Rolling Obituary Thread: 2020

It's certainly quick, and the stories about heads living on for a while are clearly nonsense. Would be highly entertaining if Dignitas used them, yes!

Very few complaints back, off the top of my head anyway

Most humane method of execution imho

That's was its USP during the French Revolution.

when Antonescu and his fascist cronies got liquidated by firing squad, one of them takes a sad look at his hat for a second and then seems to have a "hmmm I won't be needing this any more" moment and disconsolately drops it to the ground. And I think Antonescu defiantly raised his hat before the hail of bullets. Firing squad is a good icebreaker, it cuts through all the posturing and office politics!

Hugh Keays-Byrne, an unsung hero of Aussie cinema, has passed away at age 73. I'm continually floored that he played Toecutter, the central antagonist of 1979's MAD MAX *and* Immortan Joe, the central antagonist 2015's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Thanks for all the entertainment, sir.

RIP. Ride eternal, shiny and chrome!

Firing squad is a good icebreaker, it cuts through all the posturing and office politics!

Too bad it turned Dostoevsky into a pan-Slavic religious bigot. Can't argue with the novels that followed tho.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of France (1974-1981), 94. RIP.

― pomenitul, Wednesday, December 2, 2020 4:15 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no joke was coming here to post him in "Last famous person ..."

weird. RIP.

tbf dostoevsky was facing a bulletless firing squad, very different effects iirc

... people you thought were dead.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of France (1974-1981), 94. RIP.

― pomenitul, Wednesday, December 2, 2020 4:15 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no joke was coming here to post him in "Last famous person ..."

weird. RIP.

budo and breastcrawl confirmed psionic killers.

I should change my last name to d’Estaing

en d'estaing

Giscard's father officially appended 'd'Estaing' to his name in 1922, after his ancestor Lucie-Madeleine d'Estaing (1769-1844).

budo and breastcrawl confirmed psionic killers.

The shitty joke in French is that it was his destin (destiny), which is pronounced just like d'Estaing.

Da Stang

« Le Fabuleux D’estaign de Valéry Giscard »

Well played. :)

I have been to Estaing. It’s beautiful.

...but have you ever been to you?

Ha, I’ve also been to Paradise (Pennsylvania)!

it’s that man you fought with

Seeing on Facebook, twitter, & IG that bassist Melake Gebre from the pioneering Ethiopian group Walias Band has died from cancer at age 71. Am pretty sure he played bass on a great rendition of “Musicawi Silt” by Walias Band arranged by Girma Beyene & including Hailu Mergia on keyboards

David Lander:

RIP David Lander
Lenny and Squiggy made me laugh so much as a kid pic.twitter.com/hSblb9hrY1

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) December 5, 2020

The Lenny and the Squigtones album is crazy underrated.

rip :(

pic.twitter.com/G804z4F5bR

— Michael McKean (@MJMcKean) December 5, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpN9oOL7qD4

RIP. Remembering him doing one of the voices on a show I used to watch with my kids, Oswald.

Henry the Penguin.

Voice of golf, Peter Alliss, 89

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2020/12/06/peter-alliss-bbcs-voice-golf-dies-89/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/pamela-tiffin-actress-in-the-pleasure-seekers-state-fair-and-come-fly-with-me-dies-at-78

Actress Pamela Tiffin (probably best known around here for One, Two, Three [1961]), 78

yup. RIP.

xpost mother of an old friend of mine. Sad to hear/read this. Rest In Peace, Pamela.

Yeah I remember when I found out her mother was a beautiful movie starlet. Made sense.

Did not know she had been married to Clay Felker.

She has the best line in that movie, maybe one of the best in all of Wilder:

"You can also wave to him on Lenin's birthday and on Yuri Gagarin's birthday. That kid'll be parading all the time."
"Well, at least it'll keep him off the street."

That movie is great.

Another foreshortened film thread

Chuck Yeager:

Fr @VictoriaYeage11 It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET. An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered forever.

— Chuck Yeager (@GenChuckYeager) December 8, 2020

everyone eventually augers in

rip

pic.twitter.com/hINp3iI7YX

— Derek Robertson (@derek_j_rob) December 8, 2020

Whoa, seeing that LD Beghtol has passed.

Damn.

wow chuck yeager! one of my childhood heroes. had no idea he was still alive tbh

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/walter-hooper-r-i-p/

Walter Hooper, CS Lewis' last secretary and arguably the main reason Lewis didn't fade into relative obscurity on his death.

interesting piece aldo. i hadn’t heard of him.

I suspect as much as anything else it's because Hooper's interest was primarily in the explicitly Christian material but the Christopher Tolkien analogy is a good one.

wow chuck yeager! one of my childhood heroes. had no idea he was still alive tbh

One of his final achievements was getting into the 'famous people you were surprised to see is actually still alive' thread with just a week or so to spare.

Yeager was p racist tbh

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ed-dwight-first-african-american-space-until-wasnt-180974215/?fbclid=IwAR3jigq_whtPdjtbGs3vmHgjUwl4oOKgwVs2AamEv86KUa4SSUBepn4tN1s

Natalie Desselle-Reid, star of BAPS among many other fine roles, passed from colon cancer.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/07/entertainment/natalie-desselle-reid/index.html