Someone Wonderful I Missed

I'm not sure when this site turned into the obituaries, but it surely seems like I've written many more entries about dead people than living, especially lately. According to my count, I mentioned over forty deaths in these pages this year, which does not begin to cover the full list of notable passings. Before I recap the folks about whom I did write a bit, I feel obligated to at least mention a few of those whom I left out in 2008. I did not really overlook these folks, I just did not feel the urge to post an item about them at the time of their deaths. So sue me.

Richard Widmark, for example, deserves a mention, as does comic Bernie Mac and Oscar-winner Isaac Hayes (I have vivid memories of his performance of Shaft at the 1971 Oscars, all smoke and chains...).

And how could I have failed to celebrate the life and career of Estelle Reiner? Of course, you recognise the surname; she was wife to Carl and mother to Rob, and maintained a career as an actress and cabaret artist. But let's not kid ourselves. We remember her because she delivered one of the most hilarious one-liners ever to appear in a feature film. The flick was When Harry Met Sally, and the line was, "I'll have what she's having."

'Nuff said.

Anthony Minghella died this year, and I am surprised that I never mentioned it, as he is responsible for one of my favorite films. He was an Oscar-winning director and writer, and his production of The Talented Mr. Ripley provided a spectacular showcase for Matt Damon. Gwyneth Paltrow and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were never better, and Minghella's direction enabled the sub-talented Jude Law to deliver a performance he has been unable to match, before or since.

Lots of politicos died this year, but only two really hit my radar. Mark Felt is a name nobody really remembers until reminded that his code-name was Deep Throat. He provided inside info to Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post, and was thus central to the downfall of the Nixon presidency. I imagine he's meeting up with St. Peter about now, in some celestial parking garage, telling him to "follow the money." I could not bring myself to write about another political animal who left the planet this year, Jesse Helms. This long-time bigot and homophobe kicked the bucket on July 4th, a coincidence I dislike, but I think it's poetic justice that his senate seat, which was held for a while by Elizabeth Dole, has finally been lost to the Democrats.

I don't follow political journalism too closely, though I know enough about right-wingers William F. Buckley and Tony Snow to dislike their politics. Those two were certainly not unbiased journalists (I'm not sure Buckley would even have called himself a "journalist." He was a "commentator." Where do I sign up to get paid to comment? Nice gig...), at least not on the scale of the greatly missed Tim Russert, who helmed Meet the Press for many years. My friend Warner is afraid that Russert's replacement, David Gregory, is not up to the task, and I'm in no position to argue. But he sure is purty on TV... isn't that enough?

Jim McKay died this year too, and though he spent his long career in sports broadcasting, I remember him from those horrendous days during the 1972 Olympics. It was the first time I ever heard the word "terrorist." Are there any sportscasters around today who could step up to the plate (note the sports metaphor...I worked hard on that one) and anchor a breaking, hard news story, as McKay did from Munich?

A couple of other folks who died this year are better remembered, at least in my addled brain, by the actors who portrayed them in the movies. Dith Pran was the Cambodian photojournalist at the center of The Killing Fields, but when I picture him, it's the amateur actor Dr. Haing S. Ngor who comes to mind. The world's most famous coma victim, Sunny von Bulow, died this year, after spending almost 28 years in a vegetative state. She had no idea her story would be immortalized by Reversal of Fortune, that Jeremy Irons would win an Oscar playing her philandering, and possibly murderous, husband, Claus, or that whenever her name is mentioned, it is Glenn Close who comes to mind.

These are just a few of the people I missed writing about this year, so in their honor (or in a few cases, dishonor), let's raise a glass of champagne to their memory. Better yet, make sure the glass is filled with a sparkling wine from California. Robert Mondavi died this year, too.

Dale Wasserman

1914-2008
Playwright

He followed his quest.

Friday Dance Party: Eartha gets Nothin' for Christmas

It's been difficult to maintain the Christmas Spirit, as losses continue to be felt throughout the holiday season. Just since Thanksgiving, we've lost Harold Pinter, Van Johnson, Beverly Garland, Paul Benedict, and even others.

It seems that the weekly Dance Party, invented by my buddy Larry at http://ldahlke.wordpress.com, has evolved into something else in these pages. I'm not sure WHAT, but it doesn't seem to be "dance," at least not lately.

No matter. For the final Holiday Dance Party of 2008, please enjoy the clip below, remembering the sultry Eartha Kitt, who left us Christmas Day.

Eartha Kitt

1927-2008

Orson Welles, who cast her as Helen of Troy, dubbed her "the most exciting woman in the world." Though she was born among cotton pickers in South Carolina, she never allowed her mixed race to deter or define her (her mother was black and Cherokee, her father was white). She was abandoned by her mother and raised by an aunt, who took her to New York and enrolled her in the High School of the Performing Arts (she never graduated). By chance she landed in the Katherine Dunham dance troupe, with which she made her Broadway debut in Bal Negre. She returned to Broadway in New Faces of 1952, a revue which also featured future stars Carol Lawrence, Paul Lynde, and Alice Ghostly. Other Broadway appearances included Shinbone Alley and The Owl and the Pussycat; she received Tony nominations for Timbuktu and The Wild Party. Her most recent appearance on Broadway was as Chita Rivera's replacement in Nine.

