Writing about the recently deceased is always a tricky process. The dead have families and friends in mourning, to which I can personally relate. There is no exception to this in the case of Ron Silver, whose talent I admired and whose post-9/11 politics I disagreed with. But when the dead are turned into political pawns by the living, a decent respect for the Opinions of Mankind (to borrow a phrase) demands a rebuttal.
In yesterday's edition of The New York Post, Rupert Murdoch's money-losing print outlet in the Big Apple, a certain gossip column best known by its page number ran an item to the effect that Silver was "blacklisted" after he spoke on behalf of former President George W. Bush at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Silver himself was quoted as saying the following: "After I made that speech ... Hollywood and Broadway dried up on me ... The phone stopped ringing . . . nada . . . not a thing." You can see the item by clicking on the following link:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03172009/gossip/pagesix/career_suicide_159893.htm.
Unfortunately for this column, and the dissemblers in charge of writing it, the Internet bears witness to a somewhat different story. Silver hardly had a thriving career on Broadway. He won acclaim for his performance in David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" in 1988, but he only appeared in two shows before that, and none after (http://ibdb.com/person.php?id=60081). His entire performing career on Broadway spanned a total of roughly 30 months in slightly over 30 years; it ended back when Bush's biggest ambition was buying the Texas Rangers.
As for film and television work, Silver's entry in IMDB.com (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0798779/) is hardly the history of someone barred from Hollywood's studios. There are no fewer than nine entries for the post-2004 period, including one project that was in pre-production at the time of his death. And this, of course, includes his role as Bruno Gianelli on that well-know icon of liberal television viewing, "The West Wing."
Why, then, did Silver say what he said? At this point, who knows? There may have been incidents that, rightly or not, created for him the perception that there were producers who wouldn't hire him because of his politics. Then again, all actors feel that they should be working all the time (I'm no exception to this rule).
What matters is the willingness of The Post to use its minions to fill its pages with willful distortions of the truth, for no other reason than to desperately attempt to prop up its own discredited political agenda. Perhaps one shouldn't expect more from a paper that ran an editorial cartoon comparing President Obama to a monkey, and whose losses under Murdoch easily run into nine figures. But that doesn't mean that it should be allowed to exploit a human tragedy for self-serving ends.
The facts are the facts: liberals, no matter how much they disagreed with Silver's politics, respected his talent and put it to good use. They, along with those who were close to him personally, are prepared to let him rest in peace. The Post should do the same.
And the gossip columnist? IMHO, he and his assistants should be deep-Sixed.
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