The RIP Famous Person Thread

[misskit]

Who is Chuck?

[Salsa dancer]

Chuck Norris, who passed away at the age of 86 on March 19, 2026.

The legendary martial artist and action star—best known for Walker, Texas Ranger—passed away at the age of 86 on March 19, 2026. His family confirmed that he died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones. - Magaziine

[misskit]

Oh. That Chuck.

[Edmond]

Chuck didn't flush the toilet. He scared the shit out of it.

[dirk diggler]

I’m guessing he’s just completed this world and now he’s onto the next one.

[beachbound]

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, dead at 81.


Upon hearing the news, Trump posted…
“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

[dirk diggler]

Who is Chuck?

Misskit!!!


I heard that out of respect they're going to let Chuck carry his own coffin at the service.


DYK?: Chuck Norris once strangled a man to death with a cordless phone.

[misskit]

‘Superman’ Star Dies After Decade-Long Health Battle

Superman star Valerie Perrine died on Monday in her Beverly Hills home. The actress was 82. “It is with deep sadness that I share the heartbreaking news that Valerie has passed away. She faced Parkinson’s disease with incredible courage and compassion, never once complaining,” her close friend, filmmaker Stacey Souther, posted on Facebook. Perrine was best known for her role as Eve Teschmacher, Lex Luthor’s love interest, in Christopher Reeve’s 1978 Superman and its 1980 sequel. She also earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1974 Lenny Bruce biopic Lenny, in which she played Honey. The Texan got her start as a Playboy model and television actress and was notably the first actress to appear nude on American television. Perrine, whose illustrious career spanned decades, also had dozens of roles in film, TV, and on the stage, including in one of the highest-grossing rom-coms of all time, What Women Want. Her last film appearance was in 2014’s Silver Skies. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2015. The star’s family has started a GoFundMe to pay for her funeral expenses. “After more than 15 years of fighting Parkinson’s, her finances are exhausted,” Souther said in her post announcing Perrine’s death.

‘Superman’ Star Dies After Decade-Long Health Battle

[Happy As Larry]

Dash Crofts of Summer Breeze rock duo Seals and Crofts dies aged 85

Crofts helped define the sound of yacht rock with 1970s hits such as Summer Breeze and Diamond Girl
Dash Crofts, the yacht rock musician who helped craft 70s hits such as Summer Breeze and Diamond Girl as part of the duo Seals and Crofts, has died aged 85.

The news was announced on social media by the duo’s producer, Louie Shelton. He wrote: “Sad to hear our dear brother and partner in music has passed away today. Sending love and prayers to all his family and many fans. R.I.P. my brother.....Dash Crofts.” A family member confirmed that Crofts died due to complications following heart surgery.

Croft’s musical partner Jim Seals died in 2022 at age 80.

In the 1970s, Seals and Croft helped define the sound of breezy soft rock that was a musical mainstay of the decade. Their 1972 album Summer Breeze reached the US top 10 and included the single Hummingbird as well as the hit title track, which was a radio smash and was also covered by the Isley Brothers as well as the metal band Type O Negative, whose heavy take of the song was included on the soundtrack to the 90s teen thriller I Know What You Did Last Summer.

In 1973, the duo released their follow-up album Diamond Girl, which was certified gold and span off a single of the same name that reached number six on the US singles charts.

The following year, the band bumped up against controversy with the release of the 1974 album Unborn Child. The title track reflected the duo’s Bahá’í faith and belief that a child’s life begins at the moment of conception. Arriving in the wake of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling that protected women’s freedom to terminate pregnancies, the single faced a backlash and was banned by some radio stations.

The duo broke up in 1980, as their gentle musical style fell out of favor with the rise of punk and disco. Crofts turned to a quieter life and moved to Nashville, where he focused on playing country music and occasionally released singles.
Seals and Crofts rarely appeared in public after they disbanded, aside from a few appearences at Bahá’í gatherings. In 1998, Crofts released the solo album Today, followed by Seals and Crofts’ final album Traces, released in 2004.

Yacht rock has seen a recent wave of reappreciation, with a 2024 HBO documentary Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary arguing for the importance of the breezy genre.
In a 2019 interview, Bill Hader spoke of his love of yacht rock, saying: “Seals and Crofts, I think, were maybe privately more hardcore than Minor Threat.”

