John Aprea: 1941 - 2014

August 19, 2024

 

I am heartbroken to hear my old friend John Aprea died on August 5th.  He was 83 and died at his home in L.A. of natural causes “surrounded by his loved ones," according to his manager, Will Levine.

 

I met John when I was 17 years old and producing a radio show where we interviewed soap stars.  I had known him from Knots Landing. I met him at a swanky holiday party and we hit it off.  He was a frequent guest on the show and we also hung out, including one memorable trip to a Chinese restaurant in Flushing, Queens, where I tried abalone for the first - and last! - time.


He did me a huge favor by starring in my first short film, Confessions of a Male Prostitute. Technically he needed a waiver from SAG since this was a low-budget, totally indie project but he didn't care.  He was magnificent. I was still in my first year at NYU and he came to my dorm to to a read-through of the script.  I remember how excited my roommates were to meet him (“Back off, he’s mine!” I thought).


John was probably best known as Young Tessio in The Godfather Part II (1974), as well as the grandfather on Full House.  He also appeared in The Idolmaker (1980), New Jack City (1991), and the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. He had the leading role in the 2015 independent film Sharkskin, which I hate to admit I have never seen (but will be watching this weekend). He was also a regular on the 1980s action series Matt Houston.


I used to visit the Another World studio in Brooklyn a lot.  I was with John and Linda Dano when they got married on the show.  My mother met John several times.  He and Linda were on John’s last radio show with us (he decided to leave Another World to move to L.A. and pursue film work). We taped the show in the Crown-Plaza Hotel in Midtown. We all had dinner (we all ordered terrific steak) first, then went to a restaurant on the other side of the hotel that was only open for breakfast. I didn’t host the show, but I came on at the end to say some words to John and read him a poem I wrote for him.  I ended with, “I know John will do great in Hollywood because he works and he strives, And if things don’t work out, there’s always Days of Our Lives.”  I then told him that I loved him and will miss him.  We then went back to the restaurant we had dinner at to have a cake my mother and I bought him.  We had written on it, "Good-bye John and Lucas [his character on the show].  We'll miss you both."
 

Sadly I lost touch with John when he moved to L.A. (he was originally from New Jersey).  I tried twice to email his agent but got no reply.  The last time was last year actually and the email bounced back.  I wish I tried harder and sooner. This really hurts.  He was as nice, down to earth, and funny as anyone I have ever known.  He was movie star handsome, a great dresser, a true mensch who I looked up to and admired.  I am close to tears as I write this.  RIP, my friend.  I love and miss you.

 

 

Gena Rowlands: 1930 – 2024

August 16, 2024

 

The incandescent Gena Rowlands, one of the screen’s great beauties and most intense actresses, died on Thursday at age 94 at her home in Indian Wells, Calif.  Her death was confirmed by a rep for her son Nick Cassavetes.  Although no cause was given, Nick had revealed in June that Rowlands had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for the past five years.

 

In a career that spanned seven decades, Rowlands’ most notable work was in the films she made with her husband, the great John Cassevetes.  She was nominated for Oscars for two of his films, A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980).  In the former, she tore up the screen as Mabel Longhetti, a mentally unwell woman whose husband Nick (Peter Falk) is a construction foreman.  The film opens with Nick having to inform Mabel that he can’t keep their scheduled “date night” (she had brought their kids to stay with her mother) because a burst pipe requires him to work overtime through the early morning hours.  Mabel wanders the streets, eventually winding up in a dive bar where she lets a creep buy her copious amounts of Seagram’s 7 (hold the other 7) before she brings home with her.  The next morning Nick brings all of his co-workers home where they have the strangest breakfast of spaghetti, wine, and beer. Mabel’s gradual breakdown is a searing piece of acting, and won Rowlands the first of two Golden Globe Awards (the other was for her lead in the 1987 TV-movie The Betty Ford Story, for which she also won an Emmy).

 

Opening Night (1977) is probably my favorite Gena Rowlands performance.  Cassavetes also stars in this one along with Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart, and Zohra Lampert.  The film never received a proper release and played briefly in L.A. and New York without attracting audiences.  It wasn’t until 1991, two years after Cassavetes’ death, that the film was picked up by an American distributor.  It still remained largely unseen until it became available on home video.  It’s one of Cassavetes’ very best films, a fascinating study of an actress getting on in years who is struggling with the tryout of a new play in New Haven, Conn. 

 

Her last film with Cassavetes was his final one, 1984's Love Streams in which they played very screwed up siblings.  Cassavetes died in 1989 from cirrhosis after many years of excessive drinking.  He was only 59.

 

As for films she made with other directors, her standout is Woody Allen’s Another Woman (1988), a cerebral drama where Rowlands plays a Manhattan college professor who rents a small office to work on a book she’s writing.  Through a ventilation grate, she can hear the conversations of a psychiatrist’s office next door.  She tries not to eavesdrop but can’t help herself when she hears the confessions of a young pregnant woman (Mia Farrow) which forces her to reevaluate her life and the choices she made over the years.  It’s a restrained, elegant performance, the polar opposite of the unstable characters Cassavetes wrote for her.

 

On television, she and Ben Gazzara played the parents of a young man with AIDS (Adain Quinn) in the landmark 1985 TV-movie An Early Frost, which was the first mainstream film to deal with the subject of AIDS.

 

Younger audiences got to know Rowlands for her performance in The Notebook (1996), in which she played a woman with Alzheimer’s.  The film was directed by her son Nick.  "I got my mom to play older Allie, and we spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer's and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she's had Alzheimer's," Nick told Entertainment Weekly this past June. "She's in full dementia. And it's so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it's on us."  (Rowlands’ mother, Lady Rowlands, who appeared in several of John Cassavetes’ films, also had the disease.)

 

Rowlands received a much overdue honorary Oscar in 2015, and it was extremely touching to see her son present it to her.  She remarried in 2012 to retired businessman Robert Forrest.  In addition to Nick, he survives her along with her other children with Cassavetes, Alexandra and Zoe, both actresses and filmmakers as well.

 


The Woman in Red: 40 Years Later

August 15, 2024

 

None of us are getting younger.  Hard to believe 40 years ago today Gene Wilder’s The Woman in Red opened.  It was his third (and a half) film as actor-writer-director and the second of three films he did with Gilda. 

 

I remember my mother taking me to see it when I was 11 years old (and seeing Kelly LeBrock naked had huge impact on my development).  It’s a very funny film that all these years later still holds up.  Sadly, many of the cast members are no longer with us: Gene, Gilda, Charles Grodin, and Joe Bologna. 

 

In recognition of the film’s milestone anniversary, here is an excerpt from Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad about The Woman in Red:

 

For Gilda, her goal was to convince Gene to settle down and marry her.  “Gene built a tennis court and a wine cellar in her Connecticut house,” said Gilda’s friend Pat O’Donoghue.  “That made her a lot less insecure.  It was sort of like an engagement ring.  For a brief moment there, she was truly, finally happy.”  Having been married and divorced twice already, Gene was in no hurry to walk down the aisle again.  In her autobiography, Gilda wrote, “My new ‘career’ became getting him to marry me.  I turned down job offers so I could be geographically available.  More often than not, I had on a white, frilly apron like Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year when she left her job to exclusively be Spencer Tracey’s [sic] wife.  Unfortunately, my performing ego wasn’t completely content in an apron, and in every screenplay Gene was writing, or project he had under development, I finagled my way into a part.”

Gilda’s finagling worked, for she found herself with a part in Gene’s next film, The Woman in Red.  Victor Drai, a first-time producer who had done everything from designing clothes to selling real estate (and is now a nightclub impresario who is opening his own Vegas hotel in 2012), had bought the rights to a 1977 French film called Pardon Mon Affaire.  Drai thought Gene would be ideal for the American version as a mild-mannered family man looking for a little adventure in his life.  He knew Gene’s agent, and soon Gene and Gilda found themselves having a series of dinners at the home of Drai and his live-in girlfriend Kelly LeBrock.

Gene had doubts about Americanizing Pardon Mon Affaire.  “He believed that he really didn’t want to do a remake because he figured the original was so good and it’s really a discredit to the original when you do one again,” said cinematographer Fred Schuler.  But Gene soon realized that a remake could stand on its own terms, and he ended up writing the screenplay adaptation and directing as well.


In the film, Gene plays Teddy Pierce, a shy, quiet advertising executive living in San Francisco.  One day Teddy is in the parking garage of the building he works in and notices a beautiful young woman in a red dress.  As she walks over a ventilation grate, her dress flies up à la Marilyn Monroe.  From this moment on, Teddy becomes obsessed with pursuing this mysterious woman in red as he lies to his wife and children.


For the supporting cast, Gene assembled his old friends Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, and Michael Huddleston to play his male buddies who cover for him.  For the title role, both Gene and Gilda thought Kelly LeBrock would be perfect.  LeBrock, who was a 23-year-old model with no prior film experience, was terrified about starring in a movie, but after enough convincing, LeBrock agreed to do a screen test for Orion Pictures and soon found herself with her first film role.  She found the entire experience to be very positive.


"Gene was wonderful," LeBrock said.  "He was very busy but he still made time for me...  The set was one of the nicest sets I’ve ever been on...  I still hope I will find the same feeling that I had on that set.  It was a family.  We had a great time...  There was only tension on the set one day, and that was the scene of going over the [ventilation grate].  Everyone knew it was kind of an important scene to the film, and everybody sort of got a little bit uptight.  They just wanted it to be really good, and sometimes when you’re on a set people get nervous off each other.
 

"Gene never raised his voice, he was never out of line or anything...but you could feel the tension.  It was difficult because they were trying to get the dress to blow up, and it wasn’t working well, and they had to change the tactic.  They had to keep trying the dryers in different positions and all.  And time is money on a set, and it wasn’t a big budget film."

 

Gilda played Ms. Milner (though, as Gilda pointed out to David Letterman when promoting the film, her name is never mentioned), a hideous woman who works in Teddy's office who thinks Teddy is really interested in her.  Some critics were baffled as to why Gene would cast Gilda in such an unattractive role with not a lot of screen time.  "She looks like a ghost in this movie," said Gene Siskel.  "She does nothing funny." Despite such criticism, Gilda won the Best Supporting Actress award from the now defunct Your Choice for the Film Awards, an awards program whose nominees were voted on by a panel of film critics and whose winners were chosen by the public.  Gilda beat out fellow nominees Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India), Christine Lahti (Swing Shift), Geraldine Page (The Pope of Greenwich Village), and Theresa Russell (The Razor’s Edge).

 

To write the songs for The Woman in Red, Gene acquired the talents of Stevie Wonder.  Wonder’s songs resulted in a hugely successful soundtrack album, and his "I Just Called to Say I Love You" went on to win both an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.  In his Oscar acceptance speech, Wonder thanked Gene and dedicated the award to Nelson Mandela, who was still in prison at the time, which resulted in Wonder’s music being banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation.


The Woman in Red opened on August 15, 1984.  It was one of the first films to receive the new PG-13 rating from the MPAA, the first being Red Dawn, which opened a week earlier (Dreamscape, which opened the same day as The Woman in Red, also received the PG-13 rating).  It did respectable business at the box office and received mixed reviews.  On the positive side, Leonard Maltin called it "Wilder’s best film in years," while Time magazine’s Richard Schickel found it "a well-made sex farce of classical proportions" and "the summer's first comedy for adults."  Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Wilder, who has improved greatly as a director, has also written the screenplay, and does it with an eye to everyone’s sympathetic foibles...  Whether Teddy is taking up horseback riding to impress Charlotte or turning instant hipster with a silly new suit and hairdo, Mr. Wilder manages to make him reasonably likable."  Pat Collins proclaimed The Woman in Red the "best romantic comedy of the summer" and found Gene to be "at his irrepressible best."

 

 

A Shonda
August 6, 2024

At shortly after 9:00 a.m. EST today I officially plotzed.
 

 

Josh My Gosh
August 3, 2024

I will plotz if Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is not the VP nominee!  I don't want him because he is Jewish (although it would be a wonderful step forward for this country), but because he is charismatic, smart, and eloquent. Politics is about image.  He looks great, projects confidence, and he will turn JD "Call Me Vivian" Vance into hillbilly chopped meat. Harris-Shapiro may sound like a good name for a law firm, but it's our best hope of preventing Donald Trump from ever getting his scrawny little finger on that red Diet Coke button on the Resolute desk.
 

 

Bob Newhart: 1929 - 2024

July 19, 2024

 

Very sad to hearing of the passing of Bob Newhart, a truly innovative comedian and actor, who died yesterday at age 94.  He was, of course, best known for his two classic sitcoms, The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, but his stand-up routines were truly special. Phone calls where he was pretending to talk to others were genius.  He was also a reliable talk show guest, always charming and funny on The Tonight Show.

 

Newhart appeared in a number of feature films, including Buck Henry's First Family (1980) with Gilda Radner and Madeline Kahn and Jon Favreau's Elf (2003) with Will Ferrell.  He was especially good in a 1974 TV-movie called Thursday's Game starring Gene Wilder, Ellen Burstyn, Nancy Walker, Cloris Leachman, Rob Reiner, Norman Fell, Valerie Harper, and Chris Sarandon (talk about a cast!). He and Gene played poker buddies whose Thursday night game breaks up after a fight, but they are determined to keep their one night a week away from their wives and meet up to discuss each other's midlife crises. It's a great film that was on VHS but never released on DVD. There is a so-so quality upload of the whole film on YouTube, however, that is definitely worth checking out.

 

Despite the popularity of his two sitcoms, Newhart never won an Emmy for them.  He would have to wait until 2013 at the age of 84 to win his only Emmy for guest starring on The Big Bang Theory.  He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002.

 

Newhart was best friends with Don Rickles.  The two often vacationed together with their wives.  Newhart is survived by four children, a sister, and 10 grandchildren. His wife of sixty years, Ginnie, died last year.

 

 

Donald Sutherland: 1935 - 2024
June 20, 2024

 

Donald Sutherland, one of Hollywood's most dependable actors, died today at age 88 in Miami after a "long illness," according to his son Kiefer.

 

The Canadian born Sutherland first burst onto the scene in 1967's The Dirty Dozen, and appeared in a number of features before he became a bona fide star in 1970 with the release of five theatrical films: Kelly's Heroes, Act of the Heart, Alex in Wonderland, Start the Revolution Without Me (a great comedy where he played the brother(s) of Gene Wilder), and most significantly Robert Altman's MASH.

 

Other key films include 1971's Klute with his friend Jane Fonda, the erotic thriller Don't Look Now (1973), Federico Fellini's Casanova (1976), National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the underrated A Dry White Season (1989), Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), the exceptional screen version of John Guare's play Six Degrees of Separation (1993), and Robert Redford's all-time classic Ordinary People (1980), arguably his best film and performance.
 

