Rolling Obituary Thread 2014

Joe Cocker

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30582761

RIP Billie Whitelaw. The fact that she was married to Peter Vaughan, and that Vaughan's best friend Donald Pleasance lived with them for a time, always makes me think - house sinister!

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler)

Weird! reviewing The Babadook last week, I noted how much Essie Davis reminded me of her.

Right hold on here. Billie Whitelaw AND Joe Cocker?!?!?!

Who will be the third?

Someone else from Yorkshire no doubt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

Come to think of it, with Bobby Keys recent passing, anybody remaining from that tour ought to watch their back.

A bit more obscure

http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/81889

Soul singer Wendy Rene has died at the age of 67.

The singer suffered a stroke last week (December 16) and passed away in her home town of Memphis, reports Billboard.

Born Mary Frierson, the artist was given her stage name by fellow singer Otis Redding. She signed to Stax in Memphis in 1963 alongside her group The Drapels and also embarked on a solo career, with songs such as 'After Laughter, Comes Tears', which was later covered by Lykke Li.

She had planned to retire from the music industry in 1967 to focus on family life, but was set to play one last show, with Redding and his band the Bar-Kays. However, she changed her mind at the last minute and Redding and his band perished in a plane crash on the way to the gig.

'After Laughter, Comes Tears' later went on to be sampled by the Wu Tang-Clan on their track 'Tearz' on their 1993 album 'Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)'. In recent years Rene experienced something of a resurgence, playing live in New Orleans in 2010, while her music was re-released on the Light In The Attic label, which also put out music by Rodriguez, with the 2012 compilation 'After Laughter Comes Tears: Complete Stax & Volt Singles, Rarities, 1964-1965'.

aw shit. that compilation is really good, too.

I keep two of her songs on my hard drive: "Gone for Good" and "Crying All By Myself."

Jeremy Lloyd ('Allo 'Allo and Are Your Being Served co-creator)

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30591740

Joseph Sargent, director of lotsa TV and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-joseph-sargent-20141224-story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/us/in-marion-little-joe-washingtons-death-houston-loses-a-link-to-the-blues.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Meant to post this a few days ago: Edward Greenspan, sort of the Canadian F. Lee Bailey. His clients included Conrad Black, Garth Drabinsky, and an author who wrote a book on Paul Bernardo.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/12/28/edward_greenspan_fought_well_against_unjust_laws.html

To round off the year (and finish this massive, pointless project I set myself for some long-forgotten reason), 2220 people who died in 2014:

http://haonowshaokao.com/2014/12/30/obituary-for-2014/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30631088

Luise Rainer, 104.

That's amazing that she was still alive--had no idea. I've never seen The Great Ziegfeld or The Good Earth. I bought a little pocketbook on the Academy Awards as a teenager, so her back-to-back awards were imprinted on my mind at an early age.

wow.

Of course, no one watches those two movies anymore, including me. I don't think I ever saw Ziegfeld.

she did a Frank Borzage film with Tracy, THAT I'd see.

http://www.eonline.com/news/610111/christine-cavanaugh-voice-of-chuckie-on-rugrats-dies-at-age-51

She retired several years ago, and apparently died of a sleep apnea related cause.

Aww. Loved her voice on a ton of cartoons in the 90s.

saw The Good Earth my freshman year of high school -- it made no impression other than how pious it was.

For some reason I remembered her turn as the son on The Critic as much as the others (Gosalyn from Darkwing Duck, Dexter from Dexter's Laboatory). Too bad that article doesn't explain how she died at only 51!

huh, i just saw her on "I Know That Voice" on Netflix Instant. RIP

Rainer is well-known to people who participate in dead pools. Good for her for proving them wrong.

I watched Ziegfeld around a year ago in an attempt to watch all the Best Picture winners. It's not a good movie, but I made it through. (I did not make it through Cavalcade.) Rainer plays the person who Z hyped up as always bathing in milk. Her acting is extreme emoting that happens to be in-character.

Last time she was mentioned in these parts prior to today was here, I think: I saw Mickey Rooney "perform" tonight at the Cinegrill in Hollywood

Edward Herrmann :-(

http://www.tmz.com/2014/12/31/edward-herrmann-dead-gilmore-girls/

i'll always remember him from 'the lost boys'

I really loved him as The Hay's Code rep in The Aviator...and of course Gilmore Girls and his Dodge commercials...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRugI7SMXLk

I've seen him in a lot of movies, but I had to check his IMDB page to remember which ones. The two things I most associate him with: The Paper Chase, and playing Nelson Rockefeller in Nixon.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/53d9eb7aa7a9cc5f923430adfb8ea906/tumblr_mmaq7bkQLJ1rbgu1so2_250.gif

To those of us of a certain age, he was FDR in a couple '70s miniseries (opp Jane Alexander as Eleanor). And in the John Huston film of Annie, which I've never seen.

First thing I thought of was this:http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/rip-edward-herrmann-1943-2014-a-john-cheever-memory-20141231aa

Probably time for somebody to roll thread.

Sorry that link had some extra junk on the end. Reposting
http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/rip-edward-herrmann-1943-2014-a-john-cheever-memory-20141231

there will be spillover deaths for a few days yet

Rainer is well-known to people who participate in dead pools. Good for her for proving them wrong.

― Whitney Di-Ennial (I M Losted)

by dying

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mario-cuomo-new-york-governor-dead-82-article-1.2063258

I thought the late WBAI/WABC radio iconoclast Lynn Samuels summed up Mario's liberal bona fides rather well: "Makes pretty speeches."

(more than the son manages, God knows)

Forgot this was presented as a New Year's commercial...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z4JDBgVWKs

http://artsfuse.org/120300/fuse-remembrance-bishop-lee-mitchell-an-appreciation/

excerpt:

A beloved figure to both the local gospel community and deep southern soul collectors, Bishop Lee Mitchell has passed following a long illness, according to social media reports from his friends and family. Mitchell was 75.

One of the leading deep soul websites called the Alabama-born Mitchell “one of the great unknowns who never made a bad disc” because of the staggering secular 45s he released in the ’60s and ’70s.

After moving to Boston in 1958, Mitchell replaced the renowned Bill Moss in the Bibletones. In 1967 he cut a record for Sure Shot, a label owned by the infamous Texas wheeler and dealer Don Robey. The discs he made in the ’70s weren’t big hits, but in recent years they’ve been spun by the legendary British DJ John Peel and fetched upwards of $350 on eBay. According to one story, Mitchell was offered “Let’s Stay Together” before Al Green cut it but turned it down. Sessions for the great Alabama producer Neal Hemphill resulted in a few 45s, but the full album has still never seen the light of day.

Recent years?

Never mind..