A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
|
|
|
World of Westfahl |
Encyclopedia Introduction |
All Entries |
Acknowledgements
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
|
STARR, RINGO (1940– ). British musician and actor.
Provided
voice for: The Point (animated short film; narrator) (Fred Wolf 1971);
"Elbert's Bad Word/Weird Parents" (1992), episode of The Simpsons; Shelley
Duvall's Bedtime Stories; "Bugging Out" (1995), episode of Shnookums
and Meat Funny Cartoon Show; "The Duck Brothers/Shirley the Medium" (2000),
episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog; several video compilations
featuring Thomas the Tank Engine, compiled from Shining Time Station
episodes, featuring Starr's voice only.
From the beginning, the unassuming Ringo
Starr, who clearly had the least musical talent in the Beatles, has been
recognized as the group's best actor. Despite a superficially homely
appearance, the camera always falls in love with him. After visiting with the
Beatles for only a few days, playwright Alun Owen knew that he had to make
Ringo the center of the drama, as his disappearance provokes the film's major
crisis, and he is undeniably the star of Help!, inasmuch as he is
wearing the amazing ring that makes him the target of various improbable
attacks by fierce cultists and opportunistic scientists. Even Paul MCCARTNEY,
in crafting what passed for a plot in the inchoate television special Magical
Mystery Tour, gave Ringo a privileged position by developing the character
of Ringo's grandmother as one participant in the journey, and he is the Beatle
who helps set the plot of the animated Yellow Submarine in motion. He
also made the group's only creative contribution to the film when he instructed
the animators to make his nose larger.
After he effectively starred in all the
Beatles films, and since he visibly lacked the musical ambitions of his
colleagues, no one should have been surprised when Ringo became the only Beatle
to embark on a successful career as a film actor, first with a cameo appearance
in the appalling all-star mess, Candy, then holding his own in the company
of comedian Peter SELLERS in the intermittently entertaining The Magic
Christian. By all reports, he was not particularly good in Frank Zappa's 200
Motels or the risible Son of Dracula, he was acclaimed for his
performance in a realistic film, That'll be the Day (1974), and
continued to garner significant supporting roles like the Pope in Lisztomania
and the Mock Turtle in a television adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.
He also appeared in his own television special, Ringo, a
semi-autobiographical story involving Ringo playing both himself and a humble
lookalike following the storyline of The Prince and the Pauper. During
this time, with a considerable amount of help from his friends, he also
released a number of successful albums and singles.
The 1980s brought two more memorable roles:
he was effective in Caveman, a credible effort to revive an unrevivable
film genre, while also meeting future wife Barbara Bach. And he was utterly
charming as the first host of the children's television series Shining Time
Station, playing the diminutive Conductor who talks to boys and girls and
introduces stories about Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. As someone who
watched many of these episodes before his young son loved him, and I can report
that Starr was far superior to the man who replaced him after he quit, comedian
George Carlin. However, while he carried on as an actor, his albums grew worse
and worse, and less and less popular, and it was becoming increasingly hard to
overlook that he was evolving into an out-of-control alcoholic. Fortunately,
Starr recognized the problem, and both he and wife Barbara were soon clean and
sober.
Upon seeing the world clearly, as opposed to
through an alcoholic stupor, Ringo seemingly decided that he was, after all, a
musician more than anything else, and his film work dwindled to occasional
voice work while he focused on reviving his musical career. His comeback album,
Time Takes Time (1992), produced the modest hit "The Weight of the
World," accompanied by a video in which Ringo is seen holding the globe, and he
began to regularly tour as the leader of his All-Starr Band, sometimes singing
his own hits and sometimes drumming while other guests perform their own hits.
One has to say that these efforts were successful, for Ringo has surprisingly
evolved into a music who merits respect, regularly writing and producing his
own material, but the film world has lost a distinctive performer brought a
refreshing air of unpretentious ordinariness to fantastic settings. But even in
his seventies, he might still be called upon to portray an avuncular eccentric,
and he would undoubtedly do it very well.
|
||||
To contact us about encyclopedia matters, send an email to Gary Westfahl. Hosted & Designed By:
If you find any Web site errors, typos or other stuff worth mentioning,
please send it to our Webmaster.
Copyright © 1999–2013 Gary Westfahl All Rights Reserved Worldwide