Kitt received her first Emmy nomination for a guest appearance on I Spy in the mid-60s, and famously replaced Julie Newmar in the campy Batman series. Her sultry purr as the Catwoman remains a cult classic.

Kitt's outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War, which she notoriously voiced at a White House luncheon attended by Lady Bird Johnson, nearly destroyed her career. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA, and was forced to work overseas for years after the incident.

More recently, Kitt earned back-to-back Emmy awards as Best Performer in an Animated Series for her work on The Emperor's New School. She has received multiple Grammy nominations, and her 1954 recording of Santa Baby insured that the song is now a holiday standard. A recent concert in Chicago was taped by PBS for upcoming broadcast in 2009.

Kitt succumbed to colon cancer on Christmas Day.

Harold Pinter

1930-2008


Playwright, screenwriter, poet, essayist, actor, director, conscientious objector, and political activist, Pinter's theatrical career was bookended by two colossal flops. The Birthday Party, his first professionally produced play, was considered one of the biggest disasters of the post-war era. His final screenplay, an adaptation (and remake) of Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth, was a critical and financial bomb. In between, he produced a body of work which places him alongside Beckett as one of the most influential theatrical writers of the 20th century.

PLAYS:



The Room (1957)
The Birthday Party (1957), at right
The Dumb Waiter (1957)
A Slight Ache (1958)
The Hothouse (1958)
The Caretaker (1959)
A Night Out (1959)
Night School (1960)
The Dwarfs (1960)
The Collection (1961)
The Lover (1962)
Tea Party (1964)
The Homecoming (1964)
The Basement (1966)
Landscape (1967)
Silence (1968)
Old Times (1970)
Monologue (1972)
No Man's Land (1974), at right
Betrayal (1978)
Family Voices (1980)
A Kind of Alaska (1982)
Victoria Station (1982)
One for the Road (1984)
Mountain Language (1988)
The New World Order (1991)
Party Time (1991)
Moonlight (1993)
Ashes to Ashes (1996)
Celebration (1999)
Remembrance of Things Past (2000) [Stage adapt. of The Proust Screenplay; a collaboration with Di Trevis.]



Screenplays:

The Caretaker (1963)
The Servant (1963), picture at right
The Pumpkin Eater (1963)
The Compartment (1963) [Screenplay for unproduced film; adapt. for stage as The Basement (play)]
The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
Accident (1966)
The Birthday Party (1968)
The Go-Between (1969)
The Homecoming (1969)
Langrishe, Go Down (1970; adapt. for TV 1978; film release 2002]
The Proust Screenplay (1972) [Published 1978, but unproduced for film; adapt. by Harold Pinter and director Di Trevis for the stage (2000) Remembrance of Things Past]
The Last Tycoon (1974)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), below
Betrayal (1983)
Victory (1982) [Published but unproduced]
Turtle Diary (1984)
The Handmaid's Tale (1987)
Reunion (1988)
The Heat of the Day (1988) [adapt. for TV]
The Comfort of Strangers (1989)
Party Time (1992) (Rev. & adapt. for TV)
The Trial (1993)
"Lolita" (1994) [Unpublished and unproduced]
"The Dreaming Child" (1997) [Published but unproduced]
"The Tragedy of King Lear" (2000) [Unpublished and unproduced]
Sleuth (2007)



Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. In a videotaped response which has become the most famous Nobel acceptance speech in history, he delivered a vitriolic diatribe against American foreign policy, including this sensational accusation: "The United States supported and in many cases engendered every rightwing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the second world war". (He then proceeded to provide examples.)

In honor of one of the great voices of contemporary drama, let us (ahem)

...pause.

Merry Christmas

Shane Wallis

1975-2008

This year of loss continues for the DC theatrical community. Wallis was a rising young actor on local stages, and in recent years has populated productions at Washington Shakespeare Company, Rorshach Theatre, Baltimore Shakes, American Century Theatre, and the Source Theatre Festival. His theatrical skills included directing Spoon River Anthology at American Century. He also graced the area's larger stages, appearing as "Snake" in School for Scandal at the Folger, and was The Shakespeare Theatre's ensemble swing for Macbeth and Pericles. He was scheduled to appear in Arena Stage's Sweet Bird of Youth in 2009.

Shane was an accomplished combat choreographer, musician, and set constructionist. In addition to appearing onstage there, he was the associate technical director for Theatre J, which will be hosting a memorial service 12/29 in his honor. He leaves behind an extended family in Mississippi, including two young children.

Shane died in a motorcycle accident last week.