[august]

This is just so sad.

Someone - I believe Fredric March once said of Basil Rathbone (known as the dashing Romeo and Robert Browning in his youth, and later the cerebral Sherlock Holmes, the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham , and the titular "Son of Frankenstein") - "He was a good actor and a nice guy."

That pretty much sums it up.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him at a convention or anything, but I had two tiny interactions with him. In December of 2000, some months after "Jack of All Trades" had been cancelled, Stuart Devenie, the actor who had played the Governor, expressed interest in doing a celebrity chat with the show's fans, as a sort of farewell/thank you/closure kind of thing. He knew fellow "Jack" co-star Stephen Papps would be willing to participate via telephone, and he was staying at the home of his friend actress Darien Takle, so he developed the notion of various mystery guests showing up, and he plugged the idea at the Auckland Theatre Co. Christmas party the night before.

Sure enough, his old buddy from Christchurch theatre days, Kevin Smith, called up on what would have been for them Sunday afternoon. Smithy was getting ready to take his kids to see "the Grinch," and asked the chatters if they thought he needed another drink before he went! He answered tons of questions about Herc + Xena, and was generally witty and irreverent. He seemed especially interested in the weirdness of the Bush-Gore election, and had watched Gores's recent concession speech, observing that it was as if the losers of the Oscars had to make speeches too. (A partial transcript transcript is at http://www.angelfire.com/sc/joxerfan/devenie.chat7.html ) Stuart had the idea that if he held two phones receivers together, Smithy and I could talk, but the reception was terrible, so I only spoke to him briefly, but I'll never forget his cheery "Hallo, Mate!"

Two months later, Cam Cooley, an American actor living in NZ was cast in a small part in "Soul Possession," and I asked him to sneak a picture of himself on the Xena set with a sign or something saying "Hello, August." Cam did one better, and got Kevin Smith to pose with him, and the picture remains one of my prized possessions.

There's no reason why Smithy could not have been the next big breakout star from NZ, given the "hunk" factor combined with his extraordinary, stage-trained talent and his excellent singing voice.

And from what I understand, he was the most settled, down-to-earth family man there ever was.

He will be greatly missed.