Grim Reader, Feb. 11, 2011: Brian Jacques, J. Paul Getty III and Tura Satana
by Michael Schaffer
FEBRUARY 11, 2011 TAGS:
Everyone remembers their first favorite writer. And if that writer stays alive long enough for his old readers to get obit-writing jobs, that makes for some interesting posthumous reporting.
Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series of children’s books, is remembered as a sort of early J.K. Rowling. He began scribbling kids’ stories longhand when he drove a milk truck in Liverpool, says the Telegraph, which notes that he’d already worked as a longshoreman, policeman, and stand-up comedian, among other jobs. In the books, “Foxes, squirrels and mice feast and fight their way through numerous adventures and in the process have won the hearts of millions of young readers,” explains NPR’s Lynn Neary. Jacques eventually sold 20 million copies worldwide.
Since his series launched in 1986, enough of his fans are now at media outlets that at least some of the coverage includes a bit of personal reminiscence from devoted readers. This piece, from Philadelphia City Paper, is especially nice. One quibble with all children’s-book obit coverage: Death news seems to be the only place Grim Reader ever sees good news about youthful reading. People like Jacques are forever being credited, a la his CBC obit, for having “helped instill a passion for reading in a generation of youngsters.” If that entire generation is really so passionate, why is so much other media coverage devoted to writing about how youngsters would rather text than read?
*
Everyone covered the terrible life of J. Paul Getty III. The scion of an oil baron’s famously dysfunctional family, the younger Getty was kidnapped in Rome in the 1970s. His family initially thought it was a scam by the wayward teen -- until the gangsters who took him mailed in a severed ear. Stories in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times capture the Getty kookiness that followed: Patriarch J. Paul Getty (“a notorious miser who installed a pay phone in his mansion,” the Los Angeles Times says) controlled all the money, and refused payment of around $17 million. He eventually relented, fronting a reduced ransom in the form of an intrafamily loan. “The aftermath of the ordeal left Mr. Getty as a reckless personality,” says the New York Times, which chronicles his post-release swirl of booze, drugs, and scandal. That may be a bit much to pin on his captors, since the same obit notes that the pre-kidnapping Getty had been kicked out of school and was living a dissolute lifestyle. The Washington Post goes into how Getty’s decline opened new family rifts: After a drug-induced stroke, he required round-the-clock care, something his father, who inherited the family’s money three decades earlier, refused to fund. Getty’s own son is the actor Balthazar Getty.
Maria Altmann “escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna as a newlywed and returned to wage a triumphant fight to recover Gustav Klimt's iconic gold portrait of her remarkable aunt,” says the Los Angeles Times. Altmann’s is the rare obit with a single lifelong narrative arc and a happy ending. She and her husband fled the Nazis, leaving behind a life of wealth and vast family art collection. In her 80s, a retired California dress-shop owner, Altmann began what the Wall Street Journal calls her “odyssey” of trying to undercut the Austrian national gallery’s claim to the painting. Aided by a journalist, she eventually took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. "They will delay, delay, delay, hoping I will die," she’s quoted as saying. "But I will do them the pleasure of staying alive." She eventually won the case, though she wound up selling the artwork. The Daily Beast calls Altmann “the pioneer of art restitution.”
Willi Dansgaard’s research “revolutionized scientific knowledge of how the temperature and composition of the atmosphere have changed over the last 150,000 years, demonstrating a clear link between carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and global temperatures,” says the Los Angeles Times. By studying polar core ice, Dansgaard -- a “paleoclimatologist” -- was able to plot a history of global temperatures. The obit notes that he wasn’t much of an activist on climate change politics, which may be one reason his death, unlike those of many climate scientists, isn’t met with skeptical send-offs on the far right of the blogosphere.
