Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

cmon dude. it’s ok to let ppl love a thing and not align perfectly with yr own view of its importance or lack thereof

especially in the obit thread

I thought I was praising her! I said she was fantastic in two movies, ended up on a hit TV show, and that--because that was the way things were divided up at the time--her movie career was derailed. I said she might have a career as great as Sissy Spacek's. I love Spacek.

This is criticism?

no i meant just let LL feel how she feels about it and don’t respond! move on!

forget i said anything

Fine I will argue & explain. Laverne and Shirley was about friends. Not the workplace and not a family. Friends (female friends!) living independently of both men and their families (unless you count Laverne’s dad & landlady/stepmom Edna Babish) They were single, they worked, and weirdly no one shamed them for this. Sure they were constantly trying to snag a man but usually they failed. They were hilarious. Precursor to known classic female friendship sitcom Golden Girls? Friends? (Other?)
You were praising her by lamenting the highbrow career she didn’t have which (IMO) is not the greatest form of praise bc it’s imaginary & faint praise for what she actually accomplished.

I think the one thing that we can agree on is that Sissy Spacek should have starred in Laverne and Shirley, possibly with Shelley Duvall.

Sorry, I think you're being ridiculous. You have your version of Cindy Williams, I have my mine, and mine does not have to comport with yours. For you, she was the star of a TV show you loved when you were younger, and you feel a lot of nostalgia for that. First few words I wrote about Cindy Williams were that I understood--and shared in--that kind of experience. For me, she gave great performances in two of my favourite movies ever, and I feel sad that she never got to have the movie career I think she should have had, largely because iconic TV stars--with the exception of John Travolta--just weren't allowed to cross over then. (American Graffiti is now highbrow?) I've done nothing but praise her. Just not in the way you think I ought to be.

And American Graffiti and The Conversation aren't imaginary, they're very much part of what she accomplished. My guess is the former had at least something to do with her getting the part in Laverne & Shirley.

Forget it clemenza, it’s Somebody’s Favorite TV Show Town.

Did Cindy Williams ever express she wished she had that life? We celebrate the people who were, not the people who could have been

That's a good question, and I don't know. She surely wouldn't have while L&S was on the air; a hit TV show had a momentum all its own. What she thought twenty or thirty years later, who knows? I hope I've been clear that I think the film world's condescension to TV stars in the '70s was really unfortunate. There were so many amazing TV stars around then who were just partitioned off and not really given the chance to move back and forth like people do now.

Ron Howard and Penny Marshall knew they'd never get out from under their iconic characters, so they wisely turned to directing instead.

I mean, the other reason people jumped to television was predictable schedules, less fluctuation in pay, and the ability to have a family. I have no idea if that was the case, but the stars-in-eyes writer idea of what the stars of stage and screen are owed kind of clunks against reality if you read enough interviews

I had a coworker while I was still in college who was on the football team, and people would ask him if he wanted to go pro, etc, and he had a completely grounded answer that his knees would die in two years, he could go to Europe and do that league briefly, but he’d pay for it. Sometimes people are very canny in understanding exactly what their choices entail and you’re not them, where nor when

Ron Howard rolled through several iconic roles

I just read up on her a bit--curious about this now--and part of why she left the show was because she was pregnant and the show's producers weren't happy about that; sounds like she got screwed over. The fact that she auditioned for Star Wars and also did the sequel to American Graffiti suggests to me that a movie career was something she was at least interested in, even if not an obsession. She seemed to do a fair number of TV movies.

From an online interview, undated:

JL: Moving from comedy to drama, I went back recently and watched the episode you did on “Law & Order SVU” in which you played an evil woman who was trying to kill her little granddaughter. You also played serious roles in such films as “The Conversation” with Gene Hackman. Do you prefer doing drama over comedy, or wish you had done more?

CW: I’d like to have played more middle of the road parts, but I didn’t have a chance because no one was going to cast me after “Laverne & Shirley”. I remember going up for this big part, and I went in, and the producer said, “I’d love to cast you, but I can’t. You’re just too recognizable as Shirley Feeney.” And it’s the truth, and I understand that. Look, it’s a blessing that I got to play that character and it became so popular with people, so I never regret that.

http://www.tvparty.com/70-cindy-williams.html

Which is exactly what I'd expect: she loves the show because it was fun and people loved it and it made her rich (?) and famous, and she'd never criticize it, but that there was this other part of her that was very visible in those two movies that she was never given the chance to explore. That's all. I'm not criticizing her, not criticizing anyone who loves L&S, just saying there was another side there that I saw and that was important to me.

Just saw something on Friendbook about a pretty big deal writer who was a fan of hers and wanted to write a film role for her but it didn't work out.

And not that this kind of career-defining-TV-role problem has disappeared. James Gandolfini never got out from under Tony Soprano (he was great in Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said, which got very little attention), ditto Jon Ham and Don Draper. But at least now TV stars have easier access to big film roles. (I wish Elizabeth Moss hadn't kept going so long with The Handmaid's Tale. She should have won a couple of Academy Awards by now.)

