1. #3951
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    Didnt he also give vent to his anger once with a rant consisting mainly of the word Fuck ?

  2. #3952
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Tails you win. Guitarist who lost coin toss, avoided Buddy Holly plane crash dies aged 85

    Updated: 6:25pm, Jan 13



    Tommy Allsup, a guitarist best known for losing a coin toss that kept him off a plane that later crashed and killed rock ‘n’ roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J P “Big Bopper” Richardson, has died aged of 85.

    Allsup died of complications from a hernia operation at a hospital in Springfield, Missouri, his musician son Austin Allsup said.

    Allsup was part of Holly’s band when the Lubbock, Texas, singer died in a February 3, 1959 plane crash in the Iowa countryside in snowy conditions.

    The deaths of Holly, Valens and Richardson were immortalised in Don McLean’s 1971 song American Pie, and became known as “the day the music died”.

    Allsup flipped a coin to see who, between him and Valens, would get a seat on the plane and who would have to take the bus to the next stop on the tour.

    In a 1987 interview, Allsup, who was born in Oklahoma, recalled flipping the coin backstage after playing a concert.

    “A couple of people were standing there,” he said.

    “I flipped it. [Valens] called ‘heads’. He got his stuff off the bus.”



    “I know my dad has talked about that many times and knew that he was very lucky to be here. It could have been the other way around,” Austin Allsup said.

    Austin Allsup, who last year competed in the singing competition television program The Voice, said Valens’ sister contacted him after his father’s death to offer her condolences.

    “I told her in my message back, now my dad and Ritchie can finally finish the tour they started 58 years ago,” he said.

    After Holly’s death, Allsup worked both as a guitarist and a record producer.

    He produced records for Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel, and was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

    Austin Allsup said his father still continued to perform as a musician and toured Europe last year.

    “I know he was extremely proud of his family … I think he knew he was very blessed to live the life that he lived,” Austin Allsup said.

    Guitarist who lost coin toss, avoided Buddy Holly plane crash dies aged 85

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Larry Steinbachek Dead: Bronski Beat Star Dies, Aged 56

    13/01/2017 10:35



    Bronski Beat (L-R): Jimmy Somerville, Larry Steinbachek and Steve Bronski.

    Bronski Beat star Larry Steinbachek has died at the age of 56.

    The musician, who was a founding member of the 80’s synthpop group, died after a short battle with cancer.

    The keyboardist formed the group with Jimmy Sommerville and Steve Bronski in 1983 and went on to have Top 10 hits with ‘Smalltown Boy’ and ‘Why?’.

    His sister Louise Jones told BBC News he died last month with his family and friends at his bedside.

    Fellow 80’s star Marc Almond, who the band collaborated with on a cover of the Donna Summer hit, ‘I Feel Love’, paid tribute to the musician, saying he was “very sad to hear” of his death.

    He tweeted: “Very sad to hear of the young death of Larry Steinbachek. Enjoyed working with Bronski back in the 80’s and having a big hit with them.”

    As well as their chart hits, Bronski Beat became known for being one of the first out and proud, political gay groups.

    Their debut hit ‘Smalltown Boy’ was about the anguish of growing up gay in a suburban town in Thatcher’s Britain.

    The cover art for their debut album ‘The Age of Consent’ listed the ages of consent for gay men in around the world.

    Watch the video for ‘Smalltown Boy’ below.



    Larry Steinbachek Dead: Bronski Beat Star Dies, Aged 56 | The Huffington Post

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Exorcist writer William Peter Blatty dies aged 89 – Oscar-winner was battling cancer

    OSCAR-WINNER William Peter Blatty had died at 89. The author of The Exorcist also directed the sequel and worked on A Shot in the Dark and The Great Bank Robbery.

    By STEFAN KYRIAZIS
    PUBLISHED: 18:10, Fri, Jan 13, 2017 | UPDATED: 18:31, Fri, Jan 13, 2017



    The Exorcist director William Friedkin announced the news on Twitter.

    He wrote: William Peter Blatty, dear friend and brother who created The Exorcist passed away yesterday."

    Blatty's widow has revealed that her husband died in hospital in Bethseda, Maryland, on Thursday, January 12.

    Julie Alicia Blatty added that he had been battling multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer.

    Blatty wrote the novel of The Exorcist in 1971 and also penned the screenplay for the 1973 horror film.

    The tale of a possessed girl has become of the most iconic horror films of all time and starred Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair as the tormented mother and daughter.

