Where Are They Now?

Let's face it: show business is a tough racket. There's a lot of highs and lows underneath all the bright lights and glittery junk, and it's the kind of business in which one literally is here today and gone tomorrow, but for any number of reasons. Typically, getting older can be a sure-fire career killer, especially if the commodity in  question happens to be a child star. For every Jodie Foster there is usually a Dana Plato. Truth be told, child performers historically tend to have it tougher than most everybody else. On the other hand, all is not doom-and-gloom in the world of the pancake make-up. Some lucky ones have been known to survive the slings and arrows of testy critics and a perpetually fickle public, and go on to achieve even greater heights of stardom. Or others manage to hang around the periphery of the industry, happy they are still well enough connected to continue drawing a generous paycheck doing whatever work they can find. Unfortunately, some vanish into obscurity, either intentionally or not, never to be seen or heard from again. It's a mixed bag in today's column, in which we take a fleeting glance at some of the stars of yesteryear, all of whom you will probably recognize from their respective gigs in years past. Some good news to report for the most part, some not so good. 

Tina Yothers
If you recognize that name, then you probably remember her from her stint as Michael J Fox's wisecracking little sister on the erstwhile NBC hit sitcom Family Ties; my main recollection of that show is her character making those well-timed wisecracks. She came from a show-biz family; her dad Robert was a TV producer, and she has three brothers, Jeffrey, Randy and Corey, all of whom cut their teeth as child actors in television commercials. Young Tina started appearing in TV spots at the tender age of three. She transitioned from there to roles in TV movies, leading to the gig for which she is best remembered, Jennifer Keaton on the aforementioned comedy series. That show ran from 1982 to 1989. Since its cancellation, Tina has kept a relatively low profile. She sports a sort of Goth look today, having since clipped those flowing blonde locks that endeared her to TV viewers by the millions and dyed her hair black. Her acting roles since the eighties have been few and far between. In the 90s she formed a rock band with brother Cory called Jaded, which released one CD. From 2004 thru 2007, she kept busy with theater work after a nine year absence from acting. She has also made a couple of celebrity reality TV appearances. As of this writing, it appears for all intents and purposes that Tina Yothers has retired from performing; her current role is that of full-time wife, mother and homemaker.

Jeff Conaway
This one is kinda tragic. Conaway started out young, working as a child model before transitioning to work as a child actor. He appeared in TV commercials on the side while studying at NYU. He made his film debut in 1971 in a film called Jennifer on my Mind. Shortly thereafter, he landed his breakout role in the original Broadway production of Grease, ultimately playing the lead for some two and a half years. Conaway would also appear in the Hollywood adaptation of the musical, but with pal John Travolta playing the lead this time. He kept busy with a variety of television work in the 1970s, which eventually led to the role for which he is probably best remembered, the "beefcake" character on the classic sitcom Taxi in 1978. (I know, it didn't seem like that long to me, either). After his first year on the series, the substance abuse problems that would plague Conaway for the rest of his life began to surface. He did manage to survive three seasons on Taxi before he was fired. Luckily, he was still a bankable enough performer to land plenty of work on other series throughout the 80s and 90s, including a five year stint on the popular syndicated sci-fi series Babylon 5. As the new millennium unfolded, however, years of drug and alcohol abuse would finally take their toll on the actor; fans were shocked to witness a clearly debilitated Conaway on the Celebrity Rehab with Dr Drew reality series. Conaway died of pneumonia on May 27, 2011, at the age of sixty.

Kim Fields
Kim broke into the business as a child actress during the 1970s, appearing in the short-lived Demond Wilson vehicle Baby, I'm Back as the daughter, and on Good Times as the Janet Jackson's character's friend. The role for which Kim is best-remembered came about when the decision was made to spin-off the smash hit sitcom Diff'rent Strokes starring the housekeeper character played by Charlotte Rae. That show, about a fictitious boarding school for (mostly well-off) girls in upstate New York, was called The Facts of Life. As "Tootie", Kim was the designated scene-stealer on "Facts" for the duration of its nine-year run. Happily, her life and career avoided the kinds of pitfalls suffered by her young contemporaries on the "Facts" parent series. She scored a second hit sitcom (not an easy task) with Living Single from 1993 to 1998, co-starring Queen Latifah and Kim Coles. Here's a bit of trivia: Kim's mom Chip (you may remember her from her turn on the old "Spider-Man" TV series from the 70s starring Nicholas Hammond) played her TV mom on both "Facts" and "Single". I'm thinking that may be the only time that has ever happened in the history of the medium. Although Kim has not exactly retired from acting (you may still catch her in the occasional guest-starring TV role), nowadays she is mostly doing a lot of directing work. In 2007, Kim married and gave birth to her first child.

Joe Piscopo
Much to his eternal chagrin, Piscopo was generally regarded as second-banana to Eddie Murphy during their run together on Saturday Night Live in the 80s. It's probably not fair to compartmentalize him that way; he was certainly a talented performer in his own right on that show, but it is fair to say that Murphy's breakout transition to superstardom did marginalize Piscopo to some extent. The irony is that both Piscopo and Murphy got their break on SNL as members of the infamous "new" cast on Saturday Night 80, NBC's futile attempt (the first of many over the years) to perpetuate the popular sketch comedy series in the wake of the "Not Ready for Prime Time" period coming to a close at the start of the decade. As fate would have it, they were the only two cast members who managed to avoid the axe when the rest of the new cast (including Charles Rocket and Gilbert Gottfried) were sent packing mid-season. Piscopo scored on SNL with a host of funny and durable characters: who could forget his takes on Frank Sinatra, Tom Snyder, or for that matter, as himself delivering his obnoxiously loud sports commentaries on the fake news segments? Since leaving SNL in 1984, Piscopo has kept rather busy making numerous appearances in film, television and theater, in addition to voice-over work. His trademark "I'm from Jersey" character on SNL may have been Piscopo poking fun at his own hometown; he really is from Jersey, and that is where he currently still resides. At this time, Piscopo has made no apparent plans to run for public office.

