Dying Isn't Easy
I miss people’s real teeth now that everyone’s trying to go for the makeover-fakeovers. People seem to feel so apologetic about their teeth and I I get that: I tried the Teeth Whitening Mouthwash, hoping for the best, like when my mom used to put white shoe polish on my sneakers but what happened? My tongue turned black; scared the bejesus out of the young tech at my doctor’s office. Seems the stuff kills the algae or whatever all that flora is in there, so then the fungi have themselves a field day, amazingI wrote about this nostalgia for people’s real teeth in a recent column and mentioned Ali McGraw, who has these two crooked teeth there along the center aisle of her upper jaw. I noticed this watching the last hour of the 1970 film “Love Story” in which nobody even tells poor Ali-as-Jennifer that she has cancer, even though her rich young husband knows it, as does the fancy Fifth Avenue doc they go to because they can’t seem to get a baby going.The doc uses that favorite Old Hollywood method of delivering bad news, meaning by the slow-drip followed by the sudden fatal dose. He’s having a secret meeting with Ali’s young groom Oliver Barrett III, played by Ryan O’Neal. “I’m afraid children won’t be possible,” he gravely intones. “So we’ll adopt!” counters cheeky young Oliver. “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that.” “What do you mean?” “She’s dying.”Then there’s more schmaltzy music, a feeble walk or two in the park, some exhausted-looking kissing and the next thing you know she’s telling him she wants to bring the troops home by Christmas which means she wants to die. Now please. And she does it too.Anyway if you read the column you’ll see that although Jennifer slipped away, Ali McGraw is still going strong at 71 with the same cute teeth God gave her.Really though I’m thinking now of her co-star today. The girl Ryan O’Neal has loved for 30 years is now dying in the hard old-fashioned way and was there ever a smile as bright as Farrah’s? Every man in America loved her and every woman used her hairstyle to pay her tribute. Here on this matchless spring day I am paying it still.
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