    Blatty also directed the second sequel, The Exorcist III in 1990, which was based on his 1983 novel, Legion. The film bypassed the events of the first sequel and returned to the story of the exorcist himself, Father Karras.

    Exorcist author William Peter Blatty dies of cancer aged 89 | Films | Entertainment | Daily Express

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    'VOGUE' PHOTOGRAPHER LORD SNOWDON DIES AT 86
    10:16 AM PST 1/13/2017 by Gregory Katz, Associated Press



    Lord Snowdon, the society photographer and filmmaker who married Britain's Princess Margaret and continued to mix in royal circles even after their divorce, has died. He was 86.

    "The Earl of Snowdon died peacefully at home on 13th January 2017," said Camera Press, the photo agency with which he worked.

    One of the country's most famous photographers, Snowdon was among the few top-echelon royals to hold down an outside job after he married the queen's sister in 1960, and his professional reputation grew steadily.

    Snowdon was admired for his discretion, never speaking with the media about the breakup of the marriage in 1978, and rejecting offers to write a book about it. But over time a number of details about his complicated love life emerged.

    Born Antony Armstrong-Jones, he was a slightly bohemian member of London's smart set and an established society photographer when he and the queen's sister surprised the country with their engagement in February 1960.

    The "Jones Boy" married the high-spirited Margaret at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 1960, in the first royal wedding to be televised. Whatever doubts the country might have had about his suitability were swept aside by general relief that Margaret had, at last, found love. It had been five years since her widely publicized decision to end her romance with divorced war hero Peter Townsend after pressure from church leaders, political figures and her own family.

    Armstrong-Jones was named the Earl of Snowdon in October 1961, in time to give a title to their first child, David, Viscount Linley, born the following month. Linley became a successful furniture designer. His sister, Lady Sarah, born in May 1964, became a painter.

    Margaret, unlike most of the royal family, shared her husband's interest in the arts, and the two moved in a circle of creative people at a time when "swinging London" gained a worldwide reputation for music, clothes, films and clubs.

    He did an apprenticeship with Baron, the leading society photographer of the day, then set himself up as a theatrical photographer. By the late 1950s he was doing a considerable amount of work for fashion magazines.

    He had a sense of humor and engaging manner that put his subjects at ease, and he brought a new informality to portraits of the royal family.

    By the early 1970s, Snowdon's marriage to Margaret was beset by rumors of infidelity. They separated in 1976 and quietly divorced in 1978. Snowdon married Lucy Lindsay Hogg, and had a daughter, Frances, in 1979. They divorced in 2000. Margaret did not remarry, and she died following a stroke in 2002.

    In later years, Snowdon was troubled by the effects of polio, which left him with a slight limp, and he had difficulty standing for any length of time. He endowed a fund that provides scholarships for disabled students.

    Snowdon remained a favorite photographer of the queen long after his marriage to her sister ended in rancor, and he took many portraits of her. Diana, Princess of Wales, was another frequent subject.

    Snowdon received a rare honor in 2001 when the National Portrait Gallery presented a retrospective of his work, with more than 180 examples exhibited. Yet he remained modest about his skills.

    "If I had a style I'd consider that one of my failings," he said "The person you're photographing is the important person. The photographer should be a chameleon."

    He produced 14 photographic books and made seven television documentaries on a wide range of social issues. The first, "Don't Count the Candles," about old age, won two Emmy awards in 1968. He designed the Snowdon aviary for the London Zoo. One of his favorite projects, it is an aluminum tension structure and one of the zoo's biggest attractions.

    Lord Snowdown Dead: 'Vogue' Photographer Dies at 86 | Pret-a-Reporter

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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
    Bronski Beat star Larry Steinbachek has died at the age of 56.
    Stars of the 80s, who presumably did a fair amount of drugging, are dropping in large numbers recently.

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    Iran's ex-President Rafsanjani dies at 82
    8 January 2017



    Iran's ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a dominant figure in the country's politics since the 1980s, has died at the age of 82.
    Mr Rafsanjani, president from 1989 to 1997, suffered a heart attack.
    He played a pivotal role in the 1979 revolution but later in life became a counterpoint to hardline conservatives.

    Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hailed a "companion of struggle" despite their differences, saying that the loss was "difficult and overwhelming".

    "The different opinions and interpretations at time in this long period could never entirely break up the friendship" between us, Ayatollah Khamenei said.
    There will be three days of national mourning and a funeral in Tehran is due on Tuesday, which has been declared a public holiday.

    Mr Rafsanjani was admitted to the Shohadaa Hospital in Tehran on Sunday, where doctors tried unsuccessfully for an hour to save him, media said.

