... Scott mentioned that Barnabas of Dark Shadows (Jonathan Frid) had recently died at the age of 87 due to a fall. Noory had to chime in that his Dad died at 88 also because of a fall....
Ye gods and little fishes! Does this man's egoism know no bounds? He turns everything,
everything into a jumping off spot for a personal reference. Who was it the other day who had a couple of long, detailed posts describing what a "malignant narcissist" is, and demonstrating how George fit the description perfectly? The poster did a really good job of making his case. What a surprise, eh? - George seems to fit a "narcissistic personality disorder". Well, George sure does seem to have some "ego", "narcissism" and "disorder" mixed up in his personality in
some percentage...I'm just not sure what kind of mix it is.
Oh, and about Jonathan Frid - I was a kid when
Dark Shadows became a hit as a "gothic soap opera". Seems like it started out as a mid-day broadcast, which we watched in summer, but later switched broadcast time until after school let out. When Frid joined the show about a year in, playing Barnabas Collins, part of an old New England blueblood family, the kids fell in love with him. He had a tall, gangly, Ichabod Crane-type body, with cadaverous eyes and gaunt cheeks. He wasn't handsome or athletic so much as he was imperious and commanding. Even though it was an American show and he was supposed to be from a New England Puritan family, his style seemed much more like English aristocracy. His performance had much more
noblesse oblige in it than Yankee primness. I remember being mesmerized by his way of saying "Thank you, no" instead of plain old, "No, thank you". Wow! That was how you say you're in charge of everybody in the room, I thought. That had to be the way that people trained to be royalty said anything from "I don't care for anything more" to "I find you highly repellent, please go away". It seemed so much more sophisticated than what we dirt-dumb Americans did...or so it a 5th-grader thought.
To this day if I ever hear someone say that I think of Frid and how he sounded like a prince when he did it. But Frid was nothing but a 2-bit actor who had his 15-minutes and was never seen again to my knowledge. But in 1967 or so I thought he was the most sophisticated and commanding guy this side of Cary Grant. Who of course was God. And no one could out-cool Cary, even in the 60's.* And mostly because he said "Thank you, no" with that precise-but-slightly-slurring
uber-royal way of speaking that the members of the House of Windsor have of communicating with us lesser mortals.
* Hell, even today. Take a clip of Sean Connery in
Goldfinger, Daniel Craig in
Casino Royale , Steve McQueen in
Bullitt,and then match them up against Cary Grant in
North By Northwest or
To Catch A Thief. No contest, and that's just on style, looks and carriage alone. I would say try it with dialogue but that would be like tearing the wings off flies - simple torture. Cary had style. And he
was too sexy for his shirt.
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