Rolling Obituary Thread: 2017

Well this is sad news

http://amp.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/tony-cohen-australian-record-producer-and-sound-of-melbourne-dies-aged-60-20170803-gxodxf.html

i read a profile of marrs a long time ago and it was kind of fascinating, he started out as just a regular mainstream newspaper reporter who got sidetracked by his interest in JFK and then gradually got into all the other stuff and ended up writing about secret societies and ancient aliens. i read a ton of JFK assassination/conspiracy books a couple years ago but never got around to marrs's -- guess i should rectify that.

Hywel Bennett

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hywel-bennett-actor-thames-television-shelley-a7874336.html

Oh, shame, RIP Hywel.

Two things, it's weird that this is only being reported in the Independent and also that he died over a week ago.

whoa, i thought he died in the '90s

I had no idea Alun Lewis was his brother!

I love Hywel

Right, I had to check who Alun Lewis was, and it's pretty obvious they were brothers!

RIP

Great little turn in BBC tinker tailor

Ah yes – had forgotten about that.

This one hits me surprisingly hard. Fixture of childhood who next generation have no idea about, I guess.

I think Shelley was one of the first "grown up" sitcoms I can remember watching

There seemed to be a point in the early 90's, when if you ended up watching tv at 1am it would either be Shelley or Prisoner Cell Block H repeats. Ricky Tarr was some very good work. Quite a delay between death + notice here, he died on the 25th.

Robert Hardy, of all Creatures Great and Small, and Harry Potter

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/03/robert-hardy-harry-potter-actor-dies

Coming thick and fast now.

Pretty much every actor in the UK is now labelled "Harry Potter actor" when they require headlines to be written about them now.

I also thought Hywel Bennett had died years ago.

I only know Hywel Bennett from TTSS and that film he did w/ Hayley Mills, The Family Way, which used to air on US network TV.

Oh man, Siegfried too!

Shelley & Siegfried :(

I also thought Hywel Bennett had died years ago.

You might remember, a few years back, the Sun following him around, while he was out buying booze at the offy, because he was a 60-odd year old man, with health problems, partial to a drink or two and not young and beautiful and 25 anymore. Unfortunately for the Sun, he didn't die then.

id forgotten he's in Pennies from Heaven and some of the later Dennis Potter TV series

an interesting-looking man

http://www.aveleyman.com/Gallery/Titles/t14729.jpg

Is he in "Loot"?

Yes, he is, still he was only a bit player in the demise of the British film industry.

I've got nothing against Harry Potter per se, but I do wish every obit for every Brit thesp who was in one or more of those films didn't lead with that. I know, 50000x as many people saw Hardy in HP than, say, Hot Metal, but still... They all got the Potter gig cos of a lifetime of being great in a whole range of TV/film/theatre. Obv, I know.

He was the go-to Winston Churchill for a while there.

Shelley & Siegfried :(

^^^

RIP to Daniel Radcliffe, star of Swiss Army Man

I mean

5000x more ppl know them from it. It's hugely understandable.

It seems a .....kinda snobby.....gripe

Bollocks, it's intensely annoying, anything to do with Harry Potter is shite

Not a value judgement on Harry potter

Goldy McJohn, original keyboardist for Steppenwolf

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/goldy-mcjohn-steppenwolf-dead/

I've got nothing against Harry Potter per se, but I do wish every obit for every Brit thesp who was in one or more of those films didn't lead with that.

lol i just came here to make this exact gripe.

i guess it shd be a lesson to all character actors to think long and hard before doing some popular children's movie bollocks hi Alec Guinness

i don't think it's snobby but fuck it if it is, personally i think it's just an over-representation of adult children in popular media who see the world thru their own crappy fan lenses

i guess it shd be a lesson to all character actors to think long and hard

Michael Caine, Butler to Bruce Wayne, 104

Robert de Niro, A Parent Who Was Met, 92

Orson Welles, voice of Unicron in Transformers cartoon

ron howard, the fonz and the happy days gang, 93

That's not what he was most famous for at the time of his death. Caine IS 'most famous' for Dark Knight now.

(ie it's not about their roles, it's about cultural arrested development)

Lame try, though.

xp

also Happy Days/Andy Griffith is a more significant than Howard's filmography

Okay: Orson Welles, Paul Masson spokesman.

Max Von Sydow is obviously Emperor Ming.

Caine IS 'most famous' for Dark Knight now.

This miiiight be true in 20 years (and only if they stop showing The Italian Job in favour of its remake), but is unlikely now.

DeNiro is most famous as Harry Tuttle, obviously.

Trying to think of a godawful pop star but I never know their names. I was searching lyrics to identify some shitty lyrics by an American singer from 7 or 8 years ago. I thought it was maybe Taylor Swift but I guess I might have been blaming her for years for someone else's song. Maybe I've never heard Taylor Swift.

Orson Welles might actually be "Muppet Movie star Orson Welles".

De Niro is "Star of Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein."

Michael Caine is "From the Cars movie franchise".

Or another for Caine, "who played opposite David Bowie in Christopher Nolan's 'The Prestige'"

Played Robin Williams in The Cider House Rules.

On Max von Sydnow, IMDB says the four things he is best known for are Shutter Island, Minority Report, The Exorcist and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which will surely be the one quoted in obits).

Oh wait, he's been in Game of Thrones, so that.

Yeah, GoT picking up the slack here in a serious manner.