Earlier this week, Andrew Breitbart paid tribute to the late Ron Silver at the Center for Security Policy’s Keeper of the Flame dinner.  Attendees included Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

My wife loves me.

Despite the fact I’m an actor, she loves me. She thinks I’m the most talented guy on the planet, even as work continues to dry up.  The eternal optimist to my ever lovin’ pessimist. I’m a Flintstone while she’s a beauty with a heart of gold.  I make her laugh.  She loves my bits. (A particular favorite is, my DeNiro, as Jake LaMotta, performing Kenny Loggins, “House at Pooh Corner”). FAHGETAHBOUT IT! My wife’s a peach.

Lately, however, there’ve been some clouds brewing on the horizon and it’s possible I may have had a slight hand in creating the situation.  I’ve been listening to her as she’s watching the tube, talking about how Hannity is so cute.  On other occasions, how the humble founder of Big Hollywood, Andrew Breitbart, has such a quick wit.  I mean, I can handle her getting jazzed about Dennis Prager but this is new stuff for me. For the longest time, she was just so liberal.  To this day, she’s a registered Democrat.  I asked myself, how did this happen?  How did she go from being a liberal woman from Buffalo to being charmed by the likes of O’Reilly?  As I mentioned, I may be somewhat to blame because truth be told, at one time I was a liberal guy from Beantown.  A man who voted for both Carter and Clinton.  There, I said it.  (more…)

The first time I talked to Ron Silver was in January of 2005. Executive Producer Dave Bossie had brought me in to produce, write and direct a feature-length documentary on the United Nations as it neared its 60th anniversary. Ron would be the narrator, but as I soon found out he would be much more.  As everyone knew Ron was passionate and held strong opinions, and he wanted to hold the UN to the fire over many human rights issues and especially over their treatment of Israel. We decided to call the film “Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60.”

Over the phone from his New York apartment, Ron rallied me to the cause. He told me that as a kid, as a native New Yorker, how proud he was of the United Nations. He loved all the flags out in front, and reminded me that this was the world’s institution for peace when it was created out of the ashes of World War II. We both fondly remembered the work that Audrey Hepburn and Danny Kaye did for UNICEF. And we both knew that that UN no longer existed. (more…)

Meeting Ron Silver humbled me. Never have I been more wrong in assessing a person before knowing him.

Until I met him, he was just another Hollywood liberal loud mouth.

Yes, he was an award-winning actor and prolific film star. And, yes, he had strong political opinions. (The net sum of his positions added up to no partisan’s delight.)

But Ron Silver was also astoundingly intelligent. Ask anyone who knew him. He spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese and Spanish to go with having a Master’s Degree in Chinese History.

These facets combined to make Silver a most compelling public person, a natural leader and the type of man who automatically commanded respect and admiration no matter the social or vocational circumstance. (more…)

In the entertainment industry, friendships are a sometime thing: they bloom with each new project and too often, disappear in the breeze of first reviews.  But when Ron Silver entered your life it was for keeps; his love of life, his energy, his exuberant generosity, and his extraordinary breadth of mind made him someone whom you never wished to let go.

We first met many years ago in a Chinese restaurant whose name was known only to him, deep in the regions of downtown Manhattan.  He ordered off-menu in what was clearly imperfect Cantonese, but done with such conviction and commitment the waiter succumbed and willed himself to understand Ron’s every word (we later discovered he was a new hire from Taiwan who spoke only Mandarin but Ron was irresistible in any language)  In those early days our politics were antipodal (Ron would want that word in his appreciation and would not want its use marred by an in-text definition)  He still burned with the revolutionary zeal of the 60s, a fever that had drawn him to travel across the world in pursuit of an original ambition to become a diplomat — only to discover his kismet lay elsewhere (Kismet? He liked this kind of talk).  But even as an actor, the calling of public service was always close at hand.  It was perfectly logical that he became President of Actor’s Equity and equally predictable that, in that job, he would become the strong heroic voice of much needed change in the way that artists and management related and also lead Equity into the new era of collective bargaining and job definition – perhaps the first union leader to really understand what the 21st century would mean.  Almost obsessed with the millennium it made sense that his e-mail address would be NYC2K.  I looked forward to the Davos Conference each year, not for the pompous speeches of the world leaders but for Ron’s amusing pin-pricking of their hot-air balloons.  (more…)