REMEMBRANCES OF ROBERT CULP

A Final Good-bye To One of My Personal Heroes

I suspect you’re never truly ready for it when people you love die.

I don’t think it matters if it is a long time coming or suddenly.

When you learn of the death, the reality of the death, the permanence of it, the immediacy of the loss is like a sucker punch to the gut.

At first news, it takes the wind and heart out of you.

I felt that way when someone wrote me on Facebook that Robert Culp had died.  I guess the person thought I knew.  I didn’t.  I read the words; I understood what I read; but there was a part of me that couldn’t comprehend them, and didn’t want the statement to be true.
How could this be?

Bob was always so vital, so creative a person, and surely, yes, his work would live on, but you knew he was always thriving to do something new, to do something he loved, whether it be writing, or directing, or acting, or a cause he thought worth taking up the blade for!

One of the upsides of being a writer is that sometimes you get to meet people who influenced your life, who were your own personal heroes, and that’s been true for me over the years.  I had the chance to meet Evan Hunter/Ed McBain, who taught me about New York City long before I ever lived here, and Grace Bradley Boyd (Mrs. Hopalong Cassidy) who was another great story-teller and human being and as terrific as the man she had married and loved.

Bob by the way adapted Evan Hunter’s A HORSE’S HEAD into a screenplay.   Bob told me Evan said it was, at that time, the best version he’d ever read of one of his books.

And just to tie Bob in with Grace, when Bob saw the interview I’d done with Grace, he said he could not wait to show this to Hugh Hefner, since they were all fans of hers.

I also had a chance to meet many of the people involved with the James Bond films, including Maurice Binder and John Glen, and that indirectly lead me my first conversation with Robert Culp.

I loved Robert Culp and Bill Cosby.  I loved them as individuals.  I loved who they were together on screen.

When people would talk about chemistry on screen, and talk about pairs like Paul Newman and Robert Redford, I’d think, sure, fine, but they’re no Cosby and Culp.

Don McGregor –
March 29, 2010