Shooting Star

The coveted position of lead singer in a rock band is perhaps the most difficult to fill, and once you've found the right guy (or gal), is damned tricky to replace in the untimely event something should happen to them. Who can imagine such classic luminaries as The Rolling Stones without the likes of the ever-flamboyant Mick Jagger, or U2 without its charismatic frontman Bono? That's right, nobody.  Like classic jazz from a bygone era, there are all sorts of occupational hazards that can befall the successful rock musician. Sometimes, rather tragically, they can be fatal; many a successful rock & roll outfit over the years has suddenly found itself  trapped in a terminal state of flux when the face and voice of the band--as significant as the music itself, on some level--is no longer there. Here are but a few examples.


The Doors
One of the biggest and most fondly remembered rock acts of the 1960s, this group might be the poster child for what happens when your frontman without warning hops that night train to the big adios. In their heyday, The Doors could go toe-to-toe with just about any of their peers on the rock music scene. They made the rounds of many of the biggest and most prestigious venues on the pop/rock circuit, playing to standing room only crowds as a matter of routine. Even the notorious "Miami incident", in which lead singer Jim Morrison allegedly exposed his privates onstage in the middle of a number could only manage to hinder, but not destroy, the band. To be clear, talented music figure that he was, Morrison was still a train wreck. That episode tends to get most of the headlines, but there were any number of similar bizarre incidents of which Morrison was the perpetrator that would land him in even more hot water with the law. On what proved to be his last public performance with the Doors, on December 12, 1970 in New Orleans, Morrison reportedly suffered an apparent breakdown on stage halfway through the set, sitting down and refusing to continue for the remainder of the show. Essentially an accident waiting to happen, Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971 from either a heart attack or a heroin overdose, no one can say for sure. Surviving band members have made repeated efforts over the years to continue the act in some form or another with new personnel, with mostly mixed results.

Queen
The death of Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in November 1991 due to complications from AIDS is arguably one of rock's greatest tragedies. The 1970s were the era of the arena rock "supergroup", and Queen was among the vanguard of that species. "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Are the Champions", and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" were just some of their chart-topping hits from that period, with commercial success continuing into the 80s with "Another One Bites the Dust".   Their LPs did the kind of business that record company executives love to no end, and the band's concerts had become major, major events unto themselves. Queen's historic performance at Live Aid on July 13, 1985, is considered by some to be the band's finest hour; organizer Bob Geldof opined that Queen "stole the show", and it was named the greatest rock performance of all time in a 2005 industry survey. Like a Mick Jagger or a Jim Morrison, Freddie Mercury has proven to be an exceptionally difficult figure to replace. One could argue that in Mercury's absence, the music is still good in its way, I suppose, but that magical, even hypnotic quality that he brought to bear in Queen's live shows is frankly irreplaceable. For a few years, from 2004 to 2009, Queen reunited and toured with ex- Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers holding down lead vocals. As of this writing, it is anybody's guess whether the surviving band members will attempt to reunite with yet another vocalist.

The Grateful Dead
One could make a perfectly valid argument that this band would have been justified in splitting up following the death of co-founder Ron "Pigpen" McKernan in March 1973. Pigpen was about as close to a bona fide "lead singer" as The Grateful Dead would ever really have, but because so many other band members were capable enough lead vocalists, they were able to continue, more or less, without skipping a beat in spite of his absence. Death was nothing new to the Dead over the years, of course. In addition to McKernan, the act witnessed the loss of two other keyboard players; Keith Godchaux perished in a car accident a year after his departure in 1979, and Brent Mydland suffered a narcotics overdose in July 1990. Circumstances would change in a big way, however, upon the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia in August 1995. If anybody had emerged as the face, voice and spirit of this band, it was Garcia, who was also front and center on lead vocals in much of the band's repertoire. In the aftermath of the loss of Garcia, surviving members have continued to perform together in a variety of different combos, even going so far as to form a quasi-Dead band called The Other Ones in 1998, which they subsequently renamed The Dead in 2003. It is unclear what remains in store for this line-up, as Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are currently involved in other group and solo projects.

