Elizabeth Hartman…My Hero. Please read!!
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warp9pnt9 — 21 years ago(January 08, 2005 03:17 AM)
I only know enough Spanish to identify the language as Spanish, and not Italian or Portugueue, but I recognize the acronym TCM, and by looking at the post date of 2005-01-07, I can tell we were watching the movie at the same time.
I was flipping through some channels, and I saw this movie. Something immediately struck me as familiar, and I was compelled to watch. Sidney Poitier seems to be the epitome of class and decency in this movie, a relic of a bygone era, and perhaps such dignity exists today only in old movies such as this.
Elizabeth Hartman's performance I scarcely have words for it. It's like a mere mortal trying to describe the unimaginable and infinite and terrible beauty found in and continually created by nature. All I can say is how such things affect me, and that doesn't do it justice.
The writer, we should never forget. These days they are so often placed at the bottom of the list. Quite different from the modern trends, movies such as this come from these amazing works of literature, and further the experience and comprehension of all humanity for all time by using realistic portrayals of ugly problems that exist and persist and providing a snapshot of how beautiful and high the human spirit can actually rise, no matter how low it has been.
Anyways, I remember seeing this movie as a kid, that's why it was familiar. At this time I'm about 28, and I can't remember exactly when I saw it. It may have in fact been different parts at multiple times between age 5 and 15 or so. I didn't watch the entire movie continuously today, but I saw over an hour of it fairly continuous up to the end.
The performances, the scenes, the characters, everything was so poignant, so immediate, so signifigant and so real. I felt what they, the two main characters felt, in a way that I have not experienced with other movies. We see a lot of the old problems and stereotypes in our society which have not gone away, and this movie is critically important to remind us and teach us all over again about things like compassion, dignity, respect, trust; you know, the positive aspects of "humanity", not just the murder and deceipt and corruption and all the other maladies with which we seem obsessed in the modern age.
So anyways, I come to IMDB some hours after I saw the movie, and start reading around. I found that Poitier is still alive, even was involved in something a couple years ago, had about 90 or 100 movies (I forget). Quite impressive, more than I expected but not a big surprise. In the back of my mind I already had a few other movie titles in which he starred. Then I come to Hartman's page, and see a meagre 9 movies I saw the death date, the note about suicide. So of course I opened the trivia and mini-bio pages and read everything and took it all in. Later I read the forums, after several minutes of very focused concentration in what I guess you might call a prayer if you believed in that sort of thing.
I just wish I could send the message out there that this work mattered. In the whole big scheme of things, I'd vote for this person's life as a big dot between the big bang and big crush. But I can't judge that much, I can only approximate how meaningful it was for me alone within my own lifetime.
To read the trivia, and the forum comments, that she was really somewhat like this character she played in her early movie career, truly breaks my heart. She could have been a kindred spirit. Separated by years, careers, and distance and notoriety, there is little I can do. But still there is that connection, as if I had known the girl, if only for a day, for a few minutes.
I remember seeing the Secret of NIMH as a kid, in the movie theatre. I was only about 6, but I remember it had a powerful impact upon me. And now about 22 years later I am again moved. It blows my mind to find out that one person, with 2 out of 9 career movies, could touch a single person's life across so many levels of cognitive and intellectual development, who's first movie can affect adults and the last can affect children, and by comments, apparently some great variation in between. I can not name anyone else who has do238ne such a thing with only 9 movies.
Maybe she was sad, as the industry of creating human emotion seems to have grown smug in it's repugnant cynicism and glowered in it's cruelty all in the name of achieving the goal of perpetually modernistic nihilism. The cancers of such an industry, as reflected by the ills of society, could surely have chewed up, and crushed any person, and in fact seems to have become the whole point, the highlight in someone's career, when their marriages erode and problems from stress become debilitating, we give them millions, a1c84nd beg for more.
To learn that a kindred spirit has fallen is to lose a piece of one's self, if only for a few minutes or hours, yet it changes you for life. "Why did she do it", you ask? I can't say exactly what the specific triggers and stress lev -
breadthink1 — 21 years ago(January 24, 2005 11:55 AM)
Breadthink's reply to: SugarBear(above).
