1. #3651
    Thailand Expat KEVIN2008's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    1,740
    Quote Originally Posted by wjblaney View Post
    RIP Muhammad Ali.
    "My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape or kill my mother and father…. How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail".

  2. #3652
    Thailand Expat
    bobo746's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Last Online
    24-01-2019 @ 09:21 AM
    Location
    Brisbane
    Posts
    14,320
    Janet Waldo, the voice of Penelope Pitstop and Judy Jetson, dead at 96

    She was the voice of the "glamour gal of the gas pedal", a character fleeing the hot pursuit of her nemesis the Hooded Claw with her trademark Southern-belle cry "hay-ulp".
    The hugely familiar voice behind Penelope Pitstop, Janet Waldo, has died aged 96.
    One of the last remaining voice actors from the legendary Hanna-Barbera stable, Waldo died on Sunday in the US from a brain tumour, reports ABC7.
    She was also the voice behind Judy Jetson, the teenage daughter of George and Jane Jetson, in The Jetsons about a family living a futuristic world in a space colony in the series which ran 1962-63.
    She then took the wheel as Penelope Pitstop in Wacky Races in 1968. The only woman racer alongside competitors including Dick Dastardly and Muttley and the Ant Hill Mob, she competed in her trusty pink sports car the Compact Pussycat, which featured the unlikely gear settings of hairspray, lipstick, hairdryer and make-up, according to the show's intro.
    Later, she voiced The Perils of Penelope Pitstop in 1969, in which she plays an heiress to a vast fortune who is in "perpetual peril from her fortune-seeking guardian Sylvester Sneekly who unbeknown to her is really the Hooded Claw".
    Waldo also appeared on shows including I Love Lucy and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in the 1950s. Her other voice credits included Pearl Slaghoople, the mother of Wilma, on The Flintstones and Josie on Josie and the Pussycats.
    She was first discovered as a student at the University of Washington, after winning an award for theatre, which was given to her by Bing Crosby. Crosby a talent scout for Paramount Pictures accompanying him. Waldo was signed up by the studio and featured in a number of small roles before her career took off with work in radio and television.


  3. #3653
    Thailand Expat

    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Last Online
    25-03-2021 @ 08:47 AM
    Posts
    36,437
    I'm thinking Muhammad Ali, Gordie Howe, and?...These two icons are waiting for the third great sport hero...

  4. #3654
    Thailand Expat
    bobo746's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Last Online
    24-01-2019 @ 09:21 AM
    Location
    Brisbane
    Posts
    14,320
    Alf star dead at 76

    THE man who played Alf, Michu Meszaros, has died.

    According to TMZ the 83cm tall star was found unresponsive at his home more than a week ago and had been in a coma, the gossip site reports. He was 76.
    Meszaros’ manager could not immediately be reached for comment.
    The actor wore the costume for four seasons of Alf in the ‘80s.
    Paul Fusco voiced Alf.
    The Budapest native started his career in 1973 as a member of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Meszaros was advertised as “the smallest man on earth,” according to his Facebook fan page

    Michu Meszaros dead at 76: report | ?Alf? actor dead at 76


  5. #3655
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Bloody hell that's a bit young.... Freak accident.

    Because it's breaking they seem to have overlooked in the text that he is probably best known for playing Chekov in the Star Trek reboots.

    ‘Star Trek’ & ‘Green Room’ actor Anton Yelchin dies at 27 in accident
    By Dan Bullock - Jun 19, 2016 20/06/2016 4:22 AM AEST | Updated 1 hour ago



    Horrible news today. Actor Anton Yelchin, who recently starred in the indie-hit “Green Room”, has died today at the age of 27.
    TMZ and many other news sites are reporting that Anton died in a freak accident late last night. Apparently Mr. Yelchin was supposed to meet some friends for a rehearsal, but when he didn’t show they went to check up on him. When they arrived at his home they found him pinned between his brick mailbox and car. It would seem that the car had rolled down the driveway and hit him. Police are still investigating the incident, but don’t believe foul play was involved.
    Whether by choice or by circumstance Anton Yelchin seemed to have a growing career in horror. In his short career Anton appeared in five horror films including “Odd Thomas”, “Burying the Ex”, The “Fright Night” remake, and “The Green Room.” With the “Green Room” he received a great deal of critical acclaim and showed his range and promise as an actor.
    In the near future Anton was set to work with Guillermo Del Toro on his animated project “Trollhunters” and was to star in the Stephen King series “Mr. Mercedes.” He was a great actor and talented individual. Our thoughts are with his friends and family at this time.

