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Goodbye, My Dear
Robert Urich died of cancer today. He was only 55 years old. I don't usually get upset when celebrities die, I mean, I don't know these people personally, so it never usually affects me one way or the other. With Urich it was a little different though and I had tears in my eyes this morning when I read of his death. You see, Urich was the first celebrity "man" I'd ever had a crush on, unlike some of the pretty boys I'd liked when I was really young, you know, guys like The Bay City Rollers, David Cassidy and his half brother Sean. I used to watch Vegas on my parent's crappy 17" black & white TV downstairs in the basement . It was on at 10 o'clock on Wednesday or Thursday night and I had to watch it in the basement by myself as no-one else in my family was "in love" with Urich like I was. I had such a huge crush on the actor that I used to fantasize in my head that I was a lot older and was Dan Tanna's girlfriend on Vegas. I never imagined my weekly Vegas viewing habit affected any other member of my family until one evening when I was headed downstairs to watch it: my father stopped me in the kitchen and asked where I was going. I told him and he asked me to go upstairs to bed instead. Of course I refused, even though I could see he was agitated. He stopped me and said: "I don't think your mother and I will ever get to get to go to bed together again." I'll never forget the look on his face when I glared at him and headed downstairs. I mean, he expected me to miss Vegas? No way was I gonna do that. I met Urich once, when I worked in downtown Toronto. Some woman I worked with told me they were shooting Spenser for Hire around the corner from our office, on Bond Street. So on my lunch hour, I ran right over there to catch a glimpse of him, which I did. There weren't too many people around and I didn't have anything to say to him, but I walked right beside him, turned my head and shot him my most dazzling smile and he smiled back. I walked away, beaming. I think I was glowing the rest of the day. Vegas was re-run again, when I was in my early 20s, on Fox every night one summer and of course I couldn't miss an episode. I was also a poor reporter living on my own for the first time and my only TV was, you guessed it - the CRAPPY 17" black & white TV my parents gave me when I moved out. I don't think I ever saw Vegas in colour. Watching it again brought me back to the good old days, sitting in my parent's basement enjoying the fantasy land I had created for myself when I was a kid, a bowl of popcorn on one side of me, a Pepsi on the other, no worries except for homework. So when I found out Robert Urich died today, I think a little piece of my childhood died with him.
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