A sad week for Hollywood icons
As I mentioned earlier I’m in a week-long class for an industry certification that has my attention fully utilized. That hasn’t completely cut me off from the outside world, however, and yesterday’s news from Hollywood appeared to cap off a very sad week. First, late-night heavyweight Ed McMahon died earlier this week. I recall him well from watching him back up Johnny Carson.
Then, yesterday morning came the news of Farrah Fawcett’s death after fighting a long, withering battle with cancer. Like so many young men back in the day, I found her captivating. (No, I didn’t ever own a copy of her famous “red swimsuit” poster, but I knew enough people who did that I can still recall the image to mind with extreme clarity.)
Finally, as I was leaving the office yesterday afternoon I spotted a tweet on my Twitter list that referenced Micheal Jackson’s reported heart attack. By the time I got home and got my laptop running, it wasn’t just a report and it wasn’t just a heart attack – Jackson was dead at the age of 50. It’s impossible to be my age in America and not recall listening to his music during high school and college. He was called the King of Pop for a reason and his music literally could not be outrun or avoided. Events of later years and a refining of my own musical tastes may have seen his image tarnished and his music relegated to the back of my mind but he was truly a powerhouse – the powerhouse – of pop music in the 80′s and early 90′s.
A sad week for Hollywood, indeed.
Comments
Comment from Ric James
Time June 26, 2009 at 22:12
All very true. I know no one chooses the when and where of death by cancer or cardiac arrest but still, the timing…
Well, all I can do is promise to remember her in the years to come.
Comment from Bob James
Time June 26, 2009 at 10:20
“Captivating.” Yeah, that’s a word you could use, all right. Of all three of them, I feel the most sorrow for Fawcett. Not because she died; that’s in the cards for all of us. But that, after a lifetime lived in the shadow of her young self and the beauty she graced us with, she had the unfortunate timing to die on the same day as Jackson, which literally bumped her off the front page. She will be remembered, of course, but in years to come when they mention “On this date in history”, it’s likely she won’t even be mentioned.
Interestingly, I just researched her on wikipedia, and learned something that is astonishing in light of our current (regrettable) cultural fascination with youth. Fawcett was born in 1947; the red swimsuit image was shot in 1976, when she was 29. Moreover, she appeared nude in Playboy’s December ’95 issue… at the age of 48… and that issue became the best-selling issue of the entire decade. I don’t recall ever seeing the spread, but I will be going to look for it.