Reflections of a Remarkable Malibuite

BY JEREMY WALKER

I never met Henry Gibson, the phenomenal actor and longtime Malibu resident who passed away here last week at the age of 73, but I first took note of his great talent in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia,” the best movie about Southern California since “Chinatown.”
In “Magnolia,” Gibson played a jaded, quietly homosexual barfly who can barely tolerate William H. Macy’s character, a former child quiz-show star on his way to emotional collapse in a dimly lit lounge somewhere deep in the San Fernando valley. Raising both an eyebrow and a cordial glass of amber liquid, Gibson’s character seems to sense the breakdown coming, yet does nothing whatsoever to prevent it.
“Magnolia” drew a slew of critical praise, much of it comparing Anderson to a filmmaker with deep Malibu ties, Robert Altman, who had turned to Gibson for “The Long Goodbye” and then to open his 1975 masterpiece, “Nashville.” In that movie Gibson played an intensely patriotic country and western performer absolutely straight, proclaiming in song that “We [the USA] must be doing something right to last 200 years.”
Thanks to Gibson’s steely conviction, you immediately knew you were watching a movie that was about to break every rule in the book.
Talking this week with Gibson’s son Jim, I’m reminded that the veteran character actor was actually best known for making people laugh as a fixture on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” a job that followed guest spots on hit shows like “F Troop” and “Bewitched.”
Jim Gibson and I attended Malibu Park Junior High at the dawn of the ’80s, meaning we missed “Laugh-In” and its pop-culture mushroom cloud. What had hit us square in our pre-adolescent jaws: the feature animated version of “Charlotte’s Web” featuring Henry Gibson’s voice as Wilbur the kindly pig. Years later, Jim tells me, his father would once again become hugely popular with the stroller set by playing an evil leprechaun in the 2001 Disney Channel movie “Luck of the Irish.”
A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences since the ’70s, Henry Gibson “was most proud” of his work in “Nashville,” Jim says; it was the performance that brought both a Golden Globe nomination and a Best Supporting Actor prize from the National Society of Film Critics. While the senior Gibson wasn’t that interested in prizes and awards, he was deeply honored when Paul Thomas Anderson wrote that part in “Magnolia” specifically for him and then overtly courted Gibson to play it.
Jim also shares that his father remained a working actor until quite recently, shooting a recurring role on the hit TV show “Boston Legal” up until December of 2008.
Residents of the Latigo beach area, Gibson and his wife Lois, who passed away in May of 2007, were not the type to go out to dinner a lot but were active in local events and charities and known to everyone at local businesses. Gibson served often as a celebrity auctioneer at the Malibu Public Library’s annual fundraiser, which is why, Jim tells me, he and his brothers designated Friends of the Malibu Library as the recipient of any tributes in lieu of flowers.
Like their father, Jim and his brothers have made their way into the movie business. Jon Gibson is a business affairs executive at Universal Pictures, while Charles Gibson is a director and two-time Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor.
A screenwriter, Jim penned the feature adaptation of Donald Goines’ violent urban novel “Never Die Alone” starring rapper DMX and released by Fox Searchlight in 2004. How a Malibu kid so compellingly connected with Goines’ haunting vision of a gangster beyond redemption is something of a mystery. Not mysterious at all: the huge smile that lights up Jim’s face when he shares the memory of arranging for his father to appear in an un-credited cameo in the very last scene of the movie.
“That was my proudest moment,” Jim says.