The RIP Famous Person Thread

[Salsa dancer]

A very familiar voice... they were quite a phenomenon, and I played their music a lot in the 70s.

[david44]

[harrybarracuda]

Maj. John “Lucky” Luckadoo, the last surviving B-17 pilot of the Eighth Air Force’s famed “Bloody Hundredth” Bombing Group, died in his home Sept. 1, his family announced. He was 103.

“The Major left formation the evening of September 1st and completed his final mission to bluer skies,” a message on Luckadoo’s official website said.

Born March 16, 1922, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Luckadoo would join the U.S. Army Air Forces months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

He was just a wide-eyed 21-year-old lieutenant assigned to the Mighty Eighth’s 100th Bomb Group when he manned the controls and took to the sky for his first bombing mission over Nazi Germany as co-pilot of a famed B-17 Flying Fortress.

John Luckadoo, last B-17 pilot of the Bloody Hundredth, dies at 103

[Happy As Larry]

Robert Redford, Film Icon And Founder Of Sundance, Dead At 89

Robert Redford, an icon of the entertainment industry who founded the Sundance Institute and helped shape the independent film industry, died at age 89, The New York Times first reported.

“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah ― the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” Cindi Berger, chief executive of the public relations firm Rogers & Cowan PMK, told HuffPost. “He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”

Redford served as a leading man early in his career before making a name for himself as a director, winning an Oscar for the film “Ordinary People” in 1981.

Robert Redford, Film Icon And Founder Of Sundance, Dead At 89

[harrybarracuda]

Time to watch Sneakers again.

Brilliant movie with an awesome cast, most of the veterans in it are dead now.

Added: After that, Spy Game.

[david44]

A great talent RIP

Time to watch the Sting for the umpteenth time

[Happy As Larry]

Broadcaster John Stapleton dies aged 79

Tributes paid to ‘consummate pro’ and ‘rock solid’ presenter of Newsnight, Watchdog and GMTV’s News Hour
Tributes have been made across the world of television to the “rock solid broadcaster and ultimate gentleman” John Stapleton, who has died at the age of 79 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2024.

Stapleton’s agent, Jackie Gill, said on Sunday: “John had Parkinson’s disease, which was complicated by pneumonia. His son Nick and daughter-in-law Lise have been constantly at his side and John died peacefully in hospital this morning.”
Stapleton’s former GMTV co-presenter Kate Garraway said she was “absolutely devastated to hear of the passing of my dear friend and journalistic hero”, describing him as a “rock solid broadcaster and the ultimate gentleman”.

Charlotte Hawkins and Susanna Reid, fellow presenters of Good Morning Britain, also paid tribute. Reid described Stapleton as a “legend” and “consummate pro” who was “always good-humoured and gracious to work with”. Hawkins said he was a “brilliant broadcaster” and a “genuinely lovely man”.

Nick Stapleton posted on Instagram that his father was not happy living with Parkinson’s. He added: “It turns out he got what he wanted – to leave us on his terms, without suffering. Living independently and still doing the things he loved until almost the very end. I’m sad for me and my wife … but I’m happy for him.”

Stapleton was also a fan of Manchester City, who said in a post on X they were “saddened to learn” of his death. Nick said that when he and his father “watched them win the Champions League in Istanbul he turned to me and said he’d die happy. He meant it.”

Stapleton, a presenter for Newsnight, Watchdog and GMTV’s News Hour, revealed his diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease in October 2024.

Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain after announcing his diagnosis, he said: “There’s no point in being miserable … It won’t ever change. Parkinson’s is here with me now for the rest of my life. Best I can do is try and control it and take the advice of all the experts.”

The presenter was born in Oldham and began his working life as a trainee reporter in the north-west, before moving into television as a presenter on the BBC’s Nationwide and then for Newsnight, where he reported on conflicts around the world.
Stapleton became a household name after moving into the world of light entertainment and consumer affairs. He presented the BBC’s Watchdog programme between 1985 and 1993 alongside his wife, Lynn Faulds Wood,who died in 2020.
Watchdog was renowned for exposing shoddy workmanship and illegal working practices, with the team confronting business owners.

