Donald Sutherland is gone. I saw him on stage at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles years ago in a play. What can one say? M*A*S*H etc…

I knew Eddie Albert and bid him adieu nineteen years ago. Wow, stop the clock! I sat next to him at a few dinner parties at our friend’s house in Santa Monica–screenwriter, producer, and novelist, Mary Loos–(her aunt was Anita Loos – look them up). As a child I watched Green Acres, then saw The Longest Yard where Eddie played the evil warden (Burt Reynolds was the inmate/football player); I was intimated at first sitting next to the bad, evil warden. But nevertheless, he was funny, gracious and had a lot of stories about Errol Flynn (oh the drinking), Tyrone Power and on and on.

I knew Mary’s ex-husband, Richard Sale too. He was a screenwriter, director and novelist. He was good friends with Charles Bronson, who I did not meet, but Richard had a lot of stories too; I loved the ones about him flying around with Darryl Zanuck (the titan of 20^th Century Fox) on Zanuck’s private plane, both of them drunk as skunks. I’ll leave the other stories right there.

I cannot even begin to list the countless acts I saw live at the Hollywood Bowl who are now gone. And ones I’ve seen on Broadway.

When we see famous people we grew up watching either on TV, in the movies and elsewhere die, it’s like … wow. They were, for better or worse, a part of our lives. But when you’ve met, known, or seen these people in person, it seems like a little more of yourself dies as well. I’m sure many of you who are comparable in age feel the same?