To Absent Friends - Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland

1935-2024

Actor Donald Sutherland died earlier this week, a few weeks short of his 89th birthday.  At that age, one can say that Sutherland had a long and terrific run as an actor.  He has been around for so long and has such a wonderful body of work, that you just assume that he would always be around, popping up in this movie or that streaming mini-series and giving his usual great performance.

The first of his one hundred ninety-nine (199!!!) acting credits in IMDB came in 1962 when he played "Switchboard Operator" in an episode of something called Studio 4.  There followed dozens of appearances on television and small movies, many in his native Canada, before his big break in Hollywood came in "The Dirty Dozen" in 1967.  From then on, his career took off and he never really went away from our movie theater and television screens.

Here is just a partial list of some of the great films in which Donald Sutherland appeared, oft times in a leading role, sometimes in a supporting character role.

The Dirty Dozen 1967

M*A*S*H 1970

Klute 1971

Don't Look Now 1973

The Eagle Has Landed 1976

Animal House 1978

The Great Train Robbery 1978

Ordinary People 1980

The Eye of the Needle 1981

JFK 1991

Pride & Predjudice 2005

The Undoing 2020

And these are just movies that I have seen and liked.  Others could probably make equally long lists of Sutherland's credits and not include any of the above.

I can remember watching "The Undoing" back in 2020.  It was a six part mini-series that starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.  It was a thriller/murder mystery and was quite good.  We wanted to watch it because of Kidman and Grant.  Donald Sutherland had a sporting role.  He might have played Kidman's father, but I can't actually remember at this point four years down the road.  What did strike me at the time was that this was the first time I had seen Sutherland in anything for quite a while, and he held your attention from the get go as soon as he appeared on screen. He was easily the best part of show, and I was amazed when I looked it up and saw that the was 85 years old at the time.  

And since I have not been a watcher of "The Hunger Games" I was unaware that he created an entire new fan base for himself by playing The President on all of these films that were made from 2012 through 2015.  Like I said, he has never gone away.  His last IMDB acting credit was eight episodes in the series "Lawman Bass Reeves" in 2023.  Incredibly, he was never nominated for an Oscar, but the Motion Academy righted that particular wrong by awarding him an honorary Oscar in 2018 in recognition of his extraordinary body of work.

In addition to his legacy on film, Donald Sutherland leaves behind and acting legacy in his son, Kiefer Sutherland, who is in the process of fashioning a pretty good body of work himself.

RIP Donald Sutherland

Just a few scenes from a memorable career....

"M*A*S*H"

The original Hawkeye Pierce

"Klute"

with Jane Fonda

"Animal House"

The put-upon college professor

"Ordinary People"

with Timothy Hutton

"The Undoing"

with Nicole Kidman

Donald and Kiefer Sutherland

Father and Son

POST SCRIPT:

Over the course of the last 27 days, beginning on May 27, I have posted four Absent Friends posts about four people of whom it can be said they were true  giants in their fields, Bill Walton, Jerry West, Willie Mays, and now Donald Sutherland.  It is almost overwhelming, and one could say that it is depressing.  I prefer to look at it in the same way that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it in his recent tribute to Willie Mays:

"I’m at a point in my life where I want to spend less time mourning the deaths of my friends and heroes and more time celebrating their lives."

So, let us celebrate these folks.  Start by watching a Donald Sutherland movie this week.  As you can see from the above, there are many. many from which to choose.

To Absent Friends - Willie Mays

 

Willie Mays died yesterday at the age of 93.

Willie Mays.

I mean, really, what more needs to be said.  There is certainly nothing that I can add to the marvelous obituaries that have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and other places.  You can find them all over the internet, so I won't reiterate all of the numbers that comprised Mays' amazing career, but I'll throw out a few personal thoughts.

When Three Rivers Stadium opened in 1970, Pittsburgh fans were able, for the first time ever, to buy tickets in centerfield.  The 200 Level of Three Rivers between the foul poles were general admission, and I can remember sitting in the first row of those seats one night for a game between the Pirates and Giants, which put us directly behind the Say Hey Kid himself.  What I particularly remember about that was watching Mays talking to his left and right fielders constantly through the game, and waving them into position with each different Pirates batter.  No need for the outfielders to have index cards from front office analytics geeks in their pockets telling them where to play when Willie Mays was their quarterback in centerfield.

I can also remember watching a game on TV when Mays was caught in a rundown, and proceeded to make it last long enough for the infielder to botch it up and allow Willie to get the the forward base.  My brother, Jim, watching the game with me said, "Only Mays can get out of rundowns like that, and I've seen him do it a million times."  Okay, maybe not an exact quote, but that was the gist of it.

