For octogenarian press agents, one of the great rewards and most painful penalties of their stubborn longevity is that one suffers frequently the passing of colorful personalities who had at some point wandered into his or her care. Today, for me, it was two: a splendidly great director and a ground-breaking interlocutor-in-chief of news panel discussions among the usual talking and talkative heads. What Arthur Hiller and John McLaughlin had in common, other than their achievement of age, was strikingly personal qualities which made them vivid personalities, personalities in the most impressive and literal sense. As happens to old geezers such as I is that such passings usually evoke one special memory which seems a metaphor of these wrenched-from-us original beings. I had become expert in identifying this since so many (oh, well over 150) of the great artists and striking figures with whom I was privileged to spend my life, had drifted out the exit door while I was writing loving remembrance of them for my memoir, Starflacker: Inside the Golden Age of Hollywood. My best friend, Maximilian Schell, will never know the love, or maybe he did.So I was interested to see what incident would leap to the fore as Arthur's and John's passings emerged together from the morning drive radio. Arthur Hiller was so civilized that that he was director of choice for that most civilized of playwrights/film authors, Paddy Chayevsky. Film buffs need no reminders, but how about the comic/dramatic span of The Americanization of Emily, the Oscar nominated Love Story, The Hospital, The In-Laws, Silver Streak and The Man in the Glass Booth.I don't recall how my association with John McLaughlin came about, but it was welcome even though the opinions he expressed with such jack-hammer certainty had so little in common with my own convictions. But the lion-tamer fury with which he controlled the wordy news professional guests of his The McLaughlin Group panel was a thing of beauty, whip-snapping away the confusion of simultaneous argument which makes cacophony of virtually every tower of Babel panel exchange these days.Arthur's exit-stage-left was no surprise. He and Gwen, his wife of sixty some-odd years, were one person. When she died a few months back, one listened for the other shoe. In such a garden of love, one flower surely fades in the absence of the other's sunshine. Having worked with Arthur on many of his films, particularly in helping Man In The Glass Booth get its Oscar nomination due, I thought that surely the relevant moment would derive from one of them. But, no, it turned out to be a late night vigil in the lobby of the Tehran Hilton Hotel during the on-rush of Iranian revolution in which the final Tehran Film Festival (which I was charged to present) took place. The note of hysteria and confusion was in the air. I had brought in a slew of august film figures, Otto Preminger and Lauren Bacall among them, to find that virtually none of the appointed rooms were available for these travel-exhausted dignitaries. The festival featured a tribute to Buster Keaton for whom three suites were reserved, and even my revelation that Mr. Keaton was deceased lo these many years could free these accommodations from from the immortal Buster's cold and determined fingers. We worked that out when I discovered that the clerks responded in fear to the German language and I brought in my wife and noted critic John Simon to give a good Deutsches tongue-lashing. So all were safely abed in appointed rooms, and I was awaiting only the late night arrival of Arthur Hiller who had agreed (along with his name-alike actor friend Arthur Hill) to be on the festival jury. I found to my anguish that there was no room for him. But I summoned enough German to get them to agree to do a quick turn-around of a room some flight attendants were to surrender. The turn-around lasted from 2AM to 4AM, and I stayed to keep my director friend company. What would have been his very reasonable resentment of the inconvenience never rippled an evening of some of the most charming and educational conversation I ever enjoyed. A good cigar and a comfortable chair, along with his patient understanding, were the instruments of his satisfaction. And I saw from what roots of character were derived the great humanity of his films.With John McLaughlin, the over-riding cherished moment was a time when I arranged for him to guest with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. He was, as always, amply supplied with colorful and meaningful opinions. But he suddenly realized that his fellow guest would be football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman, and football was one of the few subjects on which he was not richly informed. "What'" he asked in a sudden sense of exposure, "can I comment about Mr. Aikman that is original and pertinent'" I had to give him something he could believe in, so I suggested he bring up the fact that Troy Aikman, who could have become a multi-millionaire at the end of any of the years of his stupendous college career, had elected instead to fulfill his obligation to UCLA and stay through his graduation. That was not then and certainly is not now the common case. John leaped into it and discussed how that full perfection of Troy Donahue's education and character was an important reason he became one of the greatest quarterbacks of history. Mr. Aikman and Johnny really go into that, and Mr. Aikman thanked John afterwards for something in which he would now take even greater pride.Great personalities adjust to and embrace the moment, however challenging. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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