Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Charlton Heston, 1924-2008

The continuing power of Charlton Heston can be seen as recently as Easter last month, when the annual airing of "The Ten Commandments" did its usually strong job in the ratings for ABC.

When he died Saturday of Alzheimer’s in California at 86, most people remembered that role, as Moses, as well as his one in "Ben Hur" to depict Heston as a strong leader. That’s something he carried into his political life as well, leading to his long role as part of the National Rifle Association (a position that led him to an unwanted film appearance late in his career, in Michael Moore’s "Bowling for Colombine."

His overacting in "Planet of the Apes" and "Soylent Green" would remain touchstones for generations to come. It occurred to me that when a character cries up to the skies and says "Nooo!" (as Andy Samberg did in the "Laser Cats" sketch on this weekend’s "Saturday Night Live," it owes something to Heston and those movies.

The tributes in the papers today don’t often mention Heston’s TV history – he hosted “SNL” twice over the years (once with Paul Westerberg as musical guest!). More than that he played two seasons as the lead in “The Colbys,” a spinoff from “Dynasty” the prime time soap where he originated his character of Jason Colby.

He also played in a couple “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” which in its way is the continuing tradition of things like “Playhouse 90” “General Electric Theatre,” “Omnibus,” “Robert Montomery Presents” “Your Show of Shows,” “The Philco Televsion Playhouse” “Studio One,” “Lux Video Theatre” and “Alcoa Premiere” in which he also appeared early in his career.

I remember late in his life he kept repeating something about his funeral wishes. Something about taking something from his cold dead hands, or something happening over his dead body.

I guess those things can happen now.

Three More Gone

They come in threes, they say.

Three more public figures died. The most prominent of them, William F. Buckley, Jr., was in addition to a columnist  a frequent figure on TV, where his brand of conservatism  was of a most erudite type – so far away from the oafish know nothing bullies of today’s right wing broadcasting brethren. Buckley was 82.

Also dead Wednesday was Boyd Coddington of the Discovery Channel reality TV show "American Hot Rod." He was 63.

And word comes too of the death of Buddy Miles, the drummer for Electric Flag and Jimi Hendrix’ Band of Gypsies who had his own formidable solo career. He was 60.

Turn of the TV Key

Services were held in Bridgeport Saturday for John Goudas, a nationally syndicated television critic for more than 30 years from his home in Bridgeport.

That almost certainly made him the state’s longest serving TV writer – and likely the widest circulated, writing King Features’ TV Key column from 1963 to 1997, taking a break in 1985-7 as press representative for ABC News.

According to New York p.r. man Les Schecter, Goudas, a lifelong Connecticut resident, interviewed more than 1,000 actors, actresses, producers and directors in his time.

But he also had a creative side, studying acting in New York in 1960 after serving two years in Fort Dix. In 1962, he starred in a children’s musical called “Midgie’s Magic Shoes” that played at The Bitter End, the hotbed for the then-thriving folk scene. That muse stayed alive in him. He resigned from King Features in 1997 to write a play.

Goudas, who was 72 when he died of natural causes last week is survived by his son, Gregory Goudas-Reig, his daughter-in-law Jane, and two grandchildren, Georgia Reig, 7, and Layla Reig, 5, all of whom live in Coral Springs, Fla.; a sister, Ida Mellas and her husband Stephen, of Shelton; a niece, Joyce Bagley of Branford, and a nephew, James Mellas of Shelton.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in the name of John Goudas to Memorial Sloane Kettering Hospital in memory of his grandson Gregory Reig who died in 2000.

Sam the Butcher is Dead

Alice on "The Brady Bunch" will shed a tear: Her longtime love Sam the Butcher is dead.

Also gone: Mr. Wheeler from "Green Acres," Doc Mallory from "The Andy Griffith Show," Barney Hefner on "All in the Family" and "Archie Bunker's Place" and Corp. Steve Henshaw, Sgt. Bilko's pal on "The Phil Silvers Show."

Plus the voice of Magilla Gorilla.

They were all roles for character actor Allan Melvin, who died this week of cancer at 84.

Melvin had a long career in Hollywood, plaing sidekicks and second bananas, characters which all the same were memorable. And that's not to mention all his cartoon work, givinng voice not only to Magilla Gorilla but a cartoon version of "Beetle Bailey" (he was Sarge) and various voices on "The Flintstones" and "Secret Squirrel." Also, he was the voice of Drooper of the Banana Splits. He was the voice of Pufnstuf on "H.R. Pufnstuf," for goodness sake.

His sitcom credits are impeccible, going back to "Make Room for Daddy," "My Favorite Martian," "The Bill Dana SHow" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show." And among the other TV shows he did were "Love American Style." "Perry Mason," "Dr. Kildare," "Ben Casey," "Route 66" and "Mod Squad."

As Sam the Butcher, she was talked about on "The Brady Bunch" more than he was actually seen. But he still helped make the ensemble, in his way.

Susan Pleshette also died this weekend at age 8070. But she'll get a lot of tributes elsewhere. Allan Melvin won't.

Ike Turner, 1931-2007

He’ll be forever be remembered as the abusive husband of Tina Turner. But Ike Turner, who died Wednesday at his home in suburban San Diego at 76, was a multi-talented bluesman who recorded what may believe was the first rock ‘n’ roll record, "Rocket 88."

