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In Memoriam: Entertainment Industry Celebrity Deaths

Kromm

By Kromm
in Everything Else TV

Mr. Sparkle
Message added by Mr. Sparkle,

Reminder:

This thread is for deaths of celebrities in the entertainment business only. No notices about politicians, please. 

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Bastet
Bastet

Piss up a rope, Val Kilmer.  If your physical illness got so bad that your life utterly sucked and no end to that suffering was in sight, so that suicide was or seemed to be the best of the available

wilsie
wilsie
BetterButter
BetterButter

Olivia Newton-John Has Died At 73

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paulvdb

paulvdb

20 hours ago, bluegirl147 said:

I know what you mean.  I think I first saw him on Hearts Afire almost 30 years ago.  After that all I needed to do was hear his voice and I knew it was him.  

I read his book this year and he pulled himself through some tough times.  He will be missed.

After reading the title and description I do remember that I watched Hearts Afire, but it was so long ago that I remember nothing about it, not even who was in it. The first time I remember seeing Leslie Jordan was in the short-lived WB summer series Hidden Palms. After that I recognized him in the few other roles I've seen him in.

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MissAlmond

MissAlmond

(edited)
11 hours ago, BetterButter said:

R.I.P. Jules Bass, producer and director of iconic animated specials

As for me and my house, it's still Rudolph every Christmas. #TeamHermey!

R.I.P. Mr. Bass and thank you and Mr. Rankin for all the childhood memories.

Edited by MissAlmond
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Lugal

Lugal

One of the funniest things I ever saw Leslie Jordan in was Alan Tudyk's Con Man, where he played a version of himself who admitted being gay was just an act to get close to and skeeve on women.  Then he ended up locked in the boiler room with everyone else and they rehearsed I'm With Stupid, Lou Ferrigno's musical version of Of Mice and Men.  Leslie played Curley.

He will be missed.

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Hiyo

Hiyo

Michael Kopsa Dies: ‘The X-Files’, ‘Stargate SG-1’ Actor Was 66.

Among his earliest credits were voiceover work for such animated series as Mobile Suit Gundam and small in-person roles on the 1988 Mr. T series T and T. By the mid-’90s he had booked roles on The Commish, Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years, Highlander, and The X-Files. Subsequent credits include roles on Poltergeist: The Legacy, The Outer Limits, Beggars and Choosers, and, in the 2000s, Action Man, Smallville, and Galaxy Angel.

He recurred in two separate roles on Stargate SG-1, portraying a TV news anchor and General Kerrigan. He voiced a couple roles on Dragon Ball Z, and, in 2001’s X-Men: Evolution, he voiced the character of Dr. Hank McCoy. In 2006 and 2007, he played Ray Ellis on Falcon Beach, and he played Captain Windmark in 2012’s Fringe, among many, many other roles.

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magicdog

magicdog

6 hours ago, MissAlmond said:

As for me and my house, it's still Rudolph every Christmas. #TeamHermey!

Same!  Every time I deal with idiots I can't help but think of that classic tune in my head....

We're just a couple of misfits....I'm not just a nitwit...

 Local radio DJs even used a clip from that song.  Always made me smile!!

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Bastet

Bastet

(edited)
10 hours ago, paulvdb said:

After reading the title and description I do remember that I watched Hearts Afire, but it was so long ago that I remember nothing about it, not even who was in it.

A whole bunch of people who are no longer with us:  Markie Post, John Ritter, Wendie Jo Sperber, Conchata Ferrell, George Gaynes, Beah Richards, Ed Asner, and Maxine Stuart in addition to Leslie Jordan.

Edited by Bastet
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Notabug

Notabug

9 minutes ago, Bastet said:

A whole bunch of people who are no longer with us:  Markie Post, John Ritter, Conchata Ferrell, George Gaynes, Beah Richards, Ed Asner, and Maxine Stuart in addition to Leslie Jordan.

Also, the very talented and funny Wendie Jo Sperber.  Billy Bob Thornton, who is still with us, played her husband in the series.

I watched the series when it aired and really enjoyed it, was sorry it was canceled.

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Bastet

Bastet

3 minutes ago, Notabug said:

Also, the very talented and funny Wendie Jo Sperber. 

Jeez, I am losing it; I would have sworn I typed her name right after Ritter's.  I'll edit accordingly, thanks.

