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RIP Robert Osborne (TCM Host..and star of Psycho, 1960)

posted 8 years ago by ecarle (14979)
5 replies | jump to latest

Most of the time when I turn on my TV, I go to Turner Classic Movies first. My, I sound like a commercial. But the fact is, I do. My hopes are high that something pleasantly familiar from the past will be on, and remain amused that movies from the 60's and 70's are now as "ancient" as those from the 30's and 40's. TCM plays that field -- and the 50's, and right on through the 00's.

Last night, I turned to TCM and was surprised to see a movie I read about but never saw on release -- "Staircase" from 1969 I think, with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison(two notorious heteros) playing a gay couple. It was to be followed, the grid said, by "Villain", from 1970 or '71 I think, with Richard Burton as "a razor-wielding London gangster".

I didn't watch either of them(except for a brief scene with Burton in the tub getting out to Harrison's pleasure) or even tape them -- but it was comforting to know that TCM had FOUND them, HAD them, kept them around, shown them. I've never heard of either of those movies being shown on TV since they were RELEASED. (Note in passing: while Burton was making these flops and lesser known films as the 70's arrived, he was also busy turning down a perfect role in Frenzy -- as Richard Blaney the bad luck wrong man of the piece. Burton turned it down over Hitchcock's actors are cattle comment. Too bad, he was really more age appropriate for the part than Jon Finch, and the boozing elements of Blaney would have worked well with Burton.)

Anyway, for many, many of its years since beginning in 1995, Turner Classic Movies used Robert Osborne as its host. He WAS TCM for so many years that, when they finally added a "younger guy" -- 30-something Ben Mankewicz -- in the 00s, maybe? -- I for one felt a little like my favorite older guy was being "invaded" by a younger generation. It took awhile to get used to Young Ben, but eventually he grew on me, too -- and Robert Osborne never went anywhere. They seemed to work two shifts, and I don't really know how it worked. Osborne at prime time night? Ben by day?

In his prime, Osborne was used as the "foil" for a weekly show called "The Essentials," in which Osborne would sit in one chair and talk movies with a movie star of sorts in the other chair. Alec Baldwin made for a dashing middle-aged match; two guys gently arguing about film(I always liked how the often-tempermental Baldwin was a pussycat when having to clash with the charming Osborne.) But more often than not, they paired the suave Osborne with a pretty lady -- Rose MacGowan, Drew Barrymore(of the famous name) and perhaps the most Oscar-proven star, Sally Field.

Each week "The Essentials" gave us a major film that was, well, essential. Thus, Psycho made the grade one time. As did NXNW. As did Vertigo. As did Strangers on a Train. I think they went through enough Hitchoccks to even reach "Saboteur" as an Essential. In fact, it would seem that they ran out of "essentials" around the same time they ran out of Robert Osborne.

Osborne just sort of faded off the channel. He was still there in commercials and touted as the author of articles in the TCM movie guide. But he had had a few "breaks for vacation" that added up to breaks for health. And I still remember watching one of his last TCM movie introductions in which he was clearly not well -- slurring his lines and bumbling them as if fighting for control. I expect that the TCM management allowed that to air so that we would understand when Osborne just sort of disappeared.

Now that he has died at 84, Osborne is being properly feted on TCM. Young Ben introduced a movie this week with blackness behind him, no real introduction for the movie(Anne of a Thousand Days -- More Burton) and instead a heartfelt tribute to Robert Osborne. I expect other memorial shows will be broadcast, and I'm sure Osborne will be saluted at the TCM movie festival in April in Hollywood.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 8 years ago

Robert Osborne is one of those special kinds of "stars" that show business creates "from the other side." He didn't make movies or write them. He was an actor but not very successfully(he's in the pilot of The Beverly Hillbillies, and he is actually listed in the imdb board as being in Psycho! One of the extras walking by California Charlie's, perhaps? I can't find another place FOR him in the under-populated Psycho.)

