Enotes

" I try to keep my sadness hid Smiling in the public eye But in my lonely room cry the tears of a clown." I don't generally like to start blog posts or columns with quotes or song lyrics. I have often looked at that sort of thing as a cheap, hackneyed stunt. But the first thing I thought of upon hearing the news of Robin Williams' death by suicide was the iconic song by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "Tears of a Clown." So I thought it would be appropriate to lead this post with a portion of Smokey's lyrics, because how can you read them and not think of Williams and the many comedians before him who made their living making us laugh while at the same time battling inner demons? Williams, 63, apparently hanged himself at his California home, sometime between 10:30 p.m. Sunday night and 10:30 a.m. Monday morning. His manager said Williams was battling "severe depression" lately. It is fascinating to me, how many...

James Garner was once asked if he'd ever do a nude scene on camera. "I don't do horror movies," he said. Rim shot. Garner, who died on Saturday at age 86, was a Hollywood leading man but a humble Oklahoman at heart. "I got into the business to put a roof over my head," he once said. "I wasn't looking for star status. I just wanted to keep working." And work he did, especially in the 1960s, when Garner was often teamed with the biggest female names in movies, such as Doris Day (Rock Hudson is more famously connected with Day, but Garner did his fair share with her as well), Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and Kim Novak. The film boom for Garner was set up by his work in TV's Maverick, in which he starred from 1957-60, playing old Western card shark and ladies man Bret Maverick. The show went toe-to-toe on Sunday nights with The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show, more than holding its own. If you were a casting director...

The corner video store has turned into the city video store. Time was that you couldn't walk much more than 500 feet in any direction without running smack into a joint that rented VHS tapes. Then, you couldn't walk much more than 2,000 feet without running into a place that rented DVDs. Now, you can drive for most of a Sunday afternoon without seeing more than a couple video stores. They close all the time these days, but locally there is a closing that might tug on some heart strings. I used to go out of my way to venture into Thomas Video. So did everyone else, because there was only one Thomas Video---literally and figuratively. Thomas Video, the favorite of the intense B-movie fan, is closing up shop. To many, this is like the news of a loved one with a terminal disease passing away. You knew it was coming. Thomas Video has been located in Royal Oak since 2009, but I remember visiting when it was on Main Street, south of 14 Mile Road, in Clawson. Like I said,...

The distinctly debonair, razor-thin, legendary British actor was in the middle of his scripted bit of monologue when suddenly the crowd was in an uproar. It was 1974, in the middle of an American craze that inexplicably had caught on ever-so-briefly, as so many other American crazes seem to do----inexplicably. This particular craze was called "streaking," or running naked through a very public place. The nation's ballparks and football stadiums, to name just a couple venues, were being overrun by those sans clothing, making their mad dashes. And now the Academy Awards show was being interrupted by a streaker. He was male, even if just barely. David Niven, startled by the sudden burst of hoots and howls from the audience, turned and looked to see what the commotion was all about. A streaker was moving behind him, across the stage, flashing the "peace" sign with his fingers. Straying off script, Niven commented with spot-on---as they say in his country--...

There's a certain delicate symmetry when a person's birth city and death city are the same. Harold Ramis has such a line on his biography. Born: November 21, 1944; Chicago, IL. Died: February 24, 2014; Chicago, IL. Ramis, the comedic actor/director who passed away Monday from a rare and painful vascular disease, was as Chicago as wind, deep dish pizza and crooked elections. If you cracked him open you'd have found a Cubs cap and a megaphone. Ramis was always smirking. He had that twinkle in his eye, as if he knew something you didn't. When it came to movie making and laugh making, he did. Ramis was one of the leaders of a band of merry men and women who yukked it up at the original Second City improvisational theater group in Chicago, starting in the late-1960s. He was hardly alone when it came to finding fame later, but his imprint on American filmmaking puts him near the head of the class. Ramis's first role on the big screen saw him smirking all the...