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Calvada

Calvada

I first saw Leslie Jordan on Murphy Brown, where he played a man wrongly convicted.  Murphy and the gang gets him out of prison and he is unable to function in the world, so he becomes Murphy's secretary.  Of course, hilarity ensues.  A very funny episode as he can do nothing right and he's slowly destroying Murphy's work.  He had one great line about how he supposed he should have taken the computer class in prison rather than the one on interpretive dance.  Murphy finally gets rid of him (I cannot remember how - it's been a few decades since I saw this) and when she gets home at the end of the day, Eldin tells her there's some strange little man delivering the water, a crash is heard from the kitchen, and the unmistakable voice of Leslie Jordan calling out to Eldin to ask where the mop is kept!  He was gold then and always.    

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andromeda331

andromeda331

I forgot until I saw it today Leslie Jordan was on Night Court in the Last Temptation of Mac he had been part of the Thanksgiving's Day parade holding the rope Winkie the Bunny balloon which got knocked airborn with Irwin. He shows up at the end to explain that they were shot down by the air force who probably thought it from the Russians. He bounced off an awning and onto a bus which swerved and he went flying into chrysanthemums. Harry tells him he must be the luckiest man on Earth. Irwin says no Dan Quayle is.

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Yogisbooboo64

Yogisbooboo64

On 10/26/2022 at 4:10 PM, Bastet said:

Wendie Jo Sperber

Sighs....my stomach just twinged.

Wendy Jo and especially Nell Carter were my sheroes growing up, in that they showed that you could be overweight and sexy.  They never played the typical fat girl roles and both were light on their feet.

God, I miss them.

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magicdog

magicdog

1 hour ago, BetterButter said:

Jerry Lee Lewis, Rock Pioneer and ‘Great Balls of Fire’ Singer, Dies at 87

My parents were children of the 50s so JLL was definitely a part of my listening experience as much as it was theirs!  That man put a lot into those 87 years!  All those controversies like marrying his cousin Myra, his son Steve Allen Lewis drowning, one of his other wives also drowning.  I hope he can RIP now.

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willco

willco

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I had no idea the child rapist was still alive.  I thought he died years ago.

I read a story about him a year or 2 back and was suprised to hear he was still alive, too. I really thought he was gone when I read about him back then. Maybe it's just I assumed he was let's be honest, he didn't live the healthiest lifestyle !

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bluphoenix451

bluphoenix451

6 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I had no idea the child rapist was still alive.  I thought he died years ago.

Yep https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/jerry-lee-lewis-obituary-1935-2022.html

"He once shot his bass player in the chest; just about all of his seven wives, including one who was a child, said he beat them; and there’s a lingering suspicion that he murdered wife No. 5. "

I recently listened to a podcast that covered him and in particular the death of his 5th wife and I totally believe he killed her and leveraged his hometown connections to get away with it. 

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Bastet

Bastet

I knew Lewis was still alive because he was just inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame a couple of weeks ago (but didn't attend the ceremony at the last minute per his doctor's advice; turns out he should have gone for one last hurrah).  I knew that because he got the Veteran Artist slot that should have gone to Tanya Tucker and I'm bitter (I assume they figured they better do it this year before he croaks, and she'll be next year [better be!], but, yeah -- bitter).

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andromeda331

andromeda331

2 hours ago, bluphoenix451 said:

Yep https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/jerry-lee-lewis-obituary-1935-2022.html

"He once shot his bass player in the chest; just about all of his seven wives, including one who was a child, said he beat them; and there’s a lingering suspicion that he murdered wife No. 5. "

I recently listened to a podcast that covered him and in particular the death of his 5th wife and I totally believe he killed her and leveraged his hometown connections to get away with it. 

Wow! I had no idea! How horrible!

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roamyn

roamyn

12 hours ago, Bastet said:

Goddamn, now that's a proper telling of his life, unlike all these anemic "he was complicated and controversial, but, hey, fun songs" obituaries.  What an utter creep.

Unfortunately I can't read it.

I'll have to do some digging abt the death of wife #5.  I'm intrigued now.

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shapeshifter

shapeshifter

14 hours ago, Bastet said:
17 hours ago, bluphoenix451 said:

 https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/jerry-lee-lewis-obituary-1935-2022.html

Goddamn, now that's a proper telling of his life, unlike all these anemic "he was complicated and controversial, but, hey, fun songs" obituaries.  What an utter creep.

1 hour ago, roamyn said:

Unfortunately I can't read it.