In 2002, Stapleton found himself having a conversation with police officers after a segment on GMTV when a reporter was sent out to see how quickly they could acquire some cannabis in south London.
After Stapleton showed the drugs on GMTV, some viewers complained and the police interviewed him despite the fact he had made it clear the cannabis was to be destroyed immediately after the show.
Stapleton said: “I got a message down my earpiece from the producer that there had been a complaint and there was a Metropolitan police officer waiting to see me. I thought she was joking at first but a charming lady inspector was waiting on the studio floor and we had a little chat. She wanted to know how it came into my possession and that was it.”

Stapleton was also part of the presenting team, alongside Sir Trevor McDonald and Roger Cook, for Carlton Television’s controversial debate in 1997 about the monarchy, in which members of the public gave their views on the future of the royal family.
Sir Robin Day called the show, which was filmed at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre and included audible booing from the audience, who also heckled panellists, “the most contemptible programme I have ever watched”.
Steve Clark, Carlton’s head of factual programmes at the time, defended the boisterous debate, asking: “Is the standard of debate in the House of Commons at Question Time any better than that?”
It ended with a poll of 2.5 million callers, 66% of whom believed there should be a future for the monarchy.

After revealing his Parkinson’s diagnosis, Stapleton went on BBC One’s Morning Live to discuss his illness. “Speaking is how I’ve earned my living for the best part of 50 years,” he said. “It’s very frustrating sometimes, particularly [when] people are constantly saying to you: ‘Sorry, what did you say?’ And you have to repeat yourself, time and time again.

“I am fairly pragmatic about the prospect of this getting worse. I try to remain positive, because what’s the point of not being?”

He also partnered with Children in Need and sang a song from the musical & Juliet after revealing that he used singing to cope with his diagnosis.
Stapleton’s son, Nick, followed him into television, becoming the co-presenter of the Bafta-winning BBC daytime series Scam Interceptors.

Broadcaster John Stapleton dies aged 79 | Television | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

Claudia Cardinale, Star Of “8½” And “The Pink Panther,” Dies At 87




Scanning the photographs of renowned Italian actress Claudia Cardinale with her renowned directors and fellow actors — Frederico Fellini, Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards, Alain Delon, Marcello Mastroianni, Sergio Leone, and Visconti — to name but an illustrious few, we can fairly say that, even in her twenties and thirties, the lady was every bit the measure of her older male colleagues, on set and off. Possessed of strong character, she worked with the greatest artists, she stood up to them, and she became one of them. In the cinematic narratives that Fellini, Edwards, Leone and Visconti wove around her, most of the men in the films revolved around her, not the other way around.

Which is arguably why Emmanuel Macron was moved to apply this bit of elegaic eloquence in praise of Cardinale’s work on hearing the news of her death on September 24: “We French will always carry this Italian and global star in our hearts, in the eternity of cinema.”

Conservatively speaking, in addition to being extremely beautiful, Cardinale had something like a billion-watt smile. The smile worked because it was real: She was deeply amused at being in the fictive worlds she inhabited for the camera, just as she was amused at the aftershock effects and situations those fictive worlds then caused back in her real life, as pictured above taking direction from an extremely animated Fellini on the 8½ set, or as pictured below, with co-star Burt Lancaster in Cannes, as they took a real leopard for a publicity-stunt stroll on the sand just off the Croisette at the 1963 film festival, at which Visconti’s “The Leopard” (in which she and Lancaster starred) took that year’s Palme d’Or. She was all of twenty-five years old. It was the first of many, many plaudits in her half-century-long career on the big and small screens.

Claudia Cardinale, Star Of “81/2” And “The Pink Panther,” Dies At 87

[harrybarracuda]

Yardbirds co-founder Chris Dreja

Iconic British rocker dies aged 79 after 'years of health woes' as family pays tribute - Daily Star

British TV comedy icon Patricia Routledge

British comedy icon Patricia Routledge dies aged 96

Legendary Chimpanzee conservationist Jane Goodall

Access Denied

[beachbound]

Would’ve thought the passing of such an influential figure, would’ve been mentioned.