He was not nominated for an Oscar for Ordinary People - or for anything else, but thankfully he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2017.

 

Sutherland became familiar to younger moviegoers as the president in the Hunger Games series in the 2010s.

 

In addition to Kiefer, he is survived by four other children; his third wife, actress Francine Racette; and four grandchildren.

 

 

Oh Joy!
April 10, 2024

May his memory be a...just kidding!  Instead of a hearse, will his coffin be in a white Bronco?  This is one of those times I really wished I believed in Hell.  You're next, Harvey!

 

 

Joe Lieberman: 1942 - 2024
March 29, 2024

Is it me or has Sen.Joe Lieberman's death and funeral today received shockingly little coverage? Too bad he didn't have a Taylor Swift connection.  RIP to a truly great man who made politics actually seem admirable and RIP to the once conceivable idea of bipartisanship. May his memory indeed be a blessing.

 

 

But on the Bright Side...
March 18, 2024

The Gene Wilder documentary has generated press about Gene, which can only help my book.  Book sales are up and I have been quoted in several publications, most notably in a piece in today's New York Post.  Click here to read it.
 

 

Gene Wilder? Ah, Yes, I Remember Him Well
March 15, 2024
 

The documentary Remembering Gene Wilder opens in theaters today in limited release.  The director of this film had contacted me in 2022 and we had a long phone call.  He said he would be in touch to do an on-camera interview with me for the film.  We exchanged a number of emails where he continued to express interest in interviewing me but alas nothing happened.  I even gave him exclusive information and rare links which he said were helpful.
 

I honestly do not know how you can make a documentary about someone like Gene Wilder and not include his only biographer.  Among those who are interviewed in the finished film are Mel Brooks, Carol Kane, Alan Alda, Harry Connick Jr., Mike Medavoy, Ben Mankiewicz, Richard Pryor's daugher Rain, and Gene's widow Karen. While I have nothing against Harry Connick Jr., I have no idea what connection he had to Gene.  From the reviews I've been reading, it seems like the director glosses over anything negative about Gene (he was a great guy, sure, but far from perfect).  This results in a film that appears to be a schmaltzy tribute instead of a critical look at a great artist's life and work.
 

The film is "patchy and digressive, and the overreliance on syrupy music becomes off-putting towards the end," writes Matt Zoller Seitz on RogerEbert.com.  Gene's nephew Jordan is working on his own documentary about his uncle.  Jordan was not supportive of Remembering Gene Wilder for its use of candid personal photos of Gene, looking frail and ill, in his final years.  I agree with him and find it baffling why Karen would grant use of such pictures, especially knowing how intensely private Gene was.
 

I wish I could wish Remembering Gene Wilder well, but I can't, and it's not because I am bitter because I was promised to be part of it and was not (that's showbiz, right?).  I'll choose to remember my boyhood idol in my own way.  And if you want the truthful, unbiased story of one of the world's most beloved funnymen, I know a pretty good book you could read.

 

Bobbie Wygant: 1926 - 2024

February 20, 2024

 

I am incredibly saddened at the passing of a true legend. Bobbie Wygant, who interviewed literally everybody who was anyone, died on Sunday, Feb. 18th at 97. A great run for a great gal from Texas who had the ability to put the biggest stars at ease and engage them in the art of conversation. They, of course, were only there to plug a film, but Bobbie made it something more.

 

She interviewed Gene on many occasions, and he was always flirty, funny, and extremely comfortable with her as they usually discussed their shared love of tea (not the kind you find in most supermarkets). She lost her husband in 1986 and never had any children. A truly great journalist who, thanks to YouTube, will continue to entertain us.


Click here to see the lovely tribute her local NBC affiliate in Texas did for her.

 

 

Talking Brooks with Brooke
January 4, 2024

Was on Brooke Musterman's podcast again, this time discussing the amazing time I had in Bethesda back in November giving the keynote speech for the pre-50th anniversary screening of Young Frankenstein.  As usual, the time flies by when we talk.  As always, thanks for a fun chat, Brooke!  Click here to listen.
 

A World on Fire

November 19, 2023
 

I have been mulling how to write about the devastating October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel without trivializing or repeating what has already been said.  One thing I will say is I have never in my life been prouder to be Jewish.  I may not be religious or a believer (or ever had a desire to visit Israel), but my pride in my people's history and strength has never been more meaningful.  (Although I have always been a proud Jew as most of my childhood heroes into adulthood were Jewish.)

 

Anti-Semitism has always been the one form of bigotry that has managed to seem acceptable, if not mind-bogglingly fashionable at times.  It’s not been helped by a staggering number of prominent self-hating Jews who have been vocally anti-Israel, which is why I was surprised that hundreds of Jewish celebrities signed an open letter in support of Israel.  The hate being seen by random violence towards Jews both here and abroad is terrifying.  The anti-Israel protests in big cities and on college campuses is a sad commentary on the sheer lack of knowledge, common sense, and understanding of history that has become the norm in the world of academia.  There is a lot of hostility towards Israel and the Jewish people that is now being shown in all its ugliness.  It's a scary time to be Jewish.

Take for example this quote from the brilliant Bret Stephens in The New York Times: "Our friends are not those members of the Black Lives Matter movement — whose stickers and lawn signs so many American Jews posted in allyship after George Floyd’s murder — who celebrated Oct. 7 with a post extolling the Hamas paragliders who slaughtered Jews at a music festival. B.L.M. chapters later apologized for the since-deleted post, but the apology isn’t accepted. They knew what they were doing."  Sad and frustratingly true.

 

This is not simply about having an opinion.  You are either on the right side of history or the wrong side.  Israel was sucker-punched, not unlike we were on 9/11.  We know who did it and whether you agree or not with the current state of Israel's government, Israel is determined to destroy Hamas.  No one likes to see innocent civilians and children become casualties of war, but this is a war that Israel did not want and now must finish.

 

The relationship between the U.S. and Israel has always been a vital one, although we had an icy period during the Obama years.  I am glad that President Biden has been resolute in his support of Israel and refusal to capitulate to Palestinian sympathizers.  The number one priority is to get those hostages home.

 

It's not hyperbole to say the world is on fire.  As disturbing as it is to see a swastika graffitied on the 2nd Avenue Deli in my own neighborhood and hateful individuals tearing down hostage posters or randomly attacking people because "they look Jewish," I was heartened to see the long lines in support of a Jewish coffee shop here in Manhattan in the wake of all this hate.

 

I keep thinking about the late Mayor Ed Koch’s choice of what saying to have on his gravestone.  He chose the last words spoken by Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by terrorists in 2002: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.” Those words resonate very personally for me right now.

 

Talking in Bethesda

October 19, 2023

 

Had a great time speaking at the pre-50th anniversary screening of Young Frankenstein in Bethesda, MD last night.  Big thank you to John Sciortino and his family for organizing this wonderful night, as well as the the amazing people of Bethesda, DC, and the surrounding areas who were incredibly generous and supportive, especially those who bought Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad.  Also props to the management and staff of The Barking Dog for helping the event run smoothly.

 

Click here to listen to my remarks.

 

 

Jimmy Buffett: 1946 - 2023
September 6, 2023

Jimmy Buffett, who I considered the John Cassavetes of music, died on Friday, September 1st at 76 in Sag Harbor, NY.  Earlier this year Buffett canceled some concert dates but he kept secret that he was battling a very rare form of skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma.

Although I never referred to myself as a Parrothead, I was a huge Jimmy Buffett fan, first turned on to his carefree island rhythm when I was in my twenties.  The list of classics is too long to cite but who couldn't feel a little better about their day listening to "Cheeseburger in Paradise," "Margaritaville," "Pencil Thin Mustache," "A Pirate Looks at Forty" or "Volcano."

He had a No. 1 hit in 2003 with his duet with Alan Jackson, "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," which blended little pop, a little country, and a lot of Buffet's carefree let's-drink-the-day-away attitude.

In recent years, Jimmy Buffett was more like Warren Buffett, becoming a billionaire with his line of Margaritaville restaurants and hotels.

He is survived by his wife Jane, two daughters and a son, as well as two grandsons and two sisters.  I'd be lying if I said I need an excuse to indulge in a cheeseburger and "a cold draft beer," but upon hearing the news of Jimmy Buffet's death, I thought it only appropriate.

 

 

Bob Barker: 1923 - 2023

August 27, 2023

 

Bob Barker died yesterday at 99 without going over the suggested retail price of 100.

 

Who of us hasn't remembered being home sick from school or work and being comforted by Barker's warm demeanor and sharp wit?  With him and Alex Trebek gone (and Pat Sajak phoning it in for the next year), there are no more game show greats left.

May he rest in peace.  And, as he ended every episode of The Price Is Right, remember to help control the pet population - have your pet spayed or neutered.

 

 

12 Years an Orphan

August 24, 2023

 

"What better gift could one receive than the gift of life?  But I don't dedicate this book to them for that... but because they earned it..."

                                                                                                                                   - Jerry Lewis, Jerry Lewis: In Person (Atheneum, 1982)

 

 

Paul Reubens: 1952 - 2023

August 6, 2023

 

I get nostalgic about a lot of the things from that magical decade known as the 1980s (though not about anything having to do with my school days, memories of which thankfully grow foggier with each passing year).  The movies were better, TV was better, even politics was better.  We didn't know from the internet and how bored we were, having to resort to reading magazines and books when riding on a train or waiting in the doctor's office.  

 

If you grew up in the '80s, you likely felt a real jolt of sadness upon hearing the news that Paul Reubens died.  Reubens, whose iconic Pee-wee Herman character was a staple on TV and in movies for most of the '80s, passed away on July 30th after a years-long bout with cancer.  He was 70.

 

With his poorly tailored gray suit and red bow tie, high-pitched voice, and the energy of a six-year-old on a sugar high, Pee-wee was naive and childish while also cunning and quick-witted.  He was a guaranteed winner as a talk show guest, and when he made his big screen splash in Tim Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure in 1985, he proved to be that most unlikely of things, a leading man.  The picture introduced us to Burton's warped but intriguing filmmaking style in an extremely entertaining yarn about Pee-wee's quest for his missing bike.  Filled with truly inventive Rube Goldberg inspired sight gags and Danny Elfman's spirited score, the film was a box office success and has since developed a cult following.

 

On television, Pee-wee's Playhouse was a wildly successful children's show that won 22 Emmy Awards during its run from 1986 - 1990.  In 1991, Reubens world came to a halt when he was arrested in an adult theater in Florida for "indecent exposure."  The fallout led to Toys "R" Us pulling Pee-wee Herman toys from its shelves.  Reubens entered a plea of no contest in exchange for the charge not appearing on his record and he was ordered to perform community service.

 

Reubens went on to appear in a number of films in non-Pee-wee roles but he never returned to the heights of fame during his heyday in the '80s and early '90s.

 

After news of his death was confirmed by a longtime rep, a statement Reubens wrote before his death was released. "Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years," Reubens wrote.  "I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you."

 

 

Kevin Spacey: Yes, We Still Love You at 64
July 26, 2023

 

Happy 64th Birthday to the enormously talented and totally vindicated Kevin Spacey!  Every once in a rare while, justice prevails (at least in the UK it does).  I have been defending him for years since the first of these horrible accusations came out against him.  Every single one of them was either pulled or found him cleared in court.  Shame on those opportunistic twerps who tried to bring him down.  Hollywood has a lot of making up to do (and after how they shunned him, he might be wise to want nothing to do with them) but they can start by offering him top-tier roles again.  To paraphrase what he said when he won his first Oscar, I hope he celebrates and gets "gloriously drunk" tonight.

 

 

Dishing Classic Hollywood with Brooke
July 25, 2023

 

Always a delight to talk with Brooke S. Musterman on her podcast "Let's Talk Art With Brooke."  Taped back in February, we discussed Billy Crystal's exhilarating Broadway show Mr. Saturday Night; Barbra Streisand's enormous talent; Paul Newman's fascinating posthumous memoir; and who's nice (and not so nice) when giving autographs.  Click here to listen.
 

 

Alan Arkin: 1934 - 2023
July 2, 2023

Alan Arkin, the consummate veteran of stage, screen, and television, died on Thursday at age 89 at his home in Carlsbad, Calif.  A joint statement released by his sons Adam, Matthew, and Tony read, "Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man.  A loving husband, father, grand and great-grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed."

An alum of Chicago's renowned Second City comedy troupe, the Brooklyn-born Arkin won a Tony Award for Carl Reiner's 1963 play Enter Laughing. He earned the first of four Academy Award nominations for 1966's The Russian Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming.  His other nominations were for The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968), Argo (2012), and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as a cantankerous grandfather.

 

Other notable film credits include Wait Until Dark (1967), Catch-22 (1970),  The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976), The In-Laws (1979), and my personal favorite Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) where he played George Aaronow, one of the desperate real estate salesmen in the seering film version of David Mamet's play.

 

More recently, Arkin was a regular on the first two seasons of the Michael Douglas Netflix series The Kominsky Method for which he earned two Emmy nominations.  Upon news of Arkin's death, Douglas took to Instagram to post a tribute: "Today we lost a wonderful actor whose intelligence, sense of comedy and consummate professionalism over the past 70 years has left an indelible mark on our industry. My experience of working with Alan were some of my most memorable. He will be deeply missed."

 

 

Nicolas Coster: 1933 - 2023

June 27, 2023

 

Was very sad to hear of the passing of the great character actor Nicolas Coster, who died last night in a Florida hospital at age 89, according to his daughter. He was a soap opera veteran who thrived playing steely, villainous roles on Another World, All My Children, As the World Turns, One Life to Live, and Santa Barbara for which he was nominated for four Daytime Emmy Awards. He won a Daytime Emmy in 2017 for his supporting role in the streaming drama series The Bay.

 

In films, he co-starred with such legends as Robert Redford in All the President's Men (1976), Diane Keaton in Warren Beatty's Reds (1981), and (my favorite) Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy (1980).  I had to pick his brain about working with Wilder and Pryor when he was a guest on a "Soap Opera Radio" many moons ago (that's us on the right). He said he didn't get to know Gene well but he did get to know Richie, as he called him, who he said was very funny. I was thrilled to meet him and spend time with him.

Coster had nearly a dozen Broadway credits to his name and was a constant presence on Facebook where he opined on everything from acting to politics. He posted often, showing off his boat, writing lovingly of his wife, and promoting his 2021 memoir Another Whole Afternoon. He lived an active, full life that was also marked by tragedy in his later years when his 26-year-old son Ian died from  what was reported to be suicide by drug overdose.

 

He is survived by his wife Beth and daughters Dinneen and Candice Jr. from his first marriage.

 

Newman's Own Words

February 15, 2023

 

"Paul Newman's half-Jewish and Goldie Hawn's half too. Put them together, what a fine looking Jew!"

