Joel Hirschhorn Movies

Joel Hirschhorn

Want to know the best Joel Hirschhorn movies?  How about the worst Joel Hirschhorn movies?  Curious about Joel Hirschhorn box office grosses or which Joel Hirschhorn movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Joel Hirschhorn movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Joel Hirschhorn (1937-2005) was a two-time Oscar® winning American singer, composer and writer. Hirschhorn’s songs sold more than 90 million records. Various artists including Elvis Presley, recorded his songs…and Hollywood is still using his work in current movies.  His IMDb page shows over 80 credits from 1966-2017. This page will rank Joel Hirschhorn movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.

Drivel Part 1:  Why a Joel Hirschhorn UMR page?  Well….his book….Rating the Movie Stars…is one of the most influential books on this website.  Published in 1983, it is a book I have been referencing for almost 40 years.  In that book, Hirschhorn, rated every movie that a movie star appeared in during their career.  Sometime in 2010, for the millionth time I was looking at his book when I wondered; had he updated his ratings lately? A quick internet check provided the sad news that Mr. Hirchhorn had passed away in 2005.  About a month later, I thought I could update the ratings….tunrs out those were the first baby steps of UMR.

Drivel Part 2:  This page is from a request from Bob.  Bob has been requesting a Joel Hirschhorn page for almost 2 years now.  Constantly filling up our request page…with Hirschhorn requests….day after day.  Well Bob….finally your Hirsch page is here….hope it was worth the wait…lol.

The Towering Inferno is a Top 100 Box Office Hit of all-time when looking at adjusted grosses

Joel Hirschhorn Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Joel Hirschhorn Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Joel Hirschhorn movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Joel Hirschhorn movie won.
  • Sort Joel Hirschhorn movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Joel Hirschhorn Table

  1. Five Joel Hirschhorn movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 22.72% of his movies listed. The Towering Inferno (1974) was his biggest box office hit when looking at adjusted domestic box office gross.
  2. An average Joel Hirschhorn movie grosses $91.20 million in adjusted box office gross.
  3. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  14 Joel Hirschhorn movies are rated as good movies…or 46.80% of his movies. The Ice Storm (1997) is his highest rated movie while The Fat Spy (1969) was his lowest rated movie.
  4. Three Joel Hirschhorn movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 13.63% of his movies.
  5. Two Joel Hirschhorn movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 9.09% of his movies.
  6. An average Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score is 40.00. 8 Joel Hirschhorn movies scored higher than that average….or 36.36% of his movies. The Towering Inferno (1974) got the the highest UMR Score  while The Fat Spy (1969) got the lowest UMR Score.

Possibly Interesting Facts About Joel Hirschhorn

1.  Joel Hirschhorn was born in Bronx, New York in 1937.

2.  After graduating from Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts, he became a regular performer on New York’s nightclub circuit, both as a solo singer and as a member of the rock & roll band, The Highlighters.

3.  During the mid-1960s, Hirschhorn branched out into writing film soundtracks. The results were horrible.  1969’s The Fat Spy is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.

4.  Joel Hirschhorn’s The Fat Spy (1969) is the 11th worst movie in our UMR 36,000 plus movie database.

5.  Joel Hirschhorn worked with songwriting partner Al Kasha from the 1960s until the late 1990s.

6.  Joel Hirschhorn (and Al Kasha) were nominated for four Oscars® and four Golden Globes®.  They won Oscars® for 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure and 1974’s The Towering Inferno. They received two Oscar® nominations for 1977’s Pete’s Dragon.

7.  Joel Hirschhorn and Al Kasha also worked together on Broadway musicals, receiving Tony Award® for Best Original Score nominations for both Copperfield and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

8.  Joel Hirschhorn the book author.  Besides his book RatingThe Movie Stars, Hirschhorn also wrote 2001’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting.

