Remembering Marty Feldman

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"My looks are my comic equipment, and they are the right packaging for my job."

Marty Feldman

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As hard as it is for me to believe, it was 35 years ago today that Marty Feldman died of a heart attack in Mexico City.

He was 48 years old.

I was deeply saddened when he died. It was no secret that Feldman had health issues — he suffered from thyroid disease and developed Graves' ophthalmopathy, causing his eyes to bulge, among other things — but Mel Brooks, who directed two movies in which Feldman appeared ("Young Frankenstein" and "Silent Movie"), apparently had a pretty good idea why Feldman died so young.

"He smoked sometimes half a carton of cigarettes daily," Brooks said, "drank copious amounts of black coffee and ate a diet rich in eggs and dairy products."

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Feldman was a unique comedic talent, and, yes, he was right when he said his looks were his equipment. His bug–eyed look was a huge part of his appeal. It is impossible to overestimate the value of his looks to his vocation.

Somehow I think he still would have been funny with more normal eyes.

But without those bug eyes would it have been as funny when Gene Wilder said, "Damn your eyes!" in "Young Frankenstein," and Feldman replied, "Too late"?

I seriously doubt it.

I know that, if he had lived, Feldman would be in his 80s now and almost certainly retired. But we sure could have used his sense of humor in as many of the last 35 years as the fates would allow.

Something of a Nowhere Man

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"If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was Brian."

Paul McCartney

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When one thinks of any of the greatest people in any walk of life, it can seem — in hindsight — that they had a sort of historical inevitability. But such people seldom, if ever, achieve their success with no help from anyone.

Sadly, many of the people who are most responsible for others' successes are not recognized for what they accomplished.

It's hard to imagine, for example, where the Beatles would have been without Brian Epstein, who never performed with the Beatles and was probably largely unknown, even by the Beatles' fans at the height of Beatlemania.

They might well have reached the heights they reached, anyway. But it almost certainly would have taken longer to get there — much longer — if he hadn't been around to manage them. And there are those who believe that if the Beatles' implosion as a band was inevitable, it was hastened by Epstein's absence.

In the early '60s it was Epstein's faith in the Beatles and what he believed they could be that led to a contract with producer George Martin in May 1962 — and the hits started coming in bunches. "Please Please Me." "Love Me Do." "P.S. I Love You."

And that was just in 1962. There were many more hit songs to come.

And many hit albums, too, including "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," arguably the greatest album ever recorded. It had been in music stores only three months when Epstein was found dead in his bedroom in London on this day in 1967.

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There is a pretty good case to be made that Epstein left enormous footprints on the world's cultural landscape. He first saw the Beatles at the now–legendary Cavern Club in November 1961 and became their manager shortly thereafter. With his experience in sales and promotions Epstein took the Beatles in hand and made them presentable by the standards of the day, and they became major hits in the U.K.

The time would come when the Beatles would rewrite those standards, but by heeding Epstein's initial counsel of conformity they were able to get their feet in the door. From that point, their success positioned them to have that kind of influence.

It is often said that Ed Sullivan gave the Beatles to the world. But that isn't entirely true. Sullivan gave the Beatles to America, launching the British invasion, which could be seen as the same thing as giving them to the world. Then, as now, America was the ground zero of global communication, and anything that was a hit here was sure to have ripple effects all over the planet.

But the invasion might never have happened if Epstein hadn't taken over as their manager.

And yet today, 50 years after Epstein's accidental death, caused by a combination of alcohol and an overdose of sleeping pills, he is forgotten by most — a real Nowhere Man.

But perhaps not entirely. He finally received a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2014, more than a quarter of a century after the band he discovered was inducted and at least 10 years since each Beatle (with the exception of Ringo Starr) was inducted as an individual performer.

Better late than never, I suppose.

Death of a Sex Symbol

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Most people living today probably have no memory of Jayne Mansfield.

In her day, she was a sex symbol — not as accomplished as Marilyn Monroe but certainly more endowed. And, by this time in 1967, Monroe had been dead for nearly five years. Mansfield had the sex symbol spotlight virtually to herself.

It was 50 years ago today — around 2:30 in the morning — that Mansfield died in a car crash in Slidell, Louisiana, less than 20 miles north–northwest of New Orleans, where Mansfield was to appear on TV station WDSU's ground–breaking Midday show.

Mansfield made two appearances at a supper club in Biloxi, Mississippi, the night of June 28, then she and five others — her boyfriend, her three children and their 20–year–old driver — began the trip to New Orleans around midnight.

The car crashed into the rear of a tractor/trailer that had slowed down behind a truck spraying mosquito fogger. The driver of the car couldn't see the tractor/trailer because it was shrouded in the mosquito fogger. The three adults in the front were killed immediately. The three children, who were sleeping in the back, escaped with minor injuries.

Mansfield was before my time, but her death became notorious. I can remember talking about it with my friends on the playground of my elementary school. I don't remember how the subject came up. One of us probably heard our parents talking about it.

Anyway, we knew the most notorious part of the story — that she was decapitated in the collision. That was an urban legend that began with pictures showing Mansfield's blonde wig in the wreckage. I have heard that she was wearing the wig at the time of the crash so there may have been parts of her scalp and strands of her real hair in the wig, but the official cause of death was given as a crushed skull, not decapitation.

Monroe's appearance as Playboy's first centerfold got the magazine off the ground in December 1953, but Mansfield's appearance as the centerfold in February 1955 gave it a real shot in the arm — as did her other appearances in the magazine (more than 30 of them).

Actually, it was a very modest pose by modern standards, but it created quite a stir in 1955.

Mansfield cultivated the role of sex symbol in a way that Monroe never did. Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" had nothing on Mansfield. Her clothes were forever falling off in public or there would be strategic bursts at the seams or she would wear low–cut dresses with no bra.

In fact, it was during a promotion for a movie ("Underwater!") that Mansfield deliberately wore a bikini that was too small. When she dove into the pool, the top came off — and attracted Playboy's attention.

But in death, Mansfield did make a contribution to the betterment of mankind. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended installing underride guards on all tractor/trailers. The objective of the underride guard is to provide a little protection for passenger cars that collide with a tractor/trailer from behind.

It is known as a "Mansfield bar."

The Many Faces of Death

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"An old woman living in a nightmare; an old woman who has fought a thousand battles with death and always won. Now she's faced with a grim decision — whether or not to open a door. And in some strange and frightening way, she knows that this seemingly ordinary door leads to the Twilight Zone."

Opening narration

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No subject fascinates people so much as the topic of death. For centuries, man has been asking the same questions and is really no closer to definitively answering them today than ever.

We may think we know what happens when we die, but no one who is living can say for sure what happens — and none who have died have returned to tell us what lies beyond. There is a lot of speculation, but there is no real evidence. Well, nothing that would hold up in court.

On this night in 1962, Twilight Zone presented one of its philosophically themed episodes, "Nothing in the Dark," that sought to make a profound statement on the subject. It starred Gladys Cooper, in the first of her three Twilight Zone appearances, as an elderly woman who had been on the alert for Mr. Death all her life.

