December 2017

MALE MATTERS
Gone but not
forgotten
THOSE WE LOST IN 2017
by Elliot Goldenberg
I
met Academy Award-winning actor Martin Landau, who
passed away this year at 89, more than 20 years ago
when he was receiving an honor in Miami from the Simon
Wiesenthal Center – along with Ted Turner and others whom
I now forget – and I was an ambitious reporter
working the event. Truth be told, I took on the
assignment because I also wanted to meet the
smoking hot newscaster Gisele Fernandez, who
was the event’s emcee. However, I especially
wanted to meet Landau. That’s because I was
hawking a screenplay at the time, and Landau had
just won critical acclaim for his role as a homicidal
doctor in Hannah and Her Sisters. He was cast
as a “pillar of society” in this flick about Woody
Allen’s beloved New York who just happened to
be handed a prestigious honor himself, not unlike
the one Landau was to
receive that night.
by Palmer Peters
The irony of life imitating
art was therefore not lost
on me.
So I approached
Landau to do an
interview and he
immediately lit up a
cigarette – he was
a chain smoker – and we talked about his role as the drug
addicted Bela Lugosi, in Ed Wood, for which he won his Oscar. I
then asked if he had anything in common with that doctor in the
Woody Allen movie.
“I don’t think so,” he said laughing. “At least I
know I’m not going to kill anyone tonight.”
Martin Landau, a genuinely good guy, will be missed. Of course
he was not the only celebrity we lost this year. As is the case,
every year the cycle of life continues but some years it just
seems, well, more noticeable. Perhaps that’s because I, too, am
a lot closer to the end than I am to the beginning.
Meanwhile, speaking of our old ghoul-friend Bela Lugosi,
director George Romero, 77, known for his horror films like
Night of the Living Dead, where he introduced the world to his
vision of flesh eating zombies, also died this year. So did the
multi-talented comedienne, dancer, and actress Mary Tyler
Moore, 80, who finally lost her lifelong battle
with diabetes.
Two Chucks passed this year as well:
Barris, 87, and Berry, 90. Barris, who
once claimed he worked for the CIA, is
best known as the creator of the original
Gong Show, which will never be confused
with America’s Got Talent. Berry, who had
talent, and
was certainly
an original, was one of the true
founders of Rock and Roll. So
Roll over Beethoven, the great
Chuck Berry is joining you in
heaven. And they will surely be
joined there by two talented men
who made their bones, pardon
the pun, in the horror/suspense
genre – Jonathan Demme, who
directed Silence of the Lambs;
and William Peter Blatty, 89, who wrote The Exorcist.
Sadly, comedians Jerry Lewis, 91, and Dick
Gregory, 84, died the same day.
Sir John Hurt, 77, who was in Alien, another ultra-scary film, and
had a part playing the demented professor in the last Indiana
Jones film, passed this year too, as did his near namesake,
actor John Heard, 72. William Christopher, 84, who gave
solace and comfort to Hawkeye and Col. Potter in M.A.S.H,
as Father Francis Mulcahy, also went to the big M.A.S.H. unit
in the sky. Meeting
his maker along with
him was actor Powers
Boothe, 68, who
was always great as
a villain we loved to
hate – think Curley Bill
in Tombstone. P
58
DECEMBER 2017