Remembering Buster Keaton, with Love and Gratitude
Squonk. Squonk. Squonk. The walk to school from my house was five blocks long, and my crepe-soled shoes squeaked more slowly with each passing street. Squonk. Squonk. Stop. Squonk. Stop again. Root around in my bookbag. Maybe I forgot something. Maybe I should go home.
When I was in the third grade, I developed a duodenal ulcer. Not a typical ailment for an 8-year-old, but then my home life wasn’t typical. And all the fear and misery literally ate away at me.
I would miss days, sometimes weeks of school at a time, from sheer pain or from being queasy and dizzy and off-balance, the side effects of my big orange pills. Returning to the classroom, I was always terrified of not being able to catch up, of being made fun of and even left back. I’d slink into my seat, unbundle my pencils and books, and rifle through my reader to find the page we were up to. And if things got really bad, I’d put my hand under the desk, clench my fist hard and hang on.
And that’s what got me through. Holding Buster Keaton’s hand.
I found my gallant friend and protector on late-night television. When I couldn’t sleep, which was often, I’d clamber into the living room, and my Dad would let me sit up and watch old movies with him, knowing I’d just be tossing and turning and worrying if I stayed in bed. (And ulcers hurt more when you lie down.)
The first time I saw Buster Keaton, he was running—still, all these years later, one of my favorite sights in the whole world. I’ve seen him run so many times since—from cops, from bullies, from boulders, from brides—that I don’t even remember what that first movie was. Just that he was beautiful and strong and free, and wherever he was going, I wanted him to take me with him.
When he finally stood still, I just gazed at his face. And well, I don’t have to tell you.
From my first glimpse of him, I’d wait for the TV Guide every week and pore through the listings. Sometimes he’d pop up on public television, sometimes on The CBS Late Show, sometimes on the Saturday morning movie on Channel 5. And always in the film books my Dad then bought for me, so I could see him whenever I needed to.
Up on the TV screen, Buster was usually in some kind trouble, but doing his best to hide it. And not in a maudlin “No, no, don’t worry about me, I’m <sniff> fine!” kind of way, but in an honest and noble way. Watching Buster hurtle down hills, gasp through rapids and narrowly dodge falling houses, you never really knew if everything was going to be okay, which felt real to me. I mean you kinda knew, because these were comedies, but nothing in his face or demeanor ever gave it away. And not because he was a “stoneface.” (Good God, who ever came up with that?) While his face was incredibly expressive, he never buddied up to the camera to wink at you that everything would be alright in the end.
But what you did know—what you always knew—was that he would never let you down.
Even if your family was crazy…
…Or you weren’t much practical help around the house…
…Or much help, well, kinda anywhere.
To be with Buster was to be safe.
And he would do whatever it took to keep you safe.
Even now, decades later, I get a little “Ooh!” when I see Buster listed on TV somewhere. I’ve got all the DVDs, but there’s something about seeing him show up out of the blue that still fills me with so much joy I need to sit down. And so I do, and I watch him again. I see his breathtaking leaps of faith off cliffs and rooftops, which made me soar above my own somewhat broken body. I see his resilience in the face of whatever was thrown at him, which helped me to hang on. And I see his heart, which mine so depended on. I’ll never not be thrilled to see him, and I’ll never stop being grateful to him.
Thank you for staying with me, Buster. Thank you for everything.
Myrna and Clark: A (Platonic) Love Story
Reprising for Clark’s birthday, and dreaming of him reading sonnets to Myrna…
“We became devoted to each other. We weren’t lovers, we eventually became more like siblings. Our relationship was unique. Oh, he sometimes gave me the macho routine when people were watching, but he changed when we were alone.
“We always used to celebrate together at the end of a picture. Clark insisted on it. Maybe we’d include the director, maybe not. It was just a kind of ritual that the two of us had. We would share a bottle of champagne while he read poetry to me, usually the sonnets of Shakespeare. He loved poetry, and read beautifully, with great sensitivity, but he wouldn’t dare let anyone else know it. He was afraid people would think him weak or effeminate and not the tough guy who liked to fish and hunt. I was the only one he trusted. He never wanted me to tell about this, and here I am…
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Lombard and Francis in IN NAME ONLY: Onscreen Rivals, Offscreen Sisters
Making Kay Francis bitter and brittle is like spooning meringue into a sardine can.