AC/DC
Okay, folks. We saved the best for last, because in a sense, this is the only one I can think of that really, truly worked. Fans of this group who are old enough to remember the Nixon Administration probably remember that the original lead singer of this hard-driving, pulse-pounding rock band was a fellow by the name of Dave Evans. Unfortunately, the chemistry between Evans and the rest of the band was wanting, so the other members decided to replace him with vocalist Bon Scott in 1974. Scott was an experienced lead singer and proved to be an exceptionally charismatic frontman. Within a few short years, AC/DC would morph into an international sensation on the contemporary rock music scene, but it all very nearly came to a screeching halt following the sudden death of Bon Scott in 1980. To this day, speculation runs rampant as to how Scott actually died and under what circumstances. Officially, the cause of death was ruled "acute alcohol poisoning", but rumors persist that Scott was the victim of a heroin overdose. To make matters worse, the band were in the middle of a recording session for what would become the Back in Black LP. Yet ironically enough, prior to his death, Scott himself had raved about the vocal talents of a singer in another outfit by the name of Brian Johnson. It didn't hurt that Johnson's style and vocal range were similar to that of Scott, and after a brief audition, Johnson was hired. The revamped AC/DC completed the aforementioned record with Johnson on lead vocals, and the band, as luck would have it, not only continued in the wake of Bon Scott's passing, it has since grown to become every bit as much Johnson's band as it was Scott's, if not more so. To date, AC/DC keeps chugging along as one of the absolute biggest rock acts in the world.

And The Beat Goes On

My first exposure to Sonny and Cher that I can recall is those goofy variety series they hosted back in the 1970s. As a little kid, I didn't really know who the heck they were other than TV stars, which is sort of ironic given that they made a name for themselves--for a little while, anyway--as one of the bigger pop acts of the 1960s when Brill Building inflected pop artistry was the order of the day in the teenybopper arm of the record business. That is, until acid-influenced rock bands started putting out LPs with single tracks that burned entire album sides. (For those of you who may not know what "LP"s and "albums" are, feel free to Google those terms). It's all the more intriguing given that Cher is a huge star today as a solo act (and has been for quite some time, for that matter), and Sonny is largely forgotten save for that segment of the public whose ear remains glued to classic rock channels, where Sonny and Cher's old hits still reign supreme. That Sonny was in reality Svengali to Cher's Trilby is a fact you would never pick up on if all you had to go by was their carefully crafted show-biz persona.

It all started one day in the fall of 1962 when 27 year-old Salvatore Bono met 16 year-old Cherilyn Sarkisian in a little coffee shop in Los Angeles. The two hit it off immediately, and given the subsequent career implications for both parties, the meeting was pretty inauspicious. Sonny at that time was working for Phil Spector (boy, what happened to THAT guy?) and before long, he had Cher under Spector's employ as a backup vocalist on recording sessions. If you listen closely, you can hear Cher (with or without Sonny) in the background of some of Spector's iconic hit singles from this period. Supposedly after watching a performance by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Spector thought it would be funny to put Sonny and Cher together as a takeoff on Dylan and Baez. Sonny and Cher would later claim to have been married sometime in '63, with a wedding ceremony taking place in Tijuana in the fall of '64 .

For some reason, it was initially decided to call the act "Caesar and Cleo" with Sonny writing the material, of course. Though they did manage to record a few early singles, that incarnation of the duo more or less went nowhere. By the time they recorded and released "Baby Don't Go" in 1964, they were properly billed as Sonny and Cher. This tune proved to be their first top ten hit, and they were off and running. All of a sudden, Sonny and Cher were everywhere; you could hardly turn on a TV or radio without seeing them or hearing them. They immediately became a huge concert draw all over the world. Their pop explosion was all the more impressive in light of other new acts like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones who were also emerging around this time.

As the sixties unfolded, so did the string of Sonny and Cher hits. "I Got You, Babe", "The Beat Goes On", "Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)", "Little Man"; all were staples of 60s top-40 pop radio. It was certainly a heady time; the couple now looked about as hot as any of the big British invasion bands that were storming the American market, even going toe-to-toe with a veteran heavyweight like Elvis. But as fate would have it, the facade slowly started to crack. Good Times, a film project organized by Sonny in a calculated attempt to turn Sonny and Cher into movie stars, was directed by a then-unknown filmmaker named William Friedkin. This movie was a resounding bomb upon its release in 1967, an eerie precursor to the disaster that was Head, The Monkees' foray into feature films the following year. Unfortunately for the superstar pop couple, the hit singles had pretty much dried up, too, by the end of the decade.

But Sonny was far from finished. Sonny and Cher still had a certain appeal as live performers, so with that in mind, Sonny transplanted the act to the nightclub scene of Las Vegas where the team would gradually reinvent itself. Evolving from swinging sixties pop duo to full-fledged comedy team with the music to some extent relegated to the background, the new incarnation of the act was a little slow to catch on at first. Cher was now the wise-cracking "straight man" in their alternate persona; Sonny, the hapless punching bag as the butt of all the jokes. Funny thing was, behind the scenes it was actually Sonny who was writing a lot of those jokes, not to mention supervising all of the music arrangements as usual. In fact, Sonny was firmly in command of just about every aspect of  their lives, which now included infant daughter Chastity, born in 1969.

Eventually, this revamped version of Sonny and Cher would attract the attention of television talent scouts. This led to the first Sonny and Cher TV special in 1971, The Nitty Gritty Hour. The success of that broadcast led to the opportunity to host their own variety series, and thus, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour was born. The viewing public couldn't seem to get enough of the act now, their early forays into the folk-pop music scene for the most part a distant memory. As major network television stars, Sonny and Cher enjoyed consistently high ratings in addition to favor among critics.They even revived their stagnant recording career, releasing a new record in 1972 featuring two more top ten singles, "All I Ever Need Is You" and "A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done".  

