O’Connor, Kazan left their marks

Tom Titus

When the Academy Awards are passed out next Feb. 29, those who

complain that the show always runs too long had better prepare

themselves for an even longer evening. It’ll take at least a

half-hour to properly memorialize the motion picture industry’s great

names which were erased in 2003.

It’s been a busy year for the Grim Reaper in Hollywood. Already,

he’s claimed Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn, Bob Hope, Hume Cronyn,

John Ritter and Johnny Cash. Now two more legendary figures -- Donald

O’Connor and Elia Kazan -- have joined the obituary rolls.

Both of these men -- O’Connor, 78, and Kazan -- left indelible

marks on the movie industry a half-century ago in decidedly different

ways.

O’Connor was born in the proverbial trunk, the son of

vaudevillians. He took his first bow at three days old and joined his

parents’ act at 13 months. He was a lifelong entertainer who capped a

remarkable career in show business as a shipboard dance instructor in

the movie comedy “Out at Sea,” which starred fellow legends Jack

Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

But when you think of Donald O’Connor, two characters stand out --

Cosmo Brown and Peter Sterling. The former, of course, was the

irrepressible sidekick of Gene Kelly in the 1952 musical comedy

“Singin’ in the Rain” -- by consensus the best movie musical ever.

O’Connor’s comic solo, “Make ‘em Laugh” -- which he choreographed

himself by trying several bits and keeping the ones that tickled

production assistants -- was one off the movie’s many high points

(another being his “Moses Supposes” duet with Kelly).

About the same time, O’Connor was playing Sterling, a straight man

to Chill Willis -- or at least his voice -- in the series of

“Francis” flicks starring a talking mule. Those were among my

favorites as a kid,, along with “Singin’ in the Rain,” since I was a

huge Gene Kelly fan.

That movie occupies a special place in my videotape collection

now, along with four others -- all directed by Elia Kazan. These

would be “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “On the Waterfront,” “East of

Eden” and “A Face in the Crowd.”

Kazan staged “Streetcar” and “Death of a Salesman” in their

original Broadway incarnations, not to mention “All My Sons” and “Cat

on a Hot Tin Roof.” His genius brought Tennessee Williams and Arthur

Miller into the playgoing and moviegoing public’s consciousness.

He also directed such landmark films as “Gentleman’s Agreement,”

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and “Splendor in the Grass.” But as

heralded as he was for these accomplishments, he was equally vilified

for cooperating with the House Unamerican Activities Committee in

1952, admitting his past Communist Party membership and naming eight

others.

Kazan answered the derision heaped on him in his own fashion two

years later, through the voice of Marlon Brando in his Oscar-winning

performance in “Waterfront.” Brando, portraying a dock worker who

informs on his corrupt union leader (Lee J. Cobb), has a savage

shouting match with Cobb at the end of the movie in which he shouts,

“I’m glad what I done. Ya hear me? I’m glad what I done.”

Hollywood eventually forgave him and presented Kazan with an

honorary lifetime achievement Oscar and a standing ovation in 1999.

Even today, the movie industry is divided into pro- and anti-Kazan

camps, but one thing is undeniable. Elia Kazan was a giant of a

director, putting on stage and screen some of the greatest stories of

our time. Who else could have pulled an Oscar-worthy (if,

unfortunately, not Oscar-winning) performance out of Andy Griffith in

“A Face in the Crowd?”

Donald O’Connor and Elia Kazan are the latest legends to fall. And

there are still three months in 2003.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.