June 2009 Archives

Geez, that makes me feel old. 

He debuted on June 9, 1934, in "The Wise Little Hen," Walt Disney's adaptation of an old Aesop fable about a hen who wants help with planting and harvesting corn for the lean winter months to come. Donald, along with several other barnyard animals, comes up with an excuse. His first line, hardly immortal, was: "Who -- me? I got a belly ache!"

The movie was directed by Stephen Daldry , who snagged an Oscar nomination for his work; he then snagged two more for "The Hours" and "The Reader."

However, he WON the Tony last night as did, in a unique turn of events, the three boys who share the title role.

The best play, "God of Carnage," wasn't based on a movie, but it's entire cast was made up of actors who are more known for their film work than their theatrical turns. Marcia Gay Harden, an Oscar winner for "Pollock," was named best actress. She had solid support from Hope Davis ("Infamous," "About Schmidt"), Jeff Daniels ("Terms of Endearment," "The Squid and the Whale") and James Gandolfini, who may be best know as the lead in TV's "The Sopranos," but will be seen on screen this Friday as the mayor of New York in "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3."

Add in a Tony for "Blithe Spirit's" Angela Lansbury and you're talking about a movie lineage that goes back to "National Velvet" in which she played Elizabeth Taylor's older sister.

Related video: Bret Michaels of the band Poison gets smashed on stage at Tonys.

He was, in many ways, the ultimate hippie star. though he came from Hollywood Old School (his father was the celebrated character actor, John Carradine), The younger Carradine seemed made of dope smoke and bare feet and Zen philosophy. A lot of this, of course, was due to his immense success in the early '70s TV series, "Kung Fu" in which he played a half-Asian, half-Caucasian man who wandered the Old West beating gun-bearing bad guys to a pulp with his feet and hands. (and then there were those flash-backs to when he was a mere Grasshopper, learning from his marital arts master).

But Carradine was more than "Kung-Fu." He played Woody Guthrie in "Bound For Glory" and one of the Younger brothers in Walter Hill's brother act Western, "The Long Riders." And, the legend always had it, he actually made love with Barbara Hershey (then calling herself Barbara Seagull) in a scene from "Boxcar Bertha." It just doesn't come any more anti-Establishment than that.

Carradine faded into a string of B-movies that were beneath him, then managed a minor comeback as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's pair of "Kill Bill" movies. 

That he should have died, as has been reported, by his own hand (possibly), alone (probably) in a hotel room in Bangkok (certainly) is a sad coda for a once-promising career and a truly unique actor.

Related link: David Carradine death photos published in Thailand to family's horror.