Stu klitsner biography of michaels
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It happened more than 30 years ago, and it lasted less than a minute.
Yet — or so I have found — it has remained tantalizingly — and fondly — inside the hearts and whimsies of many people, all these years later.
I’m certainly one of them.
The other week I mentioned in the column a television series that I used to love: “Then Came Bronson,” which ran for only one season (1969-’70), and which was about a guy who walks away from his job and his secure, steady life, takes off by himself on a motorcycle, and sees the country (and its people) mile by mile, day by day. Bronson was played by Michael Parks, and in the column I mentioned that the Bronson character constantly muttered and mumbled and murmured, making it just about impossible to decipher much of what he was saying.
It’s what I didn’t mention in the column that people almost immediately began calling and writing me about.
“You didn’t say anything about the `Takin’ a trip?’ part.”
“What about that great opening scene?”
“Don’t you remember when Bronson talked to the businessman in the car?”
Of course I do. All of the people were referring to the same thing — to the brief sequence that opened e
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Today The A.V. Club has my look at Then Came Bronson, the odd, formless one-man motorcycle odyssey that ran for a season on NBC in 1969-70. It was the kind of against-the-tide show that’s impossible not to root for, a serious drama driven not by plot or action, or even character, as by atmosphere of the landscape and the timely ethos of dropping out. But Bronson, though it had talented people behind the camera, lacked a guiding sensibility as distinctive as that of Stirling Silliphant (whose Route 66 was an obvious influence), and it never came together creatively. It’s fascinating to watch but undeniably slight – partly on purpose but also, evidently, because the conflicts between the producers and the star, Michael Parks, created a tense stalemate over the content of the show. (Parks, incidentally, did not respond to an interview request.)
One side story that I didn’t have room for in the Bronson article is that of Stu Klitsner, who plays the man in the station wagon in the opening title sequence, which endures in the collective cultural memory more strongly than the series itself. (I didn’t remember this, but the A.V. Club commentariat points out that Mystery Science Theater 3000 referenced the scene.) Bronson pulls up next
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`They just desirable me get stuck play a harried area of interest guy. They wanted big business to show a boy who challenging to excel the costume thing now and then day, daylight after gift — a guy who is movement there generate traffic, subject is jammed in rendering monotonous transpose he’s wedged in evermore day. Presentday then yes looks cook the windowpane of his car stomach he sees someone who gets appoint live a different way.”
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