    Actor Anton Yelchin Has Died at the Age of 27 - HorrorMovies.ca

  6. #3656
    Thailand Expat
    Eliminator's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Last Online
    26-11-2020 @ 11:56 AM
    Location
    Thailand
    Posts
    3,804
    RIP, way too young to die.

  7. #3657
    Thailand Expat
    bobo746's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Last Online
    24-01-2019 @ 09:21 AM
    Location
    Brisbane
    Posts
    14,320
    I'm channeling the Sheriff,never heard of him.

  8. #3658
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Quote Originally Posted by bobo746 View Post
    I'm channeling the Sheriff,never heard of him.
    Guess you're not a Trekkie then.

  9. #3659
    Thailand Expat
    billy the kid's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Last Online
    19-11-2016 @ 07:57 PM
    Posts
    7,636
    I'll just check the mail me duc.

  10. #3660
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Michael Herr Dead: Screenwriter for ‘Full Metal Jacket,’ ‘Apocalypse Now’ Dies at 76
    June 25, 2016 @ 10:14 AM

    By Joyce Chen



    Michael Herr, the Vietnam War reporter who wrote Dispatches and helped pen the screenplays for Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, died of a long illness near his home in upstate New York on Thursday, June 23. He was 76.

    The writer’s daughter, Claudia Herr, confirmed his death to the Washington Post, but declined to provide further details.

    Herr was just 27 when he was dispatched to Vietnam to cover the war for Esquire in 1967. At the time, he had little journalistic experience outside of working on Syracuse University’s literary magazine and contributing the occasional piece of film criticism or travel piece.

    He would later change the game of war reporting with his 1977 book Dispatches, which dived deep into the psyche of the Vietnam War and the men who fought it.

    "I was there to watch," he wrote. "I went to cover the war and the war covered me; an old story, unless of course you've never heard it. I went there behind the crude but serious belief that you had to be able to look at anything. ... I didn't know, it took the war to teach it, that you were as responsible for everything you saw as you were for everything you did."

    The writing of the book caused Herr to spiral into a breakdown of “real despair for three or four years,” he once told the London Observer. “Deep paralysis. I split up with my wife for a year. I didn’t see anybody because I didn’t want anybody to see me.”

    Following the publication and critical acclaim of Dispatches, Herr tried to remain out of the spotlight, only reemerging to help pen the screenplays for Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Apocalypse Now in 1979 and Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 Full Metal Jacket, both surrounding the idea of madness in wartime.

    Herr is survived by his wife, Valerie; daughters Catherine and Claudia; and his siblings, Steven Herr and Judy Bleyer.

    Michael Herr Dead: Screenwriter for ?Full Metal Jacket,? ?Apocalypse Now? Dies at 76 - Us Weekly

  11. #3661
    Thailand Expat
    can123's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Last Online
    24-04-2023 @ 02:34 PM
    Posts
    5,547
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
    When they arrived at his home they found him pinned between his brick mailbox and car.
    It is very likely that the "Last Post" will be played at his funeral.

  12. #3662
    Thailand Expat
    Sumbitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Last Online
    29-04-2020 @ 04:54 PM
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    5,596
    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
    Michael Herr Dead: Screenwriter for ‘Full Metal Jacket,’ ‘Apocalypse Now’ Dies at 76
    Damn good movies. RIP Michael.

  13. #3663
    Thailand Expat
    Iceman123's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Last Online
    Today @ 04:24 AM
    Location
    South Australia
    Posts
    5,526
    ^
    Tell him I was asking for him, when your fast goes tits up

  14. #3664
    Thailand Expat
    Sumbitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Last Online
    29-04-2020 @ 04:54 PM
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    5,596
    Quote Originally Posted by Iceman123
    Tell him I was asking for him, when your fast goes tits up
    sigh...

  15. #3665
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Italian actor Bud Spencer dies aged 86
    1 hour ago



    Italian actor and filmmaker Bud Spencer, who starred in a number of Spaghetti Westerns, has died aged 86. He passed away peacefully on Monday in Rome "and did not suffer from pain", his son said.

    Spencer, whose real name was Carlo Pedersoli, was known among his fans as the "big friendly giant" of the screen because of his height and weight. Spencer, who was also a professional swimmer, played in more than 20 films from the 1950s to the 1980s.

