A reader wants to know my opinion of the death of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker in the passenger seat of a 610 hp Porsche. The actor's financial adviser hit a light pole on which was mounted a "45 mph" sign.
Hey, I've been trying for two days to come up with something, but it all seemed kind of morbid.
What do you want me to say? It's awesome how Paul Walker died just like a character in Fast and Furious would have? It's like how director Tony "Top Gun" Scott killed himself in a spectacular suicide jumping off a giant suspension bridge?
My real problem is not bad taste, which is not something I worry much about, but because I can't think of a third movie personality besides Paul Walker and Tony Scott to die in character, and you need three of something to be a Thing. (Coming up with examples is something I do worry about.)
Maybe Bing Crosby signing his golf scorecard (a fine 78, almost shooting his age) and then dropping dead right off the 18th green, no fuss or muss, but that wasn't as cinematic. Lots of actors die in character if their characters are fat (James Gandolfini, John Candy) or fat and out of control (Chris Farley), but that's kind of depressing.
Maybe Bing Crosby signing his golf scorecard (a fine 78, almost shooting his age) and then dropping dead right off the 18th green, no fuss or muss, but that wasn't as cinematic. Lots of actors die in character if their characters are fat (James Gandolfini, John Candy) or fat and out of control (Chris Farley), but that's kind of depressing.
James Dean died in his Porsche while driving to race it at Laguna Seca. But he hadn't made a racing picture yet. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman made racing pictures, but didn't die in car crashes in real life. (McQueen probably wouldn't have minded going out at age 40 in a fast car.)
Brandon Lee died on set sort of like his father Bruce.
Tupac Shakur.
Kurt Cobain's three hits on "Nevermind" all mention guns.
Leslie Howard died when the Nazis shot down his airplane in 1943, perhaps because they thought it was Churchill's plane. That's cool, but it doesn't have anything to do with Ashley Wilkes. But it's kind of Scarlet Pimpernelish, so there's that.
Looking it up, it appears there are numerous theories that Howard's 1943 trip to Portugal and Spain may have had something to do with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden using Howard to get a message through to Gen. Franco. (This doesn't strike me as implausible -- the British mobilized more of their cultural talent than Americans did, and the idea of using a charismatic movie star in a diplomatic role isn't implausible. During WWII, top British generals had David Niven, a Sandhurst ex-officer turned Hollywood movie star turned officer, sit in on their meetings with American brass to defuse tensions and to exploit Niven's knowledge of how to charm Americans.)
It's also widely speculated that the Brits decoded the German orders to intercept the commercial airline flight from Lisbon to London, but did nothing in order to preserve the secrecy of Enigma.
So, Scarlet Pimpernel indeed. The Scarlet Pimpernel was Howard's 1934 vehicle about an 18th Century effete English aristocrat who is really a secret agent who sneaks into Revolutionary France and smuggles prisoners out ahead of Robespierre's guillotine. But, who really knows?
So, even though we can't know for sure, we'll say Leslie Howard is a go for third on this list of movie people who died spectacularly in character.
Looking it up, it appears there are numerous theories that Howard's 1943 trip to Portugal and Spain may have had something to do with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden using Howard to get a message through to Gen. Franco. (This doesn't strike me as implausible -- the British mobilized more of their cultural talent than Americans did, and the idea of using a charismatic movie star in a diplomatic role isn't implausible. During WWII, top British generals had David Niven, a Sandhurst ex-officer turned Hollywood movie star turned officer, sit in on their meetings with American brass to defuse tensions and to exploit Niven's knowledge of how to charm Americans.)
It's also widely speculated that the Brits decoded the German orders to intercept the commercial airline flight from Lisbon to London, but did nothing in order to preserve the secrecy of Enigma.
So, Scarlet Pimpernel indeed. The Scarlet Pimpernel was Howard's 1934 vehicle about an 18th Century effete English aristocrat who is really a secret agent who sneaks into Revolutionary France and smuggles prisoners out ahead of Robespierre's guillotine. But, who really knows?
So, even though we can't know for sure, we'll say Leslie Howard is a go for third on this list of movie people who died spectacularly in character.
What would be appropriate deaths for other Hollywood figures? A ferocious parasite could pop out of Ridley Scott's abdomen? James Cameron could die when a giant truck smashes into an ocean liner in an open hearth steel mill in outer space? Daniel Day-Lewis could be beaten to death with a bowling pin for no particular reason?
