Lardner

On March 8, 2003 PATRICIA ANNE (nee Kelinger) beloved wife of the late Robert Lawrence Lardner Sr.; loving mother of Dr. Lynda McGinnis, Susan Preis, Robert Lardner Jr. and SFC Thomas Lardner; loving sister of Margaret Kohles. Also survived by nine grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Family and friends are invited to call at the Schimunek Funeral Home 610 MacPhail Rd. Bel Air on Monday and Tuesday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. A wake service will be held on Tuesday at 4 P.M. A funeral Mass will be held on Wednesday at 10 A.M. at Saint Francis DeSales Church in Abingdon.

The Rev. Gerald "Gerry" Vincent Lardner, a Sulpician priest who taught preaching and later served as a missionary in Africa, died of cancer June 18 at Mercy Medical Center. He was 70 and lived in North Baltimore. Born in Baltimore and raised on Malbrook Road in the Westown section of Catonsville, he attended St. Agnes School. He followed an uncle, the leader of the Sulpician Fathers, in pursuing a religious life. He entered the old St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville as a 13-year-old high school student.

On Wednesday, August 20, 2003, JOHN JOSEPH, beloved husband of Mary V. Lardner (nee Veltre), loving father of Denise Ellinger, Teresa and husband Ron Burdinski, Susan and husband Tom Kujawa, and Jane and husband Greg Andrews; cherished grandfather of Chad and Steven Ellinger, Kevin Burdinski, Jonathan Kujawa, Anthony and Alex Andrews. Relatives and friends are invited to call at the Witzke Funeral Home of Catonsville Inc., 1630 Edmondson Ave (1 miles W. of Beltway exit 14), on Friday, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Saturday, 11 A.M. in the Chapel at the Church of the Resurrection.

On Wednesday, August 20, 2003, JOHN JOSEPH, beloved husband of Mary V. Lardner (nee Veltre), loving father of Denise Ellinger, Teresa and husband Ron Burdinski, Susan and husband Tom Kujawa, and Jane and husband Greg Andrews; cherished grandfather of Chad and Steven Ellinger, Kevin Burdinski, Jonathan Kujawa, Anthony and Alex Andrews. Relatives and friends are invited to call at the Witzke Funeral Home of Catonsville Inc., 1630 Edmondson Ave (1 miles W. of Beltway exit 14), on Friday, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 P.M. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Saturday, 11 A.M. in the Chapel at the Church of the Resurrection.

"The Stalking of Kristin," by George Lardner Jr. Atlantic Monthly Press. 340 pages. $23 George Lardner of the Washington Post has written a book I could not write. "The Stalking of Kristin" is about the murder of his child.On May 30, 1992, Kristin Lardner was walking down Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Her former lover sneaked up behind her and calmly put a bullet in her head. Fleeing down an alley, he returned suddenly and shot her twice more as she lay mortally wounded on the sidewalk. Minutes later, the killer himself would be dead of a suicide.

When Ring Lardner began writing these stories about 80 years ago, baseball was a game. There were no Rotisserie Leagues, or middle-aged men paying $300 for a replica baseball jersey, or myth-makers eager to put the sport on an altar of mystical worship.Plenty of people played baseball, and plenty of people watched it, but it had not yet been discovered by the intellectuals. The fans were blue-collar and working-class; the players were farm boys or city kids, perhaps functionally illiterate, probably fond of booze and almost certainly lacking in social graces.

Rex Lardner, 80, a humorist and author, died of a heart attack Monday while playing mixed doubles on a tennis court near his home in Great Neck, N.Y. A member of a storied literary family that included his uncle, humorist Ring Lardner, he was the chief radio and television writer for innovative comedian Ernie Kovacs, and the author of more than a dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles.Chapters of one of his first books, "Out of the Bunker and Into the Trees," a 1960 parody of golf and golfers, have been widely reprinted in sports magazines.

Ring Lardner Jr., 85, the last surviving member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters who were jailed and blacklisted during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in New York City. His satirical screenplays earned him two Academy Awards, but he was best known for his refusal to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee if he had ever been a Communist. He was a Communist but held that his political views were none of the government's business. Mr. Lardner, with Michael Kanin, won an Oscar for best original screenplay in 1942 for "Woman of the Year," starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Summer's upon us, which means that until Labor Day offerings at the neighborhood googolplex will skew decidedly downward, appealing to audiences with a mean age of 14 (with the emphasis on mean). Luckily, there are loads of smart, well-written books about movies and their makers that have come out in the past year. Even if they can't go to good movies, literate filmgoers can endure that long, dry season until fall by at least reading about them. Ring Lardner, Jr. was the last surviving member of the Hollywood Ten before he died last October.

Maybe it's your brother-in-law or someone in the office. Maybe it's someone in the car pool or someone who's dating your daughter. But it's someone: A person who considers him- or herself intrinsically more interesting than you, whose life is so much more fascinating than yours, whose wit so much more powerful, and who seizes every second of every day to narrate their latest adventures.Uck. Terrible, no?Now imagine two of them -- with a movie camera -- and you have some idea of the horrors that lurk within "My Life's in Turnaround," which is one half of the double bill at the Charles this week, and a movie so piercingly vain it makes mere narcissism seem like strength of character.

