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It always infuriates me when I read a review on this site and some reviewer classifies some Johnny Come Lately who's only been in show biz 5 or 6 years as one of the all-time greats. Horse hockey! You've got to be in the game longer than a few...
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It always infuriates me when I read a review on this site and some reviewer classifies some Johnny Come Lately who's only been in show biz 5 or 6 years as one of the all-time greats. Horse hockey! You've got to be in the game longer than a few years to be classified as an all-time great. Like about 30 or 40. Such is the case with George C. Scott. He WAS an all-time great. Tony Randall called him the greatest American actor ever. Jack Lemmon concurred. They won't be saying this 40 years from now about Ashton Kutcher.
A critic once called Scott a towering inferno of rage and intensity. The man himself was full of contradictions. He accepted Emmy and Tony awards yet famously declined an Oscar because he felt the competition was little more than a beauty contest and a meat market. He eschewed Method actors yet in many of his roles he seemingly managed to "out-Method" them. He frequently scared and intimidated co-stars yet most of them spoke fondly of him.
If you want to watch the quintessential Scott performance on screen you need go no further than his Academy Award performance as Patton but he also had quite a few good television roles as well. In the 1984 remake of A Christmas Carol, Scott put a fresh and different spin on the character of Ebenezer Scrooge to widespread critical acclaim and he won an Emmy for his performance in the 1970 Hallmark Hall of Fame drama The Prize. Scott's TV work became sporadic as his movie career took off but what he gave us on the small screen is still a glimpse of his brilliance as an actor.
So don't anyone get on here and proclaim some doofus pretty boy who's only done one series and who's only real talent is for flexing his biceps as one of the all-time greats. Don't insult my intelligence like that. The likes of Ashton Kutcher and Jesse Metcalfe aren't all-time greats. The likes of George C. Scott are.
RIP, Mr. Scott.
Posted dec 2, 2005 12:22 am pt
