Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

A daft joke cartoon background detail I recall from one of the early 80's DC Thomson annuals was a cinema with "Now Showing: The Birds starring George Seagull" on the sign. It was a powerful enough image to seed in my memory the notion that he was actually in The Birds for decades.

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Bertrand Tavernier

Bertrand Tavernier, celebrated writer and director known for his work across five decades, has died at the age of 79. https://t.co/Jr5Dgc1zQH pic.twitter.com/siYkD2XWuC

— Notebook (@NotebookMUBI) March 25, 2021

Ah man, Jessica Walter.

https://deadline.com/2021/03/jessica-walter-dead-actress-arrested-development-1234721873/

Aw, RIP

noooooooooo

She was so hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EW_tlvW4aI

she deserved a medal for being the funniest person in that ridiculously strong ensemble

rip

damn rip to a real one. just unbelievable in AD. great turn in play misty for me. i feel im not as familiar as i would like to be with her wider filmography

aw that's a bummer. and yeah I only know her as Lucille I think, but I saw this on my tl and am super curious about her pre-AD career:

Remembering Jessica Walter, who has passed away. Pictured here in THE GROUP (1966) pic.twitter.com/ePCKZyJ419

— Jessica Pickens (JP) (@HollywoodComet) March 25, 2021

I'd heard of Play Misty for Me beforehand but the first time I would have definitely seen her in anything was The Flamingo Kid.

Great as Malory Archer as well...

looking up her work, I do remember her in Slums of Beverly Hills. It's probably for the best I don't in PCU.

the group is an interesting movie; she's also in bye bye braverman w george segal

I hated Arrested Development, but loved her in Archer.

Also, this is fucking hilarious:

RIP and a true story - when I made her Arrested Development character my Twitter avatar, she sent me an email asking me to take it down https://t.co/tKZuMqhhjc

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 25, 2021

queen

The Archer role is amazing -- like Kaleb Horton said, what if the same character, in essence, in a totally different thing and being just as funny/essential thanks to her delivery?

I’m sad to not hear what random role Morbs remembers her from

I looked in the archives, didn’t really find anything

feel like morbs would remember her as the long-suffering wife of washed-up alcoholic saints quarterback charlton heston in 'number one' (1969)

would also complain about football being a terrible sport unworthy of cinematic notice

Nah, he probably would have brought up her debut (alongside the also debuting Gene Hackman as her horrible husband) in Lilith (1964), which I myself finally saw a few months ago.

Malory Archer is All-Time.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/8e0a683f475977a2d8927501c69ba63d/1517b330e2cf97f4-ed/s1280x1920/1cc9f8e43a197c3d0069fcd30f352e0de04ae2cd.jpg

A couple years later she played a model torn between James Garner & Brian Bedford in Grand Prix.

https://slotracer.online/grand-prix/images/270w/Grand-Prix-270w-089.jpg

Is Archer still going? Not sure if the series could continue without her tbh

Just posted

She will be greatly missed, but never forgotten. pic.twitter.com/FRqb964ZOX

— Archer (@archerfxx) March 25, 2021

The most recent Archer season ended in October. I believe there were plans for a further couple after that.

https://deconstructingarresteddevelopment.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/115-photomontage2.gif?w=332

With deep sadness, we bid farewell to muMs - a brilliant and beloved poet, actor, and playwright, and a kind and generous friend and mentor to many artists. muMs was a member of our slam team in 1996, and he graced the stage here many times since. He will be greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/jziVKRmrsg

— Nuyorican Poets Cafe (@NuyoricanPoets) March 25, 2021

52

Fuck! Way too young!

He was great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFpXx-pEFAs

Larry McMurtry

https://cdn.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Larry-McMurtry-and-Diana-Ossana.jpg

The NY Times obit is really interesting; he owned a massive bookstore in Texas for 50 years. Normally you don't read in a novelist's obit that they made money by other means for their entire lives, though 99% of them do.

He was president of the PEN American Center when I worked there and constantly bitched that rare booksellers in London wouldn’t show him the good stuff!

Beverly Cleary, author, 104.

Aw. And awe! That's old.

Imagining Bev & McMurtry kicking it in heaven.

Beverly Cleary was still alive? wow

Her name had been a linchpin of the "people you didn't realize were still alive" thread --- I almost posted an update on her this week, but figured it could wait til next month, when she would have hit 105.

RIP. The Ramona books really were something special, and very connected to the psychological reality - the shames and furies - of children, in a way basically nothing else of that era was.

She had such empathy and understanding for her characters. I never read them as a kid but my daughter loves them, and we've read them multiple times.

This is where I point out that there was a shortly-lived Ramona TV show wherein our heroine was played by Sarah Polley.

https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0133ee680f11970b-800wi

i definitely saw that! at least like a couple episodes. maybe some of it got bundled for a VHS we rented, not sure.

Oh man, RIP Beverly Cleary. I read all her books as a kid, and most of them I don't remember that well, but I picked up a copy of Ramona and Her Father at a little free library not that long ago and was amazed by how real it felt.

still feeling sad about Beverly Cleary, even though she lived an amazing, long life. Hers were the first books I remember reading myself, apart from the Frances Hodgkin Burnetts, and details from them are indelibly imprinted on my memory. Such an empathetic and clever writer.

*Hodgson

cleary was alive during the woodrow wilson administration, she led an amazing life

not sure how i never read any cleary, because i read a bunch of judy blume books. anyway

Once I had the chance to get a quote from @judyblume about Beverly Cleary and this is what she said ❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/vDod41pFNO

— Reyhan Harmanci (@harmancipants) March 26, 2021

Cleary perhaps pitched to a slightly younger audience

I almost said earlier that it was hard to imagine a Judy Blume without Beverly Cleary showing the way, but then thought maybe that was a little too grandiose and reductive.