Who's Next To Croak?

[cron]

 

[cine]

who will be the third!

[hedwig]

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- An aide says science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has died.

fuck... i don't know what to say, so i'll just quote something polkablues wrote after vonnegut died:

One of the rare, great minds of our lifetime has been extinguished.  I'm going to be depressed for a week now.  So it goes.

RIP.

[Pozer]

[Gamblour.]

Damn, I was very shocked at Minghella, he was so young. I too think the Talented Mr. Ripley is both one of my favorite films and the best performance by Matt Damon.

[Fernando]

Damn, I just found out by reading this thread, yesterday there were very strong winds where I live and so almost the whole city went dark for all day.




RIP Arthur C. and Anthony M.


Edit: Found this letter on another forum.

Arthur C. Clarke Offers His Vision of the Future
by  Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Ray Kurzweil

The science fiction visionary behind HAL offers his predictions of salient events to come in this century.

Originally published December 3, 2001 on KurzweilAI.net.

On Friday, November 30, 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and inventor of the geosynchronous communications satellite, joined myself and two other panelists by video and phone connection from Sri Lanka to offer his vision of the future. The event took place at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts in front of an audience of approximately 500 college and high school students and teachers. The other panelists included Alison Taunton-Rigby, president of Forester Biotech and David Cyganski, WPI professor of electrical and computer engineering and an expert in machine vision.


The legendary science fiction author offered the predictions below. My own view is that Clarke's near term predictions involving energy are at least a
decade premature. However, many of his predictions involving intelligent machines and nanotechnology are insightful and reflect a keen understanding
of the acceleration of technological progress.


Arthur C. Clarke's predictions for the next century:

2002 Clean low-power fuel involving a new energy source, possibly based on cold fusion.
2003 The automobile industry is given five years to replace fossil fuels.
2004 First publicly admitted human clone.
2006 Last coal mine closed.
2009 A city in a third world country is devastated by an atomic bomb explosion.
2009 All nuclear weapons are destroyed.
2010 A new form of space-based energy is adopted.
2010 Despite protests against "big brother," ubiquitous monitoring eliminates many forms of criminal activity.
2011 Space flights become available for the public.
2013 Prince Harry flies in space.
2015 Complete control of matter at the atomic level is achieved.
2016 All existing currencies are abolished. A universal currency is adopted based on the "megawatt hour."
2017 Arthur C. Clarke, on his one hundredth birthday, is a guest on the space orbiter.
2019 There is a meteorite impact on Earth.
2020 Artificial Intelligence reaches human levels. There are now two intelligent species on Earth, one biological, and one nonbiological.
2021 The first human landing on Mars is achieved. There is an unpleasant surprise.
2023 Dinosaurs are cloned from fragments of DNA. A dinosaur zoo opens in Florida.
2025 Brain research leads to an understanding of all human senses. Full immersion virtual reality becomes available. The user puts on a metal helmet
and is then able to enter "new universes."
2040 A universal replicator based on nanotechnology is now able to create any object from gourmet meals to diamonds. The only thing that has value is information.
2040 The concept of human "work" is phased out.
2061 Hunter gatherer societies are recreated.
2061 The return of Haley's comet is visited by humans.
2090 Large scale burning of fossil fuels is resumed to replace carbon dioxide.
2095 A true "space drive" is developed. The first humans are sent out to nearby star systems already visited by robots.
2100 History begins.

[Ravi]

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/performingarts/stories/scofieldobit_0320gl.bedc782.html

'A Man for All Seasons' actor Paul Scofield dead at 86
12:18 PM CDT on Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Associated Press

LONDON — Paul Scofield, the towering British stage actor who won international fame and an Academy Award for the film A Man for All Seasons, has died. He was 86.

Mr. Scofield died Wednesday in a hospital near his home in southern England, agent Rosalind Chatto said. He had been suffering from leukemia.

He made few films even after the Oscar for his 1966 portrayal of Sir Thomas More, the Tudor statesman executed for treason in 1535 after clashing with King Henry VIII. He was a stage actor by inclination and by his gifts — a dramatic, craggy face and an unforgettable voice that was likened to a Rolls-Royce starting up or the rumbling sound of low organ pipes.

Even his greatest screen role was a follow-up to a play — the London stage production of A Man for All Seasons, in which he starred for nine months. Mr. Scofield also turned in a performance in the 1961 New York production that won him extraordinary reviews and a Tony Award.

"With a kind of weary magnificence, Scofield sinks himself into the part, studiously underplays it, and somehow displays the inner mind of a man destined for sainthood," Time magazine said.

Mr. Scofield's huge success with A Man for All Seasons was followed in 1979 by another great historical stage role, as composer Antonio Salieri in Amadeus. Actor Richard Burton, once regarded as the natural heir to Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud at the summit of British theater, said it was Mr. Scofield who deserved that place. "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's," he said.

Mr. Scofield's rare films included Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance in 1974; Kenneth Branagh's 1989 production of Henry V, in which he played the king of France; Quiz Show, Robert Redford's film about the 1950s TV scandal in which Mr. Scofield played poet Mark Van Doren; and the 1996 adaptation of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible .

He was an unusual star — a family man who lived almost his entire life within a few miles of his birthplace and hurried home after work to his wife and children. He didn't seek the spotlight, gave interviews sparingly, and at times seemed to need coaxing to venture out, even onto the stage he loved.

He is survived by his wife, actress Joy Parker, a son and a daughter.

Audrey Woods, the Associated Press

[MacGuffin]

Actor Richard Widmark Dies at 93

Richard Widmark, who made a sensational film debut as the giggling killer in "Kiss of Death" and became a Hollywood leading man in "Broken Lance," "Two Rode Together" and 40 other films, has died after a long illness. He was 93.

Widmark's wife, Susan Blanchard, says the actor died at his home in Roxbury on Monday. She would not provide details of his illness and said funeral arrangements are private.

"It was a big shock, but he was 93," Blanchard said.

After a career in radio drama and theater, Widmark moved to films as Tommy Udo, who delighted in pushing an old lady in a wheelchair to her death down a flight of stairs in the 1947 thriller "Kiss of Death." The performance won him an Academy Award nomination as supporting actor; it was his only mention for an Oscar.

"That damned laugh of mine!" he told a reporter in 1961. "For two years after that picture, you couldn't get me to smile. I played the part the way I did because the script struck me as funny and the part I played made me laugh. The guy was such a ridiculous beast."

A quiet, inordinately shy man, Widmark often portrayed killers, cops and Western gunslingers. But he said he hated guns.

"I know I've made kind of a half-assed career out of violence, but I abhor violence," he remarked in a 1976 Associated Press interview. "I am an ardent supporter of gun control. It seems incredible to me that we are the only civilized nation that does not put some effective control on guns."

Two years out of college, Widmark reached New York in 1938 during the heyday of radio. His mellow Midwest voice made him a favorite in soap operas, and he found himself racing from studio to studio.

Rejected by the Army because of a punctured eardrum, Widmark began appearing in theater productions in 1943. His first was a comedy hit on Broadway, "Kiss and Tell." He was appearing in the Chicago company of "Dream Girl" with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract. He almost missed out on the "Kiss of Death" role.

"The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't want me," the actor recalled. "I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." The director was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, and Hathaway "gave me kind of a bad time."

An immediate star, Widmark appeared in 20 Fox films from 1957 to 1964. Among them: "The Street With No Name," "Road House," "Yellow Sky," "Down to the Sea in Ships," "Slattery's Hurricane," "Panic in the Streets," "No Way Out," "The Halls of Montezuma," "The Frogmen," "Red Skies of Montana," "My Pal Gus" and the Samuel Fuller film noir "Pickup on South Street."

In 1952, he starred in "Don't Bother to Knock" with Marilyn Monroe. He told an interviewer in later years:

"She wanted to be this great star but acting just scared the hell out of her. That's why she was always late couldn't get her on the set. She had trouble remembering lines. But none of it mattered. With a very few special people, something happens between the lens and the film that is pure magic. ... And she really had it."

After leaving Fox, Widmark's career continued to flourish. He starred (as Jim Bowie) with John Wayne in "The Alamo," with James Stewart in John Ford's "Two Rode Together," as the U.S. prosecutor in "Judgment at Nuremberg," and with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in "The Way West." He also played the Dauphin in "St. Joan," and had roles in "How the West Was Won," "Death of a Gunfighter," "Murder on the Orient Express," "Midas Run" and "Coma."

"Madigan," a 1968 film with Widmark as a loner detective, was converted to television and lasted one season in 1972-73. It was Widmark's only TV series.

He also was in some TV films, including "Cold Sassy Tree" and "Once Upon a Texas Train."

Richard Widmark was born Dec. 26, 1914, in Sunrise, Minn., where his father ran a general store, then became a traveling salesman. The family moved around before settling in Princeton, Ill.

"Like most small-town boys, I had the urge to get to the big city and make a name for myself," he recalled in a 1954 interview. "I was a movie nut from the age of 3, but I don't recall having any interest in acting," he said.

But at Lake Forest College, he became a protege of the drama teacher and met his future wife, drama student Ora Jean Hazlewood.

In later years, Widmark appeared sparingly in films and TV. He explained to Parade magazine in 1987: "I've discovered in my dotage that I now find the whole moviemaking process irritating. I don't have the patience anymore. I've got a few more years to live, and I don't want to spend them sitting around a movie set for 12 hours to do two minutes of film."

When he wasn't working, he and his wife lived on a horse ranch in Hidden Valley, Calif., or on a farm in Connecticut. Their daughter Ann became the wife of baseball immortal Sandy Koufax.

[MacGuffin]

Film director Dassin dies in Athens aged 96

Jules Dassin, the American who directed the film "Never on Sunday" and was married to the late Greek actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri, died in an Athens hospital after a short illness on Monday aged 96.

"Greece grieves the loss of a rare human being, an important creator and a true friend," Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a statement. "His passion, energy, fighting spirit and nobility will never be forgotten."

