Time Step

A dear friend of mine died suddenly this week and suddenly nothing else mattered.

David Arthur was so many things. An actor, a dancer, a singer, a songwriter, a novelist and the single person in my life who knew the most about Broadway and the American musical theatre.

Now, being a gay man of a certain age, I do not say the latter lightly. Of course, I have MANY friends who excel in this area, many of whom read this blog and will be quite upset at this statement.

However, none had the breadth of knowledge over so many shows over so many decades. Or still hung on to rare recordings of Bea Lillie, Tallulah Bankhead, Mary Martin, Julie Andrews, et al in _________ or performing __________ on the radio, or performing their nightclub act where they did patter and a song that was cut from ________, or… well, you get the picture.

I met David in the late 1970s through one of the most caring, memorable and certainly most talented people I knew at the time, or ever, the late Brian Lasser. We were walking on the west side of Manhattan to meet this guy who he claimed “is the funniest person I know.”

reaction, sassy, really, hmm, see, i see you, oh really, yeah right, sus, i see, told you so, i dont think so, o rly, you already know, you sure, dubious, i doubt — Funniest?! I’ll be the judge

Now, being a gay man of the certain age, in the 1970s, I can tell you there were A LOT of funny people. But Brian, as usual, was correct.

Can I remember a single thing David said at that first meeting? Certainly not! Only that somewhere there was a story about either Noel Coward or Elaine Stritch (Note: Probably both) mixed with a diatribe of backstage gossip about pretty much every show that was playing at the time on Broadway.

Man, we had so much fun. And neither one of them are around anymore to remind me of exactly what we talked about.

Of course, they are still here…somewhere.

But it’s not quite the same.

Though I do remember Brian telling me about the time he went to see David play Captain Hook in a summer stock production of Peter Pan somewhere in the Midwest and regaling about how hilarious he was.

And how many liberties he took with the “character.”

At one point he had Hook dancing the Charleston back and forth across the stage doing jazz hands.

This reminds me of the time some years later David took pity on me – soooo not a professional dancer – and granted my request for him to teach me how to tap dance.

All my life I wanted to tap dance and was too embarrassed to try it.

I even invented a character for it – the gangster Jimmy DeMarco.

No Comment At All GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY — Go ahead with it Chairy!

Jimmy was not tall but somewhat more, well, diminutive, like me – think George M. Cohan adjacent with a tommy gun and a black and white suit. But he had a heart of gold underneath. And he could really, REALLY dance.

It is not a lie to say that for two f’n hours David stood on the linoleum floor in my kitchen and tried, tried and TRIED to teach me to tap.

I was absolutely AWFUL! I mean, like appallingly bad. I could hear what he was telling me to do but my feet just wouldn’t friggin’ do it. He told me eventually they would. And that suddenly I’d “get it.”

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills': Hallowmean – foolish watcher — I did not have faith

So he stayed with me, kept at it and eventually, EVENTUALLY I managed to do something that approached… not even a time step.

Though he was kind enough to tell me I was….getting it. And would’ve kept going long past those two hours. But now I decided to take pity on him and say we should stop before Jimmy had a heart attack.

This brilliantly funny man, who was flown in to teach honors high school students with three left feet at New Trier High School in Chicago year after year for their big musical, and toured all over the world in Bubbling Brown Sugar, would have stayed in in that hot apartment in West Hollywood coaching a fictional character to dance for as many hours as it took just because I wanted to.

Gosh, it was so……psychotic!

Chantons Sous La Pluie GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY — Not at all how I looked, but how David made me feel!

And yeah, I was really, really, REALLY Baaaaaad.

Here’s one of David’s favorite Broadway performers – the great Gwen Verdon – who, of course, he met a bunch of times and also had funny stories about I will tell to one of two of you privately – in a clip from The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s.

Such joyous talent. As he was.

“If They Could See Me Now” – Gwen Verdon on The Ed Sullivan Show

02.01.26

by notesfromachair

The Singular Catherine O’Hara

When I heard the news that Catherine O’Hara died this week my initial reaction was the same as yours.

No, no, no, no, NOOOOOO! Why her? Why couldn’t it be……

Well, so many others.

Inside Out Sadness GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY — Still on the floor

But it was her and it is now a fact that one of the few performers where the very mention of her name made me and my friends and likely all of you instantly laugh was gone.

And that’s because there were so many characters and comic moments she played in so many films and TV shows that immediately come to mind.

