Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 10:54 AM

Regarding Joan Rivers, there's a nice article by Kathy Griffin, in the LA Times

I find it so incredibly ironic that people who have tons of plastic surgery because they worry about the way they look, are usually criticized for the way they look. We are a shallow people...

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 10:53 AM

good to hear.. I didn't go on-line last night, so didn't hear it was a hoax... :)

having lost so many recently, it seemed legit

but have never understood the juvenile need to create such sad hoaxs.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: pdq
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 10:46 AM

Betty White is alive and doing OK. Death claim is another hoax.

Joan Rivers was one of the greatest female comics ever. Maybe Phylis Diller was the most important because she started a decade before Rivers.

Totie Fields was important but died at 49.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 10:45 AM

There was a Onion-like humor piece that people didn't read before forwarding this week. It say she "dyed quietly at home." Her hair.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 10:43 AM

Betty White is still alive.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 10:26 AM

when I got home the hubby informed me that Betty white had passed and then went on that Joan Rivers had also gone...

Joan was an aquired taste, but Betty White was always a class act and sharp as a tack... what she could pull off with that innocent deadpan look was priceless...

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 04:51 PM

Joan Rivers. I'm sure she acted in some things, playing herself - not a stretch.

She was a very funny lady for a lot of years, but seems of late to have adopted some churlish world views. I didn't pay close attention so am not going to say more. Her prime was during Johnny Carson's prime - she was a fool to jump ship for FOX.

For years Rivers touted the plastic surgery as the way to stay on top for her show business life, and I understand the procedure that brought about her death was for her voice, not her face, but in the last 10 years or so all of the medical attention made her look cartoonish. I wonder if it also made her more fragile for each successive procedure?

ABCNews obit.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 14 - 10:21 PM

Lorin Maazel

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/arts/music/lorin-maazel-brilliant-intense-and-enigmatic-conductor-dies-at-84.html

Lorin Maazel, a former child prodigy who went on to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera and several other ensembles and companies around the world, and who was known for his incisive and sometimes extreme interpretations, died on Sunday at his home in Castleton, Va. He was 84.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said Jenny Lawhorn, a spokeswoman for Mr. Maazel. In recent days, he had been rehearsing for the Castleton Festival, which takes place on his farm.

Mr. Maazel (pronounced mah-ZELL) was a study in contradictions, and he evoked strong feelings, favorable and otherwise, from musicians, administrators, critics and audiences.

He projected an image of an analytical intellectual — he had studied mathematics and philosophy in college, was fluent in six languages (French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, as well as English) and kept up with many subjects outside music — and his performances could seem coolly fastidious and emotionally distant. Yet such performances were regularly offset by others that were fiery and intensely personalized.

See the rest of the obit at the link.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jun 14 - 12:39 AM

I had thought that Eli Wallach was already dead...so sorry. Glad he lived to be old, though I will always think of him as The Ugly, with that birdwhistle-music... kinda like thoughts of Spaw always came with fart-sounds. Sigh.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jun 14 - 07:05 PM

A big name in musical theater passed away.

Mary Rodgers Guettel

Mary Rodgers Guettel,

an accomplished author, screenwriter and composer, Mary Rodgers' earliest professional credits included serving as Assistant to the Producer of Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts. Her Broadway career began as composer of the 1959 musical ONCE UPON A MATTRESS starring Carol Burnett, later broadcast to great success on network television and revived repeatedly. More than 400 productions of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS are presented annually in the U.S. and Canada and a 1997 Broadway production starring Sarah Jessica Parker earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical Revival. ABC-TV presented a new version of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS on "The Wonderful World of Disney" in late 2005 (subsequently released on DVD), once again starring Carol Burnett-this time as the wicked Queen Aggravain, with Tracy Ullman as Princess Winnifred.

Ms. Rodgers had been a popular author of fiction for young people ever since her first book was released in 1972: Freaky Friday received the first prize at the Book World Spring Book Festival Awards, The Christopher Award, and was cited on the ALA Notable Book List. In 1977 Disney Studios adapted Freaky Friday into a movie, with screenplay by Rodgers, and starring Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster; a remake was broadcast on the ABC television network in 1995 and a musical version, by Rodgers and John Forster, was presented by Theatreworks/USA in 1991; and a new film remake, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, was released by Walt Disney Pictures in Summer 2003.

