(originally published on GoogObits/ Salon Blogs)
I like obituaries.
I think there is nothing better you can do for a stranger who just died than to find out about what they spent their lives on the day after they’re gone.
I am also a big fan of the patterns of the present moment. And I often wonder if someone’s final moment is ever preconfigured, pre-known, in such way that it is palpable. Princess Diana, for instance. She certainly had an air about her. Maybe part of that “air” had to do with the eventual slamming of metal against concrete pilings. Or maybe Kurt Cobain’s songs stung so much while he was alive because somehow the soon-time gunblast was heard by us underneath it all.
Every once in a while the obituaries make me wonder if those moments were ever felt in smaller ways, too. Among one or two or dozens of people instead of millions. Take this week’s news that two movie types were dead: Marvin Mirisch, Film Producer of 60’s died on Sunday in Los Angeles of a heart attack. Then James Coburn, a Sly Presence in 80 Films, died on Monday in Los Angeles of a heart attack.
Marvin Mirisch, 84 years old, was “the quietest of a team of three brothers who helped steer movie production from a studio-dominated system to an independent approach that gave directors creative freedom,” said the New York Times. He was a great guy who shared an idea with his family that they built into something real– the United Artists movie production company. He also helped make “West Side Story“. As far as I’m concerened, that’s all you need to know about him to understand that he did something great with his life. He also helped make a movie called “The Magnificent Seven” in 1960.
James Coburn, 74 years old, was “the rugged actor who reveled in playing rakish men of action and slyly humorous villains and overcame a debilitating illness to win an Academy Award for his performance in “Affliction” in 1998.” The NYT goes on to say that he “first established his reputation in ‘The Magnificent Seven’ in 1960.”
More: “In the early 1980’s he developed rheumatoid arthritis so severe that it hampered his career for most of a decade. After a long and difficult recovery, he appeared in television commercials and in some films his admirers felt were beneath him.
“But in 1999, he received an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role as Nick Nolte’s alcoholic father in Paul Schrader’s acclaimed film “Affliction.” Although many critics hailed it as the best performance of his career, he found it difficult to find work afterward.”
So this week I had one of those wonder moments, thinking if James Coburn and Marvin Mirisch ever passed each other in a soundstage in 1960 and suddenly clasped their chests, or shared a drink and spoke deeply about mortality, or ever dreamed that they would follow each other into death, many many years away, one day apart, of heart attacks in the City of Angels.