The Long Goodbye - Continued

Two of this year’s Academy Award nominations will have a very poignant significance for Hollywood movie makers.

Many of the stars who once graced the silver screen, amongst them Ronald Regan, Charlton Heston, Peter Falk, Charles Bronson and Rita Hayworth, all succumbed to Alzheimer’s.

Actor Julianne Moore and singer Glen Campbell are strong chances to pick up Oscars this year for films in which the insidious disease is the theme. Moore has been nominated as Best Actress for her performance as a 50 year old linguistics professor suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s in ‘Still Alice’.

Singer/actor Glen Campbell, now 78 and suffering stage six Alzheimer’s, is in the running to take out the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Glen’s heartfelt song, and final studio recording, ‘I’m Not Gonna Miss You’ features in the documentary ‘Glen Campbell...I'll Be Me’. The film centres on Campbell's struggles with Alzheimer's disease and documents his farewell tour. The Washington Post described it as “an elevating experience, inviting the audience to bear witness to Campbell’s courage, humour and spiritual strength. His story may make for a tough movie, but it’s an important and triumphant one, as well."

Early last year when he composed and recorded the song, Glen wrote on his blog…

“This might just be the most difficult post I have ever written here. To see someone you love forget themselves and forget everything around them, while slow degenerating, is a dark place I would not wish on anyone. In the same breath, we ALL need to talk about this condition more, and a song like this will incite the needed discussions.”

For the tens of thousands of people throughout the world who care for Alzheimer’s patients, the opening lines of the song will be tragically profound, “I’m still here but yet I’m gone”.