Read the rest at the link.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: fat B****rd
Date: 26 Jun 14 - 10:04 AM

I liked him in 'Lord Jim' but the Leone films are certified classics.
RIP Mr. Wallach

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,#
Date: 25 Jun 14 - 04:15 PM

He was a man of few words at times.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jun 14 - 03:38 PM

Eli Wallach

From the New York Times.

Eli Wallach, who was one of his generation's most prominent and prolific character actors in film, onstage and on television for more than 60 years, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 98.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Katherine.

A self-styled journeyman actor, the versatile Mr. Wallach appeared in scores of roles, often with his wife, Anne Jackson. No matter the part, he always seemed at ease and in control, whether playing a Mexican bandit in the 1960 western "The Magnificent Seven," a bumbling clerk in Ionesco's allegorical play "Rhinoceros," a henpecked French general in Jean Anouilh's "Waltz of the Toreadors," Clark Gable's sidekick in "The Misfits" or a Mafia don in "The Godfather: Part III."

Despite his many years of film work, some of it critically acclaimed, Mr. Wallach was never nominated for an Academy Award. But in November 2010, less than a month before his 95th birthday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an honorary Oscar, saluting him as "the quintessential chameleon, effortlessly inhabiting a wide range of characters, while putting his inimitable stamp on every role."

Read the rest at the link. He was in some really great movies, and lived a long and full life. RIP.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 13 - 12:21 PM

Karen Black

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/09/210377569/five-easy-pieces-star-karen-black-dead-at-74

Karen Black, the prolific actress who appeared in more than 100 movies and was featured in such counterculture favorites as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and Nashville, has died in Los Angeles.

Black's husband, Stephen Eckelberry, says the actress died Wednesday from complications from cancer. She was 74.

Known for her full lips and thick, wavy hair that seemed to change color from film to film, Black often portrayed women who were quirky, troubled or threatened. Her breakthrough was as a prostitute who takes LSD with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 1969's Easy Rider, the hippie classic that helped get her the role of Rayette Dipesto, a waitress who dates — and is mistreated by — an upper-class dropout played by Jack Nicholson in 1970's Five Easy Pieces.

Cited by The New York Times as a "pathetically appealing vulgarian," Black's performance won her an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe Award. She would recall that playing Rayette really was acting: The well-read, cerebral Black, raised in a comfortable Chicago suburb, had little in common with her relatively simple-minded character.

"If you look through the eyes of Rayette, it looks nice, really beautiful, light, not heavy, not serious. A very affectionate woman who would look upon things with love, and longing," Black told Venice Magazine in 2007. "A completely uncritical person, and in that sense, a beautiful person. When (director) Bob Rafelson called me to his office to discuss the part he said, 'Karen, I'm worried you can't play this role because you're too smart.' I said 'Bob, when you call "action," I will stop thinking,' because that's how Rayette is.'"

In 1971, Black starred with Nicholson again in Drive, He Said, which Nicholson also directed. Over the next few years, she worked with such top actors and directors as Richard Benjamin (Portnoy's Complaint), Robert Redford and Mia Farrow (The Great Gatsby) and Charlton Heston (Airport 1975). She was nominated for a Grammy Award after writing and performing songs for Nashville, in which she played a country singer in Robert Altman's 1975 ensemble epic. Black also starred as a jewel thief in Alfred Hitchcock's last movie, Family Plot, released in 1976.

"We used to read each other poems and limericks and tried to catch me on my vocabulary," she later said of Hitchcock. "He once said, 'You seem very perspicacious today, Miss Black.' I said, 'Oh, you mean "keenly perceptive?" 'Yes.' So I got him this huge, gold-embossed dictionary that said 'Diction-Harry,' at the end of the shoot."

The actress would claim that her career as an A-list actress was ruined by The Day of the Locust, a troubled 1975 production of the Nathanael West novel that brought her a Golden Globe nomination but left Black struggling to find quality roles. By the end of the '70s, she was appearing in television and in low-budget productions. Black received strong reviews in 1982 as a transsexual in Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. But despite working constantly over the next 30 years, she was more a cult idol than a major Hollywood star. Her credits included guest appearances on such TV series as Law & Order and Party of Five and enough horror movies, notably Trilogy of Terror, that a punk band named itself "The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black."

Black was also a screenwriter and a playwright whose credits included the musical Missouri Waltz and A View of the Heart, a one-woman show in which she starred.

Black was born Karen Ziegler and grew up in Park Ridge, Ill. Her father was a sales executive and violinist, her mother the children's novelist Elsie Reif Zeigler. By grade school, she already knew she wanted to be an actress and at age 15, she enrolled in Northwestern University to study drama. By the early 1960s, she had moved to New York; made her film debut, in The Prime Time; and had married Charles Black, whose last name she kept even though they were together only for a short time.

She studied acting under Lee Strasberg and through the '60s worked off-Broadway and in television, including Mannix and Adam-12. Her first Broadway show, The Playroom, lasted less than a month, but brought her to the attention of a young director-screenwriter, Francis Ford Coppola, who cast her in the 1966 release You're a Big Boy Now.

Black was married four times. She is survived by Eckelberry, a son and a daughter.

Rolling Stone from Nashville

Saturday Night Live in 1975

More search results.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 05:31 AM

I loved The Count.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 03:57 PM

So sad to read about Nelson - we enjoyed his songs and muppets as my kids were growing up.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Amergin
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 03:51 PM

Jerry Nelson, the voice of Count von Count on Sesame Street (among other muppets) passed away.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 12 - 05:59 PM

Not nationally or internationally famous, but certainly well-known in the Pacific Northwest. Stilly may remember her.

Longtime KOMO-TV evening news anchorwoman, Kathi Goertzen, just died after a long, fourteen year battle with recurrent brain tumors.

The comments of her co-workers at KOMO say it all. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Aug 12 - 03:00 PM

I watched that program occasionally - I am glad to read that over the years he was able to do what he wanted, and it sounds like a great school he ended up in. RIP, Mr. Palillo.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Aug 12 - 02:49 PM

Just read that Ron Palillo died of a heart attack....63 years old and best known as "Horshak" on Welcome Back Kotter. The "Sweathogs" are dropping like flies. I wonder if Travolta is worried?

Nice guy and gave back to his community......Obit



Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 04:24 PM

Today on Fresh Air they re-played an interview with Celeste Holm from 1990.

Story and link to broadcast.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 07:58 PM

I have to revise my view, also. I didn't think about all of the stage work Holm was doing, just the type of character she was playing in the films I've seen. Characterizing her as the one who rarely got the guy is probably more accurate than saying she wasn't on the same level as Garson.

That article the obit links to (about the husband who was 45 years younger) is so depressing.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:47 PM

She only did Ado Annie on stage? Oops!

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: catspaw49
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:12 PM

Celeste Holm was the original Ado Annie ON STAGE but the part was done by Gloria Grahame who is possibly best known as "Violet," the wayward "IT" girl in It's a Wonderful Life. Interestingly enough, GG was nominated for an Oscar for her work in Crossfire but lost out to Celeste Holm for her role in Gentlemens Agreement, a fine and classic movie about anti-semitism you have probably seen.


BTW......Oklahoma was filmed at MGM with the outdoor scenes in Arizona............Is your "mental image" of Arizona anything like the one for Oklahoma? LOL..........Been to both and I know there are those parts but somehow.........................


Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 06:25 PM

I remember Holm best in High Society, parts of which were filmed in Ri, and in Oklahoma--none of which was filmed in RI. I wonder if parts were filmed in OK.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 12:15 AM

I liked Celeste Holm. Wasn't she the best friend in All About Eve - that was often a role she played, the friend, but she did it very well. And I remember her in a program I loved as a child, the NBC version of Cinderella with Leslie Warren. Holm was the Fairy Godmother. Great cast in that program - Ginger Rogers and Walter Pigeon as the king and queen.

She was rather like Greer Garson, except she never made it as big as Garson.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Jul 12 - 08:01 PM

We ran a separate thread on Ernest Borgnine.

Celeste Holm just died at age 95 also. If you're an old movie buff you know her well. Great stage actress well known as the Ado Annie in "Oklahoma." RIP Fairy Godmother...........