Today is January 24, 2005. How sad it is indeed to hear of the long-ago death of one we have come to admire. One who we had no reason to suspect was not alive. I experience a disappointment similar to yours.
Last night I was watching that old "Secret of Nimh" movie and decided to see who was the voice talent for Mrs. Brisby, because her voice was so distinctive. I just looked it up mere minutes ago, and with that information found out that she has been dead for many years now.
After reading yours and others' comments here today, I will rent A Patch of Blue. Hopefully it won't make me too sad, but I must see it now.
In reading t5b4he details of her death, I cannot help but hear in those details similarities to the lives of people I know in everyday life. I am often afraid to approach a hurting person, lest my efforts make a bad situation worse. Let it be known that it is always better to "worsen" a situation than to allow a sufferer to feel that not a soul in the world cares. Elizabeth Hartman died in 1987, and I never even knew it. Other than the therapist she was seeing, I wonder if anyone knew her life was in such pain.
You know, it is strange to me. A few months ago I heard this really great song and decided to look up the singer, spurred by the same curoisity that made me want to see who voiced Mrs. Brisby. The song was "Waters of March" (which you can hear at the end credits of Jerry Seinfeld's DVD 'Comedian'), and the singer was a woman called Susannah McCorkle. When I found out that information, it, too, came with the sad news that she had committed suicide (in her case, in the spring of 2001) and I never even knew it.
About 3 months ago I looked up a not-so-famous-but-nonetheless-talented young (and quite beautiful) actress. She was in a few episodes of Enterprise and one of Voyager, and was in an episode of Seinfeld. Her name: Kellie Waymire. (Look her image up on yahoo [with the image tab]. Perhaps you'll recognize her?) One day I decided to look her up. It turns out she was also quite the stage actress, which i5b4s how she began acting. Also, sadly, it turned out she died of a cardiac arrhythmia in late 2003; not a suicide, but it's still surprising as she was a young woman of a mere 36.
Three times I look people up to see who they are, what they are doing with their public careers, etc. And each time, they are dead. I know that is a strange thing to be saying at this point, but still, it's unusual, and reading your posted message sounded like you had a similar experiencebeing surprised by learning of the death of someone you'd stummbled into admiring. I just wanted to share with you that I have stummbled across three in a similar way, expecting them to obviously be alive, and discovering the opposite. -
mmitsos-1 — 21 years ago(February 23, 2005 07:50 PM)
I love film, and ever since I heard about IMDB, I have spent a lot of time just perusing, one film after another, one name after another. Whenever I come across an actor, actress, director, whomever, that I admire, or even a more bit part actor or actress from a film I especially enjoyed, and learn that s/he died or committed suicide, I'm just momentarily shocked. There is an actress from "Goodfellas" who died relatively young, I believe in her thirties, whose death was a shock to learn. She was the lover of Ray Liotta's character whom he flipped on the bed in one scene. I remember Liotta once saying in an interview that his back went out for a few days after he tossed her, but I always thought about herbecause she looked like she must have been in pain as well from that throw. And now, I find she's gone. This happens too much when I research on IMDB, and I'm momentarily numbed.
But when I read about gentle-voiced Elizabeth Hartmann just yesterday, I felt so shocked and so very saddened, and still do so. I've always thought that there was a definite sad and somewhat feeble quality to her in both "A Patch of Blue" and "The Group", and now, I find that she was depressed much of her life, or at least, in her later years. I'm going to watch her other filmsI believe she played a member of a brothel in a film with Clint Eastwood. I'm curious as to what her interpretation of that type of character was. It's so many years after her death, but I wish now that she rest in peace. And, per another's comment, I believe in metaphysib68cs, I guess, and perhaps she's acting again, somewhere. But if she is, she's not acting as Elizabeth Hartmann. And, it is she who I will miss. It's so oddI don't even know her, but when I read the news, I immediately thought that I wish I could have gone over to her apartment and talk to her and hold her, for however long it took, not to do it. But only she really knew how she felt, and the limits of despair she could endure. May she rest in peace. From now on, I'm going to be even sadder watching "A Patch of Blue". -
cappyqq7 — 19 years ago(June 24, 2006 01:17 AM)
I liked the quirky part she played in You're a Big
Boy Now, probably not a film a lot of people have seen, but a good film. And, I guess her most famous role
and perhaps best, Patch of Blue.
