Death Takes No Holiday -- The Obituary Thread

[LawrenceA]

Brad Harris (July 16, 1933 - November 7, 2017) - American bodybuilder, stuntman and actor who went to Europe in 1960 and cashed in on the sword 'n' sandal movie craze, starring in Samson (1961), Goliath Against the Giants (1961), and The Fury of Hercules (1962). He remained in Europe and acted in spaghetti westerns, action flicks, and other films, including 7 movies in the Kommissar X spy series, opposite Tony Kendall. He appeared in Brass Target (1978), a few early 1980's fantasy movies with Lou Ferrigno, and had a short stint on TV's Falcon Crest.

[Hibi]

5 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

Brad Harris (July 16, 1933 - November 7, 2017) - American bodybuilder, stuntman and actor who went to Europe in 1960 and cashed in on the sword 'n' sandal movie craze, starring in Samson (1961), Goliath Against the Giants (1961), and The Fury of Hercules (1962). He remained in Europe and acted in spaghetti westerns, action flicks, and other films, including 7 movies in the Kommissar X spy series, opposite Tony Kendall. He appeared in Brass Target (1978), a few early 1980's fantasy movies with Lou Ferrigno, and had a short stint on TV's Falcon Crest.

 

 

WOW! Those ABS!!!

[LawrenceA]

Karin Dor (February 22, 1938 - November 6, 2017) - German actress who came to prominence starring in a number of B-movies of the 1960's, including several based on Edgar Wallace books, such as The Green Archer (1961) and The Forger of London (1961). She's best remembered in the U.S. for her roles in 1967's James Bond outing You Only Live Twice and Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz (1969). Other notable film roles came in The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962), The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967), and Assignment: Terror (1970). In all she amassed 74 film and television credits in a career lasting 62 years.

 

[Hibi]

Sorry to hear about Karin Dor. I had just seen her in You Only Live Twice and Topaz on tv recently again. (great send offs in both films)

[LawrenceA]

John Hillerman (December 20, 1932 - November 9, 2017) - American character actor best known for his role as Higgins on 8 seasons of the TV series Magnum P.I. (1980-1988). Hillerman also made several notable film appearances, including in The Last Picture Show (1971), What's Up Doc (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973), Paper Moon (1973), Chinatown (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974), The Day of the Locust (1975), Audrey Rose (1977), and many more.

[jakeem]

Hillerman was so believable in "Magnum, P.I." as Higgins, the no-nonsense British majordomo of the Robin Masters estate in Hawaii. As a result, it was always such a trip to hear the actor using his native Texas accent in other productions.

[LawrenceA]

Ray Lovelock (June 19, 1950 - November 10, 2017) - Italian-English actor primarily in Italian genre films who was best known for his role in 1971's Fiddler on the Roof as Fyedka the Christian farmer. I personally remember him best from his starring role in the underrated zombie horror film Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974). He also appeared in Almost Human (1974), Autopsy (1975), Violent Rome (1975), The Cassandra Crossing (1976), The Greatest Battle (1978), and Murder Rock (1984), among others.

[LawrenceA]

Luis Bacalov (August 30, 1933 - November 15, 2017) - Oscar-winning film composer who worked primarily in the Italian film industry. He received his first Oscar nomination for 1964's The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and he won the Best Score Oscar for 1994's Il Postino. Among his many other credits are Django (1966), A Bullet for the General (1966), The Grand Duel (1972), Mister Scarface (1976), City of Women (1980), Entre Nous (1983), and Assassination Tango (2002). He amassed some 163 credits in his 50+ year career.

 

[LawrenceA]

Ann Wedgeworth (January 21, 1934 - November 16, 2017) - Tony-winning actress of stage and both the big and small screens. She won her Tony for the play Chapter Two in 1978, and her film appearances included Scarecrow (1973, and a personal favorite of mine), Sweet Dreams (1985), Steel Magnolias (1989), and The Hawk Is Dying (2006). She was a frequently seen presence on TV, particularly on the shows Three's Company (1979) and Evening Shade (1990-1994).

 

[CinemaInternational]

1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:

Ann Wedgeworth (January 21, 1934 - November 16, 2017) - Tony-winning actress of stage and both the big and small screens. She won her Tony for the play Chapter Two in 1978, and her film appearances included Scarecrow (1973, and a personal favorite of mine), Sweet Dreams (1985), Steel Magnolias (1989), and The Hawk Is Dying (2006). She was a frequently seen presence on TV, particularly on the shows Three's Company (1979) and Evening Shade (1990-1994).

 

She definitely deserved Oscar attention for Sweet Dreams, in a fine, understated performance. RIP

[jameselliot]

On 11/8/2017 at 11:01 AM, LawrenceA said:

Brad Harris (July 16, 1933 - November 7, 2017) - American bodybuilder, stuntman and actor who went to Europe in 1960 and cashed in on the sword 'n' sandal movie craze, starring in Samson (1961), Goliath Against the Giants (1961), and The Fury of Hercules (1962). He remained in Europe and acted in spaghetti westerns, action flicks, and other films, including 7 movies in the Kommissar X spy series, opposite Tony Kendall. He appeared in Brass Target (1978), a few early 1980's fantasy movies with Lou Ferrigno, and had a short stint on TV's Falcon Crest.

