A Star Is Gone – the memory remains… by Anon (a teacher in an IJ school)
During the past two weeks Hollywood bade farewell to several of its iconic stars. Among them -Julie Andrews 89, Carol Burnet 91. Sophia Loren 90 and Meryl Streep 75. I admired them and was entertained by them ‘one time when I was young. Like a little child sitting in front of a Christmas tree admiring the colours and the glitter allowing them to transport her to a world where dreams come true somewhere over the rainbow, I allowed decades of my life to slip by.
The Sound of Music still tugs at heartstrings as Julie Andrews prances in not-so-young hearts. A few Malaysian nuns who left the Convent (inspired by JA? ), actually found their Capt. Von Trapp.
Carol Burnet’s shows transported me to a world of laughter and tears of joy lightening the sadness of fears and anxieties of young love and internecine rivalry. Laughter is balm for the heart.
What intrigued me about voluptuous Sophia Loren dead at 90 was the fact that she was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic – Italian (how much more Catholic can you be?) Her career of 70 years in showbiz as well as her personal life rivals that of any crazy motor biker on our Malaysian highways. Pin up girl, gangster moll, seductive siren , faith-driven fidelity (as in the movie Sunflower where she doggedly looked for her husband conscripted to fight in the war against Russia and searched for him all over Europe after the war, believing he was alive – indeed he was alive but remarried …to a Russian woman. In the movie, she walked away quietly not wanting to disrupt him in his new love). Sophia Loren could play the roles of Saint and Sinner with ease.
In between did she find herself? I ask myself the similar question. I too can / do play many roles on the stage of life. Where is my redemption?
I enjoyed the movie ‘Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep. Fittingly serious and quietly humourous in all the movies she starred in, I saw in her sedate demeanour and subtle humour a part of myself. So as I read the obituaries of these stars I wake up, post Christmas morn to the diminished glitter of a passing world and myself losing hold of Rudolf and the reindeers as the summer sun melts away winter snow.
Oh…another bolt from the blue . A well-known politician and former finance minister on our soil passes away at age 86, short circuiting his trial for financial fraud. What next for MACC ? Who will preside at the trial in the hereafter? Eulogized by 99-year old fellow politician of yester years, himself beyond the clutches of human justice, the funeral was attended by political glitterati.
So, what is life all about for the non-glitterati? Let me quote Meryl Streep, a former Roman Catholic, when she was questioned at the end of her Hollywood career – where does she draw consolation and strength in the face of ageing and death…
“Consolation? I am not sure I have a belief. There is a power of the aggregate human attempt- the best of ourselves in love and hope and optimism- you know the magic things that seem inexplicable. Why are we the way we are. I do have a sense of trying to make things better. Where does that come from? “
AMEN.2024, (Anon – a teacher in an IJ school)
