Birthday Tribute: Richard Anderson

And today is Richard Anderson’s 89^th birthday! Awesome! I hope you have a wonderful day, Richard!

It’s a great year for Richard and Richard fans. The book is finally out! Richard has been going to book signings and conventions; he was at one just last weekend. Cozi TV still airs The Six Million Dollar Man and MeTV recently finished another run of season 9 of Perry.

I’m ecstatic to have finally finished The Malevolent Mugging, in which Richard’s character Steve Drumm plays a very large and important role. I’ve been wondering what Perry mystery to start next, as I have several ideas. The one that ended up taking precedence is one that stars Steve.

A couple weeks ago, I had an Ellery Queen disc out from Netflix. I adore the jazzy theme song, and hearing it again made me think of writing a film noir/detective parody with Steve Drumm as the main character. Since he is the most hardboiled of the main Perry policemen and often seems like he belongs in a 1940s-ish detective setting, he was the immediate choice.

So far the story is coming along quite well. It won’t be very long, but I might split it into three or four parts for posting, depending on its eventual length. I was hoping to have it ready today, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I’ve been throwing in lots of noir/detective show clichés, including a mysterious woman, a missing person, a valuable object everyone is seeking, a nightclub, a helpful singer, and Steve shaming the bad guys in a fight. It is a lot of fun! And it’s a nice chance to highlight the police and their investigations and depict them in a positive light. I hope it will be a nice tribute to Richard’s portrayal of Steve, as well as Lee Miller’s portrayal of Sergeant Brice.

Richard’s characters are so numerous and varied, from good guys to bad, and they inspire a lot of creativity among fans. Certainly there are many fan works with Richard’s arguably most famous character, Oscar Goldman. And I’ve seen many fans for other characters and for Richard in general. He is widely recognized and fondly remembered the world over, and he appears in so very many things that it probably isn’t an exaggeration to say that on any given day, people all over the world could be watching his performances in dozens of films and television series. Still more may be celebrating his characters in other ways.

I’m planning to make some pictorial tributes on Tumblr after I post this. If you check in at http://lucky-ladybugs-lovelies.tumblr.com, there should be some fun new stuff in a short while.

Thank you, Richard, for another wonderful year of enjoying your presence and performances, and thank you for a wonderful memoir this year! Here’s to many more years!