A week after the death of Last Tango in Paris actress Maria Schneider comes news that Lena Nyman, star of 1967 Swedish flick I am Curious (Yellow) has also died. The Guardian jumps to make a comparison. “While Schneider's career and life suffered” as a result of her role, the obit says, “Nyman went on to establish herself as a well-loved performer in her native country.” As with all coverage of people involved in yesteryear’s graphic fare -- Nyman’s film was censored in the United States, leading to a celebrated court case and enough publicity to make it the country’s highest-grossing foreign movie for 23 years -- it’s striking how tame the stuff seems today. “They have sex in a tree and on a balustrade in front of the royal palace, among other places,” the New York Times’ obit says of Nyman and her on-screen lover. Just the two of ‘em? The prudes. Nyman, at any rate, played down the movie’s significance in an old quote unearthed by the Times. “You could believe nobody in Sweden had ever seen a naked man or woman,” she said of the controversy.
As it happens, Nyman isn’t the only Swedish film figure -- or 1960s cult-flick heroine -- in the obits this week. With the death in a house fire of the eminent actor Per Oscarsson, the Guardian decides to top its obit with what Oscarsson didn’t accomplish: He was “perhaps the only leading Swedish actor who never worked with Ingmar Bergman,” the lede announces about the Cannes-award winner. This actually serves to explain his style, not just to slight his legacy: Bergman preferred placid actors, the piece explains, and Oscarsson was more “Klaus Kinski than Max Von Sydow.” … Meanwhile, Tura Satana is remembered as the star of the Russ Meyer exploitation classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The film depicts a marauding trio of go-go dancers and features actresses of the same basic physical dimensions as in all of Meyer’s films. How does the Obitosphere deal with this? Well, the New York Times addresses her physique in its first-paragraph description of Satana (“an actress whose authoritative presence, exotic looks and buxom frame commanded the attention of viewers”). The Los Angeles Times farms out the description to a contemporary critic (“almost insanely voluptuous”). And the Associated Press doesn’t mention her build at all. The New York Times, whose piece identifies her as a sort of proto-Xena, also explicitly connects her appearance to her life story: From a young age, she was the object of ogling, assault and harassment, the obit explains, and her Meyer role finally allowed her to show an angry, assertive side.
In music this week, there are obits for viola soloist Emanuel Vardi, “who was an ambassador for the instrument in an era when it had few public champions,” according to the New York Times. Vardi helped adapt pieces for the viola and shine light on lost compositions oriented towards what had been “considered merely a humble alto cog in the vast orchestral machine.” The obit credits Vardi with helping birth a contemporary scene where viola solos are common. ... Thin Lizzy’s Gary Moore was “a versatile virtuoso guitarist with a clean sound and a distinctive, sustained tone,” says the Independent. The obit offers a long run-down of Moore’s successful rock career, but goes high with this piece of backhanded praise that seems to undercut it all: “His playing improved immeasurably at the tail-end of the 1980s, when he abandoned the heavy rock he had made his name with” and began playing blues in comparative obscurity. … Cabaret singer Mary Cleere Haran is remembered in the New York Times for a persona that “reflected the upbeat, can-do spirit and subdued glamour of long-ago film stars like Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne and Claudette Colbert.” But, the obit says, “her attitude was not that of a besotted fan but of a modern woman with a feminist sensibility who refracted the past through the present.” Fun fact: She would address her audiences as “fellow Manhattan sophisticates.”
Is there some rule in American food obituary writing that requires each chef to be evaluated according to his or her role in our presumably triumphal march from Chef Boyardee to locavorism? The convention is firmly in place in this week’s obits for Rene Verdon, “a French-born chef who brought an air of continental sophistication to the White House under the Kennedys,” according to the Washington Post. Sure enough, when Verdon arrived on the White House payroll, it had “a kitchen that had long been run by caterers and Navy stewards and not known for producing fine food.” But thanks to Verdon and the Kennedy magic, before long word had spread and “homemakers began turning out souffles, pates and pork rillettes.” Grim Reader hates to be a pill about this, but the obit’s actual story of Verdon might say something about how culinary history is not a straight-line progression in one direction: After Lyndon Johnson became president, the menu started featuring more Southern and canned fare. And Verdon quit. Tastes, it seems, can change.
