The TV Zone

Now, this: Ron Silver has died. At age 62.

There are many good obits now online, but I wanted to briefly illuminate this extraordinary TV career. Silver - a New Yorker down to his very molecules - actually got his start on the tube ("The Mac Davis Show," per IMDB, waaay back in the mid-seventies.) It was probably a means to supplement his Broadway and movie income, but - like all fine actors - he didn't, or couldn't, just "slum it" on the tube. (The less said about "Skin," the better.) There were many memorable roles, most recently his Bruno Gianelli character on "The West Wing." I've posted a clip below, just to jog memories, and am struck by how remarkable a real-life mirror - to Silver himself - this character was.

Silver was a Zelig-like figure, and just about anyone on the media beat in NYC over the last twenty or so years must have run into him SOMEWHERE. As a political activist of various stripes, he was indeed everywhere, and I remember briefly meeting him at some interview over in Secaucus or maybe Ft. Lee, where we had been interviewed by one of NBC's alphabet-soup networks about some-such issue; I don't remember what the subject was, but it was probably about how badly the networks had mangled the coverage of something.

Silver, I am sure, was passionate and utterly persuasive in his denunciation of whatever it was; I'm sure I was in awe of his sweeping and eloquent disembowelment of whatever the subject was. He seemed frightening, unapproachable. A few minutes later, after he got off the air, he wandered over, introduced himself, and asked if I needed a ride back to Manhattan.

So that's MY lasting memory of Silver - a man of contradictions, but at heart, a good guy.

Couple clips below. Contradictions? There have been a few - a supporter of left-wing causes who then became a huge supporter of Rudy. His Gianelli - a political consultant from the school of Dick Morris - seemed to capture both sides of this remarkable guy and gifted actor...

(Pix: AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta)