Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

[klondike]

Wow, now it's raining in my soul, too!
This one really hurts, and is probably gonna hurt for a while.
Here was a man you developed a relationship with; you couldn't like him just a little, and the more you grew to like him, the less you felt like just a "fan".
George, we just weren't ready for this.

[jdb1]

Ugh - I'm still reeling from my first reading of this news. How will we get along without him?

Carlin was one of the first comedians I saw in concert, and I never, ever laughed so hard in my life. He was literally side-splitting.

Did you see Dana Carvey's latest gig - it was on TV last week. His routine was quite different from what he's generally done -- more political, and much more social commentary. And very funny. I said to a friend that it looks like Carvey is positioning himself as the next George Carlin. Lord, I hope so.

Bummer.

[jdb1]

I just looked again to the online NY Times to refer to Carlin's obit. The original headline describing him as "splenetic" has been changed to "irreverent." And what would George have had to say about the dumbing down of the New York Times, I wonder?

[MikeBSG]

When my wife and I saw the Streisand film "Prince of Tides," we both liked the guy who played Nick Nolte's best friend. I said to myself: "He kind of reminds me of George Carlin, but it can't be him." It was Carlin.

[knitwit45]

My favorite GC role was as the over the hill hippie in Outrageous Fortune When he looked at Bette Midler and said "The 60's were real good to you, weren't they?" I fell off my seat....literally!

His voice of sanity in this crazy world will be sorely missed.