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S. Epatha Merkerson is 70

Isaac Hawkins Hall

The actor S. Epatha Merkerson played Lieutenant Anita Van Buren in 390 episodes of the long-running procedural Law and Order, from 1993 to 2010. I thought she was very credible in playing someone who had to deal with some added burdens in the workplace. She talked about the wigs she wore for the show.

I got the sense that Alex Trebek was a big fan of hers when she appeared on Celebrity JEOPARDY in 1999.

But she’s done a lot more. Epatha was nominated for two Tony Awards. She was up for Best Actress In A Play in 2008 for Come Back, Little Sheba, and Best Featured Actress In A Play in 1990 for The Piano Lesson.

I did not know that she was Reba in 16 episodes of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, primarily because I never watched the show. Currently, she plays Sharon Goodwin on Chicago Med, a program I’ve watched exactly once.

Georgetown

What I did see her in was the Freedom Tales episode of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which first aired on February 5, 2019. It reran early in 2022.

One of the most significant findings was that an ancestor of Epatha, Patrick Hawkins, was one of 272 people enslaved by the Jesuit priests of what is now Georgetown University who were sold to two planters in Louisiana in 1838. Money was tight for the educational institution. There’s a pretty good Wikipedia page on the subject.

WETA, the PBS station in DC hosted a screening and discussion of the episode. here’s a five-minute clip. Also, read Sister Melannie Svoboda’s blog.

“Despite her success, Merkerson recounted how she had ‘always wanted to know’ where her family came from. When she asked her grandmother to tell her about their ancestors, her grandmother responded, ‘It’s painful. You don’t need to hear any of this.'” This is not an unusual response.

“The ‘inventory’ compiled by the Jesuits for the sale listed the name of every slave. On the list were five of Patrick Hawkins’ relatives, his wife Letty, his son Peter, and his father Isaac. Georgetown recently renamed the Former Jesuit Residence after Isaac Hawkins following student protests over its original name that honored one of the Jesuits involved in the sale.

“Brought to tears, Merkerson responded, ‘They have names…they have names. They’re not just faceless people.'”

Reunion

At the end of the episode, S. Epatha Merkerson attended a reunion of the GU272 Descendants Association. “GU272 is dedicated to preserving the memory, commemorating the lives, and restoring the honor of the GU272 enslaved people sold by the Maryland Province Jesuits in 1838 and those who were enslaved before, during, and after the sale by the Society of Jesus. As Descendants, we commit to reconciling our ancestors’ enslavement, reconnecting families, and renewing ties lost.”

Epatha said on the Finding Your Roots episode that maybe she’ll be able to take courses at Georgetown. Implicit was that she should be able to take them for free.

Radio silence on Election night

poli sci major breaks his pattern

One of the smartest things I’ve done recently was to declare radio silence on Election night. This meant going off the grid from 6 pm EST that Tuesday until 6 am Wednesday. No cellphone, no email, no live TV or radio. In fact, as it turned out, I saw no television at all. Since the cable defaults to the local news, I was afraid I’d accidentally learn something. So I just read.

I should note that it was not my idea. The Weekly Sift guy, Doug Muder wrote on the day before: “I’m probably not going to watch the returns come in. I just can’t picture that experience being good for me.” Surely, I know the feeling, as did Arthur and Chuck. Mark Evanier was not unhappy that his power went out.

I wonder if others felt the same way. The television ratings for the midterm elections audience fell by double digits compared with 2018. As Variety noted, the “coverage provided [is] just the latest example of the broadening gap between polls of voters’ intentions and how citizens actually lean when they get to the booth.” The news anchors expected a “red wave” but did not anticipate a “blue wall.”

Here’s the weird thing from this old political science major, who always, well, at least since 1972, ALWAYS watched the returns: I didn’t miss it. Getting most of the results at 6 a.m. the next day didn’t alter a thing.

I say most because there were so many races that weren’t settled for a while. The US Senate race in Georgia will be a December 6 runoff. I’m going to quote Muder again. “49% of Georgians want Herschel Walker to represent them in the Senate. Seriously?” Now that the Senate will be in Democratic hands, punditry predicts a Warnock rout; probably yes, but I’ll wait for the actual votes.

