Another New 'Frontier?'

[mrsl]

This upcoming summer/fall TV season is going to be peopled by several award winning movie actors. A few I know of are Benjamin Bratt, Holly Hunter returns as Saving Grace, as does Kyra Sedgewick as The Closer. I believe it was two years ago that Anthony LaPaglia joined the ranks of TV, and Mandy Patinkin on Criminal Minds. I wonder if they have noticed the calibre of writing that seems to be cropping up. It's hard to keep a detective show interesting enough to make an audience return every week, and the only way to do it is in the writing of the material. In many cases you don't learn who the criminal is until within the last 5 minutes with several side tracks along the way.

I'm sure money and sizable contracts have a lot to do with it, but it seems that around the age of 35 you suddenly become poisonous in the movie world except for a very select few. My two favorite ladies Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock, having found the men of their dreams seem happy to slap on a cowboy hat and raise their babies on their ranches appearing in films only once a year, or two years. Even the guys, the Sean Penns are cutting down to one a year or less.

Back after WWII, even though the younger group like Mitchum, Widmark, and Peck etc. had made names for themselves, the older, returning stars still seemed to stay busy for another 15 to 20 years. Gable, Stewart, Cary Grant, and Spencer Tracy, continued in more mature roles for a long time, well into the 60's and 70's. Let's not forget the ladies either - Crawford, and Davis, DeHaviland and Colbert etc., all seemed to grow into their more aged roles as well, becoming mothers and maiden aunts as the case may have been. I can't help wondering what would have happened if there hadn't been that unspoken fear of TV. We might have enjoyed so much more if those wonderful actors had not had a 20 year fear of the new medium to overcome.

Did any of your favorites either fade away, or stay alive for you during the emergence of TV?

Anne

[movieman1957]

Anne:

I think you nailed it about their age. Patinkin is no longer on "Criminal Minds" but I can't think of a movie he has done recently. Even Joe Montagna fits that description. I think some of the shows like "NCIS" with Mark Harmon and, until recently, Lauren Holly fit the same description. Save for a few it seems movies are becoming younger.

I agree that the writing seems to be a lot smarter in dramas recently. I've always thought "Law and Order" and its spinoffs to be really smart. "Numbers" is also pretty good though I don't watch it often.

Maybe there will always be shows like "Murder She Wrote" where I think of them as places where old actors go to die. It gives them work and it gives us the pleasure of their company.

[Lzcutter]

Anne,

I used to love the classic era stars when they would guest star on television.

The Virginian used to have many of them as guest stars, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford are the two that come to mind first.

Whenever they showed up it was like it made the rest of the cast stand up and step up to the plate acting wise.

Actors like Lee Marvin and Robert Redford cut their teeth on television while waiting for their big breaks.

Henry Fonda turned down the role of police inspector inMadigan when it went to tv as I recall. But Fonda later relented and had a tv series. Ron Howard played his son as I recall.

I'm glad so many of the stars of the Golden Age kept working and did television as it was a chance for them to keep working and us to appreciate that work!