But that’s the role she was dealt in John Cromwell’s In Name Only—and it was only through the grace of Carole Lombard that she was cast in the film at all.
The two first met in 1931, sparring over William Powell in a little number called Ladies Man, which offered Lombard one of her first major roles (with her future husband) and gave Francis a chance to suffer beautifully. Again. The best thing to come out of the whole affair was an abiding friendship between the fledgling star and the reigning diva.
For a good bit of the decade, Francis was one of the highest-paid women in America, and second only to Shirley Temple as a fan-magazine cover girl. With her soulful gaze, smoky voice and body built for Deco, she ruled Warner’s lot for much of the 1930s—though many of her films seemed designed not to showcase her talents but to highlight the wildly glamorous gowns and lavish sets in which she eventually felt trapped.
The woman who had sparkled in Trouble in Paradise, smoldered in Jewel Robbery and shimmered in One Way Passage grew increasingly irritated by some of the near-comatose material she was supposed to resuscitate with her sheer star power. After a few years, Francis was openly feuding with the studio bosses—who, by way of punishment, cast her in even more tepid programmers.
Friends Bette Davis and James Cagney personally pleaded Francis’s case to Harry Warner, but his vindictiveness toward her had hardened into cruelty, as he seemed to relish humiliating the woman who had once been his biggest money-maker and star—even, reportedly, ordering screenwriters to pepper her scripts with extra “R” words, which she struggled to pronounce.
The low point came with The White Angel, a biopic of Florence Nightingale, which managed to pack every cliché of the genre—wooden dialogue, overblown music and thuddingly earnest direction—into a single misbegotten film, tossing in a hopelessly miscast leading lady for good measure. Warner’s happily heaped the blame for the highly publicized fiasco squarely on Francis’ starched-cotton shoulders.
In May 1938, after a series of flops, Francis appeared on the Independent Theatre Owners Association’s dreaded “Box Office Poison” list, along with such stars as Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich—and Katharine Hepburn.
Now here’s the kind of ironic twist that usually only pops up in old movies: RKO had originally tapped Hepburn to re-team with Cary Grant, her co-star in Holiday and Bringing Up Baby, for its latest melodrama, In Name Only, set to roll in early 1939. But her “poison” label spooked the studio, which instead offered the lead to the popular Lombard. This set the stage for the gracious star to go to bat for the now-freelancing Francis—who was on the same lethal list as Hepburn.
Since they’d worked together eight years earlier, Lombard’s stature had soared as much as her friend’s had plummeted—a quick glance at the lobby cards for the two films shows you how dramatically their fortunes had shifted—and she was known for using her clout wisely and generously. Lombard insisted that Francis be given the role of Grant’s scheming wife, who tries to sabotage his relationship with his new-found love. She also personally negotiated her own $150,000 salary, cementing her status as one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars.
Grant and Francis play Alec and Maida Walker, a wealthy Long Island couple bound by nothing but social status and obligation (think Topper‘s George and Marion Kirby—if they were utterly devoid of love and humor). But when Alec falls in love with Julie Eden (Lombard), a young widow who’s renting a nearby cottage, he realizes what he’s been missing and is no longer willing to sleepwalk through his marriage and his life. Maida, however, is determined to keep up their marital charade at all costs—including, as it turns out, Alec’s life.
It would be hard to overstate just how grim and unflattering a role this is—and it’s got a wardrobe to match. While Lombard was dressed by the legendary Irene in clothes so fresh and modern I could wear them to work tomorrow, Francis was saddled with some of the frumpiest get-ups this side of a horse blanket. It’s painful to see the Kay we love imprisoned in a vertically striped boiled wool suit, with big, boxy shoulder pads you could hide Jimmy Hoffa in. Upon meeting her, Julie’s daughter (Peggy Ann Garner) asks, “Was that Alec’s mother?” Good question! Later she flounces in wearing a skirt that seems to have sucked up every polka dot west of the Rockies, and a blouse that I swear was pieced together from the leftover drapes in Gone with the Wind. It’s as if every outfit is a billboard announcing that her leading-lady days are over. (She was all of 34.)