It's not all that uncommon for actresses of minor
importance or little success to commit suicide,
yet she was a fair5b4ly well known star, and surely a
success story of films. It is very unusual for one
of Ms. Hartman's stature to do this sort of thing.
The ones that come to mind that come close were
not really suicides, but two actresses who were having troubles going from child star to adult, and died either of drugs or depression-related stuff. I'm thinking of Anissa Jones and Dana Plato. Both were
well-known, and both died way too soon.
Still, they didn't exactly kill themselves on purpose, either. I just can't think of anyone else in the
business, an actress, with that degree of fame
and success, killing herself. Her inner demons, whatever they were, must've been very real to her
and it's very sad. I miss her. She was a good one.
Bruce -
mpetko64 — 13 years ago(October 02, 2012 09:57 PM)
MANY ACTORS SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESS AND DEPRESSION. ALAN LADD16d0 TOOK HIS OWN LIFE. GENE TIERNEY AND FRANCIS FARMER(HAD A LOBOTOMY) WERE BOTH PUT IN MENTAL
INSTITUTIONS,JUST TO NAME A FEW.ITS A TOUGH WAY TO MAKE A EASY BUCK. -
mfotheringham — 19 years ago(May 22, 2006 07:21 AM)
Wow-I thought I was the only person in the world to also make that connection
with her. She was so brilliant in a "A Patch of Blue"-in fact, I just
watched it again just yesterday and cried. I realize now that you can't act
or "fake" that kind of sensitivity and vulnerability-I think it really does
have to come from your core and in her case it obviously did. People who
knew her said that she truly was as fragile and vulnerable in real life as
she appeared so many times on the scree5b4n. She had continuing depression
that just got worse and worse and finally totally interferred with her career.
She hadn't worked for 5 years before taking her life. You never really
know what's inside a person-even if they seem to have it all. Why does
it seem all the good ones go so young (I don't mean to sound melodramatic,
but we really have lost so many, so young. Life is just unpredictable.
I am grateful for this website where I can share and relate these
feelings with others who feel like she was almost family, even though
none of us had actually met her-that just shows the power of her
impact as a person!!! -
normmark-1 — 19 years ago(November 30, 2006 10:58 PM)
I just wanted to write and thank you for your lovely song to the beautiful and sorely missed Elizabeth Hartman. It's so touching to see how many people she truly affected. Your lyrics are truly moving and I agree with your friend. You are giving her a gift, as all of us who have been deeply touched by her, by caring her in our hearts!
Lynn -
redsmith7 — 18 years ago(June 14, 2007 11:45 PM)
I do not see myself as a "Fan" though I do enjoy a well made movie.
I came across "A Patch of Blue", like most.. at an early age. I favored Sidney Poitier as an actor because he was my only role model of what a black man was supposed to be. You see I am Bi-Racial.
By that movie I found myself keeping a copy of it at all times. It has the power to bring out the noble side of us all. A side of innocence and chivalry.
Traits rarely found in this day and age.
Tonight, I re-watched it on my laptop. And vowed to look up this actress, only to find that she had past at such an early age. I will admit, this has left me with a ghostly appreciation of her smile and eyes. As I reviewed her career, I began to remember that my ex-wife has a family history of depression. I think
I will call her up to say hello, in the morning.
Ms. Hartman has been in my heart for over 20 years. Now that I look back
the first time I saw "A Patch of Blue", was the year she died.
Red -
scorpio19th — 18 years ago(November 25, 2007 12:36 PM)
Thanks to everyone who posted such beautiful heartfelt tributes to Miss Hartman.
As someone who suffers from depression, I can appreciate her abilities and her strength.
Thanks for sharing.
Never do anything halfway ! -
wyleneh_mother-1 — 17 years ago(May 21, 2008 11:08 AM)
Michelle Ann Fotheringham
Dear Sugar Bear,
That is one of the sweetest and most touching tributes I have
ever read. I think you captured how we all feel but could not put
into words the way you did. You should write a book of poetry-
what a gift. Sometimes, I think the "best ones" leave us so young,
because they are just to sensitive and good for this world. God
Bless You!