Jane Goodall, dies at 91.


Sir David Attenborough and Prince William have paid tribute to Dame Jane Goodall, a world-leading expert on chimpanzees, who has died aged 91.
Sir David, 99, a friend of Dr Goodall's, praised her as a "tireless advocate" of chimpanzees and "a great champion of environmental protection".
The Prince of Wales said she inspired him personally and "her boundless curiosity, compassion and pioneering spirit transformed our understanding of the natural world".
Dr Goodall died of natural causes while in California on a speaking tour of the US, according to a statement from the Jane Goodall Institute.

[Texpat]

Is stroller dead yet?

[Edmond]

I remember her saying that she loved this cartoon from Gary Larson's The Far Side (we always had numerous ones on the coffee table), but it took around 1 year to get it all sorted legally as the publisher were absolutely petrified of her suing them and needed tonnes of legal agreements before they dared to publish it. She was a good one.

[harrybarracuda]

Would’ve thought the passing of such an influential figure, would’ve been mentioned.

See above.

[harrybarracuda]

English author Jilly Cooper, writer of The Rutshire Chronicles, dies at age 88




English author Dame Jilly Cooper has died at age 88, her family has announced.


The author was best known for The Rutshire Chronicles, including the second book in the series, Rivals, which was recently adapted into a Disney+ series starring David Tennant.


Cooper's novels were known for their glamorous settings, complex characters and romantic entanglements, starting in the world of British equestrianism and high society.


Her books were often called "bonkbusters" but Cooper much preferred the phrase "low morals and high fences", she told the BBC in 2024.


Her death was made public with a statement from her children, Felix and Emily, who said her death came as a "complete shock".


"We are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and can't begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us," they said in a statement.

English author Jilly Cooper, writer of The Rutshire Chronicles, dies at age 88 - ABC News

[Happy As Larry]

Moody Blues singer and bassist John Lodge dies aged 82

Musician died peacefully surrounded by sounds of Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly, say family

The Moody Blues singer and bass guitarist, John Lodge, has died at the age of 82, his family have said.

A statement read: “It is with the deepest sadness that we have to announce that John Lodge, our darling husband, father, grandfather, father-in-law and brother, has been suddenly and unexpectedly taken from us.
“As anyone who knew this massive-hearted man knows, it was his enduring love of his wife, Kirsten, and his family, that was the most important thing to him, followed by his passion for music, and his faith.”

The statement added: “John peacefully slipped away surrounded by his loved ones and the sounds of the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly.
“We will forever miss his love, smile, kindness and his absolute and never-ending support.
“We are heartbroken, but will walk forwards into peace surrounded by the love he had for each of us.
“As John would always say at the end of the show, thank you for keeping the faith.”

Moody Blues singer and bassist John Lodge dies aged 82 | Music | The Guardian

[david44]

Loved the MBs,RIP

[taxexile]

....

[david44]

THanks another classic

[Happy As Larry]

Diane Keaton, Oscar-winning star of Annie Hall and The Godfather, dies aged 79

Diane Keaton, one of the best-loved film stars of the past 50 years, has died at the age of 79 in California.

The news was confirmed by People magazine. Further details are not available at this time and her loved ones have asked for privacy, according to a family spokesperson.
Keaton’s death came as a shock across Hollywood and the rest of the world. The actor had not been in the public eye for some months, but no illness had been announced.

People quotes a source close to the actor saying that Keaton’s health had “declined very suddenly” over the past months, adding that even many of her longtime friends “weren’t fully aware of what was happening”.
Her frequent co-star De Niro told the Hollywood Reporter: “I am very sad to hear of Diane’s passing. I was very fond of her and the news of her leaving us has taken me totally by surprise. I was not expecting her to leave us. She will be missed. May she rest in peace.”