Dash Crofts of Summer Breeze rock duo Seals and Crofts dies aged 85 | Music | The Guardian

[KWAN]

Chip Taylor - Wikipedia

[TizMe]

When I looked at his picture my first thought was that jee he looked like Jon Voight

Then I read that they are brothers

[misskit]

‘Patches’ Singer Dies at 90

Iconic soul singer Clarence Carter died on Thursday at age 90. The “Patches” singer was recently diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer and was simultaneously battling pneumonia and sepsis, according to his spokesperson. Rodney Hall, president of FAME Studios, was the first to confirm the news of his death in a statement to Rolling Stone after speaking to Carter’s ex-wife, fellow soul singer Candi Staton. Carter, born blind, began his music career in the 1960s as part of the duo Clarence and Calvin after graduating from Alabama State College. After a brief stint in the group, he went on to have a successful solo career with the 1968 hit “Slip Away” and later in the ’70s, one of his biggest hits in the world of soul, “Patches.” The song hit No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 at its peak. But Carter wasn’t done yet; he made a comeback in 1988 with the raunchy song “Strokin’.” He is survived by his ex-wife and their son, Clarence Carter Jr.

‘Patches’ Singer Dies at 90

[misskit]

Oh my goodness, Clarence was good, in spite of that sad Patches song. ��

[misskit]

Singer Behind Olympic Skier’s Fatal Shooting Dies at 84

Claudine Longet, the French pop singer whose career became overshadowed by a deadly Olympic scandal, has died at 84. Her nephew, Bryan Longet, announced the death in a heartfelt social media tribute, writing: “You have been a true inspiration in my life and you will always be... another star in the sky. Thank you for everything, my aunt.” Longet first found fame in the 1960s with soft pop albums like Claudine and songs including “Nothing to Lose.” But her name became permanently linked to the 1976 shooting death of 31-year-old Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich. The Olympian was fatally shot once with a Luger pistol at the couple’s Aspen, Colorado home, and died en route to the hospital alongside Longet. The singer maintained the shooting was accidental and happened while Sabich was showing her the gun. Longet was ultimately convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to 30 days in jail, two years’ probation, and a $250 fine. Following the scandal, Longet briefly reunited with her ex-husband Andy Williams, who helped cover her legal expenses. The former couple shared three children together.

Singer Behind Olympic Skier’s Fatal Shooting Dies at 84

[misskit]

SNL did the Claudine Longet Invitational Ski Tournament. It showed skiers racing down a hill, a gunshot, them falling, and the announcer shouting “She got another one!”

[Happy As Larry]

Dr Hook co-frontman Dennis Locorriere dies aged 76

Singer took lead vocal on UK No 1 When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman, and had numerous other transatlantic hits
Dennis Locorriere, the guitarist and singer with the chart-topping soft rock band Dr Hook, has died aged 76.

A statement from his management company said he died on Saturday “after a long and courageous battle with kidney disease … Dennis faced his illness with remarkable strength, dignity, and resilience throughout, and remained deeply cherished by all who knew him”.

Locorriere, who shared lead vocal duties with Ray Sawyer, was part of the band for the whole of its run from 1969 to 1985, scoring hits such as When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman, which spent three weeks at UK No 1 in 1979.

Born in New Jersey in 1949, Locorriere was in his late teens when he sat in with a group of more experienced musicians a decade older than him, with Locorriere on vocals, bass, guitar and harmonica. “I just knew that I didn’t want to have a regular job because at that time I was a hippy,” Locorriere said. “I would go to bars at night and play until three in the morning, playing and having fun with my friends and I really wasn’t thinking too much about it.”
But the band – initially named Dr Hook and the Medicine Show – became a serious endeavour, and got signed to CBS in 1971. They were successful from the off, with their 1972 single Sylvia’s Mother going Top Five in the US and UK, and The Cover of Rolling Stone reaching the US Top 10 the same year.

The band’s appeal rested in part on their gorgeous multi-voiced harmonising, with Locorriere’s boyish yet soulful voice paired with the slightly more grizzled country music tones of the cowboy-hatted, eye patch-sporting Sawyer. A Little Bit More spent five weeks in a row at No 2 in the UK in the summer of 1976, held off the top by Elton John and Kiki Dee’s duet Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, while the soft-centred Sharing the Night Together – Dr Hook’s most enduringly popular song on streaming services – took them back to the US Top 10.

