Peter Bart: Iconic Stars & Directors, Awards Shows And Movie Audiences Dominate 2022 Obituaries So Far
14.01.2022 - 00:57
/ deadline.com
A pained observation: The only intriguing stories on Hollywood this week consisted of obits – all kinds of obits. There were obits reminding us of the remarkable lives of Sidney Poitier, Peter Bogdanovich and Betty White. Also speculative obits about the Golden Globes, sentimental obits about the extinct 20th Century Fox and even speculative obits about MGM and ICM.
The obit frame of mind even extended to ticket buyers as a whole. Having anointed such films as West Side Story and The Power of the Dog as automatic award winners, critics wondered why ticket buyers seemed to be boycotting them. Had the movie audience disappeared into streamer heaven?
If the “business” obits were lugubrious, the personal ones often were inspirational. Obits for Poitier, who passed at age 94, documented a rich and fulfilling life – an appropriate reward for risks well taken. He also had strong personal ties with other strong-willed risk-takers, like Harry Belafonte.
Those of us who crossed paths with him found a gracious, self-contained soul whose fame imposed its own constraints. Poitier knew that strangers hung on his every word and hence delivered even casual remarks with stentorian precision. “His vocal and physical grace at times seemed almost supernatural,” Martin Scorsese once observed.
Harry Belafonte, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry Join In Tributes To Sidney Poitier –
Poitier’s steely patience was challenged on the set of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as I saw him interact with a cranky and terminally ill Spencer Tracy, a prickly Katharine Hepburn and a director, Stanley Kramer, who had the disposition of a drill sergeant. The youthful Poitier floated in an island of calm.
Poitier yearned for a gentle movie about identifiable people.