"Nightingale, Adam - Just For Laughs, Counsellor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nightingale Adam)

31st October 1993.

I will be eternally grateful to River Phoenix for ingesting the particular drug cocktail that left him wheezing his way to eternity on an LA sidewalk outside Johnny Depp's Viper club. I would also like to thank River's close friend who denied paramedics the crucial narcotic information that may just have enabled them to save his life.

I didn't expect to be given the assignment at that point. I had never written an obituary before in my life. There were many other writers who outranked me. But I was given it, and it was a good piece of work. It was tasteful and non judgmental of River's lifestyle but unforgiving of the narcotic culture that has butchered too many talented young starlets ahead of schedule.

My editor liked it very much. From that moment, on the sad occasion when somebody below the age of thirty-five with earnings below $10 million a movie died under spurious circumstances, I would get the gig.

I got to cover some older character actors as well. This is far more satisfying. You have more to work with in terms of a healthy CV. The flip side, though, is that like many of the artists you are writing about, you tend to get type cast. Before long, I was known as the young hopeful and forgotten old dead guy man. Fine for a while, but I wanted something better. I wanted a legend. I wanted Robert Mitchum.

Robert Mitchum was my small god. I liked him when it was unfashionable to like him. I liked him as a child watching him with my dad, every Sunday afternoon it seemed, as he stormed the German defences at Omaha Beach or Anzio. I grew a bit older and stayed up later. I survived The Winds Of War and kept the faith. I admired the way he intimidated Gregory Peck "just for laughs, counsellor", and amputated his own little finger. I loved the way he scared the shit out of me praying to some god, defiantly not in heaven, in that creepy baritone with love and hate carved in ink on his knuckles. As my tastes matured and my opinions solidified, I admired his weakness and malleability as Coyle and Ryan. I even owned a copy of his calypso album and a compilation of Hunter S. Thompson's favourite tunes because it had a recording of The Ballad of Thunder Road. My favourite book is La Brava because Jean Shaw acted with Mitchum and my favourite song is New Age by The Velvet Underground because the fat blond actress kissed Robert Mitchum.

All this qualified me to write his obituary as far as I was concerned. Passion and ability have to dictate these things, not old school ties. Like I said, I knew that Bob was winding down. It was simply a matter of time before age, ill health, vodka and Mary Jane would eventually claim him. I knew exactly what I was going to say. I was going to praise his invisible acting, discuss the man who was a cleverer than thou closet poet but too cool to actively publicly give a shit about it. Lament an aesthetic that didn't engage itself enough to leave more classic roles for our edification, that turned down Patton, Thornton. I would be poetic, cine literate, educational, entertaining, respectful, objective, very good.

I pitched for that assignment. I harangued the editorial staff. I made my intentions clear. I was persistent but stopped just short of harassment.

1st July 1997

I remember the date like it was my own birthday. I get the call from the editor in chief telling me that Robert Mitchum had died. Would I like to write his obituary? I wept. I always secretly thought I would. I told him I would be honoured. I told him I would begin post haste. To be truthful, I had written the thing about a year before anyhow. All I needed was to tweak it a little and add the exact circumstances of his death. It was a fine piece of work, if I can be permitted to say so, totally transcendent. My boss liked it enormously.

There were overtures of promotion in the air, better paid assignments. I could build a mighty reputation off of the back of this for sure. Leave for higher profile work in the broad sheets, perhaps even the Guardian. And of course in time America would beckon, I would write for Rolling Stone or The New Yorker and have my work published in volumes. And when I had myself died, a hundred thousand hacks would strive in vain to find the correct combination of words to mourn my passing.

2nd July 1997.

James Stewart died and nobody gave a shit about Robert Mitchum or my fucking obituary. Everybody went James Stewart crazy. Articles were being commissioned left, right and bloody centre and you can bet your life that my name wasn't connected with any of them. Mitchum had been totally and completely shafted by faggot Stewart. James Stewart cut the ground from beneath my feet.

There is a historical precedent for this particular type of divine sabotage. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on exactly the same day. Did you also know that the day after C. S. Lewis died, Kennedy was shot?

One of England's finest religious thinkers and the writer of all those marvellous metaphorical children's stories beaten to the publicity punch by an oversexed man with his finger on the button. A man who got a violent headache every day, if he didn't get a blow job. And think of Diana and Mother Teresa dying within a week of one another.

So? So, I was left with two dead movie stars, a cosmic persecution complex and some really good films to look forward to on the TV over the next few weeks.

For a long time afterwards, I suffered what is theologically known as a "long dark night of the soul". I lost confidence, my work was substandard, I missed deadlines and was very nearly fired.

I deleted my Robert Mitchum video collection.

It was a crucial time. It could have gone either way. I could easily have vanished into the ether of obscure hackery. "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I believe Friederich Nietzsche said that, or Nicholas Cage, I can't remember. Anyway, it's a good philosophy and it carried me for a while.

It took time, but eventually I regained my status as favourite office junior film ghoul, occasional author of non premier league obituaries. I re-established a level of reliability and competence. I was ready to begin again.

As long as I can remember I have been a Franky fan. Frank Sinatra was the Robert Mitchum of music, cool representative of an era but simultaneously timeless. A distinguished career in the movies and on death's doorstep, he was an obituary waiting to happen. Actually, to tell you the truth, I always thought Dean Martin had the monopoly on cool as far as the Rat Pack was concerned, but he was already dead.

I went to work doing my Franky pitch. Dropping his name in conversations and articles, humming "Witchcraft" and other classic, less obvious Franky standards whenever in earshot of anybody of influence. I kept this up for about six months. I was subtly and unobtrusively planting seeds in the subconscious of the editorial staff so that when Mr Sinatra finally sang his final encore, I would be the man that would pay the Chairman of the Board his last respects.

In the middle of all of this I had a family crisis. My mum's next door neighbour fell ill. Her name was Mary Creek. She was an old lady in her eighties and was well loved by all my family. My Mum and Dad have lived in the same house for thirty something years and all the while she had been our neighbour. I think that she had lived there herself since the war. She was a widow and we were her second family. She used to baby-sit for me when I was small and we would talk about films. My tastes were fairly rudimentary at that point, generally confined to monster movies and westerns. She didn't patronise me. She used cowboy movies as a springboard into this marvellous universe of Wayne, Cooper, Marvin, Scott, McCrea and, of course Robert Mitchum. Stewart, the maggot, was never mentioned.

It's stating the obvious to say that she was a formative influence. She encouraged my passion for movies and shaped my tastes. That's what annoys me about movie magazines (mine included) today. We pay lip service to the past. You see it whenever a magazine produces a hundred best list of movie moments, films of the century, best villains, whatever, substitute your own list, the principle remains the same. You'd think that cinema had begun in 1960, since the likes of Renoir, Vigo, Von Stroheim, Ozu or Bresson never get a mention. Oh, there's the token Casablanca, or It's a Wonderful Life (it figures they love that one), but that's exactly what it is, tokenism. I thought we were supposed to educate as well as entertain, but far be it from us to risk alienating our demographic by including a film the readership might never have heard of directed by someone whose name they can't even pronounce.... What was I talking about?

Mrs Creek. I remember. Yes. I always enjoyed her company and she was an indulgent mentor and surrogate Grandma. I grew up and moved to London and after an initially vigorous correspondence, we kind of fell out of touch. I would see her when I went home, but that wasn't very often. When I heard that she was ill and was likely to die, it was a kick in the stomach. This was, after all, a real flesh and blood human being that I had actually known since before I could first remember anything at all