Gone but not forgotten XXVII
Serious readers of this website’s back catalog will be aware that the first weeks of a new year were once an occasion to look back on people in the film world and, in fact, of the entertainment world in general who had left us during the previous calendar year. That tradition has long gone by the wayside, though I do occasionally highlight some such names when time allows, the mood strikes me and I am moved to do so. The problem is that there are, sadly, always too many names to mention and elaborate on. I hate to spotlight anybody if I can’t honor everybody, but that’s silly because it means not acknowledging anybody. In the end, these occasional mini-eulogies, covering the past couple of months or so, just need to be seen for what they are: random hit-and-miss testimonials from a disorganized film fan.
Famous Actors…
Sean Connery died on Halloween in the Bahamas, where he lived, at the age of 90. He was not the first actor to play James Bond on screen (that was Barry Nelson in a 1954 TV anthology series), but he was the first to do so on the big screen and the one forever most associated with the role. In the interest of fairness, though, let us not forget he also played a number of kings (Alexander in Adventure Story, Agamemnon in Time Bandits, Richard in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Arthur in First Knight) as a well as a man who would be king in a John Huston movie. He was also Robin Hood (Robin and Marian), the mentor of the original Highlander and Indiana Jones’s father (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). My sentimental favorite Connery role? Michael McBride, the strapping young Dubliner courting the daughter of a wily codger tangling with the king of the leprechauns in Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
Dawn Wells passed away on December 30 from Covid‑19-related causes at the age of 82. It seems somehow demeaning to bring up the old Mary Ann-vs.-Ginger thing (but I always definitely picked you, Mary Ann), and yet that sort of thing seems to be a consistent aspect of entering pop culture immortality. Though known mainly, if not exclusively, by most people for Gilligan’s Island, she also played other roles and was a teacher, a motivational speaker and a conservationist. Whenever she turned up, she never seemed to age and never dissuaded us from the notion that she was basically Mary Ann in her real life. That was a good thing.
Directors…
Joan Micklin Silver succumbed to vascular dementia on New Year’s Eve at the age of 85. She was a successful filmmaker both inside and outside Hollywood. If you want to get a good feel of her work and her importance, read Hadley Freeman’s Guardian piece which argues that she was not only a chronicler of the Jewish-American community but that she was the anti-Woody Allen in that she countered a running theme in his movies (and later Judd Apatow’s and among others) that the ultimate happy ending for a Jewish man was to wind up with a blonde WASP. Her strongest films are arguably Hester Street, a 1975 immigrant story with Carol Kane, and Crossing Delancey, a 1988 romcom with Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. Not to be underestimated, though, is Between the Lines, about a small paper getting absorbed into a big corporation. Later on she settled into more standard fare with the likes of the comedy farce Loverboy. My sentimental favorite? It is 1979’s Chilly Scenes of Winter with John Heard and Mary Beth Hurt. At the risk of grinding an old ax I have whetted many times before on this site, it was a great, bittersweet, funny film about losing one’s way and inappropriate, unrequited love. I was lucky enough to see the original version before the studio hacks tacked on a happy ending and re-titled it Head Over Heels.
Michael Apted died in Los Angeles on January 7 at the age of 79. I’m guessing I’m not the only one who, on hearing the news, immediately wondered, is this the end up the Up series? In 1964 the UK documentary TV series World in Action aired his segment “Seven Up” with interviews of seven-year-old children from varying backgrounds. In 1970 he revisited the interviewees for a movie documentary called 7 Plus Seven. The year 1977 brought 21 Up and the series continued ever since—at least until 2019 when ITV aired 63 Up. Understandably, there was some focus on mortality in that one, and it was particularly bittersweet. Audiences had become attached to a group of English people they kind of felt they had known (intermittently) all their lives. As a filmmaker, Apted did a lot more than the Up series, though. He made an Oscar-winning country music biopic (Coal Miner’s Daughter), a John Belushi comedy (Continental Divide), an environmental biopic (Gorillas in the Mist), a medical thriller (Extreme Measures), a Bond film (The World Is Not Enough) and a Narnia movie (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)—not to mention TV episodes ranging from Coronation Street in the 1960s to Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex in the 21st century.
The Star Wars family…
David Prowse died in Bristol, England on November 28 of complications from Covid‑19 at the age of 85. The obituaries said he played Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies, but what does that even mean? James Earl Jones provided the voice. Sebastian Shaw was the face revealed as he was dying. In the prequels Jake Lloyd played him as a child and Hayden Christensen played him as a young adult. Prowse was the Darth Vader we actually think of first—the helmeted figure in black garb wielding a lightsaber. It is Prowse’s physical performance that comes to mind, though we never actually saw his face. With a height of 6'6", much of Prowse’s career (he often went by Dave Prowse) was playing monsters, giants or other such beings. He was a torturer in Carry On Henry VIII, musclebound Julian in A Clockwork Orange, a minotaur in Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who, an android on The Tomorrow People and a “cloud creature” on Space: 1999. He played Frankenstein’s monster three times—in 1967’s Casino Royale and in Hammer Films’ The Horror of Frankenstein and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. He was also Hotblack Desiato’s bodyguard in a 1981 episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Less (or more) stereotypically, he played a kilt-wearing Scotsman mistaken by the Clampetts for a woman in a 1968 episode of The Beverly Hillbillies.
