Friday, June 18, 2010

The Square or the Beanpole

There are two main physiques for men. Beanpole and square. I like square - for example, William Shatner (in his prime, of course!) Others like beanpole - Leonard Nimoy.

The Big Bang Theory debuted in 2007. Although I am a sf geek, I didn't want to watch it, because of the premise I had read, 4 "geeky" - i.e. highly intellgent guys, and one dumb blonde. I found that stereotyopical and kind of offensive.

Well, a couple of days ago I was doing some kind of surfing at YouTube, and for some reason one of the responses was a Big Bang Theory video. [I say "for some reason" because, to tell the truth, even though it's only been a couple of days, I can't actually remember specifically how I found the show - I'm assuming I must have found it during a YouTube search for something else.) I watched it on a whim, enjoyed it, and so started watching more of the vids, before eventually going out and buying the DVDs for the 1st and 2nd seasons.

Jim Parsons as the asexual, Asperger-syndrome possessing, egocentric theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper steals the show and is my favorite character, for all that I don't find him physically attractive in that way. (He's a tall beanpole, and losing his hair.) The shorter, more squarely bit Johnny Galecki as Dr. Leonard Hofstetter is more my cup of tea.



But it is certainly all in the eye of the beholder. Take for example the actor D.J. Qualls, who has a guest-starring role in "The Loobenfield Decay." Now, in real life the guy might be incredibly sweet, but physically, he is just not preposessing at all. He's skinner than Parsons, with pipestem arms. So much so that I looked at his outfit, the cut off sleeves, and thought to myself, my god why did the warddrobe person allow allow you to wear a shirt without looooooong sleeves?



But I check the message boards for this actor, and there's actually a woman (well, presumably it was a woman) on there who says, "I like super skinny guys. I think he's hot!"



And it just goes to show, to each his own.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Steve Ihnat Was a Nice Guy

Well, after an almost three month absence from posting my thoughts on actors, I decided I should get back to posting on this blog. Unfortunately I haven't had time to do any more work on my Ihnat tribute site (http://volcanoseven.com/BriefCandle) ... I have several more videos of is work and if I ever get time to do screencaps I will, but "the real world" has been intruding for several months, and it doesn't look as if it's going to stop intruding anytime soon, and so I just don't have the time or the energy.

Anyway, had an email chat yesterday with someone - an actor - who had known Ihnat slightly.

It's been over 30 years since Steve Ihnat died, and so of course memories of him are rather dim (except in those who actually knew him very well, like his wife Sally Ihnat-Marshall or Gary Clarke, of course).

I've talked/emailed with a couple of other people who knew him only casually, and they all state categorically that he was "a nice guy." When I press them for specifics, they can never remember any (well, it's been thirty years), but they just have that general impression. Such it was with this guy yesterday.

I'm assuming that if Ihnat never said "Hi," always ignored others and wanted concessions made for him by directors, other actores, etc., i.e. "had a big head," etc., they would have been left with the impression that he was a jerk.

So he must always have been pleasant, easy-going guy whom it was nice to be around!

So obviously it's just an inference on my part, to try to deduce what the "real" Steve Ihnat was like, but it's nice to think that he was, in real life, "a nice guy."