Didn't expect to see a weird derail about someone's awkward designs on Cindy Williams' career opportunities after not visiting the thread for a few days. La Lechera and mh otm. She had (small) roles in Coppola and Lucas films, but not THE Coppola and Lucas films, so there's no reason to believe she'd have ever crossed over into bigger, more demanding roles even if we all acknowledge she had the talent to do so. Hollywood is littered with fantastic leading actors who never got a lead role.

Cindy Williams did. On TV.

sopranos or not, i don’t think gandolfini was ever likely to ‘get out from under’ being a large italian-american man

aaanyway she was funny as shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9egH-OEQYM8

If you all find "Cindy Williams could have made more movies" an awkward contention, wait till you hear that I think that Tom Verlaine could have expressed the same sensibility in his music if he was born twenty years earlier, played saxophone and recited Beat poetry.

Laverne & Shirley did way more to inform my worldview (and those of my peers) than American Graffiti.

I think y’all are confounding the fact that clemenza was not really a Laverne & Shirley fan (me neither although I liked most of the component parts, but don’t begrudge others for liking it) with the idea that actors might like the challenge of doing films as well as Neon Boystelevision.

I mean it’s not a great argument for every actor but in her case it seems to make some sense.(xp to self)

Sorry, I think you're being ridiculous. You have your version of Cindy Williams, I have my mine, and mine does not have to comport with yours. For you, she was the star of a TV show you loved when you were younger, and you feel a lot of nostalgia for that.

I think I was reacting to this condescending post in which I was called "ridiculous" and in debt to the lesser emotion of nostalgia when what I was expressing is that Laverne and Shirley was and remains important (and not just to me!) and therefore it's not a fluffy subpar substitute for a Serious Film Career.

Okay, yeah, you are right.

tbh any performer is lucky to find an iconic role whether it's on TV or in a movie, the match of performer and part doesn't come along all that often. The flipside of iconic roles is, sure, the performer may have a hard time eclipsing them — may be absorbed by them — but imagining their career without that role is pointless. Maybe they never would have found another one!

Anyway RIP to her, I never watched L&S regularly but I always had a good impression of it. And to LL's point, even as a kid I remember it being accorded some cultural cachet precisely because it was about two working women.

^otm on all points!

I think I had a bit of trouble with The Big Ragu. Also never really warmed up to David Lander until I watched Oswald. Always really liked the theme song and the title sequence though.

Totally forgot that Betty Garrett was on that show!

I'll apologize for that LL, but also point out that you had an earlier post with "FUIUD" included. There was an "LOL" attached, so I guess I was supposed to ignore that.

And believe, as someone who regularly comes on here and expresses nostalgia for any number of things, I don't consider that a lesser emotion. My nostalgia for American Graffiti is very much a part of my attachment to Cindy Williams. And I don't know why you keep characterizing the films I mention as some kind of art-school snobbishness--is there a more accessible, non-arty film than American Graffiti? (The Conversation, maybe, but I don't know, its artiness quotient seems at the mild end to me.)

Now, I suppose, I'll be accused of prolonging a derail that to my mind I didn't even initiate.

thanks to mookie for making me laugh this morning

Emily Rose Marcus, Greil's daughter. Sad, sweet obit by Christgau: https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/emily-rose-marcus-1969-2023

(Hits me a bit extra because she was three months younger than me.)

Jeez, that's a really sad piece - just a month younger than me

Between this and his own health issues, Marcus has had just a terrible year.

I just got home and haven't had a chance to read it, but Marcus himself has a piece up about his daughter (should be accessible).

https://open.substack.com/pub/greilmarcus/p/emily-rose-marcus-1969-2023?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

From the comments section: FYI to everyone who has mentioned the author: I saw this post on Facebook, and it was written by Emily's sister, Cecily.

You're right. Like (almost) everyone else in the comments section, I assumed he wrote it. He actually does begin by saying "I am posting this because people have asked me to."

Cardiacs percussionist Tim Quy, after about 5 years of bad health.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid028zaezbJ9SeiEx3oG5LTr4s1pQZ6JKVUVTjVqLCS4TipTxwRp2fdgrTfEzHPK9AU5l&id=100032042187218&mibextid=Nif5oz

John Davis, disco producer/arranger who led the Monster Orchestra. “Up Jumped The Devil” and his version of “Bourgie Bourgie” are All Time stunners.

I had no idea this brand was a real person:

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2023/02/03/fashion-designer-paco-rabanne-dies-aged-88_6014298_15.html

Or as Prince called him in "Movie Star": Paco Ra-binny

Melinda Dillon, Who Appeared in ‘A Christmas Story,’ ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ Dies at 83https://t.co/UkQnwZHe0L

— Variety (@Variety) February 3, 2023

Ah that's a shame. Those two performances alone are for all time.

And Magnolia! (I suspect I am the only remaining person who loves that film, but she is fantastic in her small role.)

honestly she was iconic, she had so many great roles and she was always so good

XPS...and also a shocking (if you know her mainly from her 'Mom' roles) appearance in Slap Shot.

She's the true star of Close Encounters

xpost "Oglethorpe?"