She was living in a condemned building when a young man (Robert Redford in one of his early television roles) was shot in front of her door and was laying in the snow, bleeding. Cooper's character believed he was Mr. Death, but he persuaded her that he was not; she reluctantly opened her door and helped him inside.

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She cared for him as best she could, but he kept telling her that he needed a doctor. She said she couldn't call anyone because she had no telephone, and she couldn't let anyone in for fear she might be letting Mr. Death enter her home.

They talked, and she told him how she had been on the alert for Mr. Death all her life, ever since seeing him sit down next to a woman on a bus, then getting up and exiting the bus. Not long after, it was discovered that the woman was dead. She had seen him frequently since.

But, Redford protested, if she knew what he looked like, she had the advantage on him. She rejected that. Mr. Death was always changing his appearance, she said. She could trust no one. Lately she had been tormented by people who came to her door claiming to be from the city, telling her the building was condemned and she would have to move. She was certain they had been Mr. Death.

"Oh, he's clever," she told Redford.

She wondered why she could always spot him, but no one else could. She concluded that it was because the end of her life was approaching. Even when, as a child, I saw this episode for the first time, I thought that was kind of a whimsical, poetic way of looking at it — and not likely to be the way it really was or could be. I have known many people who have died, and none mentioned (to me, anyway) seeing ominous figures hanging around.

When a contractor from the city came by to try to get her to vacate her apartment before the wrecking crew arrived and the woman realized he wasn't Mr. Death after all, she soon concluded that Redford was Mr. Death. He had tricked her.

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He conceded the fact, but he told her that he had to make her understand that death wasn't such a terrible thing.

Transitions are difficult things sometimes — most of the time, in fact, even if they turn out to be good things in the long run — and death is the biggest transition humans face because everything about it is unknown. That was what bothered Gladys Cooper's character the most.

But Redford reassured her that it was not what she had feared, and he led her from her apartment, presumably guiding her in the direction of her destination.

Death was a subject the Twilight Zone explored on many occasions, and it reached many conclusions. Sometimes they contradicted each other. But an element of the episode that first aired on this night 55 years ago may ultimately prove to be correct. Redford was one of many actors who played Death — or some offshoot thereof. As in Gladys Cooper's experience, they were all different — old, young, male, female, you name it.

Sometimes in the Twilight Zone Death was the devil. That opens up an entirely different conversation, but that concept fits neatly with the general premise of this episode — that Mr. Death changed his appearance — and writings about death and the devil that have been part of the culture for hundreds of years.

After all, William Shakespeare wrote that "the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape." Gladys Cooper didn't necessarily find any of Mr. Death's shapes pleasing, but perhaps that is the subject for another conversation as well.

This episode is generally highly regarded by most devoted Twilight Zone fans. I guess I'm the exception. Maybe it is because of my thoughts on the premise of the episode, but I never really cared for it much.

And I consider myself a devoted Twilight Zone fan.

Rest in Peace, Gene Wilder; Thanks for the Memories

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When I heard today that Gene Wilder had died, the first thing I thought of was the first time I saw him in a movie.

The movie was "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," which must have been at least a few years old when I saw it because I saw it at one of those free movies on summer Wednesdays in my hometown of which I have written here before. My hometown was much smaller in those days, and the merchants always sponsored free movies for the kids of the town on Wednesdays in the summer. My hometown is much larger now, and I'm sure free movie Wednesdays stopped many years ago.

It was also, as I wrote here a few years ago, the first time my brother was permitted to go to a movie without one or both of my parents — or one of our grandparents — in attendance. I was drafted to fill in, to keep an eye on him, as it were.

There were moments when I was distracted from what was happening on the screen, usually when I was checking to see what my brother was doing (and it usually wasn't much). I probably didn't miss a lot. Those free movies were never first–run movies, anyway. The merchants in my hometown were generous as long as it didn't cost too much so the free summer movies were always three or four years old — if you were lucky. In those pre–cable days, most movies that had made the rounds of the theaters were retired. The only ones that remained in circulation were the ones that TV stations and networks wanted to show.

Those free summer movies were probably among the last ways that producers and promoters could make money on many movies before they were put out to pasture. Undoubtedly they took whatever they could get.

"Willy Wonka" was the offering one Wednesday afternoon one summer, and that was when I first saw Gene Wilder. I have seen him in many movies since — "Young Frankenstein" is my favorite — but he has always been Willy Wonka to me and always will be, no matter how many times I see him in "The Producers" or "Blazing Saddles" or "Silver Streak" or anything else.

I guess, too, that I always remember him as the husband and widower of Gilda Radner, perhaps the finest comedienne of her generation, certainly one of the brightest lights in Saturday Night Live's brilliant original cast.

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I thought of something else when I heard that Wilder had died.

I thought of a moment from All In The Family. It was an episode in which Archie's work buddy, Stretch Cunningham, had died, and his family wanted Archie to say a few words at the funeral.

During his eulogy, Archie observed, in his unique way, that studies showed that "having the blues" took years from your life while laughter added years to your life. If that is true, Archie said, Stretch put years on his life.

"And you gotta love a guy," Archie said, "for that."

Gene Wilder put some years on my life.

A Dubious Distinction

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Ever since Playboy magazine stopped publishing nude centerfolds earlier this year — and even before that — I have seen milestones marked for the publication's centerfold models.

For example, whenever Marilyn Monroe is mentioned, it is almost sure to be observed that she was Playboy's "first playmate of the month" — which, technically, she wasn't. She was the first centerfold, which at that time, I believe, was called "Sweetheart of the Month." Someone else had the distinction of being the first playmate.

Being the first playmate to be or do anything is usually a good thing — but not always.

Marilyn was the first centerfold model to die — but not the first playmate to die. That was Tonya Crews, Miss March of 1961, who died in an automobile accident 50 years ago today.

Crews tends to get overshadowed when the topic of conversation is playmates who died young, especially if 1992 playmate Anna Nicole Smith is part of the discussion.

Part native American, Crews was born in Oklahoma in February 1938. She had just turned 23 when the issue of Playboy containing her centerfold hit the newsstands.

In 2007, following Smith's death, Jessica Gresko of the Associated Press lamented Smith's "exclusive" membership in the club of playmates who didn't live to see their 50th birthdays. Crews, of course, is a charter member of that club.

There have been so many other tragic deaths among the playmates that Crews' death rarely gets mentioned.

But it was 50 years ago today that Crews became the first playmate to die. It's a dubious distinction, but it's one to which she is entitled.

The 400th Anniversary of the Bard's Death

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If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I write about many entertainment–related topics. I have written about William Shakespeare — directly or indirectly — four times. This is the fifth.

I last wrote about Shakespeare around the 450th anniversary of his birth. I say "around" because the exact date of his birth is not known.

The date of his death is another matter. That was 400 years ago yesterday, and it prompted observances the world over.

