Horror legend Tom Savini says goodbye to his friend, Gunnar Hansen.
Gunnar Hansen had class…
He was a classy man.
A gentleman.
When he looked into your eyes while you spoke to him you felt he was sincerely interested. Because he was. I had difficulty believing he was the same man with an apron and a chainsaw who danced on that dirt road so many years ago. I can’t place the kind and generous soul I knew in that character. But I could look down on his table at the conventions and see there he was. He was that guy. And look at the photos on his table. All neat and individually stacked into archive black boxes, which made every one of them special, and what made me get those same black archive boxes for the photos on my table. Yes he was an inspiration and if you’ve read his book you knew he had integrity and grit and a great Icelandic gift of spirit. We smoked cigars together sometimes bringing them to each other cause we knew we would be at the same show. One time, before I was married, I told him I was going out with a particular woman we both knew and he warned me that she was a tease. He witnessed it on a movie set. Damn, he was right and we had a big hearty laugh about it…over cigars. There will be a big empty hole in my life forever that he once occupied…and I will reserve that space and drink toasts to it, and blow cigar smoke into it, and cherish the heart and intelligence that was once there….hopefully with other friends who will miss him like I will.