Jeremy Bulloch died of Parkinson’s disease in London on December 17 at the age of 75. Like Dave Prowse, he was an English actor with a long career but who was best known for a Star Wars role where his face was not seen. He played the Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi. He got started with commercials in 1958 and, at 17, starred with singer Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday. He was a regular on British TV, appearing on Counter-Attack!, Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School and Doctor Who. He had small roles in the films A Night to Remember, Carry On Teacher, The Idol and the Bond flicks The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only. Needless to say, thanks to Disney Boba Fett lives on.
The Dark Shadows family…
Malcolm Marmorstein died of cancer in Los Angeles on November 21 at the age of 92. His obituaries highlighted the fact that he was the screenwriter of the 1970s Disney movies Pete’s Dragon and Return from Witch Mountain. He also wrote for the TV series Peyton Place, co-wrote a 1986 TV adaptation of Frankenstein (starring Chris Sarandon), and wrote and directed two 1990s supernatural comedies, Dead Men Don’t Die (with Elliott Gould) and Love Bites (with Adam Ant). Depending on whom you talk to, Marmorstein is credited with the invention or co-invention of the vampire Barnabas Collins during his screenwriter stint on Dark Shadows. (I have written about former DS writer Joe Caldwell’s version on my book blog.) If Caldwell and fellow writer Ron Sproat were pushing the tortured, alienated angle, Marmorstein emphasized the heartthrob dimension. His vision was a handsome young blond vampire to win over the teenyboppers. Jonathan Frid did not exactly fit that bill, but Marmorstein said he coached the actor to at least be likeable and charming. In any event, the writer and DS producer Dan Curtis soon fell out, and Marmorstein was then off for his Peyton Place gig and Disney.
Diana Millay died in New York City on January 8 at the age of 85. Tap dancing, modeling, summer stock—she worked hard from a young age. She had small roles in lots of TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s (The Secret Storm, Father Knows Best, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Maverick, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Route 66, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ad infinitum) For Dark Shadows fans, she holds a special place in the show’s mythology. Apart from a couple of fleeting appearances by a ghost, she was the first character whose nature was unambiguously supernatural. What had been a dark, spooky but conventional soap opera up to then and with the appearance of vampire Barnabas Collins still months away, Millay appeared in the town of Collinsport, Maine—the long-absent wife of Roger Collins and mother of his son David. As her story developed, it emerged she was a phoenix who was destined to be consumed by fire and then reborn every century—and she was determined this time to take little David with her. When the show later veered into time travel, she was brought back to play the same role but in a different era. In all, she appeared in 62 episodes, as well as the big-screen spinoff movie Night of Dark Shadows.
Film Lover/Promoter…
Darryl Macdonald died of cancer at his home in Palm Springs, California, on July 21 at the age of 70. With his passing, the two founders of the Seattle International Film Festival are now gone. The other co-founder—his lifelong friend since they met in seventh grade in Vancouver, BC, Dan Ireland—died in 2016. After having worked in Vancouver cinemas, they moved to Seattle in 1975 and leased and refurbished the Moore Theatre in Belltown, renaming it the Moore Egyptian after, if I recall correctly, Michael Curtiz’s 1954 Cinemascope blockbuster. They started SIFF the following year. Five years later they relocated to the new Egyptian Theatre in a former Masonic Temple on East Pine Street. SIFF became one of the largest film festivals in the world in terms of the number of films screened. It was also a trendsetter in that it was aimed at film fans rather than exclusively at the industry. Ireland, who would later leave to become a filmmaker, was the public relations person. Macdonald was the business guy. SIFF was at the heart of the boom in independent film. It spawned a love affair between Seattle audiences and Dutch films and gave exposure to a burgeoning genre of gay-themed movies. Macdonald juggled his SIFF duties with stints as program director at other film fests in Vancouver, the Hamptons and Palm Springs, where he was recruited by then-mayor Sonny Bono. Macdonald left SIFF in 2003 to become director of the Palm Springs International Film Festival until his retirement in 2016. Those of us who haunted the Egyptian during its festival glory days will always remember the rapport and banter between its founders, their infectious love of movies, and their respect for the audience. It is sad their time has now passed.
-S.L., 11 January 2021
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