Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Summer ’09: A Hollywood Requiem
Every year in Hollywood when the long, hot days of summer set in, some story comes along to shake up the media, and reporters seem to bite into it like a dog with a bone. Absent anything else going on in town, that story is becomes the tale of Hollywood’s summer.
So far, early in this summer of 2009, the story has been celebrity deaths. When Karl Malden died yesterday, he was added to a growing list of celebrities who either died after long illnesses or suddenly, topped off by the King of Pop himself Michael Jackson.
When Jackson died last week, fans across the world went into shock and are still waiting news of an official funeral or public memorial.
Also catching fans by surprise was the strange demise of “Kung Fu” actor David Carradine, who was found in the closet of his Bangkok hotel on June 4. A pathologist who oversaw a private autopsy told
Reuters the cause of death was asphyxiation, but so far an official cause has not been released by Thai police.
However, most of the stars who have passed on to that major studio in the sky were in poor health or had a serious illness.
Michael Jackson overshadows Farrah Fawcett on a sad day
Farrah Fawcett had about four hours of headlines to herself on Thursday before Michael Jackson kicked her off the metaphorical front page. And both overshadowed Ed McMahon, who died on Tuesday.
They say celebrity deaths come in threes, but rarely do they come in such close proximity. The cancer-related deaths of former “Tonight Show” sidekick McMahon and former “Charlie’s Angel” Fawcett came as little shock, but Jackson’s was perhaps the most stunning celebrity exit since his friend Princess Diana died in a car crash in 1997.
Speaking of the so-called “People’s princess,” whose death basically paralyzed Britain and large parts of the world for weeks, she stole some of the thunder of Mother Teresa, who died five days later. And forget about conductor Georg Solti, who had the misfortune to die on the same day as the saint-in-waiting.
Jackson was pronounced dead at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The former president died on June 5, 2004, and the lengthy mourning period enveloped the death of Ray Charles five days later.
Speaking of presidents, John F. Kennedy was assassinated on the same day in 1963 that “Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley and “Chronicles of Narnia” author C.S. Lewis died.
A would-be president, Barry Goldwater, died of a stroke in 1998. But people may have been focused on the murder of former “Saturday Night Live” comic Phil Hartman at the hands of his wife the day before.
In 2003, Hollywood old-timers Katharine Hepburn and Buddy Hackett died on the same day. But sometimes, it’s a toss-up who overshadows whom. British rocker Marc Bolan of T. Rex was killed in a 1977 car crash on the same day that opera diva Maria Callas died of a heart attack.
Why doesn’t anyone get the date of Mother Teresa’s passing right? She did not die 5 days after Princess Diana. Diana was killed on August 31, and Mother Teresa died on September 1st – a day apart. Like Michael Jackson did over Farrah, Mother Teresa’s death was overshadowed by the death of Princess Diana. Mother Teresa, however, would have wanted it no different. She wasn’t about any type of fanfare
Ed McMahon and the lost art of the TV sidekick
Former “Tonight Show” fixture Ed McMahon died on Tuesday, and with his passing at age 86 he takes with him the legacy of being known as television’s top sidekick, (click on “sidekick” for a video) a reputation he formed during more than 30 years of setting up “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson’s comic punchlines.
Few TV personalities these days stand out, or rather stand back, and show an ability to take on the role of a sidekick the way McMahon did on “The Tonight Show” from 1962 to 1992. Late-night host David Letterman on CBS jokes around with band leader Paul Shaffer, but it’s clear that Shaffer’s gifts are more musical than comedic. Jimmy Fallon on NBC started his show in February without a sidekick, and talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart also do without a comedy cohort next to them.
As the New York Times said in a March article, “So many talk show hosts work solo that the second-banana position seems almost as obsolete as the foretopman or the Linotype operator.”
The Los Angeles Times also took note of the apparent end of the sidekick era, in an article about McMahon that ran on its website on Tuesday and called him “the king of sidekicks.”
“We live in a nation of aspiring quarterbacks, pitchers, lead singers and presidents, where we are told to dream big and have it all. (The vice presidency of the United States is regarded as a rarefied form of failure),” the L.A. Times article said.
But in praising McMahon, the article said that “where there was Johnny, there was always Ed, the witness, the audience, one of us.”
And comedian David Brenner, 73, a frequent guest and substitute host on “The Tonight Show” during the late Carson’s reign, said that McMahon was the “best sidekick” TV has ever known.
RIP Ed McMahon. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon is timeless Americana. Let us also not forget that Ed McMahon was the host of the Star Search game show, which was really the original American Idol if you think about it.
I loved the streets of San Francisco, the old troopers are leaving for Hollywood in Heaven.