    A TV broadcaster broke into programmes to bring the news, saying Mr Rafsanjani "after a life full of restless efforts in the path of Islam and revolution, had departed for lofty heaven".

    Mr Rafsanjani had warm relations with President Hassan Rouhani, who was seen at the hospital shortly before the death was announced. A crowd reportedly gathered at the hospital later to mourn.

    In a tweet, the president said: "The soul of the great man of the Revolution, symbol of patience and resistance, has gone to Heaven."

    The BBC's Kasra Naji says Mr Rafsanjani was a great survivor of the Iranian revolution, always managing to stay afloat in the unending political struggles between the hardliners and the moderates, always remaining influential.

    In recent years, our correspondent says, he has been a central figure in the reform movement that has been trying to have a moderating influence on Iran and Ayatollah Khamenei.

    He has been a mentor to President Rouhani, whom he supported after his own attempt to run in the 2013 election as a reformist candidate was rejected by the powerful Guardian Council.

    Mr Rafsanjani's final role was head of the Expediency Council, which tries to resolve disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council.

    A US state department official described him as a "prominent figure" throughout the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

    The sudden death of the veteran pragmatist politician will be a major blow to President Rouhani. The president, who is preparing himself for re-election in May, has lost a valuable ally and influential figure who was a founding father of the Islamic Republic.

    This explains why Mr Rouhani was the first top official to attend the hospital where Mr Rafsanjani died. Reports say Mr Rouhani was in tears.

    Since the 2013 presidential election, Mr Rafsanjani has fully backed Mr Rouhani. Mr Rafsanjani was also a staunch supporter of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

    But in Iran's complicated political landscape, his death could also mobilise pro-Rouhani moderates and reformists ahead of the election.

    Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was born in 1934 in south-eastern Iran to a family of farmers.

    He studied theology in the holy city of Qom with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - who went on to lead the Islamic revolution of 1979 - and was imprisoned several times under the Shah.

    In the last year of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini appointed him acting commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

    He was seen as the main mover behind Iran's acceptance of the UN Security Council resolution that ended the war.

    Mr Rafsanjani was also a key player in the development of Iran's nuclear programme.
    He was a man known for a sharp wit but who could also be ruthless.

    He advocated progressive economic policies, encouraging private businesses and improving infrastructure. His own business holdings were reported to be widespread.

    Mr Rafsanjani ran for a third time for president in 2005 but lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    Mr Rafsanjani became openly critical of the victorious president and in 2009, he sided with reformers who disputed that year's elections. Nevertheless, Mr Ahmadinejad won a second term.

    Mr Rafsanjani continued to champion moderate causes, such as the release of political prisoners and greater political freedoms for parties prepared to work within the constitution.

    Some of the members of Mr Rafsanjani's family have also made the headlines. His daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, attracted the ire of hardliners when she met a leader of the Bahai religious minority - which Iran's leadership regards as a heretical sect - last year.

    And his son, Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, was jailed in 2015 after being convicted of "security offences and financial crimes".

    Iran's ex-President Rafsanjani dies at 82 - BBC News

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, dies aged 82
    By Hannah Parry For Dailymail.com
    PUBLISHED: 20:12, 16 January 2017 | UPDATED: 20:12, 16 January 2017



    Astronaut Eugene Cernan - the last man to walk on the moon - has died aged 82.
    'We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon,' said NASA in a statement.
    The last flight to bring humans to the Moon, Apollo 17, touched down in December 1972 where Eugene Cernan and fellow scientist Harrison Schmitt became the last men to walk on the moon.

    Gene Cernan, last man to walk on the moon, dies aged 82 | Daily Mail Online

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    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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  10. #3960
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    ^ Wow...What a "trip"...

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    NCIS actor Miguel Ferrer dies aged 61

    11:30 AM Friday Jan 20, 2017



    Miguel Ferrer, who brought stern authority to his featured role on CBS' hit drama NCIS: Los Angeles and, before that, to Crossing Jordan, has died.

    CBS said Ferrer died Thursday of cancer at his Los Angeles home. He was 61.

    He had played assistant director Owen Granger on NCIS: Los Angeles since 2012. Before that, he played the chief medical examiner and boss to series star Jill Hennessy for the six seasons of NBC's Crossing Jordan.

    Ferrer began his career in the early 1980s with guest shots on TV series. In 1990 he scored a signature role as FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield on David Lynch's smash Twins Peaks. He will appear in the limited series reboot of the thriller this year.

