Forsooth Forsythe

Before he became famous playing fathers and non-father father figures (as in Bachelor Father and Charlie's Angels), John Forsythe was a "legitimate" actor. This week's objet d'eBay, the Playbill from a 1949 production of Tony-honored Mister Roberts, remembers the late actor and the time before he became the [male] face of Dynasty. As he mentioned once or twice, making schlock did not make him the best actor he could be. However, it did give him the time and money in his life and to revel in the life he created with one son, two daughters, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Father Gone

Many times one thing isn't really significant for what is really is, but for how it makes you think. So it is with this week's objet d'eBay, a Laser Disc of Dad, the 1989 tearjerker of a father and son learning about their love for each other, which starred Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson.

The movie is mostly forgotten and many believe for good reasons, but the idea of a movie about a father on a laser disc, a once brilliant and now mostly lost technology, still calls to mind movie man Paul Newman, a significant star now lost to his public. Some of his magic as a man will be dimmed by age, but among his forever fans will be his surviving daughters, who honored him as an extraordinary inspiration.

Bye Bernie

Too soon. This week's Objet d'eBay is a shirt that once was soaked with the sweat of Bernie Mac (Bernard Jeffrey McCullough), a self-proclaimed King of Comedy and the larger-than-life father of The Bernie Mac Show — very much a different kind of TV dad — who passed away yesterday morning at the age of 50. [Earlier: B/W TV]

He grew up without a father, and in his stand-up and on television he was constantly talking about how much he looked forward to busting on kids. The outraged father was clearly how he saw himself, but the busting never seemed to happen. His only daughter, Ja'Niece Childress, told the AP for his obituary that he was the "king of the household" as she grew up, just like the part he played on television. His television character — a late in life father who is stuck with his sister's three kids — was constantly exasperated and threatening and disturbed and outraged and ... and ... and caring and loving and hopeful and frightened for his kids.

Intriguingly, it turns out a guy who grew up without a father turns out to be a role model for other fathers ... although maybe not for kids.