In today's world, an entertainer who peaks at the age of 10 has a good chance of being on the police blotter before he or she is able to legally vote. Shirley Temple spent her childhood under hot lights, in front of cameras and in the hearts of American movie goers across the country. Yet she didn't spend her adult life in debt, on drugs or behind bars. Shirley Temple was everyone's sweetheart. She had the entire country in the palm of her tiny hand. Her hair was more curly than a corkscrew. She had dimples as deep as the Grand Canyon, a smile as bright as all the lights on Broadway put together.  They named a drink after her---non-alcoholic, of course. She was intoxicating all by herself. It's almost unfathomable to imagine a girl of Shirley Temple's prepubescent age today, captivating America and being able to stay on the straight and narrow once the audiences stopped paying attention.  Few child stars, if any, exited show business as gracefull...

Heroin chased Philip Seymour Hoffman down for over 20 years. The tireless drug finally caught him. Drug addiction, like alcoholism, cancer and other terminal diseases, is patient. It'll wait you out. If you think your body is in the Addict Protection Program, you're sorely mistaken. Once you've shown yourself to partake in its vice, you're on the list. Can you beat it? Can you stay ahead of it? Sure---but addiction's won/loss record is stellar. Heroin beat Hoffman, the actor/director who was found dead in his Manhattan apartment Sunday at the age of 46, reportedly with a syringe still stuck in his arm. The news of the death of an artist before his or her time comes in stages. First is, of course, shock. I came home from one of my daily walks with our pooch yesterday when our daughter broke the news. "Philip Seymour Hoffman died," she said plainly. I reacted the way I'm sure millions did. "WHAT?" was all I said. That'...

Rob Lowe is too good looking, that's it. If you looked up Hollywood Handsome in the dictionary, there Lowe's photo would be. The rock jaw, the steel blue eyes, the wavy dark hair. He was born to be on the screen. He came out of the womb looking for his mark. His first words were likely, "Feed me on my good side." Lowe is too good looking---that's all I can think of. Because he never gets credit for being one of America's great actors. There's a mystique formulated by moviegoers and critics that says if you're pretty enough to launch ships or handsome enough to stop traffic, then you're not acting up there, you're mesmerizing the audience. That must be why Lowe, 49, is treated like just another pretty face. He hasn't won anything yet, which is a crime. Lowe has been nominated a few times for awards---most notably for his work on The West Wing. But he's come away empty every time. There must have been someone less attractive goi...

Dennis Farina was one of the few in Hollywood history who could say, "I AM a cop...AND I play one on TV." And in the movies. Farina's name may not have been on the tip of everyone's tongue when they saw him on their screen---small or silver---but his face sure was. He was among the elite in the "I know that face but can't place the name" category of screen actors. Farina, the ex-cop turned actor who often played a cop, is gone. He passed away Monday at the age of 69 due to a pulmonary embolism. Farina was Chicago through and through. He was born there and for a time did Old Style beer commercials, which was another Chicago favorite. "It's our great beer and they can't have it," was Farina's tag line. But of course Farina was much more than a pitch man. He left the police business in his late-30s to give acting a shot, after he functioned as a consultant on the Michael Mann film Thief , which came out in 1981. Mann gave Far...

Adam Sandler just can't shake his infatuation with kids, being a kid, and remembering what it was like being a kid---along with adults acting like, well, kids. Sandler is currently starring in "Grown Ups 2" and this is not a review of that film. Not that I could give you a review of "Grown Ups," either, because like the sequel, I didn't see that flick. This isn't about whether "Grown Ups 2" is a good movie or not; cinematic beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. Rather, this is about Sandler, and why I just can't shake the feeling that there could be so much more from him. Not in terms of quantity, but in quality. I look at Sandler and I see an actor who has never really spread his wings. He hasn't tackled material outside of his comfort zone. There are flashes of a warmer, more introspective side in each of his films, and there's a hint that he could take on heavier, more layered characters. Yet he doesn't. ...