I'm a big fan of his Kommissar X series with his close friend Tony Kendall (Luciano Stella), now both gone. I'd love to see TCM program a few of them. They're tongue-in-cheek in the style of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the Flint films and were filmed all over the world. 

[LawrenceA]

Mel Tillis (August 8, 1932 - November 19, 2017) - Highly successful country music artist who also did some occasional acting. His pronounced stutter wasn't apparent on his string of music hits which stretched from the 1950's through the 1980's. His most frequent screen co-star was fellow Florida boy Burt Reynolds, in films such as W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, Smokey and the Bandit II, and The Cannonball Run (1 and 2). Tillis was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2012. His daughter Pam Tillis is also a successful country music artist.

[wouldbestar]

The hits keep coming.  Ann Wedgeworth, Mel Tillis, now this.

Earle Hyman Dies: Veteran Broadway Actor, Cosby TV Dad Was 91

Earle Hyman, a classically trained actor of steady grace, imposing presence and consummate skill, died Friday at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, NJ. He was 91. Hyman’s career on and off-Broadway spanned more than six decades and a multiplicity of Shakespearean roles at Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. But it was as Dr. Cliff Huxtable’s sympatico dad Russell on NBC’s The Cosby Show that Hyman reached his widest audience, earning him an Emmy nomination in 1986.

In addition to classic performances in roles ranging from the title characters in Othello and Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder, to the bombastic James Tyrone in Papp’s all African-American production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Hyman also had memorable performances in contemporary works. In the original 1980 Broadway production of Edward Albee’s The Lady From Dubuque, a play that left the critics and audiences baffled, Hyman played a soft-spoken, karate-chopping enforcer and partner to Irene Worth’s canny Angel of Death. The role earned him his only Tony nomination.

He also had a role in Lincoln Center Theater’s 1987 premiere of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman.

Hyman was born in Rocky Mount, NC, to an African-American father and a Native American mother, who moved the family to Brooklyn, where he grew up. An early exposure to the plays of Ibsen aroused his interest in both the theater and Norway.  A lifetime member of The Actors Studio, Hyman would perform in both the U.S. and Norway, where he made a second home.

Hyman came of age during a time marked by a new flourishing of African American writers and stars, including playwrights Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins and Ntozake Shange, and actors Gloria Foster, Mary Alice, James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman, among many others. At the same time, Hyman was an early and dedicated advocate of color-blind casting. “I am 65 years old and I am still saying that all roles should be available to all actors of talent, regardless of race. Why should I be deprived of seeing a great black actress play Hedda Gabler?” he once asked.

Among Hyman’s notable film and television performances were as Panthro in Thundercats and roles in television films of Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Macbeth. He also took roles in Norwegian series.

In his last New York stage appearance, in 2009,  he played Ferapont in Anton Chekhov’sThree Sisters, in a Gatehouse Theatre production presented by the Classical Theatre of Harlem.

 

[Sepiatone]

And overlooked here was also MALCOM YOUNG, brother to AC/DC co-founder ANGUS, died of dementia related troubles last Saturday.  And this less than a month after older brother GEORGE YOUNG, former member of the pop group THE EASYBEATS( "Friday On My Mind") and early producer of AC/DC recordings died.  That family's had it rough lately.

Sepiatone

[LawrenceA]

Della Reese (July 6, 1931 - November 19, 2017) - Singer and actress, whose first recording hit was 1959's "Don't You Know?". She hosted her own talk show, Della, from 1969-1970. She was the first black woman to guest host The Tonight Show around this same time. She made numerous guest appearances in TV shows over the next two decades, but her acting career didn't go into high gear until her scene-stealing turn in 1989's Harlem Nights. This led to a string of TV guest appearances and minor film roles and to her casting as the co-star in the hit TV series Touched By an Angel (1994-2003).

[mr6666]

Larry Karaszewski‏Verified account @Karaszewski 48m48 minutes ago

 

Sad news - one of the true gentlemen in this business Rance Howard has passed away. Ron and Clint Howard’s Dad - Scott and I got to know him as Old Man McCoy in “Ed Wood” and from eating lunch daily at the Tallyrand Restaurant in Burbank. A real sweetheart. R.I.P.

see: http://ew.com/movies/2017/11/25/rance-howard-dead-ron-howard-father/

 

[mr6666]

3 minutes ago, mr6666 said:

Larry Karaszewski‏Verified account @Karaszewski 48m48 minutes ago

 

Sad news - one of the true gentlemen in this business Rance Howard has passed away. Ron and Clint Howard’s Dad - Scott and I got to know him as Old Man McCoy in “Ed Wood” and from eating lunch daily at the Tallyrand Restaurant in Burbank. A real sweetheart. R.I.P.

see: http://ew.com/movies/2017/11/25/rance-howard-dead-ron-howard-father/

 

Ron Howard

 

✔ @RealRonHoward

 

Clint & I have been blessed to be Rance Howard’s sons. Today he passed at 89. He stood especially tall 4 his ability to balance ambition w/great personal integrity. A depression-era farm boy, his passion for acting changed the course of our family history. We love & miss U Dad.