    He had a supporting roles in the original Robocop in Marvel's Iron Man 3 and had a successful job as a voice actor, including in Adventure Time and several DC animations.

    The actor filmed multiple episodes of NCIS: LA before his death.

    He was the son of actor Jose Ferrer and singer-actress Rosemary Clooney, and a cousin of George Clooney.

    NCIS actor Miguel Ferrer dies aged 61 - Entertainment - NZ Herald News

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    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    'Allo 'Allo! star Gorden Kaye dies aged 75
    Monday 23rd January 2017, 3:35pm



    Comedy actor Gorden Kaye, best known for playing René in classic sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!, has died aged 75.

    The actor's agent confirmed to BBC News that he died at the care home he was a resident of this morning, Monday 23rd January 2017.

    Kaye starred as French café owner René Artois in the wartime-set BBC sitcom from 1982 to 1992, appearing in every episode of the show across the nine series. Memorably, he would directly look down the lens of the camera to address the audience at the start of each episode, to recap on the story so far.

    Born in Huddersfield in 1941, Kaye worked in factories in West Yorkshire before getting his showbusiness break playing Bernard Butler in the soap Coronation Street.

    He caught the attention of prolific BBC comedy producer and director David Croft, appearing in a number of memorable guest roles in Are You Being Served? and It Ain't Half Hot Mum during the 1970s. Croft later cast him as a regular supporting star in notorious sci-fi comedy Come Back Mrs. Noah, alongside Mollie Sugden, before the debut of 'Allo 'Allo! as a pilot at Christmas 1982.

    https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/news...rden_kaye_rip/

  13. #3963
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    RIP Mr Kaye,perfect role for him in 'ALLO 'ALLO!
    That show along with Dads Army showed the best of British comedy writing and a top line cast to deliver it over a long run.

  14. #3964
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    Yes, mate - there were some bluddy great British funnies through the last few decades. The Two Ronnies, 'Allo 'Allo (which I'd just started watching again - yesterday - before the announcement!), Porridge, The Young Ones, Bottom, Open All Hours, Keeping Up Appearances, Only Fools...etc, etc. Some amazing series and all watchable several times over.

    Been looking at some of the newer British comedy series - mostly a loadabollox that seemingly rely heavily on swearing.

    Listen, I'll say this only once - Sad to see/hear the Gordon Kaye has now gone!

    Thanks for the laughs, Gordon/Rene - you did a more than great job!
    I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

  15. #3965
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    RIP. Mr. Kaye. I enjoyed your work.

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    Dead at 80, Mary Tyler Moore

    Moore won four Primetime Emmys for her work as the spunky and unrepentantly single TV news producer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which ran from 1970 to 1977.
    TV Icon Mary Tyler Moore Dead At 80 | The Huffington Post

    The show, which featured Moore’s character asking for equal pay to her male co-worker and going on the pill, became a paradigm of the women’s liberation movement and is credited with inspiring women to break the mold confining them as wives and homemakers.



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    Mike Connors, Principled Private Detective on 'Mannix,' Dies at 91
    6:37 PM PST 1/26/2017 by Mike Barnes



    As the heroic good guy on the CBS action series, he was among the highest-paid TV actors in the early 1970s. He played basketball for John Wooden at UCLA.
    Mike Connors, who took a punch as well as anyone while playing the good-guy private detective on the long-running Saturday night action series Mannix for CBS, has died. He was 91.

    A former basketball player for legendary coach John Wooden at UCLA, Connors died Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed. No other details were immediately available.

    Mannix, the last series from Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s famed TV company Desilu Productions to air, ran for eight seasons from September 1967 until April 1975. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller (Mission: Impossible), the hit show featured an electric theme from jazz great Lalo Schifrin and starred Connors as a noble Korean War veteran.

    The first season of the series had Mannix employed at Intertect, a large Los Angeles detective agency run by Lew Wickersham (Joseph Campanella). But he wasn't the corporate type, and starting with the second season, Mannix was on his own, working out of his home office at 17 Paseo Verde.

    Mannix drove several hot automobiles during the series’ run (some souped up by George Barris), including a 1969 Dodge Dart, a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda convertible and a 1974 Dodge Challenger. He was often seen bailing out of these cars when the brakes were tampered with — that is, when he wasn’t getting beaten up or shot at by the bad guys. (By one count, Mannix was shot 17 times and knocked unconscious 55 times on the show.) His athleticism and striking dark looks were perfect for the role.

    Though Mannix was criticized for being excessively violent when it aired, Connors said in a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times that the series was tame by modern-day standards.