Francis prowls through the part of Maida with a velvety ruthlessness that makes you cringe even as you stand back in awe. “I didn’t know there were women like that…” a stunned Julie tells Alec, like someone who’s just discovered that every monster under the bed was real, and even worse than she’d imagined. Lombard, who was just hitting her stride in dramas, beautifully conveys the battle between her heart and her conscience, as she struggles to hold onto Alec without betraying everything else she believes in. Like so many of her other performances, this one calls to mind all that might have been had she not been wrenched away at 33.
“Miss Lombard plays her poignant role with all the fragile intensity and contained passion that have lifted her to dramatic eminence,” praised The New York Times‘ Bosley Crowther. “Kay Francis, on the other side of the fence this time, is a model cat, suave, superior and relentless. And a generally excellent cast contribute in making this one of the most adult and enjoyable pictures of the season.” Meanwhile, John Scott of The Los Angeles Times seemed to feel for Francis, who, “in a most unsympathetic role, gives a fine performance—it is a difficult job well done.”
In Name Only proved to be Francis’s last really good role. But not nearly the last of Lombard’s good deeds. “You can trust that little screwball with your life or your hopes or your weaknesses,” Clark Gable once marveled, “and she wouldn’t even know how to think about letting you down.”
TCM Festival Flashback: The Cast and Director of DELIVERANCE
Last year, I covered the TCM Festival for Sister Celluloid (click here for Sunday in New York, Mary Poppins and Margaret O’Brien, here for Eddie Muller’s fabulous interview with William Friedkin, here for Kim Novak’s thrilling and moving takedown of online bullies, here for Shirley Jones’ awesome introduction of Oklahoma! and here for Maureen O’Hara bringing the house down with How Green Was My Valley).
But in 2011 and 2013, I attended strictly as a fan. In the weeks leading up to this year’s TCM Festival on March 26-29, I’ll be sharing some of the events of those first two trips. Please forgive the less-than-stellar photography; I only had my little Brownie at the time!
April 26, 2013: The Director and Cast Introduce Deliverance at the Grauman’s Multiplex:
This screening—with Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and director John Boorman—was so much fun it was all I could do not to leap from my seat as they left the stage and say, “Wait up, guys! I don’t care where you’re going, just take me along!”
But even before they settled into their seats, there was a whole lotta guy-hugging going on. These boys are clearly still pretty crazy about each other, more than 40 years on. I choked up seeing Reynolds so very frail, walking haltingly with the aid of a cane. But once he started talking, the years fell away from him completely.
He vividly remembered the scene where his character, Lewis, goes over the falls, which was originally shot with a dummy because no stunt man was crazy enough to do it. And the resulting footage looked, well, like a dummy going over the falls. So Reynolds, a cocky ex-footballer who was in insanely good shape, volunteered to do the stunt himself. “Now I’ve got it all planned out in my head,” he recalled. “I’ll go over the side, hit this rock, and then go here and land there.”
But several tons of rushing water has a mind of its own: “So what happened was, I went over, got knocked the hell all over the place, and then got slammed down to the bottom of the falls. My clothes were torn off, I broke my tailbone and punctured my chest. I went over the falls a pretty fit young guy and hit bottom a nude 90-year-old man.”
Yikes! But at least they got great footage, right? Reynolds turned to Boorman, who’d been pretty quiet, and asked, mock-angrily, “Do you remember what you said when I asked you how it looked?” And the director, almost talking into his shirt, smiled and replied, “I said it looked like a dummy.” And along with the audience, Voight just lost it.
Inevitably, Beatty was asked about his, um, big scene. What did he think when he read the script? “Well, I’m an AC-TOR. I ACT. That’s what I do. So I simply looked at it as another acting challenge.” Do you believe that? Reynolds didn’t…
Even though he wasn’t the victim, Voight wasn’t so sanguine about that scene, or about the rawness of the film in general: “When I read the script, that part really struck me. There seemed to be so much violence, I was really hesitant. But my girlfriend read it and said, ‘Are you crazy? This is a great story!'” He said despite the rough conditions and a story that could be tough to take, Deliverance turned out to be one of the best shoots of his life.
Reynolds agreed. “I’ve made about 70 movies in my life,” he said. “But only one real film. And that’s this one. After they told me I’d been cast, I started walking along the street outside the studio literally yelling, ‘I got the part! I got the part!’ Like something out of an old movie!” If ever there was a crowd that could appreciate that, it was this one…
And the Winner Is…
The winner of Sister Celluloid Contest #2 is Kathy McC!
This time, the prize was 10 classic film cards from the company that made them best: Garbaty of Germany. All of these cards are from the 1934 “Modern Beauty” series; the stars are Annabella, Virginia Bruce, Madeleine Carroll, Lil Dagover, Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins, Emil Jannings, Gloria Swanson, Lupe Velez and Alice White.
And all that fabulousness will now be winging its way to Kathy. Congratulations, girl!
Keep an eye out for Sister Celluloid Contest #3, coming up soon. And a huge thank-you, as always, to everyone who stops by to read, share and comment! I’m so happy you’re here!
Seeing “Jungle Red” Over THE WOMEN
“The Women—And It’s All About Men!” shrieks the movie’s trailer. “Out of the boudoir, onto the screen skyrockets Clare Booth Luce’s sensational stage hit of 135 women with nothing on their minds but men! Dowagers and debutantes! Chorines and mannequins! See them with their hair down and their claws out!”
Or in my case, just lead me quietly into the backyard and shoot me.
Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mind the occasional female slugfest. (Paging Bette and Miriam!) Or characters dishing and even fighting over guys (hey, it happens). But The Women is so relentlessly one note, it seems less like a “women’s movie” than any film that ever got stuck with that awful, insipid label. True, there’s not a single man in the cast (including Terry the terrier, who went on to play Toto). But everything these women think, say and do revolves around getting, keeping, deceiving or retrieving one—usually at another woman’s expense.
Of course the movie’s supposed to be broad (excuse the expression) and over the top—much, I suppose, the way cyanide is supposed to taste like almonds. But oh, the relentless hamminess! It’s like being beaten about the face with actual hams. And Rosalind Russell (Sylvia Fowler) reportedly felt that director George Cukor reined her in too much? Good God, did she want to come crashing, physically, through the screen, and land in the laps of moviegoers? It’s not easy to out-act Marjorie Main, but damned if she doesn’t try. I kept longing for her to suddenly morph into Hildy from His Girl Friday, effortlessly swatting comic lines over the fence…
I did that kind of thing a lot during this film. I guess I like the women in The Women too much to like The Women. Especially Norma Shearer, my Pre-Code patron saint, who’s completely neutered here. Even her fabulously wild hair has been beaten, pinned and sprayed into submission.
After suffering nobly for most of the film, her upper lip firm but ever so slightly quivering, Shearer (Mary Haines) finally “wins” back her ex-husband Stephen—who cheated on her so blatantly that news of his affair was Topic A at the local salon—and literally welcomes him with open arms. Shearer handled this much better a few years earlier, in The Divorcee: When Chester Morris strayed, she returned the favor by having a fling with his gorgeous friend, Robert Montgomery (which I believe is the literal definition of “sweet revenge”). Then she told her horrified husband where he could stick his double standard: “Look for me in the future where the primroses grow and pack your man’s pride with the rest! From now on, you’re the only man in the world that my door is closed to!”
Now clearly in 1939, that sort of thing was not gonna fly with Will Hays and company. But The Women swings so far in the other direction that it gave me whiplash. It’s like they crammed every oppressive thing about the production code into a single spool of film.
For instance: Wife + Backbone = Bad! Even Lucile Watson—who is usually, to steal a line from Shaw, a consort battleship (or battleaxe!)—advises her daughter Mary to do as she did and meekly look the other way when her husband runs around on her. Later, Paulette Goddard (Miriam) patiently explains to Mary that it’s her fault—what with her damn pride and all—that Stephen was pretty much forced to marry his mistress.
In fact, the movie might as well be called The Women’s Fault. Because it always is. Later on, after a visit with her father, Little Mary (Virginia Weidler) tells her mother how miserable he is because of Crystal, who, shockingly, isn’t exactly the domestic type. Poor Stephen! Can this benighted soul never get a break? His first wife was all uppity and proud and everything, and now his second wife is doing to him exactly what he did to his first wife! Da noiv! (Mercifully, Weidler soon escaped to The Philadelphia Story, where she mixed with much sharper, wittier characters—women, even!—who had actual depth and dimension and never apologized for it.)