In a statement shared with the Guardian, Meryl Streep, who starred alongside her in Marvin’s Room, called Keaton: “Our American treasure: indelible singular girl and brilliant artist. Crushing news that she is gone, but her smile and her style and antic spirit will live on film and in our hearts forever.”

Leonardo DiCaprio, who acted alongside both women in the film, called Keaton “brilliant, funny, and unapologetically herself” on Instagram stories. “A legend, an icon, and a truly kind human being.”
Bette Midler, Keaton’s co-star in The First Wives Club, said on Instagram: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”

Mary Steenburgen told Deadline that her co-star in the Book Club films was “magic. There was no one, nor will there ever be, anyone like her. I loved her and felt blessed to be her friend.”
Fellow Book Club star Jane Fonda, meanwhile, posted that she found it “hard to believe … or accept … that Diane has passed. She was always a spark of life and light, constantly giggling at her own foibles, being limitlessly creative … in her acting, her wardrobe, her books, her friends, her homes, her library, her worldview.

“Unique is what she was. And, though she didn’t know it or wouldn’t admit it, man she was a fine actress!”
Keaton directed two music videos for the singer Belinda Carlisle, who wrote on X that she was “kind and eccentric and I was blessed to know her”.

Also posting on X, the actor Ben Stiller called Keaton “One of the greatest film actors ever. An icon of style, humor and comedy. Brilliant. What a person.” Director Paul Feig posted that he was “so honored to call Diane Keaton a friend. She was an amazingly kind and creative person who also just happened to be a Hollywood legend. She has been taken from us far too soon.”

Nancy Sinatra said on X: “Diane Keaton has left us and I can’t tell you how profoundly sad that makes me. I adored her — idolised her. She was a very special person and an incredibly gifted actor, who made each of her roles unforgettable.”

Viola Davis, meanwhile, who did not share a screen credit with Keaton, although they were both originally slated to star in 2019’s Otherhood, posted to Instagram: “No!! No!!! No!! God, not yet, NO!!! Man… you defined womanhood. The pathos, humor, levity, your ever-present youthfulness and vulnerability — you tattooed your SOUL into every role, making it impossible to imagine anyone else inhabiting them. You were undeniably, unapologetically YOU!!! Loved you. Man… rest well. God bless your family, and I know angels are flying you home.”

An enduring and singular icon of cinema since her Oscar-winning turn in 1977’s Annie Hall – which her director, writer, co-star and former boyfriend Woody Allen based heavily on her own life – Keaton starred in some of the key movies of the last half century.

Her keen self-deprecation, gift for comedy and distinctive dress sense – rarely seen without a hat, turtleneck or man’s tie and wide trousers – made her both highly distinctive and impossible to emulate.

Her first major film role was opposite Al Pacino in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather – she reprised the role of Michael Corleone’s wife in the two sequels. Other Oscar nominations were earned for her performances in Reds (1981), Marvin’s Room (1996) and Something’s Gotta Give (2003).

Meanwhile, dramas such as Looking for Mr Goodbar, Shoot the Moon and The Good Mother established her as an actor unafraid of playing difficult and unlikable women.
Keaton and Allen first collaborated on the stage version of Play It Again, Sam, for which she was Tony nominated in 1971, before going on to work together for eight films, including Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975) and Manhattan (1979).

In 1993, Keaton took on the role written for Mia Farrow in Manhattan Murder Mystery and remained a staunch supporter of Allen after the accusation by Farrow that he had abused their adopted daughter, Dylan.
Writing on Instagram in the wake of Keaton’s death, both of Allen’s adopted daughters with his wife, Soon-Yi Allen, posted their tributes to the actor, with Manzie saying she was “absolutely heartbroken”.

Keaton went on to make a remarkable number of other popular and landmark comedies as well as those with Allen, including Baby Boom, Father of the Bride (and its sequels), The First Wives Club and Book Club.
The sequel to that film, Book Club: The Next Chapter, released in 2023, looks set to be one of the last projects featuring Keaton. Speaking to the Guardian to promote it, she addressed why she chose to remain so prolific, making seven films since the start of the pandemic.