One of the grandest celebrations was at Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford–upon–Avon, where more than 10,000 people attended a parade marking the occasion.

If you think that it is inappropriate to have a parade at Shakespeare's birthplace on the anniversary of his death, you are obviously unaware of something I have mentioned in this blog before. Shakespeare's actual birth date is unknown. It is only known that he was born in April 1564, but many people have speculated that he was born on April 23. If that is true, then the bard died on his birthday.

When I wrote about the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, the emphasis of my post was the many ways Shakespeare has influenced modern English. That continues to fascinate people in all kinds of ways. For example, on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, The Sun focused on the top insults from his plays.

You never know when a good 16th–century putdown is going to be called for.

If you happen to be in the Boston area, a more enlightening experience may be found at the Boston Public Library's exhibit of rare first and early editions and forgeries.

Chicago, it seems, would be the best place to satisfy a hunger for the bard. A yearlong festival in that city will feature "Shakespeare–themed menus from Chicago chefs,"

The best way to honor Shakespeare, it seems to me, would be to watch a Shakespearean play. A live performance would have been best, and Barack Obama marked the occasion suitably by visiting the famed Globe Theatre and observing Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy where it was almost certainly first performed before an audience.

On Being Denied the Pleasure of Their Company

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Most of us — if we had our druthers, as the folks in the Li'l Abner comic strip liked to say — would prefer to die quickly and relatively painlessly when we were at the top of our respective games.

Not everyone is granted that wish, of course, just as it is true that not everyone lives to a ripe old age — but if one does live into old age, he/she is not likely to be as fit or as sharp as he/she was at a younger age. Such a person is hardly likely to go out on top of his or her game.

Most of us, I guess, would like to live long lives, but most people can't live long lives and be as vibrant as they were when they were young. Some can, I suppose, but not most of us. Everything in life, it seems, is a trade–off.

(In a way, I'm inclined to think that Spencer Tracy's character in "Inherit the Wind" was saying the same thing when he remarked, "Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, 'All right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline.'"

(Perhaps, when the subject is quality of life, it depends on what one considers progress — longevity or never having to contend with diminished abilities.)

My mother was denied the old age that my father has had. Mom was a schoolteacher who died in a flash flood 20 years ago. She and my father owned a duplex in Dallas and rented half of it as an additional source of income. The house had been in the family for decades. It originally belonged to my mother's parents, and she grew up there.

A week or so after my mother died, my brother and I crossed paths with the tenant, who remarked that Mom went out at the top of her game, and I couldn't argue with that.

A few hours before Mom died, she was at a carnival at her school. I've seen pictures that were taken that day. Perhaps there are home videos that were made as well in which I might be able to hear Mom chatting with her students or her students' parents. I can't get that from photographs, of course, but the look on Mom's face tells me she was in her element that day — and, for that matter, all the years she taught at that school. The tenant was right. Mom went out at the top of her game.

While I wish she had been with us longer, it is hard for me to imagine Mom in retirement. I know there were times when the job wore her out, but her work with children always seemed to energize her. I wonder where she would have found a source for that energy in retirement. My guess is that, if she couldn't be paid to mentor children, she would have found some way to do it for free — perhaps in a voluntary part–time capacity at a school or library.

There is a conundrum at play in every human life. See, I am grateful to have that mental image of my mother and not the one that my mother had of her mother in the final years of her life — but I still wish I had not been denied the pleasure of her company all these years.

Today would have been her birthday. It is also the 25th anniversary of the helicopter crash that claimed the life of another — and much more prominent — native of Dallas, Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was considerably younger than Mom, but it could also be said of him that he went out at the top of his game.

And I often wish we had not been denied the pleasure of his company.

Stevie Ray Vaughan struggled with substance abuse issues in the 1980s, but he had straightened up and was clearly on an upward trajectory when his helicopter crashed in southeast Wisconsin 25 years ago today. Each album was better than the one that preceded it, and his last album, "In Step," seemed to be the one that would earn him the acceptance of the mainstream audience.

His debut album with his band Double Trouble was called "Texas Flood," which was the name of one of the songs they played on the album — but it wasn't a Stevie Ray original. Matter of fact, it was a blues standard that had been covered by many artists over the years, but it came to be associated with Stevie Ray. Maybe he played it better than anyone else ever did. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that he played the hell out of that song.

I was in graduate school at the University of North Texas — about 35 or 40 miles north of Dallas — when Stevie Ray was killed, and I remember watching the news reports on the Dallas TV stations the night following Stevie Ray's funeral. The list of attendees read like a who's who of popular music — Eric Clapton, David Bowie, ZZ Top, Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne. Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many I have forgotten.

After Stevie Ray's death, the city of Austin, Texas, erected a statue in his memory, showing him wearing his trademark poncho and holding his guitar at his side standing by the river. Some folks didn't like it. I liked it well enough, I suppose, but I think I would have preferred for him to be holding his guitar in his classic pose on stage. To me, the guitar looked a little too much like a gun at his side — until you got close enough to examine it.

I thought it was ironic, in this the 25th anniversary of his death, that we got so much rain this past spring, and the river flooded the area around the statue. At the water's peak, Stevie Ray appeared to be standing on water.

Talk about your Texas flood.

Yes, Stevie Ray Vaughan went out at the top of his game, but you can still feel the loss for the rest of us. He was 35 when he died. He would be 60 if he had been permitted to live. At the time of his death, he had been putting out several records/CDs that soared on the charts; one can only imagine what the future held for him. Hey, 60 is a whippersnapper compared to Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney, all still out there playing to packed houses in their 70s.

What else might Stevie Ray have done in the last quarter of a century? I don't know, but I'm sure he would have been an influence on popular music. "In Step" would have been his breakthrough album, I'm sure of it, and I'm equally sure it would not have been his last. The entire musical landscape might be different today if he had not died.

"After he cleaned himself up, by 1990, he was back to playing guitar in a ferocious way," Jason Hanley, senior director of education for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, told the Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel. "Who knows what he would have done next?"

One thing I do know — if you like blues rock, then you owe Stevie Ray Vaughan a special debt of gratitude. Every day, really, but today in particular.

Comfort Food for the Soul

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"It was so hot today that Burger King was singing, 'If you want it your way, cook it yourself.'"

Johnny Carson, 1977

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It was 10 years ago today that Johnny Carson died.

And it's been almost 23 years since his last Tonight Show.

Time goes by too fast. Didn't I watch Carson just last night on the Tonight Show? He did another one of his hilarious Carnac the Magnificent routines, followed by a visit from George Carlin and those wonderful animals who visited from southern California zoos.

The Carson show was like the embodiment of Mother Gump's truism. It truly was like a box of chocolates. You never knew what you were going to get. The only thing you could be sure of — about 99% of the time — was that it would be satisfying in that way that comfort food is.

That's what Carson was — comfort food for the soul. If you were going through a rough patch, if you were anxious and couldn't sleep, you could switch on the Carson show, and it was like a visit from an old friend. When the show was over, your anxiety would be gone, and you could sleep through the night. Honest.