Meanwhile, poor Joan Fontaine, as Peggy, had to park her spine in cold storage for the entire shoot: She’s set on one speed—Simper—pretty much from start to finish (“Ohhh, Johhhnnyyy!”), which means she dutifully earns a happy ending. I have visions of this whip-smart woman leafing through the script and saying “Really?!? I have to play the doe-eyed naif again?!?” But that was the one character trait she was assigned, not to be confused with The Noble Wife (Shearer), The Gold-Digging Hussy (Joan Crawford), The Nasty Gossip (Russell), The Tough Cookie with the Heart of Gold (Goddard), The Wise Matron (Watson), The Ditzy Dowager (Mary Boland) or The Country Hick (Main, who—just in case we didn’t get the point that she’s, you know, rustic—belts out so many off-key verses of On Top of Old Smoky you want to hurl yourself off the nearest cliff).
And we don’t even have to wait until the movie actually starts to get clobbered over the head with the one-note stereotypes: during the opening credits, each character is represented by an appropriate animal (Shearer’s a deer, Fontaine’s a lamb, Russell’s a cat, and on and on). That most of these fabulous actresses did as much with their roles as they did is a great credit to them and to Cukor, rather than to the shallow material they had to work with.
Even if I squint (and maybe drink) really hard and try to view The Women as satire, it doesn’t work, because good satire’s not written with a sledgehammer. And for Clare Booth Luce—who was no fan of her own gender and was once overheard at a state dinner proclaiming that all women wanted were “babies and security”—this was definitely no spoof. This was who she was—one of those women who go about the country preaching to other women about the virtues of homemaking, while their own families couldn’t pick them out of a line-up. And Anita Loos, who helped adapt the stage version for the screen, could certainly be cutting and clever, but wasn’t exactly renowned for complexity either. Ironically, the only one who tried to turn these cardboard cutouts into flesh and blood was a man. In May 1938, MGM assigned F. Scott Fitzgerald to work on the film, but he was fired in October because, according to his biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, his dialogue was “insufficiently bitchy.”
The final screenplay suffered no such deficiency.
This post is part of the Contrary to Popular Opinion Blogathon, hosted by Movies Silently and me, where we set the consensus on its head by defending a maligned film, performer or director or toppling a beloved one! To see all the entries, click here!
Carole Lombard: A Birthday Tribute
Revisiting a Carole Lombard Birthday Tribute on the anniversary of the plane crash that took her life.
Remembering Carole Lombard on her birthday, through the eyes of some of the many who loved her:
“You can trust that little screwball with your life or your hopes and your weaknesses, and she wouldn’t even know how to think about letting you down. She’s more fun than anybody, but she’ll take a poke at you if you have it coming and make you like it. If that adds up to love, then I love her.” — Clark Gable
“There were many things about Carole that were oh-boy-out-of-this-world wonderful. She was class. She was a good actress, and she always looked great. More important, she had a lot of heart…. When I’m weighing a particularly difficult decision, sometimes I ask myself what Carole would have said, and it helps.” — Lucille Ball
“She was so alive, modern, frank, and natural that she stands out like a beacon on a lightship in…
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The “Contrary to Popular Opinion” Blogathon Is Here!
Back in early December, the fabulous Fritzi Kramer of Movies Silently and I threw out this invitation to our friends in Classic Film Land:
“If you love a movie, performer or director that most fans and critics dismiss, or if you’ve had it up to here listening to praise for someone or something you simply can’t stand, then come sit here by us! The ‘Contrary to Popular Opinion’ Blogathon is about expressing opinions that are liable to get your Classic Movie Fan card revoked. We just figure if we do it together, they can’t kick all of us out…”
And now, the moment your heretical heart has been waiting for is here—the blogathonus is upon us! More than 20 bloggers have stepped forward to defend underrated films, performers or directors, or topple sacred ones from their pedestals. We’re bucking popular sentiment—and maybe ducking an over-ripe tomato or two from the crowd…
Whether you’re a writer or a reader, thank you so much for taking the time to join us, and for helping make my first blogathon such a success! And a huge thank you to my co-host, Fritzi of Movies Silently, for creating the fabulous banners, helping me with my maiden voyage, and being there every step of the way while already juggling so many other things.
