In Memoriam

February 12, 2026

In Memoriam – Michele Maria Cogley (April 22, 1947 - November 30, 2025)

Way back in the early nineties, I invited my mother to watch a movie that had received excellent reviews, which, in all fairness, was all I knew about it. My mother, always one to be drawn to creative works that excited others, readily accepted. For about two hours, there was complete silence, broken only by the occasional awkward sound of someone shuffling uncomnfortably in their seat. As the end credits rolled, I glanced over to her and asked her opinion. “Well, it was good,” she said, “but probably not the best thing to watch with your mother.” The film: Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant.
 
My mother passed away on November 30, 2025. She was 78. She experienced a world of constant change and chaos, and she adapted to it as best she could. By the time she was 25, she had seen the assassinations of both presidents and civil rights leaders, seen humans walk on the moon for the first time, and watched the horrors of war on live television in a way previous generations had not. She became a hippy, got married, had children, got divorced, and lived through years of financial and personal hardship. Throughout it all, she never lost hope that there was a brighter future ahead, and she worked hard to make that a reality.
 
In life, she remained her children’s biggest fan. Whenever one of us had a performance or competition, we could count on her being in the audience, whether that was an afterschool baseball game or an evening theatrical performance. In one of my earlier memories, I’m standing onstage holding up a cardboard cutout of a flower, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of her standing attentively in the right aisle. Over the years, she would collect numerous mementos of her children’s performances, from pictures to programs with our names in it. Some of these were from local productions that she also took part in.
 
And if you were her children’s or grandchildren’s friends, you were also hers. She took an interest in their lives and formed bonds with them. There are numerous pictures of her at parties thrown by friends of her children, and it was always at the invitation of the friend. If one of her children was in a relationship, she went out of her way to make that person feel welcomed and safe. That so many people from her children’s childhoods showed up at her memorial is a testament to those connections that she forged.
 
My mother loved movies. She and my stepfather saw every Woody Allen movie on the day of its release, and when VHS came out, she made sure we had a VCR and membership to local video stores. We were fortunate to have two local specialty movie theaters that showed films that the main movie theaters did not, and together we saw films like Hoosiers and Ran there, the latter of which inspired an interest in foreign films that remains with me today. She found joy in silly comedies like Troop Beverly Hills and was enthralled in the new worlds offered by Blade Runner and the Star Wars films. When Return of the Jedi came out in 1983, she went into the theater in between screenings and used paper plates to reserve the best seats in the house.
 
In her last few years, television was easier for her to engage in. She found intrigue in adaptations of novels she’d read in her youth, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, and she was drawn into fantasy worlds involving dragons, chivalrous heroes, and ancient gods, which naturally made Game of Thrones and American Gods weekly musts.
 
My mother eventually began teaching elementary school in San Francisco, and she applied the same devotion and dedication to her students that she had to her children. What the school district didn’t provide, she did, whether it was notebooks, pencils, short readers, or art supplies, and over the years, she collected boxes and boxes of teaching material the she created herself. She even co-wrote a book on activities for afterschool programs. She also made an effort to keep up-to-date with what her students were interested in. This meant knowing who the current WWF champion was, what Brandon, Dylan, and the rest of the 90210 gang were up to, and who had won the previous night’s local sporting events.
 
The years brought further change. Some – grandchildren, vacations, retirement – were positive. Others – children moving away, health problems – not so much. She visited Taiwan once after the birth of my daughter, and I’ll always remember the smile on her face as she held her for the first time. Over the years, she made an effort to forge a relationship with her, but it was difficult and ultimately only partially successful.
 