Robert Downey Jr.'s birth certificate reads that he was given life on April 4, 1965. That should come with an asterisk. They say a cat has nine lives. But no feline has anything on RDJ, as he is known in this Internet world of abbreviations and acronyms. Downey may be working on damn near that ninth life by now, but the good news is that he doesn't seem to be in need of any more leases. Downey is on top of the world now, riding the crest of a wave portraying multi-billionaire Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. The third Iron Man movie was released this spring, to rave reviews. In between all the Iron Man movies was 2012's  The Avengers, which was a meeting of the minds, brawn and good looks of Marvel Superheros Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Captain America, the Black Widow and Hawkeye. Downey wowed them in The Avengers , too. But what's fascinating about Downey isn't how he combines dashing good looks, borderline cockiness and a little boy's vulnerability in his To...

First, if Benedict Cumberbatch existed in a different era, we wouldn't know him as Benedict Cumberbatch. He'd be Peter Lawford, or Gary Cooper, or Cary Grant. Any Hollywood producer or press agent worth his salt would never let Cumberbatch, yet another British invader who is captivating female Americans, keep his given name. At the very least, the movie folks would have Cumberbatch use his two middle names---Timothy Carlton---as they Frankensteined another star. Timothy Carlton---now THAT'S a movie star's name, right? But this is a different time. Actors don't use stage names so much anymore. Even if you're Benedict Cumberbatch, which actually sounds like a villain from a Dickens Christmas novel. No matter what you call him---and his overwhelmingly female fans (notably my wife and daughter) have a boatload of cutesy nicknames for him---Cumberbatch will likely be known as something else before long: one of the world's greatest actors. I've giv...

Roger Ebert once said, "No good movie is too long." But what about a good life? Ebert's was cut short, and it would definitely rank a "thumbs up." Ebert, who was just a movie reviewer the same way Edison was just the guy who invented the light bulb, is gone, another whose battle with cancer was fought bravely but ultimately lost. Cancer never was much for sentiment. Ebert was 70 when he slipped away this week, and if you think that was a full life, you're wrong. Not that Ebert didn't live it to the fullest. Before Roger Ebert, movie reviews were relegated to a couple newspaper columns. Sometimes they'd find their way into a magazine. The movie reviewer was to the stage reviewer the same way the Toledo Mud Hens are to the Detroit Tigers. Then Ebert started gabbing into a camera, bouncing in his chair as he either railed at or damned a film with praise, and the movie review was never the same. It was unheard of, really, to watch a movie r...

The good news about Seth MacFarlane as the host of the Oscars telecast is that the producers can save a ton of money. MacFarlane, he of many voices and characters, isn't just one man. He's his own talent pool. He's an R-rated Mel Blanc. It was announced Monday that MacFarlane, creator of the popular animated TV series "Family Guy," and the source for many of the show's voices, will host the 2013 Oscars telecast. Who needs Steve Martin or Billy Crystal? They're one trick ponies (or, one pony each, anyway), while MacFarlane will never run out of voices and characters, not even during Oscar's sometimes interminable telecasts. MacFarlane doesn't just do voices. He does TV shows---as in he produces them. Besides "Family Guy," MacFarlane has his fingers in the pies of "American Dad!" and "The Cleveland Show" (all animated). The hiring of MacFarlane signals an attempt by Oscars producers to go after a younger, more...

The Greatest Actor Alive Today has played an effeminate pirate; John Dillinger; an undercover Fed trying to bust the mob; a young man with scissors for fingers; the Mad Hatter; and that's just for starters. What he hasn't done, despite all that range and the sometimes cartoon-like qualities of the characters he's portrayed, is sparked a whole lot of controversy. Johnny Depp, The Greatest Actor Alive Today, will be appearing as Tonto in a new Disney movie about the Lone Ranger. It's a Jerry Bruckheimer project. And while that has many Deppophiles licking their chops, it has one group a little on edge. Those would be the Native Americans, a segment of whom have been a little queasy ever since Bruckheimer Tweeted a photo of Depp in his Tonto garb, complete with face paint, feathers, the whole shot. "The moment it hit my Facebook newsfeed, the updates from my friends went nutso," wrote Natanya Ann Pulley, a doctorate student at University of Utah, in an es...