                                                                                                                                    - Adam Sandler, "The Chanukah Song"

 

After Woody Allen put out his stellar memoir in 2020, I didn't think I would read another fascinating tell-all by a star of his stature who shunned the spotlight more than him. Sure, Mel Brooks' book was great but Mel has never been known to turn down publicity. So who would expect Paul Newman to bare all from the grave in a bold, totally original project pegged as his memoir 14 years after his death?

 

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man (‎Knopf) is something special, both because it's out over a decade after Newman's death and because he does not shy away from exposing how flawed he was. The idea for the book evolved in 1986 when Newman and his friend, the screenwriter Stewart Stern, decided to record not only Newman but scads of friends, family, and colleagues, all with the caveat everyone had to be truthful. Newman was believed to have destroyed the tapes in 1998. It was thought that the project would never happen until transcripts of the tapes were discovered by Newman's daughter Melissa in a barn on the family's Westport, Conn., property, according to The New York Times.

 

Newman remembers his well-off childhood in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where no Black people lived and his family - the only Jews - were considered outsiders. Newman was half-Jewish - his mother was a Protesentant and his father a German Jew. Although he and his only sibling Arthur were raised Catholic, Newman writes extensively about being the victim of anti-Semitism. I found it ironic that although he experienced the bigotry of being Jewish, he never really discussed his Jewish heritage publicly. He was once quoted as saying he considered himself Jewish because it was "more challenging."

 

He had a very odd relationship with his mother, whom he believed only doted on him because he was so handsome and had those sparkling blue eyes. He mentions his good looks and blue eyes so much throughout the book that he makes being attractive sound like a burden (the poor thing).

 

His career achievements, love of racing, love-hate relationship with the Oscars, and his charitable work are covered, as is his surprisingly blunt admission of his problems with alcohol (he also enjoyed the occasional puff of marijuana). Newman was considered a "functioning alcoholic" who was known to wear a beer opener around his neck. He would often get so drunk (Budweiser was his potable of choice) that he would spend hours in his steam room sweating out the alcohol. "There are terrible, bad things that happen with booze, dangerous things," Newman writes in the book. "I marvel that I survived them."

 

Most scandalous is Newman's years-long affair with Joanne Woodward, which he carried on while married to first wife Jackie. Woodward does not come off in a good light in the book. She was the Other Woman for years while Jackie cared for their three children, unaware of Newman and Woodward's relationship. Newman does not mince words, and he and Woodward, who married right after his divorce from Jackie became final, come off as pretty self-centered, uncaring people. (Woodward is now 93 and has suffered from Alzheimer's since 2007.)

 

In discussing their long - by Hollywood standards - marriage, Newman would famously say, "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?" It's been well-documented in Shawn Levy's excellent Paul Newman: A Life (Crown Archetype) that Newman had an affair with a journalist named Nancy Bacon while filming Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Woodward found out and later forgave Newman. For someone who set out to only tell the truth, I found it interesting that this one tidbit was left out.

 

Newman was notorious for refusing to sign autographs, and he discusses his frustration with both the paparazzi and public. He had little regard for his fans and found his stardom a burden. "I don't know who started this ritual of autographs," he told Barbara Walters in 1988, "but I certainly wasn't around to vote on it."

 

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is a very good read if you are a fan of Newman's films, as I am. He personified old-school Hollywood glamour and charisma. But he was a man with a lot of demons. Even though he was always praised as a great humanitarian, I knew Newman was not a particularly nice person. This book sadly confirms that.

 

 

All About Mel

October 14, 2022

 

I finally finished Mel Brooks' memoir All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business (Ballantine Books). At 460 pages, it's a long book but then again at 96 Brooks has led a long life, and his telling of his journey from his humble upbringing in Brooklyn to becoming one of the all-time great comics and filmmakers is a terrific read.

 

From almost as early as I can remember, I was a Mel Brooks fan (Young Frankenstein was one of the first films I ever saw in a theater). Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and grew up in the Williamsburg section. His father died from tuberculosis at 34 when Brooks was just two years old. His three older brothers took on the role of father figure.

 

Brooks joined the Army at age 18 in 1943, serving as a combat engineer in Germany in World War II. His time in the service had a huge impact on his life, and Brooks writes about this period extensively, but perhaps a little too extensively. This part of the book could have used some editing. He also quotes long passages of dialogue from his movies, which, if you are a Mel Brooks fan, you likely already know by heart. Again, some tightening would have benefitted the book. I also found a number of stories about Gene Wilder to conflict with Wilder's own telling of the same incidents, so one of them obviously got their facts a little blurry.

 

But those critiques aside, once Brooks gets into his time working with Sid Caesar, befriending Carl Reiner, falling in love with Anne Bancroft, and then becoming an Oscar-winning writer, producer, and director, the pages fly by. Brooks' voice is clear throughout, as is his love of food, especially Jewish soul food (a.k.a. Chinese), reminiscent of another great memoir of a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who made it big, Woody Allen's Apropos of Nothing from two years ago. Brooks has always made a point of having weekly lunches with various friends, and even devotes one chapter to a New York City group in the 1960s that included Mario Puzo who proclaimed themselves The Chinese Gourmet Society. These memories are particularly heartwarming.

 

Brooks is also is a wine connoisseur, something he credits Gene Wilder for. Brooks was having dinner at Wilder's Manhattan apartment in the early 1970s when Wilder served him a French pinot noir called Nuit-Saint-Georges. "Up until then I thought wine was made by Manischewitz..." Brooks writes. "I had no idea what was in my mouth when Gene poured me a glass of wine at that fateful dinner. All I knew was that it was NOT Manischewitz, and that it was sublime."

 

He details every single film, TV, and later Broadway production, giving ample attention to his truly great films and less so to disappointments like Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). He also explains his decision to form his own production company to make more serious films, most notably The Elephant Man (1980).

 

There is a definite element of sadness among all the laughter, as Brooks has lost many loved ones over the years, most significantly his beloved wife Anne Bancroft and best friend of 70 years Carl Reiner. Until Reiner's death in 2020, Brooks and Reiner would have dinner every night at Reiner's house in front of the TV as they watched and played along to Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Brooks writes lovingly about Bancroft, his wife of 40 years who died in 2005 at age 73 from uterine cancer. Brooks desperately misses her but but resists getting maudlin as he praises her as a "gift from God" and dedicated mother to their son Max, now 50, a successful writer.

 

Mel Brooks appreciates the acclaim he has received over the years (he quotes a number of positive movie reviews) and does not try to coyly be humble about how proud he is of his many awards (he is in that elite class known as EGOTs). He was especially honored to be among the Kennedy Center honorees for lifetime achievement in 2009 and to be invited to the White House where President Barack Obama presented him with his medal.

 

All About Me! is great fun and a reminder of what a national treasure Mel Brooks is.

 

 

Interview with Nutmeg Chatter's Phil Hall
August 14, 2022

 

Thanks to author and broadcaster Phil Hall, who interviewed me a few months back about Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad on his radio show Nutmeg Chatter.  We had a good talk about Gene's life and career.  The interview airs today at 3:00 p.m. EDT on Connecticut radio station WAPJ Torrington Community Radio and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. EDT on the entire Robin Hood Radio network.

Click here to listen.

 

 

Paul Sorvino: 1949 - 2022

August 1, 2022

 

RIP Paul Sorvino.  You were so great and I was once cute.

 

 

Worth the Price of Admission
June 12, 2022

 

It was a drizzly late spring Saturday afternoon in Central Harlem, of all places.  The streets were unusually desolate as the gray skies loomed over, their threat of rain imminent.  The occasional breeze that cut the humidity brought...  Okay, wait.  If this sounds like the opening of a short story or novel, maybe it's because I spent yesterday in sparkling literary company.

 

Richard Price, the acclaimed author and screenwriter, and his wife Lorraine Adams, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist, hosted an open-to-the-public conversation and reading at the Harlem Rose Garden, a beautiful nook located on East 129th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.

 

Price was nominated for an Oscar for writing the screenplay adapatation for one my favorite films of the 1980s, Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money (1986), a sequel of sorts to The Hustler (1961), with Paul Newman reprising his role as "Fast Eddie" Felson.  Price has a knack for writing crackling dialogue in seedy settings, as readers of his bestselling novels The Wanderers (1974), Clockers (1992), and Lush Life (2008) know.

 

Adams shared the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for her coverage of police corruption and miconduct in Texas for The Dallas Morning News.  Her novels are Harbor (2005) and The Room and the Chair (2010).

 

Price read exceprts from a novel he's currently working on set in the Harlem neighborhood he and Adams have called home since they married in 2008, while Adams read from a still unfinished project of hers about a 90-year-old neighbor, who was there in attendance with her daughter.  They also asked each other questions, and as Adams continually tried to help the endearingly crotchety Price juggle his papers and microphone, you could see this is the kind of couple whose playful bickering makes for memorable dinner parties. The pair told us they have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when they are writing, so, like us, they heard each other's excerpts for the first time.  It was touching to see Price mouth "gorgeous" to Adams each time she finished her readings.

 

I was particularly taken with Price's description of the emotional commitment of writing a novel.  He said you better know that your subject is one you want to write about because you don't want to face a "creative divorce" from the work after two years.  Now 72, Price confesses most of the time he would rather chat with his wife or watch Netflix while eating something that’s bad for him instead of writing.  But he writes because he’s a writer.  That’s what he does.  It's refreshing to hear a successful author admit that he doesn’t need to prove himself like when he was younger and doesn't have the same burning desire to crank out material.  If he doesn’t write one day and it’s a good day, he doesn’t beat himself up because it was still a good day.

 

The drizzle eventually let up, and after they finished, Price and Adams both schmoozed with some of the approximately two dozen people in attendance.  I had brought my two fiction books, Drinking Games and Unnecessary Headaches, to give to Price, originally not signing them as I felt that to be a bit presumptive (after all, who am I to sign a book to him?).  But Adams was so nice before the talk began, introducing herself to everyone, I thought, hey, why not sign them to both of them?

 

I approached Price and gave him the books, and he seemed genuinely appreciative.  I brought a friend with me who, like Price, grew up in the Bronx.  They talked about the old neighborhood, and when Price saw me holding a copy of his Lush Life, he asked if I wanted him to sign it.  He wrote, "To Brian, Thank you 4 your books today, Richard Price."  I may have mentioned that I loved The Color of Money, and I wanted to ask him for advice about trying to sell the film rights to Unnecessary Headaches, but I didn't want to take up more of his time.

 

We said good-bye to Adams as we left, and I told her that two of the stories in Drinking Games deal with some issues of race that she often writes about.  She remarked about the less than ideal weather, but I said it actually added to the experience.

 

In this post-literate world, it was nice to spend time with educated, mature, liberal minded individuals whose interests expand beyond their iPhone screens.

 

 

Ray Liotta: 1954 - 2022

May 27, 2022

 

What a shock to hear of the sudden passing of Ray Liotta yesterday.  The intense actor, forever ingrained in film lover's hearts and minds as gangster Henry Hill in Goodfellas (1990), died in his sleep while on location in the Dominican Republic.  He was 67 and the exact cause of death is not yet known.

 

Liotta first gained attention as Joey Perrini on the soap opera Another World from 1978 - 1981.  His big screen break came with a volatile supporting role in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986) as Melanie Griffith's ex-con husband.  His performance earned him raves from critics and a Golden Globe nomination.  The moving Dominick and Eugene (1988) and elegiac Field of Dreams (1989) came next before Martin Scorsese cast him in his career-defining role in Goodfellas.  The film is widely considered one of the best American films of the last several decades, and joins the first two Godfather films as the greatest mob movie ever made.

 

Goodfellas received six Oscar nominations, including supporting nods for Lorraine Bracco and Joe Pesci (who won), but Liotta's pivotal leading performance was overlooked.

 

Upon hearing of Liotta's death, tributes from his Goodfellas director and co-stars began pouring in.

 

"I'm absolutely shocked and devastated by the sudden, unexpected death of Ray Liotta," Martin Scorsese said.  "He was so uniquely gifted, so adventurous, so courageous as an actor."

 

"I was very saddened to learn of Ray's passing," said Robert De Niro.  "He is way too young to have left us."

 

Lorraine Bracco, who played his wife Karen in the film, tweeted that she was "utterly shattered to hear this terrible news about my Ray.  I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is Goodfellas.  Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same...Ray Liotta."

 

Debi Mazar, who had a small part in Goodfellas, wrote on Instagram, "Goodbye Ray..Thankyou for the memories,your generosity at work,your wicked sense of humor,your raw grit&lazer stare. You had me at 'Dominick & Eugene' One of a kind. .."

 

Though parts of the caliber of Goodfellas alluded Liotta for the rest of his career, he worked steadily.  In 2005, he won an Emmy for guest actor in a drama series for ER, and had something of a career resurgence in the last few yearss, having appeared in the acclaimed Marriage Story (2019) and in a dual role as the Moltisanti twins in last year's Sopranos feature The Many Saints of Newark.  At the time of his death, he had six projects either completed, filming or in post-production.

 

Liotta, a New Jersey native, is survived by a daughter, Karsen, 23, with ex-wife Michelle Grace.  He was engaged to fiancée Jacy Nittolo, who was with him at the time of his passing. By all accounts, onscreen and off, Ray Liotta seemed to be a goodfella indeed.

 

 

William Hurt: 1950 - 2022
March 19, 2022

 

My last posting was about Broadcast News.  Last week came the news that William Hurt, the film's star and one of the great leading men of the 1980s, died on March 13th, one week shy of his 72nd birthday.  Hurt died at his home in Portland, Ore., having been diagnosed in 2018 with terminal prostate cancer that had metastasized to his bones.

 

As someone who grew up addicted to the movies in the 1980s, William Hurt was Hollywood gold.  A handsome, charismatic, and thoughtful actor, he appeared in one first-rate film after another.  He made his feature debut in 1980’s Altered States before appearing in such key films as Body Heat (1981) and The Big Chill (1983), ultimately winning an Oscar for Best Actor for 1985’s Kiss of the Spiderwoman.  He would go on to receive two more Oscar nominations for Children of a Lesser God (1986) and (my personal favorite) Broadcast News (1987), making him one of an elite group of men to receive three consecutive lead actor nominations, joining Paul Muni, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Russell Crowe.  He was robbed of a fourth for his heart-wrenching performance in The Accidental Tourist (1988).

 

Despite his success in the 1980s, Hurt’s career started to decline in the 1990s (although he received deserved praise for his complex performance in 1991's The Doctor, which reunited him with Children of a Lesser God director Randa Haines).  He had a tumultuous personal life and problems with alcohol.  His first marriage to actress Mary Beth Hurt ended in divorce in 1982.  He was involved with his Children of a Lesser God co-star Marlee Matlin when she was 19 and he was 35.  In her 2009 memoir, Matlin characterized the relationship as abusive and claimed a drunken Hurt raped her.  He was involved with Sandra Jennings, with whom he had two children, and was married to Heidi Henderson, daughter of former Tonight Show conductor Skitch Henderson, from 1989 - 1992.  He also had one child with French actress Sandrine Bonnaire.

