![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkertomIn comments on the previous thread, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amgem mentioned several other celebrities who passed away recently, one of whom was the fine actor and director Paul Benedict. Most people will remember him is the oddball neighbor Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons, or maybe as the crazy gay director in The Goodbye Girl, or a number of other roles.
But for me he will always be associated with my grandmother.
I was living in Cincinnati in 1982, and HBO was running The Electric Grandmother, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's I Sing The Body Electric! starring Maureen Stapleton and Edward Herrmann. Now, my Bradbury has always been spotty. Dunno why, because I read some of his stories in, like, 3rd grade, and loved 'em to death. Maybe it's just that I'd never had my own collection of his stuff to that point. But I had not yet read that story. Hadn't seen the Twilight Zone episode. Go fig. I guess I thought it was a plain ol' robot story. So I went in cold.
If, by chance, you have not read this story, summarizing it will not do it justice. Linking to the Wikipedia page or the Google search will not do it justice. Go find it, go read it. And understand that the most important and influential person in my life was Garboo, my maternal grandmother, and watching the adaptation of that story -- told from the point of view of a character named Tom! -- made me cry harder than I had cried for anything in my life. And I called Garboo on the phone and she had to calm me down and get me to slow my blubbering long enough to tell her that, yes, everything was fine, I just really really loved her and missed her a lot.
Paul Benedict played Mr. Fantoccini. And he was a delight on screen, it made me smile just to see him, and then the story whomped me in the heart, and he will live there forever as the gentlest and best-intentioned and most successful of mad scientists and wizards and makers of magic and keepers of the secrets of grandmotherly love.
While searching for Mr. Benedict's NYT obit, I found that Beverly Garland had also passed away. Nowhere near the level of either Benedict or Bettie Page, but still a loss -- a beautiful, classy lady, who cranked out some fine acting in a bunch of movies she was way too good for. Lotsa low-budget sci-fi thrillers. She didn't like playing the shrieking flower, either; when things went south, like as not she'd pick up the gun from the hand of her fallen husband or boyfriend, if she'd bothered with such in the first place, and become the hero herself.
And if you can't figure out how important that psychological notion might have been to a budding generation of geeks, I don't think you ever will.
I met her very briefly at the first MST3K ConventioConExpoFestARama, and she was lovely and gracious and way more interesting than all the pin-up girls I've ever met at a comic-con.
So, Mr. Benedict, Ms. Garland, farewell, and thank you both.
Sigh.
What performances have touched you, have changed your life? Don't have to list 'em all -- I certainly haven't; you don't have to go into detail unless you want to.
amgem mentioned several other celebrities who passed away recently, one of whom was the fine actor and director Paul Benedict. Most people will remember him is the oddball neighbor Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons, or maybe as the crazy gay director in The Goodbye Girl, or a number of other roles.But for me he will always be associated with my grandmother.
I was living in Cincinnati in 1982, and HBO was running The Electric Grandmother, an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's I Sing The Body Electric! starring Maureen Stapleton and Edward Herrmann. Now, my Bradbury has always been spotty. Dunno why, because I read some of his stories in, like, 3rd grade, and loved 'em to death. Maybe it's just that I'd never had my own collection of his stuff to that point. But I had not yet read that story. Hadn't seen the Twilight Zone episode. Go fig. I guess I thought it was a plain ol' robot story. So I went in cold.
If, by chance, you have not read this story, summarizing it will not do it justice. Linking to the Wikipedia page or the Google search will not do it justice. Go find it, go read it. And understand that the most important and influential person in my life was Garboo, my maternal grandmother, and watching the adaptation of that story -- told from the point of view of a character named Tom! -- made me cry harder than I had cried for anything in my life. And I called Garboo on the phone and she had to calm me down and get me to slow my blubbering long enough to tell her that, yes, everything was fine, I just really really loved her and missed her a lot.
Paul Benedict played Mr. Fantoccini. And he was a delight on screen, it made me smile just to see him, and then the story whomped me in the heart, and he will live there forever as the gentlest and best-intentioned and most successful of mad scientists and wizards and makers of magic and keepers of the secrets of grandmotherly love.
While searching for Mr. Benedict's NYT obit, I found that Beverly Garland had also passed away. Nowhere near the level of either Benedict or Bettie Page, but still a loss -- a beautiful, classy lady, who cranked out some fine acting in a bunch of movies she was way too good for. Lotsa low-budget sci-fi thrillers. She didn't like playing the shrieking flower, either; when things went south, like as not she'd pick up the gun from the hand of her fallen husband or boyfriend, if she'd bothered with such in the first place, and become the hero herself.
And if you can't figure out how important that psychological notion might have been to a budding generation of geeks, I don't think you ever will.
I met her very briefly at the first MST3K ConventioConExpoFestARama, and she was lovely and gracious and way more interesting than all the pin-up girls I've ever met at a comic-con.
So, Mr. Benedict, Ms. Garland, farewell, and thank you both.
Sigh.
What performances have touched you, have changed your life? Don't have to list 'em all -- I certainly haven't; you don't have to go into detail unless you want to.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 03:44 pm (UTC)The first thing that comes to mind is a pair of performances - Diane Lane and Thelonious Bernard (yes, I had to look it up) in A Little Romance. A movie that proudly declares that it's OK to be smart and different.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 03:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 04:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 03:57 pm (UTC)As far as life altering performances, I've never been one for plays. I remember watching Requiem for a Dream the first time, and staring at the screen, motionless, speechless, through the credits. I must have had some look on my face. I decided then and there, never to touch anything remotely like that.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 04:59 pm (UTC)One was an episode of Amazing Stories, about a boy who meets a magical being who advises him to hold on to those things that made him happy. Being a child at heart essentially. I saw it at a time in my life where I really needed to and I don't think I've been the same since.
Then there was Harvey. I actually saw a high school stage production of it when I was in elementary school. Again this was a story that changed me and kept my head in the clouds.
Through out my life this has been the story. Whenever I've truly needed it, I've always seen a movie or read a book that emphasized how important it was to be a dreamer.
Rich Fantasy Lives, also came to me at a point in my life where I really needed it. It's helped me in ways that I can't really explain so let me say thank you for recording it and writing the music to Rob Balder's words.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-12 05:41 pm (UTC)Speaking of Nerds
Date: 2008-12-13 01:43 am (UTC)