Our Daily Dead

Now on any normal Sun Day it must be said that we ODD ones find the time to sleep in past noon and generally spend the remaining time not in diary mode, but just lollygagging about. Sun Daze are just like that except We Heard the News Today, Oh Boy, and thus thought to rouse ourselves from our standard issue stupor and log an ODD blog goodby to Deputy Barney Fife.

And come to find out that a threesome of sorts has drifted off together: Don Knotts, Darren McGavin and over the pond it was actress Lou Gish.

Ok, to be honest, the item, or the rather the name, that caught our eye with respect to Lou Gish was her work with Ewan McGregor. Lou Gish played Ann to Ewan McGregor’s eponymous hero in Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs in 1988-1989. Long before Ewan was swash-buckling about.

Mayhaps one of the more, um, interesting?, entertaining?, oh, you fill in the blank, web sites we found was the simple Barney Fife.com. In short this site offers life lessons based on the morals and life style portrayed in The Andy Griffith Show. Think perhaps Don Knotts as a religous icon.

And lastly there is this small bit from Darren McGavin’s obit: ‘He also starred alongside Don Knotts, who died Friday night, in the 1976 family comedy ‘’No Deposit, No Return.”’

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: diary, blog, Barney Fife, Don Knotts, Darren McGavin, Lou Gish, Ewan McGregor, Andy Griffith Show

NY Times
Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show,” died on Friday. He was 81.

Mr. Knotts died of pulmonary and respiratory complications at U.C.L.A. Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which broadcasts “The Andy Griffith Show” and another hit co-starring Mr. Knotts, “Three’s Company.”

Mr. Knotts had a half-century acting career that included seven television series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him television immortality and five Emmy Awards.

The show was on the air from 1960 to 1968, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series to bow out at the top: The others are “I Love Lucy” and “Seinfeld.” The 249 “Griffith” episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Mr. Griffith, Mr. Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Mr. Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character.

Technorati Tags: Don Knotts, television, films

The Independent Online
Louise Curram (Lou Gish), actress: born London 27 May 1967; died London 20 February 2006.

In person Lou Gish, who has died of cancer aged only 38, was beautiful, funny, kind, affectionate, and astonishingly popular. As an actress she was multiply talented.

Last year - following the death in March, also from cancer (aged 62), of her mother, Sheila Gish - she played Goneril in Steven Pimlott’s King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre. Her sister, Kay Curram, was Cordelia. Anyone who saw the performance will never forget it: in figure-hugging black, green eyes glinting from beneath a ton of black mascara, Lou Gish smouldered on to the stage. As she opened her mouth and purred to David Warner, “Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter . . .”, there cannot have been a spine in the audience without a shiver down it. Gish was heartbroken when her cancer returned and, in June, she had to withdraw from the production.

She was born in London in 1967 to the actors Sheila Gish and Roland Curram, and educated at Macaulay Church of England Primary School in Clapham, Alleyns School in Dulwich, Furzedown School in Wandsworth, and Camberwell School of Art. After leaving Camberwell she worked in a variety of jobs (for a while as an assistant for the theatrical agent Jeremy Conway), and it was not until her mid-twenties that she decided to follow the instinct that she said she had been trying to ignore: to become an actress.

Thereafter she was in work almost constantly, in both theatre and television. As Helen Carver in Design for Living at the Donmar and in the West End, she literally dazzled the audience in what one critic described as a “glittering sheath”. When, in 1988-89, she played Ann to Ewan McGregor’s eponymous hero in Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs she showed grit and vulnerability in equal measure, reducing many of the audience to tears as she crawled, weeping, across the stage in the final moments of the play, having been beaten up by Malcolm and his gang of weak-willed politicos.

She and her partner of six years, the actor Nicholas Rowe, were completely devoted. Lou took particular pleasure in arranging (surprise) events for Nick’s birthday each year. Such heartfelt and sincere devotion was a lesson in love for all who beheld it.

Technorati Tags: Lou Gish, actress, Ewan McGregor

NY Times
Darren McGavin was painting a movie set in 1945 when he learned of an opening for a small role in the show, climbed off his ladder, and returned through Columbia’s front gates to land the part.

The husky, tough-talking performer went on to become one of the busiest actors in television and film, starring in five TV series, including ‘’Mike Hammer,'’ and endearing holiday audiences with his role as the grouchy dad in the 1983 comedy classic ‘’A Christmas Story.'’

McGavin, 83, died Saturday of natural causes at a Los Angeles-area hospital with his family at his side, said his son Bogart McGavin.

McGavin also had leading roles in TV’s ‘’Riverboat'’ and cult favorite ‘’Kolchak: The Night Stalker.'’ Among his memorable portrayals was Gen. George Patton in the 1979 TV biography ‘’Ike.'’

Despite his busy career in television, McGavin was awarded only one Emmy: in 1990 for an appearance as Candice Bergen’s opinionated father in an episode of ‘’Murphy Brown.'’

He lacked the prominence in films he enjoyed in television, but he registered strongly in featured roles such as the young artist in Venice in ‘’Summertime,'’ David Lean’s 1955 film with Katharine Hepburn and Rosanno Brazzi; Frank Sinatra’s crafty drug supplier in ‘’The Man with the Golden Arm'’ (1955); Jerry Lewis’s parole officer in ‘’The Delicate Delinquent'’ (1957); and the gambler in 1984’s ‘’The Natural.'’ He also starred alongside Don Knotts, who died Friday night, in the 1976 family comedy ‘’No Deposit, No Return.'’

Throughout his television career, McGavin gained a reputation as a curmudgeon willing to bad-mouth his series and combat studio bosses.

Technorati Tags: Darren McGavin, movie, actors, television