One of the things I admired most about Carson was how he interviewed the guests on his show. He understood what all great interviewers have understood — that the best interviews are the ones where the interviewer says very little.

That's easier said than done. I have conducted enough interviews in my life to know that sometimes you have to interview people who don't like to talk. I guess the assumption is that, because of the nature of their line of work, entertainers never tire of talking about themselves. I'm sure that is the case with some, perhaps many, but, in a TV career that spanned 30 years, Carson must have encountered celebrities who were reluctant to talk. Offhand I can't remember any.

That is an indication of how good Carson was. Even with the difficult interview subjects, he made it look easy — so easy that, even after you watch video clips from his Tonight Show career, you can't be sure that any of his subjects were difficult.

But there had to be some. There must have been, human nature being what it is.

Carson was always secure with himself and his talents. Each year, he tended to take off for a couple of weeks to go to England to watch the Wimbledon tournament. Whenever he went on vacation, he arranged for guest hosts to fill in for him. He never ran a repeat of an earlier show. He felt his audience deserved fresh material so, even though he wasn't there, he arranged for someone with talent to fill in for him.

He was always missed when he went on vacation, but people still tuned in because they knew Johnny would leave them in capable hands. Jay Leno was a guest host on the Carson show. So were George Carlin, David Brenner, Richard Belzer, Flip Wilson and Joan Rivers and many others.

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It seemed to me that Carson filled the void that was left by the cancellation of the Ed Sullivan Show. Carson and Sullivan co–existed on network television for several years, and my impression, even though I was quite young and we didn't have a TV until I was in elementary school, was that Sullivan continued to be the guy who brought fresh, new talent to the American public. He was the one who gave America its first exposure to Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Carson, meanwhile, tended to stick with the tried and true.

That changed after Sullivan's show was canceled.

Carson probably never had the same kind of impact on American culture that Sullivan did. He didn't introduce the public to anyone who became as influential as Elvis or the Fab Four, but he still did his part to give Americans that exposure to up and coming talent.

We're brought up with the knowledge — the expectation — that everything dies. Some folks decide that, for whatever reason, they will be the exception to that natural law, but we know that, when all is said and done, no one will escape death. We cannot prove that everyone will die because clearly there are billions of living people on the planet. But there must have been billions who came before us in all of human history, and we know that, with the exception of a few people who were born around the start of the 20th century, all have died. Whatever your religious beliefs may be, that is an eternal truth. It passes no judgment on whether there is an afterlife.

If there is an afterlife, though, I hope Johnny Carson is hosting some sort of program to entertain the residents of heaven. If anyone deserves the best, it's the souls in heaven.

And Carson was the best.

Frasier's Obsession

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Obsessive personalities always seem to make the best comedic characters, and Frasier was one of the most obsessive characters TV has ever seen.

Twenty years ago tonight, in a first–season Frasier episode, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) obsessed about something that most of us probably have obsessed about at one time or another — death.

It began with a little misdirection. Frasier's father (John Mahoney) skipped his doctor's appointment because he didn't like his doctor, and Frasier found out about it so he insisted on taking his father to another doctor, and Niles recommended one in his building. After they got there, the doctor was a no–show, and they were about to leave when they found out that the doctor had dropped dead.

From that point, Frasier was obsessing. The doctor was roughly his age, and Frasier simply couldn't get that out of his mind. He did all kinds of research and generally made a nuisance of himself. He gathered the family together to go over things that would be important only in the event of his death — like the distribution of his possessions, his funeral and burial plans and the discovery of the body.

To ensure that there would be no unseemly quarrels over his belongings, Frasier wanted each member of the family to put their names on sticky notes and attach them to the objects they wanted.

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Martin (John Mahoney): This is crazy. I'm not going to start putting my name on your stuff.

Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): Dad, what happens if I die tomorrow, you and Niles end up in an argument about ... well, that African mask, for instance?

Martin: It'll never happen. Niles, you can have it.

Niles (David Hyde Pierce): I don't want it.

Daphne (Jane Leeves): Well, don't look at me. I throw a towel over that thing when you're not home.

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He had a heart–to–heart conversation about his fears with his father, who told him a story from his experience as a policeman, and Martin was helpful — up to a certain point.

Ultimately, though, Frasier found that he could only put his mind at rest by visiting the grieving widow and asking her certain questions. They might be painful questions to answer, but, damn it, he had to know!

What Frasier did not know before going to the widow's home was that the dead man had been Jewish, and his relatives were sitting shiva. In layman's terms, as one of the mourners explained it to Frasier, it was a Jewish wake.

And that set up one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in the entire run of the Frasier series.

Upon his arrival, Frasier remarked that he hadn't expected the widow to have so many guests. The mourner smile and said to Frasier, "You're not Jewish, are you? This is our version of a wake."

Frasier could understand that so he stood by the table and looked around, stopping to look under a cloth draped over a mirror. A woman approached him from behind and asked if she could help him.

Frasier told her he thought there was a painting underneath the cloth. He said he had speculated that there might be an unveiling later.

The woman smiled. "You're not Jewish, are you?"

Apparently, Frasier decided the straight–forward approach didn't work so well the first time so this time his reply was "No, no, my ex–wife is, though, and thus my son is, which makes me sort of, well, I guess you could say ... No, I'm not Jewish."

The woman smiled again. "We always cover mirrors at a shiva so those grieving don't have to be concerned with their own appearances."

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Frasier eventually made his way over to the widow, whom he hoped to ask questions about her late husband's health and lifestyle. But Frasier changed his mind when he realized that she was struggling with her own issues regarding her husband's death.

She asked Frasier what he would say to a caller who said he/she couldn't get over why someone died. Frasier said his only answer was that life is not fair.

"All we can do," he said, "is live for the little joys and surprises life affords us. You can't live your life obsessing about death."

The widow smiled. "You're not Jewish, are you?"

In these times of excessive political correctness, I feel compelled to say I am not anti–Semitic.

I am a writer. I appreciate good writing.

And that is good writing.

The Day the Laughter Died

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Words really can't express how shocking it was to hear 15 years ago today that comedian Phil Hartman was dead.

It wasn't really a shock to hear that someone from Saturday Night Live was dead. The public had already been conditioned to that to some degree with the deaths of John Belushi in 1982, Gilda Radner in 1989 and Chris Farley in 1997.

There was already something of a perception that people with SNL connections were somehow more likely to die young than their peers.

But Hartman really didn't fit the profile. He was nearly 50 years old, and he had neither a history of risky behavior nor a life–threatening disease.

What wasn't generally known was that his wife was unstable.

And, fueled by drugs and alcohol in the early morning hours of this day in 1998, she shot Hartman to death while he slept, confessed to at least two people that she had killed her husband, then turned the gun on herself.

Most of the people who have studied homicide and suicide will tell you that men are far more likely to use a gun than are women — at least when it comes to suicide. I'm not sure about homicides. I'm not really sure how one would classify this case — except to say it was a tragedy.