In a movie, this would have been different. There would have been a last-minute phone call or text that conveyed a healing or forgiving message. One of her children would find in her final diary entry an expression of pride in who that child had become or what they had made of their lives. In other words, there would be closure. In reality, true closure is rare, yet death has a way of bringing back the good, not the bad. I remember our walks in Taipei, our early discussions about love when I was a confused teenager unsure if someone would like me, the happiness she showed at my graduations, the embraces she offered my wife’s family, the way her students looked at her when she taught, the quiet moments when she wrote in her diary, and the way she could enlighten you with her insights into time, books, and movies. In our last conversation, we talked about my daughter’s swimming skills, and she marveled at her performance in a school competition. She felt such pride in the accomplishments of others. I’m fortunate to have known her.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

July 29, 2025
 

                                                 Malcolm-Jamal Warner

                                           August 18, 1970 - July 20, 2025

A lot can be said about Malcolm-Jamal Warner. He was a child star who avoided the pitfalls of fame, and he did so while continuing to work steadily in Hollywood for over three decades. He was also a successful musician and had a rather well-received podcast. Like many people of my generation, Thursday nights started with The Cosby Show, and some of my most enduring memories of the show involve Warner’s character, Theo. There was his heartfelt plea to be accepted as a regular person in the series premiere, his learning that he was dyslexic, the gambit of emotions he endured when one of his teachers came to dinner. We watched as Theo’s face lit up at the start of relationships and empathized with him when many of those ended in heartbreak. In Theo, many young boys saw themselves.
 
When a celebrity passes away, it is common for remembrances of them to focus on their careers, on the films they made and the roles they made famous. Some writers, those fortunate enough to have met or known him, have written about the quality of his character and his concern for humanity. I never knew Mr. Warner, but what tells me the most about him is his 1988 book Theo and Me.

 At a time in his life when his career was on the rise, when he could have been enjoying all of the fun and excitement that comes with fame, he elected to respond to the many letters he was receiving from fans who saw in him someone who knew what they were going through and whom they trusted with some of their most embarrassing questions. What they couldn’t bring themselves to ask their parents or teachers, they found the courage to ask a young man whom they felt was one of them, and Warner rose to the occasion, addressing complicated issues such as depression, suicide, and sex.
 
I bought this book as a teenager, and what I remember most about it is the seriousness with which Warner took each letter and the issues it brought up. Throughout the book, he recognized the seriousness of the topics and, when offering advice, acknowledged that he had consulted with experts and carefully considered his words. He genuinely seemed to want to help young people get through what he knew first hand were extremely trying times. I had not written him, but when I heard about the book, it piqued my curiosity. As I read the book, Warner came across as a supportive friend, someone who understood my discomforts and the issues that teenagers were going through, and I felt better. He will indeed be missed.

In Memoriam - Gene Hackman

 February 28, 2025
 
In Memoriam
 

Gene Hackman 

January 30, 1930 - February 26, 2025

 
We were told it would be a big star, and it was. When I first saw Gene Hackman, adorned in jeans, a white t-shirt, and an open button-down long-sleeve shirt, he was flanked by two equally casually-dressed adult men, one of either side. It created the dual picture of a man slightly wary of the public, but open enough to walk around campus in full view of potentially screaming invasive fans. He was in town filming Loose Cannons, a buddy picture with Dan Akroyd about a tough-as-nails police officer working with a partner with multiple personalities. It would not be one of his most successful films. As a working actor, he made a number of questionable films, but his presence elevated even the poorest of them, single-handedly elevating them from atrocious to strangely watchable. (See The Replacements for an example of this.) It’s an impressive feat that only a handful of actors can achieve.
 
Later, at a school-wide assembly, he would answer numerous questions from students on such topics as his views on acting to his role in Superman, and he regaled us with stories about his decision to become an actor and his college roommates, Robert Duvall and Dustin Hoffman. He had the room in the palm of his hand, yet his demeanor remained informal, that of a regular guy who just happened to be a member of an extraordinary profession. At the end of the period, he walked off to thunderous applause from a thoroughly star-struck audience.
 
