Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

RIP Clarence Williams III, shown here in four of his most iconic roles: Purple Rain, Tales From the Hood, Sugar Hill and 52 Pick-Up (he was also in the Mod Squad) pic.twitter.com/qqfteyS2DI

— Eric Harvey (@ericdharvey) June 6, 2021

RIP

Jimi Hendrix’s foxy lady, Lithofayne Pridgon.

We lost Jimi's Girl. The Queen of the Chittlin Circuit Ms. Lithofayne Pridgnon. Prayers going out to her family & friends. Click here: https://t.co/oScdeicuZk... Wow!😲 She helped change my life & tons of other's. Respect from the Streets & the Plastic World. Thx u. Bootsy baby🙏 pic.twitter.com/4snfItDoam

— Bootsy Collins (@Bootsy_Collins) June 6, 2021

David Dushman, last surviving Auschwitz liberator, dies aged 98
Dushman went on to become a successful international fencer

Ned Beatty

https://www.tmz.com/2021/06/13/ned-beatty-dead-dies-actor-network-superman-deliverance/

Oh no, RIP Ned.

:( rip

so great

To repeat myself from FB:

I'm what, almost eight years old, and I'm seeing _Superman_ in the theater for the first time, Christopher Reeve and all. Those amazing opening credits happen and suddenly my eye catches one of the names: Ned Beatty. And I'm thrilled -- for the first time in my life I knew someone was out there who had my name. It was a real charge, and I loved his performance too -- it totally holds up. Over time I see plenty of other performances by him and he brought the goods, but I always remember that film and I'll always remember that moment. It was really great. RIP, you had a fan for life there, sir.

I saw him in that production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with Jason Patric and Ashley Judd. He was great in it, but I think my favorite of his roles were probably Superman (less so in the sequels) Homicide, and Roseanne.

he was terrific in Superman, i always picture him in that straw hat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs

Can't find it on YouTube, but there was a Homicide episode that concluded with longish scene of him in a bar talking to bartender John Waters about the physical declines of Elvis and Orson Welles that was tremendously affecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8a3MCy2VoI
[from about 42 minutes or so]

Owen Gleiberman on Ned Beatty: https://variety.com/2021/film/columns/remembering-ned-beatty-network-deliverance-nashville-1234995562/

I wrote a long piece on '70s character actors 20 years ago; it was mostly about John Cazale, but I did think of Beatty as the next tier. They all reminded me of Nixon in one way or another:

Cazale was Nixon the brooding, self-pitying outsider--the eternal wallflower who felt inferior to East Coast intellectuals, the part of Nixon that wanted to crawl out of his own skin. You can easily envision Godfather II‘s compound scene played out between Nixon-as-Fredo and JFK-as-Michael: “I was in the White House before you, Jack, and I was stepped over!” Ned Beatty was Nixon the mechanical bumbler, the one who couldn’t work a tape recorder properly; Burt Young and Peter Boyle were Nixon the uncouth slob (all those expletive-deleteds); and G.D. Spradlin (Senator Geary in Godfather II, Nick Nolte’s imperious coach in North Dallas Forty) was Nixon the coolly manipulative despot.

Janet Malcolm, 86.

RIP

R.I.P. Frank Bonner: The television actor best known for his role as Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati has died at the age of 79. https://t.co/CObVTKXPgT pic.twitter.com/BOxyoqipPw

— Consequence (@consequence) June 17, 2021

nooooo :(

all plaid at half-mast

He was also in 1970's Equinox which is a fun little homemade horror flick

Awful news re: Malcolm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tk6NpIncXg

^^One of the greatest of all WKRP eps, "Real Families", wherein Herb & family appear on a reality show, and anchored by a tour de force performance by Bonner.

i love that episode so much!!! <3

Kenneth Kaunda! 97! I literally thought he'd died about 30 years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/17/kenneth-kaunda-obituary

Right. I wrote a paper on him many decades ago so would say the same.