 

Donna Kaz, an author who was involved with Hurt for three years starting in 1977, revealed he was physically abusive to her during their time together.  In her 2016 memoir, Kaz writes, "Bill would snap, physically shove, punch and beat me, followed by tears, apologies and him offering me expensive gifts."

 

Hurt made a career resurgence as a supporting actor, most notably in 2005’s A History of Violence, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

 

According to DailyMail.com, Hurt's final days were marked by "excruciating pain" because he refused to be given opiates due to his decades of sobriety.  He agreed to hospice care in his final week when the pain became too unbearable. 

 

William Hurt was sadly typical of many great actors who project strength and likeability on-screen but are weak, abusive, and horribly flawed in real life.  His final years of suffering are unfortunate.  His work will nonetheless remain a significant part of that great decade of cinema, the 1980s.

 

 

The Big Broadcast of 1987
January 28, 2022

"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?"

                                                                                                                  - Albert Brooks as Aaron Altman in Broadcast News

 

I just wrote my first essay in five years for the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.  I chose one of my favorite films of the 1980s, James L. Brooks' exhilarating, classy, and deeply human Broadcast News.  Watched it again a few weeks ago and revisited many great scenes - after 34 years, the film still holds up.  Thank you to Stacie Seifrit-Griffin at the National Film Preservation Board for her help and feedback.  Click here to read.

 

 

Sidney Poitier: 1927 - 2022

January 8, 2022

 

Sad to hear about the passing of the great Sidney Poitier, who died on January 6th at 94.

The term barrier breaker is often freely used, but Poitier truly was the definition of one.  A gifted actor, director, and civil rights activist, he achieved a multitude of firsts: first black box office draw, first black Best Actor Oscar winner, director of the highest-grossing film (Stir Crazy) helmed by a black filmmaker in 1980.
 

Poitier's work in the 1960s include a number of films that were not only great entertainment but that touched on race at a tumultuous time in America: Lilies of the Field, A Patch of Blue, In the Heat of the Night, To Sir...With Love, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.  All classics that continue to be watched today.

 

Poitier turned to directing in the 1970s and 1980s.  He was friends with Gene Wilder, whom he directed in Stir Crazy and Hanky Panky.  Most of the prison scenes in Stir Crazy were shot in the Arizona State Penitentiary in Florence, near Tucson, while other scenes were filmed on a soundstage in Burbank.  Both Wilder and Pryor, along with the rest of the cast and crew, were required to sign forms which stated, "I understand that in the event I should be taken hostage or involved in a disturbance, institution authorities will not be expected to make extraordinary or unusual effort to effect my release."

 

Only once did Gene feel uneasy during the shoot.  "There's a little scene in the movie where I was put into a metal hut for punishment..." Gene recalled.  "We were shooting just below Death Row in a maximum security section, and the inmates were shouting the worst obscenities I've ever heard in my life.  But they weren't shouting them at me, they were shouting them at Sidney; and when I heard the things directed at blacks coming from them, I started to shake a little bit.  And Sidney [grabbed] me and said, 'Don't let that get to you, you just go about your business.  You know who you are, you know who I am, and you know what we have to do!'  And that gave me a lot of confidence in him, because he’d been through it before.  I'd been through it in other ways, but not like that; not from people who had nothing to lose and just went crazy.  They were already on Death Row, what else could they do to them."
 

I think that story demonstrates not only what a leader he was on the film set, but the character that defined him his whole life.  He was a strong and dignified role model for so many.

 

 

Betty White: 1922 - 2021
January 1, 2022

 

If 2021 wasn't a horrible enough, it had to pull one last cruel move on us just before we entered the new year.  The world was in shock by the sudden death of Betty White yesterday, just 18 days before her 100th birthday.  Plans were made to celebrate her birthday with live streams and parties.  A really lousy way to close out the year.

 

I can think of few stars who were as deservedly beloved as Betty White.  Her work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls was unmatched.  The latter is one of my favorite sitcoms, and I still find comfort in regularly watching the reruns, almost like putting on a favorite old sweater.  Betty's Rose Nylund is one of TV's great female characters, up there with Edith Bunker, Maude, and White's three Golden Girls co-stars.  The show had one of the best ensembles ever put together (and some of the best writing), and it's sad to have to now live in a world where all four of them are gone.

 

Betty White was, to paraphrase an expression she used to describe herself, the last of the great old broads.

 

 

Wonka Italiano

December 30, 2021

 

My essay on Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory that I wrote for the Library of Congress' National Film Registry was just translated into Italian for the online cultural magazine Fucine Mute.  I'll never be able to walk the streets of Rome anonymously again.  Click here to read.

 

 

Eddie Mekka: 1952 - 2021
December 5, 2021

Very saddened to learn of the death of Eddie Mekka, who died on November 27th at his home in the Newhall area of Santa Clarita, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles. He was only 69 years old.  According to his family, he died peacefully but no specific cause of death was given.

 

I was friends with Eddie in the early '90s when I produced a radio show where we interviewed soap stars.  Eddie was on Guiding Light at the time.  He was one of the nicest, most down to earth people I met during the three years I did the radio show.  Very fond memories of hanging out with him at events and seeing him in a regional production of Fiddler on the Roof, a show he toured with often over the years.  He was seriously one of the best Tevye's I've ever seen.  After the performance, I went to his dressing room, where he was enjoying shots of Absolut (yes, he offered me some, even though I was not quite yet 21).  "I need this to come down," he said, referring to the exhilarating emotional high he got from playing Tevye.

At one event, for some reason, he asked me to hold his wallet.  I, of course, couldn't resist snooping around.  I saw his driver's license said Edward R. Mekjian (his family was Armenian) - he never legally changed his name to Mekka, something that I found intriguing at the time.  I now understand many stars never legally change their name.
 

Eddie was, of course, best known for playing Carmine Ragusa on Laverne & Shirley from 1976 - 1983.  But he was a theater actor at heart, having starred on Broadway in The Liutenant (1975), for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.   In addition to Fiddler, he also appeared in the leading roles in regional productions of The Music Man, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Little Shop of Horrors.  His film credits include small roles in Beaches (1988), A League of Their Own (1992), and Dreamgirls (2006).

He is survived by his second wife and their daughter. Thoughts go out to his family and friends.  RIP Big Ragoo.

 

 

40 Years After Dinner
October 11, 2021
 

Forty years ago today, My Dinner with André opened.  It was a small film - a really small film - with, at the time, a quite astonishing premise.  Two friends, both in the theater, meet for dinner after having not seen each other for quite some time.  Over dinner, they talk.  That's it.  No huge boulders threatening to run down Indiana Jones.  No spaceships landing at Devils Tower.  Just two New York Jewish intellectuals talking.
 

The film was an arthouse megahit, in part due to the enthusiastic support it got from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, who championed the film on numerous occasions, with Ebert naming it the best film of 1981 and Siskel ranking it number two.
 

The film got the Criterion Collection treatment twelve years ago, and the film still remains totally enchanting.  Like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), My Dinner with André was not a film I took to right away.  Frankly, I was bored by it.  It was after seeing it again on PBS that I realized there was more to the film than just two guys talking.  I have probably seen the film about twenty times, and probably the nicest thing about it is that it celebrates the art of the conversation.  I squirm these days when I am in a restaurant and see two people at the same table both transfixed on their cellphones instead of looking each other in the eye and speaking.

 

André does most of the talking, and while I can understand some considering him self-absorbed and pompous, he is a fascinating individual with some amazing life stories starting when he decided to drop out of the theater in 1975.  He traveled the world, ate sand with a Buddhist monk in the Sahara, was buried alive in Montauk, L.I., improvised until the morning hours in a forest in Poland with forty women who didn't speak a word of English.
 

In between all this gabbing they manage to actually eat some (but not much) food.  The film's restaurant interior was actually filmed in an empty hotel ballroom in Virginia.  It's a very elegant eatery replete with tuxedoed waiters and a live orchestra.  The menu is all in French, which leads Wally to randomly ask the old-world waiter what one of the appetizers is.  "It's a potato soup," the waiter says with a nervous twitch.  "It's quite delicious."  Wally orders it.  André seems quite familiar with the menu and orders terrine de poisson (fish pâté) for his starter and cailles aux raisins (roasted quail with raisins) for his main course.  For Wally's benefit, André says after ordering his entree that it's quail, so Wally opts for that too.  When the two tiny birds arrive on a plate with a little bit of rice and a round orange thing that I still cannot figure out, Wally comments, "I didn't know they were so small."


My mother did not get the film at all and referred to it as Dinner with Henry.  I don't know why, but she did.
 

I have a weird sorta connection to the film.  When I was in college, I was looking to take an acting class.  I came across an ad for a class that André was teaching.  I called and was told to meet André at his his home, a vintage townhouse on Perry Street in the West Village.  I got there and André graciously welcomed me into his kitchen.  He asked if I wanted tea.  I accepted.  I drank the tea plain because André, for whatever reason, did not have sugar in the house.  We spoke, and I told him I was an admirer of his and that I had once written him and he sent me a very nice autographed photo.  I asked him if all the stories he told in My Dinner with André were true.  He said yes. "You're sitting here with a maniac," he said with a laugh.  The class André was going to be teaching was - surprise! - very experimental.  He thought a more rudimentary acting class would be better for me.  I agreed.  He said it's always nice to meet a fan, and we said good-bye.
 

Cut to about eight years later.  I was working for the now defunct but groundbreaking independent film company Shooting Gallery.  I got a call one day from someone asking to speak to my boss.  I asked who was calling and the voice on the other end of the phone said, "Nick Gregory."  "Nick Gregory the actor, the son of André Gregory?"  He said yes.  Wow!  I told him that I loved his father and met him, etc.  Nick said he was having a reading of a screenplay he had written and if my boss would want to come.  Knowing my boss, I told him likely not, but I definitely would.  He was very appreciative and I was excited to meet him.


I went to the reading (Wallace Shawn was one of the actors).  It was for a naughty comic thriller called Love Thy Neighbor.  After the reading, Nick and I talked for a while and we agreed to have lunch soon after.  We had a series of lunches near his Soho loft at a very good sandwich place.  We talked about his father, his sister Marina, his late mother Chiquita, and film and acting.  I brought him to the Shooting Gallery offices and introduced him to one of the guys in the acquisitions department, who agreed to read Nick's script. 
 

Nick decided to film a scene from the script set at a tennis court.  He asked me to help with the script reading at his loft and we then filmed the scene on a warm day in Brooklyn.  There were several other crew members.  For lunch, Nick got us sandwiches from Junior's.  I remember actually being quite down during the shoot because I was not where I wanted to be in my film career and was not happy just being part of a crew and not the director.  I do not regret ever working on a professional film or TV location - the days are long, the tasks are physically demanding, and there is so much waiting around.  The whole process is totally devoid of fun and absolutely tedious.
 

Nick and I remained in touch for a while.  At one point when I was out of work, he called and asked if I would be interested in working for André, something to do with helping with rehearsals for a play he was working on.  It never happened.  Unfortunately, Nick and I just lost touch.  He did eventually get Love Thy Neighbor made with Scott Wolf, Roy Scheider, Jake Weber, and Wallace Shawn in it.  The 2005 film did not get wide distribution and the reviews were pretty dismal.  I really should look him up.
 

A number of years later I ran into André in a little bookshop in the Village.  I introduced myself.  He naturally did not remember meeting me about the acting class but I told him that I knew and worked with Nick.
 

André is now 87 years old and has left New York for the tranquility of Truro, Mass., a summer vacation community just south of the northern tip of Cape Cod where he lives with his second wife of 22 years, producer-director Cindy Kleine.  As for 77-year-old Wally, who is undeniably talented, he is a self-hating Jew who I lost all respect for when he joined a group of militant actors and writers in signing a letter chastising Israel.
 

My Dinner with André was directed by the late great Louis Malle, who had a gift for making films that were both very French (Murmur of the Heart, 1971) and very American (Atlantic City, 1981).  My Dinner with André may not be particularly visual, but it's great storytelling that leaves the audience to create its own images of André's wild adventures.  It's a little film with large, existential ideas.  And it's something that, forty years later, remains an important and iconic movie experience.

 

 

Another Chat with Brooke

September 12, 2021

 

It was a pleasure to once again appear on Brooke S. Musterman's podcast Let's Talk Art With Brooke.  On this episode we discussed the 50th anniversary of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.  At some point, we veered into talking about my favorite Ingmar Bergman films.  You never know where an interview will go with Brooke, which is why she is such a terrific podcaster.  Click here to listen.

 

 

Ed Asner: 1929 - 2021

September 1, 2021

 

Ed Asner was a leftist, socialist, extremist nut!  But as far as leftist, socialist, extremist nuts go, he was one of the nicest.  A wonderful, down to earth, and, yes, "spunky" guy, he passed away on August 29th at age 91.

 

Best known as the crotchety Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later his own dramatic spin-off, Asner also appeared in two of the most important TV miniseries of the 1970s, Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) and Roots (1977), the latter winning him one of seven Emmy Awards (a record for most wins by a male actor).

 

On film, he co-starred in Sydney Pollack's The Slender Thread (1965), the John Wayne western El Dorado (1966), and Fort Apache the Bronx (1981) with Paul Newman.  He also endeared himself to audiences as Santa in Elf (2003) and as the voice of lonely widower Carl Fredricksen in the Pixar animated hit Up (2009).

 

His far left politics included petitioning in favor of prisoners' rights, membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, and support of 9/11 conspiracy theories.  He was also president of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1980s.

 

I met him at a party when I was about 18 and he could not have been nicer or more gracious to a starstruck aspiring filmmaker.

 

Asner was married and divorced twice.  He is survived by four children.

 

 

Where Have You Gone, Jerry Silberman?
August 29, 2021

 

Five years ago today, the world became a less funny place. Gene Wilder, my patron saint and spiritual father, left us at age 83, peacefully surrounded by his family in Stamford, Conn., as Ella Fitzgerald sang "(Somewhere) Over the Rainbow." He left behind his amazing wife Karen, his devoted nephew Jordan, stepson Kevin, and several step-grandchildren, as well as millions of loyal fans. He died on his mother's birthday.

 

 

Ten Years an Orphan
August 23, 2021

This appeared in today's edition of Newsday.  For the first time in ten years, I have nothing else to say.

 

 

Willy Wonka at 50
August 12, 2021
 

Earlier this year, I was approached by Life magazine to give an interview for a special edition tribute to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory on its 50th anniversary.
 

