Back in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, many of Hollywood’s classic stars began to pass on to that great gig in the sky. Fred Astaire left us in 1987, Cary Grant a few months prior in 1986. Earlier that year, Cagney left us, too. Bette Davis hung on until 1989, Barbara Stanwyck until 1990. Gene Kelly made it to 1996, Jimmy Stewart, 1997, and Katharine Hepburn didn’t go until 2003. Luise Rainer showed amazing longevity by living to the age of 104, not passing until just last year, 2014. The year before was Joan Fontaine, in 2013, and her sister, Olivia De Havilland is still with us, as of this writing, at 98. And I loved all of them, to one degree or another, as they made up the bright lights in classic cinema’s firmament. But when they left us, I felt a sadness detached from the personal sadness you feel when you’ve known someone your whole life, that is, when you grew up with them. When I think of the actors I grew up with, the ones I saw regularly on the screen at all the first run movies I was seeing at the theater, and how, very soon, many of them will be passing on, too, it fills me with a different kind of feeling altogether. I already miss them but I don’t want to mourn them, I want to celebrate them.
All this came about because tonight on TCM, the 8:00 o’clock (EST) movie is Darby O’Gill and the Little People, from 1959 with Sean Connery. Let me tell you something, I grew up with Sean Connery. He was and is a personal favorite and now, retired and 84, I can’t imagine the movie world without him, even though he’s been out of it for years. What I mean by that is, I can’t imagine the movies existing in the same way once he’s gone. I feel that way about all great actors, really. Like the movie universe changes somehow when they’re no longer here. When Sean Connery says goodbye to this mortal coil, it will be a punch to the gut. I saw The Man Who Would be King over and over again in the seventies, was one of the few people I knew who liked Robin and Marian, and when Connery returned as Bond in Never Say Never Again, I didn’t care that it was a warmed over remake of Thunderball and Connery was sporting a bad toupee, I was just thrilled to be in the audience. By the time Connery won an Oscar for The Untouchables, he had become a megastar all over again, and added multiple hits to his already long list of blockbusters, including The Hunt for Red October, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Rock. Sean Connery won’t be with us forever but his movies will and I’m glad I got to enjoy them firsthand.
Other popular actors from the sixties and seventies made up the cinematic world I grew up watching. Dustin Hoffman, Gena Rowlands, Glenda Jackson, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Elliot Gould, Donald Sutherland, Burt Reynolds, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Ellen Burstyn, and Julie Christie were all over the place in the seventies and they became the familiar faces that drew me into the theater. They’re all in their seventies or older now and some, like Richard Pryor, Jill Clayburgh, and Peter Falk, are already gone. Others, while popular in the seventies, were young enough that even now, they’re still in their sixties or below, like Sally Field, Pam Grier, and Meryl Streep, so I don’t think of them in the same way as the others.
It’s still odd to me, as I’m sure it one day will be for someone growing up right now watching Jennifer Lawrence and Benedict Cumberbatch, to not hear or read about the next big movies for all those stars of the seventies. I mean, let me tell you, for several years there, a new Dustin Hoffman movie was a big deal. No, really, it was. Casting Barbra Streisand in the lead of your movie meant mega box office. And anything with Burt Reynolds or Clint Eastwood was going to be a money maker, regardless of how good or bad it was. Now, even if any of them do still appear in a movie, no one makes a big fuss about it. Sure, Eastwood still has a flourishing career as a director but his days of being a box office star are long gone.
But knowing there are ones that don’t act at all anymore, like Connery, or Gene Hackman, or Jack Nicholson, still feels unreal to me. How is it that there is an entire generation of people growing up without knowing the excitement of anticipating the next Jack Nicholson movie? Before long, all of these actors I grew up with will have their movies shown primarily on this very network, Turner Classic Movies, as the cable networks showing contemporary hits have little time for actors who once were kings. It’s unsettling to think that the actors whose new movies I anticipated will be leaving us soon but it’s a thrill to have known them and before they go, either into retirement or the great beyond, I want to tell as many people as I can how much I cherish them and just how much I already miss them.