.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series of children’s books, is remembered as a sort of early J.K. Rowling. He began scribbling kids’ stories longhand when he drove a milk truck in Liverpool, says the Telegraph, which notes that he’d already worked as a longshoreman, policeman, and stand-up comedian, among other jobs. In the books, “Foxes, squirrels and mice feast and fight their way through numerous adventures and in the process have won the hearts of millions of young readers,” explains NPR’s Lynn Neary. Jacques eventually sold 20 million copies worldwide.
Since his series launched in 1986, enough of his fans are now at media outlets that at least some of the coverage includes a bit of personal reminiscence from devoted readers. This piece, from Philadelphia City Paper, is especially nice. One quibble with all children’s-book obit coverage: Death news seems to be the only place Grim Reader ever sees good news about youthful reading. People like Jacques are forever being credited, a la his CBC obit, for having “helped instill a passion for reading in a generation of youngsters.” If that entire generation is really so passionate, why is so much other media coverage devoted to writing about how youngsters would rather text than read?*
Everyone covered the terrible life of J. Paul Getty III. The scion of an oil baron’s famously dysfunctional family, the younger Getty was kidnapped in Rome in the 1970s. His family initially thought it was a scam by the wayward teen -- until the gangsters who took him mailed in a severed ear. Stories in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times capture the Getty kookiness that followed: Patriarch J. Paul Getty (“a notorious miser who installed a pay phone in his mansion,” the Los Angeles Times says) controlled all the money, and refused payment of around $17 million. He eventually relented, fronting a reduced ransom in the form of an intrafamily loan. “The aftermath of the ordeal left Mr. Getty as a reckless personality,” says the New York Times, which chronicles his post-release swirl of booze, drugs, and scandal. That may be a bit much to pin on his captors, since the same obit notes that the pre-kidnapping Getty had been kicked out of school and was living a dissolute lifestyle. The Washington Post goes into how Getty’s decline opened new family rifts: After a drug-induced stroke, he required round-the-clock care, something his father, who inherited the family’s money three decades earlier, refused to fund. Getty’s own son is the actor Balthazar Getty.
Maria Altmann “escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna as a newlywed and returned to wage a triumphant fight to recover Gustav Klimt's iconic gold portrait of her remarkable aunt,” says the Los Angeles Times. Altmann’s is the rare obit with a single lifelong narrative arc and a happy ending. She and her husband fled the Nazis, leaving behind a life of wealth and vast family art collection. In her 80s, a retired California dress-shop owner, Altmann began what the Wall Street Journal calls her “odyssey” of trying to undercut the Austrian national gallery’s claim to the painting. Aided by a journalist, she eventually took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. "They will delay, delay, delay, hoping I will die," she’s quoted as saying. "But I will do them the pleasure of staying alive." She eventually won the case, though she wound up selling the artwork. The Daily Beast calls Altmann “the pioneer of art restitution.”
Willi Dansgaard’s research “revolutionized scientific knowledge of how the temperature and composition of the atmosphere have changed over the last 150,000 years, demonstrating a clear link between carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and global temperatures,” says the Los Angeles Times. By studying polar core ice, Dansgaard -- a “paleoclimatologist” -- was able to plot a history of global temperatures. The obit notes that he wasn’t much of an activist on climate change politics, which may be one reason his death, unlike those of many climate scientists, isn’t met with skeptical send-offs on the far right of the blogosphere.
