Fun
Robby Benson Film Festival
Dear Ann,
Maybe we should rename this feature Self-Indulgent Sunday. When we were working on MDK Field Guide No. 10, with its downtown theme, I went tripping down memory lane to 1973. Specifically, to the film Jeremy, starring Robby Benson. That year, I saw it with my best friend, Laurie Beber, in an afternoon showing at the Astro theatre in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.
I recall that we both loved it to little bits. Laurie recalls, and I quote, “YOU loved it. I thought it was all right.” (Narrator: She loved it.)
Anyway, it’s hilarious to me to look at pictures of Robby Benson in character as Jeremy, an awkward young man who played the cello and handicapped horses. I can draw a straight line from seeing Jeremy to 18 years later, when I married the kind of guy that Jeremy surely would have grown up to be, had he not been tragically fictional. My beloved did not play the cello, but he was a devotee of the Daily Racing Form. I like to think that Jeremy, when all grown up, also would have thought nothing of stopping by the Off-Track Betting parlor carrying a toddler on his shoulders.
The pre-digital New York Times review of Jeremy, by Roger Greenspun, does not disappoint. (And look: Balto!)
Thanks to the internet, one can wallow in the entire Robby Benson 1970s canon, of which Jeremy is an early work. There’s also One on One (1977—basketball phenom!), Ode to Billy Joe (1976—he who—spoiler alert if you’ve never listened to the radio in your entire life—jumped off the Tallahatchee Bridge), and Ice Castles (1978—ice skater’s boyfriend? Colleen Dewhurst is in it—how bad can it be?)
I rented Jeremy on Amazon Prime.
I bet you think I purchased it, but I just rented it.
I swear.
Love,
Kay
I’m shocked that you have blatantly ignored the 1979 classic “Walk Proud” in which my beloved Robby plays a Chicano gang member in love with Susie Creamcheese. I still haven’t gotten over the Gilda Radner spoof of him on SNL.
Just seeing the name “Robby Benson” gave me the biggest smile. I can hear his voice perfectly.
Me too!
Didn’t Robby Benson also play Daniel in the movie The Chosen?
Well, I don’t know if the character’s name was Daniel, but yes, he played the Chasid son.
And in one of my very favorite roles as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.
I had the biggest crush on him back then. He was also in a TV movie based on a book about a man’s son who dies from brain cancer, also I think, based on a true story, “Death Be Not Proud”. Then there was a comedy in theaters, “Die Laughing”. I went to see “Ode to Billy Joe” three times in the theater, back then there were no video devices to purchase and rewatch favorite movies, you had to wait until they were played on tv!
Can you stop by the off-track betting parlor with a toddler? I just remember accidentally taking a wrong turn into the Sports Book in the Bellagio with my little niece in a stroller a few years back, and being pounded upon immediately by security. You can walk through the casino with a children all you want, but because of the location of the Sports Book there is no “through” there. And you can’t apparently take a child “into” the Sports Book, even just to read the lines.
Wait–you’re skipping over something. Your husband played the ponies?
Yes, he loved it. Mostly focused on Triple Crown races and Saratoga in August.
Oh my goodness – to think I haven’t thought of Robbie Benson in years — like meeting that guy you had a crush on in junior high (this was before middle schools, but after crushes) at your 40th high school reunion.
Yes, dear Robby Benson. Loved him to pieces! He’s definitely the one I enjoyed most in the movies. Thank You for the revisiting of his work!
I now have the theme to Ice Castles in my head. I wasn’t even aware that I ever knew it. A quick Google search confirms that I had safely stored it away.
Weirdly, I seem to have missed Jeremy, but I definitely saw all the other Robby Benson movies you list. The difference might be that I would have still been in high school when Jeremy came out, and I just didn’t see that many movies in high school – my town was so small that the nearest movie theater was 10 miles away. (I did see Love Story, though!) I’ll need to rent it this weekend, obviously!
Love The Chosen, haven’t seen One on One in years and years with the fabulous Annette O’Toole.
Jeremy, oh Jeremy! My wonderful mom sat through that movie not once, but twice back then, first with my sister and her friends, then with me and my friends. I had completely forgotten this song, but I vaguely remember another one, a plaintive ballad going Jeeeeee-remy. Amazon is priceless.
I loved Ice Castles! I thought it was so romantic. Ah youth❤️
Can you remember an independent short film on an elderly woman who made sweaters for children
She was British. She gave them away to strangers.I can’t find it. It may have been several years ago. Help!
Just stumbled across Ice Castles and this site. I loved this movie and loved ice skating. It was well acted and Lynn-Holly Johnson did a great job acting and skating. His acting in the movie was well played. Robby Benson was – and is – a class act.
Years ago I was soliciting celebrities for a golf tournament in Greenville, SC benefitting Meals on Wheels and reached out to Robby to see if he could attend. He answered his own phone and said Meals on Wheels meant a great deal to communities and he personally had a relative that benefitted. He wanted to participate but as he was a Professor at the Univ of SC, he needed to check his schedule. He also mentioned that his wife, Karla DeVito, was doing choreography for Disney (if I recall correctly) and wanted to check with her. He said he would call back. We didn’t have cell phones back then so that thoughtful man called me himself several times and left messages and we spoke a few times as well. His voice sounded the same as in the movies (except BATB).
Robby was humble, unassuming and thoughtful. In the end he was unable to fit the event into his schedule but when he said he wished he could be there, I believed him.