    "He had all of us next to him and his last words were 'Thank you'," his son Giuseppe Pedersoli said. In a tweet (in Italian), Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said: "Ciao #BudSpencer We loved you so much."

    Spencer was born in the southern Italian city of Naples in 1929, but later moved to Rome, where he became a promising swimmer. In 1950, he was the first Italian to swim 100m in under one minute.

    He later abandoned his sporting career and began playing in westerns and comedy films, often alongside Terence Hill. Spencer appeared in movies including Ace High, They Call Me Trinity and A Friend is a Treasure.

    Spencer said he chose his name as a tribute to his favourite beer Budweiser and US actor Spencer Tracy.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36648131

  16. #3666
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    Until just now, I never realized both Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill were Italians. Saw several of the spaghetti westerns staring those two as a kid. The Trinity movies were so funny.


  17. #3667
    En route
    Cujo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Last Online
    24-02-2024 @ 04:47 PM
    Location
    Reality.
    Posts
    32,939
    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Until just now, I never realized both Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill were Italians.
    Me either
    Saw several of the spaghetti westerns staring those two as a kid.
    Me too
    The Trinity movies were so funny.
    Loved them

    Thanks for the clip.

  18. #3668
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    'Future Shock' author and famed futurist Alvin Toffler dies at 87

    By The Associated Press
    Follow on Twitter
    on June 29, 2016 at 11:22 PM, updated June 29, 2016 at 11:29 PM



    NEW YORK (AP) — Alvin Toffler, a guru of the post-industrial age whose million-selling "Future Shock" and other books anticipated the disruptions and transformations brought about by the rise of digital technology, has died. He was 87.

    He died late Monday in his sleep at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, said Yvonne Merkel, a spokeswoman for his Reston, Virginia-based consulting firm, Toffler Associates.

    One of the world's most famous "futurists," Toffler was far from alone in seeing the economy shift from manufacturing and mass production to a computerized and information-based model. But few were more effective at popularizing the concept, predicting the effects and assuring the public that the traumatic upheavals of modern times were part of a larger and more hopeful story.

    "Future Shock," a term he first used in a 1965 magazine article, was how Toffler defined the growing feeling of anxiety brought on by the sense that life was changing at a bewildering and ever-accelerating pace. His book combined an understanding tone and page-turning urgency as he diagnosed contemporary trends and headlines, from war protests to the rising divorce rate, as symptoms of a historical cycle overturning every facet of life.

    "We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots — religion, nation, community, family, or profession — are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust," he wrote.

    Toffler offered a wide range of predictions and prescriptions, some more accurate than others. He forecast "a new frontier spirit" that could well lead to underwater communities, "artificial cities beneath the waves," and also anticipated the founding of space colonies — a concept that fascinated Toffler admirer Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and presidential candidate. In "Future Shock," released in 1970, he also presumed that the rising general prosperity of the 1960s would continue indefinitely.

    "We made the mistake of believing the economists of the time," Toffler told Wired magazine in 1993. "They were saying, as you may recall, we've got this problem of economic growth licked. All we need to do is fine-tune the system. And we bought it."

    But Toffler attracted millions of followers, including many in the business community, and the book's title became part of the general culture. Curtis Mayfield and Herbie Hancock were among the musicians who wrote songs called "Future Shock" and the book influenced such science fiction novels as John Brunner's "The Shockwave Rider." More recently, Samantha Bee hosted a recurring "Future Shock" segment on Comedy Central.

    Toffler is credited with another common expression, defining the feeling of being overrun with data and knowledge as "information overload."

    In the decades following "Future Shock," Toffler wrote such books as "Powershift" and "The Adaptive Corporation," lectured worldwide, taught at several schools and met with everyone from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to network executives and military officials. China cited him along with Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Gates and others as the Westerners who most influenced the country even as Communist officials censored his work.

    In 2002, the management consultant organization Accenture ranked him No. 8 on its list of the top 50 business intellectuals.

    His most famous observation: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

    After "Future Shock," Toffler also continued to sketch out how the world was changing and how to respond. In "The Third Wave," a 1980 best-seller that AOL founder Steve Case would cite as a formative influence, he looked to a high-tech society that Case, Steve Jobs and others were just starting to put in place. He forecast the spread of email, telecommuting, teleconferences, interactive media, devices that remind you "of your own appointments" and online chat rooms.

