A Passing Thought, If You Will
Holy smokes, it’s been a bad week for celebrities.
Everyone I’ve talked to felt sorry for Farrah Fawcett being upstaged in death by you-know-who. As jealous as we were of her perfect teeth, perfect hair and that red bathingsuit back in the 80’s, the woman proved herself as a formidable actress and not a bad individual at all. But the people I felt the biggest tug for when I heard of their passing were the old codgers: Ed McMahon and most recently, Karl Malden.
Ed was the perfect sidekick: He could tell a good joke, had a booming voice that got your attention, and thoroughly enjoyed playing second banana to Johnny Carson (still the best host of the Tonight Show, in my opinion). When he went, I felt genuinely nostalgic and even found myself missing Johnny all over again.
Then there was Karl Malden, who left this life yesterday at the age of 96. Terrific actor, he was, and probably one of the hardest working of his time. My generation will remember him as Michael Douglas’ partner on The Streets of San Francisco as a jaded detective who loved nothing more than to share his wisdom with his younger “buddy-boy”. But he arrived in Hollywood long before that, enjoying a career that stretched from the movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire to Hallmark Hall of Fame Christmas specials. His characters were always a bit rough-and-tumble, but full of wit and wisdom, and I can’t help thinking that Malden himself was probably the same.
Never mind the King of Pop: It’s the ones that flew a little further under the radar that I’m really going to miss.
