Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

From Katharine Hepburn’s 1981 interview with Barbara Walters:

Hepburn: “I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man…I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself. And I ain’t afraid of being alone.”

Walters: “Is that why also you wear pants?”

Hepburn: “No, I just wore pants because they’re comfortable.”

Walters: “Do you ever wear a skirt, by the way?”

Hepburn: “I have one.”

Walters: “You have one.”

Hepburn: “I’ll wear it to your funeral.”

That's up there with:

rip barbara walters thank you for giving us one of the best interview moments of all time pic.twitter.com/nKmYEd1Ppv

— matt (@mattxiv) December 31, 2022

incredible

Amazing.

Alan Rankine of the Associates.

Oh no, surely not?

Shit - that's a bad one.
Also
Kelly Monteith, who I haven't thought about in a very long time.

One of those terrible channels on Freeview should show Kelly Monteith's shows again, I bet they'd stand up a lot better than Hale & Pace or whatever rubbish they are showing.

As a small child it was one of those adult shows I'd sometimes see and always desperately want to see again.

Alan Rankine confirmed. Fantastic musician, responsible for some of the greatest records ever made.

Is the silly rabbit thing a reference to that one breakfast cereal, what's it called again?

yes, anyone born after 1969 knows the allusion

My wife tells me that when she was a child, Trix commercials struck her as needlessly cruel. The rabbit just wanted some cereal. It would have been harmless to let him have some.

Your wife otm

How did she feel about the way The Roadrunner treated Wile E. Coyote?

My wife tells me that when she was a child, Trix commercials struck her as needlessly cruel. The rabbit just wanted some cereal. It would have been harmless to let him have some.

― Immodest Moose (Ye Mad Puffin),

but the sugar

ugh, alan rankine.

Damn sad loss. I really appreciated how his teaching work and the creation of the Electric Honey label helped to pay things forward; even if I'm not a fan of acts like Belle & Sebastian and Snow Patrol, it's still good mentorship he provided.

Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham, 90. Wrote a pretty good tell-all about his NASA years The All-American Boys

RIP. Think that's one of the few nose cone histories I haven't read.

Worth checking out and iirc doesn't hold back on much of the behind the scenes politicking going on among the astronauts. Cunningham only flew once - he had the misfortune of having Schirra as his Apollo 7 commander. Try to get the second edition with a lot of typo/content fixes.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jan/03/tom-karen-designer-of-raleigh-chopper-and-marble-run-dies-aged-96

I met Tom Karen at a work event several years ago. He was squirrelish in his curiosity and kind in his conversation. It was before we had our son; I wish I could have told him the hours of joy our marble run has brought us.

Roger Kean, co-founder of classic UK 8-bit games magazines Crash and ZZAP 64:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/zzap64-magazine-and-crash-magazine-cofounder-roger-kean-has-died

Fay Weldon.

West Ham head honcho and one half of the 'Dildo Brothers' David Gold, 86

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jan/04/david-gold-joint-chairman-west-ham-dies-at-86

Cue champagne popping all over Newham

Lise Nørgaard, journalist, memoirist, and creator of the utterly brilliant and legendary-in-Scandinavia TV series Matador.

Gianluca Vialli

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jan/06/gianluca-vialli-former-italy-juventus-and-chelsea-striker-dies-aged-58

Wow. I had no idea he was ill. RIP.

Seeing on Facebook that Michael 'Wavelength' Snow has died

Fucking hell Vialli that's terrible

Yup seeing Michael Snow on twitter as well.

RIP Gianluca, awful news

Kenyan LGBT activist Edwin Chiloba

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/06/africa/kenya-edwin-chiloba-lgbt-activist-death-intl/index.html

Character actor Earl Boen, best know for his role as the psychiatrist in the Terminator movies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/earl-boen-actor-in-the-terminator-movies-dies-at-81/ar-AA163iun

xp
rip Luca. he along with cavani are my benchmarks for what 'good movement' at the centre forward position should look like.

Vialli was kinda weirdly important to me -- when I finally got a chance to follow UK club football on any sort of regular basis via the Fox Sports two hour weekly show they had (or whatever network it was on) in the late 90s, Vialli was doing his Chelsea run, and he quickly became a favorite of mine via the various post-game interview clips thanks to his good humor and approach to it all. Between him and Pierluigi Collina let's hear it for the bald Italians.

xps

fucking horrific

Edwin Chiloba was an amazing human. He was bold, passionate, his energy was immaculate. He embodied fashion. Someone murdered him cruelly, put his body in a box & dumped his body.

Edwin we speak your name. May yr blood not spill for nothing. Stop killing queer people. pic.twitter.com/aSgwyTSqnM

— Njeri Wa Migwi™ (@NjeriWaMigwi) January 5, 2023

Heh. Mrs. Redd has often referred to Colina as “Squidward” due to his purported resemblance to a certain cartoon co-worker.
(xp!)

this Grenadian UK guy who was known as "Chicken" - christian name William - died the other day. He was a crook and a conman, but the most hilarious person I ever worked with. His son is known as "Young Chicken" in Brackenhall and had to live with the curse of being quite an average person!

