A reader wants to know my opinion of the death of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker in the passenger seat of a 610 hp Porsche. The actor's financial adviser hit a light pole on which was mounted a "45 mph" sign.
Hey, I've been trying for two days to come up with something, but it all seemed kind of morbid.
What do you want me to say? It's awesome how Paul Walker died just like a character in Fast and Furious would have? It's like how director Tony "Top Gun" Scott killed himself in a spectacular suicide jumping off a giant suspension bridge?
My real problem is not bad taste, which is not something I worry much about, but because I can't think of a third movie personality besides Paul Walker and Tony Scott to die in character, and you need three of something to be a Thing. (Coming up with examples is something I do worry about.)
Maybe Bing Crosby signing his golf scorecard (a fine 78, almost shooting his age) and then dropping dead right off the 18th green, no fuss or muss, but that wasn't as cinematic. Lots of actors die in character if their characters are fat (James Gandolfini, John Candy) or fat and out of control (Chris Farley), but that's kind of depressing.
James Dean died in his Porsche while driving to race it at Laguna Seca. But he hadn't made a racing picture yet. Steve McQueen and Paul Newman made racing pictures, but didn't die in car crashes in real life. (McQueen probably wouldn't have minded going out at age 40 in a fast car.)
Brandon Lee died on set sort of like his father Bruce.
Tupac Shakur.
Kurt Cobain's three hits on "Nevermind" all mention guns.
Leslie Howard died when the Nazis shot down his airplane in 1943, perhaps because they thought it was Churchill's plane. That's cool, but it doesn't have anything to do with Ashley Wilkes. But it's kind of Scarlet Pimpernelish, so there's that.
Looking it up, it appears there are numerous
theories that Howard's 1943 trip to Portugal and Spain may have had something to do with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden using Howard to get a message through to Gen. Franco. (This doesn't strike me as implausible -- the British mobilized more of their cultural talent than Americans did, and the idea of using a charismatic movie star in a diplomatic role isn't implausible. During WWII, top British generals had David Niven, a Sandhurst ex-officer turned Hollywood movie star turned officer, sit in on their meetings with American brass to defuse tensions and to exploit Niven's knowledge of how to charm Americans.)
It's also widely speculated that the Brits decoded the German orders to intercept the commercial airline flight from Lisbon to London, but did nothing in order to preserve the secrecy of Enigma.
So,
Scarlet Pimpernel indeed. The
Scarlet Pimpernel was Howard's 1934 vehicle about an 18th Century effete English aristocrat who is really a secret agent who sneaks into Revolutionary France and smuggles prisoners out ahead of Robespierre's guillotine. But, who really knows?
So, even though we can't know for sure, we'll say Leslie Howard is a go for third on this list of movie people who died spectacularly in character.
What would be appropriate deaths for other Hollywood figures? A ferocious parasite could pop out of Ridley Scott's abdomen? James Cameron could die when a giant truck smashes into an ocean liner in an open hearth steel mill in outer space? Daniel Day-Lewis could be beaten to death with a bowling pin for no particular reason?
Also, in case anybody's wondering about my opinion on the Alabama-Auburn game, I didn't see it, but it sounds like the best 4th quarter ever: not just the final three possessions in the last minute, but the preceding 99-yard-pass that looked for 15 minutes like it would win A.J. McCarron the Heisman, the two 4th and 1 stops, and the blocked field goal. That's a lot of plot twists for one quarter.