You knew funny. You knew how funny walked, and talked, and if the double take were an Olympic event, and it should be, you would've taken the gold, baby.
You took pathetic men and you made them more pathetic, you made them more braggarty and more clumsy and more cringe-inducing then any writer could have ever imagined them, and then you made us love them for it. There is no other explanation for it except for your total fucking actorly brilliance.
When I played Varya in The Cherry Orchard, I was totally channeling you, Don. And guess what? It worked. You should have done all the classics just to show us that it ain't no thing. And that shoulda been you, Don, on Inside the Actor's Studio, being ass-kissed by Mr. Lipton, and telling him what you'd like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates.
Maybe it would've gone something like this:
Barney Fife: "The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gently dew from heaven.
You're not talking to a jerk you know."
4 comments:
Knotts was the man! I'm feeling very sad today about how many of my chilhood TV icons have passed recently. Don Adams, Al Lewis, Bob Denver, Eddie Albert. I felt like the characters that they played were people that I knew.
Don't forget Darren "Kolchak" McGavin. Also the dad on "A Christmas Story" and a myriad of other TV shows & movies.
"Throughout his television career, McGavin gained a reputation as a curmudgeon willing to bad-mouth his series and combat studio bosses.
Of the private eye series "Mike Hammer," he told a reporter in 1968: "Hammer was a dummy. I made 72 of those shows, and I thought it was a comedy. In fact, I played it camp. He was the kind of guy who would've waved the flag for George Wallace.""
Hee hee! My kind of guy!
I remember McGavin on "The Nightstalker," which was the X-Files of my generation.
And then he spoofed himself on an episode of the X-Files. The one about the creature in the Hurricane.
He was pretty fucking cool, I agree.
A friend of mine did "Harvey" with Don Knotts at some regional theatre, and said that he was very shy and humble. My friend asked Don if he could help him with this line where he could not get a laugh, and he did. Don demonstrated for him how to do the line, and then he got a laugh every night after that.
I love that story.
And now I just heard we lost Dennis Weaver (McCloud)... These things really do happen in threes, don't they?
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