Rolling Obituary Thread: 2018

Lindsay Kemp

RIP Lindsay.

John McCain

Finally some good news for Trump!

Indeed - the Sunday shows this week will be 60 straight minutes of "respected" Washington "journalists" fellating a corpse.

Neil Simon.

Aw, damn.

"If this room was on fire, you wouldn't be hot!"

Shame, RIP Neil.

a great

Guess he just really wanted to outlive John McCain. Good for him.

next spring Eric H and i will be starring in The Sunshine Boys at the Mankato Dinner Theater. Don't miss it!

Neil Simon - gone! A loss 4 the entire entertainment industry.
He could write a joke that would make you laugh, define the character, the situation, and even the world's problems. First time I met him he looked at me and said, "Where the hell did they find you?" What a gent.

— Harvey Fierstein (@HarveyFierstein) August 26, 2018

I don't know if he ever did anything that interested me beyond The Heartbreak Kid and The Odd Couple, but that's enough right there.

Neil Simon's jokes and characters connected with Neil Simon's generation, which is a limited accomplishment, but making strangers laugh is always a difficult task and he succeeded at it.

loved Barefoot In The Park, and California Suite when I was a kid (I find most of it unwatchable now, tho).

I acted in Plaza Suite Act One just two weeks ago. The longer I worked on it, the more I understood the brilliance of the script.

i don't think they used much of his dialogue in Heartbreak Kid

nice condescending bullshit there Aimless, yer on a roll today

earlier generations -- so STUPID, amirite

idk it's sort of a tricky thing with comedy, i think it's one of the hardest areas to put yourself in the shoes of another time. like for whatever reason i can watch, say, a universal horror picture and go "i know factually that this scared people in 1933, and while it doesn't scare me, i'm still digging it, and can count its former scariness towards my sense that i'm enjoying a good movie." with comedy, if it's not making me laugh (or worse, if it's making me cringe) it's really hard to make the same move. i watched california suite a few months back and was absolutely bored to tears when i wasn't cringing. it just didn't land; i believe simon's comedy landed for somebody else, at some point in time, but i left just thinking "wow that was a shitty movie."

no one likes that one. Simon began to repeat himself around 1971-72, which seemed to last until he wrote that autobiographical trilogy of plays in the '80s (the first two of which launched Matthew Broderick's career).

(repeating himself made him rich, however)

(repeating himself made him rich, however)

and you accused me of condescending?

mirka mora

Lucie Brock-Broido, back in March of this year but I just found out.

2 comics veterans' deaths reported today -- Marie Severin and Gary Friedrich.

RIP Marie, such a great lifetime of work

Good remembrance of Neil Simon:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-neil-simon-appreciation-20180826-story.html

https://www.millsverse.com/johnarmstrongtribute/

John Armstrong, one of the most important names in British girls comics of the 70s. Best known probably for Moonchild in Misty.

Ah, he was drawing for Bunty when I was reading for it - I remember the Secret Gymnast.

Paul Taylor
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/obituaries/paul-taylor-prolific-modern-dance-choreographer-dies-at-88/2018/08/30/fd8c5fc4-ac60-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?noredirect=on

2 comics veterans' deaths reported today -- Marie Severin and Gary Friedrich.

A former ILXor on them: https://alewing.tumblr.com/post/177563962975/reblogging-this-to-mark-the-passing-of-gary

Paul Taylor had a good run.

Vanessa Marquez from ER, shot by the police.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/31/vanessa-marquez-er-actor-shot-killed-police

what the hell

Award for the worst headline of the year: https://www.insideedition.com/former-er-actress-vanessa-marquez-who-once-criticized-george-clooney-shot-dead-cops-46423

Jazz pianist Randy Weston, at 92.

Oh no. RIP:(

Been seeing his face all week, think he was scheduled to play a gig soon

How did you find out?

Okay, I see it on Facebook

I was thinking about going to that upcoming show but once I realized what a giant pain in the ass it would be to get there (the venue was all the way at the end of the R line in Queens) I had already blown it off.

I know almost nothing about his work. Earlier today, though, I was listening to a solo album from 1974, Blues to Africa, that was really good.

What venue was it, do you remember?

Glad I got to see him I few times, both onstage and in the audience at another show. Incredible musician, bandleader and personality

It was the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, and it was back in July:

https://www.jcal.org/randyweston

RIP Randy, I've got an album of his somewhere. One of the things I remember about him is that he was really tall, like 6'7" or 6'8".

Saw that Conway Savage may have passed?... it’s only on 1 site atm though (noise11) , seems somewhat premature & unverified

Showing up all over now re Conway Savage. RIP music man.

;_;

kenny shopsin of new york restaurant shopsins

calvin trillin profiled him in 2002
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/04/15/dont-mention-it

I know I ate there once, was OK. There's a documentary about him too.