This Deceased Ariste Tribute Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds: Peter Graves

Peter Graves was a constant presence in the movies and TV from the Fifties onward. Although he probably was very few people’s idea of a “favorite actor,” he kept himself employed and was a perfectly fine host for items like Biography on the network that useta actually have Arts and Entertainment on it.

Graves stolid deadpan-heroic presence was best sent up by the man himself in Airplane!, where he formed a sort of Holy Quartet of Sincere Old Movie Actors with Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, and Leslie Nielsen. However, of that group, Graves was more of a TV star than a movie deity — sure, he was in dozens of movies, including masterpieces like Night of the Hunter and (key role for him) Stalag 17, but he was and forever will be known as a TV star, thanks to Mission: Impossible, several earlier Westerns (like Fury (seen above right), and Biography.

I draw your attention to one of Graves’ cooler movie appearances, as the good-guy lead in the shitkicker that was known as Bayou (1957) and Poor White Trash. Here he’s forced to fight the villain of the piece, the ever-awesome Timothy Carey as an angry Cajun. These were the days when men fought with hatchets in graveyards.

Farewell, Mr. Phelps.

Goodbye, Love: Deceased Artiste Ron Lundy

Ron Lundy was a NYC "metro area" institution, having worked for years at WABC-AM and later WCBS-FM; he died this week on Monday at the age of 75. I was an intermittent listener to the former as a kid, and a devout lister to the latter (before its playlist shrank, omitted the Fifties, and began to dote on the less-likeable cheez that is the Eighties). Thus, I pay tribute to this perennially cheery voice, heard to best extent in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy. Joe Buck knows he's in New York when he hears Lundy's customary greeting, "Hello, love!" (or was that "luv" -- does it matter?). Here's a fan video saluting the film that starts off with this moment:



Lundy's voice comes in at the 3:42-minute mark to this wonderfully Seventies University of Iowa student film entitled "Statue of Liberation":



And, finally, the man himself, from a day on the air on WCBS-FM. I love that fuckin' echo (and the 1959 music)! What a great voice to have heard in the mornin'....