Television

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Film, Television, Theater

Estelle Getty 1923-2008

July 22, 2008

She would have turned 85 on July 25. Forever famous as Sophia on television’s The Golden Girls, but it was in Broadway’s Torch Song Trilogy (1982) that I first laid eyes on Estelle Getty. Thereafter, she was doomed to serve up variations on the cantankerous little old lady, but what’s to complain? After all, it…

Film, Television, Theater

Sydney Pollack 1934-2008

May 27, 2008

“There’s Sydney Pollack—and there’s everybody else.” That thought came over me last April when I found myself sitting next to him at the Housing Works Used Books Café; we and a few others had been asked to read some selected work from the winners of the PEN Prison Writing program that night, and I remember…

Film, Television, Theater

black like me

March 19, 2008

Or so I felt growing up. Ivan Dixon (1931-2008) was ever-present in the 60s and 70s, especially on television where his cool-as-a-cucumber bemusement enlivened a million guest spots. I believe the only reason my father watched Hogan’s Heroes was to catch a glimpse of Dixon so’s he could smile back at the television with pride. …

Film, Television, Theater

Anthony Minghella 1954-2008

March 18, 2008

You’ve gone too soon. For transporting me and making me laugh, for breaking my heart at the movies, thanks… Photo: Rankin

Television

Goodbye, you big lug

February 15, 2008

David Groh 1941-2008 R.I.P.

Film, Television, Theater

Roy Scheider 1932-2008

February 11, 2008

His portrayal of the pimp Frank Ligourin in Klute was the first time I ever laid eyes on Roy Scheider, and even at a young, impressionable age I got why Jane Fonda’s Bree Daniels found it tough to leave him–and the life–behind. In the matter of Roy, you couldn’t look away–not in Klute or Jaws,…

Television

Barry Morse 1918-2008

February 5, 2008

Loved The Fugitive when I was a kid. Morse was worse than the boogeyman–or was it because I had such a crush on David Janssen (after all we had the same protruding ears) that I found any threat to his person too horrific to contemplate? RIP.

Television

Torchwood is H-O-T

February 3, 2008

True confession: I’m addicted to BBC’s popping new sci-fi series, Torchwood. I love the time travel conceit (“there’s a rift in the universe” has become one of my favorite exclamations); the slobbering monsters evoking creatures from some black lagoon; the sarcastic humor and best of all, the unapologetic, ambidextrous sexuality its creators weave into the…

Film, Television, Theater

Goodnight Ladies

January 22, 2008

Suzanne Pleshette 1937-2008 Lois Nettleton 1929-2008

Current Affairs, Film, Television, Theater

Charles Nelson Reilly 1931-2007

May 30, 2007

So this is my Charles Nelson Reilly story: we met almost ten years ago at the York Theater Company’s Oscar Hammerstein Award presentation to Peter Stone. That night, Charles and I were asked to recreate a 10 minute scene from Skyscaper, one of his Broadway triumphs; I was to play a delivery man, the straight foil to Reilly’s…