Rolling Obituary Thread 2022

St Peter's question at the gates should surely be to rhetorically ask about having had his tea.

He'd begun to look increasingly frail though still entirely switched on.

I last saw him in the opening sequences of Kenny Everett's Bloodbath At The House Of Death and am fairly convinced he could have had a decent career in giallo as a grizzled but sexy policeman.

Ah man. End of an era.

The joke about the woman reading the Bible from Richard Herring's RHLSTP is amazing but I won't embed for people who have autoplay on. Delete the ellipsis from the end of the URL.

RIP Barry Cryer. One of my all time comedy heroes. This clip, taken from the recent @Herring1967 podcast, had me in tears. pic.twitter.com/RNrFd0llnI

— Josh Jeffery (@JeffCarnage) January 27, 2022

Haha it fixed itself anyway. The joke wants to be heard.

what a loss, what a life. a guy who found his niche and delivered.

I am removing the word "writer" from my CV. pic.twitter.com/YL8x9tEgmA

— simon evans (@TheSimonEvans) January 27, 2022

Richard Christiansen (RIP, 90 years old) was the Chicago Tribune's lead theater critic from the 1970s through the early 2000s. Discovered a shit-ton of playwrights (Mamet et al), actors (Franz, Farina, Adian Quinn, dozens more), directors, sometimes the only critic championing a show.

And really good at what he did: taking the duty of describing a show as seriously as his take.

Brian Dennehy wrote: "“There was no group so small, no venue so foreboding, that he would not find himself climbing flights of stairs or descending into damp cellars to see what delights or disasters the latest groups of young thespians would deliver.”

What people love about Chicago—that you can do a play in a little room and if it’s good people will come—is singularly down to Christiansen doing that and telling others to follow.

— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet) January 29, 2022

Oh the irony.

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2022/01/former-washington-state-trooper-who-refused-vaccine-dead-of-covid-19/

howard hessman, aka WKRP’s johnny fever

Aw man.

RIP Howard Hessman. What great times we had. Great laughs and fun going to see Etta James in Manhattan Beach and Joe Tex at The Parisian Room. Staying at your beautiful house in Ramatuellle. Oh god this hurts.

— Laraine Newman (@larainenewman) January 30, 2022

Oh man, I was just explaining WKRP to a friend on Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzgLeC54cqs

BOOGER!

Feelin this one, y'all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BXPwFcvp1U

HH arrives at the end...

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

Wtf how can Johnny Fever be dead

Hesseman in '69

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA3YXa_kLqg

Many xposts Yvette Mimieux was also in (and I think this was her breakthrough) Light In The Piazza, which I started to leave TCM because of: in that 50s technicolor way of making Italy x romcom look like expensive cheese, much better on the plate than the screen---but just before changing channels, I noticed something a little off about this disgustingly happy AmeriKKKan blonde princess of the Cold War----I mean, more off than blundered into, intentionally off, just a hair. And her helicopter Mom, played by Olivia de Haviland, has a lucid look, down some road they've been before. Turns out her daughter had a childhood accident, resulting in subtle brain damage, a certain tinge of arrested development, surfacing now and then. So then she meets an Italian boy, George Hamilton, who's actually kind of good in his role: of a kid who means to be charming, and is, in a disarming, anxious and funny way, sort of semi-self-aware? way, as he senses he may be getting into more than he'd bargained for, re daughter x mother, then later his father (Rosano Brazzi_works some American expectations of Italian charmer-businessman possibilities, and Yvette's buttoned-down Manhattan executive Daddy (Barry Sullivan) shows up, and Olivia adjusts to everything now in play, as best she can.
Based on a novella by Elizabeth Spencer, who recently got her own Library of America collection, and I suspect there's more than made it into the movie, which still manages some implications, and is an usual balance of period interest in expensive cheese *and* mental health, though could play now on a double bill with Suddenly Last Summer (which is better, but could easily imagine Yvette in a Tennessee Williams movie).

RIP Hessman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wML2V6crNc0

Hargus "Pig" Robbins, session pianist supreme

https://variety.com/2022/music/obituaries-people-news/hargus-pig-robbins-dead-nashville-country-hall-famer-bob-dylan-1235167182/

RIP, but I feel bad for only really knowing from Private Lessons and Head of the Class.

*guy I feel bad

(and yes, I have seen him in other, better things, but those were mostly small roles: Clue, TheJerk…)

Great little bit part in This Is Spinal Tap (expanded upon in the clip)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juRLXEf4IyE

Is this where the term "Enormodome" originated?

Impossible to overstate Howard Hesseman’s influence on his and subsequent generations of improvisors. The first time I saw him on stage (Troubadour, ’71, with The Committee) I saw that he was the real deal. He was a friend for 50 years. 1/3

— Michael McKean (@MJMcKean) January 30, 2022

Howard’s character in Spinal Tap didn’t even exist until 24 hours before the shoot: we’d discovered that the musician we’d hired to play Duke Fame couldn’t improvise, so Rob said let’s give him a manager. I’ll call Howard. He blitzed it, of course. 2/3

— Michael McKean (@MJMcKean) January 30, 2022

Norma Waterson, confirmed by Eliza Carthy on Twitter.

oh fuck :(

Leonard Fenton, 95

Leonard Fenton, who played Dr Legg in EastEnders, has died aged 95, his family say https://t.co/2O6fwHK9yM

— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 31, 2022

Cheslie Kryst, winner of the 2019 Miss USA pageant, at the age of 30.

Ugh. Just read about that. RIP.

Is this where the term "Enormodome" originated?

It appears to be!

Oh, Dr Legg :(

seeing early reports that James Bidgood, director of 'Pink Narcissus', has passed

Ah man. Hell of an impact, not least with my beloved Pierre et Gilles...

i interviewed him by e-mail for a school project many years ago. just dug up our exchange; he signed every e-mail 'jimbo'. he was very kind and funny, wish i'd kept a longer correspondence with him beyond that one project

Bob Wall, martial artist and actor, best known as the evil O'Hara in Enter the Dragon

RIP Jimmy Johnson, older brother of Syl Johnson, frequent collaborator on songs including “Come On Sock It To Me” & a blues legend in his own right. Here he is in a clip from our film talking about Syl’s arrival in Chicago with their brother Mack Thompson (bassist for Magic Sam). pic.twitter.com/g1VgJkj5UH

— Syl Johnson Movie (@SylJohnsonMovie) February 1, 2022

Sam Lay, drummer for Waters, Wolf, Butterfield & Dylan

https://pitchfork.com/news/blues-drummer-sam-lay-dies-at-86/

Italian climber and mountain guide Corrado “Korra” Pesce has died following an accident in Patagonia (41).

https://gripped.com/news/top-climber-and-mountain-guide-korra-pesce-dies-in-patagonia/

Jonny Z

https://variety.com/2022/music/news/jon-zazula-megaforce-records-metallica-dead-dies-1235169137/

Hearing murmurs about Monica Vitti

Confirmed, sadly: https://www.google.com/amp/s/deadline.com/2022/02/monica-vitti-dies-italian-screen-icon-of-1960s-classics-was-90-1234924794/amp/

RIP Monica :(

RIP

Mandy Allwood, 56. What a way to start the day, reading this. RIP.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/octomum-dies-of-cancer-aged-56-b980653.html?amp

Jesus, what an absolutely tragic story. That poor, poor woman.

That is sad. Wasn't there another Octomom, an American one?

Yes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadya_Suleman

Dubbed "The most hated woman in Britain" for not giving interviews to the paper that dubbed her, for free. Doubtless.