Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

Well goddamn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CUm8ZNSfBM

Glad to hear John Amos is still alive--Gordo was one of my favourite characters, even though he was gone within a season or two. Betty White is clearly going to outlive them all (and me, and you).

IIRC, MacLeod appeared on Dick Van Dyke as Mel's cousin who sold the gang some grey-market jewelry.

Also here's a clip of him talking about that Big Chicken role

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRpR8rZ9R0w

protect Ed Asner at all costs

Betty White is clearly going to outlive them all (and me, and you).

Not to assume anything, but her public appearances have significantly slowed down in the last few years. I mean, she was already 88 when she hosted that SNL episode, and that was 11 years ago. Hope she at least makes it to 100.

RIP BJ Thomas. Good singer, one handsome dude too. Original and best version of this song...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V191TowR_XQ

best voice

BJ Thomas will go down in history, preparing society for such acts as 69 Boyz.

That whole Five-O scene is kill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM3khJ6LbD4

Really wonderful interview with MacLeod from a few years back. Dude had stories!

https://www.pilotonline.com/entertainment/article_739df54f-13b6-5c0d-b50a-51f19d227511.html

Big Chicken !!!

I also recommend MacLeod's deliciously repulsive shower scene in his 2nd Big Chicken appearance in the H5O ep "The Box"

#RIP Buddy Van Horn, 92; he directed Clint Eastwood in three films after serving as his stunt double in lots of movies. "I've tried to talk him out of [doing his own stunts] sometimes, but not very successfully most of the time," he once said. https://t.co/VgYqI4RTDQ

— Mike Barnes (@MikeBarnes4) May 31, 2021

You'll know her face, if not her name, and probably have assumed she was dead already.

RIP that gloriously eccentric character player Damaris Hayman, not far off her 92nd birthday - she helped Doctor Who battle The Daemons, walked the halls of St Trinian's, saw the Pink Panther Strike Again and was the essence of genteel English wit opposite many great comics. pic.twitter.com/83sLbMoq51

— Toby Hadoke (@TobyHadoke) June 3, 2021

F. Lee Bailey dead at 87

https://www.tmz.com/2021/06/03/famed-lawyer-f-lee-bailey-dead-at-87/

I thought he died like 20 years ago, when I also thought he was 87.

f. murray abraham still lives

That is weird about F. Lee Bailey's age. So he was only 61 at the time of the Simpson trial. Younger than Morrissey or Kyle MacLachlan are today, to pick two random beloved celebrities.

In the 1980s I used to watch F. Lee Bailey's outrageous TV show Lie Detector where public figures would come on and tell some disputed story in their own words and then Bailey would hook them up to a lie detector to see if they were lying about it.

Curiously I don't see that show in Bailey's imdb credits.

The best Lie Detector episode was when Jackie Rogers Jr. went on to disprove he intended to make the Shriners riot at his free concert.

I think that was in the Gimme Jackie documentary but it was Melvin Belli iirc

xp I just watched Gimme Jackie again and you were right, that was Bailey!

...and Jackie sings lyrics to the Lie Detector theme song!

Ahem, Josefa

Guess I posted that after you, but before reading that part of this thread.

This conversation is kind of meta, bc we're discussing/alluding to a real documentary, a parody documentary, a real TV show, a parody of a real TV show within a parody documentary, two real lawyers, and one parody of a real lawyer played by Eugene Levy.

But yeah, Bailey/Belli, I totally get that one.

I know that one was in both Star Trek: TOS and Gimme Shelter, not sure of the others film and television credits.

Can't say I knew about her but sounds like a great person - https://cstrecords.com/pages/joni-sadler

RIP Clarence Williams III, shown here in four of his most iconic roles: Purple Rain, Tales From the Hood, Sugar Hill and 52 Pick-Up (he was also in the Mod Squad) pic.twitter.com/qqfteyS2DI

— Eric Harvey (@ericdharvey) June 6, 2021

RIP

Jimi Hendrix’s foxy lady, Lithofayne Pridgon.

We lost Jimi's Girl. The Queen of the Chittlin Circuit Ms. Lithofayne Pridgnon. Prayers going out to her family & friends. Click here: https://t.co/oScdeicuZk... Wow!😲 She helped change my life & tons of other's. Respect from the Streets & the Plastic World. Thx u. Bootsy baby🙏 pic.twitter.com/4snfItDoam

— Bootsy Collins (@Bootsy_Collins) June 6, 2021

David Dushman, last surviving Auschwitz liberator, dies aged 98
Dushman went on to become a successful international fencer

Ned Beatty

https://www.tmz.com/2021/06/13/ned-beatty-dead-dies-actor-network-superman-deliverance/

Oh no, RIP Ned.

:( rip

so great

To repeat myself from FB:

I'm what, almost eight years old, and I'm seeing _Superman_ in the theater for the first time, Christopher Reeve and all. Those amazing opening credits happen and suddenly my eye catches one of the names: Ned Beatty. And I'm thrilled -- for the first time in my life I knew someone was out there who had my name. It was a real charge, and I loved his performance too -- it totally holds up. Over time I see plenty of other performances by him and he brought the goods, but I always remember that film and I'll always remember that moment. It was really great. RIP, you had a fan for life there, sir.

I saw him in that production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with Jason Patric and Ashley Judd. He was great in it, but I think my favorite of his roles were probably Superman (less so in the sequels) Homicide, and Roseanne.

he was terrific in Superman, i always picture him in that straw hat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DSdw7dHjs

Can't find it on YouTube, but there was a Homicide episode that concluded with longish scene of him in a bar talking to bartender John Waters about the physical declines of Elvis and Orson Welles that was tremendously affecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8a3MCy2VoI
[from about 42 minutes or so]

Owen Gleiberman on Ned Beatty: https://variety.com/2021/film/columns/remembering-ned-beatty-network-deliverance-nashville-1234995562/

I wrote a long piece on '70s character actors 20 years ago; it was mostly about John Cazale, but I did think of Beatty as the next tier. They all reminded me of Nixon in one way or another:

Cazale was Nixon the brooding, self-pitying outsider--the eternal wallflower who felt inferior to East Coast intellectuals, the part of Nixon that wanted to crawl out of his own skin. You can easily envision Godfather II‘s compound scene played out between Nixon-as-Fredo and JFK-as-Michael: “I was in the White House before you, Jack, and I was stepped over!” Ned Beatty was Nixon the mechanical bumbler, the one who couldn’t work a tape recorder properly; Burt Young and Peter Boyle were Nixon the uncouth slob (all those expletive-deleteds); and G.D. Spradlin (Senator Geary in Godfather II, Nick Nolte’s imperious coach in North Dallas Forty) was Nixon the coolly manipulative despot.

Janet Malcolm, 86.

RIP

R.I.P. Frank Bonner: The television actor best known for his role as Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati has died at the age of 79. https://t.co/CObVTKXPgT pic.twitter.com/BOxyoqipPw

— Consequence (@consequence) June 17, 2021

nooooo :(

all plaid at half-mast

He was also in 1970's Equinox which is a fun little homemade horror flick

Awful news re: Malcolm