Locorriere was the leading voice on their biggest hit When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman, an up-tempo disco-pop song about the paranoia that springs from having an attractive girlfriend, sung with wry humour from Locorriere. As well as topping the UK charts in a 17-week run, it was a global success and another US Top 10 placing. Dr Hook finessed that disco sound on the follow-up Sexy Eyes, which was another transatlantic hit in 1980, and another song that foregrounded Locorriere.

Locorriere said he was upset at audiences often thinking the eye-catching Sawyer was the lead singer and frontman – “that used to really hurt my feelings” – and Sawyer left in 1983, saying he’d become “a product with a patch and a hat”.
Dr Hook continued until a 1985 farewell tour with Locorriere as frontman. “We found that Dr Hook had started to become a bit of a re-tread and so we decided to call it a day,” he said. Thereafter, Locorriere toured under his own name with the subtitle “the voice of Dr Hook”, and released three solo albums between 2000 and 2010.

Many of Dr Hook’s songs were written by songwriters outside the band, but Locorriere co-wrote some of them, including A Couple More Years, which was covered by Bob Dylan, and You Ain’t Got the Right, covered by Olivia Newton-John.

Locorriere was married three times, eventually settling with his third wife in Sussex, UK.

Dr Hook co-frontman Dennis Locorriere dies aged 76 | Music | The Guardian

[Happy As Larry]

Judith Chalmers, presenter of TV series Wish You Were Here, dies aged 90

Family says host of more than 500 episodes of travel show leaves behind ‘giant suitcase of the happiest memories’

The TV presenter Judith Chalmers, who spent almost three decades persuading British people to go on holiday as the host of Wish You Were Here … ?, has died at the age of 90 after living with Alzheimer’s in her final years.

Her family said she died peacefully at home on Thursday, surrounded by “the family she loved so much”, after becoming ill in recent weeks. They added that she would be greatly missed but left behind “a giant suitcase of the happiest memories”.
Chalmers, who presented more than 500 editions of the popular ITV travel show between 1974 and 2003, led an “extraordinary life that involved over 60 years in broadcasting and countless adventures all over the globe”, the family said.

When she landed her job as the launch presenter of the show, like many British people in the 1970s, the farthest she had ever travelled was across the Channel to France.
As cheap package holidays to Europe increased in popularity, her career took off and she became famous for her warm, approachable presenting style – and her sun tan.

In 2008, she made headlines when she told Graham Norton that she had never worn knickers on camera while presenting the show.

“I was told by the wardrobe mistress that I shouldn’t have a VPL – visible panty line. So I’m sorry to reveal that after 30 years of Wish You Were Here … ? I was pantless all the time,” she said.

Born in 1935 in the Cheshire suburb of Gatley, near Stockport, she began her career at the BBC at the age of just 13, after being encouraged by her mother to audition for work as a child actor on BBC Children’s Hour in Manchester.

She debuted on TV in 1956, presenting a woman’s afternoon magazine programme and by the 1960s, she was working as a BBC television announcer and as a host of Come Dancing, the original BBC ballroom dancing competition show. Between 1966 and 1970, she presented BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Her younger sister, Sandra, would later follow in her footsteps by going into broadcasting and becoming an editor of Woman’s Hour in the 1980s.

She told the food journalist Mary Berry in the 1960s: “If you’re not fun, [the audience will] turn over to the other channel – and there’s only one more channel.”
She denied that presenting Wish You Were Here … ? was like being permanently on holiday. “We get to spend so little time in the places we visit and have to work 14-hour days, so that I’m usually too exhausted to enjoy them as holiday destinations,” she once said, according to the Times.

Her top tip to travellers was to not take too much luggage, although she did not always manage to follow her own advice. “I still take far too much,” she told Metro in August 2019. “I’m ashamed whenever I see my heavy case coming off the carousel at the airport, and I think: ‘Oh Lord, is this really all necessary?’ ”

She is survived by her 92-year-old husband, the former sports presenter Neil Durden-Smith, whom she married in 1964, and her son Mark Durden-Smith, also a TV presenter on shows such as ITV’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here and This Morning.

Judith Chalmers, presenter of TV series Wish You Were Here, dies aged 90 | Television | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins Has Died, Aged 95

Rollins was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930. He began studying music as a child, and began playing the saxophone professionally when he was still a teenager. Rollins made his first recordings at the age of nineteen, and he was soon an in-demand collaborator in New York City's jazz scene, where he worked with artists including Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell.
Rollins released his debut album as a bandleader in 1953 and recorded 17 more by the end of the decade, including landmarks such as Saxophone Colossus in 1956. His collaborators during this period included Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey.
His solo projects, which pushed the boundaries of genre and harmony, often engaged with issues of civil rights and social justice. Freedom Suite's 20-minute title track from 1958 represented freedom to many during the growing civil rights movement.
In 1972, he was granted a Guggenheim fellowship and was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame the next year. In 1985, he premiered his Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra, a composition melding improvised jazz and symphonic forms, with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo.

In addition to his extensive output as a record, Rollins was a prolific and gifted improviser who frequently gave concerts consisting exclusively of unaccompanied long-form improvisation.
The recipient of two Grammy Awards, he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2004. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, became the first jazz artist to receive the Edward MacDowell Medal for achievement in the arts, and was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011, he received both a National Medal of Arts and a Kennedy Center Honor.
He continued to tour into his 80s, and toward the end of his life, he ran his own record label, Doxy Records.
Pulmonary fibrosis, which damaged his lungs, eventually forced him to retire, and he played his last concert in 2012.

Jazz Saxophonist Sonny Rollins Has Died, Aged 95

[NamPikToot]

I've been sworn at by him you couldn't make this bloke up and no one would believe you if you said what he was like but everything about him is true - don't make them like him any more, top bloke

Norman Balon, notoriously rude landlord of the Coach and Horses in Soho


Balon was immortalised in Michael Heath’s Private Eye cartoon, The Regulars, and by Jeffrey Bernard in his Low Life column in The Spectator.

Norman Balon, the former landlord of the Coach and Horses in Greek Street, Soho, who has died aged 99, described himself in his autobiography You’re Barred, You Bastards (1991) as “London’s rudest landlord”; few patrons, regular or otherwise, would have disagreed with him.

The title of the book did not do full justice to Balon’s unique approach to customer relations, for his usual mode of address to those he took against was very much more robust: “F--- off, you c---!” Those destined to experience his abrasive approach included Northerners (“they will insist on finishing their drinks”); “vile young people drinking out of bottles”; foreign tourists “with their f---ing two glasses of lemonade and three straws” and brewery executives: “One came in once and started putting up shelf strips. I slung him out by his collar and the seat of his pants.”

No one was entirely immune from Balon’s spleen. When Neil Kinnock turned up one day, Balon told him: “I don’t talk to has-beens.”


“Are you being served?” he asked a female customer. “I’d like a pint of bitter and a gin and tonic,” came the reply. “I didn’t f------ ask you what you wanted. I asked you if you were being served.” One journalist reported that he had in his notebook a Balon sentence consisting of nine words of which only the first three — “​You are a…” — were quotable. “I just can’t be bothered with bores,” Balon confessed. “If I say to you ‘Shut up’ and you don’t, then I sling you out.”


Around 80 per cent of Balon’s customers were said to be regulars — quite an achievement in the shifting sands of Theatreland. Given the quality of the food and service on offer, it is probable that the reason that the pub began to be crowded was the proximity of the Coach and Horses to the offices of the satirical magaz​ine Private Eye.

The pub was frequented by the magazine’s staff from the early 1970s, and scribes and celebrities were invited to dish the dirt on their friends at fortnightly lunches held in the upstairs room, formerly his family dining room, with terrible wallpaper.​

Jeffrey Bernard, right, brought out Balon's nicer side: 'When he died, I said he was the nicest sh-- in the world, but he was still a sh--," Balon said
Jeffrey Bernard, right, brought out Balon’s nicer side Credit: John Taylor
As a family home it was an odd, rambling, echoing, dark building, with its steepl​y turning stairs, windowless passages, random cubby-holes, bare floorboards and an upper floor that was eventually abandoned to mice and the occasional pigeon that somehow got in under the eaves. Later, Balon allowed the painter Rupert Shrive to use a third-floor room as a studio.

