Deaths of celebrities, it is said, come in threes. That was certainly the case this past month for me, as three famous people who made an impact in my life, as well as the lives of others, passed away. Not prematurely, thankfully. All of them lived very full lives and left behind legacies that, although complicated in certain ways, will have a lasting positive impact on many people, especially in the arts.
I'll begin my discussion of those legacies with the member of the group who, for me, has perhaps the most complicated legacy: Stan Lee, the co-creator of the Marvel comic-book universe. The complicated part is, in fact, summed up in that word "co-creator."
Lee was a tremendous story-teller and promoter, who worked for many years in the comics business when comic books were considered a medium strictly for kids, and one no self-respecting adult would confess to having as a source of pride, let alone as a source of employment. In fact, Lee admitted that there was a time when he was ashamed of the industry that ultimately made him both rich and famous. Bur those riches and fame began to accumulate in the 1960s, a time when Lee sensed (correctly) that cultural boundaries were shifting, especially the ones that defined "high" and "low" culture. He felt that there might be room in the comics for stories that dealt with topical issues and with the struggles of heroes who, while having super powers thrust upon them in a variety of ways, were still very human, with very human flaws and disappointments.
And so those superheroes became, over the course of the '60s and the decades that followed, household names to millions of comic-book readers, and, ultimately, mass-cultural phenomena when the technology of film making made it possible to show the adventures of these heroes in films and on TV. And Lee's talent for story-telling made all of that possible. As well as his talent for promotion. He was not just Stan Lee, editor and writer. He was Stan Lee of "Stan's Soapbox" in every Marvel book, using the space to promote current issues--and I'm not just talking about the ones with superheroes. He was willing to jump into politics, which helped him to expand the Marvel market from grade schools to college campuses and beyond. This is without a doubt the best-known, and best-written example, and one cited frequently in the many obituaries of Lee.
He also used his Soapbox to promote "the Bullpen," the small army of creative talent whose contributions to Marvel were no less memorable than Lee's. This was especially true of the artists, who created the "look" that defined a highly visual medium and continues to do so down to the present. And this, sadly, is where the legacy becomes complicated. As Lee became more of a celebrity and, in the process, more of an executive, he became less of a colleague and more of a boss, one who was not there for his creative team when some of its members badly needed him. This was most egregiously the case with Jack "King" Kirby, the artist who did more to define the Marvel "look" than anyone else. When Kirby's heirs attempted to claim the copyright (and related royalties) to much of Kirby's work for Marvel, Lee supported Marvel's assertions that Kirby was an "employee" of Marvel and therefore didn't own the rights to his art. He did this despite an earlier statement in a deposition to the opposite effect.
Ironically, then, Lee, like many of his co-creations, was a flawed hero, one who, in the case of Kirby and by extension other Marvel artists, through his co-creators under the proverbial bus at a point when they could have used his help in a significant way. Does it make his live not worth celebrating? Frankly, I'm not in a position to say that. If I do, I'm effectively denying not only the value of his writing, but the value of the art by the artists he injured as well. Together, they created books that helped children like me, children who had trouble fitting in to the world around them, feel that, one day, the world might be a place in which "fitting in" was possible. They gave me the patience, and the confidence, that one did not have to be "like everyone else" in order to matter. Today, no matter how badly the Lee-Kirby relationship ended, I, along with millions of others, have the two of them to thank for that.
Less complicated, perhaps, are the legacies of Douglas Rain and William Goldman. Rain had established a solid career as a Shakespearean actor in Canada when Stanley Kubrick made a last-minute decision to cast him in the rule of HAL, the computer that wasn't programmed to keep a secret and then was given one to keep, leading him quite logically to try killing off all of the astronauts on the spaceship he was designed to operate. While he may have been a last-minute choice, he was an absolutely inspired one. Rain managed to combine the tonal neutrality one would expect from a machine with the quiet intensity of an entity experiencing intense conflict. Even lines as simple as "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" were charged with a sinister effect that was as effortless as it was effective. Rain's accomplishment has informed my efforts to develop a career in acting, by reminding me that acting is an art that must seem effortless to work, and that, when it does, there truly are no small parts.
As for Goldman, his work as a screenwriter and as a novelist speaks for itself. Alas, when it came to the stage, he did not enjoy the same level of success he attained in those other arenas. He wrote two shows for Broadway with his brother, James, who would go on to write the libretto for the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies," and neither of those shows was, to put it mildly, a hit. But Goldman found Broadway success in a very different way, by writing "The Season," a show-by-show analysis of the 1967-68 season on the Great White Way that used each show to analyze a different aspect of American theater. Despite being 50 years old this year, "The Season" does not feel dated in the least; if anything, Goldman was especially prescient in foreseeing (in the last chapter, "What Kind Of Day Has It Been?") the demise of the impresario model of producing in favor of corporate/not-for-profit producing. Thus, from Goldman's experience, I learned the value of mining one's failures in order to find a different kind of success.
I miss all three men very much, especially Lee and Rain, whom I will now never meet. I got to see Goldman speak in my student days, during which he talked about his experiences at Oberlin (my alma mater as well), and we had a very brief exchange as a result. I'm grateful for that memory. But I'm even more grateful for the work all three men left behind, and the value that work will continue to have long after I'm gone. I would be thrilled if anything I managed to do before I die managed to be a fraction as valuable as what Lee, Rain, and Goldman accomplished.
But I would be even more thrilled if we as a nation can get past the current wretched moment, and build a world worthy of what they accomplished.
No comments:
Post a Comment