Unfortunately, the duo's conspicuous return to the spotlight would come at a price. Their marriage, which according to later accounts by Cher herself was far from ideal to begin with, would ultimately collapse under the strain. After four successful seasons, the "Comedy Hour" was subsequently cancelled following the public and rather bitter divorce of Sonny and Cher. Although the two would reconcile their personal friendship, even going so far as to attempt a TV comeback in prime time a couple of years later, the wild ride that was Sonny and Cher had essentially ground to a halt by the end of the decade. The (new) Sonny and Cher show was cancelled due to low ratings in 1977.

The famous ex-couple hardly remained idle in the years since their split, however. Sonny continued his acting career, in addition to other business interests, and later entered the world of politics. In 1988, he was elected mayor of Palm Springs, California; in 1994, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. For her part, Cher has continued her music career as a successful solo act, as well as making the transition to movie stardom in the 1980s. She won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Moonstruck. Sonny and Cher would make two on-stage reunions: The Mike Douglas Show in 1979 and Late Night with David Letterman in 1987.

On January 5, 1998, Sonny Bono was killed in a freak skiing accident in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He was 62. 

Ready for Prime Time

Television as a media outlet has long been a source of controversy, and a thorn in the side of many an enlightened observer for as long as its relatively short existence. In 1961, FCC chairman Newton Minnow famously called it "a vast wasteland". Frank Lloyd Wright quipped it was "chewing gum for the eyes". The slang term "boob tube" was coined in the halcyon days of TV; author John Updike may have coined the term "idiot box" in his seminal work Rabbit, Run in 1960.

True, the medium is flawed and somewhat limited. Yes, there's a lot of junk on the tube, and its inherent corruption at the hands of undue corporate influence makes for pretty stinging satire in Paddy Chayefsky's Network. And who could forget that as of this writing, Jay Leno is the permanent host of The Tonight Show? But criticism aside, TV is always known to have its moments in spite of itself. So with that ringing endorsement, in today's column we will discuss some of our picks for GREATEST TV EPISODES OF ALL TIME. By all means, feel free to amend this list however you like. 

The Twilight Zone "The Four of Us Are Dying" (1960)
This would be the first episode of the classic series that made a lasting impression on me. Rod Serling's memorable sci-fi and suspense anthology, often imitated but never duplicated, was still in search of its audience when this installment aired during the show's first season. This story about the duplicitous nature of the human character, and perhaps that of life in general, may have done much to help the new program carve out a niche for itself in its initial phase. This episode features many of the hallmarks that would make The Twilight Zone such a huge cult favorite with the passage of time; the way it seamlessly blends the best elements of classic film noir by way of a breezy, jazzy score by noted film composer Jerry Goldsmith certainly makes it one of the series' easiest chapters to watch. Now, while there are some rather obvious flaws in the logic of the story, about an exceedingly unscrupulous fellow who possesses the ability to re-arrange the contour of his own face to duplicate that of any other face he comes across, literal point A to point B storytelling was never all that huge a concern for The Twilight Zone's creative team, or for that matter, its audience. The episode is all the more memorable in that it showcases early screen appearances of such popular actors as Ross Martin, Beverly Garland, and Don Gordon, all of whom went on to enjoy stalwart careers in film and television.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents "The Man from the South" (1960)
Not only is this metaphor about the evils of gambling one of my personal favorites, it is justifiably one of the most famous episodes of this classic series, if for no other reason than the stunt casting showcase of Steve McQueen versus Peter Lorre. Quentin Tarantino's post-modern spin on this oldie but goodie was pretty much the only highlight of his disastrous collaborative experiment Four Rooms, but interestingly, that is only one of a handful of adaptations of the noted short story by Roald Dahl over the years. As fate would have it, this story was first broadcast two days after the "The Four Of Us Are Dying", appropriate in light of the way these two film noir-oriented, suspense-driven TV series tended to compliment each other. McQueen was a relative unknown at the time, and his work in this show was part of his ongoing effort to build enough of a resume in television to propel him into the major movie superstardom that he would enjoy as the sixties unfolded. Peter Lorre, on the other hand, had essentially realized a major film career in his own right, starring in several fine Hitchcock films from the 1930s and 40s, as well as other noteworthy crime films like The Maltese Falcon. "The Man from the South" resembles something like a changing of the guard as it were, as two of the Silver Screen's most easily recognizable figures pull every scene-stealing trick in the book to try to upstage each other in the short space of a mere twenty-odd minutes' worth of screen time.

Saturday Night Live hosted by Desi Arnaz (1976)
During the inaugural season of that timeworn TV staple known as SNL, Desi Arnaz, the guy who played Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy, published his memoirs with the provocative title, A Book. In the ensuing promotional tour, the opportunity arose for Desi to host the brand-new late-night sketch comedy series, and Desi accepted. The subsequent broadcast, while not the most "famous" installment in the program's history, is certainly one of its very best and most entertaining. The program was especially fitting as Desi Arnaz was himself one of the most famous television pioneers who ever lived, and the format of this newfangled show for (mostly) young people harkened back to TV's salad days. In that spirit, the show manages to simultaneously pay tribute to and lampoon Desi, to consistently charming effect. The handful of folks who were tuned in that Saturday night were treated to well-written spoofs of such venerable Desilu fare as The Untouchables (Dan Ayckroyd as Elliot Ness, who else?) and of course the aforementioned classic sitcom, this time featuring Gilda Radner as Lucy. The show wraps with my hands-down pick for that program's most  memorable segment in its history: silver-haired Desi Arnaz, evidently tired out from a long night's work, takes center stage with his son Desi Jr, to lead the cast and studio audience in a rousing rendition of Desi's signature tune "Babalu". It ran so long, they had to cut in for commercial as Desi led the entire SNL cast in a spirited conga line around the SNL studio, finally rolling the closing credits over the still-pulsating rhythm. The show should have just ended right there, and spared us the succeeding three decades.