Even after the family moved out of the pub, Norman’s mother would sit in the morning near the gas fire near the lavatory folding napkins, polishing cutlery and making remarks like: ‘It’s terribly cold, isn’t it?’ As the years went on she developed a habit of secreting forks in her handbag and Norman would instigate a search of the bag and the pockets of her fur coat before she went home.

Tall and stoop-shouldered, with a menacing grin and brilliantined hair (“like Walter Matthau’s younger brother”), Balon was immortalised in the Eye’s pages in Michael Heath’s cartoon, “The Regulars”, and by Jeffrey Bernard in his Low Life columns in The Spectator (“His egomania and what passes for his wit has all but emptied the pub,” complained Bernard in one column).

By the mid-1980s he would cry, ‘I’m famous! I’m famous!’ with innocent pride as he came into the pub waving a copy of the Standard diary column with his name in. Eventually he even painted a corner of wall outside, above the advertisement for ‘Fine ales and wines’ with the word ‘NORMAN’S’ in large capitals. No one ever called it that. It was always the Coach.

Norman and Jeffrey probably loved each other, if Jeffrey ever loved anyone. They certainly had rows – “You’re barred, and don’t come back” – but he did.

Bernard, it seems, was one who brought out his nicer side. “When he died, I said he was the nicest sh-- in the world, but he was still a sh--,” Balon recalled. “ I remember him passing out in here about 15 years ago. I said, ‘You’ll never get another drink in here,’ and then I thought about it and realised that it was better that he got drunk in here rather than somewhere people didn’t care about him.”

Another favourite was the campaigning journalist Paul Foot (“a lovely man”), although Balon recalled in Foot’s disfavour that when Private Eye was nearly bankrupt due to libel costs and asked for cheaper lunches, “He was the only one who wanted to keep smoked salmon on the menu.”

Norman was a bad loser at chess, at which Conan Nicholas (the man who invented cat-racing) was often eager to issue a challenge, since he was the stronger player. But even as a chess-player, even if he swept the pieces off the board when he lost, Norman was not utterly despicable.

Nor did he like good manners in others. When the actor Tom Baker was overheard apologising after treading on someone’s foot, Balon barked ‘Oi, stop being so bloody polite!’ He never minded his customers being abusive: “Call me what you like – as long as you spend money.”

Norman Balon was born in Ilford in on January 13 1927 into an atheist Jewish family and brought up in Bournemouth, where his family owned two hotels.

After one of the two hotels was bombed, the family moved to London and Norman’s father acquired the tenancy of The Coach and Horses on February 3 1943. Norman, aged 16, left school that day and started working behind the bar.

He soon became a hardened drinker, putting away a bottle of Scotch a night and had to be smuggled out through the kitchens in a trunk. A short stint running a high-class restaurant was a failure and he soon returned to the seedy familiarity of the family pub. Later, when his father became a fire inspector, he took over as landlord. He also became teetotal.

During the war the pub’s clientele mainly consisted of British-born Italians, American servicemen and Maltese gangsters who ran the Soho sex trade. Balon recalled flying bombs blowing in the pubs windows, and an occasion in 1945 when a black ​American GI came in with a white woman, and all the other American soldiers drew guns.

After the war, the pub became a haunt of a shifting crowd of poets, painters, prostitutes, bohemians and crooks – “Dylan Thomas, Brendan Behan, Francis Bacon,” Balon reminisced. They rubbed shoulders with low-life characters such as French Vera, No-Knickers Joyce, Sid the Swimmer and Iron-Foot Jack.


But when London began to “swing” in the 1960s, Soho was invaded by a melange of new wave actors, directors, composers and pop stars, many with provincial accents. Balon never really accustomed himself to the change. When a road manager brought The Beatles in he refused to take their cheque because he did not recognise them.


Nor did Balon approve of attempts to “clean up” the area: “Soho in the old days was a bank manager’s day out, a place where people came for a touch of naughtiness,” he reminisced. “Soho should exist on prostitutes, artists, homosexuals and lesbians, but Westminster Council has sanitised the area, which has caused huge damage… Also I quite firmly believe that when the one-way system was introduced it sounded the death knell of Soho as I knew it.”

The Blair government’s controversial new Licensing Act was the last straw, and in 2005, after 62 years’ splenetic service behind the bar, Balon announced his intention to sell up and retire.

