"Mose, Mose, Mose kicked the bucket..."

Ole Man Mose Is Dead: The Daily Growler Hero Obits
Another musician of our knowledge has kicked the bucket, though, hell, he had 87 good damn years before he kicked it. Al never made it big in our jazz book, but we certainly respected his "cool" style of playing--like old Blue Eyes liked him, too. So, adios Al.

"My Way" and "New York, New York" guitarist dead at 87

Guitarist Al Viola died after a brief battle with cancer at his home in Studio City on Wednesday, February 21. Viola was raised in a big Italian family in Brooklyn, bringing home an impressive $22 a week during the Depression from his guitar playing. Viola met pianist Page Cavanaugh during a 4 ½ year stint in the army during World War II and formed a trio with bassist Lloyd Pratt. When Frank Sinatra heard the Page Cavanaugh Trio in the late 1940s, he brought them to New York and Atlantic City to perform with him. Viola worked with Sinatra for 25 years starting around 1954, performing on such hits as "My Way" and "New York, New York." Viola also worked with artists such as Julie London, Neil Diamond, and Linda Ronstadt on over 500 albums, and on the soundtracks for Blazing Saddles, Cool Hand Luke, West Side Story, and The Godfather, among others. Viola was 87.

Sources: alviola.com, Associated Press

And then we have the death of a true Daily Growler hero, "The Man Who Really Was Tarzan."

Actor chosen by Edgar Rice Burroughs to play Tarzan dead at 100

Olympic shot-putting champion Herman Brix died Saturday, February 24 of complications from a broken hip at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Brix was born in Tacoma, Washington, on May 19, 1906. He excelled at track at the University of Washington and played in the 1926 Rose Bowl game. In 1928, Brix earned the Olympic silver medal for the shot put. Following his sports career, Brix began acting and was chosen by "Tarzan" author Edgar Rice Burroughs to play the vine-swinger in the independently produced The New Adventures of Tarzan. Burroughs had tired of his character portrayed as a monosyllabic brute in the successful Johnny Weissmuller films. The Internet Movie Database lists over 100 film and television credits for Brix, most under Bruce Bennett, a name he chose to avoid being typecast following his Tarzan role. Brix played Joan Crawford's husband in the 1945 melodrama Mildred Pierce, for which she won her Oscar, and a prospector in 1948's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart. Brix was 100.

So there you go, folks. The Real Tarzan was Bruce Bennett; bet ya didn't know that. And we do remember Bruce in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a great movie, but a greater book, written by the enigmatic and eccentric B. Traven, the European communist rebel wanted in Germany and he fled to Mexico where he said he was a US citizen and became one of Mexico's leading writers and film directors.

Here's the opening paragraph of the novel:

"The bench on which Dobbs was sitting was not so good. One of the slats was broken; the one next to it was bent so that to have to sit on it was a sort of punishment. If Dobbs deserved punishment, or if this punishment was being inflicted upon him unjustly, as most punishments are, such a thought did not enter his head at this moment. He would have noticed that he was sitting uncomfortably only if somebody had asked him if he was comfortable. Nobody, of course, bothered to question him." [B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Time Inc. Book Division, 1963.]

The quote that opens the book reads: "The treasure which you think not worth taking trouble and pains to find, this one alone is the real treasure you are longing for all your life. The glittering treasure you are hunting for day and night lies buried on the other side of that hill yonder."

That's right, folks, the grass is always greener on the other side of the road.

Old Walter Huston acted like he was thinking while he was acting.

thestaff
for The Daily Growler