Maury Chaykin (1949-2010)

Maury as Nero Wolfe. (Thanks to Doug Krentzlin of examiner.com for culling this clip from The Silent Speaker. Timothy Hutton is Wolfe's unflappable sidekick Archie Goodwin.)

Howie sends word that our old friend Danny Chaykin's younger brother, Maury, died last night on his 61st birthday.

He was a really good actor. As I wrote Howie, I'll have to watch a Nero Wolfeepisode tonight in his memory.

This sucks. -- Ken

UPDATE: Howie has sent along a pretty decent obit from the L.A. Times, which refers to Maury in the head as a "Canadian actor." I guess this is right, since that's where he wound up based, and there's no doubt that having Canadian nationality, as he and Danny and their sister Debbie did via their mother (her name was Clarice, but it's still hard for me to think of her as anything except "Mrs. Chaykin"), was a great help to him in his acting career. Still, considering how much time we all spent in the Chaykin house -- across East 27th Street from James Madison H.S. (which you've heard so much about from Howie and me) in Brooklyn -- before and after school and on weekends, that "Canadian" gave me a start. Also, my late stepsister Wendy was a classmate and friend of Maury's at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which is how I first heard tell of his acting. (I recall her insisting that he was really good.)

I was pleased to see the Times obit taking such appreciative note of Maury's hilarious exploding send-up of tinderbox Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein (rechristened "Harvey Weingard," seen below in a rare moment of non-apoplexy) on HBO's Entourage. I assume the new season's episodes are all finished; it's a shame the producers can't kill off the character -- who wound up a nemesis of Vinnie Chase's -- in suitably over-the-top style.

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