With regard to affairs of the heart, Balon’s credo was that love is a very overrated emotion, but he never quite managed to live up to his own principles. A well dressed 6ft 4in, and the beneficiary of a weekly haircut, he was never happier than when escorting a lady to a first night. He prided himself on being a world expert on mint chocolates.

He married Suzanne in 1962; they had two daughters. One day, regulars came into the pub and found Norman sitting at the table near the lavatory with a heap of matchboxes, scratching away at the labels. He had had them printed with his name and that of his wife Suzanne. Now that they had parted he was scraping her name off each one.

From 1985 he lived with Grazia Weiner, an Italian translator whom he referred to as his “Venetian virago”.​ They eventually married.

Access Denied

[Happy As Larry]

Anthony Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ted Lasso actor, dies aged 72

British actor starred on the West End before finding international fame in the 90s on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Anthony Head, the actor best-known for playing Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died aged 72.

“He passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family,” his daughters Emily and Daisy Head said in a statement.
“It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed first-hand the impact both he and his work have had on so many.”

As well as playing the mentor to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character, Head had a recurring role in David Walliams and Matt Lucas’s BBC sketch show Little Britain, appeared in the BBC production of Merlin as well as film roles in The Iron Lady and The Inbetweeners Movie. More recently, he played former football club owner Rupert Mannion in Ted Lasso.

Gellar began her Instagram tribute to Head with a quote from her Buffy character: “Tell Giles I figured it out and I’m ok”
“Well I don’t have it figured out and I’m not ok,” she continued. “But I know I’m the lucky one because I knew you. Thank you to Daisy and Emily who not only shared their dad with me, but with the world.

Born in Camden, London, Head was raised by artistic parents. His father was a documentary film-maker who founded Verity Films, while his mother was an actor who played Madame Maigret in the 60s BBC crime drama Maigret. Meanwhile his brother was also an actor best known for his lead role in 1971’s Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The Head family were committed to the arts and imparted their passion to their son. “My Christmas present was always a new dressing-up outfit that my mother – who was a brilliant seamstress – would make herself,” Head told the Guardian in 2016.
“At playgroup the woman who ran it took my parents aside one day and said, we love it when Anthony comes in dressing-up clothes, but it would be really nice to meet Anthony himself one day – he gets absolutely immersed in whatever character he’s dressed up as.”

Head began his professional career on the stage, starring in the 1978 West End revival of Godspell alongside Su Pollard. In the following decade, he took on various projects, including a role in the 1981 adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and a part in 1987’s A Prayer for the Dying alongside Bob Hoskins and Liam Neeson.

In the early 80s, Head also sang backing vocals for the British pop group Red Box, and was featured on their 1986 debut album The Circle & the Square. He was arguably best known in the UK and US for his role in Nescafé’s Gold Blend TV adverts, which focused on the slow-burn courtship between a British couple.

Yet the stage remained Head’s focus, with a lead role as Freddie Trumper in the original West End production of the Abba musical Chess in 1988, as well as performing in productions of A Patriot for Me and Lady Windermere’s Fan. He also took a starring role as Dr Frank-N-Furter in the 1990 West End production of The Rocky Horror Show.

After winning the role of Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head moved to Los Angeles for five years while his partner, Sarah, and two young daughters lived in England.
“I’d try to go home to them every three or four weeks,” he told the Guardian. “The production team would work dates around me, and every time I got the chance to have six days clear, I’d get on a plane … I spent quite a lot of money on airfares, but we made it work.”

Head said that his rise to global fame taught him “not to get caught up in the hype. [Co-stars] Alyson Hannigan and Sarah Michelle Gellar would talk about magazine covers, and I’d think: where’s mine? They were competing, but ultimately it’s a game that only lasts so long. It’s better to just get on with the job.”

After Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended in 2003, Head took a recurring role in Little Britain. The actor played a British prime minister who is constantly fawned over by a flirtatious assistant (Walliams).

In Ted Lasso, he regularly featured in scenes with the show co-creator Jason Sudeikis, with the pair praised for their intuitive on-screen chemistry.

“We know how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues and fans of the shows he was in – he loved his job very much and he always considered himself incredibly lucky to have been able to work alongside such exceptionally talented people, in such wonderful productions, across a career that spanned several decades,” said his daughters.

