Ben Gazzara's still alive

I guess because I've seen him offed in the climactic scene of "Road House" way more times than I should admit, I thought that Ben Gazzara has probably passed on somewhere along the way. Nope, he's an apparently healthy 80. He also had throat cancer (like Michael Douglas) in 1999, but pulled through.

Ben Gazzara (Wikipedia)

Going back as far as I can remember him, I vaguely remember the TV show "Run for Your Life". I also strangely remember the movie "Saint Jack", even though I'm pretty sure I never actually saw it - I think I know why, I think it was previewed in Playboy. It probably was, because it was produced by Playboy Productions. A bit of Googling reveals... yes, it was, in a fairly memorable issue, December 1978, the first one with Farrah Fawcett on the cover and centerfold Janet Quist, who I didn't originally think was that great but whom I since have realized was one of their best. The movie was actually quite good, somewhat of a comeback for Peter Bogdanovich (this was before Dorothy Stratten, but not by much), and won a few modest awards. It was also "literary", based on a novel by Jack Kerouac.

Gazzara and Denholm Elliott in a scene from "Saint Jack"













Amazing what you can remember when you research one topic that just happens to occur to you, isn't it?