A younger work colleague once asked me who was the best ball player that  had ever seen in the flesh.  Well, here are some of the guys that I have seen play live and in person:  Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell, of course, and players like Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Ken Griffey Jr, Pete Rose, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Alex Rodriguez, and Stan Musial, but I didn't really have to even think to answer because it was an easy question:  Willie Mays.

When Marilyn and I visited San Francisco in January 2015, we took a tour of AT&T Park.  Not unexpectedly, much of the Park is devoted to Willie Mays.  Seeing that I was wearing a Pirates windbreaker  at the time, the Tour Guide asked me if I had ever seen Roberto Clemente play.  Many times, I replied, to which he said, "Well, he was the second best outfielder ever."  My reply was that well, I'll give you that one.  Last year I had the occasion to meet Luis and Roberto Clemente Jr., and I told them that story.  They loved it.

He was the original Five Tool Player, and I feel fortunate to have been able to see him play, and the game may never see his like again.

RIP Willie Mays.

THE Catch at the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series.

I don't really have to give you the background on that one, do I?

A classic Mays pose.

Obviously taken at an All-Star game one year.  

Not a bad outfield, wouldn't you agree?

Presidential Medal of Freedom Awardee

The Grandstander outside of AT&T Park

January 2015

To Absent Friends - Howard Fineman

 

The death of political writer Howard Fineman at the age of 75 made the news this week, primarily because he was a highly regarded chronicler of the American political scene.  He was the chief political correspondent for Newsweek magazine for over twenty years, and later, following the demise of that printed magazine, with the Huffington Post.  He was also a frequent talking head on CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets. Tributes to him came from both sides of the aisle in Washington.

Long time listeners to the Tony Kornheiser radio show and podcast, also felt the loss of Fineman for he was a regular guest on TK's shows offering his insights into telling all of us Loyal Littles just "where we were now" in regard to Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill and Hillary, upcoming debates, conventions, and, of course, thoughts on the 45th POTUS.   While he always informative on these weighty matters, he never took himself so seriously as to be crashing boor on these particular topics.

To me, though, I really enjoyed listening to Howard Fineman because he came from and grew up in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill that I did, and he would share tales of those formative years.   While Howard was three years older than me and went to  different schools than I did, I always thought that it was quite possible that Howard Fineman and I could have crossed paths with each other at places like Murray Pharmacy, Mineo's Pizza, the Manor Theater, Poli's Restaurant, or a Giant Eagle Supermarket.  Call me a fanboy, but I thought that was pretty cool.

I had missed Fineman on Tony's show in recent years, and it was only upon his death that I learned that he had spent the last two years battling pancreatic cancer.   Very sad.

RIP Howard Fineman.

To Absent Friends - Jerry West

For the second time this month, the sports world in general and the basketball world in particular have been rocked with the news of the passing of one of its most significant figures.   The first was Bill Walton, and this time it was Jerry West, who died earlier this week at the age of 88.

A West Virginia native ("Zeke from Cabin Creek"),  he was born in poverty in a West Virginia mining town with a population fewer that 1,000 people,  and from there he went on to All-America honors at West Virginia University, the Most Outstanding Player award in the 1959 NCAA Tournament, even though the Mountainers lost in the Final game, an Olympic Gold Medal in 1960, and a professional career as both a player and an executive that is unparalleled. 

He spent his entire playing career as a Los Angeles Laker where his teams made the NBA Finals nine times, winning the Championship once.  Following his playing career, he had a three stint as the Lakers coach, wherein his teams made the playoffs all three years.  There then followed a career as Lakers GM.  As GM, West was able to draft Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant, and trade for Shaquille O'Neal.  His Lakers teams then made it to the Finals eight more times, winning six of them.

Oh, and when the NBA decided to adopt a logo, they used Jerry West as the model:

I will leave it to professional wordsmiths to further encapsulate Jerry West:

In THIS FRONT PAGE TRIBUTE to West that ran in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  the day after West died, Paul Zeise makes the case that West may well be the greatest "basketball man" ever, as well as the most important person to ever come from the State of West Virgina.

And today's Sunday edition of the PG, GENE COLLIER PAYS TRIBUTE to Jerry West as only Gene Collier can.

I wish that I could say that I saw Jerry West play a lot, but, alas, much of his career as a player took place when those of us in Pittsburgh didn't get to see a lot NBA basketball on television.  I certainly knew who he was and that he was great, though, and I do remember seeing him sink that 60 foot shot at the buzzer against the Knicks in the Playoffs that season that Collier references in his column.

RIP Jerry West.

