The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Mr Lick]

Sergio Pininfarina, the Italian godfather of design has died at his home in Turin aged 85

[harrybarracuda]

^ I had one of his hard disks and it was shit. And it didn't last very long.

[harrybarracuda]

Comic Actor Eric Sykes Has Died

News > Showbiz News
12:04pm 4th July 2012.
Comic actor Eric Sykes has died aged 89 after a short illness.
In wide-ranging career, he will be remembered best for the long-running and widely acclaimed Sykes And A... TV series with Hattie Jacques.
He also wrote scripts for stars such as Peter Sellers, Frankie Howerd and Stanley Unwin.
His manager, Norma Farnes, said: "Eric Sykes, 89, star of TV, stage and films died peacefully this morning after a short illness.
"His family were with him."
Mr Sykes was still appearing on the West End stage into his 80s, even though he became almost totally deaf and nearly blind.
Whenever he was asked when he was going to retire from work, he invariably replied that he enjoyed doing what he did so much that he did not regard it as work at all.
His TV series Sykes And A... attracted huge audiences in its nine series - involving well over 125 shows - between 1960 and 1965, and then from 1972 to 1979. The episodes have been repeated scores of times since.
Mr Sykes was also the mastermind behind silent film The Plank, about the mishaps caused by a man carrying a large plank, which is now regarded as a movie classic.
Other films in which he appeared or wrote or both, included Heavens Above! (1963), Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965), Monte Carlo Or Bust (1969), Theatre Of Blood (1973), Rhubarb, Rhubarb (1980), Boys In Blue (1982), and Splitting Heirs (1993).
Not letting age interfere with his work, he also starred with Nicole Kidman in the acclaimed movie The Others when he was approaching his 80s.
In 2005 he played Frank Bryce in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie.
His two novels were The Great Crime Of Grapplewick (1997) and Smelling Of Roses (1998). In 2000, he wrote Sykes Of Sebastopol Terrace, an illustrated guide to the TV series, including short stories based on its episodes.
And in 2003 he produced an anthology of his favourite comics, with Tommy Cooper heading his list.
He was born in 1923 in Oldham and went on to serve in the Royal Air Force, during which time he was introduced to showbiz, like many comics of his generation.
In 1952 he married Eith Eleanore Milbrandt, with whom he had one son and three daughters.
He was awarded an OBE in 1986 and a CBE in 2005.

[Cujo]

RIP, they're dropping like flies.

[Humbert]

Eric Sykes

Who? I'm sure you and 15 other people will be interested.

[Cujo]

Eric Sykes

Who? I'm sure you and 15 other people will be interested.

Humbert thinks if it's not American no one cares.

Obnoxious yank.

Eric Sykes obituary
Comic writer and actor who made a huge contribution to the laughter of the nation
Stephen Dixon
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 July 2012 12.46 BST

Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques in a 1962 episode of Sykes and A … Photograph: Allstar/BBC
Although he first came to fame as a writer for radio, the comic actor Eric Sykes, who has died aged 89, was fascinated – almost to the point of obsession – with silence. As a very young man, working at the clattering Lancashire cotton mill where his father was a supervisor, he was already dreaming of silent comedies. "I was trying to create the act that didn't have one word in it, the complete mime act, and I'm still trying," he said in 1971.

He fulfilled his ambition by writing and directing several films that were virtually wordless: The Plank (1967, remade in 1979), Rhubarb (1969, remade as Rhubarb Rhubarb in 1980) and Mr H Is Late (1987). He crammed these simple but very funny entertainments with the best available comic talent, including Arthur Lowe, Tommy Cooper, Charlie Drake, Charles Hawtrey, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Jimmy Edwards.

Silent humour was a field Sykes was driven to explore because he spent his life struggling with a hearing impairment. The heavy, black-framed glasses he wore contained no lenses and were actually a hearing aid. As he became older, the lenses became irrelevant, for he was also by then virtually sightless, and registered as blind. Yet this remarkable performer continued to appear on television and in films, and even on stage, well into his 80s.

"If you understand comedy, you understand life," he said. "Drama, death, tragedy – everybody has these. But with humour you've got all these, and the antidote. You have found the answer. It doesn't follow that because you are a good comedy writer, you're a happy fellow. I've got one of the most miserable faces in the world. I am only happy when I am working. If I'm not working, I get screwed up because my time is going, my life is slipping by."

Sykes was one of the finest comedy writers of the postwar years. He wrote the radio show Educating Archie (1950-58) and, with Spike Milligan, co-wrote some of the best episodes of the Goon Show. He and Milligan shared an office for many years as colleagues at Associated London Scripts. Sykes also created many of Frankie Howerd's funniest routines.

An untidy, uncoordinated, lugubrious man with a mildly irritated air and a reedy, doleful voice, Sykes did not look or sound at all like a comedian. One aspect of his appeal was that he was more like the bloke behind the counter of a DIY shop, or a harrassed minor local government official.

Sykes and A ..., and Sykes, the BBC TV series in which he starred with Hattie Jacques, ran from 1960 to the late 70s. The comic world he created was enclosed. There was about him an air of faded, working-class gentility and stifling respectability, of best suits on Sundays and highly polished boots, of boiled ham and limp lettuce salads and the best tea-set specially got out for visitors.

Sykes was born in Oldham, Lancashire, and worked as a painter and a greengrocer's assistant before following his father into the mill. His early ambitions to become a comedian were frustrated by second world war service, but it was during this period that he made the acquaintance of a number of budding comics, including Milligan, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. He joined the RAF as a wireless operator but was seconded into the army and also served aboard naval vessels.

Back in civilian life, he began supplying material to the friends he had made during the war, for radio shows such as Stars in Battledress and Variety Bandbox. He was trying his luck as an actor with Oldham Rep when Howerd, another friend from the services, contacted him and in 1949 he joined Howerd as full-time writer while also doing scripts for the top radio shows of the day. Because he worked alone, he was at one point the highest-paid comedy writer in Britain.

Strangely for such a talented man, Sykes seemed to dislike writing and saw it mostly as a means of achieving his true ambition, which was to be a principal comedian. He never did become a star solo stand-up performer, however, but in the late 1950s found his forte writing and acting in TV situation comedy.

In the Sykes shows, he played Jacques's nervous, well-meaning but totally ineffectual brother (it didn't seem remarkable that she had a southern accent while his was as flat and northern as his cap) and the humour came from calamity-prone Eric's unwitting threats to the ordered, suburban world of his sister, "Hat". Stylish comic support came from Richard Wattis as a waspish neighbour and Deryck Guyler in the role of cheerful policeman. The show was gentle, appealing and warm-hearted, and ended only as a result of the death of Jacques in 1980.

After that Sykes was felicitously teamed with the blustering, hard-drinking comic Edwards for a series of theatre tours with the play Big Bad Mouse, in which the two stars tried to outdo each other nightly with adlibs. After Edwards died in 1988, Sykes paired with Terry Scott for successful tours of the vintage farce Run for Your Wife.

An earlier TV series, Curry and Chips (1969), had proved to be a rare flop for Sykes. Written by Johnny Speight and co-starring a blacked-up Milligan as a Pakistani worker in a British factory, it was an interesting early reflection on integration, but was not at all funny.

While experimenting with his own soundless film comedies, Sykes appeared in a number of other movies, sometimes paired with Terry-Thomas (Village of Daughters, 1962; Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, 1965; and Monte Carlo or Bust!, 1969), often playing a much put-upon servant or apprehensive henchman.

One extraordinary venture was Shalako (1968), a bizarre western starring Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot, in which he played a butler. Other films included Heavens Above! (1963), One Way Pendulum (1964), Theatre of Blood (1973) and Absolute Beginners (1986).

In 2001 he attracted much favourable attention when Nicole Kidman specially asked for him to be cast as her ghostly servant in The Others. He had good roles in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and, on television, as Mollocks, the servant of Dr Prunesquallor, in a BBC adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast (in which his old friend Milligan made his final appearance) in 2000, and featured in the 2007 series of Last of the Summer Wine.

He switched from comedy to drama with deftness. "It's a load of crap to say that comedians want to play Hamlet," he said. "A good comedian has more Hamlet in him than any straight actor."

