Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Still More Recommended Reading

Two important articles over on Slate. Fred Kaplan tells of a recent U.S. military assault in Iraq where, he says, we did a lot more harm than good. And Jacob Weisberg discusses the Newsweek flap and the Pot/Kettle Factor.

• Posted at 5:13 PM · LINK

More Recommended Reading

A website called the Comics Foundry has a very good interview with Neal Adams. It's about being a comic book artist but much of what he says in it has relevance to almost anyone who's out there trying to build a career as any kind of creative talent. Here's a link to Part One and here's a link to Part Two.

• Posted at 11:26 AM · LINK

Frank Gorshin, R.I.P.

Funny guy, that Frank Gorshin. The first time I saw him perform live was at a Bar Mitzvah reception for a classmate of mine. The classmate was a relative of a gent named Arthur Ellen who was a somewhat famous hypnotist of the day, performing on TV and asserting he could help people become what they wanted to be. Ellen got up at the event to put on a little demonstration and somehow — I never understood how or why — Frank Gorshin appeared on the little platform with him and pre-empted the hypnosis by doing about twenty minutes of impressions for the crowd: Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, the works.

I subsequently heard Gorshin on some talk show say that he owed a large chunk of his career to Mr. Ellen's therapy, so I guess that was the connection. But one thing hypnosis didn't do for Frank Gorshin was to help him stop smoking. Every time I was around him, he was going from one cigarette to the next. Once at a comic book convention, we were chatting and Frank was smoking. A security guard came by and politely pointed out a No Smoking sign. Frank apologized as if he hadn't seen it, stubbed out the Marlboro and then, the second the guard was gone, out came the pack of cigarettes again. Without even pausing in conversation, maybe not even aware he was doing it, Gorshin lit up another. So I'm not all that surprised that Cause of Death is listed as lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia. As I mentioned here, reporting on a luncheon where he was honored, everyone was urging him to quit and he said he was trying.

I enjoyed talking with Frank at comic conventions and even interviewing him once or twice in front of audiences. Naturally, everyone was asking him about playing The Riddler on the Batman TV show and some even asked him about the one episode of the original Star Trek in which he appeared. He was polite about it, in large part because he was selling autographed photos from those gigs. But he vastly preferred talking about the other 98% of his career. You could see him light up (as a performer and as a smoker) when, after answering the 93rd question about Batman, one of us would mention something where he didn't wear tights, especially his recent projects. I saw him twice playing Nathan Detroit in a touring company of Guys and Dolls with Jack Jones as Sky Masterson and Maureen McGovern as Adelaide. Apart from the fact that Nathan occasionally lapsed into a Dean Martin impression, Frank was very good...and very glad that I'd seen and praised his performance.

The core of his career was, of course, his stand-up act and I had the pleasure of seeing the whole thing once, and with a full orchestra behind him. It wasn't all impressions. He sang and he told stories and he even did a little dramatic moment — a monologue about an actor learning he's been fired and what it meant to his life. As a mimic, Gorshin had an uncanny way of getting inside Big Stars and capturing their essence, but that was only part of what he did.

My sympathies go out to his family and also to his close friend and agent, Fred Wostbrock, who took very good care of him. Gorshin's final performance will be broadcast on Thursday's episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigations but I'll bet you we see the man in reruns forever.

• Posted at 10:38 AM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Brian Montopoli makes some important points about the current Newsweek scandal.

• Posted at 9:47 AM · LINK

Set the TiVo

Frazetta: Painting With Fire is running many times this week on the Independent Film Channel. This is a documentary on the great painter of fantasy scenes and women with awesome rear ends. Here's what I wrote about it a year ago. If you haven't seen it and you get IFC, this would be a good opportunity.

Several folks have asked me to keep them posted of interesting folks who pop up on the old What's My Line? reruns on GSN. If you taped or TiVoed this morning's episode (i.e., the one running right this moment), you saw Jacques Cousteau and William Bendix. Tomorrow morning, we should have William Holden and the June Taylor Dancers. Friday morning, Claudette Colbert and director George Stevens are Mystery Guests. Then, jumping ahead past less exciting names, next Monday morning is an episode with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and the two men who wrote My Fair Lady, Gigi and Camelot among other wonders, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. If I forget, someone should remind me to mention again that next Thursday morning, May 26, there's an episode with Jerry Lewis (newly divorced from Dean) on the panel, and the Mystery Guest is Walt Disney.

Also: Next weekend's "classic" rerun of Saturday Night Live is the show from October 23, 1976 — a second season episode and the first time Steve Martin hosted. It's not a particularly memorable show, sketch-wise, nor is it helped a lot by musical guest Kinky Friedman. The best moments are to be found in a couple of stand-up spots by Mr. Martin that will remind you what he did well back when he did that kind of thing. Legend has it that Lorne Michaels had once resisted booking the guy because he thought his act was too silly...but Martin impressed all and was immediately invited back to host again. He returned to the post just nine shows later and made many memorable appearances thereafter.

The following weekend, the rerun is from May 22, 1982 — one of the Eddie Murphy/Joe Piscopo years — with guest host Olivia Newton-John. The highlight is probably a duet on "Ebony and Ivory" by Stevie Wonder (Murphy) and Frank Sinatra (Piscopo), and Graham Chapman makes a couple of brief, odd appearances in other sketches.

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK