Well, this sucks: character actor Bruno Kirby has died of leukemia at the tender age of 57. Way too young for someone who still had so much to offer.
The obits are all highlighting the two films he made with Billy Crystal, When Harry Met Sally… and City Slickers, but he was one of those guys who seemed to be everywhere, if you were paying attention. He often played mafia types, most notably in The Godfather, Part II, as well as Donnie Brasco, Hoffa, and the wonderful Godfather spoof The Freshman, but he also appeared in many comedies, even ones that did not involve Mr. Crystal. He made a lot of TV appearances, too, including episodes of M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, Frasier, and Mad About You.
I think I’ve probably said this before, but it really bothers me to see the passing of “the familiar faces,” the actors who aren’t stars but who work constantly and are always turning up in something, the ones who make you say, “Hey, it’s that one guy, you know, from that one show!” They’re like family members, in a way. They’re not the globetrotters or the successful snobs who make you feel like an underachiever; rather, they’re the amiable ones, the unremarkable cousins who show up on the doorstep every once in a while because they just happened to be driving by. You invite them in, crack open a beer or put on a pot of coffee, blow an hour chatting about nothing in particular, and when they leave, you find that you’re happy to have seen them and vaguely touched that they bothered to stop. And when they’re gone, you wish that they’d stopped more frequently, or that you had bothered to return the favor, because you really did enjoy their company…
I’m sad to see this obit. I’ve always liked Bruno Kirby, ever since When Harry Met Sally (where he has the great line, “you made a woman meow?!”). I had no idea that he appeared in M*A*S*H and GF2. He was also the polka-loving square in Good Morning Vietnam. A talented man who died too young. RIP. (You made a women meow?!)
Oh, man, I can’t believe I’d forgotten the “meow” line – that was a great one.
According to the info on IMDB, he actually appeared in the M*A*S*H pilot; I have a vague memory of him in that role, probably one of those cases where I was half-watching a re-run and said to myself, “Hey, that’s Bruno Kirby. Man, he was young…”
He was in the flashback sequences of GF2, playing Young Clemenza. You may remember that in GF1 Clemenza was one of Don Corleone’s lieutenants, the one who arranges the gun in the restaurant men’s room that Michael uses to kill his father’s enemies.