RIP to the wonderful comic actor and voice artist
Marvin Kaplan, who has
reportedly passed at the age of 89. Fans of my generation remember him
as the voice of "Choo-Choo" on the Hanna-Barbera animated series TOP
CAT, but he also made early impressions in a several TV appearances from
that era - as a regular on MEET MILLIE and as a guest on THE RED
SKELTON SHOW, MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY, and even serious dramas like M SQUAD
and THE DETECTIVES. His feature film work included FRANCI
S,
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD
WORLD, THE GREAT RACE, THE SEVERED ARM (!), FREAKY FRIDAY (Jodie Foster
version), David Lynch's WILD AT HEART and Larry Blamire's
DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. Later television work included steady roles on
ALICE, BECKER and David Lynch's ON THE AIR. He and I had friends in
common, and my condolences go out to all who are saddened by his loss.
Today we also lost Rudy Van Gelder, a career optometrist who retired from his day job
in the late 1950s to become the most creative and celebrated recording
engineer in the history of jazz. His work for Alfred Lion's Blue Note
label touched the careers of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious
Monk, Art Blakey and dozens of others. He was such a uniquely talented
technician that the label eventually honored with an album - featuring
all these artists and more - entitled THE BEST OF RUDY VAN GELDER. He
was 91.
I was also very sorry to hear of the passing of French writer
Michel Butor. Butor was unusual in that he
was generally revered as a novelist but actually wrote very few novels
(even fewer translated into English) and, so far as I'm aware, the only
writer associated with the exciting
nouvelle roman (or "new novel")
literary movement of the late 1950's and early '60s - along with Alain
Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Marguerite Duras, Claude Simon, etc -
who rejected that classification of his work. The bulk of his work, I understand, was poetry and essays and academic writings. I've long known his
name but I've never read his novels in translation and should. He was best known for his novel SECOND THOUGHTS, written in the uncommonly used "second person" - as was Jay McInerney's later breakthrough novel BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY.
