Friday, February 16, 2018

Blind Item #4

This very old permanent A list mostly television actor who most of you know from his movies has always been a bit of a closet racist but as he has aged it has been more overt to the point where several caregivers and others have walked out and quit.

64 comments:

andrea said...

Stan Lee

Unknown said...

Kirk Douglas?

Mean Man said...

Let us get back to focusing on "mostly television."

Tricia13 said...

Robert Wagner

andrea said...

Police were at his house this week over a possible assault to him/from him? I can’t remember exactly

Brayson87 said...

Isn't this everyone's grandfather at some point? lol

Unknown said...

George Jefferson

Tricia13 said...

Chevy Chase is known to be... but I’d say he’s perm A film

T. W. said...

William Shatner

Kendrick Schroder said...

Archie Bunker - the real Archie Bunker I mean.

MichiganMama59 said...

Chevy chase

MichiganMama59 said...

Kirk Douglas?

MichiganMama59 said...

The Real Archie Bunker is dead

Ernie McCracken said...

Carl Reiner?

Unknown said...

Christopher Lloyd?

Anonymous said...

This woudn’t be a problem if undesirables would stay off of his lawn.

Roger Moore said...

"Caregivers." "Mostly TV." "You know from his movies." That rules out Reiner and Douglas, Chase (Does he have caregivers?). Shatner seems right on the edge of "maybe." Does he have caregivers?

Anonymous said...

Look, in the last few years of elderly life the brain breaks down. People that never said a cuss word will start being very vulgar. Paid professional health professionals know this and accept it. Not saying they like it, but they understand the reasons behind the ugly behavior.

Bklynbaby said...

Sorry - seeing my father pass away in his 90s and hearing what came out of his mouth near the end, I give a hard pass to expecting what is said at that point to be consistent with their character. I know my dad normally did not think walls were made out of peanut butter.

ZantiMissKnit said...

Dick van Dyke - very old, mostly television, known from Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Guesser said...

Agree with everyone else who is or was a caregiver to someone in their nineties. But maybe the point was he always was racist.

Kendrick Schroder said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brayson87 said...

I knew an old man who developed a hatred of christmas trees towards the end, he was convinced they were going to burn down his house.

Kendrick Schroder said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Queen of Pith said...

ZantiMissKnit - I agree. It must be Dick Van Dyke. Mostly TV, and has some movies.

Kendrick Schroder said...

@Ernie McCracken Yes, just ask the real-and-not-in-law son, Meathead.

Simon said...

Yea, my dad was convinced we were keeping his money from him and was obsessed with dental floss.

Unknown said...


Dementia is not uncommon after 80. This person may have no idea what they are saying.

Spider Rico said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Spider Rico said...

if you read clearly - "caregiver" - that means a family member or paid helper who regularly looks after a child or a sick, elderly, or disabled person."

What Famous mostly TV actor is sick or disabled or old and ready to die?

Unknown said...

Going with Stan Lee

sandybrook said...

If anyone wants to start telling me what TV shows made actor Stan Lee a permanent A list actor who we know from movies let me know. I'll be here all weekend. He draws comic books people, that's where he gets his legendary status, nowhere else. I DGAF what tv show he cameos on as himself.

NachoCheese said...

The "real" Archie Bunker was Carroll O'Connor and he hated saying the racist stuff, so he argued with Norman Lear all the time about the script. Norman said it on his recent special. I think DVD is too healthy to be the guy, same with Chase.

Do Tell said...

Ed Asner? :(

Do Tell said...

Bob Newhart? But other than Elf, not sure what movies people would know him from.

Do Tell said...

Hal Holbrook?

Unknown said...

George H. W Bush.

Do Tell said...

Not a television star.

Monsieur Pocketrocket said...

Hahahaha +1 sandybrook! The whole time I was reading, that's all I could think of! #payattentiontotheclues

Do Tell said...

Carl Reiner

Sara, Making It Work said...

Those are some weirdly specific clues, and Dick Van Dyke seems to be the best fit!

annieroo said...

As a professional caregiver you see this all the time, sounds like these caregivers were not so professional to me or were mortally offended.

sandybrook said...

The person who fits this best unfortunately is Mel Brooks. We know him more for movies but he is also permanent A list for his tv career before his movies.

MissDe said...

Don't want to think that about van dyke I hope it's not him! Isn't newhart dead?

SkittleKitty said...

Unfortunately, Reiner and Van Dyke are the ones that fit this best, IMO. I'll go with Van Dyke, since he's recently in the news for his brother's death.
I think Rob Reiner would be pissed at his father if he treated folks this way (unless it's dementia; that shit is totally unpredictable).

zerooptions said...

Who is Burt Reynolds?

I'll take "send him to argentina" for 600

kiki71 said...

Kirk Douglas and Stan Lee are 'permanent A list mostly Tv actors' we know from movies. Read the blinds, people! Stan, not a director. Kirk, not mostly TV. Reiner might fit in that he was mostly TV as an actor but we know him from movies.

Anonymous said...

Livia Soprano?

Sara, Making It Work said...

@Sandybrook. Maybe so. But I refuse to believe it. I believe it of Dick Van Dyke.

VDOVault said...

Former family caregiver to a father with dementia here (he died in November of 2015, in his own home on hospice, my task took 10 years & 5 months to complete).

Please allow me to school y'all.

People back in the day were raised with more racist & other -ist beliefs. We have (theoretically) progressed socially, or at least enough to watch what we say around one another assuming our brains are functioning reasonably well.

