Volume 23, Number 14 · September 16, 1976
Slim Pickens
By Mark Crispin Miller
The Oxford Companion to Film
edited by Liz-Anne Bawden
Oxford University Press, 767 pp., $24.95
The Filmgoer's Companion
edited by Leslie Halliwell
Avon, 4th ed., 873 pp., $6.95 (paper)
According to The Oxford Companion to Film, Chester Conklin (d. 1971), Charlie Ruggles (d. 1970), composer Leigh Harline (d. 1969), and art director William Cameron Menzies (d. 1957) are actually all still alive. This is not widely known. Nor is it a familiar fact that Charlton Heston is 'a well-known liberal,' an epithet that might have seemed more appropriate when William Cameron Menzies was known to be living. The Oxford Companion also alludes to William Bendix's 'distinctive rasping voice with its thick Brooklyn accent, sturdy build, and craggy features,' which ought to surprise everyone. Bendix's death (1964) is recorded, but we are told nothing of his distinctive voice. Is it still living? Does it know where Chester Conklin is?
Review, 3106 words
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