At the end of each year it seems only natural to remember those of us who won’t be joining us in the year to come and who, for one reason or another, meant something to many of us. The older we get the more poignant it becomes as the icons of our youth pass away only to be joined increasingly by our own contemporaries and younger flameouts.
The kind of people who make up the list of those who will be missed are, for me at any rate, invariably headed by artists of one kind or another, musicians, writers and actors who became part of our lives, and occasionally a scientist or two. Politicians usually don’t make the grade unless they became statesmen who transcended national politics or political leaders, epitomising a particular era, struggle or movement .
The young flameouts for 2004 were, not unusually it seems, singers; Laura Branagan (47), Rick James and rapper Dirty Ol’ Dog (aka Russell Jones, 35).
When it came to politicians; midyear we said goodbye to Ronald Reagan (93), who finally succumbed to the ravages of alzheimer’s. By which time the emotionally elusive but ever affable Gipper had managed to find a place in the hearts of almost all Americans and much of the Western world despite many of them initially regarding him as a dim old cowboy from B feature oaters. Remembered essentially for winning the Cold War and “Morning in America” . Quite an achievement really, considering the primary role of the long-forgotten Mikhail Gorbachev and his not-so affable part in dismantling the liberal consensus forged by FDR that had stood America and the world in such good stead from the Depression, through WW2 and the Cold War. He it was who paved the way for the divisive right wing Republican ascendancy in America we enjoy today.
Toward the end of the year Yasser Arafat (75) died, leader for as long as we can remember of the PLO. Like many other terrorist/statesmen before him, who managed to transcend their origins and went on to lead nations, Arafat was unable to become the Father of a restored Palestine. Through hatred of Israel or a failure of nerve, it is hard to know which, he baulked fatally at the best ever offer of statehood the Palestinians are likely to get at the hands of Israel and the US in a long time. Palestinians may mourn him but even they now seem to feel a historical block to progress has been removed.
2004 was hard on famous photographers and marked the passing of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton, all of whom produced images that touched our lives through the 20th Century.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (95), was undoubtedly one of photography’s true Greats. Art photographer, portraitist and photojournalist he was present at key moments of history and had the discerning eye that made photography art.
Richard Avedon (81), portraitist and fashion photographer changed our perceptions of America with his stark monochromatic portraits of Americans famous and not-so famous. He somehow managed to introduce photography to the “New Yorker” and liberated fashion photography from the staged mannequins with super models leaping around on locations anywhere, gap toothed an’ all. With his infatuation with women, no one did voluptuous sex and decadence better than Helmut Newton (83). Not just luscious Roxy blood-red lipstick and black patent stilettos and not much else on at all, Newton’s portraits of the rich and famous were revealing and iconoclastic.
The passing of actors and musicians are often the people whose loss we notice most. Few actors marked their generation as did Marlon Brando (80), whose youthful manly beauty set hearts a-flutter and huge talent influenced almost every major actor from the 50’s onward. His creative talent resurfaced mid-career with “The Godfather “and “Last Tango”, but many felt his gift had not been fulfilled. Articulate, private and vulnerable his personal life was often painful.
Tony Randall (84), born Leonard Rosenberg was “the Laurence Olivier of light comic actors.” Best known as television’s Felix Unger, it seemed there was hardly a bad Hollywood comedy through entire the 50’s and 60’s in which he did not play a role and partially redeem.
Janet Leigh, who died aged 77, was best known for her role in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho” (1960) and the shower scene, which became an iconic moment of filme noire. Gorgeous looking she was always busy as an actress in many not-so-memorable movies, apart perhaps from the first and by far the best “Manchurian Candidate”. Bernie Schwartz (aka Tony Curtis), by whom she fathered Jamie Lee Curtis, was a lucky man I always reckoned.
In the world of music I suppose we’ll now have to say “the Late, Great, Ray Charles” (73). Blind at 7, Ray Charles was one of those voices that has always seemed to exist, a reigning giant during that time between 1955 to 1971 when Rock was born and changed popular music forever. His fusion of jazz, gospel and blues liberated a generation of listeners. Though always listenable, all too soon it seemed he got into Country and on to become another mainstream popmeister.
Others in the field of Arts & Letters who I’ll miss include:
Dame Alicia Markova (94), Along with Margot Fonteyn (nee Peggy Hookham), England’s foremost ballerinas whose talent and dramatic dark good looks put their stamp on mid-20th century dance. Born Alice Marks she was discovered in a Chelsea dance studio by Diaghilev, who Russified her name and became a surrogate father. She founded the English National Ballet with her partner Anton Dolin.
Renata Tebaldi (82) soprano, was one of the two great primadonnas of the early post-war era; with Maria Callas, whose style was vastly different, and withwhom she and her supporters mutually feuded, she was in demand in every opera house worth its salt. Toscanini said she had the voice of an angel and in America she was known as the “Goddess of Song”. Unlike Callas she had the popular touch and was much-loved. Nonetheless, boss of the New York Met Rudolf Bing, observed of the two he’d rather deal with the forthright Callas. Tebaldi, he said, had “dimples of iron” .
Bernard Levin (75), journalist. Under the pseudonym Taper from Disraeli’s “Coningsby”, Levin got his start at the Spectator skewering politicians with ferocious wit. He moved into theater criticism and was known as one of “the kosher butchers” before joining the Times of London in the 1970s. Levin rejected his Judaism and was an inveterate foe of anything politically correct. As a Jew, he made a point of loving Wagner. Much admired for his logic and wit he lost the plot a bit at the end under the influence of the love of his life, the ubiquitous and ever-upwardly mobile Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, who was after grander fish but got him involved in a loony personal development cult and off to visit Osho. Whatever, it seemed he couldn’t write a boring word.
Dead at 95 Alistair Cooke, the ever-urbane Cooke seemed indestructible. In England his “Letter from America” was a window on America for generations of Britons. It was superbly crafted radio-journalism, which he made sound so simple and yet no one else could come anywhere near. To Americans he was most famous as a TV presenter.
Sir Peter Ustinov (82) was a jack of all trades, but what a jack! Actor, director, playwright, novelist, mimic, raconteur and scriptwriter, he was frequently mistaken for a genius, a mistake he was loath to correct. He was witty and whimsical, but seldom profound and, outside his mimicry, not actually as funny as one thought. As a young boy his prep school headmaster observed “he shows great originality, which must be curbed at all costs”. He had had good war, serving as Col. David Niven’s batman. By far his best movie role was as Nero in “Quo Vadis?”, a role he reprised as the slave owner in Kubrick’s “Spartacus”, where he managed to out-ham Laurence Olivier.
Francoise Sagan (69) lived life hard and fast. Famed at 18 for her novel “Bonjour Tristesse”, with her elfin face under a a mop of cropped hair she seemed to embody Parisian radical chic and youthful hedonism. All very sophisticated and refreshing stuff in the stultifying 50’s. She didn’t manage to maintain her literary promise but she remained a paid up member of the fashionable literary celeb world and her lifestyle of fast cars, drugs and alcohol, gambling, and sexual freedom, she did manage to maintain, more or less consistently to the end.
As for those whose passing will not be sorely missed by most, I’m having a hard time thinking. I guess I’ll just have to settle for those two sons of darkness, Uday & Qusay Hussein.
Meantime, I hope that 2005 will be a year of happiness for all BA readers.