A week after the death of Last Tango in Paris actress Maria Schneider comes news that Lena Nyman, star of 1967 Swedish flick I am Curious (Yellow) has also died. The Guardian jumps to make a comparison. “While Schneider's career and life suffered” as a result of her role, the obit says, “Nyman went on to establish herself as a well-loved performer in her native country.” As with all coverage of people involved in yesteryear’s graphic fare -- Nyman’s film was censored in the United States, leading to a celebrated court case and enough publicity to make it the country’s highest-grossing foreign movie for 23 years -- it’s striking how tame the stuff seems today. “They have sex in a tree and on a balustrade in front of the royal palace, among other places,” the New York Times’ obit says of Nyman and her on-screen lover. Just the two of ‘em? The prudes. Nyman, at any rate, played down the movie’s significance in an old quote unearthed by the Times. “You could believe nobody in Sweden had ever seen a naked man or woman,” she said of the controversy.
As it happens, Nyman isn’t the only Swedish film figure -- or 1960s cult-flick heroine -- in the obits this week. With the death in a house fire of the eminent actor Per Oscarsson, the Guardian decides to top its obit with what Oscarsson didn’t accomplish: He was “perhaps the only leading Swedish actor who never worked with Ingmar Bergman,” the lede announces about the Cannes-award winner. This actually serves to explain his style, not just to slight his legacy: Bergman preferred placid actors, the piece explains, and Oscarsson was more “Klaus Kinski than Max Von Sydow.” … Meanwhile, Tura Satana is remembered as the star of the Russ Meyer exploitation classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The film depicts a marauding trio of go-go dancers and features actresses of the same basic physical dimensions as in all of Meyer’s films. How does the Obitosphere deal with this? Well, the New York Times addresses her physique in its first-paragraph description of Satana (“an actress whose authoritative presence, exotic looks and buxom frame commanded the attention of viewers”). The Los Angeles Times farms out the description to a contemporary critic (“almost insanely voluptuous”). And the Associated Press doesn’t mention her build at all. The New York Times, whose piece identifies her as a sort of proto-Xena, also explicitly connects her appearance to her life story: From a young age, she was the object of ogling, assault and harassment, the obit explains, and her Meyer role finally allowed her to show an angry, assertive side.In music this week, there are obits for viola soloist Emanuel Vardi, “who was an ambassador for the instrument in an era when it had few public champions,” according to the New York Times. Vardi helped adapt pieces for the viola and shine light on lost compositions oriented towards what had been “considered merely a humble alto cog in the vast orchestral machine.” The obit credits Vardi with helping birth a contemporary scene where viola solos are common. ... Thin Lizzy’s Gary Moore was “a versatile virtuoso guitarist with a clean sound and a distinctive, sustained tone,” says the Independent. The obit offers a long run-down of Moore’s successful rock career, but goes high with this piece of backhanded praise that seems to undercut it all: “His playing improved immeasurably at the tail-end of the 1980s, when he abandoned the heavy rock he had made his name with” and began playing blues in comparative obscurity. … Cabaret singer Mary Cleere Haran is remembered in the New York Times for a persona that “reflected the upbeat, can-do spirit and subdued glamour of long-ago film stars like Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne and Claudette Colbert.” But, the obit says, “her attitude was not that of a besotted fan but of a modern woman with a feminist sensibility who refracted the past through the present.” Fun fact: She would address her audiences as “fellow Manhattan sophisticates.”
Is there some rule in American food obituary writing that requires each chef to be evaluated according to his or her role in our presumably triumphal march from Chef Boyardee to locavorism? The convention is firmly in place in this week’s obits for Rene Verdon, “a French-born chef who brought an air of continental sophistication to the White House under the Kennedys,” according to the Washington Post. Sure enough, when Verdon arrived on the White House payroll, it had “a kitchen that had long been run by caterers and Navy stewards and not known for producing fine food.” But thanks to Verdon and the Kennedy magic, before long word had spread and “homemakers began turning out souffles, pates and pork rillettes.” Grim Reader hates to be a pill about this, but the obit’s actual story of Verdon might say something about how culinary history is not a straight-line progression in one direction: After Lyndon Johnson became president, the menu started featuring more Southern and canned fare. And Verdon quit. Tastes, it seems, can change.
.
Michael Schaffer’s Grim Reader appears Friday in Obit. He is the author of One Nation Under Dog, about culture and the American pet industry.
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