The issue was just released (click here for info).  It is very well-produced, colorful, and filled with a lot of great photos, some of them very rare.  Yours truly is quoted twice (on pages 68 and 75). 
 

Life put out an impressive special edition tribute to Gene Wilder following his death in 2016.  Much of this new issue is a tribute to Gene as well and makes a nice companion piece to the 2016 issue.
 

It is available to purchase online and at newsstands.

 

 

Jackie Mason: 1928 - 2021
July 26, 2021

 

Jackie Mason, one of the last of the great borscht belt comedians, died Saturday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.  He was 93 and had been hospitalized for over two weeks with an undisclosed illness.

 

Mason was born Yacov Moshe Hakohen Maza in Sheboygan, Wis., the fourth of six children of immigrant parents from Minsk (the family moved to New York's Lower East Side when Mason was five).  He came from a family of rabbis that included his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather, and three brothers.  Mason himself became a rabbi before the gods of comedy made him rethink his calling.  He worked the Catskills early on before landing his big break in 1961 on Steve Allen's weekly TV variety show.  This led to more television appearances, including The Ed Sullivan Show.  During one Sullivan show, Mason was signaled to wrap up his act and ad-libbed a bit in which Sullivan thought Mason was giving him the finger.  He was banned from the Sullivan show for two years.

 

His career floundered after the Sullivan incident.  He had small parts in Carl Reiner's The Jerk (1979) and Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981).  But it wasn't until the mid 1980s that he became a megsastar with his brilliant one-man show The World According to Me, for which he received a special Tony Award.

 

“I feel like Ronald Reagan tonight,” Mason joked on Tony night. “He was an actor all his life, knew nothing about politics and became president of the United States. I’m an ex-rabbi who knew nothing about acting and I’m getting a Tony Award.”

 

Mason also won three Emmy Awards, including one as part of the voiceover cast of The Simpsons on which he played Krusty the Clown's father Rabbi Krustofsky.

 

I saw Mason on Broadway several times, each show funnier than the last.  He had a gift for pointing out the differences between Jews and gentiles in a way that was achingly funny no matter what your ethnic background was. One of my favorite bits of his involves Jews vs. gentiles dining out: "A gentile walks into a restaurant. 'How do you do? May I sit down? How long should I wait? Nine years? Why not?' You ever see how a Jew walks into a restaurant? Like a partner. 'Hello! Let me see my table! You call this a table for a man like me? I don't sit so close to a wall, so far from a window. My wife don't like to face this way, I don't like to face that way. Why are there so many people in this section? They could be moved over here.' The gentiles ate four meals already, the Jews are picking furniture."

 

My fondest memory of Jackie Mason is meeting him in Midtown around 2004 while on my lunch break.  I was talking to my mother on my cell phone when I spotted Mason and his wife Jyll crossing West 57th Street.  "Ma, hold on!" I said.  "I see Jackie Mason!"  I went over and shook his hand, telling him I was a big fan.  I asked if he could please say hello to mother.  Without missing a beat, he grabbed my phone and said, in his signature Yiddish accent, "Hello?  Who's this?  Do you work?  You're a housewife?!  What, you stay home all day and do nothing?!"  My mother was hysterical.

 

Jackie's wife was visibly annoyed, as she just wanted to keep walking, but Jackie insisted on taking the time to make my mother's day.  It's the total opposite of that classic scene in The King of Comedy where Jerry Lewis' character is stopped on the street and won't talk to a fan's relative on a payphone because he was running late.

 

Meeting him in this situation was one of my all-time favorite celebrity encounters, not for what he did for me, but how he gave my mother a memory she would never forget.  In reading his obits, he apparently loved being approached and talking to his admirers, although he could also be impossible to deal with.  According to New York Post columnist John  Podhoretz, having lunch with Mason was like spending "an hour with the same Jackie you saw on stage. Only he wasn’t funny offstage. He hectored you and yelled at you — even if you two agreed on nearly every particular, especially on Israel."

I actually ran into him a second time, about nine years ago on Second Avenue.  He was again with his wife.  Age had visibly slowed him down, but he was still nice.  At the time I was writing for The Jewish Voice and asked if I could interview him.  His wife - who was also his manager - said to go to his website and email her the request.  I did but she never wrote back.

 

One more Jackie Mason story.  He fathered a daughter out of wedlock in 1985 whom he refused to acknowledge.  Her name is Sheba and she is the spitting image of her father, although thankfully much prettier.  She is a very funny stand-up comic, and around 2006 I performed stand-up at Don't Tell Mama with a friend of mine and Sheba (we all had our own sets).  She had very clever material about her estranged father, such as, "Why couldn't I have had a handsomer Jewish comedian for a father?  Ya know, like Woody Allen."

 

Jackie Mason was one of America's great stand-up acts - and while he was nuttier than a box of rugelach - he was also a stand-up guy for giving my mother that thrill on the phone.

 

Charles Grodin: 1935 - 2021
May 18, 2021

 

This one hurts.  Charles Grodin, one of the all-time great comic actors, died today.  He was 86 and died at his home in Wilton, Conn., according to his son Nicholas.  The cause was bone marrow cancer.

 

A Pittsburgh native, Grodin had an uncredited role as a drummer boy in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) when he was 19 and a small part in Sex and the College Girl (1964).  Grodin spent most of the 1960s in various TV roles before landing a small part in a big film as Mia Farrow's obstetrician in Rosemary's Baby (1968).  That was followed by Catch-22 in 1970 before he got his big break with the lead in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972).  The film was a hit and earned Grodin a Golden Globe nomination.  Despite the film's success, Grodin's film work in the 1970s was sporadic.  He most notably appeared in the 1977 remake of King Kong, Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Albert Brooks' first feature Real Life (1979).  His most significant work during this period was on Broadway in the acclaimed Same Time, Next Year opposite Ellen Burstyn in 1975.  The play was a smash, but although Burstyn won a Tony for her performance, Grodin was not even nominated.  When it came time for the 1978 film version, he was passed over for Alan Alda.  He had previously directed the Renee Taylor-Joseph Bologna play Lovers and Other Strangers on Broadway in the late '60s.

 

He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1977 and won an Emmy as one of the writers of The Paul Simon Special (1977) along with Chevy Chase, Lorne Michaels, Paul Simon, and Lily Tomlin.  By the 1980s, Grodin was a household name and a regular fixture on Johnny Carson and David Letterman's late night shows.  Grodin's gift for deadpan humor made him a perfect foil for both hosts as he always feigned displeasure merely being there.  He hosted his own cable talk show on CNBC in the mid '90s (he was particuarly obsessed with the O.J. Simpson trial, which he spoke about nearly every night) in which he blended his love of politics with entertainment.

 

Grodin was longtime friends with Gene Wilder, whom he met in the 1950s when they both were taking acting classes at the HB Studio in New York.  While Grodin thought Gene (who was still Jerry Silberman) was a good actor, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to make it in the business because he didn’t have the traditional pretty boy actor look of the 1950s.  In his autobiography, Grodin recalled, “There was this funny-looking boy in class named Jerry Silberman, and everyone thought: My God, what is a guy who looks like that going to do in this profession?!”  Ironically, Gene found stardom before Grodin, despite his "funny looks," and Gene cast him as one of his buddies in The Woman in Red (1984), in which he gave a performance so moving there was briefly talk he might be nominated for a supporting actor Oscar.

 

Seems Like Old Times (1980) and The Lonely Guy (1984) gave Grodin a chance to work with other seasoned comic actors like Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn, and Steve Martin.  Last Resort (1986), an island comedy that no one seemed to like, is a film I really remember enjoying.  But Grodin's two standouts were Movers & Shakers (1985) and Midnight Run (1988).  Originally called Dreamers, Grodin had written Movers & Shakers and spent years trying to get the film made.  The dream cast consists of Grodin, Walter Matthau, Gilda Radner, Tyne Daly, Vincent Gardenia, Bill Macy, Steve Martin, and Penny Marshall.  A very dry comedy about the movie business, the film was a huge bomb with both critics and audiences.  It has never been released on DVD, which is a real shame, because it's a terrific film, perhaps a little too cerebral and subtle for most (my only critique is that Gilda, who looked beautiful in it, was not given enough screen time).

 

As for Midnight Run, few followers of Grodin's career would disagree that this was his defining role.  He and Robert DeNiro were as good a comedy team onscreen as any I can think of.  It's an exhilarating, ultimately poignant action-comedy with some of the funniest lines of dialogue either Grodin or DeNiro ever uttered.  And was there anyone who wasn't dying to try chorizo and eggs after seeing it?

 

Grodin had hits with the popular Beethoven films in the early '90s, and he was terrific as Kevin Kline's accountant friend in the underrated Dave (1993).  But he quit acting to focus on his talk show, do a stint as a commentator on a 60 Minutes spin-off, write books, and, most importantly, be a stay-at-home dad to Nicholas.  He wrote the off-Broadway play The Right Kind People in 2004, and continued appearing on talk shows before returning to acting in several roles between 2006 and 2017.  He also did commentaries for the CBS Radio Network.

His first book, It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here: My Journey Through Show Business (1989, William Morrow & Co.), is one of the funniest celebrity memoirs I have ever read, and he followed it up with a half dozen more musings over the years.

 

In addition to Nicholas, Grodin is survived by his second wife Elissa and his daughter from his first marriage, Marion, a stand-up comic.

 

 

My Beautiful Mother Bella
May 5, 2021

 

My dear mother Bella Mednick would have been 85 today.  I cannot believe she is gone 10 years.  I will never have anyone care about me, love me or support me the way she did.  I miss her cooking, I miss picking up the phone to tell her which celebrity just died (or vice versa), I miss the long conversations.

I had my first colonoscopy a year ago.  I was nervous until right before they put me under.  And then I was out.  Blackness.  Nothingness.  No nightmares, no bad thoughts.  Just blackness.  Best sleep ever.  And then I woke up in recovery.

I long for one more Chinese dinner like the ones we frequently had at home or in a nice restaurant.  We always got a booth.  My mother sat next to me, my father across from us with our jackets and her bag.  We'd always start with tea and soup, then split an order of spareribs before our main courses.  And, of course, there were always doggie bags.

When my time comes, I hope I go as peacefully as my colonoscopy began.  And instead of waking up in recovery, I will be in that booth at that restaurant, eating wonton soup and ribs, smiling and holding my beautiful mother's hand.

 

 

I've Been Waiting Years to Use This Joke!
May 2, 2021

 

Melinda Gates is divorcing Bill - she claims he is Microsoft!
 

 

Olympia Dukakis: 1931 - 2021
May 1, 2021

 

Olympia Dukakis, one of America's finest character actresses, died today.  She was 89 and died under hospice care at her home in Manhattan after many months of failing health.
 

Dukakis, a Greek-American from Massachusetts, had spent years on and off-Broadway and in minor roles in films such as John and Mary (1969), Death Wish (1974), and The Idolmaker (1980) before becoming a bona fide movie star with her poignant performance as Cher's world-weary mother in Moonstruck (1987).  The performance won Dukakis a well-deserved supporting actress Oscar and led to roles in major motion pictures such as the much-loved Steel Magnolias (1989), Dad (1989), Look Who's Talking (1989), and The Cemetery Club (1993).  On TV, she appeared in three Tales of the City miniseries, the 2019 entry her final role.  She also played Frank Sinatra's mother Dolly in the 1992 TV-movie Sinatra.
 

But it was in Moonstruck as Rose Castorini, the wise matriach of an offbeat Italian-American family, that Dukakis will best be remembered.  The film is one of my five all-time favorites, and I consider her turn one of the most iconic supporting actress performances ever.  Granted, she was gifted with the brilliant dialogue of John Patrick Shanley and co-stars like Vincent Gardenia, John Mahoney, Danny Aiello, and, of course, Cher.  But she brought something unique to each line, each gesture, finally reaching an odd catharsis when she figures out the reason men chase women is because they fear death.  This leads to the classic line to her womanizing husband (Gardenia): "Cosmo, I just want you to know, no matter what you do you're going to die, just like everybody else."
 

I met Dukakis briefly in Midtown many years ago.  She was in a rush but she gave me her autograph.  She was a first cousin of former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, and actively campaigned for him during his 1988 run for president.
 

Dukakis married actor Louis Zorich in 1962, with whom she had three children.  The couple moved to Montclair, New Jersey to raise their family, and in 1973 they founded the Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, the state's first resident professional theater.  It remained in operation until 1991.  Zorich died in 2018.
 

A documentary about her life, Olympia, was completed in 2018.  It has played many film festivals and is currently available to watch online.

 

 

"Let's Talk Art With Brooke"

April 7, 2021

 

Big thank you to Brooke S. Musterman for interviewing me on her podcast about my books and short film.  She may not know the difference between Woody Allen and Woody Harrelson, but she is one helluva great interviewer!

 

Click here to listen.

 

 

"Honey, I Forgot to Duck."
March 30, 2021

 

Hard to believe today is 40 years since the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.  I remember the day vividly.  My father picked me up from elementary school and told me.  We had very few TV channels back then, but we were all glued to the screen.  At one point, the repetitive playing of the moment Reagan was shot was a little too much (and was famously parodied on Saturday Night Live when Eddie Murphy's Buckwheat met a less fortunate fate).  My mother let me watch Gilligan's Island so we could all have a little break.

 

Reagan had only been president a little over two months when he was shot after leaving the Washington Hilton, where he had just given a luncheon speech to representatives of the AFL-CIO.  Press Secretary James Brady and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy were also shot, the former left permanently paralyzed.  The initial news reports were grim, the White House was in chaos as to who was in charge, and the entire country was on edge.

 

Luckily for us, Reagan pulled through, never losing his trademark humor.  When Nancy arrived at the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, he said, "Honey, I forgot to duck," borrowing boxer Jack Dempsey's line to his wife after his loss to Gene Tunney.

 

In the operating room, Reagan joked to the doctors and nurses, "I hope you are all Republicans."  They all laughed, with one of the surgeons, a Democrat, responding, "Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans."

 

I consider Ronald Reagan the last great American president.  He was flawed, to be sure, most notably in his lack of attention to the AIDS crisis, but he was a natural leader with strengths both political and, as evidenced by his quick recovery from the shooting, physical as well.  He remains the model of the kind of old school conservative Republicanism missed by moderates who have left what has sadly become the delusional Trump party.  He gave the country real optimism and installed a true sense of patriotism, none of this ignorant MAGA crap.  He would be saddened to see how far this country has fallen from, as he used to say, a "shining city on a hill."

 

 

Remembering Daisy
March 28, 2021
 

Five years ago today I had to put my Daisy to sleep.  One of the hardest things I've ever done.  We both went through the horror of losing our parents two days apart in 2011.  She took it as bad as I did.