Frankly, I'm not sure I would have used the word tragedy to describe what happened 15 years ago. Most people probably would describe it as a tragedy; I guess it depends on how one defines tragedy. I think of a tragedy as being something that is beyond human control — a natural disaster.

In that context, it was hard to know how to classify the Hartman murder–suicide. Was it beyond anyone's power to control, like a hurricane or an earthquake? Or perhaps it could have been prevented if people who knew Hartman's wife was unstable had done something instead of remaining silent.

Such silence may have been the real tragedy. Or perhaps Brynn Omdahl Hartman concealed her condition from everyone. Maybe that is what made it tragic — the fact that there may have been no way for anyone to see it coming, perhaps not even Hartman's closest friends.

There are still — and will, I fear, remain — so many unanswered questions.

With Belushi, I think there were always suspicions that his life might end the way it did. Naturally, his death was met with grief but not necessarily shock.

Farley's weight issues were well known and, apparently, his substance abuse problems also were known among his friends and family. In hindsight, the two were a volatile mix.

Radner's ultimately fatal battle with cancer was not a secret — but neither was it widely known so her death might have been a surprise to some.

But Hartman's death was totally unexpected.

I remember when word of his death reached the office where I was working. Everyone seemed quieter, more subdued than usual. Even those who probably didn't watch SNL often, if at all.

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There probably weren't many of them in those days.

Periodically, of course, SNL has had low ratings, typically when it has gone through major changes in the cast.

But back in the mid– to late 1980s and early to mid–'90s, I guess, just about everyone watched it — when Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey were on the show.

There were others, too, but everyone tuned in mostly to see those two. Personally, I always think of Carvey posing as Ross Perot and Hartman posing as his running mate, Admiral Stockdale, in an SNL skit during the 1992 presidential election campaign.

They were also funny in a brief but memorable segment of a longer skit when Carvey played Jimmy Stewart visiting his old Hollywood pal, Ronald Reagan (played by Hartman), in the White House.

But Hartman made a name for himself doing other portrayals. For example, I don't know if anyone else on SNL portrayed Reagan. I'm sure someone must have, maybe even someone I ought to know but whose name escapes me now, but I was just as entertained by Hartman's portrayal of the Gipper as I was by Dan Aykroyd's portrayals of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.

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And I thought his portrayals of Bill Clinton were side–splittingly funny. Of course, I grew up in Arkansas, and I watched from up close — I was a young reporter covering one of his gubernatorial campaigns — as Clinton's then–flagging political career got a jump start.

So I suppose some things that I found especially funny were things that most casual observers would miss. Hartman picked up on those things.

That was my first thought when I heard that Hartman was dead. I thought of him as Clinton, and I thought that I would miss that a great deal.

That was a rather selfish way of looking at it, I guess. And I have felt bad about that in the last 15 years, but the truth is that I did miss him in the last years of the Clinton presidency — and in the more than 10 years since Clinton left the White House.

I assume that, if Hillary Clinton is elected president in 2016, former President Clinton will come with her to the White House, which would have been a situation too rich with possibilities for Hartman and the SNL writers to ignore.

But that is speculation (and, too, it presupposes that a nearly 70–year–old Hartman would either remain with SNL for two more decades or return as a guest).

The real loss was suffered by Hartman's two children, both under 10 at the time and now in their 20s. They will begin to inherit their father's estate when they turn 25 — the oldest turns 25 next year — but they have had to grow up without their parents, and that is a loss for which no amount of money can compensate.

When Elvis Died

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Most of the time, it is my policy to write in my blogs about anniversaries that end in a five or a zero.

Nevertheless, I always write about the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. Every year.

I'm not sure why that is so — except for the obvious reason, that Elvis truly is one of the undisputed superstars of rock 'n' roll. Even now, more than three decades after his death.

And that is clearly the case this week as his fans are gathering in Memphis to commemorate this milestone 35th anniversary of his death.

The Washington Post reports that Presley's ex, Priscilla, and their daughter, Lisa Marie, unexpectedly joined fans at the Graceland mansion for a candlelight vigil on the eve of the anniversary.

Elvis' heyday was really before my time, but his presence was constant when I was growing up, overshadowing everything else even if Elvis wasn't pushing a new record at the time. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones — along with others — took over the weekly top spot in record sales, but Elvis was always there, always the standard against which others were judged.

No one — except perhaps those closest to him who knew of his dependence on drugs — could have expected him to die at the age of 42.

When he died on this day in 1977, the outpouring of grief I witnessed was unlike anything I had ever seen and was really matched by only a few celebrities since — John Lennon, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson.

(It could truthfully be said, though, that John Lennon, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson died due to the actions of others — whereas Elvis brought about his own death. It almost certainly wasn't intentional, but it is an important distinction between Elvis and those other three.)

In many ways, the grieving never stopped. Maybe it was a sense of unfulfilled potential — even though Elvis had a couple of decades to make his mark whereas people like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had only a handful of years.

There are probably people out there who make their livings impersonating Morrison, Hendrix and Joplin — but there are many, many more who impersonate Elvis and make pretty good livings at it, too.

I have often wondered, in fact, if many of those "Elvis sightings" — you know, reports of seeing Elvis in convenience stores and walking along roads — were not hallucinations but rather sightings of Elvis impersonators.

The real thing, of course, is always with us in recordings and movies — and you can see the King in some of his better movies today on Turner Classic Movies.

What We Lost When We Lost Henry Fonda

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When I was growing up, I couldn't imagine a world that didn't have Henry Fonda or Jimmy Stewart in it.

They were always two of my favorite actors, still are even today. In fact, they were both in the first movie I can remember seeing at the movie theater in my hometown — "How the West Was Won" — which wasn't a new release when it came to my then–tiny hometown (but nothing ever was).

I guess every year has its share of deaths of irreplaceable people.

It is often said that a recently deceased person will be missed. And often, I suppose, that is true.

But I guess it was never more relevant than it was to the movie industry — and, by extension, the world — in late 1982.

In September, Grace Kelly died when she suffered a stroke while driving on the winding, hilly roads of Monaco and crashed her car. She died without regaining consciousness.

And about a month earlier, on Aug. 12, 1982 — 30 years ago today — Fonda died. His death had been anticipated — he'd been ill for awhile — but it was no less devastating.

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Audiences had come to take him for granted, I guess. I know I did. He was a steady, reliable performer. You knew what you would be getting when you saw a Henry Fonda movie — well, most of the time you did. When he played against type in "Once Upon a Time in the West," it was more than some moviegoers could fathom.

When he died in 1982, he had been in Hollywood for nearly half a century, and he had just been honored by the Academy Awards with the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in "On Golden Pond."

It was recognition that he had long deserved but had been denied to him. His career had been filled with exceptional performances, but only once before had he been nominated for Best Actor — in 1940, when he was nominated for "The Grapes of Wrath" (but lost to Stewart for "The Philadelphia Story").