9.  *Joel Hirschhorn’s Bette Davis story:  “Star quality is difficult to define, but my personal definition was formed after a lunch with Bette Davis.  At the time (1972), Davis was to appear in the musical “Copperfield,” which I had co-written with Al Kasha.  Al and I went to the Bel Air Hotel to play the score for her.  She was a petite, almost delicated woman, but there was nothing timid about her direct gaze, and authoritative speaking voice.  We need a piano and the empty dining room didn’t have one, so she told a work-man, “We must have a piano immediately.”  She wasn’t rude, but her firmness brooked no argument.  The piano materialized in seconds.  She applauded after we performed the songs, and I modestly ventured that “We had a lot of help from Dickens.”  She responded, “Yes, but look what you did with him!” Her conviction made me feel we were on par with Dickens, that he was lucky to have us as collaborators!   She had wit, intelligence, force, charm, vulerability – but most of all, a highly charge belief in herself, in her ability to dominate.  The performer who has this belief and this assured, takeover quality can make film vehicles timeless.”

10. Check out Joel Hirschhorn’s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

*Bette Davis story comes from Hirschhorn’s Rating The Movie Stars book.

Joel shows up at about 45 seconds.

132 thoughts on “Joel Hirschhorn Movies

  1. ‘Bout time you final made my page dynamic. Having to wait for 426 other pages was somewhat bothersome!

    1. HI JOEL
      1 I remember years ago when my young son was fanatical about US wrestling there was a wrestler called Brian Pillman [Flyin’ Brian] who would disappear from the ring after a bout to be followed into it by a figure of the same build but wearing a cloak and a mask and called Yellow Dog. Soon the feeling began to grow that Pillman WAS Yellow Dog and I don’t know how that controversy ended but it did rage on for quite a time
      .
      2 It has been commented upon that “your Disciple” has been very elusive on this site recently but I have noticed that during some of those absences YOU have appeared on the scene so I have been wondering in fact whether you and your supposed Pupil are in fact one and the same and if it has been actually Bruce under the alias of Joel Hirschhorn who has been rubbishing my idol the Duke [and of course that mumbling fellow] all these years. If so shame on whatever one of you is the “real person”.

  2. HI GLENN
    We’re both playing proxy this morning because Dukey had to go out and deliver a calf and he asked me to reply to you for him. Phil and Big J have covered so well all of the points they have been debating/discussing that there is only a few of your additional comments that I need to pick up on.

    (1) Dukey didn’t tell Kirk off for playing Van G because that fella had emotional problems that made him cut off his ear. Despite his gung ho image on screen the Duke is really a big softie at heart and sympathizes with mental problems and of course Big John has always been up to his neck in blood in his war films and westerns so he’s not a sissy like that little blonde Laddie guy who collapses at the sight of blood. Dukey wants nothing to do with sissy traits – I mean why else do you think he changed his name from Marion to John? No the Duke objected to Van Gough for the same reason that Frankie Sinatra wouldn’t let the Brit singer Elton John play Frank in a proposed biographic movie.

    (2) I still think there is an outlier print of Liberty Valance that gives Jimmy top billing instead of Dukey as that guy John who writes on this site says he saw one and he is pretty reliable and observant regarding movies though for a guy who professes to despise billing matters he sure seem to know a lot about them.

    (3) I mentioned to Dukey before he left the idea that the outlier was French film and he said to me “Well Pappy we can’t control the French as they’re a law unto themselves and foreign language [to us] films do have their values. For example those people with 2 heads who like Brando films could watch the dubbed French prints and if they spoke some French they’d be able to make out what that little acting mountebank says for once. Cagney said he’d never watch a Brando film but maybe Jimmy just couldn’t speak French and that Mr. Posters guy should maybe learn French because he’s always bellyaching about not being able to follow the little Method rat’s dialogue. You know my motto Pappy, you don’t bellyache about your woes to the American people, you get up and DO”

    (4) Anyway Glenn it’s nice chewing the fat with you and tell Phil I hope he gets well soon. I just hope that by falling off his horse he doesn’t forfeit some of the Duke’s admiration as Big John has always held that REAL men don’t fall of their horses. How the boys in the bunkhouse used to laugh when the Duke and his pal Jim Arness joked about Cooper and Mr Mumbles as he’s called having to be helped onto THEIR horses by Mickey Rooney and Danny DeVito!

