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Mayor: Now Drebin, I don't want any trouble like you had on the South Side last year, that's my policy.
Frank: Well, when I see five weirdos, dressed in togas, stabbing a man in the middle of the park in full view of a hundred people, I shoot the bastards, that's *my* policy!
Mayor: That was a Shakespeare-In-The-Park production of 'Julius Caesar,' you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!
A man whose name will always bring a smile when it's mentioned, a legacy to be envied. RIP.
indeed some great memories from a bloke with twisted humour..
RIP and thanks for the memories LES
84 wow didn't realize he was that old RIP thanks for the laughs.
Mrs. Nordberg, I think we can save your husband's arm. Where would you like it sent?
Oh, my poor Nordberg! He was such a good man, Frank. He never wanted to hurt anyone. Who would do such a thing?
Frank: It's hard to tell. A gang of thugs, a blackmailer, an angry husband, a gay lover.
I've finally found someone I can love - a good, clean love... without utensils.
Ed: You want to take a dinghy?
Frank: No, I took care of that at the press conference.
sad news, a funny guy, with great timing and a deadpan delivery.
rip.
"You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital."
"A hospital--what is it?"
"It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."
Hard to believe Forbidden Planet was 54 years ago!
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Not actually famous but I see Rodney Bain the BCCT Quiz Master at the Londoner (amongst other things) has died....RIP
Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
I've watched Forbidden Planet a few times Harry but didn't realise Les was a part of the scenery. Thanks for the info.
Les, may you continue to amuse those around you wherever you are. Thanks for the great memories. :)
Earlier in this thread, about six months ago - I predicted Leslie Nielsen would die this year - spooky or what???
No, not really https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
It was Peter Graves who preceded Les to the stairway to heaven earlier this year. Hope they are both having a laugh right now with their new audience. :)
Just bought Les's autobiography, should be a good laugh :)
The director of The Empire Strikes Back (without a doubt the seminal Star Wars film) died on the same day Leslie. Irvin Kershner.
RIP.
More Leslie Neilsen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8vtcHGdchE
The man behind the legendary Mr Squiggle, Norman Hetherington, has died at the age of 89. Mr Squiggle was the cheery pencil-nosed puppet who lived on the moon, turned scribbles into masterpieces and had a pet rocket.
On air for more than 40 years, Mr Squiggle was Australia's longest-running children's television series. It featured a marionette who visited his friends -- Grumpy the blackboard, Gus the Snail and Bill the Steam Shovel -- from his home at 93 Crater Crescent on the moon.
Hetherington, who both created the show and operated the puppet, died in the early hours of yesterday morning after a long battle with prostate and bone cancer.
His wife, Peggy -- who wrote scripts for the series -- was "far too upset" to talk with The Australian yesterday. However, former Mr Squiggle producer and long-time family friend Beverley Gledhill said Hetherington had a "magical gift". "Anyone who had anything to do with Mr Squiggle just loved him. It was just fantastic; he became a real person," Gledhill said.
"So many people have had Mr Squiggle in their lives . . . Norman brought a whole new age of puppeteering to a generation."
First appearing on July 1, 1959, Mr Squiggle would create pictures with his pencil nose from "squiggles" sent in by viewers.
Often Mr Squiggle drew his pictures upside-down. He was always helped by his human female assistant, the most famous of whom was Jane Fennell, known as Miss Jane. His female counterpart would often have to calm the puppet down, with his frequent distractions.
Peggy and Norman's daughter, Rebecca Hetherington, featured as Miss Rebecca in the final years of Mr Squiggle before the last episode was shot on July 9, 1999.
Hetherington began his career as a cartoonist at The Bulletin before appearing in the first television broadcast on the ABC in 1956 with his puppets Nicky and Noodle. He then went on to pen Jolly Gene & His Fun Machine for the Seven Network in 1957 before beginning a lifetime journey with Mr Squiggle.
Hetherington was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 1990 "for services to children's programs and puppetry".
