Hollywood Coming and Going

Not many Hollywoood actors get a "Second Act" in their careers, John Forsythe got three. Forsythe died yesterday at 92 of cancer; he is best known for playing Blake Carrington on the very popular primetime soap opera, "Dynasty" which ran from 1981-89. But before "Dynasty", Forsythe was the never seen voice of Charles Townsend on the iconic 1970's cop show, "Charlie's Angels", 1976-81. But those two shows were Forsythe's later acts, the show which made him famous was "Bachelor Father", which ran on all three networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, during its 1957-62 primetime run.

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"Dynasty" was incredibly popular with gay audiences, and not just because Linda Evans and Joan Collins scratched each others' eyes out every week in one colossal cat-fight after another, no, it was also because "Dynasty" was one of the first t.v. shows to feature an openly gay character. Steven Carrington was Blake's gay son, and despite being one of the first gay characters on t.v., sadly, due to the tenor of the times, he had to be a "sad" gay. He couldn't be happy, in a happy relationship, the only way a gay character could be acceptable to t.v. audiences at that time was if the character's gayness made him fundamentally unhappy, thus making him a character the audience would sympathize with because they thought he was a pitiful creature. Could you imagine that washing now? No way!

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Oddly enough, as the world learned of Forsythe's death today, April 2, it is the birthday of another famous actor who also got two very big t.v. acts in his career. Today is Buddy Ebsen's 102nd birthday, (he died in 2003). Ebsen became a household name for playing Jed Clampett on the incredibly popular CBS show, "The Beverly Hillbillies", 1962-71, but followed up that t.v. triumph with one more, starring in the detective series, "Barnaby Jones", 1973-80.

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Ebsen hoofed his way through early feature films, his first was "Broadway Melody of 1936" in 1935. Ebsen narrowly missed early career fame when he was cast as The Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz" in 1939, but had to drop out of the film when it was discovered he was allergic to the silver body make-up.