R.I.P. in 2021

 

In the political world, the December death of Desmond Tutu was one of the latest to be widely noted.  Tutu was instrumental in forcing the world to confront the moral outrage of apartheid in South Africa, and after that white government fell, he worked to further inform the world, heal societal wounds and reconcile with the oppressors through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a visionary and still unique national response in the world of nation-states.

 Other noted deaths in the political realm include President Obama’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and two Senators who ran unsuccessfully for President, Democrat Walter Mondale and Republican Robert Dole. Also Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan and Chicago 7 defendant Rennie Davis, as well as two important labor leaders, John Sweeney and Richard Trumpka.

Leonard Crow Dog

 Not widely noted in the mainstream media were the deaths of Native American leaders, among them: Albert Hale, former president of Navajo Nation; Earl Old Person, chief and chairman of the Blackfeet Tribe and the longest serving tribal official in the US; Lakota medicine man and spiritual leader of the Wounded Knee protests Chief Leonard Crow Dog; activist Edgar Bear Runner, as well as Lee Marmon, whose photographs honored elders and others, mostly in his Laguna Pueblo, for some 60 years.

 In the arts and entertainment, memorable figures from  50s and 60s music include Don Everly, Lloyd Price, Charlie Watt (the Rolling Stones), Michael Nesmith (the Monkees), Mary Wilson (the Supremes), Gerry Marsden (Gerry and the Pacemakers), Jimmie Rodgers (his records were among the first I bought), as well as innovative pianist Chick Corea, and celebrated theatrical songwriter Stephen Sondheim.

 

In literature, poets Robert Bly and Lawrence Ferlinghetti each had defining roles in American poetry since 1950.  Novelists Larry McMurtry and Joan Didion, and best-selling authors in other areas such as E.O. Wilson, John Naisbitt and childrens’ authors Beverly Cleary and Norman Juster were among our losses in 2021.  (For more details and more authors, see Books in Heat.)

 Noted actors who died in 2021 included: Christopher Plummer, who quietly had an international career playing leading classic and popular parts on stage and screen that may never be equaled again.  I saw him on stage twice: in Boston, as the title character in the excellent Anthony Burgess adapation of Cyrano, and in Pittsburgh in a (then) less than inspiring production of Macbeth with Glenda Jackson in what turned out to be her last stage role.  Both productions went on to Broadway to great acclaim, if not long runs.  His memoir is exhaustive and informative with a light touch.

 Had he been American, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s matinee idol looks would have likely consigned him to big studio commercial movies, but in France he could carry both swashbucklers and films of lasting merit by Godard and Truffaut.  The French New Wave is inconceivable without him. 

Cecily Tyson, whose long career began on a short-lived TV series I loved, East Side/West Side starring George C. Scott. Ed Asner --I still sneak an episode of Lou Grant once in awhile; I also saw him perform live once in a play about the Scopes trial on evolution. Known mostly for his supporting role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, for awhile in the 1970s, George Segal was a primary Hollywood leading man.  I liked him especially in Blume in Love.

  And Olympia Dukakis, Hal Holbrook, Cloris Leachman, Charles Grodin, Gavin MacLeod, Ned Beatty, Jane Withers, Jane Powell, Jessica Walter, Arlene Dahl, Anthony Sher, Yaphet Kotto, Norman Lloyd, Johnny Crawford…thanks for the memories.

 Directors we lost include Bernard Tavenier, Richard Donner (the first Christopher Reeve Superman remains a definitive American classic), Melvin van Peebles, and the—shall we say controversial—Lina Wertmuller. 

A film and television director who didn’t get his due was Michael Apted, who made fiction and documentary films about serious subjects, with taste and economy.  Best known for the “7 Up” series that followed a group of English children from 7 into adulthood every seven years, he directed such diverse features as Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorky Park, Continental Divide, Gorillas in the Mist, Thunderheart, Blink, Enigma and Amazing Grace.  He also directed Bring on the Night, a documentary that followed the genesis of Sting’s first band and songs after he left the Police.  It’s a movie I can see again just about anytime.  It may be overall the best music documentary ever made. 

Walter Bernstein with director Martin Ritt on
the set of The Front

I also especially mark the passing of screenwriter Walter Bernstein.  Blacklisted in the 50s, he got to write a revelatory comedy about that phenomenon in the 70s, called The Front. I met him on the set of that film, and he was an engaging, funny and charming man as well as a witty writer, and an example of how social conscience and perseverance can be aided by a superior sense of humor.

 I also once had a conversation with brilliant and prickly humorist Mort Sahl that was less successful, but I did have the honor of watching him read a joke line I’d written on the Dick Cavett show. 

Never mind Lina Wertmuller—I had no idea Hans Kung was still alive until this year.  He was the daring young voice of reform in the Catholic Church at the time of the Vatican II Council when I was in Catholic high school in the early 60s. A priest even lent me his book on reform and reunion. Since then, it seems, he got into so much trouble for his views with Church hierarchy (after the death of John XXIII) that he described his experience as his own Inquisition. He lost various official posts but kept writing popular and influential books (although not so much in the U.S.), finding common ground among religions and championing the ecumenical spirit, while continuing to oppose church authoritarianism. 

 Star sports figures justly noted included Hank Aaron, Elgin Baylor and John Madden.  I remember Bill Virdon not only as a winning major league manager but as the dependably swift center fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates who was kind to me.  As a kid I joined others on the Forbes Field diamond to meet our Pirates heroes.  I first shook hands with Roberto Clemente but he seemed distracted and bored, and didn’t look at me.  So I was a little embarrassed when I shook hands with Billy Virdon—until he looked me in the eye and said, “hello, son.”  

 

Among those we lost here on the North Coast was Clint Rebik, co-creator and artistic director of the Redwood Curtain theatre.  I knew Clint since that theatre began more than 20 years ago.  Besides being a talented actor and director, and in recent years a valued administrator at HSU, Clint was a model of integrity and kindness, generosity, good humor and judicious good sense.  I wrote about his theatre and their productions for a decade, though I was also there for their first night.  When I was unceremoniously dumped from my column, Clint reached out and assured me I would have a free seat there anyway. We did not know each other well, but for awhile we occasionally had coffee when I stopped by his Admissions office. He was widely admired in this community.  Clint was only 55.  He left behind two sons he loved, a partner and many friends.

 

Sam Oliner and his wife Pearl Oliner created the Altruistic Personality and Pro-Social Behavior Institute at Humboldt State University.  Each authored or co-authored many books on altruism, particularly in the context of Jews sheltered from the Nazis in World War II, as Sam had been as a child.  Their work pretty much created a whole new field of research, and offered an alternative to the dominant every-man-for-himself school of human social evolution.

 I met them when I did an article on their work, which includes many biographical details.  They were lovely people.  I had lunch with Sam a time or two, and I would see them walking in Arcata, hand in hand.  A few years ago, after their retirements, they moved down to the Bay Area to be closer to family.  They both died in 2021, a few months apart.

 May they all rest in peace.  Their work and their legacy lives on.