I was feeling a great sadness today, a melancholy of undetermined origin, the kind of ennui I had not felt in a long time.
I was wondering what could be the cause when I sat down to watch Turner Classic Movies before dinner. An old Richard Burton movie was on. Burton is the Start of the Month for may I pulled up the schedule on line, to read the blurb about the movie that was showing.
When the page came up I immediately saw the graphic of Robert Osborne, the long time host of TCM, with vital dates (1932-2017). I knew immediately that he had passed away. He had been in ill health for several years, and had basically retired completely from hosting.
It's hard to imagine what my life might be without Osborne. He was tremendously influential in conveying to me a love of classic cinema, especially during the years 2006-2008 when I was living back in Colorado after leaving New York. It was during that time that I would later say that "I turned the television to TCM and left it on for two years straight."
That was the time immediately preceding the start of this blog, when I began to write about contemporary cinema for several years, before abandoning it. So maybe that's why I was feeling melancholy today.
Fortunately I got to meet Osborne before he passed away---three years ago in Hollywood during the TCM Classic Film Festival. He was interviewing the late Maureen O'Hara in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. I don't really care about meeting famous people. Those two folks count for all the Hollywood greatness I care about, in a nutshell.
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