Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

Wow, RIP guy I had no idea you were still alive.

Annie Wersching

Very much a "oh, hey, it's her" performer; guest starred on a million things, often as a villain.

she had a good role as a somewhat bad-seed cop in Bosch season 1, she tended to elevate some often-thankless other supporting parts too and was usually memorable presence-wise in that respect vs a lot of other career tv actors.

Albert Okura, Juan Pollo founder, and owner of the old route 66 town of Amboy, California, which includes the famous Roy's Cafe used in many movies.

https://scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/328119101_914414913135744_5326408843079168149_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5cd70e&_nc_ohc=-Dgu0F0cxKkAX_d0tBi&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-2.xx&oh=00_AfBuvy27shNTJU_-9xUXGfRgi_HSDvA67WBy0a857hA64Q&oe=63DCD4B9

https://www.sbsun.com/2023/01/27/albert-okura-juan-pollo-founder-and-san-bernardino-staple-dies/

And a story that focuses more on Amboy.

https://www.sbsun.com/2014/08/17/a-look-at-juan-pollo-founder-albert-okuras-success-big-dreams/

Lisa Loring, who starting at age six played "Wednesday" on The Addams Family TV sitcom of the 1960s.

Interesting biographical fact: she was born on an atoll in the Marshall Islands.

early electronic music composer jaap vink:

Le GRM est triste d’apprendre la disparition du compositeur Jaap Vink (1930-2023)

GRM is sad to learn the death of the composer Jaap Vink (1930-2023) pic.twitter.com/kvi9YlAHIi

— INA grm (@Ina_GRM) January 30, 2023

Shame. I think there's only one album of his music ever been released and it's excellent.

hockey goal scoring man Bobby Hull

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/35557785/hall-famer-bobby-hull-golden-jet-dies-age-84

notably a p awful person iirc

Hull's life off the ice was often marred by controversy. He faced allegations of domestic abuse with two of his three wives. His second wife, figure skater Joanne McKay, alleged that he held her over a balcony and hit her with a shoe in an incident in Hawaii in 1966 and threatened her with a loaded shotgun in 1978. His third wife, Deborah, filed charges after an incident in 1984 but later dropped them. Hull, however, later pleaded guilty to taking a swing at an officer during his arrest and was fined $150 and placed on six months of court supervision.

In 1998, Hull came under fire for telling The Moscow Times that the Black population in the United States was growing too fast and that "Hitler had some good ideas" but "just went a bit too far."

Yyyikes

rest in piss

Of local interest to Northeast Ohioans: John Adams, the man who sat in the bleachers with a drum and got the crowd going at Cleveland Indians/Guardians home games for some 50 years. He was at every game I ever attended.

https://www.cleveland.com/guardians/2023/01/john-adams-cleveland-guardians-drummer-dead-at-71.html

RIP John. When I was a kid I thought every team had a guy who did that.

Cindy Williams

https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/laverne-shirley-actor-cindy-williams-dies-at-75/

Aw.

Oh no!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1q-QWHUU0g

Great scene. Also her in the passenger seat with Harrison Ford: "Just don't say anything and we'll get along fine."

love this clip of her doing Mack the Knife on Andy Kaufman’s funhouse special

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bj3hnnxPxQ

The Conversation somehow slipped my mind. She's perfect in that--the look on her face when she's in the elevator with Gene Hackman. A friend tells me there's a film on YouTube, The Killing Kind (1973), with her and John Savage, that's worth watching.

Was gonna say.

Style icon!! I loved her growing up. RIP Shirley Feeney. She will join Booboo Kitty in heaven.

She was amazing in The Conversation.

I understand the nostalgia for Laverne & Shirley, I've got no shortage of equivalents in my own life, but I think it's too bad she got sidetracked. I look at The Conversation and American Graffiti, and I wonder if--to name another actress starting out around the same time--she could have gone on to have a career like Sissy Spacek's.

How did she get sidetracked?

By a hit television show, I would think.

People didn't move so seamlessly between film and TV in the '70s; there were exceptions, but a bunch of people who were TV icons got locked into that and never had much of a film career.