POST SCRIPT......That 1960 Olympic team referenced above? In addition to Jerry West, others on the team included Walt Bellamy, Bob Boozer, Darrell Imhof, Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson, and Adrian Smith.  All you kids out there need to be aware that there were dream teams long before there was The Dream Team.

 

Kwickie Kritical Kommentaries

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

I have yet to read a book by Erik Larson that, if it wasn't GREAT, it was at least VERY, VERY GOOD.  His newest one, "The Demon of Unrest" is proving to be in that same category.  It covers events leading up to the attack of Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor that was the beginning of the American Civil War.   In his introduction to the book, Larson tells us that he was well into the research of this book when the events of January 6, 2021 unfolded, and that he couldn't help but see the parallels  to what took place in 1860.   I am only 100 pages into the book, and I can say that he is exactly correct.  The unrest stirred up in the American South prior to the Civil War is exactly what we are seeing being fomented in America today by the Convicted Felon-in-Chief and his minions, and it scares the shit out of me.

I always wait until I finish a book or movie before giving it a rating, but this one is well on it's way to Four Grandstander Stars.

This movie was released in mid-May and within two weeks was available on streaming, so it seems to have bombed at the box office.  It was still playing in our local multiplex, so we took it on last weekend, and enjoyed it a lot.

Ryan Gosling plays a professional movie stuntman, and Emily Blunt plays his ex-lover who is an aspiring movie director,  there is a plot to this one that I won't go into, since these are all "Kwickie Kommentaries" today, but it's a fun movie to see.  Gosling is charming as the put upon lead, and has Blunt ever been bad in anything?

Three Stars from The Grandstander, and be sure and stay for all of the closing credits.

I sought out this 1946 British mystery movie based upon a write-up on a classic movie Facebook Group to which I belong called My Reel Life.  It was said to be the type of movie that Hitchcock would have made back in Britain at the time.  It takes place in a London hospital that was set up to care for those injured and wounded during the Blitz of Great Britain by German V-1 rockets (called "doodlebugs" by the Brits; I had to google it when I heard it in the film) during WW II.  A death takes place.  Was it a murder?  Then another death takes place that most certainly was a murder.  There are five possible suspects, and a Scotland Yard detective played by Alistair Sim has to  unravel the whole bloody mess.  Sim, who is best known as being the best ever film version of Ebenezer Scrooge, can be classified as a distant antecedent to America's Lt. Columbo, in his portrayal of the detective in this one.

I found this one on Amazon Prime, and give it Two Grandstander Stars.

Now let's talk about Uniforms, and I'll be brief.

MLB's City Connect Uniforms are an abomination.  I have yet to see one that I like.   At PNC Park on Wednesday night, I saw a guy coming out of the Pirates Clubhouse Store putting on his newly purchased Pirates City Connect uni with the Number 21 and the name CLEMENTE on it. It made me want to gag.

YUCK!!!!

Revisiting "Seinfeld"

 

To get us through the winter and early spring months of this year, Linda and I decided that we would binge watch the comedy series "Seinfeld".  We started with the pilot episode in Season One and made it though all nine seasons and 173 episodes.  Linda was a sporadic watcher of the show, so much of it was new to her.  I thought that I had seen them all, but soon discovered that I had missed quite a few during the first three seasons.  I also learned that Linda had never seen the now infamous Finale, but more on that later.

I am happy to say that the show holds up (if you can overlook cordless telephones the size of cinderblocks).  It is still funny, sometimes tears-in-your-eyes-pee-your-pants funny, especially some of the antics of Cosmo Kramer  (sabotaging a laundromat washing machine with concrete, wearing skinny jeans, showing up and "working" at some corporation, accepting a Tony Award).  I have long maintained that the character of George Costanza belonged on the Mt. Rushmore  of Sitcom Second Bananas (along with Ed Norton, Barney Fife, and Corporal Agarn), and I still do, but if you make an argument that Kramer belongs on the Mountain, it would be hard to argue against you.

Upon this re-viewing of the series, I can say the the show got funnier every season and reached it's peak in Season Seven, the season that involved George's engagement to Susan Ross, the events leading up to the wedding, and how it all came to an end.  It's only my opinion, but I think that while it still had its high comic moments, it started running out of steam in Seasons Eight and Nine.

As we were plowing through it, Linda asked something along the lines or "Do Jerry and Elaine get together in the end?"  That's when I realized she had never seen the Finale, and I decided to say nothing of it until she saw it.  Her opinion was the same as everyone else's: It was terrible way to end the show.  I have a friend who told me that the final  episode pointed out the self-absorption of the characters, that they were essentially just not nice people, and as a result, he's never been able to watch reruns of the show.  I get it.  However, it didn't make me want to not do the binge thing that we did, and I know that I will keep watching reruns of the show whenever the mood strikes.

