Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Because if you can't make fun of C list celebrity suicide...


One of the actors from As the World Turns committed suicide. I don't watch As the World Turns and have never heard of this particular guy, but I have to relate a conversation that surrounded his untimely demise.

Me: Hey, did you see this actor from As the World Turns shot himself?

No Brother of Consequence (without missing a beat): He'll be back

That, my fine friends, is comedic timing.











No 1 of Consequence

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I looked up Benjamin Hendrickson's biography. It's fascinating.


Long depressed since the death of his beloved mother from cancer in 2003, Hendrickson had been filming soap scenes on "As the World Turns" in which his TV daughter was dying -- and that may have been the final straw to take his own life. On July 1, 2006, he shot himself in the head at his Huntington home. His last appearance on ATWT was on July 12th.

In his acceptance speech for his 2003 Daytime Emmy for Support actor, he thanked his dying mother for her scrimping and saving for his college education and resultant career.


Also this:

Was in John Houseman's first graduating drama class at Juilliard along with Patti LuPone and Kevin Kline. Was also the founder of The Acting Company with Houseman.

He appeared on Broadway in the early 1980s as a replacement in the title role of "The Elephant Man" and in the 1984 revival of "Awake and Sing!"


So let's see... on the whole, was this a good life or a bad life? A failure, because he didn't have the career Kevin Kline has had? A success, because how many other actors were in that first graduating class who never made it as professional actors, let alone on Broadway and a recurring role on a soap opera, which probably made him richer than most of us will ever be?

There's a tearjerker of a Lifetime movie in there somewhere.