Happy International Women’s
Day!
And on this day, as circumstances have it, I am not going to be talking about any women, but three men, each of whom made an impression on me--and countless other Baby Boomers--over the many decades and have recently left us.
Their passings when they happened were kind of ironic to me, because one of the reasons that I did not write a Rant yesterday was, as I told you, I had a funeral to attend, for a relative of my wife’s, but leading up to that, these three personalities—who had their 15 minutes-plus of attention during their lengthy careers—all passed away seemingly one after another, so they had to be mentioned 9n unison.
Anyway, I am going to talk about these three personalities in the context that I knew them best, not what the height of their careers perhaps were.
The first is Tim Considine, who passed at age 81, and who will forever be linked with the “My Three Sons” TV show as the eldest of the three—or actually four—sons on the show.
Considine—a former Mousketeer--played Mike, the oldest of the original three sons on the show—the other two were Robby, another former Mousketeer, played by Don Grady, and Chip, played by Stanley Livingston—during the early,, black-and-white episodes that were on ABC.
When the show was picked up by CBS, Considine—who had been in a contract dispute with the show, much of it revolving around his desire to write and direct an increasing amount of the show’s episodes—bowed out of the series, with one appearance in the now-color shows, as he was sent off in a wedding episode and pretty much never heard from again on the long-running show.
Robbie than became the eldest son, with a change of character from a goof to a straight-edge role, much like the role that Considine played in the early episodes. Chip then moved up a peg to the middle brother, while Barry Livingston—Stanley’s real-life brother and a member of the cast as Chip’s best friend—became the third brother in a pretty-ahead-of-its-time adoption arc.
Anyway, since the black-and-white episodes were not shown or available for decades, Considine’s character was never known or see by a generation of viewers—me included—until TV Land showed those episodes for the first time in the 1990s, so this pivotal character to the show’s success—as well as William Frawley’s post-Fred Mertz character of Bub—were not known by many viewers.
In the intervening years, Considine became a well-known writer and photographer of sports like auto racing and soccer, and in later years, he was included in a few “My Three Sons” reunions with his other “brothers.”
The second passing I want to talk about is Mitchell Ryan, the square-jawed actor who had a long Hollywood career both in the movies and on television.
Most younger viewers will remember him as one of the stars of the “Dharma and Greg” sitcom, but many years before, he played the original Burke Devlin in the “Dark Shadows” gothic soap opera on ABC.
Ryan, 87, was in that gothic soap opera during its early days, before the addition of Jonathan Frid as the vampire Barnabas Collins made the show the cult item that it remains today.
A lot of the early focus was not only on the Collins family, a rich New England family with a lot of secrets, or “dark shadows” to their very being, but also on Devlin, and his dealings with that family.
But once Frid was added to the cast, the Devlin character was pretty much pushed into the background, and Ryan left the show in July 1967 and was replaced by Anthony George in a role that was slowly being written out of the series to begin with.
The reason why he left the show was somewhat controversial, and certainly was so at the time.
Ryan was a heavy drinker during this period, and he did not leave the show; rather, he was fired for his alcoholism, something that it took him decades to lick while he continued as a popular character actor.
Although alcoholism was not new to Hollywood, it was perhaps the first time that an entity in Hollywood came out and announced that an actor had been fired for being an alcoholic—Robert Young did not work for years as he battled his addiction, which was kept pretty secret,, but forced him to develop the “Father Knows Best” show first on radio and then on TV because no one would hire him—so Ryan was something of a trailblazer, in a weird sort of way, for popular actors who have various addictions and how they are handled both personally and professionally.
The third personality who I would like to talk about right now is perhaps my favorite of the three.
Johnny Brown, 84, was one of the most versatile performers I have ever seen. This guy could sing, dance, do impressions, and with one of the great smiles, captivate the audience like few others could.
He was pretty much a nightclub performer both as a solo artist and in the Hines, Hines and Brown troupe with Gregory Hines.
But he finally got his big break in 1970, when he was one of the newest cast members of “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.” He brought a portly character to the show, one that again could captivate you with his smile, but also change his voice to sort of a deep "Amos and Andy"-type baritone when he was making a point about race relations--and do it in a funny way to get his point across.
And he could also sing and dance with the best of them on that show, which he stayed with until it ended in 1972.
He then dovetailed into the “Good Times” TV show, playing Nathan Bookman, the building superintendent, and he later went on to other shows, where he showed off his spot-on impressions, often while singing, of everyone from Louis Armstrong to Pearl Bailey.
He is also part of a trivia question of some note: who were the only cast members of “Laugh-In” ever to be on “The Ed Sullivan Show?”
To my recollection, the answer is Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, when they were Las Vegas entertainers; Tiny Tim, when he became one of the most popular entertainers around for about 15 minutes via his “Laugh-In” exposure; and Johnny Brown, when he was a member of Hines, Hines and Brown.
So there you have it, three personalities that touched my life—and perhaps your lives too—even if it was for just their 15 minutes-plus of fame.
With their passings, another chapter of the Baby Boomer book is closed forever, but the great thing is that their best work is preserved on video on the shows that they were on … so their “fame” will last forever.