Also, in case anybody's wondering about my opinion on the Alabama-Auburn game, I didn't see it, but it sounds like the best 4th quarter ever: not just the final three possessions in the last minute, but the preceding 99-yard-pass that looked for 15 minutes like it would win A.J. McCarron the Heisman, the two 4th and 1 stops, and the blocked field goal. That's a lot of plot twists for one quarter.
fine and good Steve. But I still seem to miss the significance if any of the death of Paul Walker.
ReplyDeleteOf course at this time, Western civilization can not stand to loose anymore irreplaceable B-actors, lest the production of asinine movies featuring tire spinning ricemobiles slackens, and the public loses all hope and moves to bike friendly Portland.
Is that the reason? I just don't know what's going on here.
Steve! Can we have your thoughts on whether drag racing was involved? Steve! Steve, over here!
ReplyDeletefine and good Steve. But I still seem to miss the significance if any of the death of Paul Walker.
ReplyDeleteDude, Paul Walker just died.
But I still seem to miss the significance if any of the death of Paul Walker.
ReplyDeleteThe Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the most successful movie franchises of all time and there's another one coming out next year.
fine and good Steve. But I still seem to miss the significance if any of the death of Paul Walker.
ReplyDeleteOf course at this time, Western civilization can not stand to loose anymore irreplaceable B-actors, lest the production of asinine movies featuring tire spinning ricemobiles slackens, and the public loses all hope and moves to bike friendly Portland.
Is that the reason? I just don't know what's going on here.
You sound like a jealous beta male. You're just mad because you know you'll never be as fast and furious as Walker was.
People become attached to fictional characters, particularly when they've seen them portrayed by the same actor in a series of movies over more than a decade. Paul Walker's character went from outsider to marrying and having a kid with Vin Diesel's sister's character; from FBI agent, to renegade, to LAPD cop, to renegade, to... I forget all the twists and turns, but the last movie ended with the crew right with the law and back home in Los Angeles.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, Paul Walker's character liked the Japanese cars; Vin Diesel's was into American muscle cars.
And becoming attached to characters isn't just something folks not as smart as you do. I went to a reading of Neil Gaiman's at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and the nerds in the audience literally cheered when he mentioned a character in American Gods.
ReplyDeleteIn my comment on the previous post, I hadn't then been aware that Bing Crosby died on a golf course; I'd thought that Mr. Sailer had merely been suggesting that it would have been in-character for Crosby to have met his end on the links. Just goes to show that I learn something new every day.
Paul Walker had his choice of ways to go out in character. He could have died in a gunfight, acquitting himself magnificently with his IPSC competition 1911. He could have been taken by a shark or drowned while free diving, surrounded by heart-broken smoking hot babes. He had his fun.
ReplyDeleteRespect.
But I still seem to miss the significance if any of the death of Paul Walker.
ReplyDelete"Paul Walker, 'Fast & Furious,' and the importance of Brian O'Conner"
http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/12/02/paul-walker-fast-furious-brian-oconner/
"The Fast & Furious series is one of the less likely franchises in modern Hollywood history. It needed Paul Walker. He was the linchpin, back at the beginning."
"The problem is I can't think of a third movie personality besides Paul Walker and Tony Scott to die in character..."
ReplyDeleteSteve Irwin.
Here is a simple thing to say about Paul Walker:
ReplyDeleteHe lived his life a quarter mile at a time.
"
ReplyDeletehttp://popwatch.ew.com/2013/12/02/paul-walker-fast-furious-brian-oconner/
"The Fast & Furious series is one of the less likely franchises in modern Hollywood history. It needed Paul Walker. He was the linchpin, back at the beginning."
That was a good post. But there's also an ethnic subtext that the blogger elided. As the series went on, Fast & Furious became more of an ethnic salad - from multiracial Vin Diesel (whose character is ostensibly Italian), to his character's sister (played by the Brazilian-American Jordana Brewster), to later additions including a Japanese character, a Samoan character, an Israeli character, a couple of African American characters, an ambiguously gay Dominican couple, etc. Walker was the iceberg lettuce underneath of all that.
The ethnic subtext is also something Matthew Yglesias missed in a post he wrote about the series (and got slapped for plugging on Saturday). Matt's post was about how F&F represents a sort of third world elevation of personal ties over first world institutions, exemplified in the first movie by how lawman Brian O'Connor lets Dom off the hook because of a personal debt. But what Yglesias glossed over was that, in the real world, those personal ties are blood ties, but in the fantasy world of Fast & Furious, any group of law-breaking car buffs can become a family.
