I don’t know how they got this DUI mugshot of Rip Torn from 2006. He’s been dead for years. |
This is embarrassing. I was just on MSNBC a minute ago (see previous blog about my confessions of a news junkie) and saw a little rectangle in the upper right corner that Sydney Pollack died. I thought he died about five years ago. I swear he died already. I’m losing my mind and not in the good, fun way.
I remember he’s a director who also put himself in his movies in bit parts. And he directed a movie with Tom Cruise, where he had a small role and while the movie was still being made, he died. Did I dream that?
I did the same thing with Rip Torn. Way back, the kids and I were watching the video of Men in Black and I said, “The guy that plays Zed died right after this movie was made.” I am absolutely sure I read that. The kids nodded and said, “Oh.”
About four years later, we were watching Men in Black II and there he was, Rip Torn. “Well, maybe they filmed this right after Men in Black One and then he died immediately after that. Because I know he’s dead right now. He’s definitely dead.” The kids nodded and didn’t say anything.
Coupla years pass and we’re watching Welcome to Mooseport. “What the hell! How can this be?” The kids are no longer nodding.
Two months later: Dodgeball. “He’s alive!! It’s a miracle!”
No one believes me anymore when I say someone’s dead.
On most other things, I’m right. I win 99 percent of my bets with my husband. (The most recent: Whether Robin Wright Penn/Jenny from Forest Gump was the same actress as Daryl Hannah/mermaid from Splash.)
But lately, I’ve been losing my reputation with the kids. For instance, when my son was reading Black Like Me I told him, “I read that in high school. Did you know that the author died from cancer because of the skin treatments he got to make him black?”
Some time later I was on Snopes (Internet Time Waster #17 but so, so cool) and learned that was a myth. John Howard Griffin was quoted as being quite amused by rumors of his death. He died in 1980 from complications from diabetes.
I seem to be killing people off way too early.
I think the Sydney Pollack thing and the Rip Torn debacle are examples of how I get famous people mixed up. Maybe it was Sidney Sheldon or Stanley Kubrick or Rip Taylor or George Peppard or Charles Nelson Reilly or Rex Harrison.
I feel bad about Sydney Pollack today. But I’ve been through my grief and I’ve already moved on. Yeah, for a couple of years now. Time to kill somebody else.