On March 8, 2003 PATRICIA ANNE (nee Kelinger) beloved wife of the late Robert Lawrence Lardner Sr.; loving mother of Dr. Lynda McGinnis, Susan Preis, Robert Lardner Jr. and SFC Thomas Lardner; loving sister of Margaret Kohles. Also survived by nine grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Family and friends are invited to call at the Schimunek Funeral Home 610 MacPhail Rd. Bel Air on Monday and Tuesday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. A wake service will be held on Tuesday at 4 P.M. A funeral Mass will be held on Wednesday at 10 A.M. at Saint Francis DeSales Church in Abingdon.

Summer's upon us, which means that until Labor Day offerings at the neighborhood googolplex will skew decidedly downward, appealing to audiences with a mean age of 14 (with the emphasis on mean). Luckily, there are loads of smart, well-written books about movies and their makers that have come out in the past year. Even if they can't go to good movies, literate filmgoers can endure that long, dry season until fall by at least reading about them. Ring Lardner, Jr. was the last surviving member of the Hollywood Ten before he died last October.

Ring Lardner Jr., 85, the last surviving member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters who were jailed and blacklisted during the McCarthy era in the 1950s, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in New York City. His satirical screenplays earned him two Academy Awards, but he was best known for his refusal to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee if he had ever been a Communist. He was a Communist but held that his political views were none of the government's business. Mr. Lardner, with Michael Kanin, won an Oscar for best original screenplay in 1942 for "Woman of the Year," starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

"A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring 20s," by Roger Kahn. Harcourt Brace & Co. 496 pages. $28.It was a decade of peace after a great war, and of prosperity before the Depression.Charles Lindbergh hopped the Atlantic, and Babe Ruth belted his way into immortality. Hemingway, Stein and Fitzgerald redefined American literature. Hollywood invented the talkie. Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan debated the origin of man. President Harding perpetrated high crimes and Al Capone, low.And Jack Dempsey lorded over the ring.

Rex Lardner, 80, a humorist and author, died of a heart attack Monday while playing mixed doubles on a tennis court near his home in Great Neck, N.Y. A member of a storied literary family that included his uncle, humorist Ring Lardner, he was the chief radio and television writer for innovative comedian Ernie Kovacs, and the author of more than a dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles.Chapters of one of his first books, "Out of the Bunker and Into the Trees," a 1960 parody of golf and golfers, have been widely reprinted in sports magazines.

"The Stalking of Kristin," by George Lardner Jr. Atlantic Monthly Press. 340 pages. $23 George Lardner of the Washington Post has written a book I could not write. "The Stalking of Kristin" is about the murder of his child.On May 30, 1992, Kristin Lardner was walking down Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Her former lover sneaked up behind her and calmly put a bullet in her head. Fleeing down an alley, he returned suddenly and shot her twice more as she lay mortally wounded on the sidewalk. Minutes later, the killer himself would be dead of a suicide.

WASHINGTON -- To paraphrase that eminent philosopher Andre Agassi, attitude, not image, is everything.The gang rode into town looking the part of all the others hoping to get a new league off the launch pad with one notable exception: They appeared well versed on the subject of fledgling sports operations.Too often, well-heeled gents with a couple of bucks to blow and an overwhelming desire to see their names and faces thrust before the public get involved in sports franchising. They talk humbly, but in their hearts see themselves as big shots.

"A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring 20s," by Roger Kahn. Harcourt Brace & Co. 496 pages. $28.It was a decade of peace after a great war, and of prosperity before the Depression.Charles Lindbergh hopped the Atlantic, and Babe Ruth belted his way into immortality. Hemingway, Stein and Fitzgerald redefined American literature. Hollywood invented the talkie. Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan debated the origin of man. President Harding perpetrated high crimes and Al Capone, low.And Jack Dempsey lorded over the ring.

When Ring Lardner began writing these stories about 80 years ago, baseball was a game. There were no Rotisserie Leagues, or middle-aged men paying $300 for a replica baseball jersey, or myth-makers eager to put the sport on an altar of mystical worship.Plenty of people played baseball, and plenty of people watched it, but it had not yet been discovered by the intellectuals. The fans were blue-collar and working-class; the players were farm boys or city kids, perhaps functionally illiterate, probably fond of booze and almost certainly lacking in social graces.

Maybe it's your brother-in-law or someone in the office. Maybe it's someone in the car pool or someone who's dating your daughter. But it's someone: A person who considers him- or herself intrinsically more interesting than you, whose life is so much more fascinating than yours, whose wit so much more powerful, and who seizes every second of every day to narrate their latest adventures.Uck. Terrible, no?Now imagine two of them -- with a movie camera -- and you have some idea of the horrors that lurk within "My Life's in Turnaround," which is one half of the double bill at the Charles this week, and a movie so piercingly vain it makes mere narcissism seem like strength of character.