Are we doing the death pool for 23 or tallying up who won 2022?

Were we still doing that?

I think last time, I had Mark E Smith on my list...

The last year that Henry Kissinger will be worth any points!

Character actor Earl Boen, best know for his role as the psychiatrist in the Terminator movies

Also did a lot of narration and voices for WoW!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCr7y4SLhck

Russell Banks (announced by Paul Schrader on Facebook)

Adam Rich, ‘Eight Is Enough’ actor, dead at 54

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/entertainment/adam-rich-dead/index.html

"As part of a satire on celebrity death, Rich participated in a 1996 hoax which falsely reported his passing, as written by “Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” author Dave Eggers, for Might Magazine."

Owen Roizman, Cinematographer of The French Connection, The Exorcist and More, Has Died at 86

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/01/owen-roizman-cinematographer-of-the-french-connection-the-exorcist-and-more-has-died-at-86

Also seeing John DeVries of Agitpop

Singer Jeff Blackburn, of Blackburn & Snow and occasional Neil Young collaborator (The Ducks and most famously as co-writer of "My My Hey Hey (Out of The Blue)")

https://www.instagram.com/p/CnLUs5rsBI9/?hl=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lZGS99oRig

"best known for his role in The Full Monty"? What the fuck is going on over there?

Thankfully (and miraculously) he wasn't in any Harry Potter movies because, in the UK, they take preference over absolutely anything anyone has ever done in the rest of their career.

https://t.co/C4mKpQkBLO

— Sotiris Tsern (@SotirisTsern) December 30, 2023

Excellent in ... In the Bedroom?

The tribute all of us want after passing.

that's settled it - I'm doing John Adams again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I7f4ALqojg

This is lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7o5kWrbJJE

my memory of his Franklin is that he was so completely suited to the horny decadence in Paris that he blended in seamlessly and grumpy, prudish, self-important J Adams arrival was a total buzzkill. I think that was the part of the series that stuck with me the most.

His IMDb resume is seriously impressive. Long list of quality projects. Besides Sense and Sensibility, my initial role association was Juntao in Rush Hour. He had Alan Rickman range, romantically charming and believably threatening.

Thank calzino for my new screen name

I just need to make a half decent one for myself now!

"completely suited to the horny decadence"

...is the new "addicted to the shindig"

...which was the new "knee-deep in the hoopla"

...which was the new "feelin' groovy."

Change my mind

This is lovely:

in which Tom Wilkinson, in his greatest and perhaps most challenging role, played a mirror.

https://deadline.com/2023/12/richard-romanus-dead-actor-mean-streets-the-sopranos-was-80-obituary-1235683695/

Richard Romanus -- pretty excellent in Mean Streets as Michael, the too-nice loan shark who's a bit more dangerous than he appears.

Terrific also as the voice of lethal cabby Harry Canyon in the dystopian noir segment of Heavy Metal.

Fantastic in Mean Streets. "Now's the time."

RIP

Australian Olympic ex-cyclist Melissa Hoskins

https://www.globalcyclingnetwork.com/racing/news/rohan-dennis-charged-in-relation-to-the-death-of-his-wife-melissa-hoskins

Jeezo.

John Pilger.

oof

Shecky Greene

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/shecky-greene-dead-comedian-vegas-sinatra-presley-1235858881/

“Frank Sinatra once saved my life,” Greene quipped. “A bunch of guys were beating on me and Frank said, ‘OK, that’s enough.’ ”

dang i thought he was long gone
RIP legend!

https://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2011/06/the-legend-of-shecky-greene.html

lolled pretty hard at that Sinatra gag

Comedian Shecky Greene has passed away. He was 97. Here he is on the cover of Night Life in Chicago Magazine, dated May 1955 where he performed at Chez Peree Restaurant in Chicago. R.I.P. #RIPSheckyGreene #RIPSheckGreene @sheckygreene pic.twitter.com/8T0Ifd8TBN

— Vanished Chicagoland (@vanishedchicago) December 31, 2023

Shecky played Christie Lane--a stand-up comedian and a stand-up guy--in what I usually name as my favourite bad movie, The Love Machine.

NASCAR's Cale Yarborough

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/31/sport/nascar-cale-yarborough-death/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwh4jqd6HMI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mucSyo9yLLQ

British comics artist John M Burns, who drew everything from George and Lynne in The Sun to The Bionic Woman in Look-In.

Which inspired this Viz parody (nsfw) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillunusual/13389387073

Sad coincidence of Richard Rampton, the brilliant lead barrister in the Irving v Lipstadt libel case, and Tom Wilkinson, who played him in the movie "Denial", both dying in late December, within days of one another.

— Sir Richard Evans (@RichardEvans36) January 1, 2024

RIP 2023, i never liked you anyway

Les McCann, 88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCDMQqDUtv4

Time for a new thread. Rolling Obituary Thread 2024

Time for a new thread.

Rolling Obituary Thread 2024

Time for a new thread.

Rolling Obituary Thread 2024

Time for a new thread.

Rolling Obituary Thread 2024

Yikes!