Seinfeld "The Invitations" (1996)
I choose to disregard the train wreck that was the final episode of arguably the greatest sitcom in television history; instead, here is what maybe should have been that program's true finale. It was the final broadcast written by series co-creator and head writer Larry David, and one has the sense that David knew he was at the end of the line when he wrote it. The story rather neatly encapsulates the various tenets of the show, putting on display some of the most wicked modes of black comedy ever witnessed in prime time. David even took the extra step of killing off the Susan character, played by Heidi Swedberg, and that death ends up being the focus of much of the show's most cringe-inducing yet humorous moments. Swedberg has since publicly stated that she got a kick out of having her character croak in such a darkly comic manner, while Jason Alexander (aka George) has claimed that Susan's death is only one of two instances when the show's audience turned on him or his character (the one where George eats the pastry out of the garbage being the other). The notion that George was, whether intentionally or not, responsible for the Susan character's death was a bit much for even this show's loyal following; the possibility, however remote, that George may have even murdered her character bordered on sacrilege. And Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George behaving as though they didn't really give a damn, some people found especially crass. Yeah, crass but funny.

The Sopranos "Blue Comet" (2007)
Also known as the next-to-last episode of this hugely popular contemporary mafia series, I think writer-producer David Chase probably should have just called it a day right here. Like the Seinfeld "Invitations" episode, this story neatly tied up much of the program's central themes and protagonists in a manner that would have made a fitting end for the long-running crime drama, but...wasn't. All of the intrigues and complex story lines that had unfolded over the duration of The Sopranos' run actually came to a head in this chapter, not the largely superfluous finale of record. Like that final episode, "Comet" has an ending that is rather ambiguous, but the picture of Tony Soprano curled up alone in bed with a shotgun, fearing for his life, would have made the perfect image for the series to fade out with, and also would have still left the door open for the often-discussed but apparently unlikely big-screen adaptation "Sopranos" sequel. In this episode, we see a vulnerability in the Tony Soprano character that was rarely seen for the duration of the series' evolution, juxtaposed with the irony of Peter Bogdanovich driving a stake through Tony's heart by convincing the Lorraine Bracco character to dump Tony as a psychotherapy patient. The way Chase and company weave that narrative seems cruel and heartless, at first. That is, until you consider that mob boss Tony is a hundred times MORE cruel and heartless, even on his best day.

Requiem for a Heavyweight

                               There is a fifth dimension...


Rod Serling's career ambition was probably not to make a name for himself in the world of television; he simply wanted to be a writer. His unique worldview, it has been said, was largely shaped as the result of his especially brutal experiences in combat during World War Two. When it was all said and done, Serling was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Philippine Liberation Medal for his service to the US Army. Based on remarks he would make to close acquaintances and to interviewers over the years, one could make the argument that Serling likely suffered from PTSD; writing may well have been a form of therapy. Upon the conclusion of his combat service, Serling was beset with  physical and psychological maladies that would plague him for the rest of his life--nightmares, flashbacks, a serious knee injury. 

The career path Serling would take was shaped by and large during his college years, in which he studied theater, broadcasting and literature. He cut his teeth as a writer doing marginal work in the field of radio. Once he had exhausted the possibilities of that medium, the next logical step was to begin writing for the small screen. Network television was pretty new, still in its infancy, and it was the perfect venue for a man of Serling's creative  impulse. As the 1950s unfolded, he would make a steady living selling his early scripts to some of  the popular live anthology drama series of the day, including Kraft Television Theater, Appointment with Adventure, and Hallmark Hall of Fame. He received rave reviews for two original teleplays of note, Patterns and Requiem for a Heavyweight.

Irritated by censorship and general interference by network executives and corporate sponsors, Serling hit upon the idea of utilizing specific genre motifs to camouflage the message he wanted to impart. The 50s were nothing if not circumspect; topics concerning racism or other "tricky" political subjects were considered too taboo for TV in those days. However, if you couched those ideas in the hazy metaphor of say, science fiction or mystery and suspense, the suits tended to leave you alone. With that thought in mind, Serling revised an old script from his college days called The Time Element, which he intended to serve as the pilot for a unique weekly anthology series he was pitching to the CBS television network called The Twilight Zone. The network passed on that proposal, but used the script anyway for a new show produced by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz called The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. Public response to The Time Element was such that the network decided to give Serling the go-ahead for his own series after all...

The Twilight Zone premiered on October 2, 1959. It was an instant hit with critics, but was slow to build an audience at first. Over time that would change, as Serling and his two other principal writers, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, found novel ways to stretch the boundaries of network series television. For the most part, Serling's original notion proved to be accurate; the science fiction format enabled the series to avoid controversy and to escape too much network censorship. He could not entirely sidestep network interference, however; Serling always had to fight to maintain creative control over his series. 

