RIP to John Gavin, best known as Janet Leigh's poor clueless hardware man boyfriend Sam Loomis in
Psycho...
...
passed on at 86.
The highlight of his performance here is the shaken way he delivers the line, near the end, "Why was he...dressed like that?" Norman's cross-dressing seems to trouble Sam more than the murders.
Gavin also played the young Julius Caesar in
Spartacus, had stolid leads in
Imitation of Life and
Midnight Lace and
Thoroughly Modern Millie, and appeared in the role of Cary Grant in the 1980 TV movie
Sophia Loren: Her Own Story. He reportedly came close to playing James Bond in both
Diamonds are Forever (losing the part to Sean Connery) and
Live and Let Die (losing the part to Roger Moore). Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, he later served as the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico under Ronald Reagan.
But...
Monster-of-the-Week: ...in 1978 I saw Gavin play the title vampire in
Count Dracula in summer stock with the Kenley Players in Akron, Ohio...
...opposite Karen Lynn Gorney of
Saturday Night Fever, and the great Victor Buono as Van Helsing (as I recall, Buono made the Professor an amateur magician, so he could work a bit of sleight-of-hand into the show). You may well imagine that seeing Buono, a cast member from
Psycho and a stage version of
Dracula (even if it was Ted Tiller's corny adaptation) all at once made this one of the highlights of my teen years.
So we'll let Gavin's version of the Count serve as this week's honoree. Notice that he's billed as "Direct From Transylvania! In Person! John Gavin as The Sensuous Count Dracula."