“Our grief is far greater than the hole he has left behind but we know his legacy will live on in the shows he was a part of and in the audiences that love them.
“How lucky we are to know we are able to watch him doing what he loved, even when he is no longer with us.”

Head’s partner, Sarah Fisher, died in December 2025, aged 61. “It is immensely shocking to us all, and came with very little warning. No words could ever express all that she encompassed, or begin to describe the crater her absence has left,” the couple’s daughters said in a statement at the time.

Tributes have also been pouring in from those who knew and worked with Head.

“I am very sad indeed to learn of the passing of Tony Head,” the Little Britain co-creator Matt Lucas wrote on X. “When we were casting Little Britain, we were looking for a ‘Tony Head-type’, because we never imagined for a moment that the man himself would be interested, but he was. Lucky us. He was unfailingly brilliant, and always so kind and warm. My heart goes out to Daisy and Emily.”

“He was so kind and generous of a soul,” wrote Head’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star David Boreanaz on Instagram.

“There’s a hole in the world,” said James Marsters, who played Spike in the TV show. “Anthony Head has passed on from us. He was an unflaggingly kind and steady presence on the set of Buffy, and the best actor in the cast. He was the best of us. I was lucky to have known, and learned from him. He left the world a better place for his presence. Thank you Tony for all you gave.”

“Tony H – for every scene and time shared, I give thanks,” said Buffy co-star Eliza Dushku. “Rest in love and peace, kind sir. A dear one.”
“Anthony Head was a brilliant actor who played the worst person in the world, which was an incredible skill because he was the best person,” said Head’s Ted Lasso co-star Brett Goldstein on Instagram Stories. “Infinitely charming and kind and fun and a joy. He will be sorely missed. Love to his family.”

Anthony Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ted Lasso actor, dies aged 72 | Television | The Guardian

[hallelujah]

Bernadette Chirac brown bread at 93.

Bernadette Chirac, formidable former first lady of France, dies aged 93 | France | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

Never quite made national treasure status. David Hockney, 88.

Access Denied

[NamPikToot]

Roger Cook


Roger Cook death: Fearless investigative journalist dies after short illness, aged 83

Legendary ITV broadcaster Roger Cook has died at the age of 83, his family has announced.


A statement issued on Monday (15 June) read: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Roger Cook, who died peacefully on Saturday after a short illness.


“Alongside a distinguished and award-winning career in journalism, Roger was first and foremost a beloved husband and father. He will be deeply missed by all of us, and we ask for privacy as we navigate this difficult loss.”


The New Zealand-born TV star hosted current affairs programme The Cook Report for 12 years, and won a Bafta special award for the show in 1997.


Cook was known for never shying away from confrontational, doorstep interviews.


His eponymous show exposed child pornography, Northern Ireland protection rackets, baby trading in Brazil and the illicit ivory trade. He also examined illegal immigration and war criminals in Bosnia. He also fronted exposés on those behind 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, and the Russian black market in weapons-grade plutonium.


ITV said in a statement that Cook “worked tirelessly to expose criminal wrongdoing and injustice, helping to drive important and lasting changes in the law”.


“His fearless contribution to journalism will long be remembered, and we send our deepest sympathies and condolences to his wife, family and friends at this difficult time,” it added.


Fans have also paid tribute on social media, with one writing: “A great loss to the journalistic world he came from.” “A true legend of investigative journalism,” said another. “His doorstep confrontations were fearless. Rest in peace.”


Cook’s decades-spanning career began in the late 1960s when he moved to the UK and began working as a journalist for the BBC.


He created and began hosting the investigative Radio 4 programme Checkpoint, which specialised in exposing criminals and con-men, in 1973, before making the switch to television in 1984.


He then began fronting The Cook Report on ITV in 1987. The show ran for 16 series across 12 years, airing until 1999.


In 2007, he revisited a number of his most well-known stories in a 90-minute special, Roger Cook's Greatest Hits, where he said he had received death threats due to the series.


Cook’s doorstepping investigative style was parodied by comics including Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, as well as Sir Stephen Fry, who poked fun at him in Channel 4 comedy series This Is David Lander.


Cook married twice and had a daughter with his second wife, Frances.

Roger Cook death: Fearless investigative journalist dies, aged 83 | The Independent