Like the rest of the luck in Turner’s career, he was never credited with it. When it was issued on Sam Phillips’ Sun Records in 1951, it was credited to singer Jackie Brentson instead of Turner’s Kings of Rhythm.

He did find, bring to prominence and marry Tina Turner and the Ike and Tina Turner Revue were one of the most exciting acts in R&B or rock, knocking out audiences when they opened for the Rolling Stones in 1969, and making John Fogerty’s "Proud Mary" their own.

But there were also fiery clashes, depicted so dramatically in her 1986 autobiography "I, Tina" and the 1993 movie "What’s Love Got to Do With It."

Ike was the bad guy, and like bluesmen of another era, he did prison time before he returned with renewed vigor this century.

He won a Grammy earlier this year for his “Risin’ with the Blues,” part of comeback that began with the release of his “Here and Now” on the Connecticut label Ikon in 2001.

That’s when I met up with him in Austin. After a blazing show T Antone’s that drew a number of other artists from Ryan Adams to Niko Case and featured a belting singer who looked a lot like a young Tina Turner, the bluesman spoke in his hotel room.

"I did a lot of wrong things in my life," he said. "But I also did a lot of good things in my life. There’s nothing in my life that I’d change, though, because it made me what I am today."

Remembering Marcel Marceau

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Marcel Marceau, 1923-2007

My Mother and the TV

Forgive me for not yet mentioning Merv Griffin, who would otherwise deserve appreciation from a TV critic, but my mom also died over the weekend.

She was 85 and in frail health in recent years, at a Nebraska nursing home. And I have a lot to say about what kind of person she was. But for purposes of this forum I’d like to say she helped make me the TV watcher I am today.

Beverly Sills on Pop Culture and (Probably) Paris

When news came late Monday of the death of the great Brooklyn-born soprano and arts manager Beverly Sills, it brought to mind her memorable appearance before TV critics last summer in California.

Appearing via satellite at the TV Critics Association summer press tour in conjunction with a biography of her that ran on PBS’ “Great Performances” on Thanksgiving, Sills, known for her childhood nickname Bubbles, wasn’t so bubbly about daytime TV (“God, it's moronic'') and what passes for stars these days.

Today, you don't have to be a performer. It's not necessary to sing or dance or act. It isn't even necessary to be attractive... I would like to see one young man come on the television screen clean-shaven. I'll take a beard. But my God, why do they have to look like bums, and chewing gum?

And I don't want to name any names, but some of the women today appear on talk shows with absolutely nothing to say, and when they do say something, you regret it.

Well she hardly needed to name names did she?

You know, to come on with their little dogs. What's the talent to that? I don't get it. What am I supposed to be looking at? It's not even attractive.

Sills, who helped popularize opera through a lot of appearances on talk shows, says she knows there’s a place for low as well as high culture.

I'm not saying that we should listen to opera and symphony all day long, but my goodness, isn't there something to challenge my mind? And I'm sick and tired of hearing, "We're giving the public what it wants." How do you know you are?

Networks would do well to heed her call. Sills was 78.

Joel Siegel

Joel Siegel, who died Friday at 63 after a long fight with cancer, wasn’t the kind of critic I’d actually see that often on TV. Though his effusion for film and distinctive mustache was for “good Morning America” what Gene Shalit’s mustache is for “Today.”

Mostly, his name would come up in countless movie ads giving lavish praise. Some say Siegel was a guy who just loved movies more than most critics; others say you can’t trust what are in those ads anyway – they can find a positive word or two to take out of context from  even the worst pan.

Siegel also got in the news a year ago for walking out of a screening of Kevin Smith’s “Clerks II” declaring his loud and profane distain with the film, something for which he later apologized.

Movie critics seem to be something of an endangered species – there hasn’t been one at The Courant in years and this week we ran wire from the one guy in the country who didn’t like “Ratatoutille.” 

So we’ll mourn the loss of this critic, too.

Mr. Wizard, 1917-2007

Mr. Wizard, the TV incarnation of Don Herbert, who died Tuesday of cancer at 89, was a little before and after my time watching as a kid viewer.

His original science show, which ran from 1951 to 1954, taught kids that science was fun, or at least sometimes you can make things blow up. He returned in the '80s with a revived Mr. Wizard series for another generation, but by then I was beyond kiddie TV.

I have retained, however, for lo, these many decades, however, one keepsake from the good Mr. Wizard, whose name would make him all that more famous anew in this Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings world.

It is the Mr. Wizard Handy Andy Chemistry Lab, an impressive metal boxed kit circa 1955, holding a half dozen beakers, 15 bottles of different substances to measure, and all manner of balances, beakers, flasks, a “blow torch” and an “alcohol lamp.”

Herbert’s kindly, knowledgeable Mr. Wizard is prominently pictured on the cover of the metal box, but inside Handy Andy pretty much takes over

The three different booklets inside are chock full of different experiments and handy (and scary) illustrated hints as “Never Add Water to Acid!”

Suffice to say I wasn’t a science kid, so the thing is pretty much intact. And the longer I had it, the less inclined I was to mess with it, lest its collectiblity value be changed.

The suitcase-shaped box came with a prominent  “Commended” seal from Parents Magazine as well as the assurance that the Chemistry Lab inside was "Tested! Approved! Safe!"

Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing you would ever get on an airplane even a decade before 9/11.