Frank Cashen obit

Frank Cashen dies at age 88

 

He was not on the list.

Frank Cashen, the architect of the 1986 world champion New York Mets, died Monday, a team spokesman said. He was 88.

Cashen, who died at Memorial Hospital in Easton, Maryland, served as Mets general manager from 1980 through 1991, transforming the organization from a perennial loser into a juggernaut.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Mets owned the best record in Major League Baseball during Cashen's final eight seasons, compiling a 743-550 mark from 1984 to 1991.

"On behalf of all of us at the Mets, we extend our deepest condolences to Jean Cashen and her entire family," Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon said in a statement. "Frank Cashen revitalized our franchise when he took over in 1980 as general manager and helped engineer us to a world championship in 1986.

"I dealt with Frank on a daily basis, and he was a man of integrity and great passion. No one had a more diverse career than Frank. He was also a lawyer, sports writer and marketing executive. His accomplishments will always be an integral part of our team history."

The bowtie-wearing GM engineered the June 15, 1983, trade that brought Keith Hernandez from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Mets. He also invigorated a farm system that produced Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. Other stars were added like Ron Darling, Howard Johnson, and manager Davey Johnson.

"Frank was our leader," Strawberry said Monday. "I always admired the way he put together our team. He mixed young guys, like me and  Doc Gooden, with guys like Gary Carter and Hernandez. He was able to find the perfect blend to build a championship."

Cashen regularly attended spring training games in Port St. Lucie, Florida, even through this March.

"I had dinner with Frank every spring ever since I came back with the Mets," said former Mets infielder Wally Backman, who now manages the Las Vegas 51s. "He was a great baseball man. I liked to bounce ideas off of him. He was one of a kind."

Cashen promoted Hubie Brooks and Mookie Wilson to the majors for spring training and then traded for brash home run hitter Dave Kingman. In 1982, Cashen delighted New York fans by trading for former unanimous MVP, George Foster, who then signed a five-year, $10 million contract with the club. Two months later, Cashen alienated many fans by trading away fan favorite, Lee Mazzilli, who soon declined.

While Cashen was largely credited for building the Mets into the 1986 World Champions, he was quickly vilified for dismantling the franchise when a dynasty never materialized. In various transactions, future MVP Kevin Mitchell, scrappy clubhouse leaders, Lenny Dykstra, Roger McDowell, and Wally Backman, as well as fan favorite, Mookie Wilson, and future All-Stars, Rick Aguilera and Kevin Tapani, were traded away.

In return, the Mets received the hugely disappointing Juan Samuel as well as Frank Viola (who won 20 games in 1990 but was otherwise only average in less than three seasons with New York), Jeff Musselman (who was out of baseball after 1990), and four players that never played in the majors. Hernandez, Carter, and World Series MVP Ray Knight were either released or granted free agency in the years following the championship. Instead, the Mets hopes were pinned on Gregg Jefferies who soon faltered and was very unpopular on the team. After stumbling to a fifth-place finish in 1991, Cashen stepped down as the Mets' general manager - just five years after the franchise won the title

Cashen previously served as an executive with the Baltimore Orioles when they won titles in 1966 and 1970.

He is survived by his wife, Jean, seven children and nine grandchildren.

The Mets originally had stated that Cashen was 91.

Paul Mazursky obit

Paul Mazursky obituary

He was not on the list.

As a director and screenwriter, Paul Mazursky, who has died aged 84, was middle America's most successful interpreter of the lifestyle changes inspired by the swinging 60s, and his films served as a barometer for the "me decade" of the 1970s. Over a career that spanned 60 years, including acting and standup comedy, and during which he earned four Oscar nominations for screenplays and one for best picture, Mazursky brought a degree of comic affection to his characters and stories, which sometimes led critics to label his films as soft-centred. This perhaps reflected his unique background among the explosive generation of young American directors who came to prominence at the same time.

Although Mazursky did not star in his own films, he bears comparison with Woody Allen, another writer-director with roots in New York Jewish comedy. Both were influenced heavily by the great European directors whose films made such an impact in the US in the late 50s. But where Allen often seemed to be exploring the dilemma of people caught in the godless universe of Ingmar Bergman, and could be harsh with them, Mazursky's best work reflects the impossibility of satisfying the peculiar American requirement to be "happy", particularly, as any Jewish comedian of the era would tell you, when that happiness was linked to love and sex.

He was born Irwin Mazursky in Brooklyn, New York. His father, David, was a labourer, and his mother, Jean (nee Gerson), played the piano at a dance school. She encouraged his early love of movies, sometimes allowing him to skip school and going with him to see two double-features. He began acting at Brooklyn College, and changed his name to Paul when he was cast in Stanley Kubrick's first feature film, Fear and Desire (1953).

