Monday, January 21, 2008

Filling in the blanks re the obits for Suzanne Pleshette and John Stewart.

When celebrities pass away, the younger writers who do obituaries often opt to write a couple of quick sentences about what the celeb did that was Most Popular or Recognizable to the current generation--and the remainder of the celeb's career is forgotten (apparently because it's too much bother to take a couple of extra minutes to Google for added information on the celeb).

Suzanne Pleshette had a varied career in film before THE BOB NEWHART SHOW (being both a Warner Brothers contract starlet, i.e. ROME ADVENTURE with Troy Donahue and a Walt Disney Productions female lead, i.e. THE UGLY DACHSUND with Dean Jones).  The Newhart series gave her Icon status and paved the way for more TV work (one late example was playing James Garner's wife in the sitcom 8 SIMPLE RULES).  Simply put, Ms. Pleshette (whose actor brother John once played Lee Harvey Oswald in a hypothetical what-if-Oswald-lived-to-stand-trial TV-movie) could make bad scripts bearable and was terrific with great material (as THE BOB NEWHART SHOW attests).  And one hopes that some of Ms. Pleshette's more grown-up film work (such as A RAGE TO LIVE, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER and IF IT'S TUESDAY, THIS MUST BE BELGIUM) might get aired soon on Turner Classic Movies.

John Stewart was characterized in obits as the writer of "Daydream Believer" (which was a smash single for The Monkees) and former member of The Kingston Trio, with a cursory nod to his 40 albums as a solo artist.

One of those albums, CALIFORNIA BLOODLINES, is treasured by aficionados of folk music.  A later, more folk-rock album, 1979's BOMBS AWAY DREAM BABIES, actually had a hit single called "Gold", with backing vocals from Stevie Nicks.

 

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