Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

Amazing.

#JoelSchumacher was the funniest, chicest, most hilarious director I ever worked with. Once,on set,an actress was complaining about me within earshot; how I was dreadfully over the top (I was)Joel barely looked up from his NYT+said “Oh Honey,no one ever paid to see under the top”

— Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) June 23, 2020

lol

St Elmos Fire is such a weird, stupid movie. I’ve seen it a bunch since I was a kid and never understood it; if anything it was better as a kid bc all i cared about was Rob Lowe playing sax & Demi Moore’s crazy loft with the billowy curtains that looked like a dance studio where Debbie Allen yells at dancers

Phone Booth and Lost Boys are both good, and especially good at achieving the specific tone they're going for. Falling Down is very good at the latter, though the lead-and-almost-sole character so repellent that I can't imagine ever revisiting it.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/PlumpWaterloggedIrrawaddydolphin-mobile.mp4

Steve Bing, Film Financier & Philanthropist Jumped From Century City (Los Angeles) Building

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/steve-bing-dies-film-financier-001540014.html

100-1 Grand National winning jockey Liam Treadwell, aged 34.

Ugh. Never a good sign when wealthy philanthropists in their '50s are jumping off buildings.

Margerita Pracatan, who took Clive James' audience laughing at her and turned it into a minor celebrity career.

Oh, no! Margarita Pracatan was only recently so cheerful and ebullient on twitter. Her age was a complete mystery to me and it was difficult to decide which parts of her backstory to accept as true. She was obviously far better known in the UK than in the US, but I've wondered, why was she booked on Clive James' show to begin with? I saw her perform in a club in Manhattan once to an audience of about twelve people - one of whom was Fred Schneider of the B-52s! She did a meet-and-greet afterwards and I said to her, "you smell wonderful!" and she said, "I took a shower."

She was one of those "hey foreign TV shows lol" things that Clive James hosted. She was a hit. So, he hired her directly for his chat show.

I was about to ask which foreign TV was she on (I never saw her on US TV and she lived in NYC), but Wikipedia says Clive James discovered her on Manhattan public access TV in 1994 - that makes sense

Marc Fumaroli, French literary critic, historian and académicien. He was 88. RIP.

I saw Margarita Pracatan when she was the surprise guest at The Phoenix Festival in (I think) 1996, she took the laughter very well, she was way too fabulous to be anything as gauche as "in tune".

RIP Margarita. I think she was hanging on till Clive James was out of the way, she had a long wait.

Harry Britt, a progressive way ahead of his time who was appointed to the SF board of supervisors to replace Harvey Milk after his assassination in 1979

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Former-Supervisor-Harry-Britt-dies-helped-15364407.php

Marvel Comics artist Joe Sinnott, 93

the Labour Party, 120

Angela Madsen

Madsen, 60, had reportedly been trying to become the first paraplegic, the first openly gay athlete and the oldest woman to row across the Pacific Ocean. She reportedly shipped out on a 20-foot rowboat from Marina Del Rey in Los Angeles in April with the goal of reaching Honolulu in four months.

Madsen’s cause of death remains undisclosed, though the Coast Guard has reportedly recovered her body. She reportedly stopped responding to messages from her wife, Deb, on Sunday.

https://www.presstelegram.com/2020/06/23/long-beach-paralympian-angela-madsen-dies-rowing-alone-across-pacific-ocean/

Phone Booth and Lost Boys are both good, and especially good at achieving the specific tone they're going for. Falling Down is very good at the latter, though the lead-and-almost-sole character so repellent that I can't imagine ever revisiting it.

Rewatched both since posting that, and they're each a little better than I remembered. Might give Cousins a crack too.

RIP Margarita - always enjoyed the very quick journey from "lol at the nutter lady" to "every single person involved is delighted that the untalented lady is so popular and entertaining"

(also obv. imagine how well-cared for Joe Sinnott and his family would be if he had royalties / supporting corporate comics is funding the protection of sexual abusers / buy author-owned work from direct market shops, etc etc)

amen

Cellular was so much better than Phone Booth ... that you could say it made phone booth obsolete

Never a good sign when wealthy philanthropists in their '50s are jumping off buildings.

it's a very very very gooood siiiiiiiiiign

Is that an oblique Nick Lowe reference? Thumbs up to Morbs!

it was a blunt deadly reference

Trumpeter-composer Jacques Coursil.

He appeared on early records by Sunny Murray and Frank Wright, then led a couple of dates in 1969-71. His next release wasn’t until 34 years later with the completely stunning solo/overdubbed Minimal Brass.

Might give Cousins a crack too.

i liked this movie but suspect it might be quite bad. ted danson's charisma goes a long way

I loved both of Coursil's BYG/Actuel albums (Way Ahead and Black Suite), and his 2007 album Clameurs. The Sunny Murray and Frank Wright albums he's on are both really good, but there's not a lot of subtlety to the music so it's hard to hear what he was really capable of. He was very much a forerunner to what Wadada Leo Smith would be doing a few years later.

milton glaser at 91

Marc Orleans of Sunburned Hand of the Man and other projects, via posts on FB from people who would know. No further details at present.

:(

RIP

Met him once or twice in Brooklyn, trying to remember what one of his first bands was, I didn’t see it on Discogs. Juneau or something? Something I got while in college.

Juneau, yup.

Another musical passing: English bassist/composer Simon H. Fell.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2891904697585074&set=a.391544947621074&type=3&theater

Freddy Cole, at 88 .https://www.wbgo.org/post/freddy-cole-singer-who-eluded-shadow-his-brother-nat-king-cole-has-died-88

Charles Webb

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/charles-webb-dead-graduate-author-was-81-1300794

Linda Cristal, Who Starred in ‘High Chaparral,’ Dies at 89

I didn't like Westerns in general, but liked High Chaparral.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/obituaries/linda-cristal-dead.html

RIP Linda

Marc Orleans a suicide according to Kyp Malone.

I had a terrible feeling it was that, based on comments elsewhere.

Benny Mardones has fully gone into the night:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/9402923/benny-mardones-into-the-night-dead-73

Leonard Scarcella, the Mayor of my hometown, died yesterday. Elected for the first time in 1969, he apparently was the longest serving Mayor in US history. Ironically, last year the city voted to create Mayoral term limits, which would have allowed him to run for only two more terms.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/katy/news/article/Iconic-Stafford-mayor-dies-at-age-79-15373695.php

jesus

50 years in office is…too many, probably

Louis Mahoney, veteran of many a British TV show since the 70s. At one time Vice President of Equity, having risen there by policing Equity members' behaviour wrt South Africa.

Soundtrack specialist Johnny Mandel, 94:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/30/johnny-mandel-oscar-winning-composer-mash-theme-dies-aged-94

Carl Reiner

Thought he would never. RIP.