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ceebeegee ([personal profile] ceebeegee) wrote2004-05-20 10:17 am
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Tony Randall and Siring a Child in Your 70s

Thinking about Tony Randall's death. Okay, I loved the guy. I thought he was hilarious as Felix, and I loved how he had the cojones openly to say "Hell, yeah, Sidney's gay" when the network wouldn't. (I remembered both the original TV movie, and the subsequent series, Love, Sidney. Swoosie Kurtz played the mother in one, and Lorna Patterson in the other.) I've always respected his devotion to theater. But who has kids at 77? These kids are babies, 7 and 5, and their father is dead, a death which was entirely predictable. I hate to sound insensitive, but that's misguided. It's easy to say at least they knew him for that little amount of time," the whole "better to have loved and lost..." but losing a parent is devastating to a child. Although why does Nature allow situations like this? Why can a man sire children into old age, when women can't bear them past menopause?

[identity profile] king-duncan.livejournal.com 2004-05-20 07:31 am (UTC)(link)
Because there used to be high infant mortality rates, and women used to die in childbirth so often that men would need to keep fertilizing new wives.

Misguided nowadays, of course.

[identity profile] foulpost.livejournal.com 2004-05-20 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
Something like that. It's nature's numbers game. Ultimately it's all about the survival of the species.

[identity profile] wonderpanther.livejournal.com 2004-05-20 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
But at least there is one surviving parent. Not to sound sexist but when women are induced with "miracle babies" in their sixties (in Holland), there is not even that.

I found it interesting that these were Tony Randall's first children. He was married to his first wife for 50 years and they never had kids.