A few trends

I was pleased that Kentucky voters rejected a ballot measure to deny any constitutional protections for abortion. Meanwhile, voters in Michigan, Vermont, and California enshrined abortion rights in the states’ constitutions. FOX “News” guy Steve Doocy noted on November 3 that the Democrats would regret emphasizing abortion and democracy instead of “pocketbook issues.” On November 9, he said, “Abortion and democracy were foremost in people’s minds.”

One of the disappointments was the loss by Congressman Sean Maloney (D-NY) in a district just north of NYC. Ultimately, I blame the state legislature’s Democratic overreach in their gerrymandering. The lines for the Congressional districts were tossed, and some Democrats ran in districts far different from where they ran two years earlier.

Did these consultants help the Democrats’ message? The Russian hacktivist group that called on its members to target the American Democratic party website on Election Day was unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, a certain former President was quoted as saying about candidates he supported, “Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” Apparently, he’s blaming everyone who advised him to back Mehmet Oz, including his wife.

Performer Jeff Goldblum is 70

Brown Shoe

I’ve been following the quirky career of Jeff Goldblum for a very long time. While I saw him in early films such as California Split (1974), Nashville (1975), and Annie Hall (1977), I think I first really knew who he was in the remake of The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978).

I may have been one of the 14 people who watched Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980), in which “a con-man [Ben Vereen] and an accountant-wanna-be private eye [Goldblum] team up to fight crime.” It didn’t catch on despite being written by Stephen J. Cannell, the scribe of The Rockford Files and The Greatest American Hero.

He appeared in The Fly (1986) and Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) with Geena Davis, his wife from 1987 to 1991. After playing Jeff Goldblum in The Player (1992), he appeared in one of his franchise films, Jurassic Park (1993). I’ve only seen that first film. However, I’ve read he’s one of the only reasons to see Jurassic World Dominion (2022).

Jake Coyle of the Associated Press wrote in June 2022 that the actor has not been defined by his roles in Jurassic Day or Independence Day. “It’s more that Goldblum, in putting his own idiosyncratic spin on them, marks the characters, rather than the other way around.”

TV cop

This is true in Law and Order: Criminal Intent (2009-2010), in which he played detective Zack Nichols for a season. His character, like the man himself, plays a bit of jazz piano. And then he reprieved the role in, of all things, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in the Civil Forfeiture episode (2014) at 14:07.

Goldblum was great as Deputy Kovacs in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok (2017). He also voiced Duke in the animated Isle of Dogs (2018).

I haven’t seen The World According to Jeff Goldblum, but I suspect it’d be entertaining. As Coyle noted: “Chaos and harmony feature prominently in most conversations with Goldblum, an ever-riffing, cosmetically attuned raconteur.” he shows up playing

Heck, even his commercials for Apartments.com are a bit off-center. But he can also be serious, as this clip from Finding Your Roots shows.

Happy 70th birthday to Jeff Goldblum.

Angela Lansbury: stage, screen, TV icon

The Manchurian Candidate

When I was crashing at my parents’ house in Charlotte, NC, in the spring of 1977, I went to the downtown library to watch the 1944 version of the movie Gaslight. It starred Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, and Joseph Cotten. In her film debut, 19-year-old Angela Lansbury, as the young maid Nancy, received a best-supporting actress Oscar nomination. (Some folks did not know the meaning of gaslighting in 2013.)

In 2018, my family went to the cinema to see Mary Poppins Returns. In her antepenultimate film, she had a cameo at the end as the Balloon Lady. Her final film appearance was Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, in which she played Angela Lansbury.

Her greatest film role was as the mother of a would-be assassin in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Casey Seiler of the Albany Times Union newspaper says she was “absolutely perfect” in “one of the few paranoid political thrillers that haven’t been outstripped by reality.” Here are just three minutes.

One of my favorite parts, though, is her voicing Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast (1991). Here’s Tale As Old As Time.

She received an honorary Oscar in 2013 for her career as “an entertainment icon who has created some of cinema’s most memorable characters, inspiring generations of actors.”

Cabot Cove, Maine

Of course, the performer was best known as Jessica Fletcher, novelist and an amateur sleuth in Murder, She Wrote. She appeared for a dozen seasons (1984-1996) plus four TV movies between 1997 and 2003. She received an Emmy nomination for best actress in a drama series for every season, yet never won.

