Netflix Weekend Recommendation: The Career of Harold Gould (plus Golden Girls turns Silver)

I was saddened to learn this morning that Harold Gould had died this weekend

You may know who that is, but you'll recognized his face.

He's probably best known as playing Rhoda's father Martin on Rhoda and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. You also know him as the go-to Jewish character actor, which is saying something knowing just how many Jewish character actors there are.  He was also Rose's on-and-off paramour Miles on The Golden Girls.¹

But I'm best remembering him lately as Barney Gerber, Jody's hospital roommate from the first season of Soap. For those unfamiliar (who have not yet taken my last Netflix Weekend Recommendation), Jody was in the hospital to get a sex change operation, not necessarily because he wanted to be a woman but so that he could be with his pro football playing lover Dennis.² Despite the ridiculousness of its origin, the relationship between Jody and Barney is quite touching, especially as Barney realizes that the 'fagela' is far and away the sanest member of the Campbell/Tate clan, and when Jody gets dumped and tries to kill himself, Barney's reactions sell the drama and the comedy.³

Take a look at Gould' s' television credits on Wikipedia -- from Hazel to Nip/Tuck and just about everything in between.  I hope he was as happy working as he was working often.  He had plenty of film and stage credits, so along with Soap, I'll recommend The Sting, not necessarily for his part in it, but because it's a great movie that he makes greater.     And he was the type of guy who made things better because he was in them -- not just "Hey it's that guy!" but a "Yay, it's that guy!"

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1 Speaking of, this week is the 25th anniversary of the premiere of the Golden Girls.  Doing a search on it, I discovered this 25th Anniversary Golden Girls  DVD box set, complete with purse.

Awesome, right? If anything, the purse is too classy but it's a far better idea than a cheesecake box; I'll see you on the linai.

²  It's just as off-the-mark and offensive and unrealistic as it sounds -- though to be honest, if you watched All My Children's "daytime first" gay wedding last year which was marred when Biana's wife-to-be Reese kissed Zach on her wedding day because she was confused about her sexuality or something that was never really explored at all... well, it just seems that botching same-sex relationships was just a bit of soap opera parody that Susan Harris was doing ahead of its time.

³ As does Billy Crystal.  While the character of Jody may have been problematic, at best, Crystal's acting is really something, and if you only remember him as a City Slickers-doing, Oscar-hosting stuff, Soap really reminds me that the reason it's okay that he's the perennial Oscar host fave because despite his silly songs, he's actually an actor.