Rod Serling wrote 92 of the show's 156 episodes. CBS, never really happy with the series' consistently middling ratings (despite strong critical support and a loyal fan base), tried as best they could to meddle with the show. Tampering with the intro segments, expanding the show from a half-hour to an hour for season 4 (then returning it to a half hour for season 5), and actually canceling the series twice. Most folks probably don't remember that one. The third time CBS cancelled The Twilight Zone proved to be the last. Serling decided he had had enough of dealing with network bosses, and besides, he was burned out producing, writing and hosting the show week in and week out. The final telecast of one of the most iconic creations in television history took place on June 19, 1964.  Serling parted company with CBS by making the (subsequently) ill-advised decision to sell his 40% share of the series to the network.

If anybody was living proof that fame is a bitch goddess, it was Rod Serling. His aim to become a "serious" writer was curtailed by his becoming an unexpectedly marketable television personality, the result of his weekly onscreen appearances as host and narrator of The Twilight Zone. His original choice to serve as the face and the voice of the show was Orson Welles, but Welles reportedly wanted too much money. Mostly as a cost-cutting measure, Serling as de facto executive producer decided to do the job himself. Ironically, this decision would transform him into a celebrity at least as popular as his beloved TV series, if not more so. Over the years, Serling was a familiar face to TV viewers as a guest on other series, even pulling duty as a commercial pitchman.

His years in the wake of The Twilight Zone's final cancellation were productive if unspectacular. He produced a series called The Loner which was not well-received by critics or audiences, and was axed after one season. He wrote and produced a TV movie called The Doomsday Flight (1966) which sparked considerable controversy when its story (apparently) inspired a string of copycat ransom threats to several major airlines. He co-wrote the screenplay to the film adaptation of The Planet of the Apes (1968). In 1969, Serling hosted a short-lived game show called Liar's Club. When he wasn't preoccupied with his own projects, Serling also kept his schedule full with a number of teaching positions he held throughout the 1960s and 70s.

I suppose in such a context, it was inevitable that Serling would write the pilot for Night Gallery, an anthology series that would once again showcase Serling as onscreen host and principal scriptwriter. The series managed to eke out three seasons' worth of material, mostly on life-support. Serling passed on the opportunity to produce this time around, a decision that would prove costly in the long run in terms of the level of quality Serling wanted that new series to maintain. That pilot episode, a two-hour TV movie broadcast on November 8, 1969, was actually pretty good. It featured three vignettes starring Ossie Davis, Roddy McDowall, Richard Kiley, and Joan Crawford in what proved to be one of her final acting appearances. 

Serling would live to regret not having the clout with which to fight the network that producing would have afforded him. On Night Gallery, he was just another hired hand; the network this time around, NBC, didn't have to listen to him, and would typically ignore his suggestions and general attempts at creative input. The meddling Serling dealt with during The Twilight Zone's run was nothing compared to his treatment on this new series, a program that many observers regarded as little more than The Twilight Zone's bastard stepchild. In all fairness, Night Gallery did have its moments, but those moments I think we can all agree were few and far between. Serling still had what it took to write compelling television when the inspiration struck him, but the TV landscape had changed somewhat in the years since the earlier series left the airwaves. The audience had certainly changed, and it can be safely said that the medium had little room for what amounted to a " Twilight Zone" rehash. Serling had all but disowned the series by the time of its its cancellation in 1973.


Serling was a lifelong heavy smoker, and this undoubtedly contributed to serious health problems he would encounter in his final years. After suffering two minor coronary episodes in May of 1975, doctors convinced him to undergo open-heart surgery. On June 28, 1975, he suffered a third heart attack on the operating table, and it proved to be fatal. Rod Serling, as formidable a visionary and creative force that the narrow medium of television has ever seen, was 50.

                     ...beyond that which is known to man.

...And The Envelope, Please!

Never let it be said that have a nice day! eschews the basic principles of "fairness" and "balance" in media "reporting", nosireebob! Our recent column eviscerating some of the "worst" Oscar winners in history is certainly one of our favorites; however, as turnabout is fair play, here are some of our picks for "best" picture winners at the Academy Awards. Feel free to amend this list with some of your own favorites. And now, in no particular order...

Midnight Cowboy (April 7, 1970)
I will say upfront that at least one other film in 1969 gave this movie a legitimate run for its money, that is Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They?. Truth be told, "Horses" probably should have won; if I had a vote, I think it edges out "Cowboy" (if only by percentage points). But having said that, I am nonetheless delighted that the John Schlesinger opus took down the little gold statuette. Both films take a rather dim view of the myth of American Exceptionalism by focusing on characters who are in every sense "unexceptional" and elevating them to heroic status. Both movies essentially make the argument that isolation in the extreme from the mainstream of society can kill you, figuratively and literally, but "Cowboy" takes its argument a step further. Homosexuality was most definitely not a topic of discussion in mainstream American anything in those days, but Midnight Cowboy addresses the subject head on, utilizing complex central characters and a likewise narrative structure. The movie may not have delved into the subject quite as deeply as the novel by James Leo Herlihy on which it is based, but the fact that a mainstream Hollywood film would even go there at all in the 1960s is impressive in and of itself. "Cowboy" stands as the only X-rated film to win an Oscar in any category.