Times Obit



Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:23 PM

Ernest Borgnine obit - died today at age 95.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 11:47 AM

Yes, and he's getting some well-deserved attention for a few days. It looks like he had a long happy life and I hope he had a peaceful death. The fact that he was living in North Carolina and not Hollywood probably says he was in the place he wanted to be. I read that he "knew his way around" Hollywood, but when it comes to peaceful living, I don't think LA sounds like a great retirement area.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 04 Jul 12 - 07:14 AM

And now, Andy Griffith.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 03:08 PM

Oh my! Rob was 68! Since I only remember seeing him back when My Three Sons was on I hadn't thought about him as growing older. It looks like he managed to move successfully beyond the teen heart throb of 40 years ago.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Becca72
Date: 03 Jul 12 - 02:22 PM

Just read that Don Grady died. I had a HUGE crush on him when I was in elementary school (from reruns, of course)

Obit

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Amergin
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 03:12 PM

Oh and Caroline John who played the Doctor's companion, Liz Shaw, died on the fifth.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Amergin
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 03:08 PM

Henry Hill, whose life the film Goodfellas is based on, died sometime ago.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: fat B****rd
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 05:48 AM

RIP Victor Spinetti.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 12 - 12:27 AM

I'd forgotten about this thread - quite a few names of interesting character actors have turned up in the news. Thanks for reviving it.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 10:52 PM

Today, sci-fi horror actor Richard Lynch, who employed his scarred face to play villainous characters in such films as "Bad Dreams" and "The Sword and the Sorcerer" has died. Richard Lynch was 76.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 10:10 PM

Meant to post this in April. Jonathan Frid, best known for his role as Barnabas Collins the vampire in the TV serial Dark Shadows, passed away.

The series was supposed to be set in Maine, but there was a Rhode Island connection. It was here that the opening title shots were filmed. And years after the series folded, one of its actresses. Alexandra Isles, testified in the trial of Claus Von Bulow, This trial was the subject of the movie Reversal of Fortune.

Here's a link to Frid's obituary. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/arts/television/jonathan-frid-ghoulish-dark-shadows-star-dies-at-87.html

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Jun 12 - 07:57 PM

Richard Lynch has passed. The scarred and yet still handsome face played numerous bad guys and a few good guys but also had a tremendous stage career. Here's the bio at IMDB.....Richard Lynch dead at 76


Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 07 Mar 12 - 12:59 PM

Sad news of the death of British actress Gemma McCluskie. Her brother was arrested in connection with her death this afternoon.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/canal-torso-may-ex-soap-star-161115641.html

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 08 Feb 12 - 04:47 AM

Horror movie icon Bill Hinzman has died after losing his cancer battle. He was 75.

Hinzman was working as an assistant cameraman when he was cast as a zombie in 1968 cult film Night of the Living Dead and the role earned him icon status among horror fans.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Feb 12 - 10:33 PM

Ben Gazzara. One damned good actor.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,Bizibod
Date: 29 Jan 12 - 07:04 PM

Didn't know him from The Bill, but his performance as Brian Clough in The Spirit of The Man was absolutely phenomenal.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Jan 12 - 05:17 PM

James Farentino? He was a real heart-throb in the 1960s and 70s. I don't have a grown-up assessment of his acting, since he seemed to drop out of sight (as far as I know) or changed so much in appearance that I didn't realize I was watching him.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 29 Jan 12 - 04:42 PM

Dimitra Arliss was excellent in the Sting. Didn't know she had passed. Very sad.

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 29 Jan 12 - 01:33 PM

There have been some additional notable deaths recently:

Nicol Williamson, 73, memorable as Merlin in Excalibur and Sherlock Holmes in The Seven Per Cent Solution.

James Farentino, 73, popular dramatic actor in American series television in the 1970's and 1980's.

Dick Tufeld, 85, voice actor best known for voicing the Robot in the 1960's TV series Lost In Space.

Dimitra Arliss, 79, who had a small but memorable role in the 1973 film The Sting.

Jay

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 29 Jan 12 - 08:17 AM

Actor Colin Tarrant, who was best known for his role as Inspector Andrew Monroe in The Bill, has died.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/bill-actor-colin-tarrant-dies-59-103218601.html

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Sep 11 - 09:59 AM

IMDb page for Cliff Robertson. Running it back up to the top - surely someone who was in a classic role (the Ventriloquist) on Twilight Zone would merit attention here!

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 07:44 PM

Cliff Robertson was a well-known and well-respected actor for many decades. I can think of many favorite performances of his. Charly, My Father's House that I at an early age recognized as a tour-de-force as the roles switched between Robert Preston and Cliff Robertson but was perhaps under-rated because it was a TV movie, The Honey Pot, and many of his television roles (Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, etc.)

Obituary from Washington Post.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: A Well-(or not so)-Known Actor Died
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 08:13 AM

Andy Whitfield, the British star of 'Spartacus: Blood and Sand', has died at the age of 39.

The actor died yesterday in Sydney, Australia, following a battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.