We mourn the passing of neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, who illuminated the workings of the brain and set an example of grace and compassion that extended to the way he shared his thoughts about his terminal diagnosis.
I first learned of his work when I read his book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, stories about his patients. Those extreme examples of impairment of perception, cognition, and functioning were utterly absorbing. Sacks’ dedication and kindness, his deep connection to the humanity of his patients, the lyricism of his descriptions, are profound and moving.
His work inspired art. The best known is Awakenings, directed by Penny Marshall, with Robin Williams playing a character based on Sacks and Robert De Niro playing one of his “locked-in” post-encephalitic patients. They were thought to be incurably impaired, almost completely, until Sacks proposed a new treatment. They were brought back to life, but, tragically, only briefly.
Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter adapted another of Sacks’ stories into a play, “A Kind of Alaska.”
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was adapted into an opera.
Another of my favorite books is An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. It did more than provide insights into the way people with autism perceive the world; it allowed neurotypicals to see the world through the mind of Temple Grandin, which gave her opportunities to tell her own story in books and in an award-winning film where she was played by Claire Danes.
I was privileged to see Dr. Sacks speak twice. He was candid about his own impairments, including prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces). His book, A Leg to Stand On describes his own experience as a patient, following a severe leg injury that affected his perception of his own body. His depth of understanding encompassed all ways of perceiving to demonstrate that what we think of as “normal” is just one small part of the range of human experience. His legacy should inspire everyone to think more about how the perceptions of those around us affect the way they see the world and to do more to meet them where they are and to build on what we share.
We mourn the loss of actor/singer/activist Theodore Bikel, who has died at age 91. The multi-lingual performer was the original Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” on Broadway and played the role of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” more than 2000 times. He was born in Vienna and his family moved to then-Palestine when he was 13 and became an American citizen in 1961.
Bikel studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and developed a passion for guitar and folk music. He became one of the world’s best-known folk singers and a founder in 1961 of the Newport Folk Festival, and he performed 50-60 concerts a year, often with full orchestras. He was active in the civil rights movement, served as an elected delegate to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and was Senior Vice President of the American Jewish Congress, President of the Actors’ Equity Association (1973-82), Vice President of the International Federation of Actors (FIA), (1981-1991), a Board Member of Amnesty International (USA), and, by Presidential appointment, as a member of the National Council on the Arts (1977-82).
One of the greatest movie composers of all time, James Horner, died this week in a plane crash. His compositions added enormous depth and emotion to some of the all-time critical and audience triumphs, including the movie that broke the box office record, “Titanic,” and the movie that broke that record, “Avatar.” His films include grand, sweeping epics, historical sagas, science fiction adventures, intimate dramas, and even an animated film for families (“An American Tail”). Vanity Fair has a very thoughtful tribute with some of the best examples of his work. He will be sorely missed.
Today we mourn the loss of actress/comedian Anne Meara, wife of Jerry Stiller and mother of actor/director Ben Stiller.
Stiller and Meara were a comedy team who appeared frequently on the Ed Sullivan show. Their humor often focused on their differences as a couple — she was Irish Catholic and he was Jewish. This bit from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was inspired by an early precursor to eHarmony and Match.com.
She was a very gifted actress. She appeared opposite Robert De Niro and Robin Williams in “Awakenings.” I think her best dramatic performance is in The Daytrippers, as the neurotic mother of two daughters played by Hope Davis and Parker Posey.
The world lost one of the funniest and most creative men in broadcasting, Stan Freberg, who died today at age 88. One of the great thrills of my life was seeing Mr. Freberg at Comic-Con, and seeing the wildly enthusiastic audience let him know how much he was loved.
During the Mad Men era, he was responsible for some of television’s most memorable ads, like these:
When I worked at my high school radio station, we used to play this classic Freberg demonstration of the power of radio.
His fresh, brash, innovative style inspired many of the most subversively delicious comedy of the next generation. The Beatles said they were fans. And so were parodists like Weird Al Yankovic, who paid tribute to Freberg on Twitter.
Very sad to say that one of my absolute all-time heroes has just passed away. RIP Stan Freberg. A legend, an inspiration, and a friend.
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, as the neurotic mother of two daughters played by Hope Davis and Parker Posey.