Who's Next To Croak?

[Frederico Fellini]

Lee Thompson Young.

Death by Suicide. I couldn't even tell you what show he used to be on, or what movies he's been in... but I do know I've seen that face countless times. It's sad.

[MacGuffin]

Crime novelist Elmore Leonard dies at 87

Elmore Leonard, one of America's best known crime novelists, died Tuesday morning due to complications from a stroke, according to Leonard's Facebook page and his longtime researcher at the Detroit News, Gregg Sutter.

Leonard, 87, was working on his 46th novel at the time of his death.

Born in New Orleans in 1925, Leonard and his family moved to Detroit when the writer was very young and his father was working for General Motors. Leonard made the city his longtime home, and was referred to as "the Dickens of Detroit" by fans.

His first book, "The Bounty Hunters," was published in 1953. His writing career began with pulp Westerns, only settling into the trademark Leonard realism, crime and wit with 1969's "The Big Bounce," which has been adapted for the movies twice. His most recent novel, "Raylan," was released in 2012.

Twenty-six of his books and short stories have been adapted for the screen, including "Hombre," "Get Shorty," "Jackie Brown," (based on 1992's "Rum Punch") and "Justified," a TV shows based on 1993's "Pronto," 1995's "Riding the Rap" and the 2001 short story 'Fire in the Hole."

Leonard's awards include the Grand Master Edgar Award in 1992, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Award for outstanding achievement in American literature in 2008, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, (for which he was complimented for his "uncanny ear for crooks, cops, and babes") and the National Book Award Medal for Distinguished Contribution in 2012.

In his widely circulated rules of writing, Leonard said, "Never open a book with weather; avoid prologues; keep your exclamation points under control; use regional dialect sparingly; avoid detailed descriptions of characters, places, and things; and try to leave out the part the readers tend to skip."

Most important, however, he said, "if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it."

[MacGuffin]

'ROCKY V' STAR TOMMY MORRISON DEAD AT 44

Tommy Morrison -- a former heavyweight boxing champ and star of "Rocky V" -- died in a Nebraska hospital Sunday night ... after a long battle with AIDS.

Morrison's longtime boxing promoter, Tony Holden, confirmed the death. He tells TMZ, Morrison had been in the hospital for several months battling an illness ... he wouldn't specify what. He died peacefully, his wife by his side.

Back in 1996 Morrison tested positive for HIV, thus ending his boxing career. He later denied having the disease or that it even existed.

In 1990 Morrison starred in "Rocky V" with Sylvester Stallone, playing a rookie boxer training under Rocky Balboa. In 1993 he took home a real title, defeating George Foreman for the heavyweight championship.

He was 44.

[MacGuffin]

Best-Selling Author Tom Clancy Dead at 66

Best-selling author Tom Clancy, whose political thrillers spawned films such as ""The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games," died in a Baltimore hospital on Tuesday. He was 66.
 
The author expanded his reach into films adapted from many of his novels, a videogame company and ghost-written novels with his name attached. Most of his works focused on espionage and military science stories during the Cold War.

Movies based on his Jack Ryan series included "The Hunt for Red October," "Patriot Games," "Clear and Present Danger," and "The Sum of All Fears."

One of the top-selling authors of the modern era, he wrote more than 100 books, which were said to have sold more than 50 million copies in total. "A Clear and Present Danger" was the top-selling book of the 1980s, while in the 1990s he broke the two million sold in a single printing record. Though he wasn't considered a masterful writer, his fans appreciated his attention to the technical details of military and intelligence topics.

He founded the videogame company Red Storm Entertainment, which was sold to Ubisoft, which continued to use his name for games such as the "Ghost Recon" series, "Rainbow Six" and "Splinter Cell."

The upcoming Kenneth Branagh film "Jack Ryan: Shadow One" is based on the characters he created. Chris Pine and Kevin Costner star in the release set for Dec. 25. The latest Jack Ryan novel, "Command Authority," will be published December 3.

Born in Baltimore, the politically conservative author dedicated many of his books to figures such as Ronald Reagan, and came under fire after 9/11 for his criticism of the government and the CIA.

[Ravi]

 

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/news/r.i.p._wes_anderson_film_character_actor_kumar_pallana/

R.I.P. Wes Anderson Film Character Actor, Kumar Pallana
Passed away at the Age of 94
Oct 10, 2013 By Laura Studarus

Sad news tonight—character actor Kumar Pallana has died at the age of 94. He was best known for a series of roles in Wes Anderson films, perhaps most notably Pagoda in The Royal Tenenbaums. He also stole scenes in Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. Outside of Anderson's pastel universe, Pallana also appeared in a string of other Hollywood films, included The Terminal and Another Earth.

