Who's Next To Croak?

Started by cine, September 28, 2003, 11:07:39 AM

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Alethia

anybody read that fake thing in the associated press or whatever about john goodman being dead?  scared the shit out of me.

ono

It has some credibility only because he's been in much poorer health over the last year, with more weight gain.  It's been said sound men on his current show have to be very careful not to pick up his breathing because of it.  Really quite a shame.  Hope he gets in shape soon.  That show (Center of the Universe) was cancelled, too, so at least he'll have the free time.  Heh.

Two Lane Blacktop

Quote from: ewardanybody read that fake thing in the associated press or whatever about john goodman being dead?

It was apparently a joke played on some folks over at Live Journal, and took on a life of its own.  (So to speak.)

2LB
Body by Guinness

Alethia

Quote from: wantautopia?That show (Center of the Universe) was cancelled, too, so at least he'll have the free time.

let us pray he uses it wisely.

MacGuffin

January 31, 2005 -- EVEN in death, Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect. The late comedy legend's longtime publicist, Kevin Sasaki, got a call from a booker at CNN last week asking him if "Rodney would be available to share his comments on the passing and legacy of Johnny Carson." Sasaki replied that unless CNN had a new way of linking up to the afterlife via satellite, that would be impossible. Dangerfield, of course, passed away last October. Ironically, his new DVD set, "Rodney Dangerfield — The Ultimate No Respect Collection," was posthumously released last month, and includes clips culled from his more than 70 appearances on "The Tonight Show."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Myxo

Quote from: MacGuffinJanuary 31, 2005 -- EVEN in death, Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect. The late comedy legend's longtime publicist, Kevin Sasaki, got a call from a booker at CNN last week asking him if "Rodney would be available to share his comments on the passing and legacy of Johnny Carson." Sasaki replied that unless CNN had a new way of linking up to the afterlife via satellite, that would be impossible. Dangerfield, of course, passed away last October. Ironically, his new DVD set, "Rodney Dangerfield — The Ultimate No Respect Collection," was posthumously released last month, and includes clips culled from his more than 70 appearances on "The Tonight Show."

Pretty embaressing..

MacGuffin

Actor John Vernon of 'Animal House' Dies

John Vernon, a stage-trained character actor who played cunning villains in film and TV and made his comedy mark as Dean Wormer in "National Lampoon's Animal House," has died. He was 72.

Vernon died at home in his sleep Tuesday following complications from Jan. 16 heart surgery, his daughter, Kate Vernon, said Thursday.

The Canadian-born actor found satisfaction in his varied career, his daughter said.

"He loved the comedy that he was able to do, but his training was in drama and he really enjoyed the dramatic roles," she said.

Movie fans may know him best for his role in "Animal House" as Dean Wormer, who is bent on expelling the hard-partying Delta fraternity house. The movie, starring John Belushi and Tim Matheson, is one of the most popular comedies ever made.

Born in 1932 in Montreal, Vernon studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He did repertory work in England and was heard off-screen as the voice of Big Brother in the 1956 film "1984."

He returned to Canada to appear on stage and on television, including the starring role in the 1960s drama "Wojeck," in which he played a coroner.

"John was superb. He really knew how to use the camera, and vocally he was just born to have a mike nearby," Ted Follows, his co-star in "Wojeck," told The Canadian Press.

After appearing on Broadway in "Royal Hunt of the Sun" he became a steady player in U.S. films, making his debut in director John Boorman's "Point Blank" (1967) as a turncoat tossed to his death by Lee Marvin.

Vernon went on to work with other celebrated filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock ("Topaz," 1969); Don Siegel ("Dirty Harry," 1971), and Clint Eastwood ("The Outlaw Josey Wales" 1976).

His deep, menacing voice was custom-made for the many bad guys he played.

He reprised his role in "National Lampoon's Animal House" in the TV spinoff "Delta House" (1979). Other comedy roles followed, including the part of Mr. Big in the film "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" in 1988.

Vernon appeared in a DVD edition of "Animal House" as part of a satiric update on the characters. Wormer was portrayed as a curmudgeonly old man in a wheelchair.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

Actor Ossie Davis found dead in Miami hotel room

NEW YORK - Ossie Davis, the imposing, unshakable actor who championed racial justice on stage, on screen and in real life, often in tandem with his wife, Ruby Dee, has died. He was 87.

