Wednesday, November 3, 2010

RIP TIMES THREE

RIP to cartoonist Alexander Anderson, little-known creator of the original versions of two of the great TV characters of all time, Rocky & Bullwinkle…

…as well as their progenitors, Crusader Rabbit & Ragland T. Tiger...


...passed on at 90.

RIP also to the beautiful actress Lisa Blount, best known as Debra Winger’s pal in An Officer and a Gentleman, passed on way too young at 53.

RIP as well to underrated American filmmaker George Hickenlooper, passed on waaay too young at 47. He’s best known for his documentary Hearts of Darkness & for Some Folks Call It A Sling Blade, the short on which Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade was based. I once had dinner with Hickenlooper at the Chili’s at Town & Country, prior to a screening of his feature Dogtown, after which I moderated the Q&A. He seemed like a nice man. He told me over dinner that if he had been allowed to direct the feature version of Sling Blade, “it would have won all the Oscars.” His film Casino Jack, with Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff, is upcoming, & he also directed an amusing 1999 political drama called The Big Brass Ring, from a script by Orson Welles.

His cousin John Hickenlooper, by the way, has just been elected Governor of Colorado.

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