Wow, what a week….. I change jobs (it’s going to be an interesting few months – but a change is as good as a holiday, right?), my computer dies (come see me say goodbye to my programs; I call it the ‘google wave’), the weather does a complete 360 (it’s as indecisive as a bipolar nymphet), and now, The Equalizer dies!
Hands up who didn’t grow up watching ‘The Equalizer’ – the theme plays in my head even as I type – on the box? None of you, right? Well, at least none of you over the age of 30. The series, like say “The A-Team”, “Knight Rider”, “Murder She Wrote” and “Airwolf”, was a staple of the 80s… part of the 5 food groups that kept us going each and every week. And though George Peppard was inarguably ‘badder’, and Michael Knight was obviously ‘cooler’, Robert McCall’s the guy we likely wanted on our side when the clouds went black. The man wasn’t just an ‘Equalizer’… he was a protector… a savior… a gun-for-hire friend.
And looking back, it’s hard to imagine anyone but the effortlessly-brilliant Edward Woodward playing him.
Woodward wasn’t your typical tough guy, nor was he someone you’d automatically considering running from in a dark alley, he was just a ‘normal guy’ who convinced us he was here to help. They can keep pushing the film version of “The Equalizer” along as much as they want (doubt it’ll ever happen; I mean, how many years did it take ‘em to make “A-Team”? and where the heck’s the “Knight Rider” movie the Weinstein Company promised us about five years ago?), but one thing’s for sure, they’ll never find a better Equalizer than the one we had on our box in the Reagan-era.
Woodward, who rose to fame in the 60s and 70s as the star of the series “Callan”, was 79. He’d been battling pneumonia.
For those not familiar with the man’s work – and if you aren’t, you can’t really call yourself a film/TV nut – head to your local library and check out “Breaker Morant”, “The Wicker Man” (the original; not the shitty Nicolas Cage version!); “The Man in the Brown Suit”; “King David”; and – to cite a more recent resume addition of the man’s – “Hot Fuzz”.
May you rest in peace, Equalizer.
