While today is a very happy day (leaving for a weekend with Lovey, sun is shining, birds are chirping, etc.) it is also twinged with just a hint of sadness. It was today, 3 July, 1989, that James Gilmore Backus went to that great deserted island in the sky...
It's always sad when our childhood idols start to pass away, and Jim Backus was the first true "celebrity loss" I experienced. (Two years later, at the death of Rex Harrison, I experienced the second.) I remember being sad, but my first thought was "man, was he still alive?" Due to complications from Parkinson's disease, Backus had been out of the public eye for some time.
I won't go into a lengthy essay, but it should be noted that the man who gave us Thurston Howell III and Mr. Magoo was also a celebrated and talented golfer, who could have easily gone pro. He also suffered from depression and spent some time in a treatment facility, helped back "into the light" by his loving wife, Henny. (Did I mention that Henny Backus played the overbearing Native Mother in the episode "Gilligan's Mother-In-Law?" Okay, enough showing off...) Backus was also a great raconteur whose nightclub act never failed to draw capacity crowds...he got his start in his hometown of Cleveland, first on radio, and then as (no joke) a rabbi in a hassidic stage play. His Howell character was based on a similarly mega-wealthy character he created on the radio...Hubert Updyke III. (There was also clearly a large dose of Updyke in Mr. Magoo.)
Enough trivia. Today I celebrate the life of one of the great character actors of the mid-20th century, who also happened to have been a personal hero of mine. Rest in peace, Jim Backus...I am sure that somewhere up there on a cloud you are making everyone laugh. :-)
In today's News From The Motherland... oh happy Dane! (Okay, that was bad...)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7487143.stm
OBAMA IN '08!!!
FLT3
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