To The First Absent Friends of 2022

As often happens when the calendar turns to a new year, the Departure Lounge fills rapidly, and as a result, The Grandstander falls behind in recognizing Absent Friends.  The exigencies of time means that I will be recognizing three Absent Friends in this post, and, as a result, they will no doubt be getting shortchanged in these write-ups, which is a shame, because each deserve full length treatments.

Let us take them in the order in which they left us.

Betty White

1922-2021

Betty White died on New Year's Eve, just a few weeks short of her 100th birthday.  A story I saw on her on CBS Sunday Morning last week indicated that Betty White's relationship with television began, literally, before television even exited.  It seems that she appeared on some experimental versions of this new art form before the medium was unveiled at the 1939 New York World's Fair.  IMDB lists an astounding 550 credits in her filmography.  Game shows, movies, talk and variety shows, voice overs, and, of course, her two most memorable roles in the classic sitcoms, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Golden Girls."  (That same Sunday Morning tribute showed a clip from the MTM Show where her character, Happy Homemaker Sue Ann Nivens, removes a burnt and fallen soufflé's from the oven and then slams the oven door shut with her knee.  My word description doesn't do it justice, but, trust me, it was hilarious.)  Then there was a Super Bowl commercial for Snickers and a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live at the age of 88.   And no one, no one, could deliver a double entendre like Betty White.

I talked with my pal Barb Vancheri, retired film and entertainment critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, earlier in the week,  and she told me that she once had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Betty White, and that she was a nice and as delightful as could possibly be imagined.

Peter Bogdanovich

1939-2022

The obituaries for film director and actor Peter Bogdanovich made for interesting reading.  They of course mention how he burst on to the Hollywood scene as a 32 year old wunderkind director when his "The Last Picture Show" was released.  There quickly followed smash hit comedies "What's Up, Doc?" and "Paper Moon", which were then followed by major flops such as "Daisy Miller" and "At Long Last Love".  His life was then peppered with love affairs, divorces, tragedies (including a homicide), bankruptcies, and ostracism from the Hollywood establishment.

In writing about "What's Up, Doc?" in this space back in 2018, I made this observation:

Also, whatever happened to Peter Bogdanovich's directing career?  After "The Last Picture Show" and this one, he had one other big hit, "Paper Moon" (1973) and after that, pretty much nothing of note.  In fact, IMDB lists more acting credits (53) for him than director credits (34).  He is probably most remembered as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg on "The Sopranos".

The story of Bogdanovich's own life would make a pretty good movie, I think.  Until someone decides to do that, though, I would highly recommend that you seek out and listen to Season One of Turner Classic Movies "The Plot Thickens" podcast, wherein Ben Mankiewicz interviews Bogdanovich.

I found it interesting that in searching Google Images for a picture of Bogdanovich to use in this post, it was almost impossible to find a single photo of him where he is smiling.

Sidney Poitier

1927-2022

Yes, two pictures of the great Sidney Poitier grace this post, pictures from perhaps his two most famous roles: itinerant handyman Homer Smith in "Lillies of the Field" (1963) for which he became the first Black male to win a Best Actor Oscar, and as detective Virgil Tibbs in "In The Heat of the Night" (1967).  In 1967, Poitier had an MVP caliber year, appearing in three box office blockbusters:  "In the Heat of the Night", which was the Best Picture Oscar winner that year and for which Rod Stieger won the Best Actor Oscar, "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner", and "To Sir, With Love".  Oddly, Poitier did not receive an Oscar nomination for any of them, but I think it is safe to say that none of those movies would have been as good had he not been in them.

You can see Poitier delivering one of his most famous lines in this YouTube clip here.

I would strongly urge you to seek out some of the news obituaries for these three Holly wood luminaries from Variety, the New York Times, or the Washington Post.  They all make for great reading, and tell they stories far better than I.

RIP Betty White, Peter Bogdanovich, Sidney Poitier.