Born in colonial India, Pallana's life could have easily been the subject of one of Anderson's films—from making a living as a plate-spinning, magic, balancing, swordplay, and juggling entertainer in America in the 1950s (he was known as Kumar of India) to appearing on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1956 and Captain Kangaroo in 1961.



I met Kumar a few times over the past 5 or 6 years, and even in his advanced age he was lively and friendly. I met him when I shot video of him performing for an event at the AFI film fest in Dallas in 2007, and kept in touch with him every now and then when he was in town.

[samsong]

this really bums me out...

[classical gas]

Marcia Wallace aka Ms. Krabappel

[Ravi]

R.I.P. Antonia Bird

English TV and film director Antonia Bird has died after a cancer battle. She was 54. Bird broke through as a director on episodes of EastEnders and worked extensively on the small screen helming television projects including BBC series Casualty, the Bill Nighy-starring miniseries The Men's Room, and a 2006 special telefilm episode of Cracker. In film she made a detour into teen romance with the 1995 drama Mad Love, starring Drew Barrymore and Chris O'Donnell. Bird frequently directed actor Robert Carlyle who appeared in her feature debut Priest (1994), Face (1997), and Ravenous (1999), the cannibal horror pic that amassed a cult following after initially opening to dismal returns. "Such a sad day today.. RIP Antonia Bird. Farewell my beautiful friend xxx," Tweeted Carlyle. BBC series The Village which debuted this Spring was Bird's final project. She directed four Season 1 episodes of the show created by Peter Moffat. "She said to me after filming finished on The Village: 'I shot the fuck out of it..' Anyone who knew Antonia would know what she meant – she gave EVERYTHING to the things she cared about," Moffat said in a statement. "From a writer's point of view she was wonderful because she listened so hard to the script. If she didn't understand what you were after she'd talk to you until she did and if she didn't agree with it you'd bash it through until you were both happy. You absolutely knew that she'd put what you'd both agreed on the screen. Film making is a collaborative process and it doesn't work if the writer and director don't trust each other. I trusted Antonia completely. Completely devastated that she's gone."

[MacGuffin]

Lou Reed, Rock 'n' Roll Pioneer, Dies at 71
Source: NY Times

Lou Reed, the singer, songwriter and guitarist whose work with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s had an impact on generations of rock musicians, and who remained a powerful if polarizing force for the rest of his life, died on Sunday at his home in Southampton, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 71.

The cause was liver disease, said Dr. Charles Miller of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where Mr. Reed had liver transplant surgery earlier this year and was being treated again until a few days ago.

"I've always believed that there's an amazing number of things you can do through a rock 'n' roll song," Mr. Reed once told the journalist Kristine McKenna, "and that you can do serious writing in a rock song if you can somehow do it without losing the beat. The things I've written about wouldn't be considered a big deal if they appeared in a book or movie."

Mr. Reed played the sport of alienating listeners, defending the right to contradict himself in hostile interviews, to contradict his transgressive image by idealizing sweet or old-fashioned values in word or sound, or to present intuition as blunt logic. But his early work assured him a permanent audience.

The Velvet Underground, which was originally sponsored by Andy Warhol and showcased the songwriting of John Cale, as well as Mr. Reed, wrought gradual but profound impact on the high-I.Q., low-virtuosity stratum of alternative and underground rock around the world.

Joy Division, the Talking Heads, Patti Smith, R.E.M., the Strokes and numerous others were direct descendants. The composer Brian Eno, in an often-quoted interview from 1982, suggested that if the group's first record sold only 30,000 records during its first five years — a figure probably lower than the reality — "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band."

Many of the group's themes — among them love, sexual deviance, alienation, addiction, joy and spiritual transfiguration — stayed in Mr. Reed's work through his long run of solo recordings. Among the most noteworthy of those records were "Transformer" (1973), "Berlin" (1973) and "New York" (1992). The most notorious, without question, was "Metal Machine Music" (1975).

Beloved of Mr. Reed and not too many others, "Metal Machine Music" was four sides of electric-guitar feedback strobing between two amplifiers, with Mr. Reed altering the speed of the tape recorder; no singing, no drums, no stated key. At the time it was mostly understood, if at all, as a riddle about artistic intent. Was it his truest self, was it a joke, or was there no difference?

Mr. Reed wrote in the liner notes that "no one I know has listened to it all the way through, including myself," but he also defended it as the next step after La Monte Young's early minimalism. "There's infinite ways of listening to it," he told the critic Lester Bangs in 1976.

"I was serious about it," Mr. Reed said of the album more than a decade later. "I was also really stoned."

Not too long after his first recordings, made at 16 with a doo-wop band in Freeport, N.Y., Mr. Reed started singing outside of the song's melody, as if he were giving a speech with a fluctuating monotone in his Brooklyn-Queens drawl. That sound, eventually heard with the Velvet Underground on songs like "Heroin," "Sweet Jane" and in his post-Velvets songs "Walk on the Wild Side," "Street Hassle" and others, eventually spread outward to become one of the most familiar frequencies in rock. He played lead guitar the same way, hitting against the wall of his limitations.

