Honoring some of the prominent people who died in the past year as I usually do seems a little hollow this time, for my thoughts are heavy with people prominent in my life who passed away in 2023, even if they are not so famous. They were all good people, and they live in my memory. So I can't go on to more generally recognizable names without at least mentioning them.
I've written previously about my uncle, Carl Severini. I've mentioned my friend since high school, Joyce Davis (my first prom date, and first teenage kiss.) Towards the end of the year there were more: Bernadette Cheyne and Charlie Meyers, friends from Humboldt State drama department (I wrote about them here); and most recently, Janet Morrison, who I knew first at Carnegie Mellon drama and as Margaret's close friend, and who we saw a few times more recently. The world is a lesser place without them.
But here's at least a curtain call for people who were part of many lives, some of whom will continue to live in films, books and recordings, and some of whom will remained anchored to a particular time in our memories.
So a last hurrah to
Harry Belafonte, as admirable a man as he was talented. After stardom with The Band,
Robbie Robertson explored his Native roots and wrote tantalizing film scores. He must have been an interesting guy to know.
Michael Gambon was masterful in so many roles, from his early work on
The Singing Detective to the great French detective
Maigret in a British TV series, to international fame as the second Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, with lots of wonderful supporting roles as well (I recall expecially his role as Mr. Woodhouse in the 2009 BBC/PBS series of Jane Austen's
Emma.)
Glenda Jackson had a superb run as a movie actor, as well as a theatre actor in the UK (the only time I saw her onstage in the US was in a regrettable production of
Macbeth.) The British actor
Tom Wilkinson and the American actor
Alan Arkin were always worth watching in everything they did.
In an episode of NCIS, DeNozzo asks Gibbs what Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard looked like as a young man. "Illya Kuryakin," he replied. David McCallum of course played both, replacing the smoldering enigmatic spy with the vitality and charm of the older doctor.
I've written at length about the timeless Tony Bennett. I remember Jimmy Buffett and Randy Meisner (a founder of the Eagles) from the 70s, the dynamic Tina Turner from even earlier. I met and interviewed David Crosby, not an entirely happy experience, but perhaps as much my fault as his. I suddenly came face to face with Raquel Welch in a Manhattan bookstore--she seemed shorter than those statuesque poster poses.
I fell absolutely in love with
Melinda Dillon in
Close Encounters, and though she got a bit typecast, she played her character well in
Absence of Malice.
Andre Braugher and
Richard Belzer I will remember from the
Homicide series (though I recall Belzer even earlier as a standup comic.) I was not a
Friends fan, but admired Matthew Perry's work on
The West Wing and
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I encountered
Barbara Bossom, a western Pennsylvania girl, at CMU with her husband Steven Bochco. I of course had watched her on the iconic
Hill Street Blues.
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| Jane Birkin |
Mary Quant and
Jane Birkin are linked forever to the England Swings 1960s (as is the lesser known actor
Shirley Ann Field in several British films of their golden era in the early 60s.)
Daniel Ellsberg represented a different 60s and 70s, as did
Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers, and Vietnam era pacifist
David Harris, while
Newton Minnow will forever be associated with "the vast wasteland" of TV he described as FCC commissioner in the 60s.
Astrud Gilberto had a hit with "The Girl From Ipanema" in 1964, influencing a generation of musical talents. I recall the bold installations of
Robert Irwin as part of the liberation of the 60s.
I remember
Dick Groat as the shortstop on my beloved 1960s Pittsburgh Pirates world champs (He hit .325 that year and won the batting title and was the co-MVP, and I don't even have to look those up.)
Johnny Lujack was the fabled record-setting quarterback for Notre Dame and the Chicago Bears who had a long career as a sports announcer. My father told me he was a second cousin, probably through my paternal grandmother's family, but I never met him.
Even further back, Phyllis Coates was the first Lois Lane in the 1950s Adventures of Superman TV series, and Franco Misliacci was the lyricist of "nel blu, di pinto de blu," one of a few Italian language hit records of the 50s, which later was a hit again for Robert Ridirelli (Bobby Rydell) and others by the title of its most recognizable word, "Volare."
I've written about writers who passed away in 2023 here. Many of these strangers were part of the texture of my life, so in partial and mysterious ways, you could say I knew them. May they rest in peace and in our memories.