He studied under Lee Strasberg and worked as a jobbing actor in New York theatre and live television, as well as playing a juvenile delinquent in The Blackboard Jungle (1955). He directed an off-Broadway theatre production of Madwoman of Chaillot, and partnered the comedian Herb Hartig in a standup duo called Igor and H, before moving to Los Angeles in 1959, where he began studying film at the University of Southern California and formed another comedy partnership at the Second City company with Larry Tucker. In 1962 he directed his first short film, Last Year at Malibu, a parody of Last Year at Marienbad. Although he and Tucker landed a job writing for The Danny Kaye Show, Mazursky continued to act, most notably on TV in The Twilight Zone, and playing one of the leads in Vic Morrow's low-budget film of Jean Genet's Deathwatch (1966). Then he and Tucker wrote the pilot episode for the Monkees, whose imitation Beatles became a hit. Mazursky played a cameo part in the pilot, something he would do in most of his films.

Off that success, he and Tucker wrote I Love You, Alice B Toklas! (1967), in which Peter Sellers copes with falling in love with a hippy. Mazursky had been promised the chance to direct, but that did not come until Warners rejected his and Tucker's next screenplay, which was then sold to Columbia with his directing attached. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) was about two couples experimenting with free love. The idea came after Mazursky and his wife, Betsy, attended sessions to help them "find themselves". The film earned four Oscar nominations, including for its screenplay, and for its supporting actors Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon, establishing Mazursky's reputation as an actors' director.

The lead character in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was a screenwriter, and Mazursky's next film, Alex In Wonderland (1970), concerned a director trying to follow up his smash first movie. It was a flop, and Mazursky moved to Italy. When he returned, he broke up the partnership with Tucker, and between 1973 and 1978 made the four films that defined him, reflecting the new uncertainties of dealing with life's basic problems.

They progress from Blume In Love (1973) where a divorce lawyer tries to regain the wife who divorces him, to An Unmarried Woman (1978), starring Jill Clayburgh in the title role as Erica, whose husband leaves her for a younger woman. Clayburgh was nominated for a best actress Oscar. For Harry and Tonto (1974), Art Carney won an Oscar playing Harry, an ageing man forced out of his condemned apartment building, who winds up crossing America with his cat; its version of a road movie has been much imitated since. Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) was autobiographical, about struggling young actors in New York.

But Willie and Phil (1980) was an unsuccessful homage to Jules et Jim, shot by Bergman's regular cameraman Sven Nykvist. After Tempest (1982), Mazursky made three uneven comedies, Moscow on the Hudson (1984) and Moon Over Parador (1988) sandwiched around his biggest commercial success, Down and Out In Beverly Hills (1986), an adaptation of Jean Renoir's classic Boudu Saved From Drowning, which starred Nick Nolte and Bette Midler; funny as it was, it lacked Renoir's sharp edge.

Perhaps his best film was Enemies: A Love Story (1989), adapted with the crime writer Roger Simon from an Isaac Bashevis Singer story. Ron Silver plays Herman Broder, married to the Polish woman who saved him from the Holocaust, and having an affair with another Holocaust survivor. The movie received three Oscar nominations, for best screenplay and for both Angelica Huston and Lena Olin as best supporting actress.

Mazursky and Simon's follow-up, Scenes From a Mall (1991), brought Allen and Midler together, in an ill-thought-out version of Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage, while The Pickle (1993) saw Danny Aiello revisiting Alex in Wonderland. The best of Mazursky's later work was Winchell (1998) made for HBO television, starring Stanley Tucci as the columnist Walter Winchell. His final film, Yippee (2006), was a documentary chronicling the pilgrimage of 25,000 Hasidic Jews to the Ukrainian town where their sect's founder is buried.

Mazursky's acting outside his own films included roles in A Star Is Born (1976), Carlito's Way (1993) and Miami Rhapsody (1995). In recent years he appeared on television in the Sopranos, and had recurring roles in Curb Your Enthusiasm and Once and Again, which could be seen as a reworking of Mazursky's 70s films for a new generation. He provided voiceovers for films including Antz, and, in his final role, for a bunny in Kung Fu Panda 2.

Mazursky is survived by Betsy, whom he married in 1953, and his daughter Jill, both of whom played bit parts in his films. His other daughter, Meg, who had a larger role in Alex In Wonderland, died in 2009.