Indeed, Osborne seems to have scratched out one of those comfortable livings as "an entertainment reporter and columnist," principally for The Hollywood Reporter(a solid gig.) And one thing led to another and he won the TCM host job and it proved that he DID have star quality.

You have to, to do what Osborne did. He looked right out at us and invited us to share the excitement of a classic movie. He was friendly and nice and charming, almost an "anti" version of all the usual yellers and screamers on the "political wrestling channels"(as I call them.) You just wanted to hang out with Robert in that nicely appointed room he hosted from...forever. It was a little bit of heaven, an oasis of a fantasized past in a raucous present.

Osborne then(and Ben now) introduces the movie with some trivia. Clearly his writers read all the "making of" books out there, and Hitchcock/Truffaut for Hitchcock movies. There would be a final burst of trivia at the end, after the movie was over. (I would like to note that in addition to intros based on film books, I sometimes spotted TCM intros based on OUR IMDB COMMENTS. Word.

Funny: clearly Osborne taped his intro and outgo segments back-to-back, but you FELT that he had been sitting there with you watching the whole movie with you.

Best(for me): As the intro ended, Osborne then(as Ben now) would close out with words of excitement such as:

"And now, from 1960, and starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin..and Martin Balsam...here is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho!"

(Next month in April, Ben Mankewicz will take to the movie screens of theaters all over America to say "And now, from 1959, and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and Martin Landau...here is Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest!" I wonder if Ben will honor Robert. It would be great in conjunction with NXNW.)

PS. I always thought that Robert Osborne and Robert Wagner rather looked alike in their old age, with white hair and suave handsome looks, roughly the same faces and roughly the same build. Well...TCM put up a photo of Osborne and Wagner together and ---yep. THEY knew it, too.

[–] Doghouse (447) 8 years ago

ecarle said:

"Funny: clearly Osborne taped his intro and outgo segments back-to-back, but you FELT that he had been sitting there with you watching the whole movie with you."
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A happy combination, I think, of showbiz and sincerity, the latter perhaps being a reflection of what I call "Neglected DVD Syndrome:" your most-loved favorites - your personal "essentials" - are in your collection and at your fingertips any time you want them, day or night, yet during those "at loose ends" for something to watch times (like the old Cracker Jack jingle, "What do you want when you gotta have somethin'..."), each title on the shelf, be it Double Indemnity or Sunset Blvd, Chinatown or Bullitt, Psycho or North By Northwest, induces the sense of having had the entire movie flash through your head in an instant as it catches your glance, and you pass, feeling as though you've just at that moment finished watching it.

And then what happens next time you're flipping through the channels? "Oh, look, Sunset Blvd!" And you stop right there and finish it, whether its a half-hour, an hour or more in progress. And the DVD remains on the shelf. Pleeeeease tell me I'm not the only one to whom this quirk of human nature applies.

Regardless, I'm guessing that Osborne was among those who knew many of those films so well that the same "it just played in your head" feeling was at work when beginning a closing segment with something like, "What a shattering conclusion that was." Along with just a hint of showbiz.

[–] ecarle (14979) 8 years ago

A happy combination, I think, of showbiz and sincerity,

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Yes, Osborne had that, as do many of the better TV hosts. Its NOT like the old George Burns line: "The key to life is sincerity -- if you can fake that, you've got it made." I think Osborne WAS sincere about the movies he loved(as we are here) but he had lines written that allowed him to "say it better."

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the latter perhaps being a reflection of what I call "Neglected DVD Syndrome:" your most-loved favorites - your personal "essentials" - are in your collection and at your fingertips any time you want them, day or night, yet during those "at loose ends" for something to watch times (like the old Cracker Jack jingle, "What do you want when you gotta have somethin'..."),

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That old Cracker Jack jingle captures our age, yes? And Jack Gilford as the star of some of those commercials.

I remember the sweet-faced Jack Gilford playing a villain on the (great) Get Smart called "Simon the Likeable."

The Chief on Simon the Likeable:

"He's a cruel, sadistic, ruthless, heartless killer and leader of scum...but...you just have to LIKE him."

