His peers in elementary and high-school wouldn't believe it, so my third-son Andrew (named after my paternal Grandpa) had to bring periodically a couple of snapshots to the school-grounds to prove it. Yes, he had really sat on John Forsythe's lap as a tow-headed young boy of six in the spring of 1972. Played "race-against-the-second -hand" with him. Even called him Grandpa, because there was a strong resemblance to my father, and the child got a bit confused. Little kids will do that, and it didn't help that Forsythe, who died last week at 92, was so very grandfatherly. He had practice. His granddaughter, Deborah (from a short first marriage--his second lasted 51 years), was exactly Andy's age at the time.
Additional proof was required as the actor's fame grew back in the late 70s and 8os as the off-screen voice of Charlie on TV's Charlie's Angels (ironically: his very last acting jobs were to reprise that role for the Drew Barrymore movie-versions in 2000 and 2003), AND as Blake Carrington on Dynasty, enormously popular no doubt with many of the parents of my son's classmates as they progressed through school. "I've become a sex-symbol in my sixties," he was quoted as saying.
When he made his 3-day, 2-night appearance that spring at our little college in South Carolina, he was sort of in between careers, in a bit of a slump, really, as far as media-fame goes, which was one reason we were able to fetch him to such an un-commercial venue. The overriding reason, though, was this happy quirk of fate: Our new President was good friends with AA-winning director--for the landmark Marty '55--Delbert Mann. (Also did other notables like Separate Tables, That Touch of Mink, oodles of TV movies.) They were fellow Vanderbilt alums (like me, coincidentally), and Mann was recruited to be on the Coker College Board of Trustees. Hence Forsythe. They had in turn been best friends since TV's "Golden-Age" days when Mann had directed the actor (always with one foot in regular-paycheck television and the other in modest movie success) in several live-broadcast dramas of the day.
Trivia note: not in "Marty" though, which I remember vividly as a 10-yr-old in 1953 watching live on Philco Playhouse with my parents. Mann directed and Rod Steiger starred. Usually I was a captive audience for these high-cultcha TV events; however, this was first "adult" drama that really impressed, but which I didn't quite understand until pubescence had fully set in about two years later, when I saw Mann's movie-version with his fellow Oscar-winner Earnest Borgnine in the lead. Had no idea, then or now, why the great Rod Steiger lost the film-role, or why-in-the-world Borgnine won an Oscar.
But back to Forsythe's visit. Despite his relative downturn at the box-office and in TV fame, there was no lack of rabid fans in Hartsville, SC. Hundreds of middle-aged women flocked to our little campus to see the still-super-handsome star of the long-running Bachelor Father (through 1961, pictured above) and a couple of short-lived series in the 60s like the lately-canceled To Rome with Love. Their husbands too. He was currently narrating the popular the popular nature series, World of Survival, and was just starting his fifteen-year stint (!) as the voice of Michelob Beer--the "Weekends-Are-Made-for-Michelob" era. A lot of voice-over work during this period, culminating a few years later with Charlie.
Anyway, he was almost as big a smash as when the first McDonalds opened in our town that same year. And I was in charge. No fault of my own. New faculty are notoriously elected--as some sort of cruel initiation rite--the chairperson of whatever committee they happen to fall into. Mine was fortuitously that first year the "Special Events Committee." John Forsythe became my very special event. He lived up to his reputation--then, and right up to his death--as one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. (more)
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