The crew as a surrogate family is a constant theme in the movies, with Vin Diesel's character as the patriarch. They eat together, they say grace before meals, the men refer to each other as brothers, etc. Vin Diesel's Dom has the power to ostracize from and welcome back characters to the family, and he's done both. Sitting in a theater for one of these movies, I heard a Latina behind me say, "I want a family like that!". So did Jonathan Larson, writer of Rent.
No comment on the train derailment in New York?
ReplyDelete"actors are cattle" - Alfred Hitchcock.
ReplyDeletePlease recall that Hitchcock NEVER paid ANY of his multiple stars ONE PENNY more than Union Scale.
Probably not a good idea to heavily socialize with one's financial advisor; most definitely not a smart idea to have an adrenaline-junkee as a financial advisor.
ReplyDeleteOf course a high-flyer like that guy probably delegated all the actual investment decisions to his employees who in turn placed the money with hedge funds.
Go ahead and close the comments. Map's the winner.
ReplyDeleteBravo! A wonderful tour-de-force of where your analytical powers can go when let loose on your vast mental storehouse of facts, even when spurred by a seemingly dopey line of inquiry.
ReplyDeleteBut can we shift now to a story that is riddled with all your niche topic of criticisms, the vacuousness of critical race theory & structural racism, "unruly" white males community college students (read: likely middling IQ but also no race-blinders on), the hiring and firing of black faculty, a female professor humble-bragging about how her youthful looks undermine her standing with higher-ups. Steve, this story is crying out for your commentary:
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/02/three_white_college_students_file_racial_discrimination_complaint_against_professor_over_lesson_on_structural_racism/
The Thcarlet Pumpernickel!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationalreview.com/article/365276/explaining-test-score-gap-thomas-sowell
ReplyDeleteFor real-life Hollywood deaths in character:
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see Adam Sandler drown in a pool while a cretinous, crass and painfully ugly lifeguard just stands poolside and taunts him in a Billy Madison voice. That'd be nice.
The Fast and the Furious franchise is one of the most successful movie franchises of all time and there's another one coming out next year.
ReplyDeleteAmazing. I missed every single one of these films and didn't even know Paul Walker from Johnnie Walker. It's as though some gangsta rapper joined the choir invisible.
He didn't die, but rapper C-Murder was arrested and convicted for murder.
ReplyDeleteVic Morrow?
ReplyDeleteI dont know about the significance of his death but it did give a Grantland writer an excuse to write another anti-white column
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, of the grunge guys Layne Staley would be a better example. The name of one of Alice In Chains's early singles was "We Die Young."
ReplyDeleteGood post Steve.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think of whenever guys who are blessed with, you know, being athletic-looking, good-looking, rich & famous, is how much schadenfreude people secretly feel when bad things happen to them...
It's gonna be an epic friggin travesty if tOSU makes it to the championship game over, say, Auburn.
ReplyDeletetOSU gave up more than SIX HUNDRED YARDS to a very mediocre Michigan team [which has a LOSING record in Big-11 conference play]:
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=333340130
If FSU and tOSU both win out, and if the BCS standings don't change, then FSU will beat tOSU by roughly 75-0.
Or 84-37.
Or 92-41.
Or something similar.
Maybe Urban Meyer can call up fellow former-Gator coach, Steve Spurrier, and axe him what it feels like to lose 62-24.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall at those meetings currently going on where they hash out how to rewrite the second half of Fast & Furious 7. I wonder if Justin Lin is helping James Wan figure it out.
ReplyDeleteMichael Jackson sort of died in character
ReplyDeleteHuffing propophol while being fondled by a dude
Dan in DC
I never heard of Paul Walker until there were headlines everywhere that he died. A week from now I won't remember his name any more.
ReplyDeleteAs for Auburn - Alabama, I did watch the clip of that return online, also the tipped pass from the previous game (I think). Fun plays to watch, but I couldn't care less about who wins. College football is just corruption writ large.
Basically, if I happen to stumble across a college football game I root -- if possible -- for the team that has the white quarterback.
I had never even heard of Paul Walker until he died. I had seen ads for the FaF franchise movies, but they seemed to be rather stupid and contrived, so I never saw one (although I would sooner see one of them than some damned stupid comic-book movie).
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most remarkable in the one brief story that I read is that he had a steady girlfriend whom he took up with when she was only sixteen and he, thirty-three.
Ryan Dunn, from the Jackass franchise, also died in a Porsche at high speed.
