Rolling Obituary Thread: 2018

RIP. Despite the numerous howling errors in so much of the Beckett stuff he published.

RIP. He is now with Grove Press's Barney Rossett, who passed away six years ago, and Les Editions de Minuit's Jérôme Lindon, who died in 2001.

I've read most of the Beckett prose works on Calder and I don't recall seeing a single typo.

They're famously full of textual and editing errors if not actual typos.

the errors in his editions have been criticized in reviews etc. e.g. the collection "as the story was told" and the collection of poems from 1930-1989

To be fair, even as (or because) he was obsessed with le mot juste, Beckett reworked his plays repeatedly, to such an extent that what he would later deem 'an error' is not always as obvious as it appears. Other instances are rather egregious, though, and both Calder and Rossett are variously responsible for them.

Morgana King, jazz singer and Mama Corleone

only 87! about 9 years younger than Pacino

ummm i meant older

Aretha Franklin

https://news.sky.com/story/queen-of-soul-aretha-franklin-dies-at-76-11474096

awww, morgana king sang my favorite take on "tomorrow never knows".

Strangely, she died in March, but it was only just announced.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-45194833

RIP Doodzieke

RIP Rampage from DOA

Huntress singer Jill Janus, suicide.

I saw them perform two or three times, and met her once. She seemed nice, and mildly nuts, but in a theater-girl sort of way, not a manic/suicidal sort of way. And I liked their music; they weren't great, but they improved on each of their three albums.

Kofi Annan

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45232892

knee deep in corruption, did fuck all to prevent 2 major genocides - classic nobel peace prize winner!

RIP Morgan Freeman

In commemoration today I'm having coffee and a nan for breakfast

*throws fruit* booo get off the stage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTfcWd8Ygg8

That is almost certainly where I got it from, so it wasn't even original

I assumed you were referring to that!

charles blackman

oh no :( i was just thinking about him yesterday.
we had a school trip to one of his exhibitions in early high school & i became a huge fan of his work
good innings though

Motown session guitarist Eddie Willis:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/eddie-willis-guitarist-for-motowns-funk-brothers-dead-at-82-713708/

RIP :(

Barbra Harris (Nashville, A Thousand Clowns, Peggy Sue Got Married etc)

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/barbara-harris-dies_86195.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=21aug2018

BARBARA Harris

Oh no, always loved her RIP ;_;

Had forgotten she was Jodie Foster's mom in the original Freaky Friday.

RIP Barbara Harris. As Joseph McBride pointed out on Facebook, she was in the last shot of Hitchcock's last film.

She was great in Freaky Friday.

I always remember her and the son playing baseball in flairs...

great quote in here about how she preferred rehearsing to the show

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/barbara-harris-dies-second-city-actress-freaky-friday-nashville/

Also she asked her hospice nurse "am I supposed to lay here til I die?"

Yeah, unfortunately :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BYyDusJYJo

I just watched Nashville this past weekend. :'(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0OhE6O-c0k

she was the Broadway star of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, you know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TQxWrrzL-Y

per that sun-times article, she apparently also came from an improv background and was part of the first second city performance!

That's how she met up with Mike Nichols (who directed her on Broadway), Alan Alda, etc.

Apparently she wound up with terrible stage fright and quit the theatre (but kept teaching acting).

She was great in everything I ever saw her in. Funny. And Sexy. *loosens collar*

I used to have (might still have) a Second City coffee table book which had this great story about Harris calling in sick right before showtime one night. The audience was already being seated as the staff was called for an emergency meeting back stage to debate whether or not to go on with that night's performance (it was a semi-scripted show in which Harris did a lot of singing and acting). One of the waitresses spoke up and said she could cover for her, because even though she hadn't done much prior performing, she'd been studying Harris from the audience every night and knew the whole show. A chance was taken and the waitress brought the house down, soon becoming an official member of the troupe.

That waitress was Melinda Dillon (Close Encounters..., Slap Shot, A Christmas Story etc.).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLfeRy080kE

^A candidate for her greatest scene on film.

and not many years after that break, Melinda Dillon played Honey in the original staging of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

that Melinda Dillon story is amazing

Brian Murray, lauded stage actor/director (I saw him in the first Broadway production of Noises Off, you may have seen him in "30 Rock")

http://www.playbill.com/article/three-time-tony-award-nominee-brian-murray-dies-at-80

(oh, and i saw him do Claudius opposite Kevin Kline's Hamlet)

Lazy Lester, Louisiana blues artist ("I'm a Lover Not a Fighter", "Sugar Coated Love", "I Hear You Knocking") and inspiration for the Ponderosa Stomp festival in NOLA.