This is so sad

[dianeduane]

A tremendous film talent lost. And his son, just getting started on his own career.

Tuesday was usually family night for film director Bob Clark — best known for "A Christmas Story" and the "Porky's" movies — and his grown sons, Ariel and Michael.

Ariel, 22, who had been studying music composition at Santa Monica College and was a part-time card dealer at a casino, would typically join his father and brother at the condo they rented in Pacific Palisades. They were night owls, said Lyne Leavy, who headed Clark's production company, Film Classic Productions.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Bob, 67, and Ariel headed out; it's unclear whether they were going to get something to eat or driving to Ariel's Santa Monica apartment.

They had just driven a few blocks and were heading south on Pacific Coast Highway near the Bel-Air Bay Club at about 2:20 a.m. when a GMC Yukon swerved across the lane, striking their Infiniti Q-30 sedan head-on. Father and son were pronounced dead at the scene.

Dammit.

Comments

[navigatorsghost.livejournal.com]

Oh... that's so awful. What a horrible, pointless way for anyone to die. I hope they throw the book at the driver of that SUV.

It's funny, really. I was talking to a dear friend only last night about how you can never be sure that you won't wake up one morning and find your world ripped in two. My heart goes out to Michael and the rest of Bob and Ariel's family and friends. *sends prayers*

[spatch]

A DUI. Sigh. It's an extreme test of faith, whatever you have faith in, to read a story of two good lives taken by a drunk driver who lives.

Clark was a very interesting director. He somehow managed to direct one of my most favorite movies of all time (A CHRISTMAS STORY, though that's mostly due to my love of the work of Jean Shepherd) and one of the worst films I ever had the misfortune of seeing (I'm sorry, but BABY GENIUSES was just horrifying.) He helped define the slasher genre in the 70s, and could easily go from raunchy 80s throwback-to-the-50s comedy to heartfelt but offbeat family nostalgia.

Talent like that does not deserve to be snuffed out by a drunken idiot in an SUV.

[agawa-jean.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. No life deserves to be snuffed out by a drunken idiot in an SUV.

R.I.P.