Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Wow. This coming right on the heels of the John Vernon news yesterday... just wow. One of the things I’ve been complaining about recently is how our generation doesn’t seem to be producing the same types of character actors, guys who didn’t need to be leads to walk away with a movie, guys who could just come in and nail every single moment required of them. John Vernon was one of those guys, and Ossie Davis was most certainly one of those guys. As much as I enjoyed Bruce Campbell’s work in BUBBA HO-TEP, can you imagine that film working without Davis as JFK? He didn’t need the old age makeup to play his part, but he was at least as spry and hilarious as Bruce in every scene.
Next Tuesday, Warner Bros. is re-issuing MALCOLM X as a two-disc set, and I was already planning to pick it up. Now, it’ll be a much more bittersweet experience to see the film and listen to his powerful rendition of the eulogy of Malcolm. Ossie was more than just an actor. He was involved in the civil rights movement, and he spoke at the funerals of both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. This is a man who was there at one of the key flashpoints of modern American history, and then he helped create art that further underlined the things his life already stood for. He won a Writer’s Guild award for his television biography of Medger Evers in 1984. As an actor, his work as Da Mayor in DO THE RIGHT THING was amazing, and as much as I always felt like Spike Lee got boned by the Academy that year, Davis also went unrewarded that year, and I think a Best Supporting Actor nomination was more than due him for that performance.
He brightened up countless films over the years, and for me, whenever someone says Ossie Davis, I always remember the moment in the criminally underrated JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO where he lays out his philosophy to Tom Hanks, then takes him to get suits and luggage. It’s a brief role, but it’s all about one man imparting the secret of dignity and joy to another, and it seems to sum up what both the life and work of Davis were all about. He was a tremendous talent, and our deepest condolences go out to his wife Ruby Dee, their family, and the enormous network of filmmakers and other artists whose lives were touched by him. He was 87 years old.
"Moriarty" out.
