To Two Absent Friends - Paul Sorvino and Tony Dow

Sometimes the Departure Lounge fills up so quickly that we have to jam two remembrances into one post.

Paul Sorvino 

1939-2022

Actor Paul Sorvino passed away this week at the age of 83.  His 176 acting credits stretch back to 1970 and include various and sundry roles in television series - he was one of the original detectives in "Law and Order" - and motion pictures.  He played Joe Torre in a 1997 movie called "Joe Torre: Curveballs Along the Way", Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" (1995), and the mayor in a TV movie called "Jersey Shore Shark Attack", a project he'd probably like to forget, but I'm sure it paid well!

However, he will be known most notably for his role as Mob Boss Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese's epic 1990 movie "Goodfellas".   Ironing that his death follows fast on the heels of his co-star Ray Liotta.  A terrific scene in "Goodfellas" between the two of them, where Paulie lays down the law to Henry can be seen HERE.

Sorvino also leaves a bright legacy in his daughter, Academy Award winning actress Mira Sorvino.

Henry, Jimmy, Paulie, and Tommy

Goodfellas

**********

Tony Dow

1945-2022

What television show exemplified the idyllic American nuclear family more that "Leave It To Beaver"?  The show ran on both CBS and ABC from 1957 to 1963 for 236 episodes and continues to run endlessly in syndication and on cable television to this very day.  Never mind that Mayfield was fictional, lily-white, no one was divorced, there were no illegal drugs, and housewives, none of whom had jobs outside of the home, did the dishes and ran the vacuum cleaner in high heels and pearls.  The show resonated - then and, apparently, now - with the everyday foibles that kids had to deal with while growing up.  Those "problems" usually were exemplified by the jams that young Theodore Cleaver, The Beaver, always seemed to find himself entangled, but they were usually resolved with sage advice from mom and dad, June and Ward, and helped out in large part by the Beav's big brother, Wally, as played by Tony Dow.  All this came to mind this week with the news of Dow's death from cancer at the age of 77.  I mean, really, who wouldn't have wanted a big brother like Wally?

A completive swimmer and diver at the age of 12, Dow tagged along with a friend who was auditioning for a part in a new TV show, and, unexpectedly, Dow ended up being cast as Wally Cleaver, and his life changed forever.  Like many child stars, Dow found that he was typecast as "Wally Cleaver" and acting gigs were slim as he aged out of teen roles.  He served in the US Coast Guard during the Viet Nam era, did some acting gigs in episodes of various TV shows, and took to sculpting in bronze with a degree of success.  In 1980, the producer of a dinner theater in Kansas City got the idea of casting Dow and Jerry Mathers, ("..as the Beaver") in some schlocky production, and was amazed at the sold out crowds that the pairing attracted.  This led to a Beaver TV Movie reunion, and a short-lived rebooted TV series.  This led to Dow branching out into directing some of the episodes for this and other TV series.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Tony Dow Story, however, was his public acknowledgment of the fact that he dealt with severe clinical depression from the age of 20 until he was 40, and this was at a time before it became "fashionable" for celebrities to announce that they were going into rehab for one reason or another.

By all accounts, Tony Dow was as nice a person as he was in the persona he portrayed as Wally Cleaver.  In doing research for writing this piece, I stumbled across THIS CLIP from a 2020 episode of CBS Sunday Morning.  I think that you will find it to be most interesting and enlightening.  One quote that I liked came from Dow's wife of forty-plus years.  When asked if she thought that there was "a lot of Wally Cleaver in Tony" her reply was "No, but there was a lot of Tony in Wally Cleaver."

Dow and Mathers

Then and Now

From "Still The Beaver", early 1980's

With Barbara Billingsly and Ken Osmond, 

the loathsome "Eddie Haskell"

RIP Paul Sorvino and Tony Dow