ReplyDeleteStanley Kubrick: crushed under a giant black slab or hit by a flying rocket
ReplyDeleteJohn Ford: run over by a stagecoach
Howard Hawks: mauled by a tiger
Alfred Hitchcock: dive-bombed by pigeons or seagulls
Mel Brooks: torn limb from limb by an enraged mob of stage show financiers after his latest one closes Saturday night
Steve Spielberg: interred in a concentration camp where Ilsa, she wolf of the SS, feeds him to a giant white shark
George Lucas: slips and falls into a volcano while on holiday in Hawaii
Quentin Tarantino: buggered to death by a man in a gimp suit
After Bruce Lee died without completing a film died, they used the footage to make a completely new movie called Game of Death. The plot of Game of Death was a martial artist actor gets shot on set while filming an fight scene, by a gun that is supposed to be loaded with blanks, but isn't. That is exactly how his son Brandon Lee died decades later, while he was playing a character who comes back from the dead.
ReplyDelete"Shortly before his accident, Christopher) Reeve played a paralyzed police officer in the HBO special Above Suspicion. He did research at a rehabilitation hospital in Van Nuys, and learned how to use a wheelchair to get in and out of cars."
Wow. I'd never heard of Walker until he died, and couldn't have told you if "Fast & Furious" was a movie or a game or a movie and a game or just a buzzword of the day.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find intriguing is that someone with a name as common as "Paul Walker" was able to use it straight up, in the light of SAG rules. Mary Tyler Moore, Mary Louise Parker, Sarah Jessica Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman and maybe even Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had to tack on middle names to be allowed to act. Even those initials used by Edward Robinson, George Scott and Craig Nelson look suspicious.
I once happened upon a mid-'60s UK record catalog(ue) which listed four distinct David Joneses, one of which was Davy, but none of which was Bowie. No wonder he changed!
Hey, Bob Crane died in character. It just happened to be Janet Leigh's rather than his own.
ReplyDelete(Did you know that Crane offered himself for Brando's role in "Last Tango"? Yuk. It was bad enough as it is…)
"What would be appropriate deaths for other Hollywood figures?"
ReplyDeleteChristian Bale starves to death.
Robert De Niro gets shot by a deer hunter.
Jane Fonda gets shot by anti-aircraft fire.
Jeff Bezos gets killed by an aerial drone attack.
I don't know if Sam Kinison died in character, exactly, but it was weird that he was killed by a guy who was driving drunk when Kinison had a whole routine asking why people make such a big deal about drunk driving. Sample: "We don't WANT to drink and drive ... But there's no other way to get the f---ing CAR back to the HOUSE!! How are we supposed to get f---ing home?!"
ReplyDeleteHow about Jimi Heselden, the owner of Segway Inc, who was killed when he rode a Segway off a cliff?
How about Steve Irwin, who was killed by a stingray spine while filming a documentary titled "Ocean's Deadliest"?
James Dean's death was ironic because he had only recently made a PSA urging teenagers to drive safely.
Until just now, I hadn't known about Neil Gaiman, who has a very funny name.
ReplyDeleteI once knew a non-Gaiman who before changing his surname had been Richard Hardener. True story.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteCompletely unrelated, but I wanted to tip you off on what might be fertile ground for your next article/post: Cile Precetaj. She is an Albanian woman in metro Detroit who appears to have been selected, not unreasonably, as the new face of immigration reform.
Steve from Detroit
Mama Cass and that ham sandwich?
ReplyDeleteSonny Bono co-wrote "Needled and Pins", a big hit for the Searchers. And he was killed by a (presumably coniferous) tree. That should count for something. Though I don't think they had to do much Searchin'…
ReplyDeleteThe tragic part of this has nothing to do with cars. At 40 Walker was just about to enter into his 'former pretty boy' phase.
ReplyDeleteThink of Mel Gibson, Robert Redford, or Clint Eastwood. Each was spectacularly handsome when young. They just had to appear in front of a camera and they became rich and famous. But when their looks began to fade they all stepped behind the camera and became remarkable directors.
I don't know a damn thing about Paul Walker except what I've seen on the screen. I never will now. He was just of the cusp of becoming interesting.
Albertosaurus
Is Generalissimo Francisco Franco still dead?
ReplyDeleteToo soon?
Okay, fine. I'll get the party started:
ReplyDelete"Tonight's Celebrity Roast brought to you by Porsche.
Ignite Your Passion!"
I only saw the first F&F movie on basic cable. I recollect it was a somewhat entertaining multi-ethnic, blue collar heist flick involving cars going way to fast and, natch, furiously.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, it was heart warming. As, I think, Steve or one of his commentators noted in some thread in the distant past, F&F envisions a better America - one where people of all races will come together as "family" - led by a steroid using, balding, mixed race alpha male of dubious sexuality, to disobey the rule of law together all the while fighting the "system."
