Rolling Obituary Thread: 2016

i can't believe you used "obscure" and "Jack Rabid" in the same sentence

The band was called Even Worse

I have the Even Worse compilation CD. Don't think John Berry played on it though.

Alan Young, 96, natural causes
Wilbur on Mr. Ed, voice of Scrooge McDuck

RIP. He's reunited with Bamboo Harvester now.

Burt Kwouk at 85.

Oh no! I'll have to tell my friend who used to bump into him all the time after hours Soho drinking dens.

"Just a guy try'n'a make a livin'..." That's what Burt told him. RIP

There's gonna be karate fighting on the BBC News tonight.

RIP

just saw Burt on Saturday in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun

and always forget that he was in Goldfinger, same year he first played Kato in A Shot in the Dark

He has a great cameo in 1970's Deep End where he runs a (after hours Soho) hotdog stand

Nice little Burt memoir by Harry Hill:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/24/burt-kwouk-harry-hill-pink-panther

Alto saxophonist - composer Marco Eneidi, a major figure in the Bay Area and Vienna scenes, best known for his work with Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, William Parker, and Glenn Spearman.

Beth Howland, best known for playing Vera on TV's "Alice."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/arts/television/beth-howland-accident-prone-waitress-from-the-sitcom-alice-dies-at-74.html

General Boy! http://exclaim.ca/music/article/rip_devo_figure_robert_general_boy_motherbaugh

Beth Howland's first husband was Michael J Pollard!

had a crush on vera when I was a kid, tbrr

The Beth Howland thing is weird. "...died on Dec. 31, 2015, in Santa Monica, Calif., her husband said on Tuesday. He had refrained from announcing her death earlier in keeping with her wishes."

Her wishes were to wait 147 days to make an announcement?

per Boston tradition

Was going to say, I think Vera was my first crush (age 9 or so). Geeky, charming.

Beth Howland's first husband was Michael J Pollard!

Had no idea about this, just Googled some pictures and fell straight into the 70s. Yikes.

didnt realize she sang this song in Company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuQea2eVL2Y

cartoonist mell lazarus, of 'miss peach' fame:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/05/25/rip-mell-lazarus-colleagues-salute-the-warm-wit-of-the-momma-and-miss-peach-creator/

RIP, people I haven't thought of in decades.

Tempted to revive my Michael J. Pollard thread.

Just saw a headline that said 'X-Men Apocalypse' to top 'Alice' sequel on Memorial Day Weekend and was confused for a second.

^^Marty, Ellen & Kris--It's not too late!

Lol.

Hm. Seems like I started more than one Michael J. Pollard thread.

Giorgio Albertazzi, whom you may remember from Last Year At Marienbad

http://variety.com/2016/legit/global/italian-stage-and-screen-actor-giorgio-albertazzi-dead-at-92-1201785106/

...which I watched this morning, by an odd coincidence.

Carla Lane

I just looked her up last night to see if she was still alive following a pub conversation about the Liver Birds :-/

butterflies was an odd sitcom

Televangelist Weirdo Jan Crouch

https://www.yahoo.com/celebrity/trinity-broadcastings-jan-crouch-dies-days-stroke-173152090.html

Superfluous 'weirdo'

1969–78, 96 The Liver Birds (with Myra Taylor and others)
1974 No Strings
1975 Going, Going, Gone... Free?
1977 Three Piece Suite
1978–83, 2000 Butterflies
1981–83 The Last Song
1981–82 Solo
1984–85 Leaving
1985–87 The Mistress
1985–86 I Woke Up One Morning
1986–91 Bread
1992 Screaming
1993–94 Luv
1995 Searching

I've only ever seen The Liver Birds, Butterflies and Bread, has anybody here seen any of the others?

imo (from memory because I haven't watched any of them in years)The Liver Birds has some period charm but is essentially mediocre (Polly James is very good in it, though), Butterflies pulls off it's melancholy/bittersweet tone very well despite not being that funny and Bread is one of the worst tv shows ever made.

i feel bad about Carla Lane because on the one hand she was an important voice for women writers in sitcoms in the 70s and 80s but on the other hand she got desperately unfunny the higher her soapbox got. Butterflies had its moments tbf

butterflies was really surprising to me as a kid seeing repeats of it on daytime tv. had never seen a tv show address a protagonist with an ostensibly "good" life suffering disillusionment and sadness, and dealing with the complexity of relationships (the marital relationship is depicted as loving and warm, while at the same time the protagonists wish for something more is painted sympathetically). a housewife's adultery as the subject matter of what is quite a conventional family sitcom - complete with hackneyed running jokes regarding the housewife's cooking skills - seemed transgressive.

Solo and The Mistress were similar to Butterflies, I think. Both starred Felicity Kendal. I was a bit young when they were on, so didn't really get the misery (or the jokes, tbh). I suspect both stand the test of time better than Bread, which was mostly awful.

bread was terrible yes

I just watched an episode of Solo on youtube. it's odd, as well as the Felicity Kendal stuff, which is indeed similar to Butterflies, there are scenes set in the flat above hers where two twenty something liverpudlian women live which are totally a rehash of the Liver Birds, to the point that the actresses seem to be doing impressions of Polly James and Nerys Hughes. they don't seem to actually interact or have any connection with Felicity Kendal and the other characters aside from living in the same building. (also the one doing the Polly James impression is played by the girl from late 80s children's televison show Greenclaws)

https://youtu.be/v9LxIwTc0TA

o man jan crouch

Dave Swarbrick :(

Muhammad Ali being reported.

The ILE thread: Ali

Can think of few other people who deserved the title "The Greatest." RIP.

Swarbrick hung in there a remarkably long time.

Peter Shaffer

https://twitter.com/MLRep/status/739821012569751556

Phyllis Curtin: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_29980853/renowned-soprano-and-longtime-tanglewood-teacher-phyllis-curtain

Jerome Bruner: http://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/jerome-bruner

man, 101 years old ... RIP Bruner