Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

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

He refused to retreat from his view that the 1989 Hillsborough disaster - which claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool supporters - had been caused by "tanked-up yobs".
And in a 1996 letter replying to fan Graham Skinner - whose friend had died in the disaster - Sir Bernard said Liverpool should "shut up about Hillsborough".

Younger generations might roll their eyes at old farts blaming Thatcher for everything but her, her friends and her inner circle really were the vilest scum imaginable

rest in piss. it's a travesty the cunt lived so long.

Addition by subtraction.

I'm worried that this is what Paul McCartney is going to look like in a few years time

https://i.imgur.com/fv15nt0.jpg

he looks like a Spitting Image puppet

thought he was dead already tbh. Well anyway, he's dead now, that's the important thing.

a bit of good news for a Friday evening

you must milk this cat, thufir

no tears for this fucker

Bernard Ingham has died, you say? pic.twitter.com/5mqaOLWxNS

— Nic Bullen (@nic_shout) February 24, 2023

Good interviews with Richard Belzer and Tim McCarver! And I'm not a big media star interview fan.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158521975/remembering-richard-belzer-tim-mccarver

Gordon Pinsent, famous (here) Canadian actor:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/gorden-pinsent-1.6760868

His most well-known film, The Rowdyman (1972), is on YouTube for free--I don't think I've ever seen it, so I'll try to amend that.

Walter Mirisch, the last of three Mirisch brothers who produced or oversaw production of a string of highly regarded films in the 1950s and ’60s, including best picture Oscar winners “The Apartment,” “West Side Story” and “In the Heat of the Night,” has died.
He was 101.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-02-25/walter-mirisch-academy-oscars-in-the-heat-of-the-night-death

François Hadji-Lazaro (frontman of French bands Pigalle and Les Garçons Bouchers)

RIP my old friend Clive Sall, founding member of FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste), 60.

Lindsay Hoyle has announced the death of Betty Boothroyd aged 93 pic.twitter.com/s2OqOdW9Yu

— Henry Zeffman (@hzeffman) February 27, 2023

there is an interesting interview with her on the british archives page. iirc she's talking about how her dad was deeply ashamed about being unemployed and doing housework while her mother worked in 30's depression era Dewsbury.

misread that as “Depression era Doonesbury” which was a wild ride

tbh Dewsbury was probably far less of a depressing shithole in the 1930s than it has been since the 90's, as probably never referenced in any WP cartoons! I'm trying to keep it polite about Boothroyd but she was just basically as awful as any of the Labour Right, including all of them from w/c backgrounds.

surprised no fan has ever attempted "Doonesbury in other time periods." feels like a good recurring fake strip for when Tom the Dancing Bug does its fake comics page.

Trudeau did that a little bit with Zonker's colonial ancestor, around the bicentennial.

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1975/07/29

Jeez, that went harder than I ever would have guessed!

^true

Ismaïla Touré, founding member of the Senegalese band Touré Kunda. (Link is in French.)

Ricou Browning at 93, director and stuntman for underwater scenes, played The Creature From The Black Lagoon and co-created Flipper

RIP Gill-Man

Be kind to your web-footed friends

Be kind, rewind.