Every night...

Actor Warren Mitchell died. Playwright Arthur Miller, on his 80th birthday, is on record saying to friend/playwright Bernard Kops that Mitchell was "the best..the best Willy Loman I ever had". 'His' Death of a Salesman I saw almost every night for an entire theatrical run. You have to crane your neck to see a star...

All My Sons: Every man does have a star. The star of one's honesty. And you spend your life groping for it, but once it's out it never lights again. 





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Dustin Hoffman in Volker Schlöndorff's film was great (and the rest of THAT cast!). Of course. What Warren Mitchell gave that role (and I say this with a very long term memory and a very short (yet very visceral) memory of the movie I’ve seen several times (the ads in the link are a problem but then so is all always are). PLEASE watch Death of a Salesman. Hoffman (not Phil Seymour- though I'm sure he was fantastic too..) : but what Mitchell birthed in that role was WAS the American salesman. So SO much maligned. Perhaps a guy who way way no longer exists/existed on the planet. Let alone America. Willy Loman WAS the birth of America. Perhaps a new post-WW2 America that believed in old-fashioned values- though equally skeptical of such and craved for the NEW. Understandably: they (birth old and new) worked. For everyone. The working man wanted that. They WANTED a Willy Loman. A salesman who needed to sell but who had honesty. Unbelievable but true. But the NEW was always so irresistible, and Willy just couldn't keep pace. He averaged in 1928. Long time go. Is/was time irrelevant? They were real. All the ‘actors’ on the planet were real. Weird, but it took the non-American Warren Mitchell to really ‘nail’ that role of Willy Loman. NOT that Dustin Hoffman has an iota of cynicism in his performance. BUT: maybe it is just in the American DNA that can’t see itself for what it is. Good and bad. Warren Mitchell birthed and inhabited THAT belief. A belief in the common man and his potential. Which was fine up until a point. Hence Arthur Miller’s play.

Who liked J.P. Morgan? Was he impressive? In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher. But with his pockets on he was very well liked.

Biff re his Dad Willy: You've just seen a prince walk by. A fine, troubled prince. A hard-working, unappreciated prince. A pal, you understand? A good companion. Always for his boys.

Life (though) (really) has no heroes...

it will always ...have stars so big and yet so so small. The internet will always catch you. It's a yin/yang 'ding'. . . . .  blessed b the internet. Awe.......some....welles......howdy do d.....