{"id":423,"date":"2017-03-01T11:28:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T19:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hollywood-nobody.com\/blog\/?p=423"},"modified":"2017-03-01T11:28:50","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T19:28:50","slug":"unsung-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hollywood-nobody.com\/blog\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":"UNSUNG HEROES"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Some of you may have noticed a certain absence of seriousness in my blogs, an ironic, mocking tone designed primarily to deflate my own sense of importance.<\/p>\n

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Well\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026no more.<\/p>\n

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I hereby take a vow of sobriety.<\/p>\n

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You have my promise\u2014my word of honor\u2014that I will renounce irony and wit, that I will embrace seriousness, gravity and thoughtfulness\u2026for today\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n

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(Don\u2019t expect to see such straight-forwardness in these pages ever again.)<\/p>\n

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With this prelude, let me turn to the subject of the recent Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

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The whole town\u2019s talking about the mistake at the climax of the show\u2014La La Land<\/em> winning the Best Picture award before losing it to Moonlight<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Shocking as this was, it was nothing compared to another mistake the public is unaware of\u2014the inexcusable omission of at least three major names from \u201cIn Memoriam\u201d segment.<\/p>\n

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CHARMIAN CARR<\/p>\n

ROBERT ELLIS MILLER<\/p>\n

DAVID SHEPARD<\/p>\n

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Charmian was, of course, Liesl, in Robert Wise\u2019s wondrous screen adaptation of The Sound of Music.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I remember where I first saw the film.<\/p>\n

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I remember my date for the evening.<\/p>\n

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I remember that amazing opening shot with the camera swooping down to meet Maria as she rushes forward into those hills filled with the sound of music.<\/p>\n

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I remember bits of dialogue, lyrics, scenes.<\/p>\n

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But most of all, I remember Charmian.<\/p>\n

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Her beauty.<\/p>\n

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Her charm.<\/p>\n

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Her innocence.<\/p>\n

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Her sensuality.<\/p>\n

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I fell in love with her that night in that theatre in Beverly Hills.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m in love with her to this day.<\/p>\n

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In fact, when I was privileged to spend some time in conversation with her a few years ago, I was tongue-tied until I finally managed to blurt out, \u201cIt\u2019s about time we\u2019ve met. I\u2019ve been in lust with you for almost fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How, I wonder, could the Academy have neglected mention of her passing?<\/p>\n

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Yes, her career in film was brief.<\/p>\n

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Yes, she is known primarily for one role.<\/p>\n

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But what a role! What a performance! What a movie!<\/p>\n

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A movie that shines forever in the memories of those who have seen it.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m shocked by her omission from the Academy tribute, and so I pay tribute to her here, in this little-read column,<\/p>\n

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Thank you, Charmian.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for lighting up my life and the lives of so many millions.<\/p>\n

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May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.<\/p>\n

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Then there’s my old friend Robert Ellis Miller.<\/p>\n

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Robert directed The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter<\/em> and Rueben, Rueben<\/em>\u2014two of the finest films ever made.<\/p>\n

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He orchestrated what Alan Arkin himself considers his best performance.<\/p>\n

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He discovered both Sondra Locke and Kellie McGillis.<\/p>\n

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And yet he was not worthy of inclusion in the Academy\u2019s tribute.<\/p>\n

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If he had done nothing but The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter<\/em>, he would have deserved special mention.<\/p>\n

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I discovered Heart<\/em> while a graduate student at Princeton.<\/p>\n

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I used it to introduce my students to the vocabulary of the cinema while teaching film at DePauw University.<\/p>\n

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I went nuts when I eventually met Robert himself at a Hollywood party\u2014\u201cOh, my God, are you Robert Ellis Miller?!?\u201d<\/p>\n

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And I went crazier still when he expressed an interest in directing one of my screenplays\u2014an event that, alas, was not to be.<\/p>\n

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One of the proudest accomplishments of my years in Hollywood was my friendship with Robert.<\/p>\n

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I tried to express my feelings about him and his work a couple of years ago in an article for CineMontage<\/em>, and given the Academy\u2019s shocking failure to acknowledge the passing of this amazing talent, I am trying again here.<\/p>\n

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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter<\/em> is one of the films that gave me the resolve to turn my back on the security of a tenured professorship and ride the rollercoaster of Hollywood. But it did more than inspire me. It moved<\/em> me. And that is what all great movies do. The best of them will tear your heart in two.<\/p>\n

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Robert did that, and so I say\u2026<\/p>\n

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Shame.<\/p>\n

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Shame upon the Academy.<\/p>\n

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I find it astonishing that Charmian and Robert were not enough for them: they also ignored the death of one of the greatest behind-the-scene figures in town\u2014David Shepard.<\/p>\n

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His is, I suspect, a name unknown to most of you, and frankly, that\u2019s the way he preferred it, for David, unlike most of us in Hollywood, was an advocate not for himself but for the art of the cinema\u2014especially the art of the silent cinema.<\/p>\n

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David did things for people.<\/p>\n

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If Confessions of a Hollywood Nobody<\/em> had an index, his name would have the largest number of entries. I will simply say that without his support, I would have been nothing more than a nameless casualty of the town.<\/p>\n

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He did things for people.<\/p>\n

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He brought people together.<\/p>\n

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He got things done.<\/p>\n

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The thing he did best was the preservation of our silent film heritage.<\/p>\n

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As Curator of Film at the late, lamented Blackhawk films and at the AFI, Director of Special Projects at The Directors Guild, Professor of Film at USC, and head of Film Preservation Associates, he\u2014perhaps more than any other single individual\u2014saved silent film for posterity, finding it, restoring it and reintroducing it to the public.<\/p>\n

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His friend Leonard Maltin wrote in a recent blog, \u201cIf you\u2019ve seen a superior print of a film by Chaplin or Keaton, Griffith or Murnau, chances are David had a hand in restoring it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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My last conversation with him concerned his friend King Vidor.<\/p>\n

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I had recently watched Vidor\u2019s The Fountainhead<\/em>, finding it stunning in its visuals and almost operatic in its storytelling, and I\u2019d hoped to gain some insight into his work by peppering David with questions about him. David, not surprisingly, felt that Vidor\u2019s best work was in silent cinema, and our relatively brief exchange was almost the equivalent of a graduate seminar. He followed it up a few days later with a typically generous gesture: I found an inscribed copy of the oral history he\u2019d done with Vidor waiting for me in the mail.<\/p>\n

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David knew virtually everyone in town, everyone from George Cukor to Alexander Payne, and he\u2019d done something for everyone he knew.<\/p>\n

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I think of the narrator\u2019s lament in \u201cCrazy Sunday,\u201d F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s fictionalized version of the death of Irving Thalberg: \u201cWhat a hell of a hole he leaves in this damn wilderness.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In my case, it\u2019s a hole in my heart.<\/p>\n

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And so I raise my glass to you, David, and to you, Robert and Charmian.<\/p>\n

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May you live long and prosper in the hearts of all those to whom you brought so much joy.<\/p>\n

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