If that had been it, it would have been understandable. It was after all his fiftieth birthday. And yet, after lunch, there he was, sitting in my acting class and offering aspiring actors tips on their monologues and two-person scenes. One of these interactions in particular has stayed with me all these years. My classmate Maggie had been working on a monologue in which a woman describes her experience at an unsuccessful job interview. The monologue is clever, and every time I’d seen it performed, it had been greeted with laughter and performed as if the speaker were doing stand-up. Mr. Hackman had a different view. After Maggie completed her performance, Mr. Hackman asked her a series of questions, the most intriguing of which was If this happened to you, would you think it was funny? Maggie had to admit she wouldn’t. Only someone without a care in the world would joke about not getting a job, and Maggie’s character was not such a character. Maggie was then asked to perform the monologue again, this time reflecting the fact that the woman’s disappointment in both her actions and their aftermath. The change was astonishing. The message was clear. Be real.
 
Herb Cain, the legendary columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, would later write that while it had been Gene Hackman’s birthday, it was really the students that had received the gift. When news of Mr. Hackman’s death broke, it was this event that I remembered first. I imagine that is true for all of us fortunate enough to be in the classroom that day. He will indeed be missed.
 
A Good Place to Start:
 
The French Connection (1971)
The Conversation (1974)
Hoosiers (1986)
Unforgiven (1992)
Crimson Tide (1994)
Get Shorty (1995)
 

In Memoriam: Dariush Mehrjui

 Gone, but Not Forgotten

Dariush Mehrjui

December 8, 1939 - October 14, 2023

There are days when the world makes little sense. The fourteenth of October was one such day, for that was when someone broke into the home that 83-year old Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui shared with his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar, and stabbed them both to death. Words seem trivial here, and speaking of movies while their family and friends are grieving feels rather heartless.

However, I will be eternally grateful to Mr. Mehrjui for helping to open my eyes to Iranian Cinema, its history, and Iranian culture. I will remember the humanity he gave to the central character of his 1969 film, The Cow, a man struggling to accept both the loss of his pet cow and the status having the only cow in the village afforded him. And I will always be grateful for the chance to see Leila, his 1997 meditation on tradition and its affects on a young woman whose inability to conceive threatens to make her a second-class citizen in her own home. I was both moved and enlightened by these movies, and I offer my sincere condolences to his family. 

In Memoriam - Michael Apted

 Gone, But Not Forgotten

                                   Michael Apted

                      February 10, 1941 - January 7, 2021

 

A great director, a remarkable documentarian.

 

Good Places to Start:

 

The Up Series (1970-2019) 

Amazing Grace (2006)

Moving the Mountain (1994)

Incident at Oglala (1992)

Thunderheart (1992)

Gorky Park (1983)

Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

 

In Memoriam

Gone, But Not Forgotten

March 10, 2020

Max von Sydow

April 10, 1929 – March 8, 2020

A Man Who Etched a Place Among the Cinematic Greats  

Max von Sydow was a working actor, and he was so prolific that he racked up 163 screen credits, two of which he earned from voicing video games. He had a memorable voice, an expressive face, and a towering physical presence that made him a tremendous force on the silver screen. He appeared in masterpieces, as well as B-film fluff that would have been forgettable without him, and his work with Ingmar Bergman is vital to our understanding of the power and possibility of film. He will truly be missed.

A Good Starting Point:

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

The Virgin Spring (1960)

The Exorcist (1973)

Voyage of the Damned (1976)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Pelle the Conqueror (1987)

Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (1990 TV Movie)

Minority Report (2002) 

In Memoriam

February 12, 2020

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Kirk Douglas

A True Cinematic Giant 

December 9, 1916 - February 5, 2020

A Few of His Films That I Recommend (excluding the obvious):

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

Town Without Pity (1961)

Seven Days in May (1964)

In Memoriam

November 3, 2017

Gone…but not forgotten

Robert Guillaume

November 30, 1927 - October 24, 2017

In my youth, one of the joys of the end of the school day was being able to rush home and see my favorite television shows. Usually this consisted of a healthy (or unhealthy depending on who you ask) dose of afterschool cartoons, such as the embarrassingly amusing He-Man, those robots in disguise, The Transformers and The Go-Bots, and the amazing fantasy of Harmony Gold’s Robotech. As the years went by, I added syndicated television to my routine. At the time, this consisted of earlier seasons of prime-time television shows, as well as television shows that had long ago stopped having new episodes. It was in this capacity that I first came across Soap and Robert Guillaume.