    “We did have car chases and fights,” he recalled, “but when you compare them to shows that are on now, we were very, very low-keyed.”

    For all the physical abuse, the broad-shouldered Connors became one of the highest-paid stars on television, earning $40,000 an episode at the height of the show’s ratings run. (He sued CBS and Paramount in May 2011, claiming he was never paid royalties on the show and was owed millions of dollars.)

    Connors received four Emmy nominations from 1970-73 and six Golden Globe noms from 1970-75 but won just once, picking up a trophy from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 1970. The only Emmy the show ever received was given that year to Gail Fisher, who played Peggy Fair, Mannix’s prim and steady secretary (she was widow of a cop killed in the line of duty). Fisher was one of the first African-American actresses to have a regular series role on TV.

    "I loved the show, I loved doing it, and it had no negatives as far as I was concerned," Connors said during a 2014 interview.

    "The show itself started a whole new era of detective shows, because this wasn’t the usual cynical private eye a la Humphrey Bogart. It was more a show about an all-around normal human being. The character of Joe Mannix could be taken advantage of by a pretty face, he could shed a tear on an emotional level, he was very close to his father and his family, so he was more a normal personality with normal behavior. I think that’s a part of why the show was so successful."

    Two other producers on the show, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, were veteran movie screenwriters whose work included White Heat (1949), starring James Cagney.

    The Armenian-American actor also was recognizable for three other series: Tightrope (1959-60), in which he starred as an undercover agent infiltrating organized crime; Today’s FBI (1981-82), in which he played an FBI supervisor; and the syndicated series Crimes of the Century (1989), which he hosted. He played Robert Mitchum’s wartime comrade in the 1988-89 miniseries War and Remembrance.

    Born Krekor Ohanian in Fresno, Calif., on Aug. 15, 1925, Connors served in the Army Air Force during World War II, then came to Westwood on a basketball scholarship. While aiming for law school, he developed a passion for acting and appeared in several plays. He was encouraged by Oscar-winning writer-director William Wellman (A Star Is Born), who spotted him while he played for the Bruins.

    At one point, he was represented by future James Bond producer Cubby Broccoli.

    Connors got his professional start in 1952 in an RKO release, Sudden Fear, as Touch Connors (Touch had been his nickname at UCLA). He continued in small roles for a number of years, with turns in Island in the Sky (1953), starring John Wayne, and as a herder in The Ten Commandments (1956) with Charlton Heston.

    He made his TV debut in 1954 with a role on Ford Theatre and continued with numerous small roles while gaining recognition as a heavy in such Westerns as Gunsmoke, Maverick, Wagon Train and Cimarron City.

    He changed his name to Mike Connors in 1958 and appeared in such movies as Live Fast, Die Young (1958) and Situation Hopeless … But Not Serious (1965), which starred Alec Guinness. He landed one of his best early movie roles in the 1966 remake of Stagecoach, playing the cardsharp.

    Throughout his career, which spanned nearly 50 years, Connors made numerous guest-star appearances on such shows as The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, The Millionaire, The Untouchables, The Fall Guy, The Love Boat, Walker, Texas Ranger, Murder, She Wrote, Burke’s Law, The Commish, Diagnosis Murder (where he returned as Joe Mannix) and, in 2007, Two and a Half Men.

    He voiced the character Chipacles in Disney’s animated series Hercules.

    Other film credits included Sudden Fear (1952) opposite Joan Crawford; Too Scared to Scream (1985), which he also produced; Avalanche Express (1979); James Dean: Race With Destiny (1997), as studio head Jack Warner; and Gideon (1999).

    Connors, who was married for more than 65 years to the former Mary Lou Willey, was active in charitable organizations, including Operation Missing Persons, an educational program to promote awareness of the neurological disorder dystonia. He also served as a spokesperson for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

    Duane Byrge contributed to this report.

    Mike Connors Dead: 'Mannix' Star Was 91 | Hollywood Reporter

  19. #3969
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    One of my favorite actors and an all round nice bloke R.I.P.


    John Hurt, versatile star of The Elephant Man, Alien and Harry Potter, dies aged 77
    Distinctive-voiced actor was Oscar nominated for Midnight Express and the Elephant Man, as well as being the victim of the notorious ‘chestburster’ in Alien



    http://www.theguardian.com/film/2017...dnight-express

  20. #3970
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    Quote Originally Posted by crackerjack101
    John Hurt, versatile star of The Elephant Man, Alien and Harry Potter, dies aged 77
    Distinctive-voiced actor was Oscar nominated for Midnight Express and the Elephant Man, as well as being the victim of the notorious ‘chestburster’ in Alien
    He elevated every film he appeared in. Great actor. RIP.

