On A Pale Horse

I'm not telling you how old I was in 1978 but I was old enough to remember my dad taking me to see Heaven Can Wait at the theatre across the street from Eastland and just down the road from the St. Clair Shores apartments where we lived. He had just picked me up from my Grandma's house (8 Mile & Groesbeck a nice place before Tycoon's moved in).

My dad never really knew what to do with me so he just took me to movies. Which I think was an inherited trait because my other Grandma (his mom) did the same thing with me.

Anyways...it was in this movie I first saw a soprano saxophone and I knew right then and there that was the only instrument that I wanted to play. This was way before Kenny G. totally pussified the sax the way he did. Because this was such a dream I took band for eight years (band fag for life!) and each year I asked the band director if we could add a soprano sax to the line up and every year the answer was 'no'. Well every year that is except my senior year when D.K. added a beautiful soprano sax, from the band budget, but let someone else play it. Just another crushing moment in a series of disappointment.

Jack Warden played Coach Max Corkle in that flick. He also played Morris Buttermaker in the TV adaptation of Bad News Bears (staring little Cory Feldmen). But playing the gruff and hard nosed coach wasn't the only part that he was good at. He was nominated for two supporting actor Oscars in the aforementioned Heaven Can Wait as well as Shampoo and walked away with an Emmy for his part in Brian's Song.

He served in WW2 as a paratrooper and was scheduled to make a jump on D-Day but shattered his leg during a practice jump the day before. It was when he was in bed recuperating he decided to become an actor and made his film debut in 1951 with 'You're in the Navy Now".

He passed away in a New York hospital from a combination of heart and kidney failure, or as his manager called it "Just old age".

September 18, 1920 - July 19, 2006

RIP

Labels: 1920 births, 2006 July deaths, actor, heart failure, kidney failure

My mom was pretty strict, especially about bedtimes. Every night, without fail, I was marched off to bed at 8pm on school nights but got to stay up a bit later on Fridays & Saturdays. My dad wasn't so big on rules so on Thursday nights, when my mom was at choir practice, I could usually stay up until 9:30pm or later depending on when mom got done BS-ing with the rest of the choir junkies. So every Thursday night I got to watch 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' it was so awesome, especially since I had the hots for Gil Gerard (why?).
My 1979 fav series was just one in a long line of Buck Rogers incarnations. The original 1939 movie stared Constance Moore as Lt. Wilma Deering (not Colonel, thank you). Ms. Moore then went on to star in many movies before retiring in 1947 but then popped up in a couple of guest spots on various 60's T.V. comedies.

Ms. Moore passed away from heart failure following a long illness on Friday, September 16th.

January 18, 1920 - September 16, 2005 R.I.P.

Labels: 1920 births, 2005 September deaths, actor, illiness

I love how these Star Trek guys just embrace the quirkiness of the show and it's fans. A few weeks ago Encore was showing (again & again) the documentary "Trekkies". One of the scenes I loved the most was 'Scotty' telling of a woman that was really depressed and they started a correspondence and finally met at a few of the Trek conventions. He said that she just looked so miserable and he just gave her some words of encouragement. He went on to say that the letters stopped coming and he didn't keep her home address to find out what happened but kept hoping that she was alright. Then a few years later she came to another convention and he hardly recognized her, she was smiling and happy and told him that she went back to school got things together in her life and it had a lot to do with the encouragement that he gave her. He said this with tears welling up in his eyes. It was pretty touching. But I guess that's pretty telling of what sort of guy he was.
In recent years he was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease this with bout of pneumonia caused his passing.
I'm not going to be cliche like the headlines on CNN.com and MSNBC.com all I'll say is that you will be missed.

March 3, 1920 - July 20, 2005
R.I.P.

Labels: 1920 births, 2005 July deaths, actor, pneumonia