My memories of these times have somewhat faded, but I distinctly remember being aware of Benson, Guillaume’s character in the show. He was no nonsense, didn’t feign respect for people who weren’t worthy of it, and was unafraid. During one season, the Tate’s house was haunted, and who do you think it was that went to confront the demon upstairs? At that time it was common for African-American characters to be used a comic fodder whenever ghosts appeared, especially in cartoons. This often meant they would scream and run as fast as they could in the other direction, yet there was Benson going toward the danger and talking about how his mother had taught him to confront problems.

I was not a regular watcher of Soap, and I doubt I understood it all given my age, but at some point I become aware that the character had been spun off into his own television show. If I remember it correctly, Benson was on soon after reruns of Happy Days, another of my childhood favorites. I ended up watching these shows regularly, much to the chagrin of my parents, who always maintained that I watched too much television in the afternoon. They were probably right.

For some reason, Benson stuck with me. I remember fondly hearing my mother hackle at his duel of insults with the much-overmatched Clayton, his frequently sarcastic responses to Kraus, and the genuine support he gave to Governor Gatling. I remember him solving a murder on a cruise ship, as well as an episode in which he learned of the poor service offered to military veterans and subsequently volunteered to be part of the solution. And I remember his joyful proclamation, “I’m the new lieutenant governor!” It almost brought tears to me eyes.

I was a fan. When The Robert Guillaume Show premiered, I made sure to see it, and when Sports Night premiered, I was right there too. I can’t say I was always the most knowledgeable of fans. When I first heard he had been cast as the Phantom, my eyes rolled. To me, he was Benson, and Benson had never given me any reason to think he could sing. How little I knew back then.

Years later, I was browsing in Border’s when I happened across his autobiography Guillaume: A Life, and immediately my curiosity was piqued. Eventually I purchased it, and what I read was a revelation. Here was a man completely open about his professional successes and personal failures. At times, he even turned the book over to the people in his past and let them relate their chapter in his life, and what they said was not always flattering. Guillaume didn’t hide anything. He had achieved fame late in life, and I have always believed he found reconciliation during that time as well, an acceptance of an imperfect past and a determination to make the present and future different.

It is that that I will most remember him for. While I will always have fond memories of his television work, his dramatic moments in Lean On Me, and his memorable work in The Lion King, to me, his life – and his honesty about it – provides a lesson in determination and passion; it is a cautionary tale of the terrible cost that sometimes comes with that and of the never-ending possibility of finding both true love and contentment. Simply put, it is never too late. That message resonated with me then. It still does today.

In Memoriam

Gone, But Not Forgotten

Setsuko Hara

June 17, 1920 - September 5, 2015

An exceptional actress during an exceptional time in Japanese cinema

A link to Patrick Z. McGavin's excellent piece on her.
http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/setsuko-hara-1920-2015 

In Memoriam

Gone But Not Forgotten...

Joan Mankin

May 16, 1948 - September 26, 2015

During my freshman year of high school, Ms. Mankin was briefly an artist-in-residence at the San Francisco School of the Arts. That year she successfully auditioned for the Pickle Family Circus, and on her last day as our teacher, she performed the skit that she auditioned with. I remember the amount of energy she gave to her performance and just how much fun she was to watch. She taught us a great deal that day. She will be missed. 

Rest in peace, Joan, and thanks for the memories.

For a more complete tribute, please read Robert Hurwitt's piece on sfgate.com. A link has been provided below.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Joan-Mankin-beloved-Bay-Area-actor-and-clown-6533689.php  

In Memoriam: Robin Williams

Gone Too Soon

Robin Williams

July 21, 1951 - August 11, 2014

A Comic Genius, A Great Actor, A Good Man

In Memoriam: Bob Hoskins

Gone, but not forgotten

Bob Hoskins

(1942 - 2014)

A talented actor, A true class act