Sykes, who described his career as "... living in a world that doesn't exist", believed that the only way Britain would get another crop of writers like Milligan, Frank Muir, Denis Norden, Speight and himself would be through the reintroduction of conscription. "Take 'away the necessity of earning a living," he said, "provide food and bed so that you can just sit on your backside for two years and you will find that the violinist will practise his violin, the language student will learn a language and the comedian will create comedy. It's no good expecting it to come from people who are in boring, undemanding jobs, for they have already half-settled for what they've got. Conscription is an obvious staging post. A war is even better if you can keep alive."

His contribution to the laughter of the nation over more than half a century was massive. He was awarded the Guild of TV Producers and Directors' lifetime achievement award as long ago as 1961, and also given a lifetime achievement award by the Writers' Guild of Great Britain in 1992 and another by the Grand Order of Water Rats in 2001, among a host of honours from the world of showbusiness. He was made an OBE in 1986 and a CBE in 2005.

Sykes married Edith Milbrandt in 1952. She survives him, along with three daughters and a son.

• Eric Sykes, writer, comedian and actor, born 4 May 1923; died 4 July 2012

[Neo]

You really are a moron Humbert.

Eric Sykes was a legendary comedian and writer. RIP

[Humbert]

Eric Sykes was a legendary comedian and writer. RIP

I wonder if he's related to Wanda Sykes?

[harrybarracuda]

Well he hasn't spotted that one, must have hit the jaegermeister early.

[harrybarracuda]

I wonder if he's related to Wanda Sykes?

I'm still trying to work out (a) who told her she was funny, and (b) who actually thinks she is.

[Humbert]

I almost sh*t myself laughing at that one. The laugh track was a little annoying though.

[Mr Lick]

Inspector Morse actor James Grout dies at 84



James Grout, the actor best known for playing Inspector Morse's boss Chief Superintendent Strange, has died in Wiltshire, aged 84.

The Rada-trained actor appeared on stage, film, television and radio and received a Tony award nomination for his role as Harry Chitterlow in Half a Sixpence.

The 1965 musical lead to a series of major West End roles until the 1990s.

Grout, who had been ill for some time, died on Sunday.

While he is probably best known for his role as Inspector Morse's boss on the long-running TV series with John Thaw, he also played prominent characters in other much-loved series, including Yes Minister, Rumpole of the Bailey and David Copperfield.

Born in London, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, making his debut as Valentine in Twelfth Night at the Old Vic in 1950.

Following his Tony Award nomination for his performance of Harry Chitterlow in Half a Sixpence on Broadway in 1965, Grout went on to play many major roles in productions in London's West End.




James Grout as Mr Spenlow in David Copperfield

In the 1980s, he took up residence at the Theatre Royal in Haymarket, playing opposite Peter O'Toole in Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.

He had brief stint at Richard Eyre's National Theatre in the mid-1990s in Charles MacArthur's Johnny On a Spot.

Grout also appeared on BBC Radio, taking part in the King Street Junior series, as well as Old Harry's Game.

He played Barliman Butterbur in the 1981 Radio Four adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, as well as Rev. Timothy Corswell in The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue and a role in Any Other Business.

In 1977, he and his wife Noreen moved from west London to Malmesbury in Wiltshire, where he wrote a much-loved column for the local newspaper.

[can123]

I'd like to thank him for his family's contribution to tiling.

[Smug Farang Bore]

I was watching Morse the other day wondering if he was still here.

[Gallowspole]

.... . / -.. .. . -.. / - . -. / -.-- . .- .-. ... / .- --. ---

I was watching Morse the other day wondering if he was still here.

[harrybarracuda]

(CNN) -- Film and television actor Ernest Borgnine, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of a lovelorn butcher in 1955's "Marty," has died at age 95, his manager said Sunday.

The thick-set, gap-toothed Borgnine built a reputation for playing heavies in early films like "From Here to Eternity" and "Bad Day at Black Rock." But he turned that reputation on its head as the shy, homely title character in "Marty," taking home the Oscar for best actor -- one of four awards the film claimed.

1955 Oscars: A year of firsts

His manager, Lynda Bensky, said Borgnine died of kidney failure Sunday afternoon. His wife, Tova, and children were at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she said.

"It's a very sad day," Bensky said. "The industry has lost someone great, the caliber of which we will never see again. A true icon. But more importantly, the world has lost a sage and loving man who taught us all how to 'grow young.' His infectious smile and chuckle made the world a happier place."

Born in Connecticut to Italian immigrants, Borgnine -- originally Ermes Effron Borgnino -- began taking theater classes after serving in the Navy during World War II.

