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Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012
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Tens of Oscar nominated character thousands sign actor dies at 89 in New York City US petition to deport Piers Morgan over gun control views
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES — Charles Durning grew up in poverty, lost five of his nine siblings to disease, barely lived through D-Day and was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge. His hard life and wartime trauma provided the basis for a prolific 50-year career as a consummate Oscar-nominated character actor, playing everyone from a Nazi colonel to the pope to Dustin Hoffman’s would-be suitor in “Tootsie.” Durning, who died Monday at age 89 in New York, got his start as an usher at a burlesque theatre in Buffalo, N.Y. When one of the comedians showed up too drunk to go on, Durning took his place. He would recall years later that he was hooked as soon as heard the audience laughing. He told The Associated Press in 2008 that he had no plans to stop working. “They’re going to carry me out, if I go,” he said. Durning’s longtime agent and friend, Judith Moss, told The Associated Press that he died of natural causes in his home in the borough of Manhattan. Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in 1982’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Many critics marveled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film’s show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. Indeed, he had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio. The year after “Best Little Whorehouse,” Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks’ “To Be or Not to Be.” He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975’s “Dog Day Afternoon.” He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald in the TV film “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Durning had begun his career on stage, getting his first big break when theatrical producer Joseph Papp hired him for the New York Shakespeare Festival. He went on to work regularly, if fairly anonymously, through the 1960s until his breakout role as a small town mayor in the Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play “That Championship Season” in 1972. He quickly made an impression on movie audiences the following year as the crooked cop stalking con men Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning comedy “The Sting.” Dozens of notable portrayals followed. He was the wouldbe suitor of Dustin Hoffman, posing as a female soap opera star in “Tootsie;” the infamous seller of frog legs in “The Muppet Movie;” and Chief Brandon in Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy.” He played Santa Claus in four different movies made
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by The Associated Press
In this Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008 photo, Charles Durning holds his life achievement award at the 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles. for television and was the pope in the TV film “I Would be Called John: Pope John XXIII.” “I never turned down anything and never argued with any producer or director,” Durning told The Associated Press in 2008, when he was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Other films included “The Front Page,” ”The Hindenburg,“ ”Breakheart Pass,“ ”North Dallas Forty,“ ”Starting Over,“ ”Tough Guys,“ ”Home for the Holidays,“ ”Spy Hard“ and ’O Brother Where Art Thou?” Durning also did well in television as a featured performer as well as a guest star. He appeared in the short-lived series “The Cop and the Kid” (1975), “Eye to Eye” (1985) and “First Monday” (2002) as well as the four-season “Evening Shade” in the 1990s.
LONDON — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views. Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his “Piers Morgan Tonight” show an “unbelievably stupid man.” Now, gun rights activists are fighting back. A petition created Dec. 21 on the White House e-petition website by a user in Texas accuses Morgan of engaging in a “hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution” by targeting the Second Amendment. It demands he be deported immediately for “exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.” The petition has already hit the 25,000 signature threshold to get a White House response. By Monday, it had 31,813 signatures. Morgan seemed unfazed — and even amused — by the movement. In a series of Twitter messages, he alternately urged his followers to sign the petition and in response to one article about the petition said “bring it on” as he appeared to track the petition’s progress. “If I do get deported from America for wanting fewer gun murders, are there any other countries that will have me?” he wrote.
‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘30 Rock’ among TV series bidding adieu celled. Such was the case with “ALF,” the ’80s sitcom about a wise-cracking alien that ends with the worst possible scenario for its fun-loving hero: After spending the entire series in hiding, Alf is caught by the Alien Task Force, presumably to be tortured, killed and dissected. (ABC aired a followup TV movie six years later where Alf escapes.) As hard as it is for fans, premature endings are brutal for actors, too, says former “Veronica Mars” star Enrico Colantoni. His teen sleuthing series ended in 2007 and he notes that fans
clamour to this day for some kind of resolution — a reunion, a follow-up movie, anything. “The most frustrating thing is talking to ’Veronica Mars’ fans — you hate looking at those guys and going, ’I’m sorry. I know. I was a fan of that show, too. I wanted to know what happened to Veronica. I wanted to know if Keith lost the election,”’ says Colantoni, who says a “Veronica Mars” feature film would be a “no-brainer.” “That was awful. I’m still not over that one. I’m still not over that one.” Sometimes, showrunners can see the end
coming. They craft final episodes that leave things just open enough to lead into a new season, and just closed enough to feel like major issues are addressed. Not that their devoted followers necessarily see it that way. “I always get frustrated when people go, ’Oh, I wish you had gotten to end the series’ because I’m like, ’No, we did end the series,”’ “Freaks and Geeks” creator Paul Feig says of his high school saga, which ends with a
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TORONTO — There’s an implicit promise every long-running TV show makes to its loyal viewers: When the time comes, favourite storylines and characters will bid farewell with an exhilarating, satisfying finale. For those that fail to make good on that promise, the wrath of online ranters and watercooler critics awaits — and in this day and age, that griping can linger for years. (Anyone looking to debate the merits/shortcomings of the “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” finales should have no trouble igniting a lively back-and-forth out in the ether.) Next year, beloved series including “30 Rock,” “Breaking Bad,” “The Office,” “Fringe” and “Less Than Kind” wrap their runs. Will they be satisfying conclusions? “The expectations are high on how this is going to end,” “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston notes of his grim AMC drug saga, adding he’s happy to let that weight fall solely on the shoulders of writer-creator Vince Gilligan. “The pressure really is all on Vince Gilligan. He should (have) and deserves the lion’s share of the praise by far. And he has the lion’s share of the responsibility. My hope is that he is able to find the nuance that he wants to bring to the finale.” Of course, the most memorable finales tend to be of either two extremes — the ones we love (who didn’t adore the “Newhart” ending?) and the ones we hate (the “Seinfeld” finale stands as a disappointing series low). Then there are the ones that just plain confuse us until they gradually settle into one of the two camps (David Chase still finds himself on the hotseat over “The Sopranos” ending). “30 Rock” creator and star Tina Fey says she’s determined to end her
NBC/Citytv show on a high. “We’ve been trying to watch great TV finales, one a day, in our writers’ room and we cry at all of them,” Fey said on the red carpet of the Emmy Awards earlier this year. “Like, the other day, the staff started crying when Frasier took his dad’s chair out. So yeah, we feel pressure not to blow it.” At least Fey and Gilligan have the advantage of knowing well in advance their show is coming to an end. So many shows are cancelled before writers have a chance to craft a proper farewell. “I’m a sci-fi fan and it just drives me crazy when you get to the story and it’s just, snap, the end, rather than a grand finale,” says “Fringe” star Joshua Jackson, who promises a solid conclusion to his mind-bending Fox/Citytv serial. “We get our grand finale. And hopefully it will be satisfactory to the people who have come with us on the journey.” Nothing frustrates TV fans more than an abrupt end to ongoing storylines. No one wants to see a great show end on an ambiguous note, or worse, close on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved because the show was suddenly can-
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