Tribute: Pete Seeger

Posted on January 28, 2014 at 8:31 am

We bid a sad farewell to activist/musician Pete Seeger today. He has died at age 94. His songs provided the soundtrack for protest movements over decades, pushing for peace, justice, protection of the environment, equality, and economic opportunity. His songs have been sung and recorded by Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, and hundreds of others, including “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” and “If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song).” He also popularized the songs of legendary performers like Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” and the folk songs of nameless working people who shared their stories and their sorrows in music. Our family used to listen to his albums like Children’s Concert At Town Hall, Folk Songs for Young People and Birds, Beasts, Bugs & Fishes Little & Big: Animal Folk Songs when we drove to school. He was always ready to lend a hand, a voice, and a song to the cause of justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5G4YPNGnVE

NPR paid tribute to Seeger on his 90th birthday with an outstanding appreciation that is well worth a listen. You can find out more about Seeger’s life, music, and work here, which includes this wonderful exchange from an interview.

AMY GOODMAN: And for someone who isn’t so hopeful, who is listening to this right now, trying to find their way, what would you say?

PETE SEEGER: Realize that little things lead to bigger things. That’s what Seeds is all about. And this wonderful parable in the New Testament: the sower scatters seeds. Some seeds fall in the pathway and get stamped on, and they don’t grow. Some fall on the rocks, and they don’t grow. But some seeds fall on fallow ground, and they grow and multiply a thousand fold. Who knows where some good little thing that you’ve done may bring results years later that you never dreamed of?

May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration and may his songs be sung forever.

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Music Tribute

Tribute: Two 60’s Television Icons, The Professor and Reuben

Posted on January 18, 2014 at 2:49 pm

This week we say a sad farewell to two of the best-loved television stars of 1960’s sitcoms, Russell Johnson, who played The Professor on “Gilligan’s Island,” and Dave Madden, who was the long-suffering manager Reuben on “The Partridge Family.” The handsome Johnson played the only sensible, even-tempered member of the castaways. He was a US Army Air Force veteran of WWII who flew 44 combat missions as a bombardier and was a friend of the most decorated soldier of the war, Audie Murphy. When they both became actors, they appeared together in three films. He appeared in some low-budget westerns and sci-fi films including Ride Clear of Diablo, It Came from Outer Space, This Island Earth, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and The Space Children.

But he is best remembered as The Professor on “Gilligan’s Island,” where he was always trying to come up some scientific way to get the castaways rescued.

Dave Madden was a comedian and actor who did stand-up comedy on the Ed Sullivan show and starred in the television sitcom “Camp Runamuck.”

As Reuben, he was the harried manager of a pop group made up of a mother and her high-spirited children. He was often the object of the humor, especially in his interactions with the precocious Danny Bonaduce.

The legacy of both actors will continue to make new generations laugh as their shows continue in perpetual syndication.

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Tribute: James Avery of “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”

Posted on January 1, 2014 at 9:12 pm

We mourn the loss of actor James Avery, who starred with Will Smith as Uncle Phil in Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Avery was a Vietnam veteran who became a writer, actor, and voice talent. He was a great foil for Will Smith on “Fresh Prince,” with a commanding presence that suited his role as a lawyer and later a judge. While he was often the straight man, his comic timing was subtle and if you watch closely you can see how much Smith learned from him over the years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL8VJTCnzgo

Avery also provided voices for animated characters as wide-ranging as The Shredder in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and War Machine in “Iron Man.” He hosted “Going Places,” a popular travel and adventure series on PBS. He memorably played disabled characters, a legally-blind witness to a murder on CSI and a wheelchair-bound medical examiner on “The Closer.”

He died at age 68 from complications following open heart surgery. His last film, aptly named “Valediction,” has been a festival favorite and I hope it will be available streaming or in theaters later this year. May his memory be a blessing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsAw4mDOvOE

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Actors Television Tribute

Tribute: Juanita Moore

Posted on January 1, 2014 at 8:32 pm

We mourn the loss of actress Juanita Moore, who died today at age 99. She was one of the first African-Americans to be nominated for an Oscar, and is still best remembered for that role, in “Imitation of Life.” The movie is the story of two single mothers who join forces, one becoming an actress, the other, played by Moore, taking care of the home and the two daughters. Her character’s daughter grows up resentful of the white girl and decides to pass as white. Moore’s performance is one of great humanity and dignity. Her anguish when her daughter rejects her is grounded in a deep empathy and resilience. There’s a reason that the funeral scene for her character is one of the most unforgettable ever put on film.

Moore began as a chorus girl in the Cotton Club, then took small parts in movies. The bigotry of her era kept her mostly confined to stereotypical roles through the 1960’s, but later she appeared in films like “The Kid” and on television. She also starred in a London production of “A Raisin in the Sun,” which she said was her favorite performance. Her grandson, actor Kirk Kelly-Kahn, says she was running lines with him until just before her death. May her memory be a blessing.

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Actors Tribute

Tribute: Joan Fontaine

Posted on December 15, 2013 at 10:25 pm

We mourn the loss of one of the last of the great stars of the golden age of Hollywood, Joan Fontaine, an Oscar-winner who co-starred with Cary Grant (Suspicion), Fred Astaire (A Damsel In Distress), and, in the Best Picture Oscar-winner Rebecca, Laurence Olivier. Fontaine and her sister Olivia de Havilland are the only siblings to have won lead acting Academy Awards and she is the only one to have been directed to an Oscar by the notoriously uninterested in actors director Alfred Hitchcock.

Fontaine had an elegance that was never brittle. She often played characters who were shy or vulnerable, like the leads in “Suspicion” and “Rebecca” as well as “Jane Eye” (opposite Orson Welles) and “Letter from an Unknown Woman,” with Louis Jourdan. In “The Women,” she played a sweet but foolish and sometimes stubborn young woman who almost goes through with a divorce until she learns that “pride is a luxury no woman in love can afford.”

May her memory be a blessing.

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Actors Tribute