Don't they say that doing what you love keeps you young? If they don't, they ought to, as the lives of some of the celebrities we note this week stand as living proof of the connection between doing what you do and a long lifespan.
We'll start with the "babies" of the group, Christopher Plummer and Dick Van Dyke, who turn 81 and 85 respectively on Friday. Plummer and Van Dyke have pretty much done it all in their time, from dramas to farces to musicals. Plummer's classical theatre chops are a little more developed, but Van Dyke's sitcom of the 1960s is still recognized as one of the finest and most influential ever, so we'll call it a draw.
Next on our list is spring chicken Eli Wallach, who turns 95 on Tuesday. He began his acting career in the 1950s, with a series of performances out of the Method school of acting that so pervaded that decade. The "Method" (which has been over-hyped and misunderstood almost from the beginning) was a school of acting that emphasized personalized and naturalistic behavior on stage and screen, breaking away from the more florid or theatrical styles that had been the norm. Its foremost proponents were actors like Wallach, Marlon Brando, and James Dean, but a modified version of it is still seen in the performances of Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino. Getting back to our birthday boy, Wallach is still working, having acted in two movies this year, with (his health permitting) more on the way.
The champ, though, is Kirk Douglas, who turns 96 on Thursday. Douglas hit the screen like a lightning bolt in the late 1940s and for the next 50 years turned in a series of dynamic and artful performances that have few rivals for energy and power. He's also been outspoken in his politics, helping to break Hollywood's blacklist in the 1950s by employing writers who went unhired (or to prison) because of their politics. The stroke he suffered in 1996 has impaired his ability to speak, but he continues to work, and, as recently as 2009, appeared in an autobiographical one-man show.
Those aren’t the only events of note, of course. Why, Tuesday alone brings us the announcement of Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year (it's New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees), the lighting of the U.S. Capitol's Christmas tree (the White House gets its turn on Thursday, the day after President Obama appears on MythBusters), the Luxury Travel Expo in Las Vegas (for those who have so much extra money they can't help but spend it on travel), and National Cotton Candy Day.
Wednesday is chock-a-block with events, too, particularly with birthdays of artists and humorists.
In the former category, we have Diego Rivera (1886), the Mexican painter whose intricate and detailed murals were loaded with historical and political commentary.
In the latter, we have two men whose work spans both categories and who were born on the same day in 1894. The first is James Thurber, whose art defined the cartooning style of The New Yorker, and whose short stories, including "The Catbird Seat" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" remain as perceptive and witty as when they were written.
1894's other multi-talented contribution is Elzie Segar, the cartoonist who introduced Popeye the Sailor to the world. Segar created a unique world of comic adventures and characters that has rarely been equaled. Since his death in 1938, numerous ghosts have tried to keep the wackiness of his comic strip alive, but none have succeeded in finding his balance of thrills and laughs.
We close by remembering two tragedies, one markedly larger than the other. Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in front of New York's Dakota Apartments. Lennon was only 40 years old, and was just resuming his music career when he was struck down, forever robbing the world of his talent.
The larger commemoration, is the anniversary of the December 7, 1941, bombing of the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, an even which brought the United States into World War II. The sneak attack by the Japanese cost the U.S. more than a dozen ships and 2,042 lives. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress the next morning, he called it "a date which will live in infamy," and it remains a date whose memory still resonates today.
Suggested Sites...
- Los Angeles Times: A Step in Time with Dick Van Dyke - information about Van Dyke's "musical memoir."
- New York Times: The Madness in His Method - David Thomson eulogizes Marlon Brando.
- Diego Rivera Web Museum - dedicated to the painter and muralist.
- Thurber House - the writer's boyhood home in Columbus, OH is now a museum.
- John Lennon.com- we still remember.
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