I was able to read it on my iPhone (with Safari) but not on my laptop.
Maybe because on my phone browser I'm not logged into Google?

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MissAlmond

MissAlmond

Producer Stephen C. Grossman who produced the TV series Newhart and worked production on The Betty White Show, Hope & Gloria, and Reno 911! has died, age 76.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/stephen-c-grossman-dead-newhart-1235251342/

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/stephen-grossman-dead-bob-newhart-show-1235417500/

https://deadline.com/2022/10/steve-grossman-dies-veteran-television-producer-newhart-was-76-obituary-1235158123/

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MissAlmond

MissAlmond

Academy Award winning set decorator Ian Whittaker who won an art direction Oscar for Howard’s End and worked on such films as To Sir, With Love, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Under the Cherry Moon, Alien, and Sense and Sensibility has died, age 94

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ian-whittaker-dead-alien-howards-end-1235250185/

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/26/ian-whittaker-obituary

https://movies.mxdwn.com/news/academy-award-winning-set-decorator-ian-whittaker-dies-at-94/

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MissAlmond

MissAlmond

(edited)

Drummer D.H. Peligro who played for the Dead Kennedys and Red Hot Chili Peppers has died following an accidental fall, age 64.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/d-h-peligro-dead-kennedys-drummer-dead-obit-1234620991/

https://pitchfork.com/news/d-h-peligro-dead-kennedys-drummer-dies-at-63/

https://deadline.com/2022/10/d-h-peligro-dead-drummer-for-dead-kennedys-red-hot-chili-peppers-was-63-1235158334/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/31/dh-peligro-dead-kennedys-drummer-dies

Edited by MissAlmond
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OtterMommy

OtterMommy

Julie Powell, the author of Julie and Julia, and who was played by Amy Adams in that movie, has died.

I was recently wondering what had happened to her.  Her writing career seemed to come to an abrupt end after her disasterous (in so many ways) second memoir.  I can't say that I was a fan of hers, but 49 is too young.  Cause of death is reported as cardiac arrest, which could really mean anything.

ETA: Her husband (same husband she had in Julie and Julia, which is surprising if you’ve read Cleaving) said that she had Covid earlier this year, which may have been what led to cardiac arrest.

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meowmommy

meowmommy

5 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

Cause of death is reported as cardiac arrest, which could really mean anything.

This.  Cardiac arrest is the last thing that happens when we all die.  Our heart stops.  It's never the cause of death.

I liked the book and the movie, as long as I didn't take her intensity too seriously.  It was always mildly interesting that Julia Child did not appreciate her work at all.  But 49 is way too young, no matter what.

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Vermicious Knid

Vermicious Knid

Pioneering gay country artist Patrick Haggerty, also known as Lavender Country, dead at 78.

Quote

Haggerty never attempted to tamp down or hide his queerness. He was kicked out of the Peace Corps in the ’60s for being gay, he told CNN earlier this year. He found family in Seattle’s LGBTQ community, members of which helped convince Haggerty, a self-proclaimed “stage hog,” to record an album. He told Pitchfork in 2014 that his gay friends in Seattle were “who we made it for, and that’s who we played it to.”...

In the decades between his first and second albums, Haggerty devoted his life to activism. A staunch socialist – he often called himself a “screaming Marxist b*tch” – he advocated for HIV/AIDS awareness, LGBTQ causes and the civil rights of Black Americans. He had two children with his husband and retired to a town across the Puget Sound, his musical dreams long dashed....

But in 2013, a record collector purchased Haggerty’s record on eBay and shared it with Greaves, who “cold-called” Haggerty and discussed re-releasing the album on his label, Paradise of Bachelors. Haggerty was suspicious, Greaves remembered – Haggerty, as he told CNN earlier this year, was mostly performing for nursing home crowds for free at that time....

As more people heard “Lavender Country” and learned Haggerty’s story, his contributions to country music were acknowledged and appreciated more widely. He even starred in a 2016 documentary short about his life and legacy, and his music soundtracked an original ballet performed by a company in San Francisco.

He performed the songs he’d written more than 40 years earlier with new gay country stars like Orville Peck and Trixie Mattel, who’ve both found considerable success for integrating their identities into their acts...Over the last year, Lavender Country played shows across the US in support of its second record, “Blackberry Rose,” performing with other LGBTQ country acts like Paisley Fields, who remembered Haggerty as a “trailblazer, fearless and outspoken.”...

