(1950 – 2016)
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Diana, knew Cliffo and his former high school chum Calvin Rembsberg from the mid-1960s. Over the decades Diana and Cliffo often threatened to collaborate on a book with the working title, Drama in Everyday Life. Cliffo Thompson & Calvin Remsberg posing for photo.
Upon retirement in Florida (~2011 -- he was a high school music teacher beloved by all his students for years after they graduated) Cliffo proclaimed his "only objective was to be completely superfluous." For his 65th birthday, Diana e-mailed him a greeting [CLICK HERE FOR GREETING] so that, four months later, he reciprocated -- perhaps he used the word "retaliated" -- with a greeting [Cliffo's GREETING(s) to Diana] of his own.
After Diana died (19 February 2016) Cliffo was one of the kind folks who tried to help me deal with the finality of her death and the reality that nobody could have done anything to enable her survival beyond the 93.25 years she attained.
Diana always said he smoked "like a freight train." Indeed, the last time he phoned, our conversation ended on an unplanned humorous note. As we were speaking, i could hear the percussive metallic clang of Cliffo flicking closed his lighter as he exhaled a long drag.
This prompted the obligatory (Diana-esque), “Why don’t you quit that sh*t?” Without missing a beat he retorted (in his most theatrical Cliffo-ese), “Dharlllling, don’t-chew-now … we smokers are a self-extinguishing species?”
4 minute video of Calvin Rensberg and his role in “Sweeney Todd” Calvin Remsberg in Sweeney Todd. Somehow that could not go unanswered. My come-back was, “You’re a specious species!”
Cliffo must have laughed so hard that he dropped the cigarette and had to excuse himself while trying to recover it without burning his fingers or, worst case scenario, the room, house and neighborhood. He died on 7 May 2016.
June 2017
Calvin Remsberg’s page on IDMB is located here
[KGVID width=”640″ height=”360″]https://pezzifamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/CalvinRemsberg.mp4[/KGVID]