Just some of my favorite thoughts when it comes to the series in no particular order:

• The marble rye
• Close talkers
• Jerry's parents
• George's parents
• Festivus, which has become a real thing, by the way
• Not that there's anything wrong with that
• The Puffy Shirt, which came about because of a..
• Low talker
• NEWMAN!
• Jack Klompus
• The Summer of George
• The Human Fund
• "Get OUT!!!"
• Elaine dancing
• Marisa Tomei
• Puddy
• Kramer's entrances
• They're real and they're spectacular
• The faces that Elaine could make
• That's gold, Jerry. GOLD!
• Bookman the library cop
• George Costanza - just about everything about him
• These pretzels are making me thirsty

I know that as soon as I hit the "publish"button on this, I'll think of a dozen more classic bits that have woven themselves into the everyday thoughts of those of us who watched and loved the show.

As time has gone on, we have seen Michael Richards get pretty much culture canceled for an unfortunate stand up routine that he did after the show ended.  Jason Alexander did a  series called "Listen Up" that never made it past one season, but you see him popping up all the time on commercials and guest acting gigs on television.  Julia  Louis-Dreyfus has won a slew of Emmys for the show "Veep" and has made some pretty decent movies.  Jerry Seinfeld has continued doing stand-up, and just made a movie for Netflix called "Unfrosted".  It won't make any ten best lists, but it was entertaining and, more important, funny.  I also see hints on the internet that he has taken to becoming a "cranky old guy" now that he has hit age 70.  I haven't seen that personally, but hey, that's how these arcs usually go.  He has, if true, become his Uncle Leo and his dad, Morty.

I suppose that it is difficult for actors to overcome when that have become so solidly identified in the public's mind with one character or show.  It happens a lot in show biz, but if your legacy is to be identified forever as being a part of one of the classic television shows of all time,  I am guessing that any actor would say "sign me up", or in the case of Cosmo Kramer, he would say "Giddyup!"

To Absent Friends - Bill Walton

 

The news today of the death of Bill Walton from cancer at the age of 71 came as a stunner to me.   Part of the reason for that, no doubt, is due to the fact that he was a year younger than I, and part of it is because, well, Bill Walton was just such an indomitable figure on the court and an almost larger than life figure off of it.

I am not going to try to summarize Walton in prose.  Instead, just some bullet points to summarize his career:

• Played on two California State High School Championship teams out of Le Mesa, CA
• Played on two NCAA championship teams at UCLA
• Played for two NBA Championship teams, Portland and Boston
• Three time NCAA Player of the Year
• Two times NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player
• NBA MVP (Portland)
• NBA Sixth Man of the Year (Boston)
• NBA Finals MVP
• Key player for UCLA during their 88 game winning streak that covered three seasons, still an NCAA men's basketball record.
• In 1973 NCAA title game against Memphis State, Walton shot 21-for-22, scored 44 points and had 13 rebounds
• Member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
• Named one of the NBA's Top 50 players of all time in 1997
• Attended over 1,000 Grateful Dead concerts
• Underwent 39 surgeries over the course of his basketball career

The second to last bullet point suggests what a free spirited guy he was, and the last bullet point is to suggest that for all of Walton's accomplishments, they could have been even greater had he not had such an injury riddled career.  Twice in his pro career he missed two full seasons.

Walton was always an outspoken person. He was a peace activist during his college years at UCLA, and was once arrested for taking part in an anti-war demonstration.   He remained outspoken against what he considered to be injustices in society for the rest of his life.

After playing, Walton turned to broadcasting, and his, uh, loquaciousness set him apart from most ex-jocks who go behind a microphone.   I can remember hearing him doing color on some college hoops game and thinking, maybe if you had to listen to him over to course of an entire season, you'd get tired of him, but for one game, nothing was more entertaining to listen to than the stream-of-consciousness style of Bill Walton.  

His OBITUARY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES tells the story that Walton was a stutterer as a young man.  He worked hard to overcome it, and went on to a career not only in broadcasting but as motivational speaker.  He would tell his audiences that overcoming his stutter was "my greatest accomplishment and your worst nightmare."   Once during his working career, my brother Jim attended a conference where Walton was the featured speaker, and he loved it.  The Times obituary also tells a terrific story about Walton returning to Portland in 2009 to receive some award from the State of Oregon.  I won't try to summarize it here, but click on the link to the obit and had it.  It's a great story.

The passing of some celebrities can make you feel sad, some more so than others.  To me, the passing of Bill Walton is one of those.

RIP Bill Walton.

Coach Wooden and his star player

Walton and Kareem battle it out in the NBA

The Coach and his two greatest players

The world's most famous Dead Head

 

The Lions in Winter