R.I.P. Immortals 2018: Boomer Memories

There are a number of ways people become immortal, or at least have the influence of their lives extended.

 One way is to remain present or even recurrent in the memories of the living.  Memories themselves are not dead.  They change and live according to the lives of the living.  Such living influence can last beyond specific memories of a person, in stories that may last for generations.  Those stories, like memories, continue to change, and become living influences in the world.

Such immortality is open to anyone.  Others remain alive in the lives of people who never met them, and may not know their names, through the lasting influence of the work they did, even during just a fraction of their years.  Sometimes this remains alive in the culture.

It is probably strongest in their generation and the first succeeding one, especially if their efforts became part of the lives and memories of children.  Those of us at the beginning of the baby boom were children in the 1950s, and in our most impressionable and formative youth in the 1960s.  So in remembering people who achieved something in the culture in those years, we both remember them and aspects of ourselves.  Some of those people died in 2018, and here are a few examples.  Their degrees of fame don't always correspond to the density of the memories.

From the 1950s: actor and singer Tab Hunter, actress Patricia Benoit (Mr. Peepers), actress Dorothy Malone, actor Bradford Dillman who specialized in creepy roles, Clint Walker (TV's Cheyenne); comic Marty Allen; Nanette Fabray, who used her innocent good looks to parody herself with Sid Caesar and other comic partners.  Actors we saw on numerous TV shows included Diana Jergens and Bill Daily.  Laurie Mitchell, Queen of Outer Space.

Meanwhile, a major shift was happening in America, not always apparent.  They involved civil rights activists Mary Louise Watson and Millie Dunn Veasley (who died at age 100.)  Also Arthur Mitchell, who founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem.  Leading to, among other outcomes, Marcelite J. Harris, the first black woman General in the USAF.

The 1960s: It was about the music, from Nancy Wilson, the jazz singer who broke through to the pop charts and hit albums, to Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul.  Marty Balin was the co-leader with Grace Slick of the most commercially successful acid rock band, the Jefferson Airplane.  The Grateful Dead long outlasted the decade: for awhile, John Perry Barlow wrote lyrics for them.

Dennis Edwards, lead singer of the Temptations.  D.J. Fontana, fabled bassist for Elvis.  Martin Allcock (Jethro Tull),  Jim Redford (Kinks' bassist), Ray Thomas (Moody Blues.) Geoff Emerick, the Beatles' engineer, and Tony Calder, who promoted them.

Cliff White chronicled it all in the UK.  Jerry Hopkins wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine, biographer of Jim Morrison.

Meanwhile, Jalal Mansur Nurridin and the Last Poets were merging word with rhythm decades before it became hip hop.  Leo Sarkisian began exposing radio listeners to African music.

In the shadow of Vietnam, David McReynolds joined the War Resisters League and founded the publication Liberation. Elbert Howard co-founded the Black Panther Party.  Years later Arnold Kopelson would produce Platoon, and Gloria Katz produced American Grafitti.

The 60s through the 80s: It was about the movies: Directors Nicolas Roeg, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.)

David Sherwin (screewriter of ...If, O Lucky Man), Bill Siegel (documentarian of Weather Underground), Lewis Gilbert (director, Alfie.) Actors Genevieve Fontanel (The Man Who Loved Women), Charles Aznavour (Shoot the Piano Player), Susan Anspach (Five Easy Pieces, Blume in Love.)

But there are cultures within cultures.  Koyukon author Poldine Demoski Carlo died in 2018, as did Native performance artist James Luna, Inuit artist Elisapee Ishulutag at age 93 and Cherokee potter Amanda Swimmer, at age 97.

Dancer Paul Taylor.  John Barton, co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who transformed acting in Shakespeare for generations--his inspiring videos are on YouTube.

More to come.