R.I.P. Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson

August 8, 1926 - August 31, 2017

It seems like half of the entries since the first time I restarted doing this have begun with me talking about how THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and THE BIONIC WOMAN are two of my favorite TV shows of all time. Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman, head of the OSI and friend to our two bionic heroes, was a big part of that. 

Along with Martin E. Brooks, Anderson was one of the small group of actors to play the same character on two different shows at the same time. They went one better than that by playing the same characters on different shows airing on different networks when THE BIONIC WOMAN switched from ABC to NBC. And with the final bionic reunion movie airing on CBS, they scored a trifecta.

Aside from his bionic adventures, Anderson also appeared on, well, everything it seems like. Several episodes of THE BIG VALLEY with future bionic-buddy Lee Majors, most every other western around, PERRY MASON, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.... Oh, heck, too many to list. Check his IMDb credits out yourself and be impressed.

Special mention should be made about his role in the second Kolchak TV-movie, THE NIGHT STRANGLER, as it pitted him against Darren McGavin who would be Steve Austin's boss Oliver Spencer in the first Six Million Dollar Man TV-movie shortly afterwards. Anderson's Goldman took over in the second SMDM movie after McGavin was committed to the Kolchak TV series.

I had the good fortune to meet Anderson (along with Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner) back in 2015. I wrote about that convention trip here. He'd just turned eighty-nine before the convention, and I have to admit he looked it. During the panel, when Lee Majors made a comment about not knowing when or if the three of them would be together at another convention, I have the feeling I wasn't the only one thinking he was referring to Anderson. Still, he was getting around under his own power, manning his autograph table and talking to fans and generally handling the weekend better than I would've in the same situation, even at my slightly younger age. 

I had a few minutes with him and was able to tell him how much I've enjoyed his work over the years and shake his hand and he seemed genuinely pleased. I'm sure it meant more to me than to him, but I'm glad that so far I've not had to worry about that "never meet your heroes" business. Even tired from all the con stuff, he still had a twinkle in his eye and came across as a good guy and a class act.

Rest in peace, pal....

RIP George A. Romero

I was a horror fan pretty much from birth.

Some of my earliest memories (we're talking kindergarten, here) involve getting up extra early on Saturday mornings to watch the tail-end of the late-late-late horror movie that went off just before cartoons started, along with trying to catch Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Night Gallery every chance I could. So NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD had been on my radar all my life as something I needed to see.

In middle school/junior high we had a teacher that collected movies. I know, now days, 'collected movies' doesn't sound like a big deal. Heck, I have a couple thousand myself. But he collected actual, real, honest-to-god film prints. And he regularly brought them in to school and ran them before first bell and during his home room. Just enough time to usually watch a whole movie a week. I had him for two years, so I got to see a bunch of stuff in his class.

Since it was a school setting, most of what we watched were pretty tame fare. A lot of serials from the 30s and 40s - Nyoka, The Tiger Woman, Captain Marvel - that sort of thing. But sometimes, mainly around Halloween, he expanded the selection some. We watched the Roger Corman FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, and the killer-worm flick SQUIRM (he had to hold his hand in front of the project lens during the shower scene - we were, after all, kids).

He had a poster frame by his desk and would swap out movie posters every week or so and one week he put up the poster for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. It took some cajoling, but finally he relented and so my first viewing of this groundbreaking, classic horror film was sitting in a darkened classroom in one of those uncomfortable school desks along with my classmates with the teacher trying to keep us quiet as kids screamed during the scariest bits.

I never had the chance to tell Romero this story, but I like to think he'd be amused at traumatizing a classroom full of kids. I mean, who wouldn't?