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From guest columnist Diane Petryk:
Compassion Helped Win '68 Oscar August 24, 2024 Author Diane Petryk can be reached at bloomplanet@gmail.com. In 1968 I was walking along Grand River Avenue in East Lansing when a movie marquee caught my attention. Advertised was “Charly,” with the “r” written backwards like a child might. The lead actor was Cliff Robertson, who rose to stardom when he played John F. Kennedy in PT 109 in 1963. He was more than handsome enough to meet my Cary Grant-type standards, and the movie was my favorite genre, sci-fi: a low I.Q. janitor undergoes surgery that turns him into a genius. (My son and I would later know Robertson as Spiderman's Uncle Ben.) My 18-year-old self did not know that Robertson and I had a rendezvous in our future...
This week's 2024 Democratic convention in Chicago reminded me of the one in 1968. Chicago, a crisis point in politics, and an angry mob outside. But we had a happy – dare I say “joyful” – finale yesterday in stark contrast to the unhappy denouement in 1968. Having lost the brother of Camelot, RFK, just 11 weeks earlier, we were left with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who inspired absolutely no one. In her acceptance speech yesterday, Kamala Harris inspired most Democrats, plus thousands of independents, many jumping-ship Republicans, and the breath-holding citizens of many other countries. Call me naive, but I believed her pledge to the middle class. And I was busting-button proud of Gretchen Whitmer as she brushed “that man from Mar-a-Lago” off her shoulder and metaphorically off the rest of us. See speech here. Michelle Obama said on Wednesday “Hope is making a comeback.” In 1968, hope was vested in Robert F Kennedy when he entered the presidential race on March 16 and took an anti-war stance. The hope of his California primary win died with him on the floor of a hotel kitchen on June 4. Kennedy had recently usurped the winning anti-Vietnam War stance of candidate Senator Eugene McCarthy. Young people discarded their Hippie dress and cut their hair to go door to door in New Hampshire, and “Clean for Gene” worked. RFK saw that success and moved in on it. In April, Martin Luther King was assassinated and resulting riots killed another 39 people. The Navy spy ship USS Pueblo was taken by the North Koreans and 82 crew members captured, one killed. So tell Marty to never set the DeLorean for 1968, right? Maybe not. In April, President Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act; in July, the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In August, the first African-American Marine received the Medal of Honor. And the first “Grand Slam” was won a black tennis player, Arthur Ashe. And the day before Christmas astronaut William Anders snapped the first picture of our Earth from outer space. It was called “Earthrise” and became the most consequential environmental photo to date. Fifty Six years later, climate change deniers still don't understand the fragility of the pale blue dot. Among other things. One is the extreme poor judgment of making fun of people who are different and people with disabilities and showing contempt for people with less. In early 2010, when Senators and Congressmen were returning to their home districts to ask their constituents how they wanted them to vote on the proposed Affordable Care Act, nicknamed Obamacare, I was covering one of those Town Halls in a large auditorium at Bucknell University. Tea Party Republicans were easily spotted by the tea bags hanging off their hats. Their opposition to the Affordable Care Act was palpable. So the politician asked: “Well, what do you want me to do when people can't afford to see a doctor?” A woman standing in the back then shouted: “That's just too damn bad for them.” Such unalloyed selfishness and lack of compassion made a lasting impression. I will never get over the popularity of that view. The Republican view. Charly Gordon was the opposite – the fictional character in Charly, which was based on a short science fiction story by Daniel Keyes titled Flowers for Algernon. Charly may have had a child's mind, but he had a big heart. When people made fun of him for being mentally slow, he was deeply hurt. And he wondered “what would make a person make fun of a moron, when they wouldn't make fun of a cripple or a blind person?” (Well, they would make fun of a cripple or a blind person if they were Donald Trump. We've come along way since 1968. In 2015, Donald Trump made fun of Pultizer-Prize winning reporter Serge Kovaleski because his arms involuntarily jerked due to the disease arthrogryposis. Trump mocking him with arm motions is on video.) Cliff Robertson, the actor who portrayed Charly, had compassion just like his character. He told a Television Archives interviewer: “I had such empathy for the character when I read it. And I thought, 'I think I can do this very well.'” And so he did. Because in depicting Charly from mentally disabled to genius and then back – after he learned the treatment would wear off and he would become simple minded again – was a stellar acting job. He first crafted the role in a television production. After seeing many of his stage performances made into movies with other actors, he bought the movie rights to Charly. The film was emotionally gripping and that's probably why it stayed in my mind. In 2001 I was working for The Press Republican newspaper in Plattsburgh, New York. The local PBS station, Mountain Lake PBS, was producing a film on the Air Force Thunderbirds. Robertson, an accomplished aviator, was asked to narrate the film. He would be in Plattsburgh on April 24. The interview assignment fell to me. I got to the station and was ushered into a room with Robertson and I was introduced to him by the station manager. Of course, he needed no introduction. So the first thing I said was “I have to kiss you.” That surprised even me, but I followed through on it. On the cheek, of course. Then we were left alone. Robertson still had leading man aura, although he was now playing Spiderman's Uncle Ben. In fact, he filmed Uncle Ben's death scene outside the New York Public Library just the day before. We talked a little about the documentary he was doing, but then I told him how much Charly meant to me when I saw it as a college student. How moving it was. My sincerity was genuine and deep and I think he could tell. So he confided in me that he had a sequel planned. He hoped he could raise money for it. Long ago his mother-in-law, Marjorie Merriweather Post, owned Mar-a-Lago. But in 2001 he was out of that gilded orbit. Robertson died in 2011, the sequel never made. I didn't ask, but I supposed his sequel would have had Charly regaining his intellect. (The New Republic just said: “We are in the final countdown to Election Day 2024, when the United States will make its choice between Kamala Harris’s hopeful vision of our future and Donald Trump’s dystopian promise of vengeance and authoritarianism.” Or, as Gretchen Whitmer said at the Democratic Convention Thursday, “If something happens, do you want to find out the person in charge is him?”)
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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