RIP 1983

I had planned not to post any RIPs for a while. There for a good bit, it was all I posted and I was getting sick of it. There's still a dead folk moratorium in place, but I think I can relax my rule this one time for the sake of the little girl that still resides in my head that gets the odd urge to listen to Thriller from time to time.

Michael Jackson died today. If you're a young person (loosely defined for the sake of this post as someone who was born after the Berlin Wall came down, or someone who has never been alive at a time when Law and Order wasn't on the air) or possibly an older person who wasn't big on pop music back in the day (eg: my dad), you only know Michael Jackson as that progressively whiter kiddie diddler who wasn't quite right in the head. Points 1 and 3-I'll allow that. Speaking as someone who usually is the first one to assume the worst about a person, even I'm a little skeptical of point 2. Personally I think he was just a woefully naive and damaged man that never had a chance to grow up and was taken advantage of by everyone who came into contact with him.

Maybe I'm biased-I'm not post-L&O or my dad, I'm old (or young) enough to have experienced the whole Jackson juggernaut. When I was about seven years old, I had Thriller on constant rotation (even had the damn thing on an 8-Track) and had a poster of him up on the wall. I remember walking around with a big boom box on the playground at school during recess in the second grade with my friends, "Beat It" blasting for anyone within earshot. And we all loved it. Time passed and we moved on to the next thing. The poster came down and Thriller moved to the back of the cassette caddy. Never gave him anymore than a passing thought after that except when he eventually started popping up on the news instead of MTV. Maybe it was because of that brief period of time back in 1983 when I was in the second grade, but while I didn't like him anymore as a performer, the passing thoughts I had while watching the news weren't judgmental, they were feelings of pity.

That's what I felt today after hearing about the last newsworthy thing he'll ever do: pity. Not pity for his death, but for his life. I think this guy, who entertained countless people of a certain age, got royally screwed for his troubles. He became a physically warped and mentally unstable punchline as a result. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he did molest those boys. If so, I think karma hit him ten times over and it's not my place to carry any hate for the man.


So it goes...


RIP Michael Jackson.

Dammit. Dammitdammitdammit.

Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in the hit shows "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" and who won a Tony Award for the musical "Mame," died Saturday. She was 86.

Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side, family spokesman Dan Watt said. She had cancer, Watt said, declining to give further details.

"She was a brilliant and witty woman," said Watt, who was Arthur's personal assistant for six years. "Bea will always have a special place in my heart."

Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series "All in the Family" as Edith Bunker's loudly outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), and their blistering exchanges were so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series...

Cont.

RIP

Character actor James Whitmore Passed away today at age 87. Those of you who haven't spent as much time watching old tv shows and movies as I have might be going "Who?", but I can assure you, you do know who he was. And if you don't: how the hell have you not seen this movie yet?

RIP

NEW YORK – John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.

Updike, best known for his four "Rabbit" novels, died of lung cancer at a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass., according to his longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

A literary writer who frequently appeared on best-seller lists, the tall, hawk-nosed Updike wrote novels, short stories, poems, criticism, the memoir "Self-Consciousness" and even a famous essay about baseball great Ted Williams.

He released more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s, winning virtually every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest," and two National Book Awards.

Although himself deprived of a Nobel, he did bestow it upon one of his fictional characters, Henry Bech, the womanizing, egotistical Jewish novelist who collected the literature prize in 1999.

His settings ranged from the court of "Hamlet" to postcolonial Africa, but his literary home was the American suburb, the great new territory of mid-century fiction.

Born in 1932, Updike spoke for millions of Depression-era readers raised by "penny-pinching parents," united by "the patriotic cohesion of World War II" and blessed by a "disproportionate share of the world's resources," the postwar, suburban boom of "idealistic careers and early marriages."

He captured, and sometimes embodied, a generation's confusion over the civil rights and women's movements, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Updike was called a misogynist, a racist and an apologist for the establishment. On purely literary grounds, he was attacked by Norman Mailer as the kind of author appreciated by readers who knew nothing about writing. Last year, judges of Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize voted Updike lifetime achievement honors...

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RIP

Ray Dennis Steckler, director and producer of "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" and other exploitation pics, who was often credited as Cash Flagg, died Jan. 7 in Las Vegas. He was 70.

His other films included "Wild Guitar," "The Thrill Killers," Batman spoof "Rat Pfink a Boo Boo" and "Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters." In later years, he directed and produced campy porn titles such as "The Horny Vampire" and "Debbie Does Las Vegas." He also worked under other pseudynoms such as Sven Christian. He also produced a documentary on his former wife, actress Carolyn Brandt.

