R.I.P. Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson, the creative heart and soul of the Beach Boys, died yesterday at age 82. Despite lifelong mental health and substance abuse issues, and a recent dementia diagnosis, he was one of the most innovative and prolific hit-making singer/songwriter/producers of the 20th century, creating a new sound, and at times doing everything on Beach Boys songs except for the other members' vocals. He was still touring and working on projects up until his death.

R.I.P. Val Kilmer

 h/t Borepatch

Val Kilmer, 65, of pneumonia as a complication of throat cancer. 

We first saw him in Top Secret:

Then he doubled down on his comedy chops with Real Genius:

Then got all serious on us as Tom "Iceman" Kazansky:

Took a turn as the hero in Willow:

Played the only good FBI agent in Thunderheart:

Then stole an entire movie out from under Sam Elliot, Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, Powers Booth, and Michael Biehn with a Doc Holiday that will stand as the pinnacle of the character for a century or more in Tombstone:

Then blew everyone away as The One That Got Away in Heat:

And finally, brought the "Iceman" character out for one moving last hurrah in Top Gun: Maverick, to save Pete "Maverick" Mitchell one last time, with screentime measured in seconds, in a blockbuster movie that single-handedly saved Hollywood's box office for an entire year.

As a Valley kid from the L.A. suburbs, he came up out of a prep school drama class that included Mare Winningham and Kevin Spacey as co-stars and classmates. Must've been one hell of a kick-ass high school play that year. 

True Story: In yet another horrible remake of the never-ever-should-be-a-movie Island Of Dr. Moreau, a young and far too full of himself Kilmer got tuned up, in front of God and everybody, by no less an actor's actor than Marlon Brando. Apparently Kilmer was giving free rein to frequent prima dona tantrums on set on location in Australia, amidst both a very troubled production, and Kilmer in the middle of being sued for divorce by his wife of seven years, Joanne Whalley, the pair having first met on the set of Willow. Witnessing the latest of these fits, in front of the entire production cast and crew, Brando loudly and succinctly offered Kilmer some withering face-to-face notes on his behavioral histrionics, as authoritatively related by several eyewitnesses on the set:

"Young man, you confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent. 

I'm going back to my trailer. Please have someone come and get me when all of us are ready to get back to work."

The set got pin-drop quit as Brando walked off set, because when Marlin Brando tells you that you suck as an actor, you suck as an actor. 

Kilmer apparently took this to heart, because shortly afterwards, Kilmer pulled his head out, settled down, and there were no further tantrums reported for the rest of the film. And it seems to have brought him back to earth for the rest of his career.

Silenced way too soon, and now finally taken from us all far too young.

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.

_________________

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.

R.I.P James Earl Jones

This movie clip alone so immortal, it's actually in the Hall OF Fame at Cooperstown. From a movie so iconic, it doesn't pay homage to the sport, the sport pays homage to the movie, every single year, when two major league teams are selected to play the annual Field Of Dreams game in Iowa, and no one thinks it strange.

Just one part of an enormous acting legacy of a once-poor, stuttering boy from Jim Crow Mississippi, later a Ranger-tabbed Army veteran, who became one of the most celebrated voices and actors of any generation. He never took himself too seriously, but always gave his best performance, on stage and screen for 65 years, from Broadway to Dr. Strangelove to Star Wars to The Lion King to The Big Bang Theory, and everything in between.

Aged 93 years, of natural causes, at his home in the Hudson Valley north of NYFC. A truly gentle and incomparable 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.

Happy Peak Of Western Civilization Day!

Your parents and grandparents were bigger badasses
 in one day, than you've been your entire life.

RIP Bob Newhart

Few comedians get a hit series. Fewer still get two. Even less than that, the number who earn Emmy Awards for guesting on someone else's hit show. Find one who was married to the same woman for 60 years, and there's only TV and stand-up comedy legend Bob Newhart.

Passed in Los Angeles Thursday, aged 94, at home, widowed since last year, and after a 64-year career in show business. Which is easier to show, than to tell.

Follow-up 1. Follow-up 2.

Thanks, Bob. For every glorious minute of it. We miss you already.

R.I.P. Donald Sutherland

Aged 88, in Miami, after a long illness, and a 60-year career in motion pictures, notably in roles in The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes, M*A*S*H*, The Eagle Has Landed, Animal House, Ordinary People (as virtually the only cast member in that movie stupidly not nominated for an Oscar), Backdraft, and Space Cowboys, just among the DVDs sitting on the nearby shelves.

Besides working constantly, in his acting career he racked up an Emmy, two Gloden Globes, and an honorary Oscar in 2017 to correct a 50-year oversight by the Academy.

Baby Brother, one of Big Green's tank commanders during the Cold War, could do this bit of dialogue of one of our favorite scenes of Sutherland calling from Chez Leon from memory. It's how we'll always remember Sutherland, fondly.

"You don't want in this thing, you don't get in this thing. I cut you out of everything; I don't need you. 60 feet of bridge I can pick up almost anywhere. Schmuck!"

Apropos Of The Day

 h/t Mike

Today is the 20th Anniversary of Vengeance Gone Mostly Right.

We recently purchased a tabletop metal bulldozer (sadly, not a Tonka™). We shall be, as we have time, adding metal plates to match the configuration of a Killdozer to put on the shelf in Mr. Heemeyer's honor.

'Bout Time To Change The Name To Flop & Drool

 h/t Mike

The concert t-shirts have attached bibs, and the whole thing ties on in back. When the tours are sponsored by Depends™ and AARP, it's almost time to stick a fork in it. I'm thinking that the guys who died in plane crashes years ago were the lucky ones.

Happy Anniversary

Exactly 80 years ago tonight, 600 POWs accomplished one of the most daring prison breaks in history, tunneling and blitzing 76 men out of Stalag Luft III.

Do as you like, but I know what's showing on the tube hereabouts tonight.

Humble Thanks

While we were fiddling around with sound files for Sunday Music, the blogometer seems to have rolled over another notch. To the random visitor hereabouts around 7AM EST, and 999,999 of your fellows since the last such, we offer our sincere appreciation for your dropping by, and our thanks for the early Valentine's Day present.

R.I.P. Gaston Glock

Age 94. Despite the disparagements of his "tactical Tupperware" by purist Luddites, the man had more influence on modern firearms than anyone since his holiness, John Moses Browning, no small number of which examples of Gaston's designs occupy spots in the armory here at the castle. There isn't a firearms manufacturer in the free world uninfluenced by his efforts, which isn't bad for an Austrian who started out making curtain rods, and ended up a billionaire.

R.I.P. Jimmy Buffett

 

A friend of mine sought Jimmy out in Key West a couple of decades ago, managed to meet him, and they had a pleasant conversation. He said Jimmy was the same guy IRL as onstage. And they enjoyed...well, listen to the song.

Passed away yesterday, aged 76, at home, peacefully, surrounded by family. Thanks for the tunes, dude.

FAFO: Slow Learner Edition

From Curtis LeMay and the USAAF's Greatest Hits album, featuring Hirohito and the Briquettes.

FAFO: Grandmaster Level

 

Happy Peak Of Western Civilization Day

Equaled, afterwards. Never surpassed.

En Passant

Merci beaucoup.

Just now.

Lately, I post these notices mainly to piss off the ten people who still think the blog is struggling since the revocation of their superfluous blessings.

As if.

But their impotent rage tickles my funnybone to no end.

To the rest of you, sincere and continued thanks for dropping by.

R.I.P. Alan Arkin

 h/t Evil Blogger Lady

"Please...I know everybody on this island is complete and total crazy. But you, Whitaker Walt? You are crazy too?!?"

Age 89, yesterday, at his home in Carlsbad CA, presumably of natural causes. Eight decades in show business, nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his first feature film role (above) as Lt. Rozanov, with only a Tony, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and 40 years after he started in films, an Oscar, to show for it. He sparkled in every role he had, and his final work was a role as a voice in Minions: The Rise Of Gru only last year.

"Serpentine!"

So good, it was worth an homage thirty years later in HBO's Generation Kill:

And a couple of last looks, from 1991's The Rocketeer:

Some actors, you just watch. Some, you're going to miss. Alan Arkin was definitely the second kind.