And on this day, as circumstances have it, I am not going to be talking about any women, but three men, each of whom made an impression on me--and countless other Baby Boomers--over the many decades and have recently left us.
Their passings when they happened were kind of ironic to me, because one of the reasons that I did not write a Rant yesterday was, as I told you, I had a funeral to attend, for a relative of my wife’s, but leading up to that, these three personalities—who had their 15 minutes-plus of attention during their lengthy careers—all passed away seemingly one after another, so they had to be mentioned 9n unison.
Anyway, I am going to talk about these three personalities in the context that I knew them best, not what the height of their careers perhaps were.
The first is Tim Considine, who passed at age 81, and who will forever be linked with the “My Three Sons” TV show as the eldest of the three—or actually four—sons on the show.
Considine—a former Mousketeer--played Mike, the oldest of the original three sons on the show—the other two were Robby, another former Mousketeer, played by Don Grady, and Chip, played by Stanley Livingston—during the early,, black-and-white episodes that were on ABC.
When the show was picked up by CBS, Considine—who had been in a contract dispute with the show, much of it revolving around his desire to write and direct an increasing amount of the show’s episodes—bowed out of the series, with one appearance in the now-color shows, as he was sent off in a wedding episode and pretty much never heard from again on the long-running show.
Robbie than became the eldest son, with a change of character from a goof to a straight-edge role, much like the role that Considine played in the early episodes. Chip then moved up a peg to the middle brother, while Barry Livingston—Stanley’s real-life brother and a member of the cast as Chip’s best friend—became the third brother in a pretty-ahead-of-its-time adoption arc.
Anyway, since the black-and-white episodes were not shown or available for decades, Considine’s character was never known or see by a generation of viewers—me included—until TV Land showed those episodes for the first time in the 1990s, so this pivotal character to the show’s success—as well as William Frawley’s post-Fred Mertz character of Bub—were not known by many viewers.
In the intervening years, Considine became a well-known writer and photographer of sports like auto racing and soccer, and in later years, he was included in a few “My Three Sons” reunions with his other “brothers.”
The second passing I want to talk about is Mitchell Ryan, the square-jawed actor who had a long Hollywood career both in the movies and on television.
Most younger viewers will remember him as one of the stars of the “Dharma and Greg” sitcom, but many years before, he played the original Burke Devlin in the “Dark Shadows” gothic soap opera on ABC.
Ryan, 87, was in that gothic soap opera during its early days, before the addition of Jonathan Frid as the vampire Barnabas Collins made the show the cult item that it remains today.
A lot of the early focus was not only on the Collins family, a rich New England family with a lot of secrets, or “dark shadows” to their very being, but also on Devlin, and his dealings with that family.
But once Frid was added to the cast, the Devlin character was pretty much pushed into the background, and Ryan left the show in July 1967 and was replaced by Anthony George in a role that was slowly being written out of the series to begin with.
The reason why he left the show was somewhat controversial, and certainly was so at the time.
Ryan was a heavy drinker during this period, and he did not leave the show; rather, he was fired for his alcoholism, something that it took him decades to lick while he continued as a popular character actor.
Although alcoholism was not new to Hollywood, it was perhaps the first time that an entity in Hollywood came out and announced that an actor had been fired for being an alcoholic—Robert Young did not work for years as he battled his addiction, which was kept pretty secret,, but forced him to develop the “Father Knows Best” show first on radio and then on TV because no one would hire him—so Ryan was something of a trailblazer, in a weird sort of way, for popular actors who have various addictions and how they are handled both personally and professionally.
The third personality who I would like to talk about right now is perhaps my favorite of the three.
Johnny Brown, 84, was one of the most versatile performers I have ever seen. This guy could sing, dance, do impressions, and with one of the great smiles, captivate the audience like few others could.
He was pretty much a nightclub performer both as a solo artist and in the Hines, Hines and Brown troupe with Gregory Hines.
But he finally got his big break in 1970, when he was one of the newest cast members of “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.” He brought a portly character to the show, one that again could captivate you with his smile, but also change his voice to sort of a deep "Amos and Andy"-type baritone when he was making a point about race relations--and do it in a funny way to get his point across.
And he could also sing and dance with the best of them on that show, which he stayed with until it ended in 1972.
He then dovetailed into the “Good Times” TV show, playing Nathan Bookman, the building superintendent, and he later went on to other shows, where he showed off his spot-on impressions, often while singing, of everyone from Louis Armstrong to Pearl Bailey.
He is also part of a trivia question of some note: who were the only cast members of “Laugh-In” ever to be on “The Ed Sullivan Show?”
To my recollection, the answer is Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, when they were Las Vegas entertainers; Tiny Tim, when he became one of the most popular entertainers around for about 15 minutes via his “Laugh-In” exposure; and Johnny Brown, when he was a member of Hines, Hines and Brown.
So there you have it, three personalities that touched my life—and perhaps your lives too—even if it was for just their 15 minutes-plus of fame.
With their passings, another chapter of the Baby Boomer book is closed forever, but the great thing is that their best work is preserved on video on the shows that they were on … so their “fame” will last forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.