Skip to main content

Death of An Unknown Detective



Actor Ralph Waite, who passed away earlier this month at the age of 85, didn't know it, but he starred in at least three detective stories. They were written by yours truly and, of course, never published, but they exist. Three stories completed, one pretty much done but in need of editing, and strands of a few more in-progress. That, dear reader, is the life of an old detective who was portrayed by Mr. Ralph Waite.

I wrote for pleasure, at leisure, beginning in 1984. It wasn't enough to simply read short stories, novels, or to watch a good story on television -- I wanted to create them. So, I did. There were lots of influences: old Vincent Price horror movies, Gothic episodes of Doctor Who such as The Talons of Weng-Chiang and the novels of P.D. James. In 1989, I read the novelization of the Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson Batman movie and decided, "I'm going to do this one better," and wrote a 32-page story about Foxbolt, the superhero in one of the comics I wrote and drew.

In 1992, I felt the urge to write a proper detective story. This was during the height of my love for the genre. I was really into reading P.D. James novels and watching the British mysteries of Campion, Morse and Poirot on PBS. Detective Alexander Robertson was kind of a mixture of all of them. The premise that my 17-year-old mind devised was that he was a retired cop who'd won the lottery and was living the good life. He had a friend, a portly gentleman named Mr. Plum, and they would solve mysteries together as amateur sleuths.

'Where is Ralph Waite in all of this?' I hear you ask. Well, he was Alexander Robertson, at least in my mind. I thought of the old, retired detective as someone white-haired, with a bit of a gooseneck, a gentle yet authoritative voice, and kind but wickedly discerning eyes. This was my detective. This was Alexander Robertson. I can't attest to how good the actual stories were. I'm a little biased, especially to a younger teenage self, but I one thing I can say is that Mr. Waite did an excellent job in the role.

He never knew that he did, of course.

RIP, Alexander Robertson.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing).  It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....
Post a Comment
Read more

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.
5 comments
Read more

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what
Post a Comment
Read more