Davis was found dead Friday in his hotel room in Miami Beach, Fla., according to officials there. He was making a film called “Retirement,” said Arminda Thomas, who works in his office in suburban New Rochelle and confirmed the death.

Miami Beach police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said Davis’ grandson called shortly before 7 a.m. when Davis would not open the door to his room at the Shore Club Hotel. Davis was found dead and there does not appear to be any foul play, Hernandez said.

Davis, who wrote, acted, directed and produced for the theater and Hollywood, was a central figure among black performers for decades. He and Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a dual autobiography, “In This Life Together.”

Their partnership called to mind other performing couples, such as the Lunts, or Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. Davis and Dee first appeared together in the plays “Jeb,” in 1946, and “Anna Lucasta,” in 1946-47. Davis’ first film, “No Way Out” in 1950, was Dee’s fifth.

Both had key roles in the television series “Roots: The Next Generation” (1978), “Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum” (1986) and “The Stand” (1994). Davis appeared in three Spike Lee films, including “School Daze,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle Fever.” Dee also appeared in the latter two; among her best-known films was “A Raisin in the Sun,” in 1961.

In 2004, Davis and Dee were among the artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Finn

He was a wonderful actor, but I'll always remember him as the Mayor.
Typical US Mother: "Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, Deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty words."

Ravi

Da Mayor is dead  :(

He was a great, great actor.

Ghostboy

And a great human being all around, too.

Myxo

Charlie Rose..

2/10/2005  

AND AN APPRECIATION OF
OSSIE DAVIS

(2nd half of the show..)

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

I know he's not an actor, but this is the who's next to croak thread, so...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20050211/ap_on_en_ot/obit_miller_17

Playwright Arthur Miller Dies at 89

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer

ROXBURY, Conn. - Arthur Miller, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose most famous fictional creation, Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman," came to symbolize the American Dream gone awry, has died. He was 89.

Miller, who had been hailed as America's greatest living playwright, died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury of heart failure, his assistant, Julia Bolus, said Friday. His family was at his bedside, she said.

His plays, with their strong emphasis on family, morality and personal responsibility, spoke to the growing fragmentation of American society.

"A lot of my work goes to the center of where we belong — if there is any root to life — because nowadays the family is broken up, and people don't live in the same place for very long," Miller said in a 1988 interview.

"Dislocation, maybe, is part of our uneasiness. It implants the feeling that nothing is really permanent."

Playwright Edward Albee said Miller had paid him a compliment, saying "that my plays were `necessary.' I will go one step further and say that Arthur's plays are `essential.'"

Miller's career was marked by early success. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for "Death of a Salesman" in 1949, when he was just 33 years old.

His marriage to Marilyn Monroe in 1956 further catapulted the playwright to fame, though that was publicity he said he never pursued.

In a 1992 interview with a French newspaper, he called her "highly self-destructive" and said that during their marriage, "all my energy and attention were devoted to trying to help her solve her problems. Unfortunately, I didn't have much success."

"Death of a Salesman," which took Miller only six weeks to write, earned rave reviews when it opened on Broadway in February 1949, directed by Elia Kazan.

The story of Willy Loman, a man destroyed by his own stubborn belief in the glory of American capitalism and the redemptive power of success, was made into a movie and staged all over the world.

"I couldn't have predicted that a work like `Death of a Salesman' would take on the proportions it has," Miller said in 1988. "Originally, it was a literal play about a literal salesman, but it has become a bit of a myth, not only here but in many other parts of the world."

In 1999, 50 years after it won the Tony Award as best play, "Death of a Salesman" won the Tony for best revival of the Broadway season. The show also won the top acting prize for Brian Dennehy (news), who played Loman.

Miller, then 83, received a lifetime achievement award.

"Just being around to receive it is a pleasure," he joked to the audience during the awards ceremony.

Miller won the New York Drama Critics' Circle's best play award twice in the 1940s, for "All My Sons" in 1947 and for "Death of a Salesman." In 1953, he received a Tony Award for "The Crucible," a play about mass hysteria during the Salem witch trials that was inspired by the repressive political environment of McCarthyism.