  21. #3971
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    One of the most charismatic and talented actors of his generation. That is a loss.

    Enjoyed so many of his films.

    Used to see him picking friends up at Oxford station occasionally back in my commuting days. Always seemed a down to earth, friendly chap.

    RIP.



    Another obit:
    By Adam Bernstein, The Washington Post

    John Hurt, a British actor who gave compelling depth to desperate, flawed and sometimes monstrously deformed characters in performances that captivated audiences and critics for more than five decades, has died. He was 77.

    The actor announced in 2015 that he had pancreatic cancer. His agent confirmed the death to the BBC. No further details were immediately known.

    The son of an Anglican vicar, Hurt discovered as a youth that he “didn’t go for God.” But like his father, he once observed, he spent his life revealing to others certain truths about human nature.

    His tools included an almost singularly expressive face, one that with age came to be defined by a rutted forehead and baggy, hooded eyes. His voice was a gravelly rasp, colored by excessive drink and smoke.

    Hurt was widely admired for his range, intensity and empathy in portraying the most complicated and outcast lives. David Lynch, who directed the actor in his title role in “The Elephant Man” (1980), once called Hurt “simply the greatest actor in the world.”

    After a promising start on stage, he found his first notable screen role in the Oscar-winning “A Man for All Seasons” (1966), which starred Paul Scofield as the martyred Englishman Thomas More.

    The director, Fred Zinnemann, said he took a gamble casting the largely unknown Hurt as Richard Rich, a young lawyer and More disciple who betrays his mentor. “I knew he was our man when I saw what explosive nervous energy he was capable of,” Zinnemann wrote in a memoir.

    That skittish tension remained Hurt’s calling card in his roughly 200 films and TV appearances that followed. He embraced mainstream hits, including the “Harry Potter” series – he played the wand maker Ollivander – as well as more disquieting fare, such as Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” in which he gave, on stage and television, a tour de force depiction of a regretful writer.

    Career highlights include the taut film “10 Rillington Place” (1971), as a man of low mental faculties wrongly executed for murders committed by the British serial killer John Christie, and “The Naked Civil Servant” (1975), a British TV movie about the gay author and raconteur Quentin Crisp.

    “It was a very risky piece for an actor – a television play about an effeminate homosexual who is also an exhibitionist,” he told the Sunday Times of London in 2000. “Many people told me it would be the end of my career.”

    In another celebrated British miniseries, “I, Claudius” (1976), Hurt gave a terrifying portrayal of the Roman emperor Caligula, a mad degenerate who fancies himself a god. Two years later, Hurt received his first Oscar nomination, for his supporting role in “Midnight Express” as an English junkie abused by guards in a Turkish jail.

    In the New Yorker, film critic Pauline Kael extolled Hurt’s power and control in roles that could have gone off the rails in dramatic excess. In “Midnight Express,” she wrote, he demonstrated “such inner force that he can play the most passive of roles, as he does here (he barely moves a muscle), and still transfix the audience. . . . He’s an almost burned-out light bulb with just a few dim flashes of the filament left. Yet he’s the most moving character in the film.”

    Although he lost the supporting Oscar bid to Christopher Walken in “The Deer Hunter,” Hurt had appeared on Hollywood’s radar and was cast in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller “Alien” (1979), a box office grand slam.

    The movie provided Hurt with a graphically memorable role, as a space voyager whose stomach explodes after an extraterrestrial burrows into him. (He would lampoon that scene in Mel Brooks’s 1987 film “Spaceballs,” with his character lamenting, “Oh, no, not again!”)

    One of his most touching performances came in “The Elephant Man,” which Lynch directed and Brooks helped produce. Hurt played a Victorian-era Englishman whose grotesque disfigurement led to his years of exploitation as a carnival freak.

    Hurt underwent six hours of makeup application each day to play Joseph Merrick – called John in the film – a man of dignity, tenderness and refinement underneath his deformity.

    In one of the film’s most notable sequences, Merrick is cornered by a mob into a train station urinal and collapses while shouting, “I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!”

    Hurt’s performance garnered an Oscar nomination for a leading role, but he lost to Robert De Niro as boxer Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.”

    Hurt also played such haunted characters from literature as Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” (1979), and he was superb as Winston Smith, a rebellious employee of the Ministry of Truth, in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984), based on the George Orwell book about a totalitarian future.