Aw man

:( Pee-wee's Playhouse "Jambi" actor John Paragon has died https://t.co/PNcgFAoyGG

— Mark Frauenfelder (@Frauenfelder) June 17, 2021

sounds like he was a pretty big deal in the improv world
i mostly recognize him as kevin mccarthy's obsequious son in UHF

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daredevil-alex-harvill-dies-while-practicing-record-setting-motorcycle-jump-n1271275

Diego Cortez

Diego Cortez, a curator who stood at the center of Downtown New York’s vibrant art scene during the 1980s, has died. Patti Astor, who cofounded New York’s Fun Gallery, posted news of Cortez’s death on Facebook, writing, “Another one of the great art warriors is gone.”

Cortez is credited with having helped define an anti-establishment sensibility that pervaded art of the era in the city. Much of this is thanks to his 1981 show “New York/New Wave,” which appeared at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1) in Queens and introduced the larger public to a star-studded cast of artists, including Keith Haring, Frank Moore, Greer Lankton, Fab 5 Freddy, Sarah Charlesworth, Robert Mapplethorpe, Nan Goldin, Jimmy DeSana, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was listed as “Samo” at the time.
...Cortez had met Basquiat on the dance floor of the Mudd Club, the Tribeca watering hole Cortez had cofounded in 1978,

He was born in 1946.

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/diego-cortez-dead-mudd-club-jean-michel-basquiat-1234596368/

RIP. Wonder if you found out about that the same way I did.

Stalwart TV actress Joanne Linville, 93

spock's big miss

RIP. Not sure, Josefa, if it’s worth bumping our other thread but thinking about it.

X-post — to James Redd— yeah probably. Assuming you mean the Ned S*blette email list which is where I first saw Diego Cortez info.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant.

David Edwards of Datblygu

John McAfee, suicide in Spanish jail cell, says El Pais.

Saw this on the McAfee thread and googled.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fugitive-software-magnate-john-mcafee-found-dead-in-prison-cell-in-spain-reports-say

seen it a few places though not everywhere you would expect yet. but el país and reuters will do for me.

RIP John McAfee: heaven needed a rapist, coprophage, murderer, libertarian

John McAfee placed into permanent quarantine pending deletion.

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) June 23, 2021

That's one way of putting it.

Jackie Lane, 60s British actress probably only known as Dodo Chaplet, a particularly short lived black and white era Doctor Who companion.

It is with deep regret that we announce that actress and friend Jackie Lane has sadly passed away. We pass on our sympathies to her family and friends.
Jackie was best known to Doctor Who fans as companion Dodo Chaplet.
RIP 1941 - 2021 pic.twitter.com/z4qACvYbuw

— Fantom Tweets (@fantomfilms) June 23, 2021

it was bizarre what they did with her, "here's a new companion!, um yeah not really working for a variety of reasons, hey let's just lock her out of the tardis and leave her in London as a joke then never ever mention her again"

I think the reputation of the stories she's in is far worse than the stories themselves. I actually *like* The Gunfighters.

the gunfighters is OK apart from that bloody song

Ellen McIlwaine, blues singer and slide guitarist, dies at 75

https://www.straight.com/music/ellen-mcilwaine-blues-singer-and-slide-guitarist-dies-at-75

RIP. Back in the 90s in Hackney I heard a DJ play an amazing track and asked him what it was. He told me it was by Ellen McIlwaine, and I dutifully noted her name down then eventually got a CD of hers, which sounded very little like my memory of the song I'd heard. I never did find what it was.

Gunfighters rules, and the song is fine as something that you hear four times in a month

Dodo being written out off-screen mid-story especially sucks since she's the first hip groovy sixties companion, and doesn't even get to vibe in the show's only hip groovy sixties London story (half a point for The Invasion)

((I've not watched any of her episodes other than Gunfighters and War Machines tho))

The Ark is a good story. She's more than a bit wooden in it but isn't given much to do. She's good in the surviving Celestial Toymaker and sounds fine in the others.

I'm struggling to remember The Savages if I'm honest.

Ellen McIlwaine, blues singer and slide guitarist, dies at 75

― nickn, Thursday, 24 June 2021 18:23 (two hours ago) link

She'll be up in heaven shouting. RIP.

Tony Selby, British comic character actor in more things you know that you can shake a stick at.

So sad to hear about Tony Selby passing away. His turn as Glitz in Doctor Who is one of my earliest TV memories. RIP pic.twitter.com/Y3IarisxHQ

— CuriousBritishTelly (@CuriousUkTelly) June 24, 2021