Metropolitan area raised baby boomers, such as I, will recall Chuck McCann, the comedian and children's show host on Channel 11, where, on Sunday mornings, he would impersonate a series of comic strip characters from The New York Daily News, while reading the strips aloud. Little Orphan Annie was his best, but he also excelled at Dondi, and Terry And The Pirates.
To think, as kids we were getting drag, and did not know it. Like Rocky And Bullwinkle, in some ways, McCann's kiddy show was ahead of its time and audience.
But I loved it. And him.
There was much more to him, however; he could also, when called for, be a soulful actor. I shall never forget his moving performance as Spiros Antonapoulos in the 1968 film version of Carson McCullers' deeply moving Southern Gothic novel, "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter." In it, McCann, who should have been nominated for an Oscar played the only friend of John Singer, a deaf mute, played by Alan Arkin, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. McCann's character, a mentally challenged deaf mute, is being moved to an institution for more professional care, and so Singer moves to a small Southern town near the place, so he can visit him, and continue the friendship. He becomes involved with all the people around him, including the landlords' daughter, Mick Kelly, played by a then 17-year-old Sondra Locke. Who was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress in what was her film debut.
And the novel was McCullers' debut effort. It established her franchise of writing about the lonely, the marginal, the deformed. And in her world, things do not end happily.
Everyone around Singer is touched by him, and loves him. But they never tell him; instead they come to him with their problems, not knowing the pain he bears. Which culminates in a visit to the institution, where he learns his friend has passed away. Broken and bereft, feeling totally alone, not knowing how much he is loved by those around him, he takes a gun, and ends his life.
I can still recall the scene with Sondra Locke, weeping at his graveside. I wept throughout the entire film, for all of the heart rending performances, the most surprising being Chuck McCann's. I am not sure he ever did any more drama, but he made an indelible impact here.
So, I was sad to learn of his death, on April 8, at 83. Another icon of my generation passes.
And did you know he was the voice of the bird on the famous "I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!" commercial????????????????
Performers of such versatility are getting fewer and far between.
Rest In Peace, Chuck McCann. You touched an entire generation.
Oh, my: I had no idea Chuck had passed last week! Actually though we lost him a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember him in the "Lonely Hunter" movie at all, perhaps because my attitude toward the character was biased by multiple prior readings of the novel beforehand. McCullers takes pains to repeatedly point out that Singer is utterly delusional because Spiros is extremely selfish and canny at manipulating Singer to get what he wants. He has no use for Singer aside from whatever he get out of him: they aren't actually friends at all. Of course that mirrors the larger theme of the story: in turn, half of the town thinks they're great friends with Singer, who in reality could not possibly care less about any of them and mostly finds their attentions annoying and oppressive.
I do remember Chuck McCann doing those sneaky kiddie show bits! Years later I was stunned to see him turn up as the abused househusband of Lois Nettleton in the long-lost gender-bending late night soap opera "All That Glitters" (all the women had driven corporate careers, and all the men were drudge husbands or back-street kept studs). Chuck was surprisingly moving, in essence playing the same character Louise Lasser played on Mary Hartman but without the laughs. The show was also Linda Gray's first major showcase, as a transgendered male to female sympathetic to men and thus hated by all the other women as an abomination and gender betrayal. Heady stuff to watch as a confused closeted teenager in 1977, I would kill to see it again today. Sadly it is as inaccessible as early silent movies that went up in flames as nitrate prints: when the series failed after just two months and 65 eps, Norman Lear literally trashed the master tapes and the show was lost forever.
R.I.P., Chuck. You were an original.
ReplyDeleteI should give the McCullers novel
a reread. Do not recall him on "All
That Glitters," as I never watched it.
Now that you mention it, the emotional
manipulation of Singer comes back to me.
Arkin's performance was touching and
moving. Mcann had more versatility
than I realized. His comic
impersonations were my favorite.