    (5) In closing I just have to say that Duke and I are sorry that we can’t tell our fellow countrymen who have idolized you so much on the screen that you are a Real American or even a Real Canadian. I mean to say you claim to have been reincarnated many times and that you started your many lives as a slave on a Spanish War ship and ended as a Scottish guy called Charlie Bill Stuart before you became Glenn Ford. That Mrs Robinson gal got her ******** all in a twist when the Bawwwb fella suggested that your nationality should be regarded as Spanish.

    (6) But tell me do all current Canadians believe in reincarnation? For example does that Robinson dame think she is a reincarnation of the late great Anne Bancroft? Anyway if you wanted to be considered a Spaniard that would be OK with the Big Fella and me and you can take it Dukey and I would regard you as a Real Spaniard. Best wishes PAPPY

    1. HI AGAIN GLENN

      Big John and I don’t speak to “Mr Mumbles” because it’s difficult to make him out but apparently one of the boys in the bunkhouse told him what you said about him stealing your cookies and all that stuff but he didn’t reply and to lighten matters the ranch hand told him that you thought that you were continually appearing in fresh reincarnations.

      This time Mumbles did respond by saying.”Good. Maybe some time he’ll come back as an ACTOR” What a nasty little varmint. With those kind of vitriolic comments he should join that Joel joker team of film critics. Anyway that’ method boys for yoo as Dukey always says.

      1. Dukey, Pappy and Mr. Ford,

        Glenn got himself locked up in Yuma again, but just to stay it’s been good chewing the fat with you as well. Of course, Glenn was joking about me falling off my horse – why, Canadians are virtually born on horses! And to answer Mr. Ford’s question, no we do not all believe in reincarnation, but we do believe in tolerating all harmless spiritual beliefs. I asked Glenn if he had been reincarnated as a Spaniard and he just said “Vayas con dios hermano”.

        By the way, though Glenn won’t admit it, the reports at the time were that Marlon had not in fact stolen the cookies and was quite miffed at the accusation. It is said Mr. Mumbles sneaked into Glenn’s room, found the cookies, and stepped all over them out of spite. So I’m not surprised by Marlon’s nasty response above. What is surprising that the two still appeared in another movie together, Superman, but since they did not have any scenes together, I guess no one was hurt.

        I will be off-line for a couple of days as I need help Glenn break out of Yuma… again! But I may be back if Joel responds to my requests on McQueen, Lancaster, Douglas and Garner. The Virgnia Kid has obviously been too busy juggling between Boris Karloff and Jerry Lewis (may he rest in peace).

        P.S. Just a word of advice: be careful with jokes about Laddie. He is apparently another idol of the amigo Bawwb. Now, Bawwb is usually a peaceful fella, but when you rub him the wrong way, he can get mighty trigger-happy with statistical box office data 😉

        1. HI PHIL I hope you are successful in breaking Glenn out of prison. Often in movies the trick is effectively carried out by smuggling someone else in to take the prisoner’s place and thus allow time before the getaway is noticed. Could you not substitute that pretend critic guy Hirschhorn for Glenn? Maybe they’d keep him there for a long time. Anyway the venture will be a labor of love for you as your pal McQueen seemed to like breaking out of prisons and places.

          I notice from some past posts that the Bawwwb guy says he saw a TV interview with Glenn in which he spoke highly of Mr Mumbles as he’s called and claimed he enjoyed working with the little Method louse on Teahouse. Could be those PR varmints invented a ‘rivalry’ just to get fans interested in the pairing. As the Bawwwb fella keeps reminding us your idol Burt advised us in The Crimson Pirate to “believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.”

          I’ll make as many jokes about Ladd as I wish and if he or Bawwwb don’t like it I’ll not play THEIR game of hurling stats at each other like Chaplin and those custard pies. I’ll just ask them to step outside to settle it either one at a time or both together. As Ladd himself said in Shane when Van Heflin ordered him to get off Van’s property “OK but I’d like it to be my own idea. I’ll leave when you put down that gun.” Gotta hand it to the little runt there though as he showed more backbone than that Cooper wimp.

