Ron Silver

What's WRONG? At CLUB DEAD, The bell tolls for Ron Silver, dead from cancer at the age of 62. Actor, and so much more, he used his celebrity and affluence to speak out on political causes... causes he believed in, trendy or not.

Characters you believe. Characters you believe in. Special people who remain in your mind once the set lights go dim. That was the triumph of Ron Silver's acting. He also raised eyebrows with his support of President Bush's policies in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States. Talk radio aside, the entertainment world is not fond of conservatives. Not only did Ron Silver, the actor, portray men of determination, it seems Ron Silver the man, was quite determined as well.

I don't pretend to be an expert, so I'll speak only of the four characters which come to mind at once, when I think of Ron Silver.

• From "Garbo Talks," Gilbert, the devoted son whose obsession is to fulfill his dying mother's wish to meet her idol, Greta Garbo. Anne Bancroft co-stars in that hardest of films to make, a story of death that is neither desolate nor heart-swelling.
  
• From the TV series "Wiseguy," fashion mogul David Sternberg, striving to gain acceptance from the father (Jerry Lewis) who built a clothing empire on Seventh Avenue. When the father is a giant, how can the son be expected to be anything less?
  
• From "Reversal of Fortune," as noted lawyer Alan Dershowitz. His client, Rhode Island socialite Claus Van Bülow (Oscar winner Jeremy Irons) was suspected of inducing his wife's diabetic coma, leading to her death.
• And finally, as Democratic puppetmaster Bruno Gianelli, part of the greatest ensemble cast ever assembled on television, from "The West Wing." It's worth noting that in the art-imitates-life department, his character spent the last two seasons cafting the campaign of the Republican candidate played by Alan Alda.

Much has been made of Ron Silver's sharp right turn in political thought following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Somewhere, buried in a maze of DVD's beside my desk, is a copy the the gifted interpretive commentary he did for NBC on election night 2004. So precise was his understanding, that I almost felt I was watching Gianelli, the political image maker and wünderkind from "The West Wing."

In Hollywood, it takes real balls to go against the flow, to abandon the mantle of the politically correct. Ron Silver remained true to what he felt. Political battles are not to my taste. Suffice to say, he listened to his heart, and damn the consequences, he remained true to them.

Then again, screw him, he's dead. Let's go look for crocodiles.

StevenK