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each title on the shelf, be it Double Indemnity or Sunset Blvd, Chinatown or Bullitt, Psycho or North By Northwest, induces the sense of having had the entire movie flash through your head in an instant as it catches your glance, and you pass, feeling as though you've just at that moment finished watching it.

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Yes. I can go with that. I've got a wall of these.(The favorite movies of years, multiples in certain years -- Psycho AND The Apartment AND The Mag 7.)

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And then what happens next time you're flipping through the channels? "Oh, look, Sunset Blvd!" And you stop right there and finish it, whether its a half-hour, an hour or more in progress. And the DVD remains on the shelf. Pleeeeease tell me I'm not the only one to whom this quirk of human nature applies.

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You most certainly and most definitely are not the only one. When one of those comes on TV I think "oh, I can spare myself the DVD for awhile longer."

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Regardless, I'm guessing that Osborne was among those who knew many of those films so well that the same "it just played in your head" feeling was at work when beginning a closing segment with something like, "What a shattering conclusion that was." Along with just a hint of showbiz.

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Yes. He could probably imagine that he HAD just seen the movie.

He will, as the phrase goes, be missed. Because for almost 20 years, he was always there. On TCM.

[–] movieghoul (213) 8 years ago

And he did do new intros for movies he had introduced many times before, when TCM could have simply repeated the same one.

And I love the "Columbo moment" when he would stop in mid-sentence and say "oh, by the way..."

He will be missed.

[–] ecarle (14979) 8 years ago

Since his passing recently, I've caught a few memorials to Robert Osborne:

TCM ran a "This is Your Life" sort of thing for Osborne, from 2015, I think. That made it very touching in that early on, host Alex Trebek checks Osborne's pulse and says "this event is like your eulogy...are you still alive?" Osborne assures Trebeck that he is. Only two years ago!

Eva Marie Saint comes out to hug Osborne. (She always calls herself, with an elderly woman's laugh, "the sexy spy lady" from North by Northwest; it has rather devalued the role, I think, that she's decided on this monicker but...OK, fine.)

Alec Baldwin comes out, so do Robert Wagner(Osborne's "brother" in looks and shared Fox ingénue contracts) and his wife Jill St. John(so va-va-voom in the 60's, so nicely preserved now; the power of red wigs!) And Michael Feinstein comes out to sing some songs. Ben Mankewicz comes out and reveals that since Osborne does his hosting from NYC and Ben from LA, the two rarely cross paths!

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A bit better: On Sirius Satellite radio, they have a "Sinatra Channel" ("Siriously Sinatra") and it has a weekly hour show called "Playing Favorites" in which some celebrity introduces some songs by Sinatra AND other artists, and tells tales about Sinatra's life and career(and personal meetings with him if they had them). In honor of Robert Osborne's passing, they played his episode of "Playing Favorites."

Osborne told the tale of Sinatra singing the not-bad Oscar-nominated song "Star!"(from a failed Julie Andrews musical) at the 1969 ceremony for 1968 films, as the camera scanned stars who were pleased(Raquel Welch) and NOT pleased(Joanne Woodward, still angry that husband Paul hadn't been nominated as director for Rachel, Rachel.) Osborne then played "Star" which has a "New York, New York"-like Big Finish.

Osborne also played a song by Fred Astaire, making the case that this famous dancer also had a very distinctive, "superlative"(Osborne's phrase) singing voice.

And then Osborne played a number I like very much -- Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Der Bingle Himself(Crosby) from the 1964 Rat Pack musical movie "Robin and the 7 Hoods." Its called "You've Either Got or You Haven't Got Style"(or just plain "Style") and its very cool, with the three distinctive crooners alternating verses and then teaming up in harmony for ITS Big Finish.

In short, Robert Osborne's "Playing Favorites" selections were good and entertaining and movie-heavy, and his usual pleasant-toned conversational sense of trivia was well on display.

I'm not sure what's left for TCM to do to honor Robert Osborne. I have noticed that he has disappeared from their promotional commercials about their Movie Guide and other products. That's the right thing to do.