TALK OF THE TOWN
DEATH OF A DANCER
John Updike
When first he walked into Studio Purgatorio, the afterworld's industrial caferteria-like holding pen for those who have shimmered before mortals on the silver screen, few heads turned for Patrick Swayze. The chuffable star, while still mortal, of such feted filmic feats as "Dirtied Dancing" and "Rhodehaus," Mr. Swayze had, in the months prior to his death from pancreatic cancer earlier this week, lost much of his leading-man looks and hoofer's heft, leaving him gaunt and boneful. Even his former co-stars found him hard to suss; the trapozodic and three-years-passed Jerry Orbach had to be prodded several times, and his brandy Old Fashioned removed from his grasp, before he could be made to recall Mr. Swayze, Mr. Orbach's bemulleted nemesis in the aforementioned "Dancing."
The formerly young and handsome do not rate much in this pantheon of bygone Hollywood lights. Old Hollywood -- those power players and playettes who reigned from the kinescope era through the late 50's, or essentially the timeframe of my own essentialness as a living writer of fiction and topical New Yorker articles -- still holds the numbers here, though all are dreading the days when the likes of Jack, Warren, and Fonda fils et fille appear to tumult these eminent emerita of the Hayes era.
At length Mr. Swayze found a friend in Christoph Farley, his onetime Saturday Night Alive compatriot. Mr. Farley, who has taken on a hangdog demeanor after his erstwhile hero, John Belushi, also of Saturday Night Alive, refused to have anything at all to do with him. "Look, there's an upside to all this," Farley told Mr. Swayze, tossing one bearlike paw over his friend's shoulder and gesturing with the other paw to take in the wide sweep of Heaven. "You can do as much cocaine as you want. It's not great coke, but there's a lot of it." Whether it was despair or his sunken cheekbones that brought a pallor to Mr. Swayze's countenance was not immediately clear.
CONTRIBUTORS
John Updike ("Death of a Dancer," p. 43) was a frequent contributor to the magazine throughout his earthly life. A new book of essays, Ethereal Ephemera: Writings from the Afterlife, March 2009 - August 2009 (918pp., Harcourt-Brace, $35), will be released in December. This entire conceit was stolen outright from Dan Sullivan, Professor of Symbology at UW-Grand Rapids.
DEATH OF A DANCER
John Updike
When first he walked into Studio Purgatorio, the afterworld's industrial caferteria-like holding pen for those who have shimmered before mortals on the silver screen, few heads turned for Patrick Swayze. The chuffable star, while still mortal, of such feted filmic feats as "Dirtied Dancing" and "Rhodehaus," Mr. Swayze had, in the months prior to his death from pancreatic cancer earlier this week, lost much of his leading-man looks and hoofer's heft, leaving him gaunt and boneful. Even his former co-stars found him hard to suss; the trapozodic and three-years-passed Jerry Orbach had to be prodded several times, and his brandy Old Fashioned removed from his grasp, before he could be made to recall Mr. Swayze, Mr. Orbach's bemulleted nemesis in the aforementioned "Dancing."
The formerly young and handsome do not rate much in this pantheon of bygone Hollywood lights. Old Hollywood -- those power players and playettes who reigned from the kinescope era through the late 50's, or essentially the timeframe of my own essentialness as a living writer of fiction and topical New Yorker articles -- still holds the numbers here, though all are dreading the days when the likes of Jack, Warren, and Fonda fils et fille appear to tumult these eminent emerita of the Hayes era.
At length Mr. Swayze found a friend in Christoph Farley, his onetime Saturday Night Alive compatriot. Mr. Farley, who has taken on a hangdog demeanor after his erstwhile hero, John Belushi, also of Saturday Night Alive, refused to have anything at all to do with him. "Look, there's an upside to all this," Farley told Mr. Swayze, tossing one bearlike paw over his friend's shoulder and gesturing with the other paw to take in the wide sweep of Heaven. "You can do as much cocaine as you want. It's not great coke, but there's a lot of it." Whether it was despair or his sunken cheekbones that brought a pallor to Mr. Swayze's countenance was not immediately clear.
CONTRIBUTORS
John Updike ("Death of a Dancer," p. 43) was a frequent contributor to the magazine throughout his earthly life. A new book of essays, Ethereal Ephemera: Writings from the Afterlife, March 2009 - August 2009 (918pp., Harcourt-Brace, $35), will be released in December. This entire conceit was stolen outright from Dan Sullivan, Professor of Symbology at UW-Grand Rapids.
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