Saying Farewell to Luke, Buck, and Meathead

In my last piece I wrote how this was not a happy holiday season for me. The last thing I would have wanted was for so many others to share in my melancholy. But since then, the news coming out of the world of classic television has been nothing but sad.

Rob Reiner
I’ve written before of my general lack of enthusiasm for the shows created by Norman Lear. But even in that piece I acknowledged their quality, popularity, and the ways in which they broadened the television sitcom landscape. Few series in the history of the medium were as revolutionary as All in the Family. It was so game changing that CBS aired a ‘brace yourselves’ warning before the first episode:

“The program you are about to see is ‘All in the Family.’ It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. By making them a source of laughter we hope to show – in a mature fashion – just how absurd they are.”

If viewers were shocked it didn’t stop them from watching. From 1971 to 1976 All in the Family was television’s #1 show, and its four leads and the characters they played became pop culture icons. I think Rob Reiner as Mike Stivic had the most challenging role.

I’m not sure if Norman Lear was prepared for the extent to which audiences embraced Archie Bunker. He was brusque and bigoted but working-class viewers struggled with the same challenges as Archie and were just as confused by changing mores and attitudes. And, as demonstrated by the election of a certain chief executive, they liked plain talk even when it was harsh, and preferred it to Ivy League philosophizing from over-educated eggheads who claimed to know everything except how to pay rent.

Mike was Archie’s sparring partner on all the political and social issues of the day.

He was right much of the time, but he was still Meathead. And yet viewers came to care about him and Gloria as much as they loved Archie and Edith. Maybe that’s why, when fans recall the show now, they may first remember the tender moments rather than the arguments.

Reiner appeared on other classic TV shows as well – in bit parts on That Girl and Gomer Pyle, in a classroom on Room 222, and as the head of a biker gang on The Partridge Family. But All in the Family would define him as an actor, and then he achieved an even more impressive second act as the director of the some of the finest films of the last 30 years.


Anthony Geary
Few actors in history had as profound an impact on an entire genre as Anthony Geary did on daytime dramas. There were soaps before Luke Spencer arrived in Port Charles on General Hospital, but the magnetism Geary brought to that character raised the game of his costars and expanded the storytelling possibilities available to writers, while elevating soaps to a level of popularity previously unattained.

We must also credit Gloria Monty here, who created the character and the pairing of Luke and Laura, whose 1981 wedding remains to this day the most-watched episode of any daytime drama. I was one of those viewers. At the time I checked in on other soaps occasionally, but GH is the one I stuck with and still watch to this day. Geary was one of the main reasons for that, along with Tristan Rogers and Jackie Zeman and so many others, many of whom are also gone as well.

Luke was the ultimate antihero, in a genre where the heroes and villains were routinely so well-defined. He raped Laura before he married her and the audience still cheered. Not many actors could pull that off, but Geary did. When the material was great he made it greater, and when it was implausible as it often is on soaps, he made us believe it.

Like Rob Reiner he was also on All in the Family and The Partridge Family, and back in the day he sold a lot of Members Only jackets.

Gil Gerard
There is a loyalty and special affection that exists between fans of science fiction and the actors who bring its adventures to life.

You see it at the conventions for Star Trek and Doctor Who, and it endures even for less celebrated series like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which lasted just two seasons and 37 episodes. But more than 40 years later Gil Gerard’s table at autograph shows featured a steady stream of adults who were once kids, cheering in front of their 21-inch Zenith Chromacolor TV sets as Buck fought space vampires and the war witch Zarina.

Once described as “Logan’s Run on laughing gas,” this was one of the shows that characterized American sci-fi TV in the 1970s. Despite being saddled with the cute robot (Twiki) that every sci-fi franchise required after Star Wars, Gil Gerard and Erin Gray tried to play the material straight, but always with a wink to the audience. I still have my Mego Buck Rogers figure, mint in box I might add, and I’m sorry now I never went to one of his shows to get him to sign it.

As we learned from Galaxy Quest, sci-fi actors sometimes have a love-hate relationship with the roles that made them famous and the fans that still think they’re awesome after their hairlines recede and their bellies expand. But I’ve never heard anyone say they met Gerard and were not treated with kindness and appreciation. After his wife posted the news of his death on social media, the more than 3,500 comments (and counting) serve as a testament to his legacy.

"Your time as Buck Rogers was way too short but it has stayed with me in my childhood memories for 45+ years," one man wrote. "Your hero was brave, macho, but also kind, compassionate, and fair. I feel as if that was representative of the man you truly were. Thank you for being the kind of 'make believe' hero that we should all want to be in real life."

And we who are left soldier on.