Posted on 10/24/2010 8:11:59 PM PDT by EveningStar
Burton B. Roberts, a celebrated former justice and chief administrative judge of State Supreme Court in the Bronx and a larger-than-life model for an irascible judge in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 best-seller, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” died on Sunday. He was 88.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Loved that book. It was dead on on so many levels.
It sure was. Too bad the movie was one of the worst adaptations ever.
RIP.
I will never forget I was at a NY Criminal defense dinner with Johnny Cocoran and Judge Roberts was being honored. Cocoran was giving a tribute and referred to Roberts as NY’s Judge Ito. It was about two years after the OJ trial. Roberts interrupted Cocoran and said, “Johnny, if i was the judge on that case, your client wouldn’t be out playing golf!”
Cocoran was totally upstaged and everyone in the room laughed hysterically.
Yeah, the judge in the book is white, feisty, brooks no
quarters, etc., and Jewish I believe...
in the movie he’s black...very kind....Morgan Freeman is
a good actor but the movie maker absolutely botched that bit
of casting...The movie was a joke, the book a brilliant right on the
nose commentary about life on this planet, particularly the vanities
who live and work the “muck” in New York....
Yeah, the casting of Morgan Freeman and the bizarre choice to change the character was a fatal choice in ruining what should have been an easy adaption to film. The book was great, the film was lousy.
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