Now, it is easy to dismiss the popularity of a B-list movie star like Paul Walker, but when you consider the REAL animosity that blacks show whites in every day interactions, not counting the macro-aggression - flash mobs, knock out games, polar bear hunting, along with general violence and mayhem - the fact that the Aryan looking Walker was, apparently, beloved by vibrant Americans does point to something.
A lot of it is that Paul Walker appeared to live and die consistently. Seriously, how fast was that Porsche going? I was an insurance adjuster for years, I doubt I ever saw a wreck that bad. And while I have fond memories of being in the passenger seat of my friend's late 60's American muscle car (Dodge Charger, I think) as it hit 110 mph at the end the 1/4 mile stretch behind our high school - doing that in my 40's? No f*ing way, man.
However, for Walker and the low time preference/high risk behavior cohort - they choose to live in the manner best articulated in Eazy-E's magnum opus "Boyz'N The Hood", namely, "[t]hey be 'nowin in nothing in life but to be legit..."
Given how he died, it is fair to say that Walker was legit. Whether or not that is something that one should strive for, well...that's a whole different story.
(As an aside, listen to Dynamite Hack's folk-rock cover of the "Boyz'N The Hood":
http://youtu.be/aeL9gagV_VA
It is, without a doubt, the the greatest SWPL take down of the whole ghetto mentality - disguised, of course, as hipster irony).
During college, I worked as a parking attendant/valet in Santa Barbara. Paul Walker would come through occasionally. Though he was a gear head his day to day car was a beat up old thing that looked like he bought it off the street. Always friendly and tipped $100. After he died the local papers wrote about his quiet involvement in the Goleta chamber of commerce and local charities. Sad to hear he's gone.
ReplyDeletejust about the Steve Sailer-iest blog entry ever
ReplyDeleteOrson Welles claimed Nazi spies shot down Carole Lombard's plane.
ReplyDelete"the British mobilized more of their cultural talent than Americans did"
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure some major star flew with the USAF ? Who was it ?
Ah yes - James Stewart. And Clark Gable.
http://www.freedomisknowledge.com/otw/stuff/realhollywoodheroes.htm
Anybody who does a top-end run on the public streets is a retard. Most guys I've known are solid on this simple concept.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I knew a man who was a mechanical genius. He built two street cars in order to participate in illegal drag racing (in out of the way corners of the minor highway system). He was a constant winner of a LOT of money in these things.
One of his cars was so built it was barely streetable. I asked him one day what the top speed was.
He said, "Don't know. Don't care. It's a ridiculous question."
He was also a little blunt.
Orson Welles claimed Nazi spies shot down Carole Lombard's plane.
ReplyDeleteHer plane went down in Nevada.
So Welles was nuts. Maybe he was involved in the JFK killing along with fellow nuts Oswald and Ruby.
How about Jimi Heselden, the owner of Segway Inc, who was killed when he rode a Segway off a cliff?
ReplyDeleteThat one might take the cake:
"Owner of Segway Company Dies in a Segway Accident"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/technology/28segway.html
"James W. Heselden, a British businessman who invented and sold fortification containers for flood control and military protection and who owned the company that makes Segway electric scooters, died Sunday after plunging from a cliff in West Yorkshire, the police said, apparently while touring his property on a Segway."
The only people who seem to care or even know about Walker's passing are blacks and Hispanics. It's kind of funny that he apparently meant so much to those demographics. Most whites, on the other hand, don't seem to know or care or care ironically about it.
ReplyDelete"Steve Spielberg: interred in a concentration camp where Ilsa, she wolf of the SS, feeds him to a giant white shark"
ReplyDeleteLadies and gentlemen, we have a winner.
Yes, but Steve MsQueen's death from lung cancer is widely attributed to his inhaling decades worth of asbestos dust from switching out brake pads while wrenching on his cars and motorcycles.
ReplyDeleteOn a musical note, Jan Berry crashed his Corvette and suffered permanent brain damage just blocks away from Dead Man's Curve on Sunset Boulevard a scant two years after his famous and prophetic hit record with Dean Torrance.
The Fast and Furious movies were crap but Walker seems to have been a genuinely good man, a rare thing in Hollywood. RIP.
ReplyDeleteThe only people who seem to care or even know about Walker's passing are blacks and Hispanics
ReplyDeleteNo, it's an age thing. Walker was a star among todays young people, few of whom comment on iSteve.
