Notable for playing nebbishy if likeable everyman types, the former Elliott Goldstein was something of a unique type who could pull off comedy and serious melodrama equally believably.
Born and raised in the heavily Italian immigrant neighborhood of Bensonhurst Brooklyn, he spent about five years working in theater before being given his first film role. Interestingly, it took another five years before his defining turn in 60’s sexual revolution dramedy Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, which followed by his part in yet another generation touchpoint, M*A*S*H* led to a memorable run of quirky films throughout the 70’s that saw him becoming something of an ersatz sex symbol alongside arguably similar if lesser types like Richard Benjamin and Alan Alda.
With a propensity towards darker, more loaded and nihilistic comedies offset by cheery, lighthearted takes on heavier genres like war, crime and noir, Gould straddled a middle ground shared by very few actors of his day, the sort who could (and did!) darken a Disney film, but on the flipside, brighten up the grimmest of scenarios.
Staying active in more recent years with recurrent parts in much beloved 80’s drama ER, 90’s yuppie lodestone Friends and the Ocean’s Eleven series and surviving not only a brief marriage to Babs Streisand, but two consecutive marriages to the same woman (!), join us as we talk perhaps the unlikeliest of sex symbols and most nihilistic (yet amusing!) of everymen, the inimitable Elliott Gould, only here on Weird Scenes!
Week 69: Elliott Gould: The Dark Side of Humor (a very 70's sex symbol)
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Week 111 (11/30/23): Take a Bite of the Rotten Apple - NYC cop/crime films of the 70s
Week 110 (11/16/23): Cary Grant
Week 109 (11/2/23): Crimenaux ala Francais - Crime The French Way
Week 108 (10/19/23): Hide in Plain Sight: the Life and Career of Rock Hudson
Week 107 (10/5/23): Still a Bit of a Lad: The Bumpy Career of Hugh Grant
Week 106 (9/21/23): Who’s Afraid of Liz and Dick? The Tempestuous Career of Richard Burton
Week 105 (9/7/23): Ride the rollercoaster - the life and career of Jennifer Lopez
Week 104 (8/24/23): Hail to the Queen: the rise, fall and resurrection of America’s Sweetheart Sandra Bullock
Weird Scenes Week 103 (8/10/23): Sex Italian Style: The Life and Films of Sophia Loren
Weird Scenes Week 102 (7/27/23): A Man of Unusual Talent: The Life and Career of Tony Perkins
Weird Scenes Week 101 (7/13/23): Brian DePalma
Weird Scenes Week 100 (6/29/23): Jamie Lee Curtis
Weird Scenes Week 99 (6/15/23): Richard Benjamin, Class(y) Clown
Weird Scenes Week 98 (6/1/23): High Voltage and Wired: The Life and Career of John Belushi
Weird Scenes Week 97 (5/18/23): In The Court of Chaos: Up (and Down) with Wesley Snipes
Weird Scenes Week 96 (5/4/23): Sometimes You’ve Just Got To Let One Go: The Atypical Career of Whoopi Goldberg
Weird Scenes Week 95 (4/20/23): From Horse Laughs to Hollywood to Fat Suit Hell: The Rapid Rise and Precipitous Fall of Eddie Murphy
Weird Scenes Week 94 (4/6/23): Class and Style: The Unusual Career of Jacqueline Bissett
Weird Scenes Week 93 (3/23/23): Come Fly With The Chairman of the Bored - The Films of Frank Sinatra
Weird Scenes Week 92 (3/9/23): George Segal
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