(in honor of the passing of actor Ernest Borgnine the other day at age 95, here is a piece I wrote about him on October 14, 2010) The Importance of Being Ernest The eyebrows have long ago gone gray but are still as bushy as the Serengeti. The nose is bulbous, the smile as gap-toothed as ever. The voice still sounds like it's coming out of a cement mixer. Ernie Borgnine was never an attractive man, unless you're one of those who like creatures that are so ugly that they're cute, like a koala bear. Yet here Borgnine is, 93 and still we see his mug on the big screen. Borgnine is one of those actors who was always old. "McHale's Navy" debuted almost 50 years ago and Ernie looked old then. It's been 55 years since Borgnine made his mark in the film "Marty," in which he played the title character, a warm-hearted butcher who was also a shameless mama's boy. The film was an adaptation of the great teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky and earned...

The trick to Nora Ephron's work was that it was written from a woman's perspective but it didn't make fools of the men. Ephron, the screenwriter/director/producer who passed away on Tuesday (age 71) after a bout with leukemia, wrote some of the best romantic comedies of her generation. She wrote them as a woman, for women, but the male characters were some of the best on screen as well. An Ephron film, at its best, drew gobs of men to the theater, and not just as polite dates. But for all of Ephron's notoriety as a master of the rom-com, it was a decidedly different type of story that opened up doors for her. That would be Silkwood (1983), the adaptation of the true story of Karen Silkwood, the whistle-blowing worker for a plutonium plant who died in a mysterious car accident. Ephron wrote the screenplay and turned the directing over to no less than Mike Nichols. A writer could do worse. After the success of Silkwood , things got less serious and more funny in...

This isn't the first time that I'm about to show my age or come off as a curmudgeon, nor will it be the last. So it should come as no surprise that when I tell you my first thoughts when I hear "The Avengers" are not about comic book super heroes. In fact, I can't wrap my mind around associating "The Avengers" with anything other than a derby-wearing Brit and his slinky female, crime fighting partner. They made another movie called "The Avengers" back in 1998, starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, but that is also not what I think of when I see or hear the A-word. I'm about to tell you a story that isn't about box office records or men who turn green when angry or a red, white and blue-clad man who carries a shield. It's not based on comic books and it has no traces of Robert Downey, Jr. This is the story of that British-produced TV series of the 1960s starring Patrick MacNee and a trio of lovelies: Honor Blackman, Di...

As much as I would have liked to have seen Eddie Murphy do a turn , there's something wonderfully comfortable about having Billy Crystal to fall back on. I'm referring to the Academy Awards, which take place this Sunday. Crystal, the actor/comedian/director, will host, as he's done so many times before. But Billy wasn't the first choice this time. The Academy wanted to go with Murphy as a first-time host, but not long after inking him, the show's producer, Brett Ratner---a chum of Eddie's who was instrumental in getting him the Oscar gig--- quit, and a day after that, so did Murphy . I was totally on board with the notion of Murphy escorting us through the sometimes interminable broadcast, but like I said---Crystal isn't a bad second choice. Oh, how many funny moments Crystal has given us as Oscar host---some of them occurring in the show's opening montage. Crystal, with the best co-star he's ever had not named Jack Palance But one that sticks out is...

OK, it's getting ridiculous now, the range of actress Glenn Close. Is there any character that she can't, or won't, play? Not satisfied with playing a wide range of women, Close is now branching out to the other gender---sort of. Close is now dazzling us in "Albert Nobbs," where she plays the title character: an attendant in a well-appointed 19th-Century Dublin hotel. The work has earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. But there's more to it. Nobbs is a woman disguised as a man. Yes, "Victor/Victoria" comes to mind, though "Nobbs" is no comedic farce. The idea of one gender pretending to be another for some sort of personal gain isn't new, of course. Flat out comedies like "Some Like it Hot" to reflective films like "Yentl" have used the device. But "Nobbs" is different. It's based on a short story by an Irish novelist, and according to a story in today's Free Press has been a passion of ...