The “theme” was that Grodin would play himself, as an actor who hadn’t prepared and kept messing up his lines. How dry was his wit? Well, the one time he hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, they “themed” the show (something that happens on MUPPET SHOWS more than SNL). If you’ve ever seen a movie with Charles Grodin, you can picture his white face, pinched perfectly as he delivers lines with perfect dry wit. ![]() He never smiles he is always deadly serious. The Red Nose smiles and winks, and wants your love the White Face rejects it. The White Face compels your respect the Red Nose begs for it. the White Face is the controlling neurotic and the Red Nose is the rude, rough Pan. In the circus, the White Face is the controlling clown with the deathly pale masklike face who never takes a pie the Red Nose is the subversive clown with the yellow and red makeup who takes all the pies and the pratfalls and the buckets of water and the banana skins. Almost all comedians fall into one or the other of these two simple archetypes. both deriving from the circus, which I shall call the White Face and the Red Nose. It might be easier to talk about straight man/not straight man using Eric Idle’s terms (1): It’s harder than many think, especially when the other characters sometimes get more attention. Grodin (born Charles Grodinsky) had a few moments of outrageous comedy in his career, but what defines him is the mastery of playing the straight man. OR, you know comedy and you know what I’m talking about. Luckily, I had it backed up in my files:Įither you’re now wondering who he is, finding his name vaguely familiar, or recognizing him and disagreeing with my assessment. ![]() I thought about writing a eulogy, but then I remembered that I wrote about him years ago, on a now-defunct movie site. Charles Grodin just died, which makes me incredibly sad.
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