Filmography

As writer and director

Year       Film       Notes

1969      Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice            Feature film

Co-written with Larry Tucker

Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay

Nominated - Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay

Nominated- BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay

1970      Alex in Wonderland         Feature film

Co-written with Larry Tucker

Nominated - New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor

1973      Blume in Love    Feature film

Written by Mazursky

Nominated - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

1974      Harry and Tonto               Feature film

Co-written with Josh Greenfeld

Nominated - Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay

Nominated - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

1976      Next Stop, Greenwich Village      Feature film

Written by Mazursky

Nominated - Palme d'Or

Nominated - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

1978      An Unmarried Woman   Feature film

Written by Mazursky

National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay

Nominated - Academy Award for Best Picture

Nominated - Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay

Nominated - Palme d'Or

Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Director

Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay

Nominated - Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature Film

Nominated - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

1980      Willie & Phil        Feature film

Written by Mazursky

1982      Tempest              Feature film

Co-written with Leon Capetanos

Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award

Nominated - Golden Lion

1984      Moscow on the Hudson                 Feature film

Co-written with Leon Capetanos

1986      Down and Out in Beverly Hills     Feature film

Co-written with Leon Capetanos

Nominated - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay

1988      Moon over Parador         Feature film

Co-written with Leon Capetanos

1989      Enemies, A Love Story    Feature film

Co-written with Roger L. Simon

New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director

Nominated- Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay

1991      Scenes from a Mall          Feature film

Co-written with Roger L. Simon

1993      The Pickle            Feature film

Written by Mazursky

As writer only

Year       Film       Notes

1966      The Monkees    TV pilot

Co-written with Larry Tucker

1968      I Love You, Alice B. Toklas             Feature film

Co-written with Larry Tucker

Nominated - Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

As director only

Year       Film       Notes

1996      Faithful                 Feature film

Written by Chazz Palminteri

Nominated- Golden Bear

1998      Winchell              Television film

Written by Scott Abbott

2003      Coast to Coast   Television film

Written by Frederic Raphael

2006      Yippee Documentary

Selected acting credits

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1953      Fear and Desire                 Pvt. Sidney         

1955      Blackboard Jungle            Emmanuel Stoker            

1965      Deathwatch        Maurice              

1968      I Love You, Alice B. Toklas             Hippie on Sidewalk          Uncredited

1969      Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice            Man Screaming at the Institute Uncredited

1970      Alex in Wonderland         Hal Stern             

1972      The Other Side of the Wind          Paul       Unfinished film

1973      Blume in Love    Kurt Hellman     

1974      Harry and Tonto               Prostitute            Uncredited

1976      Next Stop, Greenwich Village      Casting Director                Uncredited

1976      A Star Is Born     Brian Wexler     

1978      An Unmarried Woman   Hal        

1979      A Man, a Woman, and a Bank     Norman Barrie  

1981      History of the World: Part I          Roman Officer   (The Roman Empire)

1982      Tempest              Terry Bloomfield               Producer

1984      Moscow on the Hudson                 Dave     

1985      Into the Night    Bud Herman      

1986      Down and Out in Beverly Hills     Sidney Waxman               

1988      Moon over Parador         Momma               Credited as Carlotta Gerson

1988      Punchline            Arnold

1989      Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills     Sidney  

1989      Enemies, a Love Story     Leon Tortshiner               

1991      Scenes from a Mall          Dr. Hans Clava  

1992      Man Trouble      Lee MacGreevy

1993      The Pickle            Butch Levine     

1993      Carlito's Way      Judge Feinstein

1994      Love Affair           Herb Stillman    

1995      Miami Rhapsody               Vic Marcus         

1996      Faithful                 Mr. Susskind     

1996      2 Days in the Valley         Teddy Peppers

1996      Frasier Vinnie, calling in to show looking for pinky ring   Voice, Episode: "The Last Time I Saw Maris"

1997      Touch    Artie     

1998      Bulworth              Himself                 Uncredited

1998      Why Do Fools Fall in Love             Morris Levy        

1998      Antz       Psychologist       Voice

1999      Crazy in Alabama              Walter Schwegmann     

1999-2002          Once and Again                 Phil Brooks          TV Series

6 episodes

2000-2001          The Sopranos     Sunshine              TV Series

2 episodes

2001      The Majestic      Studio Executive               Voice

2001      Big Shot's Funeral            Studio Boss        

2002      Do It for Uncle Manny    Famous Movie Director

2003      Coast to Coast   Stanley Tarto      TV movie

2004-2009          Curb Your Enthusiasm    Norm     TV Series

5 episodes

2006      I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With        Charlie Perlman               

2006      Cattle Call            Judge Mandel   

2011      Kung Fu Panda 2               Musician Bunny                Voice

2018      The Other Side of the Wind          Himself                 (final film role)