Let us know what you think! But please leave your pitchforks and torches in the garage…
Here’s the roster, with hotlinks to the posts:
Sister Celluloid: The Women (anti)
Movies Silently: The Godless Girl (pro)
Critical Retro: Marilyn Monroe (anti)
Hitchcock’s World: Desk Set (anti)
Now Voyaging: Dr. Zhivago (anti)
Cary Grant Won’t Eat You: Some Like It Hot (anti)
Movie Movie Blog Blog: Monsieur Verdoux (anti)
Silver Screenings: The Postman Always Rings Twice (anti)
Writer’s Rest: Arsenic and Old Lace (pro)
Classic Reel Girl: The Band Wagon (anti)
Speakeasy: Kiss Me Deadly (anti)
Caftan Woman: Christmas in Connecticut (anti)
MovieFanFare: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1941 (pro)
CJC Leach: Gone With the Wind (anti)
Second Sight Cinema: Stella Dallas (anti)
Moon in Gemini: Jezebel (anti)
Girls Do Film: Federico Fellini (anti)
Silent-ology: Pandora’s Box (anti)
The Movie Rat: Song of the South (pro)
BNoirDetour: Double Indemnity (anti)
Vienna’s Classic Hollywood: The Train Robbers (pro)
Margaret Perry: Doris Day (anti)
Pettibloggery: The Night They Raided Minsky’s (pro)
Mildred’s Fatburgers Best Foot Forward (pro)
Island of Lost Films Birth of a Nation (anti)
A Sad Coincidence in an Awful Week
I wanted to take a minute to share with you something you may not have known. Back in 1962, Anita Ekberg and Rod Taylor were briefly engaged.
And today she left us, just three days after he did—and on what would have been his 85th birthday.
Here’s a little article from Florida’s Ocala Star-Banner, back on May 10, 1962. It’s a cute little story, and the first (and probably only) time you’ll ever hear Ekberg described as “a good healthy Swedish peasant type”!
Godspeed to you both.
For Rod Taylor, with Love
Beyond heartbroken.
You should never find out that someone you love is gone by scrolling through your Twitter feed. That’s how I found out that Rod Taylor had died today.
I’ve been in love with him since I was a girl. He was the approachable terrific, gorgeous guy. The one you’d have a dizzyingly wonderful time with and be safe with. The one who’d protect you from monsters (The Birds) or your own worst impulses (Sunday in New York) or even himself, if necessary (36 Hours).
And he didn’t even know how fabulous he was. “I was one of the first of the uglies,” he said, recalling his early years in Hollywood. “Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter were very pretty fellows, and that was the trend. I was one of the first of the uglies to get lucky.”
Last spring, after I shamelessly lobbied them for four years running, TCM showed Sunday in New York at its annual Classic Film Festival. (Pity my poor husband, when he discovered, to his horror, not that I was in love with Rod Taylor—which he already knew—but that I had now realized that relentless nagging can work.)
I was first on line the Sunday morning they screened the film, with my friends Kay and Kathy helping to hold me up. (The woman from TCM even gave me the title card they made for the lobby—the way you might give a cold compress to a swooning Victorian relation.) I had hoped Rod would be there to introduce it, but he was in Australia. The small consolation, I guess, was that his absence meant I’d actually be conscious for the movie rather than crumpled in a faint on the floor. I’m usually quiet as a churchmouse during films, but I actually got shushed for sighing during this one. (You can read all about that screening, and other highlights of the Festival, here.)
Rod Taylor’s roles ran the spectrum from romantic to action to sci-fi to adventure to animation (Pongo in 101 Dalmations!) but for me, Mike in Sunday in New York seemed the most like who I imagined he really was. Because basically, Mike was the perfect man. He was kind, funny, strong, patient, and—here’s a throwback word—honorable. He genuinely honored Eileen (Jane Fonda), and you knew—just as sure as you knew they’d end up together—that she’d always be safe with him, but it would never be dull. He was the one who’d always come through, who’d never let you down. It was all right there in his face, in his eyes.
Even the best actor in the world can’t fake that.
After last year’s Festival, Kay sent me this screencap, to commemorate the moment I sighed the loudest.
And just today, she and I were emailing back and forth about that movie, and about him. I don’t have to tell any classic movie fan that after an actor you love is gone, you can still enjoy their movies, but it’s never the same as when you knew they were still out there somewhere.
“I am a poor student sitting at the feet of giants,” Rod Taylor once said, “yearning for their wisdom and begging for lessons that might one day make me a complete artist, so that if all goes well, I may one day sit beside them.” He earned his place among the giants, and he is sitting beside them now. But oh, how I wish with all my heart he were still here.
Sister Celluloid 
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