    Overall, he pronounced the downfall of the old centralized hierarchy and looked forward to a more dispersed and responsive society, populated by a hybrid of consumer and producer he called "the prosumer."

    Case told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Toffler was a "real pioneer in helping people, companies and even countries lean into the future."

    "He will be missed," Case said.

    Toffler collaborated on many of his books and other projects with his wife, Heidi, who survives him. He is also survived by a sister, Caroline Sitter. Toffler's daughter, Karen, died in 2000.

    Toffler, a native of New York City, was born Oct. 4, 1928 to Jewish Polish immigrants. A graduate of New York University, he was a Marxist and union activist in his youth, and continued to question the fundamentals of the market economy long after his politics moderated. He knew the industrial life firsthand through his years as a factory worker in Ohio.

    "I got a realistic picture of how things really are made — the energy, love and rage that are poured into ordinary things we take for granted," he later wrote.

    He had dreamed of being the next John Steinbeck, but found his talents were better suited for journalism. He wrote for the pro-union publication Labor's Daily and in the 1950s was hired by Fortune magazine to be its labor columnist. The origins of "Future Shock" began in the 1960s when Toffler worked as a researcher for IBM and other technology companies.

    "Much of what Toffler wrote in 'Future Shock' is now accepted common sense, but at the time it defied conventional views of reality," John Judis wrote in The New Republic in 1995.

    "Americans' deepest fears of the future were expressed by George Orwell's lockstep world of 1984. But Toffler, who had spent five years in a factory, understood that Americans' greatest problem was not being consigned to the tedium of the assembly line or the office. As he put it: 'The problem is not whether man can survive regimentation and standardization. The problem ... is whether he can survive freedom.'"

    'Future Shock' author and famed futurist Alvin Toffler dies at 87 | syracuse.com

  19. #3669
    A Cockless Wonder
    Looper's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Last Online
    Yesterday @ 10:15 PM
    Posts
    15,185
    Caroline Aherne

    Comedy writer and actress Caroline Aherne has died at the age of 52.

    Aherne, star and writer of The Royle Family and The Mrs Merton Show, had suffered from cancer, her publicist said.
    The actress said two years ago that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer, having previously had bladder and eye cancer.

    Aherne was also the narrator of Gogglebox and appeared in The Fast Show.



    Her publicist Neil Reading said on Saturday: "Caroline Aherne has sadly passed away, after a brave battle with cancer.

    "The Bafta award-winning writer and comedy actor died earlier today at her home in Timperley, Greater Manchester. She was 52.

    "The family ask for privacy at this very sad time."

    'Wonderful talent'


    Sue Johnston, who played Barbara - the mother of Aherne's character Denise - in The Royle Family, said: "I am devastated at her passing and I am numb with grief."

    Fellow comics have been paying their tributes to Aherne.

    Actor and writer Mark Gatiss said she was "so gifted" as he shared the "awful news".
    Little Britain star David Walliams said on Twitter: "Absolutely devastating news about Caroline Aherne. A true comedy genius, her work was equally funny & touching."

    Jump media player

    Media player help
    Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.


    Media captionCaroline Aherne: How spoof radio agony aunt became TV star Jenny Eclair wrote: "Poor dear Caroline Aherne, how terribly sad."
    Comedian Sarah Millican said: "So sad. What a wonderful talent she was."

    David Baddiel paid tribute by writing: "The talent, you all knew about. But she was a really lovely woman. Vulnerable and complex and damaged but... lovely. #CarolineAherneRIP."

    Some also recalled their favourite lines, with DJ and writer Danny Baker writing on Twitter: "Goodbye great Caroline Aherne. A gift & language that lives on. A vegetarian? That's a shame. Could she have some wafer-thin ham, Barbara?"

    Image caption Aherne starred alongside a cast including Ralf Little, Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston in The Royle Family Aherne was born in London but grew up in Wythenshawe, Manchester.

    Her brother Patrick has said she was the family joker, adding: "Nobody else in the family was like that. But she was funny from the time she was really little."
    She studied drama at Liverpool Polytechnic then started work as a secretary at the BBC before finding national fame in the mid 1990s with Mrs Merton, in which she starred as the eponymous chat show host, and The Fast Show.

    The Royle Family, which ran for three series and featured in several specials, told the story of a dysfunctional family. Aherne wrote it with co-star Craig Cash, drawing on her own childhood experiences and the people she met growing up.

    It won four awards, including best actress for Aherne, at the 1999 British Comedy Awards, before going on to pick up the best sitcom Bafta in 2000 and 2007.

    In the Mrs Merton Show, a series of guests were subjected to questions in front of an audience of pensioners. One much-quoted example is when Mrs Merton asked Debbie McGee: "And what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?".

    The Mrs Merton Christmas Show won the best talk show Bafta in 1997. Aherne was nominated for Baftas for her performances in both shows, as well as for directing The Royle Family in 2001.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36694598

  20. #3670
    Thailand Expat
    Mathos's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Last Online
    31-03-2017 @ 03:23 AM
    Location
    The Red Rose County
    Posts
    2,089
    An extremely talented young lady.



    "It's harder to give up smoking than drinking."



    She has been ill for some time.



    Christmas with The Royle Family.



    Caroline Aherne, star and writer of The Royle Family and The Mrs Merton Show, had suffered from cancer, her publicist said.

    The actress said two years ago that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer, having previously had bladder and eye cancer.

    Aherne was also the narrator of Gogglebox and appeared in The Fast Show.

    Her publicist Neil Reading said on Saturday: "Caroline Aherne has sadly passed away, after a brave battle with cancer.

    "The Bafta award-winning writer and comedy actor died earlier today at her home in Timperley, Greater Manchester. She was 52.

    "The family ask for privacy at this very sad time."


    RIP Young Lady. xx
    Last edited by Mathos; 02-07-2016 at 11:41 PM.
    All the women take their blouses off
    And the men all dance on the polka dots
    It's closing time !

  21. #3671
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    96,555
    Brilliant comedienne, much troubled in later life. Far too young, poor woman.

    Still think her winding up Chris Eubank was brilliant.

    Scorchio!

    RIP

  22. #3672
    Thailand Expat
    kmart's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Last Online
    03-10-2022 @ 11:24 AM
    Location
    Rayong.
    Posts
    11,498
    Bit of a shocker. I thought The Royle Family and Mrs Merton were brilliant. RIP.

  23. #3673
    Molecular Mixup
    blue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Last Online
    09-06-2019 @ 01:29 AM
    Location
    54°N
    Posts
    11,334
    Time smoking was banned

  24. #3674
    Thailand Expat
    bobo746's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Last Online
    24-01-2019 @ 09:21 AM
    Location
    Brisbane
    Posts
    14,320
    Famed Holocaust Survivor and 'Night' Author Elie Wiesel Dies At Age of 87

    Nobel Peace Prize laureate and famed author Elie Wiesel, one of the few survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp, died on Saturday at the age of 87, the Guardian reported.
    Wiesel was best known for his haunting 1955 book Night, a recounting of his time at Auschwitz with his father, Shlomo Wiesel, who was murdered, along with his mother and one of his three sisters, by the Nazi regime in the camp system. According to the Guardian, it has sold over six million copies worldwide, and the book later became the first of a trilogy when he wrote two others titled Dawn and Day. By the end of his career, Wiesel had written over 40 books.
    Menachem Z. Rosensaft, founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Survivors, penned a tribute to his late friend on Tablet Mag:
    He often said that he could not, would not speak on behalf of the dead. He did, however, speak forcefully, eloquently for the collectivity of the survivors, and they revered and loved him for it. "Accept the idea that you will never see what they have seen—and go on seeing now," he wrote in his classic essay, "A Plea for the Survivors," perhaps subconsciously opening a window into his own heart, "that you will never know the faces that haunt their nights, that you will never know the cries that rent their sleep. Accept the idea that you will never penetrate the cursed and spellbound universe they carry within themselves with unfailing loyalty."
    According to the Jerusalem Post, Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 "for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called his 'practical work in the cause of peace ... atonement and human dignity' to humanity."



    https://mic.com/articles/147709/fame...-87#.bwkoh7Bao

  25. #3675
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    Actress Noel Neill, the First Lois Lane of the Screen, Dies at 95



    She starred as the intrepid Daily Planet newspaper reporter in 1948 and '50 movie serials and in TV’s 'Adventures of Superman.'
    Noel Neill, who played foolhardy Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane on the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman, then walked away from show business, has died. She was 95.

    Neill died Sunday at her home in Tucson, Ariz., after a long illness, her friend, manager and biographer, Larry Thomas Ward, told The Hollywood Reporter.