Whatever your favorite – and when you begin to think about it there are far too many to mention – there was a slightly askew warmth behind Catherine O’Hara’s eyes telling you that at any moment she might do anything but that no matter what happened you wouldn’t be able to not laugh. She’d get you and she’d keep you – as long as she chose to.

Beetlejuice GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY — Also can we talk about that hair? #iconic

And, well, who doesn’t want to surrender to that.

I can still remember watching a tiny TV set in my bedroom late one night as a young college student and turning the channel to some whacked-out syndicated comedy show where I thought I saw Katharine Hepburn doing “a bit.”

My first reaction was:

Wow, she’s really going for it, and on TV yet, who knew?

(Note: My sole reference for Ms. Hepburn at this point was Eleanor of Aquitaine in the classical film drama, The Lion in Winter, where she parried stinging lethal verbiage with Peter O’Toole much too IMPORTANTLY to be ever be called “bit-ty.” …And yes, I really did think that way as a teenager).

But then I quickly realized:

Wait, this can’t be Katharine Hepburn because this woman is far, far funnier than she is and just a little bit “off.” But in a good way. The affect, the way she tilted her head, and the knowing pretentiousness in her voice. It was a more grand but slightly more fun Kate. The way you’d hope she would be at a dinner party. Someone you could hang with and eventually get drunk with because you knew she’d be a lot more outrageous and would tell you the best stories in the world.

As it turns out, that’s who Catherine O’Hara would be for the next five decades or more.

How did Catherine O'Hara die? Schitt's Creek and Home Alone actress passes away at 71, fans pay tributes — An unparalleled career

The kind of performer you always wanted to hang with. A real person onscreen who always made you crack up because you never knew what she was going to do.

Someone who could make insanity into eccentricity that was totally viable. Someone whose presence always guaranteed you a good time, and how often can you say that these days about anyone or anything?

Schitts Creek Moira Rose GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY — Oh Catherine, we miss you so.

Little did I know when I happened upon her on my little black and white screen back in the 1970s on a little known syndicated Canadian TV called SCTV, the answer would be Zero X No One.

And that I would have years and years of Catherine O’Hara to look forward to.

The Banana Boat Song singing Mom in Beetlejuice, the harried, under appreciated and lovingly careless Mom in the Home Alone films, the impossibly versatile improvisational comic actress in a slew of Christopher Guest movies, including an Oscar-nominated turn in For Your Consideration, all culminating with her master creation – Moira Rose – the penniless matriarch speaking in an accent not of this Earth that we nevertheless all understood in her Emmy award-winning performance in Schitt’s Creek.

White smoke signals new pope : r/SchittsCreek — No one else could pull this off

It was her grounded insanity in a TV series about a spoiled rich family forced to actually work and need, that got so many of us through a global pandemic and once and for all made Catherine O’Hara a household name.

Still, it somehow felt fitting that when the show swept the Emmys in 2020 and she finally emerged as a headliner instead of a perfect comic foil team player, that it was in a year where she couldn’t accept the award in front of all the industry peers that so admired her.

Emmys 2020: Catherine O'Hara Wins Lead Actress in a Comedy Series — Oh how we all screamed for you!

Instead, it was in a pared down ceremony, but one that the rest of us were watching in secret glee that Moira – and, as it turns out, Catherine O’Hara – was finally getting the star treatment in the same way you hoped your crazy aunt or insanely funny co-worker, or under-appreciated friend might one day be recognized in front of everyone for being so perfectly one of a kind.

Most recently she played a former studio head turned producer on Apple TV’s The Studio, where she was surrounded by a cast of fellow performers who had admired her ability to be so uniquely and strangely funny for decades. At the top of list was the show’s star and co-creator, Seth Rogen, who several days ago tweeted that in their very first meeting he confessed to her she was the funniest person he had ever seen onscreen.

This is not merely a posthumous accolade but something I’ve heard people say about her for years. There was just nothing like her off-centered, borderline bizarreness and it made her not only a fan favorite but a performer’s performer.

It also made those of us who sometimes feel totally insane just a little bit less alone.

Rather than me go and on – and make everyone sadder – here are some excerpts of some of her more memorable moments..

It’s been a tough week among so many weeks, which means it’s even more important to take a moment and laugh at someone who was fearless enough to get us through it all. And then some.

#1 Canadian TV’s CBC compilation piece on career highlights: