Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, age 102, once reminisced about her relationship with Errol Flynn — who had wanted to seduce her when they were co-stars, but never succeeded.
In an interview many years later, Dame Olivia told a story. It was the late 1950s, she said, and for the first time in many years she viewed the classic 1938 feature she and Flynn had starred in together, "The Adventures of Robin Hood."
"Seeing Robin Hood after all those years made me realize how good all our adventure films were," she said. "I was astounded at its vitality, its effervescence. I thought it was simply wonderful. It was a revelation to me. It was a classic." She decided to write Flynn a letter, saying as much — but because of their somewhat dicey relationship, she had second thoughts, and tore the letter up.
"She later said she always regretted not sending the note, because just a few weeks later, Flynn died at the age of 50."
We cats thought about this story today — not just because we're fans of the Golden Age of Hollywood, but because we learned that one of the people killed in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre on Saturday was Jerry Rabinowitz, a physician who treated AIDS patients in the epidemic's early days.
One of his patients from Pittsburgh, who now lives in New York, thought about communicating with Dr. Rabinowitz recently — just to say, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, "I'm still here."
"And I didn’t. I
didn’t," he said. "I thought: 'Oh, I’m just one of many.' He had my back, but I know he had everyone’s backs. And [now] he’s never going to know that I made it."
Moral of the story: Write that letter. We cats salute the city of Pittsburgh for its grace in the face of tragedy, and we PURR.
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