Haggerty never aspired to country stardom in the traditional sense and had no regrets about the winding road it take to get him there. He still expressed disbelief that he could live his dream – performing music with a message – and do it his way.

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Zella

Zella

(edited)
5 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

Julie Powell, the author of Julie and Julia, and who was played by Amy Adams in that movie, has died.

I was recently wondering what had happened to her.  Her writing career seemed to come to an abrupt end after her disasterous (in so many ways) second memoir.  I can't say that I was a fan of hers, but 49 is too young.  Cause of death is reported as cardiac arrest, which could really mean anything.

ETA: Her husband (same husband she had in Julie and Julia, which is surprising if you’ve read Cleaving) said that she had Covid earlier this year, which may have been what led to cardiac arrest.

You know, I was just thinking about her this morning for the first time in a long time and then was surprised to get notices about her death tonight. I read Julie and Julia several years ago and liked it well enough. I never read Cleaving but I ended up reading a lot about it just because I was so simultaneously taken aback and fascinated by how much she blew up her career and seemingly her marriage with it. 

Edited by Zella
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magicdog

magicdog

5 hours ago, meowmommy said:

It was always mildly interesting that Julia Child did not appreciate her work at all. 

There's understandable reason for that.  First, Julia Child was not amused by Julie's use of profanity throughout her blog.  Secondly, Julie claimed some recipes were hard to do.  Julia responded by saying [to paraphrase] that she had worked every single recipe [in that book] at least 12 times in her own kitchen to make sure of consistency and that even the kitchen novice could make these sumptuous dishes.  She was insulted to have someone claim it was hard.

I'll always enjoy the film, Julie & Julia, but based on what I've read about the real Julie, I'm not impressed.    

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Ohiopirate02

Ohiopirate02

6 hours ago, magicdog said:

There's understandable reason for that.  First, Julia Child was not amused by Julie's use of profanity throughout her blog.  Secondly, Julie claimed some recipes were hard to do.  Julia responded by saying [to paraphrase] that she had worked every single recipe [in that book] at least 12 times in her own kitchen to make sure of consistency and that even the kitchen novice could make these sumptuous dishes.  She was insulted to have someone claim it was hard.  

I did not read Julie's blog but did read her book, and I have to side with Julie on the ease of the recipes.  When you reach expert status like Julia did you lose touch with how a novice interprets recipes.  Julia may have thought she dumbed down the recipes enough for a novice to understand but she really did not.  She also never factored in the difficulties that arise when one tries to make complicated recipes in your average NYC kitchen.  When you have to place your cutting board over your sink to have more than 8 inches of counter space, simple recipes become difficult.

Also, aspics are revolting.  

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Bethany

Bethany

12 hours ago, Zella said:

I never read Cleaving but I ended up reading a lot about it just because I was so simultaneously taken aback and fascinated by how much she blew up her career and seemingly her marriage with it. 

Your comment got me looking up reviews of this book on Goodreads.  My god.  I hope she changed in her last years otherwise she led a pretty sad and self destructive life after what could have been a life changing (for the better) early success.

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Zella

Zella

(edited)
1 hour ago, Elizabeth Anne said:

Your comment got me looking up reviews of this book on Goodreads.  My god.  I hope she changed in her last years otherwise she led a pretty sad and self destructive life after what could have been a life changing (for the better) early success.

Yeah and the worst part is her depiction of her husband in the first book is of someone who was quite supportive of her. Obviously depictions aren't always reality (seems like she wrote somewhat differently about the marriage on her Patreon recently), but it certainly didn't make her look sympathetic. 

I have seen that in recent years she's been more open about battling alcoholism and depression. Not sure for how long, but it certainly could help explain why she seemed to be so self-destructive. 

As for taking sides on the whole Julia Child versus Julie Powell thing, I can see both perspectives. I honestly don't blame Julia Child for distancing herself from the project and Powell. I liked the book okay because it could be really funny (especially in narrating cooking gone awry), but Powell often came across as a lot in it. I can appreciate her honesty in her depiction of herself while also realizing that if she suddenly wrote about me, I wouldn't necessarily be rushing off to initiate contact either. I remember not finding her particularly sympathetic or likable despite liking the book. And certainly nothing about the buzz around Cleaving dispelled that perception. 

But I also completely understand why Powell was hurt by the snub. I thought that, regardless of her other issues, her affection for Child as a food and TV personality seemed pretty genuine. 

Edited by Zella
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