Mr. Reed is survived by his wife, the composer and performance artist Laurie Anderson.

Dr. Miller said Mr. Reed decided to return to New York after the doctors could no longer treat his end-stage liver disease.

"He died peacefully, with his loved ones around him," Dr. Miller said. "We did everything we could," added Dr. Miller, the director of the hospital's liver transplant program. "He really wanted to be at home."

Sober since the 1980s, Mr. Reed was a practitioner of Tai Chi. "Lou was fighting right up to the very end," Dr. Miller said. "He was doing his Tai Chi exercises within an hour of his death, trying to keep strong and keep fighting."

"I am a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry," Mr. Reed wrote in a public statement upon his release from the hospital. "I am bigger and stronger than ever." Less than a month later, he wrote a review of Kanye West's album "Yeezus" for the online publication The Talkhouse, celebrating its abrasiveness and returning once more to "Metal Machine Music" to explain an artist's deepest motives.

"I have never thought of music as a challenge — you always figure the audience is at least as smart as you are," he wrote. "You do this because you like it, you think what you're making is beautiful. And if you think it's beautiful, maybe they think it's beautiful."

[jenkins]

of course i don't in general like when someone dies. admit i feel an extra sadness at deaths like this, when a person dies who for so long meant so much to culture. lou reed was in what he helped make. he can't help make it anymore because he's dead. and shall we forget him? the tragic question: will we forget his culture?

lou reed, i won't forget you <33

[Reel]

Man, what a blow to music. It's the end of an era. Might as well be the death of Rock and Roll. Thanks Lou Reed, you opened doors for me in understanding what an auditory experience could be. You were the coolest, I will play your records loud in honor of the champion you remain. Rest In Peace.

[mogwai]

So far there's hasn't been any "Metal Machine music" tributes in the facebook/twitter feeds... yet. 

[Ravi]

http://www.deadline.com/2013/10/british-actor-nigel-davenport-dead-man-for-all-seasons-chariots-of-fire/#utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

R.I.P. Nigel Davenport
By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday October 29, 2013 @ 3:15pm PDT

British veteran actor Nigel Davenport, whose screen career spanned five decades and included roles in Best Picture Oscar-winners A Man For All Seasons and Chariots of Fire, died October 25. He was 85. Davenport's early films included Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and Tony Richardson's Look Back In Anger and The Entertainer; he also appeared in A High Wind in Jamaica (1965), Living Free (1972), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), Nighthawks (1981), Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), and Caravaggio (1986). As a character actor his standout roles include the Duke of Norfolk in A Man For All Seasons, Lord Bothwell in Mary, Queen of Scots, Dr. Van Helsing in the Richard Matheson-penned Dracula, and Lord Birkenhead in Chariots of Fire. In 1974 Davenport starred in Saul Bass's lone directorial effort, the sci-fi bomb turned cult classic Phase IV.

[MacGuffin]

R.I.P. Syd Field
BY THE DEADLINE TEAM
   
Screenwriting guru Syd Field has died. Field, who authored several books about screenwriting and conducted workshops and seminars on the subject, passed away at his home in Beverly Hills on Sunday as a result of hemolytic anemia, according to a statement posted by the Raindance Film Festival. He was 77.

Field's first book on screenwriting, Screenplay, was published in 1979. It has since been published in 23 languages and is used in over 400 colleges and universities around the world. Field has been celebrated as the first writer to outline the paradigm that most screenplays follow, the three-act structure. He was born in Hollywood in 1935 and attended the University of California at Berkley. He began his career in the shipping department of Wolper Productions, before going on to research and write for the original Biography television series, among other Wolper productions. During his career, Field chaired the Academic Liaison Committee at the WGA West, was a lecturer on the faculty at University of Southern California and AFI and has been a special script consultant to 20th Century Fox, the Disney Studios, Universal and Tri-Star Pictures. He was inducted into the Final Draft Hall of Fame in 2006 and was the first inductee into the Screenwriting Hall of Fame of the American Screenwriting Association. He was also a special consultant to the Film Preservation Project for the Getty Center. In his final speaking engagement in September 2013, Field delivered the keynote address at Story Expo in Los Angeles. According to the BBC, he had been due to take part in a screenwriter's summit organized by the Raindance Festival last weekend in London, but was too ill to attend. Details of a memorial service will be announced soon.

[polkablues]

That's too bad. Once I got over my initial knee-jerk reaction against his methods, I ended up gaining a lot of useful knowledge on screenwriting from his books. Plus, his review/defense of Magnolia is one of my favorite things.

http://sydfield.com/film-analysis/magnolia-an-appreciation/