Eulogy for Chris Penn -- January 27, 2006 (original)


Sometimes you wake up in the morning, a thin coat of cold sweat clinging to your body, muscles tensed as if jolted by an electric pulse, eyes bleary, and you just know something is wrong; something is terribly, terribly wrong. You cringe when you pick up the paper, hoping against hope, praying that you're just being silly or falling ill. But then..........BAM! A cold shower, a punch in the face, the collective shrieks of every baby on every flight you've ever been on: combined, these are all minor inconveniences, definitely not worthy of an email, compared with what I found on the third page of the fourth section of the free paper I found stuck to the floor of my bus this morning:


I speak, of course, of the passing one of the great actors, nay, legends of the silver screen:

Chris Penn, 1965-2006.

Known outside Hollywood circles primarily as Sean's younger, more talented and better-looking brother, Penn's distinctive thespian talents hoisted him head and shoulders above his contemporaries.

Lest we forget the tearjerking sensitivity conveyed by Mr. Penn in his hauntingly subtle performance as Manetti in Starsky and Hutch, nor can we disregard the fact that the success or failure of the Best of the Best franchise rested squarely on his broad, pockmarked shoulders (which will ultimately be for the historians to decide). I will reluctantly mention Reservoir Dogs and True Romance, admittedly two of his less celebrated performances, though the films themselves have acquired something of a quiet cult following, or so I'm told. In no small part thanks to Penn, of that I am certain.

While today's younger generation will most likely remember Penn as a roly-poly instigator in films like Corky Romano, Rush Hour, and his winning cameo in that episode of Entourage, many of us cannot help but hearken back to an earlier, more innocent time: 1984.

Without the instinctive comedic timing and sophisticated buffoonery only he could bring to the role of Willard Hewitt in Footloose, Denise Williams' "Let's Hear it For the Boy" would probably just be another pop music castoff left to toil obscurely in the annals of '80s movie soundtracks.

Sadly, we can no longer hold out hope that Mr. Penn will break out the dancing shoes with Kevin Bacon for a Footloose sequel, nor can we expect his triumphant return as Floyd from Beethoven's 2nd, but each and every one of us can hold on, and tightly, to our favourite memories of an actor John Lithgow once described as, simply, "too handsome for celluloid."

Let's Hear It For Chris Penn.

(What? Too soon?)