Last year he was presented with the coveted Jim Russell Award by the Australian Cartoonists Association for "outstanding contribution to Australian cartooning".
Pat Lovell, who played Miss Pat between 1960 and 1975, said she was "very sad" to hear of Hetherington's passing.
"Norman was an incredibly competent puppeteer; he was one of the best I have ever met," Ms Lovell told The Australian.
"He was the most dedicated man and I think really loved children -- that's why he did it for so long. He can't be replaced -- he is irreplaceable."
Hetherington is survived by his wife, Peggy, children Rebecca and Simon, and several grandchildren.
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I HEAR just now GUS MECURIO has passed on as well
One of Australian television and film's great characters, Gus Mercurio, has died in a Melbourne hospital after complications during surgery.
He was 82.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mercurio was also a professional boxer and qualified referee, marine and chiropractor.
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When he arrived in Australia, his raspy voice and natural acting talents brought him to the attention of Australian television studio networks.
Mercurio starred in several Australian TV series, including Cash and Company, Tandarra and the miniseries Power Without Glory.
He played guest roles in Australian TV police series, including Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police.
Film appearances include The Blue Lagoon, The Man from Snowy River, Turkey Shoot, Crocodile Dundee II, Return to the Blue Lagoon and Doing Time for Patsy Cline.
Mercurio was the father of dancer and actor Paul Mercurio, who starred in the hit 1992 film Strictly Ballroom.
Paul on Tuesday posted a message on his website before the "fairly major" operation that read.
It read: "My dad is at this very moment laying on a table in a hospital getting cut open to fix an aneurysm in his chest".
"Spare a thought for him if you can. He is a tough old bugger so he should be fine, however he is getting on - 82 and has become a little frailer over the last few years."
Mercurio was the president of the Australian Boxing Hall of Fame.
He is survived by his second wife Rita and six children.
^ good old gus been around a long time.
Blake Edwards: Hollywood film director dies aged 88
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2010/12/986.jpg Click to play
Click to play
David Sillito looks back at Blake Edwards' work
The American film-maker, Blake Edwards, has died in southern California at the age of 88, his publicist has said.
Edwards died of complications from pneumonia at 1030 (1830 GMT) at St John's Health Centre in Santa Monica, Gene Schwam told the Associated Press.
His wife, the actress Julie Andrews, and other members of his family were at his side, Mr Schwam added.
Among the films Edwards directed were The Pink Panther, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Victor/Victoria and 10.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2010/12/987.jpg Edwards married Julie Andrews in 1969 and directed her in a string of films
He never won an Academy Award for any of his films, but was given honorary Oscar in 2004 for his "extraordinary body of work".
Comedy specialist
Continue reading the main storyHis heart was as big as his talent... he was an Academy Award winner in all respects” said Gene Schwam Blake Edwards' publicistEdwards had been receiving treatment in hospital for two weeks prior to his death, Mr Schwam said.
Edwards had knee problems and had been "pretty much confined to a wheelchair for the last year-and-a-half or two", he added.
At the time of his death, Edwards was working on two Broadway musicals - one based on the Pink Panther movies, and the other a comedy set during Prohibition entitled Big Rosemary.
"His heart was as big as his talent. He was an Academy Award winner in all respects," Mr Schwam told AP.
One of Hollywood's most successful specialists in comedy, Edwards was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1922 and started out as an actor.
After appearing in about 30 films, he worked as a TV scriptwriter before becoming a director. His first significant success came with the 1959 film, Operation Petticoat, starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2010/12/988.jpg At the time of his death, Edwards was working on a Broadway musical based on the Pink Panther
He then charmed audiences with his adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, which gave Audrey Hepburn one of her most memorable roles.
In 1963, Edwards created one of film comedy's classic characters. After Peter Ustinov dropped out before production, Edwards persuaded Peter Sellers to play the accident-prone Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther.
His last major success came in 1982 with Victor/Victoria, a musical comedy that saw Julie Andrews play a starving singer who pretends to be a homosexual Polish count masquerading as a female impersonator.
Andrews, now 75, and Edwards married in 1969. He is survived by her and his four children - two from his first marriage to Patricia Walker, and two whom he adopted with Andrews.
RIP Captain beefheart Music legend Captain Beefheart died Friday of complications from multiple sclerosis. He was 69.
Read more: Captain Beefheart dead at age 69 - The News Chronicle
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Celebrities | FamousDEAD
20 December 2010 Last updated at 09:38 GMT
BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan dies at 61
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2010/12/1224.jpg Brian Hanrahan reported from across the world for nearly 30 years
Brian Hanrahan, a former diplomatic and foreign correspondent for BBC News, has died at the age of 61 after a short battle against cancer.
His reporting spanned the reshaping of Nato and the EU, as well as conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Middle East.
As the BBC's Far East, and then Moscow correspondent, he watched dramatic changes unfolding in China and Russia.
He famously also covered the Falklands War and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Regular voice
It was in the Falkands War in 1982 that he made his reputation, famously counting out the RAF Harriers and counting them all back to ensure he could report the story and get round MoD reporting restrictions.
Paying tribute, the BBC's world news editor Jon Williams said Mr Hanrahan "would always be remembered for an extraordinary story and an extraordinary turn of phrase".
He said it was his "longevity" and his "tone" that marked the reporter out.
"He could always be relied on to find the right word at the right moment," Mr Williams said.
Mr Hanrahan covered Asia from Hong Kong in the 1980s, reporting on the reforms of Deng Xiaoping in China, and the assassination of Indira Ghandi in India.
He moved to Moscow when Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet leader, returning to Russia in 2009 to interview the former president.
In recent years, the correspondent had covered ceremonial and state events such as the anniversaries of D-Day and the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother.
Earlier this year he returned to Poland - from where he had reported on the rise of Solidarity - to cover the plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski.
He was a regular voice on BBC's Radio 4 as presenter of both The World at One and The World This Weekend programmes.
Captain Beefheart
Captain Beefheart, who died on December 17 aged 69, was the creative force behind what was perhaps the most strikingly original rock album to come out of America in the 1960s; he later forged a successful career as an abstract painter.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2010/12/1243.jpg Captain Beefheart Photo: REX
12:32PM GMT 19 Dec 2010 14 Comments
His masterpiece was Trout Mask Replica, the third album from Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, which was released in 1969. A work that defies easy categorisation, its 28 sprawling tracks retain something of Beefheart’s youthful obsession with the blues. But with individual instruments playing often fractured atonal and polyrhythmic lines in opposition to one another, the influence of free jazz exponents such as Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane is unmistakable.
The whole is rooted by the Captain’s extraordinary foghorn voice (he claimed a seven-and-a-half-octave range), his surreal lyrics, rumbustious harmonica and completely untaught saxophone solos. Song titles include Neon Meate, Octofish and Ant Man Bee.
The album met with public indifference and failed to chart. The Rolling Stone rock critic Langdon Winner, however, called it “the most astounding and important work of art ever to appear on a phonograph record”. Another critic wrote: “It’s a Beefheart trademark that his music sounds like nobody’s playing in time or in tune with each other.”
In fact, the arrangements were meticulously conceived and very difficult for Beefheart’s sidemen to master. The result was utterly uncompromising and distinctive. According to the respected British critic John Peel, Beefheart was “rock music’s only true genius”.
Captain Beefheart was born Donald Glen Vliet (he later styled himself Don Van Vliet) on January 15 1941 to impoverished parents at Glendale, California. He had little time for formal education, claiming later: “If you want to be a different fish, you got to jump out of the school.” But from an early age he displayed artistic ability and, according to his own account, was offered a full scholarship at a European art school at the age of 13 by a local dairy, an offer his parents refused on the ground that all artists were ”queer”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCSPf5Viwd0
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