Farah was an actress of limited talent. And, she was only on “Charlie’s Angels” for ONE season!  Other than one season on a TV show, and the famous poster, she had little success in Hollywood. I was mildly surprised that the celebrity TV shows were elevating her cancer to a tragedy of epic proportions. Don’t get me wrong, I have no ill will toward her, and any person’s death is certainly a tragedy for friends and family. But even in death, poor Farah couldn’t catch a break. Because the same day she passed, as Entertainment Tonight was gearing up for her canonization …

That brings us to MJ. I’m afraid that I have to agree with Mick Lasalle, the movie critic for the SF Chronicle. Michael was largely irrelevant in the music world for the last 20 years. The man had three good albums, and frankly I never find myself humming a Michael Jackson tune. And really now, when was the last time you listened to Thriller? The ironic thing for me, is that the MJ tune I remember most, was Weird AL Yankovic’s parody of “Beat It”. Weird Al was never the same after MJ quit making hit songs. Of course the biggest tragedy of Jackson’s life is that he squandered his wealth and his reputation on his eccentricities. There will forever be an asterisk beside his name with explanation ‘probable pedophile’.

Although I hear people who know him say that Billy Mays was a great guy, I just found him irritating. If I was sitting in front of the TV when one of his commercials came on, I usually grabbed the remote to either mute the sound or change the channel.

That brings us to yesterday and Karl Malden. Karl was a real actor. Karl was hardly ‘leading man’ material. He had an enormous nose. But despite his looks he had a solid acting career, winning both an Oscar (for Streetcar Named Desire) and an Emmy. His IMDB entry lists 70 acting credits, including 120 episodes of this:

I liked that Streets of San Francisco series. I had moved to SF in 1968. I was working downtown in the financial district and remember watching them film an episode for the first season. One of my most vivid memories of Karl was his portrayal of the minister in the 1960 Disney movie Pollyanna. There was a scene where he was delivering a fiery sermon that scared poor Haley Mills. They kept focusing in close up on that prominent proboscis of his. RIP Karl Malden. You had a long and honorable career.