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Someone noticed that, as soon as the Berlin Wall fell, Corin's career picked up. In his middle and
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Well, if Americans aren't too sure who Corin Redgrave was, they certainly knew this guy, who died last week amidst a lot of hoopla:
JOHN FORSYTHE
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1918-2010
Everybody knows the suave, sophisticated actor who spent the better part of his career in television. He attended UNC-Chapel Hill, but dropped out when he discovered the money he could make on the radio. His smooth vocal quality was a natural for the medium. When WWII came along, he enlisted in the air force, and was promptly sent to Broadway, in the ensemble of Moss Hart's Winged Victory, a tribute to American pilots. Later stage roles included another American soldier, in the original Teahouse of the August Moon, and replacing Henry Fonda in the original Mister Roberts. On the big screen, he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's comic mystery The Trouble with Harry, and in Truman Capote's docudrama In Cold Blood.
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But his greatest fame was on television. He worked steadily as a guest on various episodics in the early days, and delivered a fine performance as a cynical theatre critic in a television play called What Makes Sammy Run?, which starred a young Larry Blyden (that performance is available on DVD; I've seen it and it's well worth renting). His first starring role was as dashing playboy Bentley Gregg in the sitcom Bachelor Father, playing one of television's first single parents
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In the 80s, he headlined another iconic series, Dynasty. ABC's answer to the smash hit Dallas, the primetime soap dealt with the wealthy and powerful Carrington clan. During its first season, Forsythe's role was written as a ruthless patriarch who ruled his family with an iron fist; that
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The public at large wasn't too interested, either, at least during the show's first season. The show struggled through its first year and was renewed based more on its pedigree (Aaron Spelling, ABC's hitmaker at the time, produced the show) than on its ratings. In a smart move, the writers teased the arrival of the scheming matriarch of the family, who swept into a wedding (or was it a funeral? Who remembers?) in the final scene of the first season. The role of Alexis Carrington was due to be cast during the hiatus, so the character arrived dressed in a heavy black veil, played by an extra. When season two premiered months later, the veil was lifted to reveal Joan Collins; her catfights with Linda Evans became a signature of the series.
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Forsythe himself was amused that his performance as Blake Carrington turned him into a sex symbol in his 60s. He received three Emmy and four Golden Globe nominations for his work on Dynasty, losing them all.
He died last week at the age of 92.
Nobody remembers this (I certainly didn't), but this guy was also a Dynasty star, at least in its later years:
CHRISTOPHER CAZENOVE
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1945-2010
He was born into a middle class family with upper-class connections: his father was an aide-de-camp to King George VI for a time. Chris declined to enter the family's stock brokerage firm, and studied to be an actor at the Bristol Old Vic, making his stage debut in Shaw's Man and Superman in the late 60s. He was a charismatic young actor who worked often, but stardom eluded him. I first saw this guy in the BBC mini-series The Duchess of Duke Street, playing the romantic interest of the leading lady.
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He made more than a few feature films, in roles both large and small (he stood next to Charlton Heston in 1970's Julius Caesar, and appeared in Three Men and a Little Lady). He toured England and the states as Henry Higgins in a revival of My Fair Lady, but it was his casting in Dynasty which probably brought his biggest fame. (He played John Forsythe's brother, who plotted to steal the family fortune. yawn.)
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I have one more obit, but before getting to it, you just have to take a peek at the clip below, the opening credits for one of the later seasons of Dynasty. This show epitomized the excess of the 80s and, as always happens with a night-time soap, the cast had grown to an unmanageable size. So the writers took them all to a fictional country and slaughtered about half of them. The "Massacre in Moldavia" is still considered one of the great Jump The Shark moments in TV history.
OK, back to the real world. I'm embarrassed to reveal that I had never heard of this guy until his recent death. Embarrassed, because he was one of the founders of the regional theatre movement in which I live my life.
CRAIG NOEL
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1915-2010
In 1937, this youngster from New Mexico was cast in a community theatre production of The
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In 1986, I was living in Los Angeles and sometimes made the schlep down Interstate 5 to San
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I've slid off-topic here a bit, what are the odds of that happening? Back to Craig Noel, who helped guide Into the Woods to its later success. He was responsible for the growth of The Old Globe into one of the giants of the regional theatre movement, and the theatre won the 1984 regional
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In 2007, Noel was presented the U.S. National Medal of Arts by George W. Bush, who must have had some help in chosing such a worthy recipient, since I can't imagine Bush ever sat through a play in his life. Craig Noel did, though, and the professional theatre is better for it. He died last week at the age of 94.
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2 comments:
Recheck your dates on CHRISTOPHER CAZENOVE.
Thanks! Who knew you were so good at math?
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