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Post by topbilled on Jan 11, 2023 19:14:28 GMT
There is a lot of name dropping and mentioning of popular film titles in the obituaries of stars when they die.
It is almost comical how someone with a very minor, daresay an unimportant role, in GONE WITH THE WIND, still has that film listed prominently in their obit. Even if they went on to do better more significant work in later pictures.
I chuckle at some of the name dropping that occurs linking lesser known talents to the luminary directors. If someone got 'lucky' enough to be cast in a seventh-billed role in a John Ford film in 1938, that will undoubtedly get mentioned in the obit...that so-and-so made films (even if it was only one single film) with John Ford. Or with Alfred Hitchcock or whatever well-known household name director...even though the reality is they may have barely interacted with said famous director and may have only been on set with them a few days and had retakes done by an assistant director.
I almost feel like going through some of the obits and rewriting them so they legitimately reflect what the individual accomplished in Hollywood.
Also, I am considering a tongue-in-cheek project where I treat old obits as if they are new obits, pretending as if Cary Grant has just died...and what the social media outpouring would be if social media had been around when he passed way in Iowa...we read what ex-wives, former directors and costars might have Tweeted or posted online about him immediately after his death.
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Post by sewhite2000 on Jan 12, 2023 2:24:21 GMT
If it's any consolation, I thought the final living cast member of GWTW died recently (I think Ashley and Melanie's son at the end of the fim?), so you probably won't have to expereience that anymore!
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Post by topbilled on Jan 12, 2023 14:59:23 GMT
If it's any consolation, I thought the final living cast member of GWTW died recently (I think Ashley and Melanie's son at the end of the fim?), so you probably won't have to expereience that anymore!
***
So another thing the obit writers do is they like to connect 'lesser known' stars with iconic stars. When Betsy Drake died a few years ago, you would have thought Cary Grant died all over again. Most of the obits spent considerable paragraphs focusing on her marriage to Grant and the two movies she made with him.
We know that when Dyan Cannon dies, and she was an 'A' list star with considerable motion picture credits, they will do the same thing again...they'll make it all about her marriage with Cary Grant (which didn't last long) and the fact she was the mother of his only child.
The obit writers will struggle to examine what Cannon achieved on her own, and make the emphasis all about that short period of her life when she was involved with a bigger name old time star.
So basically Cary Grant will die yet again and Cannon's obits will just be an extension of his original obit. |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 12, 2023 19:24:28 GMT
I assume these obit writers know little about studio-era films and the associated actors, directors, etc... So when someone from that era passes they use canned sources that are only going to highlight if they had any association with the "A" listers of the era. (because as we have discussed the media is overly "A" star driven).
When someone like Cannon passes (someone that wasn't a studio-era actor, but was associated with an "A" listed studio-era star) I would hope most of the focus would be on their actual work and contributions instead of their screen life with "A" listers.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 12, 2023 20:04:01 GMT
If it's any consolation, I thought the final living cast member of GWTW died recently (I think Ashley and Melanie's son at the end of the fim?), so you probably won't have to expereience that anymore!
***
So another thing the obit writers do is they like to connect 'lesser known' stars with iconic stars. When Betsy Drake died a few years ago, you would have thought Cary Grant died all over again. Most of the obits spent considerable paragraphs focusing on her marriage to Grant and the two movies she made with him.
We know that when Dyan Cannon dies, and she was an 'A' list star with considerable motion picture credits, they will do the same thing again...they'll make it all about her marriage with Cary Grant (which didn't last long) and the fact she was the mother of his only child.
The obit writers will struggle to examine what Cannon achieved on her own, and make the emphasis all about that short period of her life when she was involved with a bigger name old time star.
So basically Cary Grant will die yet again and Cannon's obits will just be an extension of his original obit.
From what I know of news services, these obits are written well ahead of time and then "put on the shelf until needed" for anyone who, like Dyan Cannon, is reasonably famous. So, they should have time to do the proper research, but do they want to as they are in the business of selling news and Cary Grant, even today, probably sells better than Dyan Cannon.
Just thoughts, if others are more familiar with how news services work, please correct anything I wrote as I am not in, any way, holding myself out as an expert.
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ericj
New Member
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Post by ericj on Jan 13, 2023 2:18:52 GMT
Also, bad memory, as well as cheap clickbait titles--
When Richard Harris died in '03, was he remembered in obituary headlines for Camelot? Cromwell? A Man Called Horse? Unforgiven?
No...
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 13, 2023 17:47:22 GMT
Also, bad memory, as well as cheap clickbait titles--
When Richard Harris died in '03, was he remembered in obituary headlines for Camelot? Cromwell? A Man Called Horse? Unforgiven?
No... Another good example of how the write-up and titles are designed to appeal to the masses: When Harris died, it is likely that more people where aware of him from the Harry Potter films than those other films. |
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Post by sewhite2000 on Jan 14, 2023 3:37:14 GMT
Yes, by a factor of a billion, no doubt. Gotta play to the material people will recognize.
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Post by Swithin on Jan 14, 2023 19:26:49 GMT
There is a lot of name dropping and mentioning of popular film titles in the obituaries of stars when they die.
It is almost comical how someone with a very minor, daresay an unimportant role, in GONE WITH THE WIND, still has that film listed prominently in their obit. Even if they went on to do better more significant work in later pictures.
Here are the headline and first two paragraphs of what was a very long (and respectful) obituary:Olivia de Havilland, a Star of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 104
She built an illustrious Hollywood career punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on actors.
