Janus-like we look forward and backward at the New Year, especially with the obligatory “In Memoriam” lists in print and on TV. Often it’s an exercise in rounding up the usual suspects. This year those included Stephen Hawking, Aretha, Phillip Roth, George and Barbara Bush, John McCain, Anthony Bourdain, Stan Lee.
Because all of these remained famous at the time of their deaths, no one really needed to be reminded of their significance, but many more entries in the year’s honor roll were of the sort described by A.E. Housman as cases in which “The name died before the man.” Perhaps they made a mark in their twenties or thirties, but when they died at eighty were only recalled by geezers nearly as old.
So, for my 2018 In Memoriam, here are a few people worth remembering and in danger of being forgotten by younger generations whose idea of antiquity is the 20th century. For starters, those not alive in the 1970s can probably never understand how amazing it was to see men walking around on the moon in black and white on television.
Alan Bean and John Young, like something out of Jules Verne, flew from the earth to the moon and back. Tom Wolfe, one of the pioneers of the New Journalism which made reportage hip and jazzy for good and ill, most famously described the test pilot, frat boy ethos of the astronaut corps in “The Right Stuff.”
Fifty years ago, before it became a billionaire’s megasport, the NFL was followed avidly by blue collar guys in industrial cities and played by similar men. Two heroes of that era died this year, defensive tackle and coach Dick Modzelewski and fullback Jim Taylor who amassed the second most yards four seasons in a row only because he played at the same time as Jim Brown. In a fifth year, he came out the league’s leader.
Harvey Schmidt wrote the music for tiny chamber musicals whose twee charm may have faded in the era of Andrew Lloyd Weber bloat, but those who try to remember” “The Fantasticks” and “I Do, I Do” will smile at the thought of songs like “Soon It’s Gonna Rain, and “My Cup Runneth Over.”
Every year a few blazing stars depart, but a constellation of character actors who enriched film after film vanish with less notice. So hooray, for Philip Bosco, Bradford Dillman, Donald Moffat, Bernard Hepton and John Mahoney. Look at their credits on IMDB or just pop up a headshot and you’ll smile remembering them as Archbishop Cranmer, Tony Esterhase in “Smiley’s People,” Lyndon Johnson in “The Right Stuff, the dishonest father in “Say Anything,” the senile father in “The Savages,” the philandering professor who gets a drink thrown in his face in “Moonstruck,” and on and on.
The work of those who appear on the stage is more ephemeral than that of recorded arts, so the world of two big musical stage stars is largely lost. Nanette Fabray won a Tony and was nominated for another, but reached a wider audience on TV alongside Sid Caesar and in “The Bandwagon” with Fred Astaire. Barbara Harris is a similar case — Broadway acclaim (including a Tony) in shows tailored for her by Alan Jay Lerner and Bock and Harnick, then largely forgotten movies in which she was often the best thing. In one case, with a supporting actress Oscar to show for it.
Many who are no longer with us worked in ways no longer in fashion. Marty Balin of “Jefferson Airplane” and Charles Aznavour the prolific, emotive cabaret singer/songwriter excelled in styles that might soon seem quaint, more’s the pity. By contrast, the fashions of Hubert de Givenchy are timeless, in part thanks to his muse Audrey Hepburn. He dressed her in life and on the screen in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Funny Face,” and “Love in the Afternoon.”
Similarly stylish was the film “A Man and a Woman” with Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant, an automobile, and a soundtrack. Dialogue was pretty much beside the point. The swooning camera work and the music by Francis Lai, whose final bars occurred in 2018, stole the show.
Fashions in childrearing often change faddishly, but for several generations of anxious parents the presence of T. Berry Brazelton on the tube was reassuring, until we realized we could never really aspire to being as calm, wise, patient, and endearing as the beloved TV pediatrician.
Peter Mayle wrote charming little books, that became TV dramas and films, about the adventures of bumbling expats in the paradise of Provence. Ironically, he lured so many tourists to the neighborhood that he helped ruin its charm and render it unaffordable to ordinary mortals.
I will also miss another British writer, Philip Kerr, who had the wit to transport the hard-boiled California detective of the 1930s to Nazi Germany in the person of police detective Bernie Gunther. In books beginning with the “Berlin Noir” trilogy, he kept me coming back for more.
William Goldman wrote quite a good bildungsroman, “Boys and Girls Together,” but fame and fortune came when he went Hollywood, adapting his own novels “Marathon Man” and “The Princess Bride,” along with such huge hits as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men,” and the under-appreciated “Harper” with Paul Newman. He also wrote one of the better insider looks at Hollywood, “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” whose hard-won wisdom on the business is the immortal conclusion that, “nobody knows anything.”
Finally, Kurosawa fans may not have known the name of Shinobu Hashimoto, but he was the screenwriter behind some of the master’s most admired films — “Ikiru,” “The Seven Samurai,” “Rashomon,” “Throne of Blood.”
This list could have gone on with scientists, business titans, journalists, athletes, but man does not live by work and play alone, but by bread. Or if he’s lucky, by gumbo and étouffée. Ella Brennan, the matriarch of a New Orleans restaurant dynasty, made Commander’s Palace a pilgrimage destination for foodies.
She gave their start to chefs Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse, and Jamie Sheridan among others. I have had the good fortune to dine there four or five times over thirty years. Ms. Brennan, thanks for the memories of an elegant setting, impeccable service, brunches of eggs sardou and turtle soup, with a side of jazz. To die for, but not just yet, please. I want some more.