“It gives me an opportunity to get to know more people in a different realm,” she said. “I love it. It’s all interesting. It’s never dull, ever, life.”
She also explained her love for photographing doors and abandoned shops, which she said she found poignant “because life is haunting! You have an idea in your mind of what it is, or what it should be, or what it could be. But it’s not that at all! It’s just things going up and down!”

In 1996, Keaton adopted a daughter, Dexter (named after Cary Grant’s character in The Philadelphia Story), and, four years later, a son, Duke. “Motherhood has completely changed me,” she said. “It’s just about like the most completely humbling experience that I’ve ever had.” Despite well-publicised relationships with some of her co-stars including Pacino and Warren Beatty, she remained unmarried.

Keaton cared for her own mother from her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s in 1993 until her death in 2008, and devoted much of her own autobiographies to recounting her mother’s life and publishing her diaries.
“She was everything to me,” she said of her mother. “She was wonderful. She was my example for what you can do with life. She was the heart of everything that was best.”

Keaton was also the chief care-giver to her brother, Randy, who died in 2021, after years of mental-health problems.

As well as acting primarily for the big screen, Keaton did some TV work, including as a scheming nun in Jude Law TV series The Young Pope. She also had a sideline flipping properties in the US, as well as lending her name and creativity to ranges of homeware, clothing, glasses and wine.

In 2017, she was given a lifetime achievement award by the American Film Institute, in which she thanked her collaborators and sang Seems Like Old Times, the song her character sings in Annie Hall.
In 2022, she paid tribute to her parents while putting her hands into cement to be immortalised on the Hollywood walk of Fame, saying she was “still that little Dianey” who dreamed of being a movie star.
“As a girl growing up in Orange County, the mere thought of Hollywood Boulevard seemed like a mysterious dream that would never come true,” she said.

In December 2024, in what seems likely to be her final performance shared with the public, Keaton released her first single, a festive song called First Christmas, posting the video to Instagram. An enthusiastic adopter of social media, her last post was in April to mark National Pet Day, and featured a photograph of the actor with her beloved golden retriever, Reggie.
She is survived by her two younger sisters, Dorrie and Robin, as well as by Dexter, 29, and Duke, 25.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...r-dies-aged-79

[david44]

Unforgetable line La di Da

[harrybarracuda]

It's not often there's cheerful news in this thread.

Two men have been arrested after paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins died after being attacked in prison.
Watkins, 48, was serving a 29-year jail term for multiple sexual offences, including serious crimes against young children and babies at HMP Wakefield, in West Yorkshire.

Two men arrested after paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins died in prison attack | UK News | Sky News

[david44]

It's not often there's cheerful news in this thread

Many especially victims would support the death penalty esp child abuse , terrorists, murderers, rapists etc.

However surely if legal it should be a judge who orders it not random criminals?

[harrybarracuda]

Many especially victims would support the death penalty esp child abuse , terrorists, murderers, rapists etc.

However surely if legal it should be a judge who orders it not random criminals?

Oh I don't think it was ordered, I just think they were doing a public service.

He tried to rape a baby.

Som num na.

[Happy As Larry]

D’Angelo obituary
Influential American singer and songwriter who was a pioneer of ‘neo-soul’ music

The American R&B singer and songwriter D’Angelo, who has died aged 51 of pancreatic cancer, was a pioneer of what came to be known as “neo-soul” – forward-looking music that incorporated elements of funk, jazz and hip-hop.

Despite releasing just three albums over two decades from 1995 to 2014, he was influential well beyond the boundaries of the new musical style he helped to create, with a series of Top 40 single hits in the UK and US that included Brown Sugar, the title track of his debut album. His second long-player, Voodoo, reached No 1 in the US and his third and final album, Black Messiah, also made it into the Top 10, with both releases winning two of his four Grammys.

D’Angelo was born Michael Archer in Richmond, Virginia, to Luther Archer, a Pentecostal minister, and his wife, Mariann (nee Smith). A talented pianist and singer from an early age, he learned his music in the church, and in his teens put himself on the map by winning three consecutive amateur talent night contests at the Apollo theatre in Harlem, New York.