Blacklisted in the United States in the 1950s, he fled to Europe, where he met the young, larger-than-life Greek actress at the Cannes film festival and never looked back.

"I was Greek even before I knew it," Dassin was quoted as saying by Greek state TV.

Born in Connecticut on December 18 1911, Dassin began working as an actor and theatre producer before becoming assistant to film director Alfred Hitchcock in 1940.

He was hailed as a bright talent with his first films in the 1940s but his career froze in 1952, when he was named in testimony to the House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as a member of Hollywood's "communist faction."

Blacklisted and unemployable in Hollywood, he moved to France where he supported himself by writing.

His biggest success was the 1960 film "Never on Sunday," starring Mercouri, which he wrote and directed. It won an Oscar in 1961 for best original song and Dassin received Oscar nominations for best director and best writing, story and screenplay.

After the 1967 military coup in Greece, the couple became vocal opponents of the junta and their home in Paris the centre of the Greek diaspora's resistance. They settled in Greece when democracy returned in 1974.

When the socialists won the 1981 elections, Mercouri was appointed culture minister and Dassin become a Greek citizen, occasionally directing for the theatre.

In his later years Dassin was active in the Greek drive to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens from the British Museum in London, a campaign led with passion by Mercouri.

"This British Museum does not understand what these marbles mean to Greece, how sacred they are," he told Greek TV in heavily accented Greek.

He was well loved by the public and respected across the political spectrum in Greece.

"His death fills us all with deep emotion," said socialist opposition leader George Papandreou. "He will be remembered for all his good work and struggles with Melina for his campaign for the return of the marbles, which will continue."

[MacGuffin]

Charlton Heston dead at 84

Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the '50s and '60s, has died. He was 84.

The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said.

Powers declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.

Heston revealed in 2002 that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease, saying, "I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure."

With his large, muscular build, well-boned face and sonorous voice, Heston proved the ideal star during the period when Hollywood was filling movie screens with panoramas depicting the religious and historical past. "I have a face that belongs in another century," he often remarked.

The actor assumed the role of leader offscreen as well. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute and marched in the civil rights movement of the 1950s. With age, he grew more conservative and campaigned for conservative candidates.

In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the National Rifle Association, for which he had posed for ads holding a rifle. He delivered a jab at then-President Clinton, saying, "America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns."

Heston stepped down as NRA president in April 2003, telling members his five years in office were "quite a ride. ... I loved every minute of it."

Later that year, Heston was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. "The largeness of character that comes across the screen has also been seen throughout his life," President Bush said at the time.

He engaged in a lengthy feud with liberal Ed Asner during the latter's tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild. His latter-day activism almost overshadowed his achievements as an actor, which were considerable.

Heston lent his strong presence to some of the most acclaimed and successful films of the midcentury. "Ben-Hur" won 11 Academy Awards, tying it for the record with the more recent "Titanic" (1997) and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003). Heston's other hits include: "The Ten Commandments," "El Cid," "55 Days at Peking," "Planet of the Apes" and "Earthquake."

He liked the cite the number of historical figures he had portrayed:

Andrew Jackson ("The President's Lady," "The Buccaneer"), Moses ("The Ten Commandments"), title role of "El Cid," John the Baptist ("The Greatest Story Ever Told"), Michelangelo ("The Agony and the Ecstasy"), General Gordon ("Khartoum"), Marc Antony ("Julius Caesar," "Antony and Cleopatra"), Cardinal Richelieu ("The Three Musketeers"), Henry VIII ("The Prince and the Pauper").

Heston made his movie debut in the 1940s in two independent films by a college classmate, David Bradley, who later became a noted film archivist. He had the title role in "Peer Gynt" in 1942 and was Marc Antony in Bradley's 1949 version of "Julius Caesar," for which Heston was paid $50 a week.

Film producer Hal B. Wallis ("Casablanca") spotted Heston in a 1950 television production of "Wuthering Heights" and offered him a contract. When his wife reminded him that they had decided to pursue theater and television, he replied, "Well, maybe just for one film to see what it's like."

Heston earned star billing from his first Hollywood movie, "Dark City," a 1950 film noir. Cecil B. DeMille next cast him as the circus manager in the all-star "The Greatest Show On Earth," named by the Motion Picture Academy as the best picture of 1952.

[Kal]

RIP

He had an interesting life... and he was old... big deal in Hollywood to die peacefully these days and living a life of success without going psycho or being remembered like some punk. He did good!

[Reinhold]

RIP

He had an interesting life... and he was old... big deal in Hollywood to die peacefully these days and living a life of success without going psycho or being remembered like some punk. He did good!

i think plenty of people will still remember him as the NRA punk... considering his involvement with them i guess it is surprising that he was able to die of old age.

[Stefen]

When I think of him, I think of Bowling For Columbine. That's my memory of him. It's unfortunate, but that's the way I'll remember him.

[cron]

[Tictacbk]

...I guess we can finally get that rifle out of his hands.