Paul Newman passed away this weekend, true to the man’s private nature, most didn’t realize he was sick, let alone dying. He was a anomaly in entertainment, a big star who did not live the Hollywood lifestyle, endlessly publicize himself by appearing at every opening, or get involve in any scandals, heck he was married to the same woman for decades, and even more incredible for a leading man sex symbol, she was his age. He made a lot of great movies: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, The Young Philadelphians, Hud, The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Harper, Hombre, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Towering Inferno, The Verdict, Fat Man and Little Boy, Blaze, The Hudsucker Proxy, Twilight, Road To Perdition and Cars (to name a few of the high spots in his career). He was also a race car driver back in the seventies and started a company that made and sold good products while having all profits go to charity. Sadly, a man of his class and integrity is a rare phenomena in this world. I know of no other actor is this industry who would have bought TV time to tell people not to watch his movie because it wasn’t any good, which he did for the TV premiere of The Robe. My favorite memory of him is his appearance on the debut episode of The Late Show on CBS, David Letterman was put in the old Ed Sullivan Theater which was across the street from the hit musical Cats. Newman stood up in the middle of the monologue demanding to know “Where the hell are the singing cats!”, realizes he is in the wrong theater, shoots his forefinger at a few audience members and leaves. Letterman spent the rest of the show good naturedly complaining that he was the hit of the night while mimicing Newman’s finger shooting gesture. He will be missed.
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Abe Vigoda’s catch phrase could be taken from Mark Twain, “News of my demise has been greatly exaggerated.” Apparently the actor has been dodging death rumors since 1982, when it got falsely printed that the late actor was not at a Barney Miller wrap party. Like some surreal Monty Python sketch Vigoda has spent the last twenty-five plus years routinely popping up to dispel death rumors. CNN.Com just put up an article on Tuesday assuring everyone that he is still alive at age 87 and is one of the top hand ball players in New York City. You go Mr. Tessio!
This week the world lost two great entertainers. Don LaFaontaine, voice over guy for countless movie trailers and actor/musician/ composer Jerry Reed both passed away. LaFontaine was one of the most recognizable voices in the world as he promoted everything from Scream to George of the Jungle, Gieco finally put a face to voice in one of their best and funniest commercials. Reed made such great hits as When You’re Hot, You’re Hot and Elvis Presley’s return to form Guitar Man as well as being an ingratiating presence in Burt Reynolds’ Smokey and the Bandit movies (If you want to see the perfect good old boy, badass villain check him out in the Reynolds vehicle Gator). They will both be missed.
