I’ve been using my writing on this blog to dodge oppressive current events and my bodily miseries. I’m also undergoing intensive video therapy, using re-runs (on dvd) of all six years of the tv series Major Crimes (details of the show in my 10/29 posting with that title). Today I report on one of my favorite episodes (S2 E9 “There’s No Place Like Home”, 1st aired 8/5/13), whose main story-line — every episode interleaves several story-lines, including at least one about the lives of the LAPD officers and their associates — has the squad investigating the death of a landlord despised by all his tenants, the residents of Shangri-La (a ramshackle apartment complex), all of them former performers on a ’70s tv medical examiner show. Further notes from the Wikipedia summary:
As in their show, Deputy Medical Examiner Morales comes up with the extra (beyond autopsy) evidence that solves the crime. [AZ: and then some side-story events, irrelevant here:] Provenza faces desk duty if he can’t improve his target practice results; Rusty tries to tell Kris he can’t date her.
Note: the retired television co-workers were played by a quintet of predominantly octogenarian actors from various popular television shows from the 1970s and 80s onward – Tim Conway, Paul Dooley, Ron Glass, Doris Roberts, and Marion Ross.
These five, in character, in a shot from the wonderfully comic episode:
Left to right: Glass, Dooley, Ross, Conway, Roberts; spoiler: they all did it (details to follow)
Now some details about the actors playing the Shangri-La Five.
First, two I have written about on this blog: Roberts and Glass.
— my 4/20/15 posting “Doris Roberts” is an appreciation of the actor, especially in her role of Mildred Krebs in Remington Steele.
— from my 2/22/17 posting “Playing for laughs”, on campiness in tv shows, along the way with respect to the actor K. Todd Freeman, who has played campy roles but I thought wasn’t out; but it turns out he is, a risky choice for a black male actor (so that the the number of out black male actors has been ridiculously small), and then:
Another, simpler case: the hard-working black actor Ron Glass, who had two standout roles in his long life in acting, until he died at age 71 … From Wikipedia:
Ronald Earle “Ron” Glass (July 10, 1945 – November 25, 2016) was an American actor. He was known for his roles as literary Det. Ron Harris in the television sitcom Barney Miller (1975–1982), and as the spiritual Shepherd Derrial Book in the 2002 science fiction series Firefly and its sequel film Serenity.
His character Harris was impeccably dressed, intellectual, precise, even prissy — one “type” of gay man — and he pinged my gaydar 40 years ago in Barney Miller (and then again much more recently in Firefly)
… The actor was, by all accounts, charming and funny, and his homosexuality was an open secret in Hollywood for many decades (though he never came out). He frequented gay places in West Hollywood and apparently had an affair with actor Tony Geary from General Hospital, during which they often appeared together in public as a couple. He’s also said to have been rather effeminate and sometimes sweetly campy. Most of the people he worked with must have known he was gay, but still he seems to have thought that his career would have been threatened by his coming out. And maybe he was right.
“Sweetly campy” exactly describes his character in the Major Crimes episode.
Then the other three, with brief notes on each.
— on Marion Ross, from Wikipedia:
Marion Ross (born Marian Ellen Ross; October 25, 1928) is an American actress. Her best-known role is that of Marion Cunningham on the ABC television sitcom Happy Days, on which she starred from 1974 to 1984 … Ross [has] appeared in a variety of film [and television] roles.
— on Tim Conway, from Wikipedia:
Thomas Daniel “Tim” Conway (December 15, 1933 – May 14, 2019) was an American actor, comedian, writer, and director. Conway is perhaps best known as a regular cast member (1975–1978) on the TV comedy The Carol Burnett Show where he portrayed his recurrent iconic characters Mister Tudball and the Oldest Man.
… Conway started his career acting in The Garry Moore Show and The Mike Douglas Show. He then gained recognition for his role as the inept Ensign Parker in the World War II TV situation comedy McHale’s Navy from 1962 to 1966.
— on Paul Dooley, from Wikipedia:
Paul Dooley (born Paul Brown; February 22, 1928) is an American character actor, writer, and comedian. He is known for his roles in Breaking Away, Popeye, Sixteen Candles, Strange Brew and many Christopher Guest mockumentaries. He co-created the PBS children’s show The Electric Company.
… Dooley has also appeared as a variety of recurrent characters on numerous television shows … [and] guest starred in other primetime shows.
The crimes of the Shangri-La Five. At sentencing, in the transcript of the scene (crucial background information: the appalling landlord, Ed Dagby, had a life-threatening allergy to nuts).
Judge Craig Richwood: Mr. Gray, what do you and your clients have to say?
Larry Murdock [Dooley]: …Oh. Larry Murdoch. Excuse me, your honor. I’m a retired teamster, and I, uh, I cut the brake lines on the bastard’s car. Just a little backup plan. No harm done.
Pauline Allen [Ross]: I’m Pauline Allen, and I would like to confess that I greased the very top step on which Ed untimely slipped. And I helped with the brownies.
Clayton Carter [Glass]: Me, too. Clayton Carter. I shopped for the almond milk and the peanut oil. And putting the Frangelica [AZ: made from hazelnuts] in the icing was entirely my idea. A flourish.
Vera Walker [Roberts]: Vera Walker. I made the brownies, and I put them out by the nachos for our weekly taco night. And no one else was hurt by them at all. And I have two more batches in the freezer. So, if you’d like to try one yourself… No?… Okay.
Howard Gray [Conway]: I’m Howard Gray, and, uh… [clears throat] Ed helped himself to our buffet without asking and walked off with two brownies. We waited while he went upstairs to eat, and then after he choked to death on his own rudeness and his cries for help kind of petered out, I propped him up in one of those kitchen chairs and turned on the gas and called 911. And we’re very sorry, your honor, and we promise never to let someone kill themselves again.
Judge Craig Richwood: I see. Well, taking into account the 378 collective years the five of you have spent on the planet with no priors and the fact that not a single one of you can actually be charged with murder, I accept the plea of manslaughter and agree in principle to two years of house arrest for each of the five defendants, followed by nine years of probation.
Note: house arrest, so they all get to live in Shangri-La, restored to something like its pre-Dagby state.
And, in that side story, Provenza passes his gun target exam, using a pair of absurd eyeglasses he borrowed from Vera Walker (in the main story).
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