Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

she was, as i've mentioned in other threads, my first moment of heterosexual realization at age 8 or so

Ann-Margret, happily still alive.

Damn, scared me for a moment there.

My best "found something stashed in a book/magazine" story is about how 10-something years ago I bought a huge lot of '60s Playboys on eBay, and found in one of the issues the unlisted bonus of a folded pin-up of Stevens from an issue of either Variety or the Hollywood Reporter, plus a personally autographed glossy headshot--both of which had seen better days, but it was still pretty cool.

Ghanaian footballer Christian Atsu, in the Turkey earthquake.

Oh no. RIP Stella, what a babe. Interesting (to me) that she was in a relationship with guitarist Bob Kulick for nearly 40 years (he died a couple of years ago).

Yes, interesting to a few of us.

Also the "married at 15, kid at 16, divorced at 17" thing.

seeing word that Richard Belzer may have passed. no official reporting yet that I can find

A bunch of dorks on twitter are clouding the issue saying it's a hoax, but Belzer's irl friends are tweeting condolences and sharing thoughts about him, and I'm inclined to believe they have better sources than the usual "it's a hoax!" posts.

RS is reporting it now.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/richard-belzer-comedy-legend-law-amp-order-svu-detective-john-munch-dead-obit-1234682788/

;_;

CNN reporting too---did not know the character went back to these prev. shows (Homicide was based on David Simon's nonfiction book, maybe with a Munch-like cop? Seems likely, at least now)

Belzer was famed for his role as Detective Munch, first appearing on NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street” from 1993 to 1999. He reprised that role in the TV movie “Homicide: The Movie” in 2000 and also appeared as the famed detective in four episodes of “Law & Order.”

Belzer appeared as Munch again in “Law & Order: SVU,” where he became a series regular, appearing in 326 episodes between 1999 and 2016. Though his character retired in 2013, he returned in two additional episodes after his departure.

Like Belzer himself, detective Munch had a conspiratorial mindset, a Jewish background and a dry sense of humor. His scrawny, wisecracking, glasses-wearing investigator became over time one of the most recognizable cops in TV crime show history.

“I would never be a detective, but if I were, that’s how I’d be,” he said in a recent interview with The Boomer Tube. “The character is very close to how I would be. They write to all my paranoia and anti-establishment dissidence and conspiracy theories, so it’s been a lot of fun for me. It’s been a dream actually.”

Dickie Davies, ITV sports presenter, 89.

Munch character was based on irl Jay Landsman in Simon’s Homicide book

Thanks! Was thinking I should also check around for some of his 70s comedy albums (often compared to Lenny Bruce), as well as any bits of the music.

Dickie Davies is one for the people who you thought was at least in his 90's column.

Another regular in the people you thought were dead thread dead.

This is a really good book...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1LakgMPJmL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

xp

Now that people who seemed like mouldering old corpses still in existence when I was 15 years old are only just dying now, it possibly gives me false hope ... or maybe even real despair that still I've got decades left to live yet.. lol.

RIP Belz. Munch was the lynchpin between many televisual worlds: https://www.ranker.com/list/all-the-tv-universes-unified-by-detective-munch/jacob-shelton

Homicide is fantastic and highly recommended for those who only know him from Law and Order.

Also in that RS article was that he warmed up the crowd in the early SNL shows.

Never saw a single episode of L&O but I’m thrown by how hard the loss of Belzer hits. He was kind of the quintessential cool comedian.

He was better on Homicide than on L&O because Homicide was a much, much better-written show than SVU has ever been. That said, Belzer and Ice-T made a great comedy team.

I only recently saw Homicide for the first time, after some Wire bingeing, and loved Munch in it! He was much more blabby, cranky and tin-foil-hattish. I loved it.

I’m thrown by how hard the loss of Belzer hits. He was kind of the quintessential cool comedian.

Same, I first saw Belzer on 70s late night TV - Midnight Special and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and he was kinda the first person I recognized as being a stand-up comic.

Composer Gerald Fried, 95. Worked with Kubrick and Roger Corman before moving to television and composing hours and hours of background music.

He's probably most famous now for composing this background theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCamCYip2t4

Munch only seemed similar to Landsman from the book in that they both had an acidic sense of humor. Belzer’s personality largely informed the character in the early seasons of Homicide to the point where you really had to suspend disbelief that this was a cop.

belzer was at least a decade older than i thought he was. rip

Richard Belzer was a fine onscreen presence, but not many people have remarked upon how he was the only American tv actor who could totally dominate a Ric Ocasek lookalike contest.

RIP Gerald Fried. Amok time is a cool as shit score but he did a bunch more great stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyQdzXCj1eo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ4mhaJIr7A

his twin brother died recently as well iirc

other than that nothing more to say about how good he was in homicide and svu (the best l&o imo)

legendary scifi manga artist Leiji Matsumoto at 85 worked on Space Battleship Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, Space Pirate Captain Harlock etc etc. oh and that Daft Punk anime film.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20230220/k10013985711000.html

fucking legend

Nooooo. Rest In Peace to the great Matsumoto.

R&B singer Chuck Jackson.

Tom Luddy, a week ago.

https://www.thewrap.com/martin-scorsese-remembers-telluride-co-founder-tom-luddy-as-a-pivotal-figure-in-the-world-of-cinema/

I recognized the name but didn't know much about him till I read Greil Marcus's remembrance today. He produced Mishima, appeared in Phil Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and seems to have been a central figure in the film universe of San Francisco.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/headhuntersholosuite/images/5/56/Ted_Hendley.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100110203057

Here's the link for the photo (from Body Snatchers):

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/headhuntersholosuite/images/5/56/Ted_Hendley.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100110203057

French Film Director Michel Deville

https://www.lefigaro.fr/cinema/mort-de-michel-deville-realisateur-du-paltoquet-et-de-peril-en-la-demeure-20230220

Barbara Bosson

https://www.indiewire.com/2023/02/barbara-bosson-dead-hill-street-blues-1234811769/

oh no! she was great in that show...

John Motson

RIP Motty

RIP big guy, sheepskin coat heaven just got that little bit more crowded

Guardian Other Lives article about Alastair Brotchie, as mentioned upthread: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/24/alastair-brotchie-obituary (some ilxors may remember him doing the announcing at the book launch of my Pessoa thing, five years ago next month)

By Peter Blegvad no less.

In 2000 he co-founded the London Institute of ’Pataphysics (LIP), which published a journal and hosted performances, including an exhibition and public event in 2002 that presented the “reconstructive archaeology” of the artworks seen in Tony Hancock’s film The Rebel, the story of an amateur artist’s struggle for recognition.

I was there and have the poster and postcards to prove it!

Did you study pataphysical science in the home?

Peter Blegvad studied it with his daughter iirc.

One less horrible cunt in the world...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64763545