Whipped Cream Difficulties

Charles Durning, war hero and noted character actor.

He was among the first wave of U.S. soldiers to land at Normandy during the D-Day invasion and the only member of his Army unit to survive. He killed several Germans and was wounded in the leg. Later he was bayoneted by a young German soldier whom he killed with a rock. He was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and survived a massacre of prisoners.

They don’t make them like that anymore.

Jack Klugman. NYT. LAT.

I’m just a little too young to remember “The Odd Couple” well (except for the theme), but “Quincy, M.E.” was right in my wheelhouse for the first several seasons. At some point, I’d like to do a longer post about the “NBC Sunday Mystery Movie” and all the great stuff that came out of it, but for now, let me say that I was an avid Quincy fan when I was a kid; at least, until the series turned into Jack Klugman’s cause of the week.

I did sort of keep up with Klugman after the series went off the air, and was sad when he came down with throat cancer. That’s the sort of thing I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I can’t imagine what it was like for an actor. Happily, he was able to do some acting after that. (It brings a smile to my face to see that he did a guest stint on “Crossing Jordan”, the “Quincy” of the 2000 era except that it sucked.)

(And I have, but have not watched, the Criterion “12 Angry Men“. Maybe after folks get back from the holiday.)

You know, they don’t write TV themes like those any more, too.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 25th, 2012 at 9:06 am and is filed under Clippings, Heroism, Movies, Obits, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.