Some things you may not know about Ernest Borgnine

He had joined the service after graduating from high school during the Great Depression and had been discharged in 1941, but re-enlisted after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor launched the United States into World War II.

He made the move to films and then television in 1951, racking up more than 200 credits in projects ranging from the era of live television drama to the children's cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants."

He starred in the 1962-66 sitcom "McHale's Navy," was one of the original celebrities on the game show "The Hollywood Squares" and played William Holden's right-hand-man in Sam Peckinpah's revisionist Western "The Wild Bunch." He also was a regular on the 1980s television drama "Airwolf" and a frequent guest star on a variety of shows.

In addition to his Oscar for "Marty," Borgnine was nominated for three Emmys -- the most recent in 2009, for a guest spot on the hospital drama "ER" -- and won a life achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2010.

Tova Borgnine, whom the actor married in 1973, was his fifth wife. His previous marriages included a brief 1964 union with Broadway legend Ethel Merman that lasted barely a month before the couple separated.

[Davis Knowlton]

^Great actor. He'll be missed.

[Humbert]

I saw Ernest Borgnine in the 1958 film Torpedo Run last week and really admired his acting. He really had a long, amazing career as a character actor. RIP.

[Cujo]

95, that's a pretty good innings.
IP.
(I used to love McHales Navy as a kid)

[crocman]

I saw Ernest Borgnine in the 1958 film Torpedo Run last week and really admired his acting. He really had a long, amazing career as a character actor. RIP.

So if it's a SEPPO you know who it is?

[harrybarracuda]

^ Ermes Effron Borgnino

[Boon Mee]

^Great actor. He'll be missed.

Indeed. One of the best and a member of The Craft

[harrybarracuda]

Facts about actor Ernest Borgnine




Mon Jul 9, 2012 7:46am IST



(Reuters) - Notable facts about the life and career of actor Ernest Borgnine:


* He was born Ermes Effron Borgino on Jan. 24, 1917, in Hamden, Connecticut, to Italian immigrants but spent several of his childhood years in Milan, Italy, before the family moved back to Connecticut.


* After high school, Borgnine served in the U.S. Navy from 1935 until 1945, posted in both the Atlantic and Pacific during World War Two. He took up acting at the urging of his mother, who told him, "You always like to make a darn fool of yourself in front of people."


* Borgnine won the Academy Award as best actor for portraying a lonely, socially awkward butcher in "Marty" in 1955. The movie was named best picture and also won Oscars for director Delbert Mann and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky.


* He was married to five women. His 1964 marriage to Broadway star Ethel Merman lasted fewer than 40 days.


* The documentary "Ernest Borgnine on the Bus" chronicles the actor's 1996 trip in his customized bus across the United States to visit with fans.


* Borgnine also won a Golden Globe for "Marty." His television work earned him three Primetime Emmy nominations - in 1963 for "McHale's Navy," in 1980 for an adaptation of "All Quiet on the Western Front" and in 2009 for a guest spot on "ER." He became the oldest performer nominated for a Golden Globe in recognition of his 2007 work in the TV movie "A Grandpa for Christmas." He received the Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award last year. (Writing by Bill Trott; editing by Christopher Wilson)

[nedwalk]

bloody hell....

[Mr Lick]

Celtic and Hibs legend Joe McBride dies aged 74





Joe McBride, the much-travelled striker who was part of the Celtic squad that won the European Cup in 1967, has died after suffering a stroke, aged 74.

McBride began his career with Kilmarnock and also had spells with Wolves, Luton, Partick Thistle, Hibs, Motherwell, Dunfermline and Clyde.

He also won two caps for Scotland.

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell said: "Joe was a very fine man, an absolute gentleman and someone who gave tremendous service to the club."

McBride, who joined Celtic from Motherwell in 1965, missed out on playing in the European Cup final against Inter Milan after picking up an injury on Christmas Eve that kept him out of action for the rest of the season.

Up until that point in December, the man born yards from the home of Glasgow rivals Rangers in Govan had already scored 35 goals in 26 games for Jock Stein's side.

He left for Hibs in 1968, having won two league championships and two League Cup medals with the Parkhead club, scoring 86 goals in 94 games, but continued his high scoring rate with the Edinburgh outfit.