As The Hollywood Reporter noted, the program was “a huge ratings hit on Sunday nights following 60 Minutes. Both CBS shows appealed to intelligent, older viewers, and Lansbury was the rare woman in the history of television to carry her own series… ‘Nobody in this town watches Murder, She Wrote,’ Lansbury, referring to the TV industry, said in 1991. ‘Only the public watches.’

“The show was ranked in the top 13 in the Nielsen ratings (and as high as No. 4) on Sundays in its first 11 seasons but plummeted to No. 58 when CBS moved it to Thursdays in 1995-96 against NBC’s then-powerful lineup. The series finale, quite appropriately, was titled ‘Death by Demographics.'”

LA Times quotes her: “What appealed to me about Jessica Fletcher is that I could do what I do best and [play someone I have had] little chance to play — a sincere, down-to-earth woman. Mostly, I’ve played very spectacular bitches. Jessica has extreme sincerity, compassion, extraordinary intuition. I’m not like her. My imagination runs riot. I’m not a pragmatist. Jessica is.”

I freely admit to watching the program regularly. Maybe, as one critic noted, it was an opportunity to try to solve the crime with, or maybe before, the author.

Theater!

As the Los Angeles Times noted, “It was her deep roots in the theater, and the many Tony Awards that followed that won the hearts of theatergoers and critics, who were often rhapsodic in their praise…

“Critic Rex Reed declared that she brought ‘the Broadway stage about as close to an MGM musical as the Broadway stage is likely to get,’ according to the 1996 biography ‘Angela Lansbury.’

“Her charismatic performance as the eccentric title character in a 1966 production of Mame vaulted her to Broadway superstardom and resulted in the first of her four Tonys for best actress in a musical.

“At 83, she tied the record for most Tony Awards won for acting when she received a fifth for portraying a medium in the 2009 revival of ‘Blithe Spirit. (Audra McDonald set a new record in 2014 when she won her sixth.)”

I saw the TV movie Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 1982, which was quite compelling. Her Broadway performances were undoubtedly even greater.

Here are Hollywood notables paying tribute to Angela Lansbury, plus A Critic’s Appreciation by David Rooney.

The Gilded Age, starring 1st Pres!

everybody’s in show biz

The Gilded Age, an HBO Max series, has been well-received. It’s one of my sister Marcia’s favorite shows. “Old New York in the 1880s. Old Money and New Money are the opposites that attract to create a Post Civil War Era New York society.” I haven’t seen it yet.

But I may have to because my church, First Presbyterian, is a filming and production site for the program! The building “will be featured in the opening scene of the second season, and it will also be used as a production and cast holding site throughout the month of August,” according to the church office.

Apparently, the 2022 Capital District is more representative of 19th-century NYC than 21st-century NYC. Preparation for filming began on 1 August, “and related activities will continue through August 25th. We will be able to attend worship on Sundays as we normally would since the production company works only on weekdays. However, access to the building during weekdays will be restricted to the production company and church staff in order to observe strict COVID-19 protocols.”

No closeup for me

I had seen the casting call for extras. “Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking paid actors to play 1880s pedestrians and church-goers. According to the casting call notes, women will be fit for corsets, should have shoulder-length or longer hair and ‘natural’ hair colors only will be allowed. No balayage, undercuts, wigs, weaves, braids, ombre or unnatural looking highlights will be considered. Shaved heads and dreads will also not be permitted.” And no, I didn’t try out.

Costume fittings began on June 27, and all background actors had to “attend a costume fitting and mandatory COVID-19 testing before filming. Extras must also be up-to-date with all COVID-19 vaccinations as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The casting company reports that background actors will be paid $60 for COVID testing, $30 per two hours for fittings, and $165 per 10 hours for filming.” And you thought show biz was glamorous.

“The Gilded Age filmed sections of its first season around Troy, New York, completely transforming the city. The TV series is a period drama that follows the millionaire titans of New York City in the 1880s, including Marian Brook, an orphaned daughter of a Union general, and a ruthless railroad tycoon named George Russell. Played by Louisa Jacobson, Marion moves into the New York City home of her wealthy, old money aunts, played by Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon.”

During the second week of production, “a team of horses pulling a carriage went up on the sidewalk forcing an actor to fall. But she was not hurt, and production resumed.