4:10 PM - Nov 25, 2017

[LawrenceA]

Julio Oscar Mechoso (May 31, 1955 - November 25, 2017) - Cuban-American character actor in film and television since 1979 who racked up an impressive 129 credits. His many film appearances included Internal Affairs (1990), Toys (1992), Bad Boys (1995), White Squall (1996), Virus (1999), All the Pretty Horses (2000), Jurassic Park III (2001), The Legend of Zorro (2005), Planet Terror (2007), and Rules Don't Apply (2016), among many others.

[LawrenceA]

Anthony Harvey (June 3, 1930 - November 23, 2017) - Oscar-nominated director and editor. He began in the editing booth, working on such notable British films as I'm All Right Jack (1959), The Millionairess (1960), The L-Shaped Room (1962), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). He moved into the director's chair with Dutchman (1966), which he followed with his biggest triumph and the film that earned him a nomination for Best Director, 1968's The Lion in Winter.  Other directing credits include They Might Be Giants (1971), Eagle's Wing (1979), and Grace Quigley (1985), to name a few.

[jakeem]

1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:

Anthony Harvey (June 3, 1930 - November 23, 2017) - Oscar-nominated director and editor. He began in the editing booth, working on such notable British films as I'm All Right Jack (1959), The Millionairess (1960), The L-Shaped Room (1962), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). He moved into the director's chair with Dutchman (1966), which he followed with his biggest triumph and the film that earned him a nomination for Best Director, 1968's The Lion in Winter.  Other directing credits include They Might Be Giants (1971), Eagle's Wing (1979), and Grace Quigley (1985), to name a few.

Harvey began his career as a child actor, and probably is best remembered as Ptolemy -- the doomed brother of Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh) in the 1945 screen version of George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra." He is pictured below with the British actor Francis L. Sullivan, who played the regent Pothinus. 

In one of those strange years in which the directing awards didn't match, Harvey won the Directors Guild Award for "The Lion in Winter." The Oscar went to another Brit: Sir Carol Reed, who directed the musical "Oliver!" -- the year's Best Picture winner.

[LawrenceA]

Ulli Lommel (December 21, 1944 - December 1, 2017) - German actor, writer and director of films of wildly diverging quality. He appeared in several early films by director Rainer Werner Fassbinder before moving to the U.S. in the late 70's, where he began working with Andy Warhol. Lommel made his most remembered directorial effort in 1980, with the hit slasher film The Boogeyman. He directed many films after that, most cheap exploitation flicks or pretentious arthouse dreck. He has the dubious distinction of having directed more than one movie listed among the Bottom 100 on IMDB (the 100 lowest rated films by users), including 2004's Daniel the Wizard and 2005's Zombie Nation.

[LawrenceA]

Johnny Hallyday (June 15, 1943 - December 5, 2017) - French superstar rock singer and occasional movie actor, considered the "Elvis Presley of France". Born Jean-Philippe Smet, Hallyday began performing American-style 50's rock and roll in French during the early 1960's. His music career was phenomenally successful everywhere in the world except for the U.S., and despite never making a wave in that market, he is still one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. He made his first film appearance in 1962 in Les Parisiennes, and he went on to appear in 34 films.

[jakeem]

Hallyday was married to the popular French singer and actress Sylvie Vartan from 1965 to 1980. They occasionally performed together.

They had a son, David Hallyday -- a French singer/songwriter and amateur auto racer.

 

[Princess of Tap]

56 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

Johnny Hallyday (June 15, 1943 - December 5, 2017) - French superstar rock singer and occasional movie actor, considered the "Elvis Presley of France". Born Jean-Philippe Smet, Hallyday began performing American-style 50's rock and roll in French during the early 1960's. His music career was phenomenally successful everywhere in the world except for the U.S., and despite never making a wave in that market, he is still one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. He made his first film appearance in 1962 in Les Parisiennes, and he went on to appear in 34 films.

Johnny was an absolute institution in France!

As much as I love the French language, I would have to say that the French language is not conducive to American rock and roll music.

But I don't know how Johnny did it-- he had a natural ability of utilizing French in a way that made his rock and roll sound authentic.

The Johnny, the French Rock and roller was born in Paris and headed the teenage rock pop craze in the late fifties -early sixties along  with his 1st wife " Yé Yé  girl  singer, Sylvie Vartan.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, a long time Johnny fan and fan club president, married Johnny and his fourth and final wife, Laeticia Boudou in a civil ceremony in 1996.

 Today the French lost the guy that they called "Notre" Johnny.  There will be La  Tristesse in France tonight for a guy who sold 110 million Rock Records worldwide and captivated French hearts for nearly 60 years.

Au Revoir, Johnny

[jakeem]

The New York Times‏Verified acco@nytimes

Tens of thousands of people said goodbye and "Merci, Johnny" to the French rocker Johnny Hallyday in Paris