The French Connection (April 10, 1972)
One of my all-time favorite Oscar winners, and one of my all-time favorite movies, this William Friedkin epic made a boatload of greenbacks upon its release in 1971. Critical and commercial success usually don't hurt a Best Picture candidate's chances at the Oscars but this film lived up to the hype. (Pauline Kael didn't like it, but she didn't like Bonnie and Clyde either, so go figure). Yeah, at least two other movies that year were in the same ballpark in terms of quality, Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop and Alan Pakula's Klute, but "Connection" gave new meaning to the term "riveting". Gene Hackman delivered a star-making, Oscar winning performance as "Popeye" Doyle, a vice cop obsessed nearly to the point of madness in his pursuit of a slimy drug kingpin. And of course, there is that damn car chase. CGI technology did not exist in any shape or form in 1970 when this film was shot in the bitter cold streets of New York City. Those were real cars driven by real people crashing into all that stuff, and very nearly running over other real people in the streets. As legend has it, director Friedkin went "renegade" and, ignoring all the rules of filmmaking protocol and common sense, simply went out into the streets and ordered stunt driver Bill Hickman to show him some "hairy" driving. Hickman responded in no uncertain terms, and cinematic history was made in spades.

The Godfather, Part Two (April 8, 1975)
The first installment of Francis Ford Coppola's epic mafia franchise is undoubtedly the most beloved of the series (hey, anything starring Marlon Brando can't be all bad), but I must admit that the more overtly complicated sequel to that film is my personal favorite. Al Pacino actually builds on the performance in the original film that made him a movie star, and shows us Michael Corleone's slow but sure descent from humanity into something akin to Night of the Living Dead. However, it may be Robert DeNiro filling in for Marlon Brando who leaves the strongest impression in this film. Remember, this is pre-Taxi Driver; DeNiro was far from a household name yet, and Coppola was taking nearly as big a chance on him in this movie as he was taking with casting Brando in the original film explicitly against the wishes of the suits at Paramount Pictures. DeNiro is then handed the nearly impossible task of crafting an original interpretation of the Godfather character that simultaneously evokes Brando AND makes the audience forget about Brando. That's a pretty tall order, folks; I imagine they'd have to cast Daniel Day-Lewis if this film were being made today. Reportedly, Paramount head Robert Evans had been such a pain in the ass on that first film that Coppola demanded Evans be barred from the set for its sequel. And he was.

American Beauty (March 26, 2000)
I was pretty blown away by this film at the time of its initial release. Kevin Spacey, riding the wave of well-received turns in films such as LA Confidential and The Usual Suspects, among others, earned a well-deserved Oscar for his performance as a burned out company hack suffering from mid-life crisis. Critical and commercial response to American Beauty was pretty strong when it first made the rounds of the multiplexes at home and abroad, but inexplicably, the movie has since found itself the victim of a certain backlash at the hands of a few mainstream critics. In 2005, some rag that nobody took seriously called Premiere named "Beauty" as one of the "20 most overrated movies of all time". Well, la-de-freakin'-da. Now I will allow that this film does bear some resemblance to a couple of older pictures, Save The Tiger and Ordinary People. Jack Lemmon won an Oscar playing a burned-out businessman in "Tiger" not that different from the character Spacey plays in "Beauty", and "People" concerns a troubled family on the brink of collapse. That would be a valid criticism, but only the most superficial viewing of American Beauty would lead one to conclude that the film is itself superficial. This movie does NOT celebrate the best humanity has to offer, it instead amplifies the WORST aspects of the human character. The rosy veneer the picture was adorned with was intended to make the content a little more palatable. Half-assed movie "critics" who subsequently claimed this film had all the depth of a Hallmark greeting card missed the point entirely.

The Departed (February 25, 2007)
Finally, the one that made it! I will never forget the day after that year's awards had been passed out, I came across an item in the entertainment section of one of the Chicago dailies, in which the writer (somebody you've never heard of) had the gall to opine, "THE DEPARTED? The guy who made Taxi Driver and Raging Bull won for THE DEPARTED? Really?". Well, uh...YEAH, dipshit.  And he deserved it, too. Now we have previously discussed the fact that Raging Bull's Oscar "loss" should be considered one of the all-time greatest Academy Awards miscarriages of justice. Taxi Driver had no chance to win as it was one of three movies that were too busy getting ripped off by Rocky the year of their release. In fact, Scorsese could well have won for several other films over the course of his illustrious career. Goodfellas, Casino, The Aviator--all worthy of a Best Picture award. The Gangs of New York certainly had a shot, but it did not win and I'm glad it didn't. "Gangs" was an extremely flawed movie, and it would have been more of an embarrassment for Scorsese to have won for that one. The Last Waltz was easily deserving of an award for Best Documentary, but it didn't even get nominated, I don't think. At any rate, Martin Scorsese is one of the few directors still working in Hollywood today who can take what should have been a routine programmer action/cop flick, and elevate the thing to Oscar-worthy proportions. The Departed isn't really the standard shoot-'em-up it's disguised to look like; it's more a movie about duplicity. We could also get into metaphors about "redemption" and "sins of the father" and all that sort of thing, but that would be a bit much, even for this column.

The Dennis Hopper Experience

In 1968, Dennis Hopper, almost by accident, landed the opportunity to direct his first feature film when a buddy of his, actor Peter Fonda, decided it would be a groovy idea to make a Western. Not just any Western, mind you; this would be something of a post-modern, revisionist take on the genre, juxtaposing guys on horses with guys on motorcycles. It was a simple enough premise made all the more attractive by Fonda's star-making turns in a couple of contemporary Roger Corman films of note, The Wild Angels and The Trip. Fonda was a "hot" property now, sort of like the counterculture's answer to Gary Cooper; this new film would unfold along  a similar vein. He told the idea to Hopper, and it was decided the two of them would make this movie with Fonda producing and Hopper directing.

