Barnard Hughes comes through
Actor Barnard Hughes is dead at 90. I’d like to tell my Barnard Hughes story now; it’s a small story, but it reminds me of why I always thought he’d live to a ripe old age.
Many years ago, Elle Magazine asked me to write a piece on New Year’s Resolutions of the stars. They wanted 50 “fabulous” celebrities. No problem, I said.
It was a problem, of course. Rule No. 1 for freelancers: Never agree to do a “roundup” story involving celebrity quotes unless you personally have the home phone numbers of said celebrities in your PalmPilot (or, back then, in your handwritten scrawl on a piece of paper). Even when you have their home numbers – I dialed Susan Sarandon while she was in her kitchen making dinner and she chewed me out in a most Oscar-worthy way – these need to be home numbers of celebs who will take your call.
Getting a celeb on the phone is hard. Getting a “fabulous” celeb is harder. Getting 50 of them on deadline? Impossible. I tried night and day, hounding publicists, calling in chips. I didn’t have any chips, but I called them in anyway.
Then I widened the net. I couldn’t get Mick Jagger, but I got Judge Reinhold, briefly buzz-worthy for Ruthless People. Brooke Adams, already fading from sight after Days of Heaven, would only cooperate if I also used a quote from her (less fabulous) sister; I agreed.
Then there was Barnard Hughes. Not only was his home number listed, but he answered his phone, seemed honored that I had thought to include him, was delighted to help. His movie credits included Midnight Cowboy, Hamlet, and Tron. He was an Emmy winner for Lou Grant. Really, he was more of a theater actor, starting out at New York’s Shakespeare Fellowship Repertory and developing into a Broadway and Off-Broadway institution. He worked steadily, reliably, never making it to People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive status, but never lacking for work or respect either. And still answering his own phone. I don’t remember what his New Year’s resolution for 1987 was, but I like to think it was that he’d continue to be at one with himself.
I’m not saying actors should get off their high horses and take my phone calls. Far from it. I think actors and “stars” and “celebrities” should strictly enforce boundaries to afford themselves a private life, since the media and public certainly won’t do it for them. But I can barely recall today the other names on my list of 50 — only Hughes, who was gracious, charming, generous, and seemed so at home in the world that he’d likely live to 90.
Which he did.
Elle Magazine killed the piece. “Not fabulous enough,” was their assessment of my 50 celebs.
Barnard Hughes, dead at 90. Not fabulous enough for Elle Magazine, but fabulous enough for me.
Jami, some 20 summers ago, I was on Cape Cod, browsing in a local book store, The Compass Rose. I bumped into a man I immediately recognized as familiar, but couldn’t quite place. I know I stared… he could tell I was trying to figure out from where I knew him, so he put me out of my misery and said that he acted occasionally, and that might be why I would think he looked familiar.
He was so low key and charming about it, I apologized for doing it and asked his name. He said, “Barnard Hughes, but don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize it.” But I did, of course, and I think he was pleased. He disarmed me by asking my name in return, saying “It is only fair”. We chatted pleasantly for a bit about spending summers on the Cape, about the books we were perusing and then he went on his way.
I’ve met other celebrities over the years, some have been nice, some not, but no one was as charmingly down to earth as Mr. Hughes. RIP.
He was one of my favorite character actors. Had he done nothing else but WHERE’S POPPA?, he’d still be in the pantheon. Talent plus graciousness: an almost extinct notion.
Beautiful piece, JB. Hughes was great in “Midnight Cowboy” and his own TV series, “Doc,” but he stole the show with his killer last line in “Lost Boys”!