 

It was terrible watching her health decline.  I regret all the times I lost my temper with her and cursed my mother for burdening me with her.  She was a pain in the ass but she was my pain in the ass.  In her final year, she was not herself.  I miss the Daisy who would spoon with me in bed, like we were a couple.  I do not regret any of those days I called in sick because I just wanted to stay under the covers holding her (and I have yet to meet the human equivalent before or since who was as nice to sleep next to). I miss the Daisy who knew when I was sad and crawled over and put her paw on me, hating to see me weep.

 

Losing her five years ago was losing the last connection I had to my parents.  As my mother used to say about her, she was "a doll dog."

 

 

George Segal: 1934 - 2021
March 24, 2021
 

I loved George Segal, one of the great, funny, charismatic Jewish American actors of the 1970s along with Elliott Gould, Gene Wilder, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Benjamin, and Alan Arkin.  Segal died yesterday of complications from quadruple bypass surgery in Santa Rosa, California.  He was 87.
 

A native New Yorker, Segal was born to Jewish parents but grew up in a non-religious home and was never bar mitzvahed (wait, this sounds like me).  After several stage roles, Segal debuted in films in the early 1960s starting with The Young Doctors (1961) and The Longest Day (1962), followed by The New Interns (1964), Stanley Kramer's acclaimed Ship of Fools (1965), and King Rat (1965).  His breakthrough came in Mike Nichols' screen version of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which pitted him against legends Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  The performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
 

The 1970s would see Segal's star rise as one of the decade's most popular leading men in films like Where's Poppa? (1970), The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), Blume in Love (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), and California Split (1974). 
 

Segal's career stalled in the 1980s but he made an impressive comeback in a key supporting role in For the Boys (1991) with Bette Midler before becoming familiar to younger audiences on the sitcoms Just Shoot Me! (1997 - 2003) and, more recently, as the grandfather on The Goldbergs (2013 - 2021).
 

He was also a passionate banjo player who performed at Carnegie Hall.  He often performed when a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, usually drawing awkward stares from Carson, who apparently found Segal's musical talent, well, "different."  A classic 1970 episode of The David Susskind Show called "How to Be a Jewish Son" featured Segal along with five other funny Jewish men including Mel Brooks and David Steinberg.
 

Segal won two Golden Globe Awards for Most Promising Newcomer - Male for The Interns and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for A Touch of Class.
 

He is survived by his third wife, Sonia, and two children.
 

 

Cloris Leachman: 1926 - 2021
January 28, 2021

 

Cloris Leachman, the versatile character actress who excelled at both broad comedy and searing drama, died yesterday in her sleep from a stroke at her daughter's home in Encinitas, Calif.  She was 94.

 

Leachman caught the eyes of moviegoers in Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 The Last Picture Show as the lonely wife of a high school gym teacher who has an affair with one of her husband's students (Timothy Bottoms).  The role won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.  Leachman would spend the rest of the 1970s showing off her comedic side, most notably in her signature role in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974) as Frau Blucher, the villainous housekeeper whose name incites horses to whinny out of control.  She would work with Brooks two more times, as a nefariously strict psychiatric nurse with a bent for S&M in High Anxiety (1977) ("Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.") and as Madame Defarge in History of the World, Part I (1981).

 

She also appeared as Bob Newhart's unstable wife in Gene Wilder's first TV movie, Thursday's Game (1974).

 

Most television viewers knew Leachman as Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970 – 1975) and later on her own spinoff Phyllis (1975 – 1977).

 

Leachman continued working until her final years, building a plethora of film and TV credits.  She is tied with Julia Louis-Dreyfus for most Primetime Emmy Awards for an actress (8), although Leachman also has an additional Daytime Emmy Award.

 

A lifelong vegetarian and animal rights activist, Leachman is survived by five children from her marriage to producer-director George Englund, whom she was married to from 1953 - 1979.  Prior to marrying Englund, he vuz her boyfriend!

 

NB: On February 19th, it was revealed that her death certificate also listed COVID-19 as a significant condition that contributed to her death but was not the underlying cause.

 

 

Larry King: 1933 - 2021

January 23, 2021
 

Larry King, one of the great modern broadcasters, died today at age 87 from sepsis as a complication of COVID-19.

 

To his critics, King was considered a lightweight who tossed only softball questions.  They say that is why he interviewed nearly every major famous figure of the last fifty years.  I take exception, though, and argue the reason King was able to land so many rare interviews was that he was not threatening.  He was engaging, thoughtful, a great listener, and made his guests feel comfortable.  There is enough negativity on television.  King was the antidote to that.

 

King was a real mensch who never forgot that he was some kid named Lawrence Zeiger from Brooklyn.  I met him in 1991 when I was 18.  Instead of repeating the whole story, I urge you to go to the Archive tab and read my entry from May 19, 2015.  All I can say is it was a huge thrill for my mother and me.

 

King was married eight times to seven women.  Two of his older children, Andy and Chaia, died within weeks of each other in August 2020 (Andy at 65 from a heart attack and Chaia at 51 from lung cancer).  He is survived by three other children and his eight wife Shawn, whom he had been separated from since 2019.

 

Over the years, King suffered numerous serious health problems but always bounced back with his typical class, humor, and trademark suspenders intact.  Truly one of the great guys in the biz.

 

 

An Unprecedented President

January 12, 2021
 

They say Trump has committed Crimes and Misdemeanors.

 

I think he is just Bananas.

 

He had a Sleeper candidacy.  He hates how Melania redid the Interiors of Mar-a-Lago.  It will be A Rainy Day in New York before he sets foot in Manhattan again.  Café Society will not welcome him.

 

I knew he was going to lose back in September.  Stormy Daniels was just Another Woman he viewed as Mighty Aphrodite. 

And how about his three marriages?  Talk about some screwed up Husbands and Wives!

 

It was Midnight in Paris when Biden was named the winner here.

 

His New York Stories about being a successful builder are the product of his Celebrity.  His supporters are immersed in Shadows and Fog.  He said he could shoot someone on the street and still lose no support. Talk about Bullets Over Broadway!

 

The Sweet and Lowdown is that he and his cronies are nothing more than Small Time Crooks who thought they could do Whatever Works and Take the Money and Run.  His presidency will not conclude with a Hollywood Ending. 

 

We know the Scoop.  He is an Irrational Man.

 

Anything Else?

 

 

National Buffoon's Christmas Vacation

December 30, 2020

 

 

10 Years of Funny and Sad
December 25, 2020

 

Ten years ago today, my first book, Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad, was published.  It was a project I spent fifteen years working on, finally abandoning it after being rejected by literally hundreds of publishers.  Then at the suggestion of a friend, I sent it to BearManor Media.  Ben Ohmart, the owner of BearManor, emailed me and said he'd love to publish it.  I thought it had to be a scam.  I asked him how much money he wanted from me.  He explained they were legit and really liked the manuscript.

 

I was thrilled.  I was living with my parents at the time and ran down to tell them the news.  I spent the following months updating and editing the book, choosing the photos I wanted, working with BearManor's incredibly patient designer Brian Pearce on the book cover and back.  I even was able to get an advance quote for the back of the book from Richard Roeper, one of the country's foremost critics, who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times and was Roger Ebert's co-host after Gene Siskel died.

 

The book got mostly positive reviews and a lot of press, the highlight being on Joe Franklin's radio show, and then becoming friends with this true legend.  Sales have been good.  After Gene's death, the book sold like crazy.  I'm still amazed that after ten years, people are still buying the book.

 

I was most proud that my mother got to see the book come out.  She knew how much time and effort I put into it.  I cannot believe it's already ten years.  My parents died eight months later.  I realize that the publication of the book was not a pivotal moment in history.  Having a book published these days is no longer a big deal, since anyone can publish anything.  But it was a big deal for me - and a bigger deal that my mother, to whom the book is dedicated, got to see it.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Fauci

December 24, 2020

 

Happy birthday to a true American hero, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who turns 80 today.  Wear your masks!

 

Speaking of masks...  I am amazed how many people still refuse to wear them.  Masks do work!  Trump has mocked and discouraged mask wearing.  He even went after President-elect Joe Biden.  "Every time you see him he's got a mask," said the outgoing president.  "He could be speaking 200 feet away...and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen."

 

Trump's followers drink whatever Kool-Aid he serves up.  If he wore a mask and told his supporters to do the same, they would.  Yet he continues to downplay the epidemic.  "It's rounding the curve," he said before the election.  "That's all I hear about now... 'Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid.' By the way, on November 4th, you won't hear about it anymore."

 

Really?  The situation has never been worse.  We're losing 3,000 Americans a day.  This president has more blood on his hands than any other before him (just ask the family of Herman Cain).  His base is so cultish, they follow their leader no matter what.  So many lives could have been saved if he stopped holding live rallies and encouraged mask wearing.  He's a disgrace.

 

I am fervent about wearing a mask whenever I am outside.  They are uncomfortable but we have no choice.  Although most people here in Manhattan wear masks, I see a lot that don't.  I've never uttered the phrase "f***ing moron" more than in the last nine months.  I've gotten into some ugly situations with no-maskers.  "Masks don't work!" they say.  Now Manhattan is far from being a Republican or Trump haven.  These anti-maskers can't all be idiot Trump supporters.  They're just plain idiots.

 

I was at my barber the other day.  I've been going there for years.  A Jewish father and son from Ukraine.  They both give excellent haircuts.  So I walk in and the son is cutting some guy's hair.  He says to have a seat in the other barber chair and his father will be right with me.  They have the shop appropriately set up with clear plastic curtains as barriers.  Right as the son is finishing up the guy, I notice the guy is not wearing a mask.  I did not see this when I walked in.  If I did I would have said he has to wear a mask or I'm leaving.  So the guy leaves and doesn't even put a mask on as he left.

 

I asked the barbers why he wasn't wearing a mask.  The son said he was at first but took it off.  "Then you should have told him to put it on or else leave!" I said.  I did not raise my voice but I let them know how pissed I was.  "Not only is that a danger to customers, you - as a business owner - can get fined," I said.

 

"You're right, you're right," the father said with a dumb smile.  "He owns the pizza place over here."

 

"So because he owns a pizza place, he's special?" I shot back.  "He doesn't need to wear a mask?"

 

Well, I paid for the haircut, gave the father a lesser tip than usual (even though tipping the owner is ridiculous), and wished them both a happy new year.  They smiled and wished me the same, see you in January, blah blah blah.  I'd love to know what they said after I left.  One thing I believe, though, is they are not going to let anyone get a haircut without a mask again.  I think the part about being fined is what scared them because all they care about is money (and no, not because they're Jewish but because that's how all business owners are).

 

If you have another minute, let me tell you what happened yesterday.  I'm walking up Second Avenue minding my own business on the way to the supermarket.  I see this little old lady yelling at a couple and their kids because they weren't wearing masks.  She really let them have it.  I joined in and berated them as well.  "You're absolutely right!" I told her.  She was grateful I was on her side.  Then another no-masker says masks don't work.  "F***ing moron!" I say.  Then this young woman joins us and also says how terrible these people are.  The old lady said thank you.  I said, "No!  Thank YOU!"

 

I walked with the young woman two blocks and we talked about ignorant these people are.  "I know, they are selfish," she said.  "Don't ask what I see on the subway."  I told her I don't take the subway and then relayed the barber story to her.  We parted on 86th Street and wished each other happy holidays.  To quote Charles Grodin in Midnight Run, "For every shit in the world there are six nice people." 

 

It wasn't until later that night that I regretted not giving the girl my card.  She probably had a boyfriend and was not interested in a short guy fifteen years older than her.  But I had nothing to lose.  I wasn't quick enough to say something like, "If you don't have a boyfriend, maybe we can socially distance together some time."

 

But I digress.  This virus is a nightmare.  We all can do our part but human behavior is what is, especially in America.  We are a selfish people who only care about our own comfort.  This is no joke.  Wear your damn mask!  And happy holidays!

 

 

Geoffrey Palmer: 1927 - 2020
November 13, 2020

 

I have always been a Britcom fan.  After Fawlty Towers, my favorite is easily As Time Goes By, which aired on BBC One from 1992 to 2005.  The key to the show's succcess was the chemistry between the two leads, Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer.  The two played Jean and Lionel, a couple who were madly in love but were separated after Lionel was sent off to war.  They meet 38 years later, realize their estrangement was due to a lost love letter, and marry.

 

Palmer died on November 5th at age 93.  He embodied the quintessential English curmudgeon but with a very endearing and warm side, as he displayed on nearly every episode of the show.

 

If you have never seen As Time Goes By, the entire series is available on DVD. In these trying times, I could not recommend a more soothing entertainment.

 

In addition to As Time Goes By, Palmer had a memorable guest spot on Fawlty Towers in 1979, and appeared in such films as O Lucky Man! (1973), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Mrs. Brown (1997), and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).

 

The London born Palmer died peacefully at home and is survived by Sally, his wife of 57 years, and two children.

 

 

Alex Trebek: 1940 - 2020
November 8, 2020

 

The high of yesterday's Biden victory was dampered today by the news that Alex Trebek lost his battle with pancreatic cancer.  He was 80 years old.

 

Trebek was probably America's best loved TV personality.  He was erudite, witty, self-effacing, and ultimately a very brave man.  His public struggle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer was a blow but he handled it with amazing fortitude and grace, always updating his loyal viewers about his condition.  He lived longer than most pancreatic cancer patients, and while he continued working, he never looked sick or weak.  He looked great actually.

 

We thought if anyone could pull through this it would be Alex.  That's why news of his passing is so devastating.  He taped his last show just ten days before his death (it will air on December 25th).

 

I know my weeknights at 7:00 will never be the same.  As Alex himself might say, boo hiss!

 

 

Happy Days Are Here Again!
November 7, 2020

 

After the worst year imaginable for this country, there is hope for real change, respect, and decency. 

 

For me, it's not just about getting Trump out - it's about Joe Biden himself.  From the moment he announced he was running, I was all in for him.  He was an underdog, he was ridiculed, but he never faltered.  He is the first candidate I actually made phone calls for and donated money to.  He is a decent, honorable man.  I don't agree with him on many issues, but character counts.  I have faith in him.

 

There has never been a more dangerous period in this country.  He will lead on Covid-19, he will be willing to negotiate with the opposition, he won't use divisive, juvenile rhetoric, and he will not blatantly lie.  He'll be a president who is presidential.  It's clichéd, but he is the right man at the right time.  Plus we'll be getting a first lady who has inner and outer beauty.  And how about our new Jewish second gentleman?  Oy, what more could you want?  To borrow an infamous Biden line, this is a big f***ing deal!

 

It's a great day to be an American!

 

 

Mr. Showmanship???

October 21, 2020
 

One is an ostentatious entertainer who loves excess and has a cult-like following of millions of adoring fans, and the other is Liberace.

 

 

I Think Gene Would Approve...

October 6, 2020

 

 

Redford on His 2020 Candidate

September 27, 2020

 

Found this interesting piece by Robert Redford.  I usually am turned off by celebrities endorsing politicians, but this is very well-written and thoughtful.

 

Trump doesn’t care about ordinary people. All the president’s men are enablers. He loathes refugees coming here out of Africa. And he will have appointed three legal eagles to the Supreme Court. The natural thing is to worry. His case for a second term is an indecent proposal.  If he gets re-elected, we will all feel the sting.  I just hope Biden is the candidate who can take us back to the way we were.

 

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 1933 - 2020

September 19, 2020

 

No matter what your politics are, you have to admit Ruther Bader Ginsburg was a pretty amazing woman.  Ginsburg, who died last night at age 87 after a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, was the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court and the first Jewish woman.

 

A Brooklyn native, she earned her law degree from Harvard after receiving her bachelor's degree from Cornell University, where she met her future husband Martin Ginsburg.  They had two children and were married for 56 years until his death in 2010.

 

In 1980 Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.  She served until being appointed to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton in 1993.

 

Ginsburg had overcome a number of serious health issues.  There was always concern when news would break about her checking into the hospital, but she was a strong lady.  She always got better and was determined to stay on the Court.

 

In these divisive times, it's downright heartwarming to know her best friend on the Court was Antonin Scalia.  As jurists, they could not have been further apart in their views.  But they were genuine friends, brought together by a love of opera and wine, who often dined together and even spent New Year's Eve with each other's families.  Where is that kind of bipartisanship today?  It says a lot about both her and Scalia as people.  When giving his eulogy, Ginsburg spoke of their odd friendship, and said it was about "making our differences work."

 

The timing of Ginsburg's death is troubling because the presidential election is just 45 days away.  Four years ago when Scalia died in February of that election year, Republicans refused to hold confirmation hearings for President Obama's Court pick.  The election was nine months away, yet they would not let a qualified Obama appointee be considered.

 

Now, with just six weeks before the election, Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not wait for the body to get cold before announcing they intend to speed through the confirmation of a Trump appointed Supreme Court nominee.  The blatant hypocrisy is typical Trump.  There are several Republican senators who have nothing to lose by insisting whoever wins the election should pick the next Court nominee.  Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, likely to lose her seat in Maine, have said just that.  Mitt Romney is really the only GOP senator who regularly calls out Trump - he needs to speak up.  Same for Lamar Alexander, who is retiring.  Former rival now Trump flunky Lindsay Graham is on tape saying that if a Court vacancy opened, the appointment should wait until after the election.  How is he going to backtrack that now?  If Trump gets away with putting one more justice on the Court before the election - and the GOP senate helps him - it will be one more long-lasting stain that this totally unfit, pathological liar has put on this country.

 

Whatever happens regarding her successor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy will remain an inspiration for all Americans.

 

 

 

The Seven Year Headache

August 28, 2020

Seven years ago today, my third book, Unnecessary Headaches, was published.  It was my first novella, and one I remain very proud of.  My mother got to see the first two books, but did not live to see this one.  I know she would have read it and loved it.  Unnecessary Headaches is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

 

 

August 23, 2020
 

Open Letter to:
Peconic Bay Medical Center
Riverhead, NY
Andrew J. Mitchell, FACHE 
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sherry Patterson
Chair, Board of Directors

 

From:
Brian Scott Mednick
New York City


This weekend marks nine years since my dear parents, Martin and Bella Mednick, were taken from me - two days apart - due to the negligence of Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead.

 

My mother passed away on August 24, 2011.  Her death was caused by negligence on the part of two attending doctors – Brenda Connolly, DO and Aura Urquia-Robles, DO – who gave her excessive doses of morphine for pain. 

 

My mother had a history of COPD, congestive heart failure, and breathing problems, and used oxygen at home.  The doctors were well aware of this, yet they continued to give my mother morphine to treat pain from a bone infection in her foot.  The morphine made my mother delirious – she was hallucinating and incoherent, a total contrast to her usual sharp personality.

 

The doctors recommended my mother be transferred to rehab to help her walk.  While in rehab at the hospital, my mother’s mental state worsened.  I pleaded with the rehab nurse to stop all narcotics, which they did.  I was informed it would take a few days to leave her system.  The day after stopping the narcotics, I received a call telling me that my mother was found “unresponsive” in her room at rehab.  I was told she fell out of bed.  How could she fall out of bed if the bed rails were up?  Obviously, they were not up, clear neglect on the part of the hospital staff.

 

She was taken to the ER where they inserted a breathing tube.  The ER physician, Andrew Wackett, MD, told me that morphine often causes problems in people with breathing issues.  He was taken aback that she would be prescribed so much morphine when her breathing history was known.  Yet Dr. Connolly and Dr. Urquia-Robles continued to give her round-the-clock morphine.  Totally unacceptable!

 

My mother had the breathing tube removed after four days but was not herself.  Despite not being on morphine for many days, she was confused and could not even hold a fork or spoon to feed herself.  She was transferred from ICU to a regular room.  An aide helped her onto a commode and then left her alone.  When the aide returned, she was on the floor and not breathing.  They brought her back to ICU and inserted the breathing tube again.  This is when I was told she would not recover.  My mother was in a coma and I had to decide when to remove the tube.  There was no hope for her – she was brain dead.

 

The rehab nurse admitted that my mother should not have been in a room which was the furthest away from the nurse’s station.  Also, the aide should have stayed with my mother while she was on the commode.  But it was the excessive morphine that started my mother’s deterioration.  She had been in and out of the hospital often for congestive heart failure, but I never thought her death would come about in such a needless way as this.

 

My father was in the hospital at the same time, having had a toe amputated.  When I broke the news to him that my mother would not make it, he was confused.  He was moved to a rehab facility near the hospital.  On Sunday, August 21, 2011, I visited him at the rehab facility and he asked how my mother was.  I told him once again she would not make it.  My father told me he had a dream that morning that he saw my mother and she said she was better and everything was going to be okay.  When I told him the reality of the situation, he just sank.  “Just sell the house and put me in a room somewhere,” he said, the most heartbreaking thing a son could hear.  He signed a “do not resuscitate” order that day.  The next morning his doctor called to tell me he had passed away in his sleep from a heart attack.  My father simply could not bear to live without my mother.  It’s sounds cliché but he died from a broken heart.  That day I decided to remove my mother’s breathing tube.  She died two days later.

 

This was devastating.  I lost both of my parents, whom I lived with and took care of and who were my world, two days apart.  My mother was 75, my father was 72.  As an only child, I had no one to help me through this.  While they both suffered from many health problems, I firmly believe they both would have lived had my mother not received all the morphine she was given, was properly attended to, and not been put in situations where she could fall.  She went in for a foot infection, not a problem with her heart or lungs.

 

I consulted three top malpractice attorneys, all of whom agreed that my mother’s death was due to negligence on the part of the hospital.  But an autopsy was not performed on my mother, which would complicate a malpractice suit.  I was also told it would cost me upwards of $10,000 and probably take two or three years to pursue such a case.  I could have futilely tried suing but hospitals are so lawyered up that it’s nearly impossible to win.

 

No complaint, letter or lawsuit could ever bring back my parents or ease the unbearable grief of the last nine years.  No one was held accountable.  I want it known that Peconic Bay Medical Center is a horrific hospital that should be avoided at all costs.

 

I used to have such faith and trust in hospitals.  I used to think if my parents were in the hospital, they would be better treated than if at home.  How wrong I was.  And sadly, I know I am not alone.  There are a lot of families who, like me, have had their world destroyed by the thoughtless malpractice of hospitals.  My thoughts are with those families.  Losing a loved one is never easy, but losing them in such a senseless way makes the loss even harder.

 

Nine years.  Nine years of grief.  Each year on the anniversary of their deaths, I light yahrzeit candles for them, get a fresh arrangement of flowers, and arrange my favorite photos of them on my kitchen table.  I spend several days in more anguish than usual.  Pathetic?  Perhaps.  But it is the only way I know how to mourn them.

 

There was a story in the news a few years ago about these parents who sued their 30-year-old son to get him out of their house.  I joked at the time that my parents would have sued to keep me there.  But it’s true.  We were that close.

 

I curse that hospital for taking my life nine years ago.  I view my life as divided before they died and after they died.  I kick myself for all the complaining I did when I lived with them at the end and helped take care of them.  I hate I cannot pick up the phone when a celebrity dies and say to my mother, "Did ya hear?”

 

I long for one more Chinese dinner like the ones we frequently had at home or in a nice restaurant.  We always got a booth.  My mother sat next to me, my father across from us with our jackets and her bag.  We'd always start with tea and soup, then split an order of spareribs before our main courses.  And, of course, there were always doggie bags.  My mother was the most selfless person I have ever known.  She put me ahead of everything.  When I was not living at home, if she and my father tried a new restaurant and liked it, the first thing out of her mouth would be, "Brian would love this.  We’ve got to take him here when he visits."

 

I cannot imagine how many lives were needlessly taken due to Peconic Bay’s negligence.  To them, our loved ones are just another patient, another number.  

 

I am not writing this letter in the hopes of "letting go."  I'll never let go.  I do not want to “get over it.”  I’ve written to Peconic Bay’s president, Andrew Mitchell, every year on the anniversary of my parents’ death.  I never get a response, don’t expect one, and frankly do not desire one.  This year I decided to take my letter public so people can know the lack of guilt, shame, and responsibility Peconic Bay has.  Andrew Mitchell and his board are cowards.

 

A hospital is supposed to heal people, not kill them.  Shame on you, Peconic Bay, Mr. Mitchell, Ms. Patterson, and your board of directors.

 

Signed a grieving son,

Brian Scott Mednick

 

 

The Wails of August

August 14, 2020

 

August is my least favorite month.  It's the month when I lost both of my parents.  It's also the month when Joan Rivers went into a coma, Gene Wilder died, Jerry Lewis died, and seemingly every vile person I have known in my life has a birthday.  Give me September or October anytime.

 

Anyway, before I post my annual mourning piece for my parents later this month, I'd like to offer something a little more nostalgic and really delicious.  This recipe can be found in the Food and Drink section of this site, but I've been eating it a lot lately for breakfast.  It always remind me of my mother.  We always had ham, cheese, mayo, lettuce, and English muffins in the fridge.  Late at night when I would be aimlessly looking for a snack, she would say, "Ya want an Engla Shmuffin?"  That's how it sounded to me.

 

This very simple but very tasty concontion she would often make me for breakfast, right up until the last months of her life.  I call it Bella's Breakfast Sandwich and here's how to make it.

 

Lightly toast an English muffin on tin foil in toaster oven.  Remove and put a little mayo on each side.  Add some iceberg lettuce to the bottom muffin.  If using packaged American cheese, put half a slice on the lettuce and the other half of cheese on the top slice.  If using deli sliced cheese, which is often thinner, just put one whole slice on each side.  Depending how thin or thick your Board's Head Deluxe Ham is (and yes, you must use Boar's Head sliced from the deli!), use two or three slices, piled in a ribbon fashion.  Loosely wrap this up in the tin foil you used to toast the muffin, completely covering it, and put back in toaster oven at 400 degrees for approximately 6 minutes or until cheese is melted and ham warmed through.

 

Serve with a cup of coffee or whatever your morning beverage of choice is and enjoy.  The subtle crispness of the English muffin, the hint of creamy, warm mayo, the pleasantly wilted lettuce - this is a superb combination.  I would not omit or add a single ingredient.  Makes a great snack too.  Two with a couple of deli side salads would even make a nice dinner.  Either way, this is the ultimate comfort food because with every bite, I think of my dear mother, who put as much love into her cooking as she did in raising me.  And yes, you'll long for another one as soon as you finish this.  My mother would always ask if I wanted a second one, but I never wanted to her put her to the trouble.

 

Try Bella's Breakfast Sandwich - a healthier and frankly more delicious alternative to the standard egg sandwich - and let me know what you think.

 

 

A Little Hanky Panky Started It All

August 13, 2020

 

39 years ago today, Gene & Gilda met on the first night of shooting on the set of Hanky Panky.  Because I am feeling nice, here is the whole chapter from Gene Wilder: Funny and Sad about how they met and later married:


CHAPTER 11
THIS NICE JEWISH GIRL FROM DETROIT

"I've been married twice and both times to Catholic girls...I think next time I'll
be healthy enough to at least consider 'going out' with a Jewish girl."

- Gene Wilder

 

The script was called Traces.  It was a comic murder mystery in the tradition of Hitchcock that Gene Wilder wanted to do simply so he could once again work with his good friend Sidney Poitier.  Gilda Radner, who had a year earlier left her star-making five-year run on Saturday Night Live, was cast as the woman Gene falls in love with in the film, which was retitled Hanky Panky.  It didn’t take long before their movie romance developed offscreen as well.


“I’d give it all up for love,” Gilda once said of her career, and in Gene she had found someone who she described as “funny and athletic and handsome, and he smelled good.”  Never so much attracted to the good-looking guy so much as the funny one, Gilda confessed, “A funny man is irresistible.  More than any looks, more than anything.”


Ironically, Gene didn’t look forward to working with “this nice Jewish girl from Detroit,” as Gilda often characterized herself.  In a 1986 interview he and Gilda did with Marilyn Beck, Gene said, “I thought this aggressive Detroit Jewish bitch was going to come on, improvise through every scene, [and] say, ‘No, no, no, no.  That’s not how we do it on Saturday Night Live,’ and push her way through.  And this little timid girl comes on...  She was just Miss Shy.”

 

In addition to Gene expecting Gilda to be difficult, Gene was quite different than Gilda anticipated he would be.  “She thought I was queer,” Gene said, “because she saw Stir Crazy and she got it in her head that I was tutti-frutti.  Just because Richard kissed me one time.”


“After seeing his movies,” Gilda admitted, “I thought, he’s much taller than I ever thought.  And much handsomer than I ever thought...  And not as tutti-frutti as I thought.” 


Gene and Gilda’s paths almost crossed before Hanky Panky.  “She had seen my movies and I had seen her on television,” Gene said.  “But we never met until August 13, 1981, on the first night of shooting Hanky Panky.  She says she saw me one time when I came to the NBC building to do an interview.  She wanted to come over but felt uncomfortable about doing it.  I wish she had.”


There was one complication for Gene and Gilda’s blossoming romance – Gilda was married.  Her husband was musician G.E. Smith, who for years was the bandleader on Saturday Night Live.  They were married a year and the marriage was already on the skids.  Meeting Gene just confirmed for Gilda that the marriage was over.  Gilda and Smith soon got an amicable divorce and remained on friendly terms.  Prior to Smith, Gilda had been romantically involved with Peter Firth, Bill Murray, Chris Sarandon, and Kevin Kline.


Hanky Panky began production in August 1981 with a cast that included Richard Widmark, Kathleen Quinlan, and Robert Prosky.  The film had many similarities to Silver Streak – both films mixed elements of comedy, romance, and suspense – as Gene once again portrayed an innocent nice guy wrongly accused of murder.  In the film, Gene plays Michael Jordon (a name which now elicits laughter, though at the time the other Michael Jordan had yet to reach notoriety), a Chicago architect who has recently moved to New York.  After sharing a taxi cab with a pretty young woman (Quinlan) and mailing a package for her, Michael is nearly killed by a bunch of thugs who believe he knows about a top secret computer tape. 

 

Michael tracks the young woman down at her hotel, but she just wants to be left alone.  After she’s shot to death, Michael finds her body and is assumed to be the murderer, leaving him no choice but to flee.  Along the way he meets Kate Hellman (Radner), who believes Michael is innocent and helps him as they run from both the cops and the killers.


The film gave both Gene and Gilda ample opportunity to join together their unique brands of humor.  Typical of this is one of the film’s broadest scenes in which the pilot of the small plane they are flying in suddenly dies.  Michael refuses to accept the fact that he now has to land the plane himself and keeps telling Kate to ask the dead pilot questions.


Upon its June 4, 1982 release, Hanky Panky was a failure with both audiences and critics.  Years later, Gene said, “If I made one mistake professionally in my life, I think it was at that point in my life doing Hanky Panky.  If I made one great choice in my life, it was doing Hanky Panky because I met Gilda, who changed where I live, how I think, how I feel, what work I do...”


When they met, Gene was living in Los Angeles while Gilda was residing in a house she had recently bought in Stamford, Connecticut.  They lived together on and off for two and a half years.  In 1982 they comforted each other as they each suddenly lost a close friend and colleague – on March 5, 1982, Gilda’s fellow Not Ready For Prime Time Player John Belushi died of a drug overdose at age 33, and on December 2, 1982, Marty Feldman died at age 49 of a massive heart attack brought on by food poisoning on the last day of filming Yellowbeard (1983) in Mexico City.


In the summer of 1982, Gene took Gilda to France for a two-week holiday.  Gilda had only been there once before when she was eighteen, and had found it a less than thrilling experience.  With Gene as her guide, she saw France in a totally different light and, according to her, “learned it could be a pleasure and I could love it.”


Shortly after they returned from France, Gene and Gilda broke up.  “Gene said he was suffocating, that my needs were smothering him,” Gilda wrote in her 1989 autobiography.  Gilda also suffered from bulimia, something she admitted to during her Saturday Night Live years.  But bulimia remained an ongoing struggle for Gilda, and even after she and Gene were married, she continued to force herself to vomit after dinner.  It got to the point where Gene saw there was little he could do to help her and eventually just tried ignoring Gilda’s eating disorder.


During their breakup, Gilda bought a dog to help her through this terribly lonely period.  The female Yorkshire terrier was named Sparkle.  Not long after getting Sparkle, Gene and Gilda got back together.  Luckily, Gene was a dog lover (in the 1960s he adopted a small female dog named Julie) and he and Sparkle had no problem taking to one another.


For Gilda, her goal was to convince Gene to settle down and marry her.  “Gene built a tennis court and a wine cellar in her Connecticut house,” said Gilda’s friend Pat O’Donoghue.  “That made her a lot less insecure.  It was sort of like an engagement ring.  For a brief moment there, she was truly, finally happy.”  Having been married and divorced twice already, Gene was in no hurry to walk down the aisle again.  In her autobiography, Gilda wrote, “My new ‘career’ became getting him to marry me.  I turned down job offers so I could be geographically available.  More often than not, I had on a white, frilly apron like Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year when she left her job to exclusively be Spencer Tracey’s [sic] wife.  Unfortunately, my performing ego wasn’t completely content in an apron, and in every screenplay Gene was writing, or project he had under development, I finagled my way into a part.”


Gilda’s finagling worked, for she found herself with a part in Gene’s next film, The Woman in Red.  Victor Drai, a first-time producer who had done everything from designing clothes to selling real estate (and is now a nightclub impresario who is opening his own Vegas hotel in 2012), had bought the rights to a 1977 French film called Pardon Mon Affaire.  Drai thought Gene would be ideal for the American version as a mild-mannered family man looking for a little adventure in his life.  He knew Gene’s agent, and soon Gene and Gilda found themselves having a series of dinners at the home of Drai and his live-in girlfriend Kelly LeBrock.


Gene had doubts about Americanizing Pardon Mon Affaire.  “He believed that he really didn’t want to do a remake because he figured the original was so good and it’s really a discredit to the original when you do one again,” said cinematographer Fred Schuler.  But Gene soon realized that a remake could stand on its own terms, and he ended up writing the screenplay adaptation and directing as well.


In the film, Gene plays Teddy Pierce, a shy, quiet advertising executive living in San Francisco.  One day Teddy is in the parking garage of the building he works in and notices a beautiful young woman in a red dress.  As she walks over a ventilation grate, her dress flies up à la Marilyn Monroe.  From this moment on, Teddy becomes obsessed with pursuing this mysterious woman in red as he lies to his wife and children.


For the supporting cast, Gene assembled his old friends Charles Grodin, Joseph Bologna, and Michael Huddleston to play his male buddies who cover for him.  For the title role, both Gene and Gilda thought Kelly LeBrock would be perfect.  LeBrock, who was a 23-year-old model with no prior film experience, was terrified about starring in a movie, but after enough convincing, LeBrock agreed to do a screen test for Orion Pictures and soon found herself with her first film role.  She found the entire experience to be very positive.


“Gene was wonderful,” LeBrock said.  “He was very busy but he still made time for me...  The set was one of the nicest sets I’ve ever been on...  I still hope I will find the same feeling that I had on that set.  It was a family.  We had a great time...  There was only tension on the set one day, and that was the scene of going over the [ventilation grate].  Everyone knew it was kind of an important scene to the film, and everybody sort of got a little bit uptight.  They just wanted it to be really good, and sometimes when you’re on a set people get nervous off each other.


“Gene never raised his voice, he was never out of line or anything...but you could feel the tension.  It was difficult because they were trying to get the dress to blow up, and it wasn’t working well, and they had to change the tactic.  They had to keep trying the dryers in different positions and all.  And time is money on a set, and it wasn’t a big budget film.”


Gilda played Ms. Milner (though, as Gilda pointed out to David Letterman when promoting the film, her name is never mentioned), a hideous woman who works in Teddy’s office who thinks Teddy is really interested in her.  Some critics were baffled as to why Gene would cast Gilda in such an unattractive role with not a lot of screen time.  “She looks like a ghost in this movie,” said Gene Siskel.  “She does nothing funny.”  Despite such criticism, Gilda won the Best Supporting Actress award from the now defunct Your Choice for the Film Awards, an awards program whose nominees were voted on by a panel of film critics and whose winners were chosen by the public.  Gilda beat out fellow nominees Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India), Christine Lahti (Swing Shift), Geraldine Page (The Pope of Greenwich Village), and Theresa Russell (The Razor’s Edge).


To write the songs for The Woman in Red, Gene acquired the talents of Stevie Wonder.  Wonder’s songs resulted in a hugely successful soundtrack album, and his “I Just Called to Say I Love You” went on to win both an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.  In his Oscar acceptance speech, Wonder thanked Gene and dedicated the award to Nelson Mandela, who was still in prison at the time, which resulted in Wonder’s music being banned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation.


The Woman in Red opened on August 15, 1984.  It was one of the first films to receive the new PG-13 rating from the MPAA, the first being Red Dawn, which opened a week earlier (Dreamscape, which opened the same day as The Woman in Red, also received the PG-13 rating).  It did respectable business at the box office and received mixed reviews.  On the positive side, Leonard Maltin called it “Wilder’s best film in years,” while Time magazine’s Richard Schickel found it “a well-made sex farce of classical proportions” and “the summer's first comedy for adults.”  Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Wilder, who has improved greatly as a director, has also written the screenplay, and does it with an eye to everyone’s sympathetic foibles...  Whether Teddy is taking up horseback riding to impress Charlotte or turning instant hipster with a silly new suit and hairdo, Mr. Wilder manages to make him reasonably likable.”  Pat Collins proclaimed The Woman in Red the “best romantic comedy of the summer” and found Gene to be “at his irrepressible best.”


A month after The Woman in Red's release, Gene and Gilda were married.  Gilda had been trying for the better part of two years to convince Gene to marry her, and she ended up having Sparkle to thank for Gene’s proposal.  “She was very insecure, terrified of so many things, afraid to be alone for the shortest period of time,” Gene said.  “I thought, having been married before, this could be a disaster.”


Gene and Gilda were ready to leave for a vacation in France with Sparkle.  They had planned to fly from Los Angeles to New York first to visit Corinne and Gil, then leave for France.  While waiting in a private passenger lounge in the airport, Sparkle accidentally ate rat poison.  A panicked Gilda rushed Sparkle to the vet.  Gilda told Gene she would meet up with him in New York.  Gilda spent the whole day at the vet’s office while Gene flew to New York.  When Gene landed, Gilda called him to let him know Sparkle was fine and said, “I know you love me and you know I love you.  You’re so tired.  You need a vacation.  You go on to France and when you come back I’ll meet you in Connecticut and we’ll be together and we’ll be happy.  But let’s not worry about anything.”


“I’d been waiting two years for her to say something like that,” Gene later said.  Upon his return, Gene gave Gilda an engagement ring.  Orion sent them to Europe to promote The Woman in Red, and in between attending the Deauville Film Festival and doing interviews in Rome, Gene and Gilda found time to stop in the south of France where they were married on September 18, 1984 in the small thirteenth-century village of St. Paul-de-Vence.  He was 51, she was 38.  They were married by the mayor of the village in a ceremony performed in French that included only eight people, among them a Belgian couple from L.A. whom they were close friends with, some friends who owned a Danish restaurant in the south of France, Corinne and Gil, and, of course, Sparkle.  The wedding party celebrated at the Danish restaurant of Gene and Gilda’s friends, and later that evening Gene and Gilda enjoyed a traditional French wedding dinner in the chateau they were staying at.  Since they were still in the midst of promoting The Woman in Red, Gene and Gilda actually spent most of their honeymoon in Rome.


When one rude French reporter asked Gene, “Why didn’t you marry the beautiful girl in The Woman in Red?” he immediately replied, “I did!”

 

 

Pete Hamill: 1935 - 2020
August 5, 2020

 

Pete Hamill, one of America's greatest writers, has died at 85. 

 

Hamill endured numerous health problems in recent years.  He was on dialysis and wheelchair-bound.  According to his brother Denis, also a writer, Hamill fell at his Brooklyn home on Saturday, August 1st, fracturing his right hip.  He was rushed to New York-Presbyterian/Brooklyn Methodist Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery but his kidneys and heart failed while in intensive care.  He died on Monday, August 3rd.

 

A regular at the legendary Lion's Head Tavern in the Village, Hamill was the last of the old school, hard-drinking newspapermen who epitomized New York's gritty golden age of journalism. His 1994 memoir A Drinking Life is probably my favorite book. It's a nostalgic look back at his coming of age in 1940s Brooklyn.  A very lucky guy from a young age, the book is filled with lots of kiss-and-tell, personal and professional highs and lows, and his battle with the bottle, a habit that he kicked at age 37.

 

I probably own more of his books than any other author, and his style of prose has been more influential on my fiction writing than anyone else.  Aside from A Drinking Life, my other Hamill favorites are the novels Flesh and Blood (1977) and Loving Women (1989), the journalism collections Irrational Ravings (1971) and Piecework (1996), and the remarkable short story collection The Invisible City: A New York Sketchbook (1980).

 

Hamill had a brief, controversial stint as editor of the New York Post in 1993 and later as editor-in-chief of the Daily News. 

 

He won a Grammy Award in 1975 for writing the liner notes to Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.

 

He sent me a letter over 20 years ago when I was still trying to get my Gene Wilder bio published.  It was handwritten, sent from his Horatio Street apartment, and very encouraging.  He told me keep writing, go on to the next project, and not to wait for editors to make decisions.  I met him once, and he graciously signed two of his books to me, both with unique inscriptions. 

 

Hamill was friends with Bobby Kennedy, and helped disarm assassin Sirhan Sirhan on the night of June 5, 1968 as the mortally wounded Kennedy lay nearby.  He hung out with Sinatra and dated Shirley MacLaine, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Linda Ronstadt, yet remained down to earth and real.  A nice guy who never forgot his Brooklyn roots, Pete Hamill led an amazing life.

 

In addition to his brother Denis, he is survived by another brother, Brian (best known as Woody Allen's still photographer); his second wife, journalist Fukiko Aoki; and two daughters from his first marriage.

 

 

Regis Philbin: 1931 - 2020

July 28, 2020

 

There are certain beloved entertainers who you know are up there in age but you just think will go on forever.  Regis Philbin was one of them.  Philbin, who died on July 24th one month shy of his 89th birthday, was a cultural icon.  His family said he died of natural causes but it was later revealed he died of a heart attack brought on by coronary artery disease at a hospital in Greenwich, Conn., where he and his wife Joy had a home.  Philbin, who lived across the street from the Upper West Side WABC-TV studio he shot his morning show, had a successful triple bypass in 2007.

 

Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most on-screen television time, the proud Bronx native had the warmth and humor of someone you'd want as your next door neighbor.  He dominated morning television for nearly thirty years before retiring in 2011.  His chemistry with co-host Kathie Lee Gifford was undeniable.  When Kathie Lee left, the show was never the same.  Kelly Ripa is not very engaging and, unlike Regis, is a total phony who cruelly stopped talking to him after he left the show, taking it personally.  Regis admitted he was dumbfounded by the cold shoulder, as he simply left because after three decades and having just turned 80, he felt it was time to retire.

 

The tributes to Philbin have been many and deserved.  I was an early fan of his while he was still doing the local morning show here in New York before it was syndicated and rebranded Live!  Our paths almost crossed several times but alas I never had the pleasure of meeting the man. 

 

In a business that thrives on illusion and insincerity, "Reege" was the real deal.  Like Joan Rivers, what you saw on TV was what you got in person.  He was a wonderful singer, having grown up idolizing Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Dean Martin.  He had a natural talent for hosting, whether it was Live! or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire or even the Miss America pageant.  He really was the daytime equivalent of Johnny Carson.

 

Regis admitted one of his few regrets was that he did not make it big until he was in his fifties.  He won two Daytime Emmy Awards and one lifetime achievement one.

 

In addition to his wife of fifty years, he is survived by two daughters with Joy and a daughter from his first marriage.  His only son, from his first marriage, died in 2014 at age 49.

.

 

 

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