I don't know if anybody still remembers the years-old beginning of this thread, but I just wanted to say, vis a vis Newman on Poitier making not movies but monuments: Happily, he won his Oscar for a movie that was completely unpretentious and unmonumental, but with a lot of humor and a lot of heart.
As we embark upon our concluding contributions herein, we haveta belatedly salute (among the many talents who passed on last year) the first of two In Memoriams:
Dick Anthony Williams was one of the most stylish and intelligent actors to grace the entertainment world
from the late 60s on theatre ("Buck Time Buck White" was his breakthrough), television and film
He's perhaps best-known (if not specifically remembered) for his brief but generally pivotal appearance opposite
in "Dog Day Afternoon".
Our favorite of all his pertinent perfs was in
where he channeled THE most informed, subtly-layered creativity and Third Eye artistry of the writer he portrayed; his almost zen-like quietly serene satisfaction as he watched his work being performed was simply breathtaking.
Then again, that unostentatious but no less luminous quality informed, accentuated and elevated everything his talent touched ...
Some careers are chiseled with silent integrity, imposing charisma and a universal uniqueness of character and compellingness that needs no words to convey its stature.
Bernie Casey rarely talked about his football days and wanted to be known as an artist and actor. He played with both the S.F. 49ers and the L.A. Rams.
Though best known for playing Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable's father on "The Cosby Show", actor Earle Hyman, who has died age 91, had quite an accomplished career long before my generation became acquainted with him.
You’re quite right, Meester P. Mr. Hyman hadda long and very distinguished career with many multi-dimensional characterizations on Da Great White Way, teevee and film.
By the way, we find it INCREDIBLY revealing there's been no (at least publically) nitwit cowardly cyber-swings at the gents commemorated in this Appreciation as there was recently with its female counterpart and how 'unseemly' it was to spotlight WOMEN of color when this site is filled-with-overflowing images of girls in all genres and nobody ever has a damn thing to say about how possibly 'indelicate' it is in that pigmentary vanilla vein.
As we've long advocated, the truly intelligent beings wherever they are in the universe had best stay away from this puny little back-galaxy planet with its still profoundly-primitive species.