Gordon Lightfoot / A Lesson In Love ~ HOTEL~ 1988 !

[Jesse Joe]

"Gordon Lightfoot took an acting role for an episode in this series, playing an itinerant country singer with a drinking problem, on the comeback trail."~1988~... (lightfoot.ca)



YouTube- Gordon Lightfoot / A Lesson In Love - HOTEL ~1988~

[Dan O'Malley]

wow! been curious about this for years, love to see the whole show. good find!

[bjm7777]

Well.........I too was curious about the "Hotel" appearance. Was never a fan of the show so I missed this one. It was Gord being Gord, I think (What was that Buck Owens song about acting naturally?). Great song of course and I certainly like watching Gord perform.

[podunklander]

WOW GREAT find jjoe!!! I hated that show (and all others like them) but would force myself to watch an episode if there was a guest star I liked. This one with Gordon may had been the 1st time I had ever watched Hotel.

Mostly I hated that show because it took over the time slot where St. Elsewhere had been :(.

I didn't like seeing my childhood idol portraying an alcoholic, but just the rare chance to see him on TV was a great thrill. His acting was fine!

[formerlylavender]

Thanks for posting this! I hadn't seen it either. The actor who plays "Gord's" son also played Albert on Little House on the Prarie.

[Dan O'Malley]

Bet Gord weren't happy about all the lines of his song being misplaced in the edit! His acting seems really good though! I thought he did a good job in "Harry Tracy".

[Martin/12]

Wow. I was always curious too.
Now I am even more curious. Why is a country singer, complete with fringe, singing adult contemporary with a saxophone back up??

It is fun to Gord " On the TV".

[Jesse Joe]

That must have been "Thicke Of The Night" that I never got to see an episode. Down here it was only on Cable TV, and Cap-Pele where I was living @ that time had no Cable yet. But I did read about that show. Alan Thicke going on (ABC i think ??) against Johnny Carson, it didn't last long. It was Dick Shawn(comedian) that once said Alan going against 'The Tonight Show'... that's why his name is "thicke"... lol...got some laugh.

The 'Kirkland Lake' Ontario, born had a succesful day time talk show in Canada on CTV,( maybe this is the one your reffering to Misty ?) which he left for his late night try out. :)

[jj]

That must have been "Thicke Of The Night" that I never got to see an episode

ok, digital dropout when converting but not the worst quality out there

... ’not bad’ as Gord says

YouTube- totn.mov

[Jesse Joe]

Really great stuff why is it in B&W ? You know I never got to see one episode of TOTN. Thank you very much jj.

If your taking request let me know... because what I see @ Wayne's Site about his TV appearances there is a lot that I never saw, seems unreal...

However he does not have the interview that I posted this afternoon with Alan Thicke & Helen Shaver.

[Borderstone]

Isn't it funny the things you don't notice when you're younger?

I had no idea back then that people lip-syched on TV shows. ( Despite the show cslled "Puttin' On the Hits" where contestents lip-sybched songs. )

In the case of this episode,I didn't see it until years later. Nice to see GL on a TV show.

The dialouge has unfortuanatly not aged well,not to mention the style of acting. (


( No thats not a comment on Gordon. ) ;)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 1)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 2)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 3)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 4)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 5)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 6)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 7)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 8)

[Jesse Joe]

YouTube- GORDON LIGHTFOOT / HOTEL ~1988~ (Pt 9)

[jj]

thanks jjo, i never saw those earlier clips before...i've actually never seen any Hotel episode....i think GL seemed more natural here than in the Harry flick

enjoyed everything but the climatic tune...the GL voice and sax don't mix, imo

cheers

[Dan O'Malley]

Thanks for putting these up! i think gord was pretty good here, tho it was a pretty poor show!

[Don Quixote]

Sorry--I'm a huge fan, but this was just an embarassment. The show was awful, the plot and dénouement hokey and contrived, the songs totally inappropriate and as an actor, well...Gord is a great singer/songwriter. I don't know if this was his last shot at acting, but if it was, then he made the right decision not to pursue it. I find it interesting that he has such a good singing voice, but not much expressive range in his voice when he's acting. I think it was Dorothy Parker talking about Katherine Hepburn when she said that her acting ran the gamut of emotions from A to B...
DQ

[Jesse Joe]

Gordon Lightfoot has said many times that he didn't like what he saw on Harry Tracy & Hotel. And told the late great Peter Gzowski, that he was going to do what the Lord had meant for him to do; which is to sing & play guitar ! :)

[Jesse Joe]

thanks jjo, i never saw those earlier clips before...i've actually never seen any Hotel episode....i think GL seemed more natural here than in the Harry flick

enjoyed everything but the climatic tune...the GL voice and sax don't mix, imo

cheers


Really happy you got to see them for a first time jj. ;)

[Jesse Joe]

Thanks for putting these up! i think gord was pretty good here, tho it was a pretty poor show!



Everyone seems to agree with what you say Dan. :)

[Shade of a Maple Tree]

Sorry--I'm a huge fan, but this was just an embarassment. The show was awful, the plot and dénouement hokey and contrived, the songs totally inappropriate and as an actor, well...Gord is a great singer/songwriter. I don't know if this was his last shot at acting, but if it was, then he made the right decision not to pursue it. I find it interesting that he has such a good singing voice, but not much expressive range in his voice when he's acting. I think it was Dorothy Parker talking about Katherine Hepburn when she said that her acting ran the gamut of emotions from A to B...
DQ

I've never seen the Hotel series, and never got the chance (until now) to see the episode Lightfoot appeared in. So, needless to say, I was pretty happy to see these clips.

I agree, the script *is* hokey, and so is the dénouement. But those failings are fairly standard for a lot of the network TV shows that surfaced in the Seventies and Eighties, most of which were not much more than evening soap operas. And not much better than their daytime variants to boot.

On the other hand, I didn't think Gord's acting was all that bad. If anything, it was a cut above what we saw in Harry Tracy - that is, fairly wooden and lifeless. At least the producers of Hotel gave Gordon a role that he could play fairly convincingly, and with a degree of authenticity.

I agree that Gord's range of expression is limited; but that hasn't stopped too many people from becoming big-name, Hollywood actors. Arnold Schwazenegger and Sylvester Stallone (among others) come to mind when I think of actors who have a limited emotional range.

Gordon's deadpan delivery may well have been the result of culture, besides the fact that by nature, 'he is what he is'.

By and large, Canadians are a fairly straightforward kind of people, not really given to wearing their hearts on their sleeves. Moreover, they don't have a sense of the 'larger-than-life' that their American cousins seem to have in spades and seems to work so well for them in the movie/TV business.

Trust me, I'm Canadian, and I know what my fellow countrymen are like. :)

In any case, what I saw in Hotel was enough to make me wonder if Gordon couldn't have become a half-decent actor with training and more experience.

Then again, perhaps it's better that he opted to stay in the music business anyway. Few actors have been successful in their musical ventures, and vice versa.

[MaryO]

It was great to see this! It may not be an Emmy or Oscar winning performance, but I'll take Gord, anytime, anywhere! :-)