By Robert Berkvist
Published July 26, 2020
Updated Aug. 4, 2020
Olivia de Havilland, an actress who gained movie immortality in “Gone With the Wind,” then built an illustrious film career, punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on contract actors, died on Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104 and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s fabled Golden Age.
Her death was confirmed by her publicist Lisa Goldberg.
Ms. de Havilland was both a classic Hollywood beauty and an honored screen actress whose very name and bearing suggested membership in a kind of aristocracy of moviedom. Though she was typecast early in her career as the demure ingénue, she went on to earn meatier roles that led to five Academy Award nominations, two of which brought her the Oscar, for “To Each His Own” (1946) and “The Heiress” (1949). |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 14, 2023 19:47:14 GMT
There is a lot of name dropping and mentioning of popular film titles in the obituaries of stars when they die.
It is almost comical how someone with a very minor, daresay an unimportant role, in GONE WITH THE WIND, still has that film listed prominently in their obit. Even if they went on to do better more significant work in later pictures.
Here are the headline and first two paragraphs of what was a very long (and respectful) obituary:Olivia de Havilland, a Star of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 104
She built an illustrious Hollywood career punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on actors.
By Robert Berkvist
Published July 26, 2020
Updated Aug. 4, 2020
Olivia de Havilland, an actress who gained movie immortality in “Gone With the Wind,” then built an illustrious film career, punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on contract actors, died on Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104 and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s fabled Golden Age.
Her death was confirmed by her publicist Lisa Goldberg.
Ms. de Havilland was both a classic Hollywood beauty and an honored screen actress whose very name and bearing suggested membership in a kind of aristocracy of moviedom. Though she was typecast early in her career as the demure ingénue, she went on to earn meatier roles that led to five Academy Award nominations, two of which brought her the Oscar, for “To Each His Own” (1946) and “The Heiress” (1949). |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on Jan 14, 2023 23:51:48 GMT
I agree, even when the character had a major supporting role in GWTW, that film plays too great a part in the obit. When Olivia de Havilland died nearly three years ago, The New York Times headline for the obituary was "Olivia de Havilland, a Star of Gone With the Wind, Dies at 104." It was a good obit, but the only film mentioned in the headline and first paragraph was GWTW (not one of my favorite films, btw.) And, although the obit included many photos, the first and most prominent was as Melanie in GWTW.
Here are the headline and first two paragraphs of what was a very long (and respectful) obituary:Olivia de Havilland, a Star of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 104
She built an illustrious Hollywood career punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on actors.
By Robert Berkvist
Published July 26, 2020
Updated Aug. 4, 2020
Olivia de Havilland, an actress who gained movie immortality in “Gone With the Wind,” then built an illustrious film career, punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on contract actors, died on Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104 and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s fabled Golden Age.
Her death was confirmed by her publicist Lisa Goldberg.
Ms. de Havilland was both a classic Hollywood beauty and an honored screen actress whose very name and bearing suggested membership in a kind of aristocracy of moviedom. Though she was typecast early in her career as the demure ingénue, she went on to earn meatier roles that led to five Academy Award nominations, two of which brought her the Oscar, for “To Each His Own” (1946) and “The Heiress” (1949). I would have made the headline "one of only a handful of actors to win two best actress Oscars, for Too Each His Own and The Heiress". |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 15, 2023 0:11:07 GMT
Yes, the headline was never going to be "Olivia de Havilland, a star of 'The Swarm' Dies at 104." I would have made the headline "one of only a handful of actors to win two best actress Oscars, for Too Each His Own and The Heiress". |
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Post by sepiatone on Jan 15, 2023 22:06:38 GMT
Sure. Obituaries have the possibility to be seen and read by the larger general public. And we all know(or should) that the larger general public isn't as immersed in "classic" movies and movie history as we here on this forum are. GONE WITH THE WIND might be, for scores more people, the only movie they know say, Ms. Havilland from. Or might be the most recognizable movie that some minor actor or actress who recently died was in. People aren't going to care if some actor they never heard of that died was in some movie they've never seen or heard of. And even if the deceased actor/actress was generally well known it's sad that in reality most of the public won't really care either. Especially if that celebrated actor/actress made their last movie years before they were born, or were so young they were never aware of that movie in the first place.
Sepiatone
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Post by vannorden on Jan 16, 2023 5:11:44 GMT
Sure. Obituaries have the possibility to be seen and read by the larger general public. And we all know(or should) that the larger general public isn't as immersed in "classic" movies and movie history as we here on this forum are. GONE WITH THE WIND might be, for scores more people, the only movie they know say, Ms. Havilland from. Or might be the most recognizable movie that some minor actor or actress who recently died was in. People aren't going to care if some actor they never heard of that died was in some movie they've never seen or heard of. And even if the deceased actor/actress was generally well known it's sad that in reality most of the public won't really care either. Especially if that celebrated actor/actress made their last movie years before they were born, or were so young they were never aware of that movie in the first place. Sepiatone |
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Post by topbilled on Jan 16, 2023 14:35:17 GMT
Everyone associated with TITANIC (1997) will have this movie mentioned prominently in their obit. Even though the two main stars won Oscars for other films. Frances Fisher and Kathy Bates have done more remarkable work in other films. Eric Braeden has spent decades on 'The Young and the Restless.' But like Gloria Stuart, who had a long and distinguished career aside from TITANIC, they will all be connected to this particular blockbuster in their obits.
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