Weird to think Michael McKean is now the main surviving cast member, I guess:

Backstage, Season 1: I'm offstage waiting for a cue. The script's been a tough one, so we're giving it 110% and the audience is having a great time. Cindy scoots by me to make her entrance and with a glorious grin, says: "Show's cookin'!". Amen. Thank you, Cindy.

— Michael McKean (@MJMcKean) January 31, 2023

yeah that’s a bummer to think about

Speaking of 'What It's...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ob-k0Rr6Fg

"What If's..." that is...

George Harrison's sister Louise, 91.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/us-celebrity-news/breaking-beatles-famous-sister-louise-29095820

RIP. Wasn't she the one who lived in America? Guess I will find out.

Laverne and Shirley was more impactful (and enjoyable and laugh-inducing) for more people than any imaginary prestige movie career would have been so I applaud her for spending her time making an accessible show and fuiud lol

Yep, she lived in southern Illinois, which is where George visited her in 1963:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/charming-story-george-harrison-vacationed-small-town-america-180974593/

George was the only Beatle who was able to walk around in parts of the US (he and his brother spent a few days in NYC before heading to Illinois) without anyone knowing or caring who he was.

xp

When I was a kid, watching Laverne and Shirley in syndication fed my imagination for what my mom's experience moving to the city, having roommates, and working as a young woman in the early 70s was like. Cindy Williams passing away makes me sad in an oddly personal way.

Knowing that she coulda been Princess Leia makes the Falfa/Laurie scenes in AG even funnier

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjMyYWNiMTQtMWJlMy00Yjc2LWFhOWYtY2FiNmY2OTVjNjkwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg

"Help me, Leslie Nielsen, you're my only hope."

Dave Durenburger, former senator from MN, 88.

I conceded that it was enjoyable and greatly nostalgic for people, LL, also that I had lots of my own Laverne & Shirleys. I think it's a stretch to say the show had any impact beyond that in the sense of influencing television history or anything, which many shows from that era did.

cmon dude. it’s ok to let ppl love a thing and not align perfectly with yr own view of its importance or lack thereof

especially in the obit thread

I thought I was praising her! I said she was fantastic in two movies, ended up on a hit TV show, and that--because that was the way things were divided up at the time--her movie career was derailed. I said she might have a career as great as Sissy Spacek's. I love Spacek.

This is criticism?

no i meant just let LL feel how she feels about it and don’t respond! move on!

forget i said anything

Fine I will argue & explain. Laverne and Shirley was about friends. Not the workplace and not a family. Friends (female friends!) living independently of both men and their families (unless you count Laverne’s dad & landlady/stepmom Edna Babish) They were single, they worked, and weirdly no one shamed them for this. Sure they were constantly trying to snag a man but usually they failed. They were hilarious. Precursor to known classic female friendship sitcom Golden Girls? Friends? (Other?)
You were praising her by lamenting the highbrow career she didn’t have which (IMO) is not the greatest form of praise bc it’s imaginary & faint praise for what she actually accomplished.

I think the one thing that we can agree on is that Sissy Spacek should have starred in Laverne and Shirley, possibly with Shelley Duvall.

Sorry, I think you're being ridiculous. You have your version of Cindy Williams, I have my mine, and mine does not have to comport with yours. For you, she was the star of a TV show you loved when you were younger, and you feel a lot of nostalgia for that. First few words I wrote about Cindy Williams were that I understood--and shared in--that kind of experience. For me, she gave great performances in two of my favourite movies ever, and I feel sad that she never got to have the movie career I think she should have had, largely because iconic TV stars--with the exception of John Travolta--just weren't allowed to cross over then. (American Graffiti is now highbrow?) I've done nothing but praise her. Just not in the way you think I ought to be.

And American Graffiti and The Conversation aren't imaginary, they're very much part of what she accomplished. My guess is the former had at least something to do with her getting the part in Laverne & Shirley.

Forget it clemenza, it’s Somebody’s Favorite TV Show Town.

Did Cindy Williams ever express she wished she had that life? We celebrate the people who were, not the people who could have been

That's a good question, and I don't know. She surely wouldn't have while L&S was on the air; a hit TV show had a momentum all its own. What she thought twenty or thirty years later, who knows? I hope I've been clear that I think the film world's condescension to TV stars in the '70s was really unfortunate. There were so many amazing TV stars around then who were just partitioned off and not really given the chance to move back and forth like people do now.