Tributes
I awakened early this morning to the news that comedian Bernie Mac had died at age 50 of pneumonia. Mac, born Bernard McCullough, was hospitalized late last week and, despite suffering from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease, he was expected to be released and to recover. All of which made this morning's news that much more surprising and sad.
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You'd have to be dead to not know that this is a big week for a particular movie star who is no longer with us. Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker in the new Batman film is being hyped and hailed as Oscar worthy, and for the first time since "No Country For Old Men" I'll probably make a trip to the theater.
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For me, Ledger falls into the category of celebrities who died too soon and are actually worth missing. His death from an accidental overdose of prescription pills in January was a shocker and my sympathy for those who were actually close to him is coupled with my own selfish regret that I'll no longer see him on screen. I felt the same way when River Phoenix died in 1993 -- again very talented, very young and again from a drug overdose.
In 1994, I was deeply saddened when Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain took his own life. Something about having the architect of your life's current soundtrack suddenly disappear will put a crimp in your turntable. I imagine many people felt the same way about Elvis or Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin or John Lennon or Jim Morrison or ...
Is it the shocking death that makes the star burn brighter for us? Plenty of huge stars live into old age and die with less media fanfare than Ledger. Leaving one final critically acclaimed performance on celluloid doesn't appear to hurt one's legacy. Yet how do we explain Anna Nicole Smith or the inevitable next star who burns out without leaving a body of work one would deem worthy of the coverage their death generates?
As we appreciate the work of the Joker this week and watch the box office dollars roll in for "The Dark Knight," take a moment to remember an actor or musician who impacted your life and was then gone, too soon. Are you still affected by what this person left behind when you see or hear it? Do you appreciate it for what it was then and leave it at that, or do you wish he was still alive today as whatever brand of entertainer time had turned him into?
Everyone’s writing about George Carlin’s famous “Seven Dirty Words” routine as we mourn him. I heard that routine again on satellite radio this morning, and yes, it had me laughing. But I don’t want to forget that Carlin could also set a room of nuns and prudish grandmas to laughing with humor that you COULD say on television.
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Harvey Korman, who died today at age 81, appeared in a number of big-name movies, from "Blazing Saddles" to "High Anxiety" (not to mention the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special"). But to a large contingent of fans, he will be remembered as much for how he made himself laugh as for how he made us laugh.
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The most shocking thing about losing Kurt Vonnegut was realizing he was already 84. Something about that shock of curly hair, the mischievious face, and above all, the accessibility of his writing made him seem forever thirtysomething. We thought we'd have him around forever, that he'd somehow managed to pull a Billy Pilgrim and come unstuck in time.
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Some readers have complained that "American Idol" is beginning to dominate this Weblog. Sorry about that, but it's likely to play a prominent role in posts here until the show's May finale. It's the 800-pound gorilla of TV right now, and with stories such as the Mario Vazquez lawsuit, the show just keeps pushing itself into the news.
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Yvonne DeCarlo, the Hollywood beauty best known to many of us as Lily Munster on "The Munsters," has died at 84.
Although one of my cats is named for Wednesday Addams of the rival monster-family series "The Addams Family," I was really a bigger fan of "The Munsters" as a kid. "Addams" wins out for edginess, but "Munsters" fulfilled its purpose beautifully -- it was a monster-starring spoof of the other black-and-white family comedies of its day, including "Leave It To Beaver" and "The Donna Reed Show."
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