R.I.P. Gene Hackman

Aged 95, at home with his wife and dog (sounds suspicious, but probably a gas or carbon monoxide problem - time will tell). Double Academy Award-winning actor with about a million movies to his credit (he was doing 2-5 movies/year in the 1980s and 1990s). His big break-out role was alongside Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as a member of the gang in Bonnie and Clyde. 

Followed it up a few roles later with his Best Actor performance, with Roy Scheider in The French Connection. 

Then made the rest of his 79 career movies. Not counting TV roles and plays by the dozen.  (If, for one example, you haven't seen March Or Die, it's apparently temporarily available in full and free with ads on YouTube. Great Foreign Legion flick.) Even in mediocre roles or movies, (and most of his were anything but that) Hackman could always be counted on for an eminently watchable performance, and could captivate an audience in even a small role, and probably just reading a cereal box. 

Phenomenal actor with a monumental body of work over 4 decades in Hollywood, and with the good grace to generally keep his personal opinions to himself, and focus on being a great actor, a trait far too rare in many lesser lights (and beside him, most of Hollywood is a lesser light). Most of SAG-AFTRA heaved a sigh of relief when he retired in 2004, because it meant any five other actors could finally get some work.

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3/7/25 UPDATE: Based on additional information from the authorities in NM, it sounds, sadly, as if the final conclusion is that Hackman's wife caught and succumbed to complications of Hanta Virus (which is generally non-fatal and treatable if care is sought), leaving Hackman, 30 years her senior, decrepit, in poor health, crippled and befuddled with Alzheimer's, unable to medicate, feed, or care for himself, and he died about a week after she did, of cardiac complications, unfed for some time before he died, and possibly unaware that she was dead, or even who she was. They were only found at all (partially mummified days after death) accidentally, discovered by strangers. What a freaking tragedy.

We wish we could relate that we don't encounter barely functional little old women taking care of barely functional little old men, or vice versa, every single day in the course and scope of our employment, but it's actually the rule rather than the exception once the odometer turns past age 80 for either partner.

Bob Uecker, R.I.P.

Bob Uecker, MLB player, actor, and for only 50+ years, the Milwaukee Brewers' announcer, of lung cancer, aged 90 years.

Uecker had seven lackluster years in the majors, traded about every other year to a new club on the strength of a lifetime .200 batting average, and the misplaced suspicion he had greater  potential. He managed a scant 14 home runs in his ML career, averaging a bare two a year, including one apiece against future Hall Of Famers Sandy Koufax, Gaylord Perry, and Ferguson Jenkins, and being present to win a World Series ring with the 1964 Cardinals. As a catcher, he led the league in passed balls his final season as a player despite catching only 59 games, but in his defense, many of those were trying to stop Phil Niekro knuckleballs, and his technique for getting those was "Wait until it stops rolling, then pick it up". Once let go for good, he moved to the announcing booth for the Atlanta Braves for a couple of seasons, before moving to the Brewers for the beginning of his epic broadcasting stint starting in 1971.

Along the way, trumpeter Al Hirt convinced Johnny Carson to get him on the Tonight Show shortly after the end of his playing days. His anecdotes and self-deprecation killed ("Companies would pay me not to endorse their products." "I came up in the bottom of the ninth with the score tied, two outs, and the bases loaded, and when I looked in the dugout, my team was already in street clothes."), and when it was over, neither Carson nor Ed McMahon was entirely sure he'd ever been in the major leagues, but they definitely wanted him back again. Which they did, turning into over 100 always-watchable appearances on the show, earning him the title "Mr. Baseball".

That leveraged him into a string of Budweiser commercials (back when they marketed beer to heterosexuals), which got him the recurring role of Harry Doyle (he did that character from muscle memory) in the Major League franchise, and a sitcom (Mr. Belvedere), all the while announcing the Brewers' games season after season, during which time they only made the playoffs 10 times, and only won a single division pennant. Looking at Uecker, him announcing such a sad-sack club was a match made in heaven.

On the strength of all those seasons in the booth, and being one of the funniest guys ever in baseball, Uecker finally made it into the Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown. As an announcer.

One hopes, when he gets to the Pearly Gates, St. Peter will call "Safe."

But if Uecker hears "Juuuuuuuust a little outside..." he'll probably understand.

The world is poorer at the passing of such a funny and beloved man.

X Gets The Square: R.I.P. Peter Marshall

Long-time game show host Peter Marshall dead at age 98, of kidney failure, at home with his family in Los Angeles. Best known for spending fourteen years on TV giving quicker-witted stars a chance to come up with outrageous ad lib answers to trivia questions.

I lost track of how many sick days from school his show was the only highlight of a day where the rest of daytime TV was filled with nothing on but horrendous soap opera melodramas or asinine "reality" freak shows, which meant turning the tube off, and actually doing my homework.