That play, still read by thousands of American high-school students each year, is Miller's most frequently performed work.

Miller and Monroe divorced after five years and in 1962 he married his third wife, photographer Inge Morath. That same year, Monroe committed suicide. Miller wrote the screenplay for the Monroe film "The Misfits," which came out in 1960, and reflected on their relationship in his 1963 play "After the Fall."

Reminiscing about Monroe in his 1987 autobiography, "Timebends: A Life," Miller lamented that she was rarely taken seriously as anything but a sex symbol.

"To have survived, she would have had to be either more cynical or even further from reality than she was," he wrote. "Instead, she was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes."

Miller's success, so overwhelming in the 1940s and '50s, seemed to be on the wane during the next two decades. But the 1980s brought a renewal of interest, beginning with a Broadway revival of "Death of a Salesman" starring Dustin Hoffman in 1984.

Enthusiasm for Miller's work was particularly strong in England, which marked his 75th birthday in 1990 with four major productions of his plays.

Miller also directed a Chinese production of "Death of a Salesman" at the Beijing Peoples' Art Theatre in 1983.

Those who saw the Beijing production may not have identified with Loman's career, Miller wrote, but they shared his desire, "which was to excel, to win out over anonymity and meaninglessness, to love and be loved, and above all, perhaps, to count."

In his later years, Miller became increasingly disillusioned with Broadway, and in 1991 he premiered a new play, "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan," in London — the first time he had opened a play outside of the United States.

Miller said at the time he opted for the London opening to avoid the "dark defeatism" of the New York theater scene.

"There is an open terror of the critics (in New York) and of losing fortunes of money," Miller said in an interview that year. "I have always hated that myself. All in all, it seemed like we ought to do the play in London."

He returned to Broadway in 1994 with "Broken Glass," a drama about a dysfunctional family that won respectful reviews and a Tony nomination, but no big audiences. In London, it won an Olivier award as best play.

Even in his later years, Miller continued to write.

"It is what I do," he said in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press.

"It is my art. I am better at it than I ever was. And I will do it as long as I can. When you reach a certain age you can slough off what is unnecessary and concentrate on what is. And why not?"

"Resurrection Blues" had its world premiere at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in the summer of 2002 when Miller was 86. Set in an unnamed banana republic, the satire dealt with the possible televised execution of a revolutionary.

Last October, another new play, "Finishing the Picture," premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It was based on an episode of his marriage to Monroe.

In recent years New York even rediscovered Miller's first Broadway play, "The Man Who Had All the Luck." It was a four-performance flop in 1944 but had a successful revival, starring Chris O'Donnell, nearly six decades later.

Miller's producer, David Reichenthal, said as recently as this week, he and Miller were working on a London revival of "Death of a Salesman." It will go on as planned in May, he said.

"His loss is a little like the Manhattan skyline," Reichenthal said. "I'm at a loss for words."

In accepting his lifetime achievement award at the 1999 Tony awards ceremony, Miller lamented that Broadway had become too narrow.

"I hope that a new dimension and fresh resolve will inspire the powers that be to welcome fiercely ambitious playwrights," Miller said. "And that the time will come again when they will find a welcome for their big, world-challenging plays, somewhere west of London and somewhere east of the Hudson River."

He was born Oct. 17, 1915, Miller was one of three children in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, a manufacturer of women's coats, was hard hit by the Depression in the 1930s, and could not afford to send Miller to college when the time came.

Miller worked as a loader and shipping clerk at a New York warehouse to earn tuition money and eventually attended the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1938.

He wrote his first plays in college, where they were awarded numerous prizes. He also published several novels and collections of short stories.

He wrote several screenplays, including "The Misfits" (1961), which became Monroe's last movie, and "Playing for Time," (1981) a controversial television movie about the women's orchestra at Auschwitz.

He also wrote a number of books with Morathmainly about their travels in Russia and China.

Miller had two children, Jane Ellen and Robert, by his first wife, Mary Slattery, and he and Morath, who died in 2002, had one daughter, Rebecca.

___
"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

UncleJoey

That's really sad. Death of a Salesman is a masterpiece. Extremely moving play. Probably my favorite.
Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack and shit . . . and Jack just left town.

ono

The Crucible = great.  R.I.P.