The funniest English Spaniard ever to come out of Germany...

... now travels in elephants. I didn't know he'd actually gotten hurt playing slapstick on Fawlty Towers. A professional indeed, and apparently well loved in real life.

Adios, auf wiedersehen, cheers!

Things you need to know #462:

My friend Lazarus Lupin was found dead in his home two nights ago. He and I became friends in middle school, bonding over mutual geekery. He introduced me to bad movies, thud-and-blunder fantasy literature and the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft. He had the bizarrest sense of humor I've ever encountered (and looking at my other friends, that says a lot). We lost touch after high school and only reconnected a few years ago on Facebook and in the blogosphere. I wish I could have seen him one more time.

Travel in elephants, Mike. That is all, maho maho.

Heaven is more happily hootered today

Actress Jane Russell, she of the glorious gazoombas, travels in elephants.

Not only was she lovely to the eye, but it turns out she was also a strong Christian believer and pro-life in word and deed. A class act on screen and off.

Here's the film that propelled her (and her accessories) to stardom, The Outlaw:

Gone to that great buffet table in the sky

Dom DeLuise travels in elephants. Heck, he's probably impersonating one with great success.

He was a comic genius. That's not a phrase I use lightly, but Dom DeLuise was a man who could make anything funny. He just had a presence that inspired laughter.

Eat well at God's table, buddy.

Hats off, gentlemen

There are men, and then there are men:

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you’re not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you’ll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn’t seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He’s coming anyway...

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Miss Brahms is free, I guess.

The delectable Wendy Richards has gone to that great ladies' wear department in the sky.

I never saw her in EastEnders (who in the States watches a British soap opera?), but as the toothsome tart Miss Brahms, she was a heart-winner. Here's how I remember her in Are You Being Served:

Are you Being Served EP3

Charm God, Wendy.

The End of the Story

Paul Harvey... Good day!

Da Buss, St. Peter! Da Buss!

Ricardo Montalban travels in elephants at 88.

I wasn't allowed to stay up very often and watch Fantasy Island, but since I'm not Trekkie enough to think of him as Khan, the image of Mr. Roarke will always be in my head. Interestingly, Montalban thought of Fantasy Island as kind of a purgatory allegory, where people are forced to come to terms with their own flaws and sins. Not quite the orthodox take on purgatory, since not everyone there was to be redeemed, but still a very Christian take on a very worldly show.

His Catholic Christianity seems to have been more than just stained-glass window dressing. he was married to his wife for 63 years. In Hollywood! And this bit I found from a 1978 issue of People was interesting:

Montalban attributes part of the success of his 33-year marriage to adopting the rhythm method of birth control after the arrival of their fourth child. "It's one of the wisest policies the Catholic Church ever made," he explains. "The 10 days of abstinence awakens passion." Their daughter Laura, 32, is an assistant to designer Bill Blass; Mark, 30, is studying anesthesiology; Anita, 28, works in a YSL boutique, and Bill, 25, is a complaint manager for the phone company. A Catholic traditionalist ("The Gregorian chant is more beautiful than a boy and girl with a guitar"), Montalban explains of his marital vows, "I have an intellectual commitment. I play by the rules. Why say 'until death do you part' unless you plan to do it?"

How many Hollywood actors take their Christian faith (if they have any at all) that seriously? Taking a stand, even in his own marriage, for Catholic chastity would result in a blacklist today.
Faithful Christian, faithful husband, active father, hard-working actor. Smiles, everyone! Smiles!

A good and faithful servant goes home

Fr. Richard Neuhaus now travels in elephants. May he spend eternity basking in the Lord's light and warmth.

Particularly poignant is this essay Fr. Neuhaus wrote back in 2000. I think it touches on an aspect of the faith that doesn't get talked about much. These days, we think of life and death in the same way the culture around us does: life good, death bad. But to the Christian, death is not the boogyman we fear sneaking out of our closet. It's not something to be pursued, but it is to be embraced when it arrives at God's behest, because it has no sting. Fr. Neuhaus' time was ripe, the Lord came for him, and everything worked as it should. Those who are left mourn for their loss of him, not his loss of life.

"He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." For the hopeful Christian, life and death are not opposites.

Akubra tip to Mark Shea.

Goodbye, good guy

Van Johnson travels in elephants.*

Nobody would ever mistake Johnson for a dashing leading man, but whatever character he played always seemed to me like someone I'd enjoy sitting down and having a beer with. He came across as the quintessential good guy, whether he was Bogart's not-too-bright but fundamentally decent exec in The Caine Mutiny or Gene Kelly's cynical, tippling sidekick in Brigadoon. Those two roles are what I remember him best for, but he has an impressive list of credits under his name. Time and again, he plays the second banana in an aw-shucks sort of way. (Ack! In looking at his bio, it looks like his marriage was kind of a sordid one arranged by the studio. He married his best friend's wife the day their divorce became final, and Louis B. Mayer paid off the jilted husband with career favors because the marriage enhanced Johnson's own career. Sick and shameful.)

I hope he's somewhere now where I can meet him someday and find out if he's really as nice as he came across on screen.

God bless you, Mr. Sybouts

One of my Sunday School teachers went home last week. I mentioned him in my list of things I like about Protestants. His role was to tell us stories out of the Bible, and boy, did he. Because of him and some others like him, when I needed to find my way back to the Lord, I had the scriptures to fall back on. I'm grateful.

Most of my memories of Larry Sybouts are little details. At Goldendale First Baptist Church in the 70s, we still had an old-fashioned belfry, with a thick bell rope that hung down in the narthex. Mr. Sybouts (I'm still not old enough to think of him as "Larry") used to slip back there before and after services to ring the bell. Once in a while he'd let me do the ringing. Being just a little feller, I would pull down on the rope and it would hoist me back up in the air a few feet. That was the coolest thing in the world at the time.

Mr. Sybouts' trademark was Juicy Fruit gum. He always had a bottomless supply on his person, and every time he encountered a child, out would come the pack and he'd offer us a stick. The last time I saw him I was probably about twenty. I know I was taller than he was bu then. He never even hesitated before proffering the gum.

So Lord, if You happen to see a man in a gray flat-top haircut show up at the gate and offer You a stick of gum, would You take extra-good care of him? And You might let him ring some heavenly bells. He'd love that. Thank You.