    He was Jesus at the Last Supper, confused by an intrusive waiter, in Brooks’s “History of the World: Part I” (1981); the libidinous society osteopath Stephen Ward in “Scandal” (1989), about the Profumo-Keeler sex scandal that shook 1960s England; an erudite English writer smitten with a teenage heartthrob (Jason Priestley) in “Love and Death on Long Island” (1997); and an omniscient, enigmatic billionaire who funds an astronomer (Jodie Foster) in “Contact” (1997).

    Because of his skill imbuing the most eccentric parts with humanity, Hurt was one of the few actors to emerge critically unscathed from Gus Van Sant’s 1993 film, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” in which he played the Countess, described by one British reporter as “a misogynist homosexual feminine-deodorant magnate.”

    John Vincent Hurt was born in Chesterfield, England, on Jan. 22, 1940, and grew up in Cleethorpes.

    He described his parents as distant and severe, prohibiting him from mixing with neighborhood children they deemed “common.” He felt further isolated at a series of preparatory schools, one where he later said he was sexually abused by an administrator. An older brother rebelled against his parents by converting to Catholicism and later became a Benedictine monk.

    From a young age, Hurt found refuge in the theater. At prep school, he was frequently cast in female roles. “I had a very high voice and was quite small – and was rather pretty in those days,” he later told the Scotsman newspaper. “I just knew, then, that I wanted to act.”

    He attended art school to honor his parents’ request that he train for a fallback career before winning a scholarship to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

    Early on, despite his wispy physical appearance, he was singled out by theater critics for his magnetism. His portrayal of a rebellious art student in David Halliwell’s dark comedy “Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs” – which he reprised onscreen in 1974 – brought him to Zinnemann’s attention.

    Hurt returned periodically to the stage, with the Royal Shakespeare Company and elsewhere, but he focused chiefly on a screen career that encompassed adaptations of “King Lear,” horror films, fantasies and westerns.

    In such a prolific career, he was not without his misfires, including a version of “Romeo and Juliet” featuring an otherwise all-feline cast. He also played the British spy chief known as “Control” in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011), a critically lauded version of the John le Carré novel about deceit.

    His personal life was turbulent. He said he suffered from “considerable mood swings” and took pleasure in drinking with legendarily rowdy and bibulous actors such as Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed.

    An early marriage, to actress Annette Robertson, ended in divorce. His companion of 16 years, French fashion model Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot, was killed in a horse-riding accident in 1983.

    His subsequent marriages to Donna Peacock and Jo Dalton, the mother of his two sons , ended in divorce. In 2005, he wed Anwen Rees-Myers. A complete list of survivors could not immediately be confirmed.

    Hurt was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014 for his contributions to drama.

    “There isn’t such a thing as a regular guy,” Hurt once told the New York Times. The roles that intrigued him, he said, “demand vulnerability . . . the ability to expose things that would not normally be seen.”

    John Hurt, British actor who played eccentric characters, dies at 77

  22. #3972
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    John Hurt ... 77.




  23. #3973
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Oscar-winning sound guru Richard Portman dies at 82
    Mark Hinson, Tallahassee Democrat 10:09 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2017



    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Suddenly, the sound was off.

    Academy Award-winner and retired Florida State film school professor Richard Portman, who mixed the sound for such famed movies as Star Wars (1977) and Harold and Maude (1971), died Saturday night at his home in Betton Hills. He was 82. Portman’s death followed after a fall, a broken hip and other medical complications.

    “He was an icon of his craft of motion picture sound re-recording, recognized with the highest honors of his field,” daughter Jennifer Portman wrote on her Facebook page. “He was eccentric, irreverent and real.”

    The tall, lanky Portman, who preferred to wear kaftans and a long braided pony tail down his back, was, indeed, hard to miss. He was a walking contradiction: an ex-Marine with hippie tendencies who developed his own free-flowing philosophy about life but was a stickler when it came to punctuality. Anyone invited to Portman’s house for dinner knew to show up at 7 p.m. sharp, not 7:05 p.m.

    “His presence is still here,” wife Jackie Portman said on Sunday morning as she stood in the living room of their home. “It’s still surreal. This is going to take some time.”

    Portman was born in Los Angeles. He was the son of sound engineer Clem Portman, who worked on such classics as King Kong (1933), Citizen Kane (1941) and It’s A Wonderful Life (1946).