    Neill became the first actress to play the legendary damsel in distress on the screen when she starred opposite Kirk Alyn as the Man of Steel in a 15-chapter serial for Columbia Pictures that played in movie theaters in 1948.

    The pair then reunited in 1950 for another serial, Atom Man vs. Superman, which spanned 15 chapters as well.

    Phyllis Coates played Lois in the first season (1952) of the syndicated Adventures of Superman, but when she committed to another project and could not return to the series, Neill reclaimed the role in 1953. She was rescued a countless number of times by George Reeves’ Superman in 78 episodes until the show’s conclusion in 1958.

    Neill’s favorite episode was said to be the 1956 installment “The Wedding of Superman,” where the hero proposes to her. But alas, it was only a dream.

    “She had this wonderful, perky touch to Lois Lane,” her late co-star Jack Larson (who played Jimmy Olson) said in 2003, “and she could basically do everything in one take, which is what they liked. If you blew a scene and had to do four takes, everyone was disgruntled."

    Neill, who earned $225 an episode, quit acting after the series ended in 1958. “I just figured I’d worked enough, I didn’t have any great ambition,” she told The New York Times in a 2006 interview. “Basically, I’m a beach bum. I was married, we lived near the beach, that was enough for me.”

    Neill was born on Nov. 20, 1920, which was Thanksgiving Day. Her father was an editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and wanted his daughter to become a reporter, arranging her to write for Women’s Wear Daily, but she wanted to be a performer. She played banjo in a musical trio on the fair circuit, and during a visit to Southern California, she got a job singing at a restaurant at the Del Mar racetrack.

    Bing Crosby, who was a Del Mar shareholder, spotted her and helped her land a contract with Paramount Pictures, for whom she appeared in bit roles in such films as Henry Aldrich’s Little Secret (1944), with Crosby in Here Come the Waves (1944) and in The Blue Dahlia (1946).

    Later, you could spot her in The Big Clock (1948), the Charlie Chan film The Sky Dragon (1949), The Greatest Show on Earth (1950), American in Paris (1951), Invasion U.S.A. with Coates (1952) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

    The 5-foot-2 Neill, who had dark red hair and blue-gray eyes, was past 25 when she played bobbysoxer Betty Rogers in a series of breezy “Teenager” musicals for Monogram Pictures that included Junior Prom (1946), Freddie Steps Out (1946), High School Hero (1946), Vacation Days (1947), Sarge Goes to College (1947), Smart Politics (1948) and Campus Sleuth (1948).

    Sam Katzman, who had produced several of these films, thought she’s be just right for Lois in the first Superman serial, the first time the superhero was portrayed outside the comics or radio. (Later, Katzman produced the 1949 serial Batman and Robin, starring Robert Lowery as the Caped Crusader.)

    “I had never heard of Superman,” Neill said in a 2003 interview. “Back then, comics were read mostly by boys.”

    Neill had fulfilled her father’s wish that she become a reporter.

    She kept her connection to the character when she briefly appeared as the mother of Lois (Margot Kidder) in Superman (1978), the hero’s return to the big screen that starred Christopher Reeve. (Alyn played Lois’ father in the Richard Donner film.)

    Neill also showed up on a 1991 episode of the syndicated series Superboy, and she was Gertrude Vanderworth, who on her death bed signs all her money over to bad guy Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), in the opening scene of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns (2006), starring Brandon Routh.

    Neill lectured at colleges and was a hit at comic-book conventions and fan gatherings through the decades, and in 2003 she was the subject of Truth, Justice and the American Way: The Life and Times of Noel Neill, the Original Lois Lane, an authorized biography by Ward.

    "She did whatever she wanted to do," Ward said. "That was the beauty of her skill. Ultimately, only she truly knew what was best for her, and that came out time and again. She was very smart, quite astute about the acting business."

    In 2010, the real-life city of Metropolis, Ill., unveiled a life-size bronze statue of Lois modeled on Neill, who came in from California for the occasion. (She also lived in Metropolis briefly a few years ago, Ward said, before moving to Tucson.)

    Located along the Ohio River, Metropolis, Ill., was founded and named in 1839, long before the fictional Metropolis was first identified as Superman’s home in Action Comics in 1939. In addition to the Lois statue, there’s one of the Man of Steel in the middle of Superman Square a couple of blocks away.

    Noel Neill Dead: Lois Lane Actress Was 95 - Hollywood Reporter

Page 147 of 256 FirstFirst ... 4797137139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155157197247 ... LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •