To Catch a Falling Star

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"If you're a star you don't stop being a star."

Margaret (Bette Davis)

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It is human nature, I suppose, to be reluctant to give up anything that is comfortable and familiar — whatever it may be.

People who have been in the public spotlight — athletes, politicians, movie stars — seem particularly stubborn about acknowledging the ravages of time or the fickleness of followers. Their resistance is doomed to failure, of course, and most of them probably already know that the batting average for those who preceded them is roughly .000, but they always seem to think that they will be the exception.

Bette Davis played such a character in "The Star," which premiered on this day in 1952. There was an ironic twist to the casting — but I'll come back to that.

Davis' character had once been an in–demand Hollywood star whose latest movies always drew long lines at the box office, an Academy Award winner, but that was when she was young and beautiful. Davis still saw herself that way, but the moviegoing public did not. (Davis, by the way, was 44 when the movie premiered and more than 20 years removed from her own big–screen debut.)

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Davis' character clearly was in the stages of grief later described by Elisabeth Kübler–Ross. Mostly in "The Star," she alternated between the anger and denial stages, but there was a generous helping of depression and even a bit of bargaining involved.

Ultimately all that was followed by the acceptance stage, but it came at the very end, and the audience had to go through that journey with Davis. It was the point of the movie.

Davis' character, who apparently hadn't been in a movie for quite awhile and was forced to sell many of her most valuable possessions to pay her debts, was offered a small role that was completely at odds with her self–image — the role of the older sister of a younger, sexier character (played by the latest Hollywood sex symbol).

In her screen test, Davis' character figured she could snag the starring role by putting a sexy spin on her performance. But that — predictably — was a dismal failure, and Davis realized what Sterling Hayden (a former actor Davis had helped once) and a young Natalie Wood (14 when "The Star" premiered and cast as Davis' daughter) had been trying to tell her.

Her career was over. It was time to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

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Wood's role was definitely a supporting one — and not really all that big, even for a supporting role — but symbolically she represented the future, Hollywood's real–life next generation — in many ways like Davis' younger rival in "The Star."

Davis did receive her ninth Best Actress nomination (she lost to Shirley Booth) but would be so honored only once more in her lifetime — for "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Wood, on the other hand, received only three Oscar nominations and rarely received praise for what she did, but she seldom lacked for work in her comparatively brief career.

The Five Stages of Grief, Frasier Style

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Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer): I am going to get another job. The people of this city need me. I'm a beloved Seattle institution.

Martin Crane (John Mahoney): A couple more days like this, he's gonna be in a beloved Seattle institution.

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Followers of the Frasier show undoubtedly would disagree on their favorite episodes.

I understand that. And I wouldn't necessarily pick the episode that made its debut 15 years ago tonight as my personal favorite. But it's one of them.

It's about such a human kind of thing — grief. We all grieve for things — for people, for pets, for a favorite toy, for lost innocence. You name it. Someone grieves its loss.

And, in the episode that aired on this night in 1998, Frasier was grieving his lost job, which is certainly something to which many people can relate in these economic times.

The Frasier show had been on for five years, and I suppose the producers felt it needed a good shaking up. I honestly don't know what inspired them to take this approach in the premiere episode for the series' sixth season. My memory is that the economy of 1998 wasn't terrible, but, compared to the experience of the last five years, I suppose there have been few times in my life that would be considered terrible.

The radio station ultimately abandoned the salsa format in favor of the previous format — and all the regulars returned to the station.

Anyway, the episode introduced many viewers to the stages of grief that were outlined in Elisabeth Kübler–Ross' groundbreaking study on death and dying.

And it opened the door for some interesting story angles.

For example, the loss of a job would create all kinds of issues, primarily (as I say) economic ones, in most households. But the main concern for Frasier wasn't his income — apparently his radio show had paid him well, as had private practice before it, and he had plenty of money to support him through his joblessness.

What really concerned Frasier was the loss of his status — his fame and influence as a radio personality. Accordingly, he went through the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance — which included binge overeating as he tried to cope with the situation.

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Kübler–Ross acknowledged — as do others who have written about the topic since she did — that people grieve in different ways and that not everyone experiences each stage of grief. But Frasier did experience each stage — with hilarious results.

In his denial stage, he undertook all kinds of complicated projects to fill his time because he was sure his hiatus from work would be brief. Anger came when he was hosting a picnic for his former radio station colleagues, whom the audience assumed to be jobless, too, but it turned out nearly everyone had found some other employment. While showing the children how to hit the piñata he brought, Frasier swung at it like he was swinging a baseball bat — and, his father later observed, some candy from the piñata was found all the way across the highway.

While in his bargaining stage, Frasier decided he hadn't been treating his fans well, and, declaring himself a "bad celebrity," he concluded that was the key to restoring his position in the radio community so he arranged to have a party in his home for the members of his fan club. Turned out there were only three members — which propelled Frasier into the depression stage.

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Aaron (Fran Kranz): It's cool, isn't it? Your brother having his own club?

Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce): Yeah, well. Seeing all of you, I sort of wish I had a club myself.

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In Frasier's case, depression meant binge eating. He gained so much weight that his family and Roz decided to stage an intervention, which finally made him see things as they were.

Niles told his father about the five stages of dying and connected the dots that Frasier was grieving for his lost status.

"People like Frasier's whole identities revolve around their job," Niles said. "The loss of the job is like a death. And they cope with it in the same way they would cope with a death, by going through a series of stages."

The intervention worked. Frasier slimmed down and got back on track — just in time for Niles to descend into the denial stage over the prospects for reconciliation with his estranged wife.