If an older person gets dementia (and that is ***not*** normal aging but brain failure & death), those thoughts will come out. Especially with Fronto-Temporal Dementia (the so called behavioral variant in particular) or CTE (being seen in US football players, boxers. military vets with evidence of a hit to the head like my father the Vietnam Vet, also physically abused spouses & family members with evidence of being hit in the head, it may not need to be a concussion to cause the tau protein pathology that leads to CTE & dementia and mutant tau is also the culprit in FTD so it can be hard to tell whether someone has CTE, FTD or both without a post mortem autopsy & life history)

The socially aware mature frontal lobes of the brain (right behind your forehead) lose their function & painful stuff will get said. The person with dementia is no longer capable of either empathy (realizing their effect on another human being) or reining their thoughts & emotions in.

This is very painful & embarrassing for the family members of someone with one of these illnesses (whether you are on the receiving end of the outburst or have to apologize to someone else who just got subjected to it) and even a well trained professional caregiver can have a bad day because people living with dementia also have bad days and good days. Like the rest of us.

It is true that by age 85 1 out of 2 Americans likely has a dementia. They may not have a diagnosis, but they can be showing all the signs of the illness.

My hope is that someday people at least realize that dementias are not all Alzheimers & 'memory problems'. That they can strike people as early as their 20s and 30s (these are largely inherited genetic variations running in families) and that people in their 40s 50s & 60s better learn the signs of dementia beyond 'memory issues' because early onset dementias (symptoms showing up before age 60) are increasingly a thing.

Anyway this last prejudice needs to die already. I feel for this person's family because they don't deserve this.

VDOVault said...

Here's what I dream of:

That the care people need now (and will massively need soon because in the next 15 years we are on track for 1 out of 2 American families to be dealing with a person living with dementia) and soon will be understood to be not cut poison or burn like it is for cancers but a much more compassionate response from people who do not have dementia.

That paid caregivers get way more respect (& pay) than the lazy primary care physicians who barely administer a simple 2 page written MMSE test, prescribe drugs without knowing which dementia the person may have, & refer them fast to others to rid themselves of the problematic responsibility of having someone who is going to die on their hands (not soon but they're pitied & ignored rather than acknowledged as ill fellow human beings).

That families of people with dementia need a hell of a lot more support too and to not be ostracized & socially isolated like the person with dementia will be and that the family caregiver at least get Social Security credit for taking this on assuming we don't figure out a way to pay them while they do this socially necessary job.

That insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, whatever we come up with for people under 65 & are not destitute) pay for maintaining people living with dementia in the community (their homes if they want, or more enlightened places than the overpriced medicalized prison-like warehouses we currently consign them to) and that we stop making anyone who comes into contact with a person with dementia into a pariah by association.

That we pay for art therapy, music therapy, pet therapy, speech therapy (helps keep them eating & swallowing longer), physical & occupational therapy, palliative care, hospice programs, companionship, respite care, adult day care (or it's nighttime equivalent for people with dementia who are up all night because their body clocks are failing too), training for family caregivers and pros and not for bogus drugs, psych meds, lockdowns & general ignorant Cuckoo's Nest bullshit. If we find stuff that works through further research (new drugs, surgeries etc) fine but that does fuck-all for someone with a diagnosis right now (or their families).

I have no idea who this is, but it could be any one of us once we hit a certain amount of wear & tear on our brains. Or one of our relatives or friends or loved ones.

I write because I am sick to death of this last socially acceptable prejudice against people who are too sick & by the very nature of their illness incapable of defending themselves & because those who know them best & could say what I am saying here are too damned busy doing their best to spend what quality time they have left living with a person who has dementia caring for them & helping them land as softly as they can from this most cruel & fatal of health blows,

We've already lost, how dare you kick & ostracize us further for something that is not anyone's fault? It's a disease not a moral failing. We've stopped making judgments against people who get cancer & AIDS, depression, substance abuse & mental illnesses. Now it's time to do the same for dementia.

Maria said...

You get a standing ovation VDOVault.

tetsujin said...

Carl Reiner is a closet racist? Nah. And no one knows him from movies. I'm going with the Texas Ranger himself. I know, the ads, but he's nearly 80.

Kno Won said...

If his twitter feed is any indication, no.

Kno Won said...

+1

Kno Won said...

He’s still pretty sharp on twitter

She Nosey said...

👏👏👏👏

Sd Auntie said...

WOW. Thank you VDO!

Jx-Noelle said...

Beautiful presentation of facts and ideas VDO! My Mom died of Alzheimers five months ago... awful experience in so so many aspects.

samechick said...

Beau Bridges

Your humble narrator said...

Thank you so much for writing this. I helped take care of my Dad for 2 years before he died & it was a very scary, often lonely process. You helped sum things up very well. <3

Jen Ty said...

As a former caregiver to a mother with dementia, it can bring a big swing in personality that can be hard to deal with. My mother who was always a steady mellow co-operative social person who became anti-social, would get angry and frustrated and hard to deal with but then I think you have to understand that part of the person knows something is wrong with them and the other part of the person doesn't or can't admit to it. Once on the right meds she was more like her old self. You can also see some people become psychotic, that happened to a friend's father and our local health care system doesn't have many places to put those people institutionally. The father was a former boxer so he had the potential even at his age to hurt someone badly. Dementia comes in more forms that most of us realize.

bubbles65 said...

Absolutely, categorically, not Carl Reiner or Mel Brooks. I worked for Rob Reiner for years, and Carl Reiner is one of the best & brightest men ever to grace show business. Ditto Mel Brooks. Both of them devoted family men, incredibly sharp, students of human nature, deeply decent individuals. No how, no way.

Sharon Mitchell said...

Oh God I hope not Mel.
In his case, I doubt he was secretly racist all along. Closet bigots usually try to act more-tolerant-than-thou, but he made FUN of everything. True bigots don't dare to do that.
So if he is saying weird things, it's his brain fizzling out. I've seen complete transformations in people who are very sick and old. It's their true selves being LOST, not coming out.

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