The crew as a surrogate family is a constant theme in the movies, with Vin Diesel's character as the patriarch. They eat together, they say grace before meals, the men refer to each other as brothers, etc. Vin Diesel's Dom has the power to ostracize from and welcome back characters to the family, and he's done both. Sitting in a theater for one of these movies, I heard a Latina behind me say, "I want a family like that!". So did Jonathan Larson, writer of Rent.
ReplyDeleteYeah, part of the success of the franchise seems to be due to its tapping into that deep-seated human desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves.
Roman Polanski: shot by LAPD detectives while attempting to escape from custody in Chinatown
ReplyDeletePaul Verhoeven: falls into the scorpion tank at the zoo
John Landis: savaged by a pack of wolves while walking across a moor at night
David Cronenberg: dies on the operating table during unorthodox elective surgery
Rob Reiner: mysteriously explodes while playing the drums or poisoned by the drug he slipped into someone else's drink after he sips it by mistake
Robert Zemeckis: blown up by Iranian nuclear terrorists who mistakenly believe he has access to plutonium
John Carpenter: stabbed by a panicked babysitter after trick-or-treating on Halloween in a very authentic costume
Orson Welles claimed Nazi spies shot down Carole Lombard's plane.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he also claimed space aliens were barbecuing New Jersey and that Paul Masson would "sell no wine before its time."
"Yeah, part of the success of the franchise seems to be due to its tapping into that deep-seated human desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves."
ReplyDeleteParticularly during our 'bowling alone' era. But Paul Walker's character Brian O'Connor was sort of the glue holding the rickety edifice together.
Fast and Furious 6 was one of the best action movies ever made, anchored by Walker's ingenuous and emotionally open acting style.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteOrson Welles claimed Nazi spies shot down Carole Lombard's plane.
Her plane went down in Nevada.
So Welles was nuts. Maybe he was involved in the JFK killing along with fellow nuts Oswald and Ruby."
No analogy. You may have your personal reasons for bringing it up, but the JFK murder has a thousand decent reasons not to believe the official story, the vast majority of them credible. Nobody with brains who really studies it believe the government.
Lombard's plane, otoh, going down in Nevada? I thought it hit a mountain. Anyway, spies don't stay put in their own countries.
For a heartbreaking completely non-ironic twist on the theme of this post, I would recommend a viewing of Pride of the Yankees. Even Gary Cooper couldn't ruin that movie. Wish they would remake it.
ReplyDeleteOn "Sanford and Son," Redd Foxx would often pretend to be having a heart attack, grabbing his chest and shouting, "It's the big one! I'm coming to join ya, Elizabeth!" In 1991, during rehearsals, Foxx had a fatal heart attack on the set of "The Royal Family."
ReplyDeleteGenghis Khan, whose mounted troops conquered most of Eurasia, died from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse.
Jim Fixx, who popularized jogging with his bestseller "The Complete Book of Running," and preached the gospel that active people live longer, died of a heart attack while out jogging.
How about Timothy Treadwell, animal activist and friend of bears who was eaten by a bear?
The claim is that Nazi sympathizers in the US waited on a particular mountain pass because Lombard's plane was assumed (on bad intel) to be full of US scientists (cf. Leslie Howard's demise), and they brought it down at close range.
ReplyDelete"How do you know this, Orson?" his interlocutor asked humbly.
"The people that know it, know it," stated Welles.
Paul was obviously liked and loved by many. I'd like to think his personality was similar to his role in Eight Below, as that's the kind of person I have always had the impression he was. This was a great testament to the friends and family that cared for him.
ReplyDeleteFor the people that feel the urge to post negative comments, try being respectful instead. If you can't say something nice, why bother saying anything at all?
I gather Paul Walker played a strong young white man - a lead character who could more than hold his own in today's modern multy-culty movies. The days of Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood etc., are long, long gone. So Walker was important symbolically. He was sort of an icon to average young white guys. (After all, who else in the movies are they going to look up to? Tom Hanks?) His death was a blow especially to them. It's a theory.
ReplyDeleteActually Mel Gibson was pretty good in last year's Get The Gringo and Clint was good in the age appropriate role he played in Trouble with the Curve last year too.
ReplyDeleteI'm a mixed raced girl and I felt saddened by Paul Walker's death.
ReplyDeleteIt shocked me a bit, and then I got stuck. )=
I think Paul Walker was kind of pretty though. Nice-looking and could act good.