          SO I’ll make you a deal. I’ll leave off little Blondie if you stop making cracks about failing off horses. That subject, unlike Ladd, deserves to be treated seriously and with respect,
          I’m glad that Glenn sees himself as a Real Canadian and not a reincarnated Spaniard though – eerily – he does seem to speak excellent Spanish. When I mentioned that to Pappy and said it was a pity he and I didn’t speak Spanish he replied that the tank could always be viewed as half FULL instead of half empty and we so wouldn’t have to concern ourselves if that Joel guy released a Spanish Language version of that movie book that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wrote for him, though again I’m maybe being unfair to horses bracketing with that crowd of pseudo critics. Anyway have a good remainder of week Phil. Your sidekick DUKEY

  3. “Pappy, it’s Phil yet again! Even the cows are excited and every one of them started to moo when I shouted out Phil’s name.

    What’s he want this time Duke?.

    He seems to wanna debate me about that billing compromise you negotiated between Jimmy and me Pappy

    Be careful there Duke as we’ve the ranch to attend to and Phil and that Bawwwb guy kept having a go at each other over a 3 month period about that McQueen/Newman nonsense.

    Well Pappy my take on it is that Jimmy and I are each twice the star that McQueen was and we’re equal to Newman so I think Phil should be prepared to spend twice the time on Jimmy and me. I need some help from you though because Phil’s pressing me for details and I can’t remember precisely what you got us to agree to about the Liberty billing as it’s so long ago.

    The arrangement was Duke that Jimmy would be top billed on the posters and all promotional material such as cast lists, trailers and the special issue of Dottie Johnson’s book to coincide with the release of our movie. You would get top billed in all prints of the movie and I asked theatre owners to bill you first on their marquees though that’s pretty much unenforceable.

    But Pappy Phil says that there’s a TV print with Jimmy mentioned first.

    Well Duke I can’t remember if we bothered covering the TV prints in the agreement but true there could be a maverick print out there somewhere.

    That leads me to another problem Pappy. Phil seems to be casting a shadow over the tough guy images of Jimmy and me by pointing out that Jimmy too had moments of weakness in movies and I was vulnerable in The Shootist.

    Well Duke you go straight back to Phil and as Richard Nixon, possibly America’s greatest ever President put it “hit him a swift kick in the ****” with the following arguments:
    (1) Sure Jimmy had his little cry in Wonderful Life but he pulled himself together and went back to supporting his family. The family is the backbone of American society and what sort of a family did that Don Corelone creep have around him? Heck those sons of his, Sonny and Michael, were gangsters like himself. But look at the fine bunch of sons that Jimmy had round him in Shenandoah and your own boy Patrick one of them – who could ask for a better bunch of boys than that?
    (2) Jimmy defended his country in active service and you fought for the American people on the screen and off set you Hedda and others defended us by taking out the commies. And what did that little water[front]rat do for the war effort? Played a Nazi in the Young Lions, a madman in Apocalypse Now and let himself get crippled on battlefield in The Men [aka Battle Stripe] and then ran about whining and crying again because he could no longer make love to his wife.
    (3) Sure in The Shootist you were not the guy you were when you were younger but you still took out the 3 bad guys before you were shot in the back by the bar tender. In The Godfather that method actor fella went senile at the age of 65 and his son had to take over that mob of his. Beside I thought that The Shootist made a great point in that we need to help protect our heroes as they get older whereas in High Noon Cooper whined and hid because the townsfolk including its old guys wouldn’t turn out to protect HIM. Got it Duke, son?

    Yes Pappy. That fence won’t fix itself but a piece of good news before I mosey off. We now have a Real Canadian as a new Pardner. Phil’s a Canadian!

    That IS good news Duke as I consider good patriotic Canadians to be in reality Americans. Also the Canadians are a talented tribe and I think that that Mrs Robinson filly is a Canadian and she like Phil produces some good stuff on the site run by that Cogerson geek. I have been waiting for a piece of pleasing news about Canada ever since that little runt with the womanish blonde hair made Paratrooper. In that in one he posed as a Canadian, was given the nickname “Canada”, ran around chasing women and had the gall to give his movie the alternative un-American title of The RED Beret though you came to our rescue to some extent by giving your Vietnam movie a title of which the American people could be proud The GREEN Berets. Did you know that the little blonde twit got out of the war effort by claiming that he had an allergy to the sight of blood? He used to be a lifeguard too but I can’t see anybody wanting saving by HIM – well maybe Cooper would. Anyway I’m warming to Phil now that I know he’s a Real Canadian so give him my regards but tell him time’s precious out on the range and to cut out the arguing Duke son. Heck, I suppose I better get used to you being called Dukey!

    Will do Pappy,

    1. Hi there Duke and Pappy Duke,

      Well, when fellow Canuk Phil saw Pappy got into this discussion, he fell off his horse and hurt his leg, so he asked me to respond while he is is recovering. All I can say Duke, is that when you pick a saddle partner, you better make sure he knows how to ride a horse! I’ll be giving Phil a few lessons, but in the mean-time, he thought he needed some help from the fastest gun alive (that’s me) as he knows of Pappy’s reputation. I told him he got nothing to worry about with Pappy and that in any case, I’m not alive no more, but I guess we all need a little helping hand once in a while, ey?

      Firstly, Phil wants to thank you for making him as an honorary American and laying out the precise deal with Stewart for the billing of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Pappy sure has an amazing memory! Seems they worked that one out very carefully. I’m not sure either about that TV version Phil saw with Stewart’s name billed first, but if it really existed, I suspect it was a French version. The French (I mean the one from France not my fellow Quebekers) have been known to do this type of thing before to suit their own purposes. For example, in the credits of Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, they simply switched the places of Stuart Whitman (your saddle partner of The Comancheros) and Jean-Pierre Cassel. Poor Stu, who was in fact first-billed, ended up in 7th place in the French version of the film and JP Cassel was first! I heard that Stu would not visit France for the next 23 years as a result (though this may simply be a rumor started by Phil). While the French thought they got away with the forgery, they didn’t count that in bilingual Canada we get film versions in both languages, so we’re on top of these things.

      Phil also wanted Duke to know that he was in no way questioning his manhood with his comments on The Shootist. On the contrary, he thought Duke’s vulnerability in the film showed what a true man he really is and he thinks it’s one of his best, if not the best, performance. But personally, I with Pappy on this one: the point is that Duke retained strength and dignity in the film, as did Jimmy with his more “emotional” roles. Nothing to do with the shameful and dubious characters Marlon portrayed. I mean Pappy said it all! I’ll only add that Marlon had the gall to masquerade as a Japanese character when he co-starred with me in The Teahouse on August Moon, and that he was a total pain to work with, why with his “method” acting and stealing my favorite cookies! You gotta admit though, that Marlon did muster up some manly courage standing up against racism and discrimination in Sayonara and against Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (whatever Joel Hershbum says about his performance).

      I tried to explain all this to Phil, but you know kids these days and their fancy ideas. He keeps bringing up Vincent van Gogh and that Kirk Douglas story. I’ve never been much of an art enthusiast so I can’t say. It seems there’s no place for men like us in this world any-more. As Charlie Bronson replied when Hank Fonda told him he was just a man in Once Upon a Time in the West: “A dying breed”.

      Still, Phil sends his regards and says he’ll be back on the saddle as soon as his leg feels better!

      Glenn

  4. PHIL
    1 I notice that you think that the Work Horse and I have extreme conflicting opinions about Joel and it is not so in my case.

    2 Certainly I would never drool over him as the Work Horse does but I do not regard him as an out and out “charlatan” as I accept that everybody has to earn a crust to put on the table and I would deprive no man of his livelihood even if it were up to me.

    3 My take on Joel is that he wanted to be a nightclub celebrity but couldn’t do funny; then tried his hand at rock music but couldn’t sing; then in desperation started to look around for other alternatives.

    4 This is just speculation but he might have come across Clint Eastwood’s philosophical statement in Dirty Harry that “Opinions are like *** ***** everybody’s got one.”

    5 It may then have occurred to Joel “I can’t act but hey I can criticize those who CAN so I’ll round up about fifty guys who know something about films to help me write a movies book

    6 Again more speculation but Joel may have concluded that if he picked on someone whom everybody loved he’d be discredited but it occurred to him that whilst John Wayne and Brando were popular with many they were also loathed by others, Wayne for his Gung Ho screen persona and his politics and Brando for the latter and because a lot of folk didn’t like his way of acting. So he thought “If I say nasty things about THEM and/or their movies I’m sure to get support from some quarters and of course controversy “sells”

    7 Hope that explains where I’m coming from on the Joel issue Phil

  5. HI FELLOW AMERICAN SIMMONS
    I see that once again that Bawwwb hombre seems to be picking up posts initially meant for other people and then maybe trying to pass them offas his own. Is it deliberate – is he spying on us?

    So the previous post was from ME to you. I certainly don’t want any exchanges with Mr Bawwb because although he seems to like me he also fawns over that grasping little Method chancer who demands piles of money for doing very little. DUKEY

    1. Howdy Mr. Duke, yes, you deserve a more respectful address than “Dukey” after your noble response on the Liberty Valance billing issue and Pappy should be proud that you kept your head cool and avoided being drawn into a gunfight at Billing Coral. And no worries about the glitch that caused your comment to be attributed to the amigo Bawwb, I had recognized your accent and was not duped. By the way, it is not surprising that you have mistaken me for a fellow Yank as I am in fact Canadian, and I won’t hold that against you since you have accepted me as your saddle partner.

      I confess that I half-expected you to come back shooting away, claiming that YOU were in fact first-billed in Liberty Valance, since your name does in fact come up before Jimmy Stewart’s in the actual movie credits, while Jimmy was billed above you in the theatrical poster. You would have been perfectly entitled to make that argument, but instead, you graciously recognized that fellow AMERICAN MAN Stewart was at least your equal, showing respect for his accomplishments and no sign of petty jealousy. You also provided relevant box office information to support your even-handed argument, displaying a logic and expertise reminiscent of the amigo Bawwb. By the tone of your argument, I note that like him and the Virginia Kid who runs this saloon, you see cumulative career box office returns as the most important factor in determining relative star power. In this particular case, it is indeed interesting and relevant that Jimmy and yourself has roughly equivalent box office totals up to 1962. However, as you may know, I think that this is a more complex issue and I will return on this point more generally at some later time, either to you or Bawwbby.

      One question you may be able to elucidate for me Dukey, is that while as I have said you are top-billed in the movie credits of Liberty Valance at least in most versions I have seen, I recall a version I saw on TV, perhaps in French, where Jimmy’s name was first. Is that possible or is my memory playing tricks on me?

      Now, regarding all this stuff about REAL MEN and ramblings on the Brando Boy bawling his eyes out in Streetcar, I have to say Dukey, that you still need to grow up a bit. I note that you forget that your fellow AMERICAN MAN Jimmy also played some vulnerable characters with evident weaknesses, such as in Vertigo. This did not make him any less of a man in my view. Your pal Kirk Douglas once said that you chided him for playing Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (a role that many actors would kill for), because you felt that “we should be playing REAL men”. I mean, wow, was an artist who left the world with some of the greatest paintings in history not a real man, just because he was a complex and tortured soul? Perhaps if you had not let your rather limited notion of manhood restrict the roles you accepted, you would have earned a higher spot on the AFI list you mention, like Jimmy and the Brando Boy.

      I hate to say this, but somewhere along the way Dukey, you seem to have gotten lost into the fictional heroic figure you represented so well on the screen and lost touch with the reality of what is a man. Even the cold, ultra-tough Charlie Bronson was aware that there was more to being a man than carrying a six-pack when he told the village boys in The Magnificent Seven “You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility!”.

      And yet, you yourself may have given your best performance in your last film, The Shootist, when like the character you portrayed, you were dying of cancer and showed us a glimpse of your own vulnerability, and in so doing, of your humanity. Aw yes Dukey, the saddened, though dignified, expression in your eyes and weakened body said it all and you touched us in that film like never before. I wonder if at that time, you finally realized how frail and weak all men can be and that it is through the recognition and acceptance of our fragility that we can gain true inner strength to deal with the struggles of real life as opposed to the illusionary life of the movies.

      As your saddle partner, I needed to be frank with you, but rest assured that I still remain in admiration under your shadow. Best wishes Pawrdner!

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