Tonight, three people who couldn’t have been more than ten years younger than myself told me they didn’t know who Edward G. Robinson was. I’m flabbergasted. I realize that I watch more than my share of old movies, alright, but while I wouldn’t expect a mixed group to know about Ida Lupino, as far as I knew Edward G. Robinson was still a household name.
If anyone here was paying attention when Edward G. Robinson slipped into obscurity, please tell me when it happened.
I would bet that if I went out tomorrow and just asked people off the street who Edward G. Robinson was a good percentage of them wouldn’t have clue one who he was.
You of course are speaking of Emanuel Goldenberg, born in Romania in 1893 who later went on to gain great fame as one America’s greatest actors. The “G” in Edward G. Robinson stands for Goldenberg.
He performed in over 40 plays and 100 movies yet never received an Oscar. His first was to have been for his “Outstanding Contribution to Motion Pictures” on March 27, 1973 but Robinson passed away two months before this event on January 27, 1973 at the age of 79.
I remember watching his movies late at night when I was a child. He was truly a great actor and as I later found out, a pretty decent human being.
Some of us remember who he was.
Never heard of him, see? Nyah. That’s it. If I had heard of him, it was in connection with old gangster flicks, see? Nyah.
Could be he died right after making Soylent Green with Chuck Heston, but I ain’t admittin’ nuthin, see?
Nyah.
Looks pop-eyed through cigar smoke and waddles out of Cafe
Q
Not knowing who Edward G. Robinson was? Next you’ll be saying there are people who don’t know who George Raft or Jimmy Cagney or Humphrey Bogart fercrisakes were. I thought video was supposed to prevent this kind of thing.
I’ll be honest, I knew he was an actor, but didn’t know what he was in, or anything about him.
I mean, dare I even ask about Van Johnson or Van Heflin?
Just so you know, EGR didn’t always play the gangster bastard.
So take that, see?
Where’s your messiah nooowww??
After all he was just an actor not someone who contributed something of great importance to history. There’s a good chance that 50 years from now Bogart might be in the same boat as Robinson. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if most people born after 1970 have never seen a whole Bogart movie.
Marc
I have to confess, I only really knew him from the impressions of him in old Bugs Bunny cartoons.
And I only saw my first Bogart movie earlier this year (Maltese Falcon). Born 1971.
Well, IMHO, the big deal is not so much that people don’t know who Edward G. Robinson is specifically. The big deal is in the mind-bending realization that many people have the narrow concept that all history, be it world history, or cultural history, began when they were born, and that anything prior to that is not worth knowing.
You wouldn’t be surprised if most people born after 1970 have never seen a whole Bogart movie. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if most people born after 1970 didn’t know who Neville Chamberlain was. Furthermore, there’s going to come a day when someone suggests that Chamberlain didn’t contribute anything of great importance to history, and that 50 years from that time, they wouldn’t be surprised if people born after [insert year here] wouldn’t have heard of Winston Churchill.
See, it’s all part of the flow of history, whether it’s a “significant” contribution or not. And cultural icons such as actors, directors, musicians, ballplayers, etc. are important as they also help define their era. Where do you draw the line? Is it okay to forget E.G. Robinson, but not Jackie Robinson? Why or why not? Please answer in complete sentences and use both sides of the paper.
Sorry for the rant. I just find peoples’ excuses for cultural shallowness and generational narcissism maddening.
Of course, people 50 years from now could watch Key Largo and then they’d know who both Edward G. Robinson AND Humphrey Bogart are.
Not know who Humphrey Bogart is…? Inconceivable.
My mom works with someone (born in the mid-70s I imagine) who didn’t know who Marlon Brando was. When presented with gasps she said, “Well, he was before my time!” For shame. I’m nineteen and I know most of the actors in the 30s and 40s, including Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. DAVEW0071 nailed it on the head.
[hijack] Sublight’s comments got me to thinking about how Bugs Bunny cartoons were my first introduction to many icons of pop culture. The first time I stumbled across a broadcast of “Little Caesar”, I was fascinated by the actual human version of the cartoon gangster I’d seen so often. Or when I saw “Treasure of The Sierra Madre” - besides the famous “badges” quote, there’s Bogart asking if anyone can “help a fellow American who’s down on his luck” - a line that is a running gag in another Bugs Bunny cartoon (the one with the lost penguin). And how many cartoons have spoofed Walter Huston’s performance in that same movie? [/hijack]
Damn you, spooje! I can’t believe you beat me to it!
When I was a kid, you could quote Edward G. Robinson anywhere! Good quotes they had, real quotes! Not this … crap!
For God’s sake, the man has his own United States postage stamp! How many movie stars can say that?*
[sub]*Please note that that is only a rhetorical question. I do know how many can say that.[/sub]
Hey why 1970? why that particular date?
Born in 1970 (phew missed the cutoff date) Love Edward G. Robinson. I have a soft spot for his last scene in his last movie (Soylent Green) maybe because that was the first film I saw him in (some time around 1976).
It is weird how limited some peoples view of history or culture has become. I acually know people who have not seen The Godfather and won’t watch certain movied because the are black and white.
I wonder if older people in the 1940s rolled their eyes when younger ones say they didn’t know Charley Chase or Mary Pickford because they can’t watch a fil without sound?
While Edward G. is gone, his voice lives on.
(The phone rings. Chief Wiggum picks it up.)
POLICE CHIEF WIGGUM: Yeah, right, buddy, liquor store robbery, officer down. Sure. And I’m Edward G. Robinson.
Notable Robinson roles: Little Caesar, Barbary Coast, Double Indemnity, The Stranger, All My Sons, The Ten Commandments (“Where’s your messiah now?”).
One of Robinson’s TV roles was in a Serling-penned vignette called The Messiah on Mott Street from his post-TZ Night Gallery series.
He plays a poor, dying Jewish man, who is really worried about what is going to happen to his grandson, whom he is caring for.
He ends up getting a new lease on life from “The Messiah,” portrayed by. . . Yaphet Kotto. (Hey, he said he had always heard that “The Messiah” would loom large and dark across the sky. Mr. Kotto filled both roles aptly from the little boy’s point of view.)
This was sort of a reworking of/companion piece to Serling’s TZ “One for the Angels.”