    “I was never very good in school,” the younger Portman wrote in his unpublished memoir, humorously titled They Wanted A Louder Gun. “I felt alien and different from my school mates and did poorly. I was an idiot. I retreated deep into a dream world where I could be alone.”

    After serving five years in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, Portman came home in 1957 and could not find a job. He approached his father, who helped him get his foot in the door as a machine loader in the re-recording room at Columbia Pictures. His father told him: “Don’t ruin my reputation.”

    Portman did not.

    Over his long career in Hollywood, Portman worked on more than 90 films, including Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971), Little Big Man (1970), Young Frankenstein (1974) and Paper Moon (1973).

    “I worked with Peter Bogdanovich on They All Laughed and Daisy Miller — which wasn't a very good film," Portman told the Tallahassee Democrat in 2007. "I think Paper Moon is his masterpiece. I thought it was better than The Last Picture Show. It (Paper Moon) was the one of the few movies I worked on that I went back to see in the theater. I wanted to make sure they got it right. And they did."

    Although Portman loved to sip a cold beer, he was serious about his job. He was nominated for 11 Academy Awards for his work on Kotch (1971), The Godfather (1972), The Candidate (1972), Paper Moon, The Day of the Dolphin (1973), Young Frankenstein, Funny Lady (1975), Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), On Golden Pond (1981) and The River (1984). He brought home the Oscar for the Vietnam War movie The Deer Hunter (1978). The statue was proudly displayed on the mantel over his fireplace.

    Along the way in Hollywood, Portman met a young writer-director-producer named Jack Conrad while mixing the sound on Conrad’s road movie Country Blue (1973), which was filmed in North Florida and South Georgia. Conrad, a Tallahassee native, told Portman about the city’s lush environment and its fabled seven hills. In the late ‘80s, Conrad helped Portman line up a one-man show of the sound-mixer’s bright, colorful, cartoon-style paintings at the LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts. Portman took a liking to Tallahassee.

    In 1995, he joined the faculty at the Florida State film school and became a beloved educator, whom the students called Dr. Zero, a name he relished. He was instrumental in creating the film school.

    “I'm a teacher now and I'm happy,” Portman told the Tallahassee Democrat in 1998. “I get to be young again with my students. If nothing else, Florida State will have the only film school in the nation where directors learn sound from the start. That's never been done. When I came along, and we needed something, we just invented it ourselves. But this is soon going to be the finest film program in the country. You wait and see. Gosh, I suddenly sound like a good advertisement for the FSU film school. But it's true. You can write that down."

    He was right. This year, Florida State film school graduate Barry Jenkins, who was taught by Portman, garnered eight Oscar nominations for his movie Moonlight, including best director and best picture.

    In 1998, Portman was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Cinema Audio Society. As part of a video tribute, lauded film editor Walter Murch told a story involving Star Wars. Jennifer Portman, who works as the news director for the Tallahassee Democrat, wrote about it in 2015 when another Star Wars film opened at the box office. It went like this:

    “He (Murch) told the story about how my grandfather developed a naming convention for organizing sound reels. Before digital sound — back when the visual action and its accompanying sound were on tangible magnetic film, stored on giant metal reels — he passed along to my dad the technique of identifying parts of the working picture as ‘reel two, dialogue two.’ They shortened it when speaking aloud.”

    In the the early ‘70s, when Murch was working in the dubbing room with director George Lucas on American Graffiti (1973), he used the Portman shorthand and said, R2-D2.

    Lucas, who was nodding off in the dubbing room, woke up.

    "What did you say?" Murch recalled Lucas saying.

    Murch replied: R2-D2.

    Lucas, who was writing Star Wars at the time, scrawled it in his notebook. Movie history was made.

    A memorial for Portman is being planned during the early spring, around his birthday on April 2, potentially in Railroad Square Art Park.

    “I think we’re going to show Harold and Maude, because he loved that film so much,” Jackie Portman said. “And then if anyone wants to get up and say anything, they are welcome.”

    Surely, the sound levels on the microphone will be adjusted just so.

    Oscar-winning sound guru Richard Portman dies at 82

  24. #3974
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Sad to hear that John Wetton has lost his battle with cancer.

    I doubt many here will know of his name, but he was an integral part of:

    Family
    King Crimson
    Roxy Music
    Uriah Heep
    Wishbone Ash

    and probably best known for his work with Asia.

    Left behind a fine body of work.

    RIP.






    Asia?s John Wetton dies from cancer aged 67 - Planet Rock
    Last edited by harrybarracuda; 31-01-2017 at 07:58 PM.

  25. #3975
    R.I.P.
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    Family were brilliant.

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