When I say I mourn Steve Gordon (1938-1982) I don’t mean to imply that I knew him or that he only recently died. The writer/director passed away over 40 years ago, worlds away from my little New England fishing village. What I mean to convey is that I grieve when any true, promising comedy auteur passes from the scene prematurely, before he has a chance to achieve his true potential. Gordon did indeed have a chance to get to the top of the mountain before the fatal heart attack took him at the cruelly young age of 44. But there are many mountains to climb in this world. Gordon left little doubt that he was capable of scaling some additional ones, and it’s a shame he didn’t get to do that.
The Ohio State grad started out writing for sit-coms in the early ’70s. His early credits include scripts for The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Lotsa Luck, Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers, Chico and the Man, and Barney Miller.
In 1976, Gordon achieved the dream of many a sit-com writer; he created his own show. The Practice (1976-77) is largely forgotten now, both because it only ran for two seasons, and because it has been eclipsed by a more successful show with the same title. But it had a lot to commend it, not the least of which was a kind of legendary cast. Danny Thomas played a crusty old-school Upper West Side doctor; his son (David Spielberg, no relation to Steven) is a more mercenary modern doctor with a Park Avenue practice. Dena Dietrich (Mother Nature from the margarine commercials) played Thomas’s devoted, lovelorn nurse; with Didi Conn as his daffy receptionist, and Shelley Fabares as dis daughter-in-law. John Byner played Thomas’s partner in the medical practice during the first season. Mike Evans (Lionel from All in the Family and The Jeffersons) played a young intern in the second. The whole set-up has the vibe of the popular MTM productions of the day, but of course was produced by Thomas’s own production company, which had had many a major success under its belt as well. Basically, the plots were not unlike the ones on Marcus Welby, M.D., but with wisecracks.
Success in television led naturally to film. While his next project sounds charmed on paper, it’s wound up being far more obscure than it ought to be. Gordon wrote the screenplay for Henry Winkler’s first big screen vehicle The One and Only (1978). Winkler had of course starred in the 1974 TV movie The Lords of Flatbush, and then went on to become a national phenomenon as the Fonz on Happy Days. By this point though he was chafing at playing hoods in black leather jackets and wanted to prove his range. Around this time, he also played a Scrooge equivalent in An American Christmas Carol. In The One and Only he plays an out of work who finds fame and fortune as a professional wrestler. The fact that he is scrawny and affects an effemeinate wrestling persona in the vein of Gorgeous George leads me to wonder if the film is what inspired Andy Kaufman’s WWF shenanigans. (The character is even named Andy!) But check out this cast! That’s right, a pre-Fantasy Island Herve Villechaise plays his pal and sidekick (and is anturally also a wrestler). And the rest of the cast includes Kim Darby as the love interest, Gene Saks, William Daniels, Polly Holliday (Flo from Alice), Brandon Cruz from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Ed Begley Jr, Harold Gould, Ralph Manza…and on the wrestling side, such ham-fisted hams as Hard-Boiled Hagerty, Chavo Guerrera Jr, and Rowdy Roddy Piper. Why isn’t it a classic? Well, I think it’s down to who directed it, Carl Reiner, whose movies, to my mind, consistently rate about a B minus on the grading scale. He was the king of “meh” movies. And “meh” is never short for “memorable”. But it’s got plenty of laughs.
From here, it was back to sit-coms, the short-lived Good Time Harry (1980), starring Ted Bessell of That Girl and Me and the Chimp as a sports writer Lothario. Again a fairly legendary cast: Marcia Strassman from Welcome Back Kotter and the great Eugene Roche as his supporting cast, with guest stars that included Barry Gordon, Tom Poston, and Phil Leeds. The show debuted on NBC during the disastrous reign of Fred Silverman, and suffered from the fact that Bessell was both not up the subtleties of playing a problematic character (a womanizer) and was not believable as such. (Think of Elliott Gould and George Segal in California Split — that’s how you play likeable rakes). So it only ran seven episodes.
But then, Steven Gordon, went all the way to the top.
Yes, readers, Steve Gordon was the man who wrote and directed the smash hit 1981 romantic comedy Arthur. I went back and rewatched this movie a few weeks ago (after not having seen it since its inital release) and was genuinely surprised at how very much I enjoyed it. I say “surprised” I guess because I had half remembered it as awful, but I think over time my memory had unfairly mushed it up with its terrible sequel Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1982) and Dudley Moore’s later insufferability in Blake Edwards comedies and the like.
It’s not perfect. Gordon mines a lot of cheap laughs by having characters say bad words like “shit” and “prick” or whatever, back when that was considered the height of hilarity by some. But it has too many saving graces to dismss. Gordon mined the best of traditional Hollywood magic for this tale of a wealthy but alcoholic wasterl, going all the way back to the screwball comedies of the ’30s. Moore was one of the screen’s best comic drunks and a truly gifted physical comedian, and there are some scenes that require him to shift gears into pathos, not easy to do from such a broad, slapstick starting place. Liza Minnelli as the gal he falls in love with, an aspiring actress from Queens, of course has cinema magic in her DNA. Arthur’s personal butler, surrogate parent and sidekick is no less an eminance than Sir John Gielgud. It was my first introduction to this important actor (I was only 15 or 16 at the time). Geraldine Fitzgerald plays a beloved aunt, and Barney Martin (then fresh off The Tony Randall Show) plays Minnelli’s rough-hewn dad. Supporting cast also includes such familiar faces as Lou Jacobi, Paul Gleason, and, in a bit part, the notorious Lawrence Tierney! And it’s all against the sparking backdrop of New York City. It’s all a preposterous fantasy of course, and perhaps is a little too much on the fence between flamorizing wealth and selling the “love is what matters” message. The film seems to live at the very cusp of the idealistic ’70s and the materialistic ’80s. But it’s well acted, well directed, and frequently very funny.
But that was it. Gordon died of a sudden heart attack at the young age of 44. When I first learned that, and saw the date (late 1982), I initially half wondered if he was an early victim of AIDS. After all, the similar Colin Higgins had gone that way. But there seems to be no indication of that. And if you look at all that Gordon had accomplished over the past few years, e.g., show runner on two network sitcoms, writer/director of a hit movie, with all the ensuing hoopla, a heart attack at that age (though rare) doesn’t seem entirely outside the realm of possibility. You have to push yourself to the limit to do all that stuff. And look at how it pays off. I’m dissatisfied and want even more from the poor guy. Audiences are insatiable.
But you know what I could use less of? That damn theme song to Arthur. And now it’s going to be in my head all day! Grrrrrrrrr…..