Hollywood Obits
On June 10, 1971, I realized I was going to die.
We all make that realization eventually, of course, but I had managed to live into my mid-thirties without really thinking much about it; embracing that often-cited childhood conceit that I was immortal. But that day it all changed, and I remember it quite clearly.
I was living in Manhattan and on my way to work when I saw the article in the New York Post. Michael Rennie, one of my favorite actors had passed away. I had followed his career casually for twenty years, dating back to The Day the Earth Stood Still, a film I still count among the very best science fiction flicks ever made.
And although I never knew him personally, I felt a sudden sense of shock, of loss – a feeling that, somehow, the world had diminished in a way I’d never expected it to. His films remained, and in that way he was frozen in time and I could enjoy his work again and again.
Since then I’ve relived that experience with other actors quite a few times, and always, as with the passing of my close friends and relatives, comes the sense of loss, of a whole world slipping farther and farther into the hands of the bland and talent-challenged. Gradually, bit by bit, little pieces of my own past seemed to be chipping off. Jack Soo died in 1979. William Holden in 1981. This list goes on.
I am adding this to my blog simply because that old feeling came home to roost once again recently, with the death of Pat Morita, and I am sure other film aficionados must have had a similar experience.
I want you to know you are not alone.
We all make that realization eventually, of course, but I had managed to live into my mid-thirties without really thinking much about it; embracing that often-cited childhood conceit that I was immortal. But that day it all changed, and I remember it quite clearly.
I was living in Manhattan and on my way to work when I saw the article in the New York Post. Michael Rennie, one of my favorite actors had passed away. I had followed his career casually for twenty years, dating back to The Day the Earth Stood Still, a film I still count among the very best science fiction flicks ever made.
And although I never knew him personally, I felt a sudden sense of shock, of loss – a feeling that, somehow, the world had diminished in a way I’d never expected it to. His films remained, and in that way he was frozen in time and I could enjoy his work again and again.
Since then I’ve relived that experience with other actors quite a few times, and always, as with the passing of my close friends and relatives, comes the sense of loss, of a whole world slipping farther and farther into the hands of the bland and talent-challenged. Gradually, bit by bit, little pieces of my own past seemed to be chipping off. Jack Soo died in 1979. William Holden in 1981. This list goes on.
I am adding this to my blog simply because that old feeling came home to roost once again recently, with the death of Pat Morita, and I am sure other film aficionados must have had a similar experience.
I want you to know you are not alone.
posted by Carl Larsen at 8:42 AM
3 Comments:
My mortality dawned on me on my 30th birthday. I went to bed for a week. I kept thinking... well, Woody Allen said best, "What have I gotten myself into ths time?"
Interesting site. Useful information. Bookmarked.
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