His performances in movies like "The Lady Eve," "The Ox–Bow Incident," "Mister Roberts," "Fail–Safe" and "Once Upon a Time in the West" — and dozens of others — went unnoticed repeatedly at Oscar time.

Over the years, Oscar didn't treat Fonda so well. The American Film Institute included two of Fonda's movies on its list of the top 100 movies of all time, but the only time one of his movies was nominated for Best Picture — "12 Angry Men" in 1957 — it lost (to "The Bridge on the River Kwai").

At the time that he died, it occurred to me that the old adage about not knowing what you've got until you no longer have it may never have been more relevant than it was when applied to Fonda's life and career.

On countless occasions in my life, I have been guided by the memory of the words and actions of characters that Fonda played in his life.

In his personal life, as I understand it, Fonda was a flawed individual, perceived by many of those closest to him, especially his children, as aloof and distant. And perhaps he was.

But when he was in front of a camera, the words he was given to speak and the roles he was asked to play took on even greater meaning because Fonda brought so much strength of character to each.

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I suppose that was also what made his performance in "Once Upon a Time in the West" so menacing. In the hands of another actor who didn't command the respect Fonda did, that role might have been almost laughable.

But Fonda, cast as a cold–blooded, indiscriminate killer, had a nearly immortal aura to him. He was kind of the Freddy Krueger of the spaghetti Western.

Fonda was truly a gifted actor. In most of his movies, his gift came across in an almost "aw, shucks" kind of way. On the night in 1982 when his daughter accepted his Best Actor Oscar for him because he was too ill to attend, she told the audience she was sure her father's reaction would be to praise those with whom he worked and, of his own recognition, to say, "Ain't I lucky?"

And that was how he looked at his accomplishments in his life, Jane Fonda said. He gave all the credit to those with whom he worked and paid little if any attention to his own skill.

We were the lucky ones — to have had him as long as we did.

The Marilyn Mystery

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Marilyn Monroe is such an iconic figure that you almost have to remind yourself that she really did exist.

I suppose if she hadn't existed, it would have been necessary to invent her.

Next Sunday marks half a century since she died, but, in memory, she is still the young and beautiful woman, the eternal sex symbol, that she was in August 1962. She was, after all, only 36.

Earlier that summer, she went skinny dipping for the cameras — and knocked all the competition off the magazine covers.

In May of that year, she sang "Happy Birthday to You" to President Kennedy in that breathless — and sexy — way that only she could.

It still seems impossible to imagine that vibrant, exciting woman, the embodiment of everything that heterosexual males (well, most of them) find irresistible, could have died in her bed one hot August night.

But it was true.

If people remember Marilyn — and she truly is one of the few people who can be mentioned by first name only and everyone knows who is being discussed — as a "distressed damsel," as Rafer Guzman calls her in Newsday, it's because she really was a damsel in distress.

All her life.

Sometimes the distress was her own doing, other times it wasn't.

I guess she fit the part of damsel in distress so easily in the public's mind because she played one so often in the movies — and that was the lucrative side of her life, I suppose — although Guzman disagrees: "Monroe rarely played sad or tragic roles."

I would argue that is not correct. There was often a tragic side to the roles she played, even if those roles were not "sad or tragic." In fact, when I think of Marilyn, my thoughts often turn to a movie she made 60 years ago — "Niagara."

In "Niagara," Marilyn played a hot–blooded woman whose attempt to murder her husband backfired. There are moments in that movie when Marilyn's face goes from an expression of absolute bliss to one of dread and fear in just a couple of seconds, and her personality, her character's very thoughts revealed in her eyes, shifts accordingly.

The same can be said of many of her other roles, even those that were essentially light and funny. She added an extra layer to the roles she played — layers that sometimes made me wonder if they had been the writers' ideas or Marilyn's.

But she was also a damsel in distress in her private life — failed marriages, failed pregnancies, substance abuse. In hindsight, her life resembles a runaway train — on a self–destructive path and likely to plow through anything and anyone that got in the way.

What a loss it was to movies that she didn't live longer and get the chance to play the kinds of roles that almost certainly would have come her way later in her life.

But perhaps, as Guzman suggests, there might be no place for Marilyn in modern movies. I suppose she would be retired by now, but, like the Beatles, a persona like hers might only have been possible in the era in which she lived.

If she hadn't died 50 years ago, she might have made her last screen appearance before Y2K — perhaps well before.

But just think what would not have been part of the fabric of American life if she had lived — primarily, I suppose, no speculation about a Kennedy conspiracy to kill her to keep her from spilling the beans about her alleged involvement with the president and his brother.

The relationship between men and women changed in many ways in the years after Marilyn's death, and one must wonder if she was versatile enough to keep up with the changes.

And, even if she had lived, Marilyn may well have been as much a relic of the mid–20th century as the "magic red sweater" that Lois Banner of the Daily Mail claims launched her career.

Her own words, in an interview published shortly before she died, offer few clues into how she might (or might not) have been able to cope when the landscape around her shifted.

"If fame goes by, so long, I've had you, fame," she told Richard Meryman of LIFE magazine. "If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experienced, but that's not where I live."

It's all part of that enduring Marilyn mystery.

The End of a Force of Nature

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OK, I'll admit it. The knowledge that it has been 30 years since John Belushi died is disconcerting.

I do feel older — but not for the obvious reason.

You'd have to call Belushi a force of nature, I think. No other phrase really does him justice.

I am an adjunct professor in the local community college, and most of the students with whom I work are in the traditional college age range. Memories of Belushi are relics from my college days, not theirs.

In order to have more than a fleeting memory of Belushi when he was re–defining TV comedy on Saturday Night Live, a person would have to be in his/her 40s — at least.

I have worked with a few of those — but not many and none this semester.

Most of the people who would have watched him in his SNL and Not–Ready–for–Prime–Time days had to have been old enough to be allowed to stay up late on a weekend night.

Even with unusually permissive parents, anyone under 10 probably won't have enough stamina to stay awake that late. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is usually weak.

Consequently, I assume that you had to be at least a certain age then to have any memory of John Belushi now.

I was in high school at the time so staying up late on weekends was not an issue for me — and I remember his most classic routines — the Samurai warrior (and his variety of Western occupations), the Blues Brothers, the King Bee, his spot–on impersonation of British rocker Joe Cocker, his obese Elizabeth Taylor being interviewed by a starstruck Bill Murray on Weekend Update (and nearly choking on a turkey leg), his takeoff on Beethoven, his contributions to skits featuring the Coneheads and the Land Shark.

Those were the days (well, I guess nights would be more appropriate than days).

Thoughts of his Point/Counterpoint segments with Jane Curtin on Weekend Update never fail to bring a smile to my lips — if not an outright laugh. I still crack up whenever I see his impersonation of Bill Shatner as Capt. Kirk.

I always liked his "little chocolate doughnuts" commercial — in which he played an Olympic athlete who claimed, with a smoldering cigarette in one hand, that little chocolate doughnuts had been part of his training regimen since he was a child.

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When the country was more or less familiar with him from his Saturday Night Live years, he embarked on a movie career that was short but no less entertaining.

I guess most people remember "The Blues Brothers" when they think of Belushi's movies, but I think first of "Animal House" — and Belushi's somewhat twisted take on Pearl Harbor.

The guy was just funny, no matter what he did. I honestly think he could have come out on stage and read the New York metro phone book and the audience would have been in stitches.

And then I think of that day 30 years ago today — when I heard that the laughter had died.

I was in college. It was spring break. The country was struggling economically, jobs were hard to find. It wasn't a great time to be getting out of college, but it still seemed like a wonderful time to be young and free and alive. The news of Belushi's death cast an enormous shadow over everything, at the time and ever since.

There were, of course, the recriminations, as there always are — the accusations, the investigations, the charges and trials. Books were written. Life went on.

But just think of all that we missed.

What a gift it was to make people laugh as easily as Belushi did — and what an appalling waste it was to lose him so soon.

Thirty years without Belushi. It wasn't fair to him — or us.

And She Was

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"The world was moving and she was right there with it
(And she was)
The world was moving she was floating above it
(And she was)
And she was."

Talking Heads

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There was — and will forever be — only one Etta James.

James died earlier today at the age of 73, and, if anyone can be said to have experienced both the peaks and valleys of life, it would have to be Etta James.

Her health had been declining in recent years; it was already known that she was afflicted with dementia and kidney problems when it was revealed last month that she had chronic leukemia.

But she had other tribulations in her life. She struggled with her weight and painkillers and other drugs, spending some time in detox, and she had — shall we say? — issues with her mother, who was 14 when she was born. James never knew her father.

In between the hard times, though, there were moments of almost indescribable triumph.

Her signature song may well be "At Last," which was originally recorded by Glenn Miller, but James recorded a cover version nearly 20 years later — and, although others have recorded it since, it is James' version that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

James herself can be found in both the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone rates her 22nd among the greatest singers of all time. It's a list of accomplishments that any performer would envy.

"Most of the songs I sing, they have that blue feeling to it," she told CNN a decade ago. "They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about. I don't!"

Although I know of the hard times she endured, it is hard to understand why she should feel blue. After all, she was the opening act for the Rolling Stones at one time. To someone from my generation, little could be better than that.

Her recording of "At Last" may not have been a Top 40 hit when it was first released, but it continues to be a standard at weddings — and likely will remain one.

In that way, I suppose, Etta James will live on indefinitely.

That's good. I find it hard to imagine a world without Etta James in it.

The Influence of Lenny Bruce

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You may not have been born when comedian Lenny Bruce died on this day in 1966.

Consequently, you might not think that he has much relevance to the world of 2011.

But the world in which you live almost certainly would be a different place — perhaps very different — if he had not come along.

Bruce was a bridge, a transition from the comedy that had come before to a harder–edged, more sophisticated style of comedy.

Before Bruce, the gold standard in American standup was Jerry Lewis. After Bruce, a whole generation of new comedians burst upon the scene — George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lewis Black, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K. and so many others, all of whom claim(ed) Bruce as a kind of spiritual father.

In fact, I have long believed that Lenny Bruce's influence was felt beyond the stage. In the years after Bruce's death, television programming began moving away from the silly and the slapstick, like The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, I Dream of Jeannie and Green Acres, to sitcoms that dared to tackle thornier topics.

Such a shift was also taking place in music and the movies — every form of artistic expression.

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But many segments of American culture resisted.

That was the role Bruce played in the essential evolution of comedy. His routines addressed American society and politics frankly. He talked about race and religion and sex, things that no one had dared to talk about before.

I didn't hear any of his comedy routines until many years after his death, but I've always felt that Bruce was an advocate of the First Amendment more than he was anything else.

That doesn't take anything away from his talent as a comedian. But, if it hadn't been for Bruce, I believe freedom of speech would have a different meaning in America.

He used words (those awful four–letter words) on stage that would seem incredibly tame to young people today — but they were regarded as obscene in the 1960s. In fact, he was convicted on obscenity charges and obsessed about it for the rest of his life ...

... which ended, as I say, 45 years ago today.

His body was found in the bathroom of his California home; the official photo taken at the scene showed Bruce's body with drug paraphernalia nearby, but some have suggested it was planted there by people who were eager to smear Bruce in death.

The cause of his death was ruled to be an accidental overdose of morphine.

I don't know what the truth was — and I don't know whether it would matter if the truth could be revealed in 2011.

What I do know is that Bruce, who was 40 when he died, continued to wield an influence on the culture after death. He was granted a posthumous pardon for his obscenity conviction in 2003. It was the first posthumous pardon in New York history.

And I also know that Bruce's loss was an appalling waste.

When I was in college, I saw Bob Fosse's biopic on Bruce, "Lenny," starring Dustin Hoffman, and I would encourage everyone to watch it at least once — to see Bruce's comic genius, brilliantly reproduced by Hoffman, but also to get a sense of the painful truth of Dick Schaap's final line in his eulogy in Playboy: "One last four–letter word for Lenny: Dead. At 40. That's obscene."

Yep.

The Latest Member of the 27 Club

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The news that Amy Winehouse was found dead in London yesterday really couldn't have come as a surprise to just about anyone — given her history.

I've been observing the reactions to all this from my friends via Facebook in a kind of detached way. In all honesty, I can't say I was one of her fans. I didn't follow her career closely. I wasn't overly familiar with her music.

(I'll say this about her music — there were times when it reminded me of the music of Jim Croce, a performer from my adolescence who also died young. They had different styles, but there were moments when I would hear things in Winehouse's songs that brought back memories ...)

So I've been keeping my opinions to myself. I've expressed my sympathy to those who seem to be truly grieving this loss because I know all too well how it feels to lose someone who was important to you — even if you never met that person.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't have anything against female singers — I admire the recordings of the likes of Janis Joplin, Carole King and Joni Mitchell as well as groups with prominent female members, like Fleetwood Mac and Heart.

But that was the music of my generation. Winehouse always seemed to have more appeal for folks of my goddaughter's generation — and for some who are a little older than that. In particular, I have been thinking of the young women from my journalism classes in Oklahoma about 15 years ago.

That generation had its own musical idols, of course, but it has had a certain connection with the next generation, too. I suppose there is always such an overlap in musical tastes from one generation to the next — although I would like to believe (as I suppose everyone would) that there will always be a segment of the population that will be drawn to the music on which I was raised.

Anyway, one of the young women from one of those classes observed on Facebook that she was "bummed" about Winehouse's death — but she did not say she was surprised.

And it really is hard — for me, at least — to act surprised. Yes, it is tragic. But it wasn't a surprise. With Winehouse's history of drug and alcohol abuse, how could it be a surprise to anyone?

Presumably, there will be an autopsy to determine what it was that killed her although it won't be scheduled until at least tomorrow. That should answer all — or, at least, most — of the questions that are raised by the death of one so young.

I guess most of us have our suspicions about what the cause will turn out to be. But, unless it turns out to be foul play, the cause isn't as important as the fact that my generation and the ones that have followed are linked in another way now, too.

Winehouse is the latest singer to join the 27 Club.

Actually, it isn't so new for people like that ex–student I mentioned earlier. When she was in school, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, took his own life at the age of 27. That was her introduction to the 27 Club.

And, while people my age and older like to think it was the musical stars of our generation who originated the 27 Club, as I wrote here nearly a year ago, the club appears to have its roots in the 19th century.

Yes, Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison brought attention to the 27 Club and made it appear to be more than an ironic coincidence that they should all die at the same age. Clearly, it isn't new for us, either.

(Maybe it was new when our great–great–grandparents were young lovers.)

For most of those in my goddaughter's age group, though, this is something new. And perhaps that is the ultimate purpose of the 27 Club — to remind us how fragile and fleeting life can be.

Parents would like to spare their children the pain and ugliness of the world, but they know deep down that they can't do that.

Amy Winehouse's life story is a reminder that there are no guarantees.

I'm Glad I Didn't Know

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Whether you read what I write at this blog or my other blogs, you're probably getting tired of reading about my friend Phyllis, who passed away last week.

She's going to be a tough topic for me to let go — even after next Monday, when many of our mutual friends are sure to be in our hometown of Conway, Ark., for her memorial service. I can't be there, but I still have a very strong feeling that I'm never going to shake her, that she will always be there in the recesses of my mind, whatever I do, wherever I go.

And I will probably feel a need to write about her from time to time in the future. Sometimes, I am sure, it will be because something has reminded me of her. And other times, I am sure, it will simply be because I miss her.

I was on the phone last night with a mutual friend who is in Conway working on the plans for the memorial service. He seems to be holding up well, although there were times in our conversation when he sounded like he was struggling to maintain his composure. And I know there were times when I struggled to maintain mine.

Phyllis loved and appreciated music, all kinds of music. Really, it went beyond that. She was very talented, able to play instruments and sing better than anyone else I have ever heard. When the Bible said to make a joyful noise, she really took it to heart.

If ever anyone made a joyful noise, it was Phyllis.

Now, even though we grew up in a small Southern town where country music could be heard playing on the radios in just about every gas station, store and waiting room in town, my taste in music always leaned to rock 'n' roll, jazz, the blues. I was familiar with the country stars and hits of the previous generation, but I didn't really follow them.

What I learned of the country music of my day I learned from Phyllis. In fact, I will always remember one hot summer evening after we graduated from high school when we drove, along with a classmate named Ellen, from Conway to Pine Bluff to see Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris in concert.

I don't know how Phyllis felt about the country performers who came along later in her life. We never discussed, for example, Garth Brooks, who may be one of the most influential country performers of the last 20 years.

Now, I'm not saying that I am — or ever have been — a Garth Brooks fan. He burst onto the scene in 1989, the year after I left Arkansas, and then, in April of 1990, released as a single (at a time when vinyl albums and 45–rpm singles were still being produced and sold) what has come to be regarded as his signature song, "The Dance."

In the 20 years that have passed, I'm sure many people have drawn comfort from the words of the song — which could be interpreted as a tribute to a passionate love affair that has come to an end but has always seemed to me to be about accepting the death of someone to whom you are close.

Hindsight, as just about anyone will tell you, is 20/20. And, when I think of Phyllis these days, I am reminded of the words of Brooks' song.

I really am glad that I didn't know how or when — or why — Phyllis' life story would end. For that matter, I'm glad I wasn't aware of just how serious her condition was in the last month she was in the hospital. There was nothing I could have done — except hope and pray. And there were already plenty of people doing that, I imagine. Would one more person hoping and praying have tipped the scales and permitted Phyllis to recover? I don't know.

Our lives really are better left to chance. On a note Phyllis wrote about herself on Facebook last year, she said, in response to a question, that she would like to know in advance the day of her death — if such a thing was possible. But, if what people say of God is true, it seems enough to me that God knows when everyone will die. That is knowledge that I do not want or need.

When someone you care about dies, there is always, it seems to me, a tendency to wish you had known ahead of time so you could say your goodbyes. But I've been in the position where I knew someone I cared about was dying and I was probably seeing that person for the last time — and yet, I could never bring myself to say the things I wanted to say.

On those occasions, my friends were dying of cancer or some other disease, and maybe the very act of saying "goodbye" seemed like giving up. That is something I have never been prepared to do.

Afterward, I regretted not saying it — but I still prefer not to know when death is going to come to me or anyone else. If it's going to come as a shock, let it come as a shock. The pain will wear off eventually. Guess it beats knowing that you or someone you love has three days — or three hours — left. What would you do with the time that remained?

And, while I sure could have missed this pain, that would have meant that I'd have had to miss the dance. Knowing Phyllis was a real kick. I'm sorry for those who never had that pleasure. I'm sorry she's gone. I hope we'll see each other again. I'm glad she was in my life.

My life wouldn't have been nearly as rich if Phyllis hadn't passed my way.

Death of a Cultural Icon

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On this day in 1955, actor James Dean was killed in a head–on collision near Cholame, Calif.

Dean was 24 when he died. He made a few uncredited film appearances in the early 1950s, but he is remembered for the three films he made in the mid–1950s — "East of Eden," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant." His performances spoke to angst–ridden teenagers of the time, and he is still remembered, more than half a century after his death, as a symbol of that awkward time of life.

While Dean was working on his final film, he was interviewed by actor Gig Young for an episode of "Warner Bros. Presents." After Dean's death, the segment was not aired, but you can see it in the attached clip. It has often been misidentified as a public service announcement.

Another interesting story involves actor Alec Guinness. As I understand it, Dean introduced himself to Guinness and showed him his new Porsche 550 Spyder. Guinness reportedly thought the car was "sinister" and told Dean, "If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week."

The conversation occurred on Sept. 23, 1955, exactly one week before Dean's fatal crash.

This date always brings back unique memories for me because, when I was a teenager, director James Bridges came to my hometown of Conway, Ark., to make a movie about the impact Dean's death had on teens of the time. Bridges grew up in Paris, Ark., which wasn't exactly a stone's throw from my hometown, but it was fairly close, and, as I recall, he chose my hometown because it was a college town and he wanted to use the academic setting as a backdrop.

The movie was semi–autobiographical for Bridges, who was 19 when Dean died.

The original title of the movie was "9–30–55." When the finished product came to the screen, the title had been changed to "September 30, 1955."

Prior to filming, Bridges held auditions that drew literally hundreds of local wannabe actors, and he actually wound up casting a local girl who was often said to be a star in the making.

I don't think she ever made another movie, but there were some noteworthy folks in the cast. The most familiar was Richard Thomas, who was the star of the TV series "The Waltons" at the time.

Two other actors made their debuts in the film — Dennis Quaid (who may be best known for his work in "The Right Stuff") and Tom Hulce (who is probably best known for his appearances in "Animal House" and "Amadeus").