The movie in question, of course, was Easy Rider. It cost relatively little to make, and upon its eventual release in 1969, made the kind of money that studio big shots tend to notice. This is important in that the runaway success of this film would enable Hopper to direct the movie he had actually wanted to make in the first place, an idea he had developed years earlier with the screenwriter responsible for Rebel Without A Cause. Universal studios, hoping for something along the lines of Easy Rider 2, gave Hopper carte blanche to make whatever he felt like; thus, a sketchy idea that studio after studio had turned down en masse for nearly a decade would finally see the light of day. The working title of this movie was Chinchero.

Released at long last in the fall of 1971, The Last Movie was, to put it bluntly, an unmitigated disaster for Dennis Hopper. For starters, the debacle effectively ended Hopper's career ambition to make his own films; in certain respects, it wasn't that different from what had happened to Orson Welles a few decades earlier. That this movie never had a chance to succeed is plain to see by  the savage degree to which critics attacked it, and by the fact that the studio essentially refused to promote it. They had already sunk somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars (serious cash in those days) into the picture, and what they saw on the screen was to them largely incomprehensible, even by "art house" standards. The bottom line for a Hopper or a Welles is that auteurs are only permitted to write their own ticket in this town provided that their work yields a profit. Think Martin Scorsese, or perhaps Quentin Tarantino.

I, for one, think that The Last Movie got a bad rap. Rightly or wrongly, American directors are prone to take some brickbats when they try to make a movie like this. Arthur Penn with Mickey One (1965), Sam Peckinpaw with Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), Robert Altman with Brewster McCloud (1970), practically anything by John Cassavetes. Mainstream critics tend to prefer their Hollywood types to toe the line accordingly; what some critics will overpraise at the hands of the French New Wave or the old German Expressionists, for example, seems "pretentious" or "indulgent" coming from American counterparts.

This is not to say that Hopper's "masterpiece" is not without its problems. The film does suffer from a somewhat disjointed narrative, and it gives new meaning to the term "surreal". Don't laugh when I say this, but The Last Movie is really just a good ol' Twilight Zone episode, only expanded to just over ninety minutes and enhanced with something on the order of a CAULDRON of LSD, or maybe Angel Dust. Imagine the Mardi Gras scene at the end of Easy Rider when everybody dropped all that acid and then freaked out for ten minutes. Picture that for nearly two hours, and you have The Last Movie. Now, much of this stems from the way the movie was edited. The greatest irony between this tarnished movie and its more beloved predecessor is that on Easy Rider, Hopper was involved with other people whose judgement he had to respect (or at least live with, since they had the right to recut that film, which they ultimately did). On The Last Movie, he had an absolute free hand (including final cut), and for better or worse, it shows. Reportedly, Hopper's original cut of the film was more straightforward and in accordance with the dictates of conventional storytelling. That cut fell out of favor with the director, so he destroyed it  and put together the cut of the film that is seen today. 

Even though I have a more favorable opinion overall, some of the charges leveled at this movie are not without some merit. Inept and pretentious, just plain pitiful, gaseous and overblown mess, an extravagant mess, an embarrassment, endless, chaotic, suffocating, acid-soaked. I actually concur with some of that sentiment to a degree: Hopper was experiencing some serious life issues during this period, including marital discord and rampant drug abuse. He was mostly out of control south of the border while filming this movie, and this time he did not have the stabilizing influence of a Peter Fonda or a Bert Schneider as producers. Pondered in that light, The Last Movie may give new meaning to the term "artistic excess".

Nonetheless, this movie has something to say, and here is my best guess as to what that message is. The Last Movie is a metaphor for the perverse affect that the "conventional" Hollywood film has on our collective psyche. It screws up the way we see ourselves by telling us the way we're supposed to see ourselves; which, of course, is crazy, since nothing shown on the screen is "real", anyway. It's merely an idealized, heavily sanitized impression of who we are and of reality. More specifically, it panders to the way we would prefer to see ourselves. But the truth is, we are not Steve McQueen or Rita Hayworth. The Beautiful People don't suffer the same indignities on celluloid that we do in life, and in the effort to convince us otherwise, the movies LIE. At its worst, Hollywood not only sells us this false self-image, but does so with undue value placed on the material and the commercial. That's a pretty heady idea coming from a guy who was most likely stoned out of his mind at the time, even by his own admission. I would also add, maybe that's what the industry truly resented about this picture: not the quality of the production or lack thereof, but its audacious assertion that Hollywood is simply a bunch of bullshit.

Years later, Hopper was able to mend enough fences in order that he eventually managed to hustle more opportunities to direct. The results were mostly inconsistent; never again would Hopper supervise a more iconic film like an Easy Rider or a more edgy, self-conscious film like The Last Movie. The realities of the business in the eighties and nineties were such that these kinds of films were a lot harder to make than they had been for the Woodstock Generation, and whatever audience they could hope to expect was largely outside the mainstream. But a funny thing happened. As is often the case, the passage of time has a way of casting art, movies especially, in a better and more interesting light than it sometimes enjoys initially, and such was the case with the erstwhile much maligned Dennis Hopper film. Today, the film enjoys something of a cult following; Hopper later re-acquired rights to the film and was planning a DVD release, but his death in 2010 curtailed this effort.

Admittedly, The Last Movie is not an especially easy movie to sit through. It may be guilty of some excesses, but it is well worth watching.