He also played in a series of groups in the Richmond area, including Three of a Kind, Michael Archer and Precise, and Intelligent, Deadly But Unique (IDU).

By 1993 he had been signed up as a songwriter with EMI, for whom he composed U Will Know, a charity single addressing black-on-black violence that was released in 1994 by the supergroup Black Men United (including Lenny Kravitz, R Kelly and members of Boyz II Men), and made the Top 30 on both sides of the Atlantic.

His platinum-selling Brown Sugar album – under the new name of D’Angelo, which he had derived from Michelangelo – appeared the following year, peaking at No 22 in the US charts and spawning two Top 30 hit singles in the US with the title track (“an ode to marijuana disguised as a love song”) and Lady. In 1998 he appeared on another landmark neo-soul album, Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, singing and playing electric piano on Nothing Even Matters.

Thanks to a long spell of writer’s block – allied to his obsessive nature in the studio – it was not until 2000 that D’Angelo’s follow-up album, Voodoo, was released. But the final product, with a more experimental, darker feel and honed in collaboration with the Soulquarians musical collective – which included the drummer-producer Questlove, and occasional vocal collaborators Erykah Badu and Mos Def – was worth the wait. Described by Variety magazine as “a cornerstone of modern R&B” and listed at 28 in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest albums, it was a critical triumph, topping the US charts and peaking at No 21 in the UK.

Five singles were spun off from Voodoo, but despite the album’s success only one of them, Untitled (How Does It Feel), reached the Top 30 of the US charts, partly on the back of a highly eroticised accompanying video that D’Angelo later came to regret, feeling that it cast him in many eyes as just a sex symbol. The image stuck, despite the song winning a Grammy.

After touring with Voodoo worldwide for more than a year following its release, D’Angelo fell into a long period of alcohol and drug abuse that resulted in an even longer gestation period for his final album, Black Messiah (2014), which took more than a decade to take shape.

Nonetheless, he still had many fans in waiting, and the album was another critical and commercial success, shooting to No 5 in the US on its release, also making it into the Top 50 in the UK. Rolling Stone rated the Grammy-winning album “a warm, expansive masterpiece” while Paul Lester in the Guardian called it “a restatement of faith in the principles and sounds of the pre-digital era of black music”. The first single from it, Really Love, earned D’Angelo his fourth Grammy.

Apart from a one-off single, Unshaken, in 2019, however, there were to be no further releases from the star. Although there was occasional talk of another album in the offing, he became increasingly reclusive across his final years, and the American public’s main awareness of him came largely through occasional live appearances or guest recording slots with other artists, including alongside Jay-Z last year on the song I Want You Forever from the soundtrack to the 2023 film The Book of Clarence.

The American music journalist Sheldon Pearce noted that there seemed to be “a clear disconnect between D’Angelo’s compulsion to be heard and his reluctance to be seen” – an internal tug-of war that resulted in much of his material either failing to make it into the public domain or languishing for years until it emerged.

D’Angelo himself rejected categorisation. “I never claimed I do neo-soul,” he said in 2014. “When I first came out, I used to always say, ‘I do black music. I make black music.’”
He is survived by three children, Michael, Imani and Morocco, the first of whom was from a relationship with the singer Angie Stone, who died earlier this year, and with whom he had also collaborated musically.

D’Angelo (Michael Eugene Archer), singer and songwriter, born 11 February 1974; died 14 October 2025

D’Angelo obituary | Soul | The Guardian

[misskit]

Ace Frehley, Kiss Lead Guitarist and Solo Artist, Dies at 74

Paul Daniel “Ace” Frehley, co-founder and lead guitarist of the legendary rock band Kiss, has died following injuries suffered during a fall last month, according to a statement from his family. He was 74.


Frehley’s family issued the following statement:


“We are completely devastated and heartbroken. In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”

MORE Ace Frehley, Kiss Lead Guitarist, Dies at 74