Born in Reading, Penn., he served in the Army and got his start in Hollywood as a cinematographer on films such as "Wild Ones on Wheels." He also acted in many of his films.

He later ran a video business in Las Vegas where he continued working on film projects.

He is survived by his wife Katherine, four daughters and two grandchildren.

Variety

RIP

I know I'm the only Trekkie around these parts and most of you don't know this woman from Adam, but I'm posting this anyway. Take my word for it-she was awesome as Lwaxana Troi, so suck it up and pay your respects like good little non sci-fi geeks.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's widow and a fixture of nearly every incarnation of the space travel franchise, died on Thursday. She was 76.

Roddenberry, who suffered from leukemia, died at home in Bel Air, Calif., according to a spokesperson.

Before Star Trek, the Ohio-born actress worked on a range of television shows, including Bonanza and Leave it to Beaver.

She was romantically involved with Roddenberry when he launched Star Trek in the mid-1960s. Though he cast her as the USS Enterprise's unnamed first officer in his pilot, she would go on to fame as the secondary character Nurse Chapel in the original series and in subsequent films. The couple married in 1969.

Roddenberry reappeared in the revamped Star Trek: The Next Generation as one of its beloved reoccurring characters: Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi and as the voice of the starship's onboard computer — a job she would also hold on spin-offs Deep Space Nine and Voyager, audio books, animated series, video games as well as on the forthcoming J.J. Abrams prequel film.

After her husband's death in 1991, Roddenberry continued his legacy by helping bring to life other TV projects he had been working on, including the television series Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda.

Roddenberry is survived by her son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr.

CBC

RIP

Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controverisal photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, her agent Mark Roesler said. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty."

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

The latter helped contribute to her mysterious disappearance from the public eye, which lasted decades and included years during which she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian...

AP

RIP

So long Mr. Bentley...

Paul Benedict, the actor who played the English neighbor Harry Bentley on the sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died. He was 70.

Benedict was found dead Monday on Martha's Vineyard and his brother, Charles, said authorities were still investigating the cause of death.

Benedict began his acting career in the 1960s in the Theatre Company of Boston, alongside such future stars as Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino.

Benedict went on to appear in a number of movies, including a role as the oddball director in "The Goodbye Girl" with Richard Dreyfuss. But he was mainly known for his role as Bentley in "The Jeffersons," which ran on CBS from 1975 to '85.

AP

:(

RIP

RIP

Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol' boy actor in car chase movies like "Smokey and the Bandit," has died of complications from emphysema at 71.

His longtime booking agent, Carrie Moore-Reed, no relation to the star, said Reed died early Monday.

"He's one of the greatest entertainers in the world. That's the way I feel about him," Moore-Reed said.

Reed was a gifted guitarist who later became a songwriter, singer and actor.

As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, he had a string of hits that included "Amos Moses," "When You're Hot, You're Hot," "East Bound and Down" and "The Bird."

In the mid-1970s, he began acting in movies such as "Smokey and the Bandit" with Burt Reynolds, usually as a good ol' boy. But he was an ornery heavy in "Gator," directed by Reynolds, and a hateful coach in 1998's "The Waterboy," starring Adam Sandler...

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RIP

Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film "Shaft," has died, sheriff's officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday.

Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.

Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m., the sheriff's department said.

No foul play is suspected, the agency said in a written statement.

Hayes was a longtime songwriter and arranger for Stax Records in Memphis, playing in the studio's backup band and crafting tunes for artists such as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave in the 1960s.

He released his first solo album in 1967, and his 1969 follow-up, "Hot Buttered Soul," became a platinum hit.

In 1971, the theme from "Shaft" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and won an Academy Award for best original theme song. The song and the movie score also won Grammy awards for best original score and movie theme.

Hayes won a third Grammy for pop instrumental performance with the title track to his 1972 "Black Moses" album.

From the late 1990s through 2006, Hayes provided the voice of "Chef" for Comedy Central's raunchy animated series "South Park," as well as numerous songs.


The role introduced him to a new generation of fans, but he left after the show lampooned his own religion, the Church of Scientology.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

CNN



Ah heck why not:

RIP

CHICAGO (AP) — A publicist says Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor and comedian Bernie Mac has died at age 50.

Publicist Danica Smith says Bernie Mac died early Saturday at a hospital in the Chicago area of complications due to pneumonia.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but he had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently had been hospitalized and treated for pneumonia.

Mac had starring roles in "Ocean's Eleven," "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

AP

RIP

I mentioned this in the post below, but Estelle Getty has made me laugh for over two-thirds of my life. If anyone deserves their own post, it's her.

Goodbye Sophia.

Estelle Getty, who played meddling mother Sophia on "The Golden Girls," died Tuesday morning. She was 84.

Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.

Getty won an Emmy Award in 1988 for her portrayal of the feisty octogenarian. For her role as Sophia, Getty also notched a Golden Globe Award in 1986. She also received an American Comedy Award.

Getty co-starred on "Golden Girls" from 1985-92 and reprised the tart-tongued Sophia on four other TV series: "The Golden Palace," "Nurses," "Empty Nest" and "Blossom." Getty was two months younger than Arthur, but the illusion of her age was maintained through makeup, costume and her deportment...

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RIP. Damn.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Comedian-actor George Carlin, known for his raunchy, but insightful humor, died Sunday in Los Angeles, his publicist said. He was 71.

Jeff Abraham says Carlin went into St. John's Health Center on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain. Carlin died at 5:55 p.m. PDT, the Associated Press reported.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

Carlin was best known for his routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television," which appeared 1972's "Class Clown" album.

When Carlin uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace, the AP reported. The comedy sketch prompted a landmark indecency case after WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where the justices ruled on a 5-to-4 vote that the sketch was "indecent but not obscene," giving the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," Carlin said. "In the context of that era, it was daring."

Cont.

I'm listening to this in the other window and I'm going to post it here. The subject matter is a bit touchy and I'd probably never post it under normal circumstances, but fuck it, it's my favorite and these aren't normal circumstances.

RIP

LOS ANGELES - Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and was seen to hilarious effect on the big screen in "Blazing Saddles," died today. He was 81.

Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said in a statement released by the hospital.

A natural second banana, Korman gained attention on "The Danny Kaye Show," appearing in skits with the star. He joined the show in its second season in 1964 and continued until it was canceled in 1967. That same year he became a cast member in the first season of "The Carol Burnett Show."

Mercury News

RIP

I ruminated a good while on whether to post about this or not. I wasn't exactly a fan of his, and I'll admit that some of that had to do with his politics: I don't have anything against guns but come ON. In the end I decided that anything bad I think about him can't stand up to This.

Or This.

Or OMFG THIS!

This was pretty good, too. Really underrated, sweet gem of a movie. So underrated that there's not even a trailer for it on YouTube. Seriously, it's really cute-if you ever find yourself in a sappy mood, check it out.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Actor Charlton Heston, whose chiseled features and commanding presence won him epic roles from Moses to Michelangelo, died on Saturday night at the age of 84, his family said.


The Oscar-winning Heston, a former president of the influential National Rifle Association lobbying group, died at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, the family said in a statement.

Heston had announced in 2002 that he was suffering symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

"To his loving friends, colleagues and fans, we appreciate your heartfelt prayers and support. Charlton Heston was seen by the world as larger than life," the family said.

"No one could ask for a fuller life than his. No man could have given more to his family, to his profession, and to his country. In his own words, 'I have lived such a wonderful life! I've lived enough for two people'," the statement added.

The family said a private memorial service would be held.

In his heyday, Heston's rugged features and conservative lifestyle seemed to belong to another age. As director Anthony Mann said: "Put a toga on him and he looks perfect." Frank Sinatra once joked: "That guy Heston has to watch it. If he's not careful, he'll get actors a good name."...

Yahoo News

RIP

Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the epic film "2001: A Space Odyssey" and raised the idea of communications satellites in the 1940s, died Wednesday at age 90, an associate confirmed.

Clarke died early Wednesday at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

"He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit," Chase said.

Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick shared an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for "2001."

The film grew out of Clarke's 1951 short story, "The Sentinel," about an alien artifact left on the moon.

CNN

RIP Heath

The details of Heath Ledger's death are all over the place, so I'll forgo copying/pasting the obit. I wasn't a huge fan, but I'm saddened by the loss of someone so young and with such a promising career. Plus, I'll always have a soft spot for him because of 10 Things I Hate About You:




That's one of my top 5 favorite guilty pleasure movies of all time. Such a shame.


PS-It seems a little inappropriate to tack this onto an RIP post, but: Some of the comments on the last few posts are being temperamental. They don't show up when you click on the comments then they reappear when you refresh. It's either my computer or it's Haloscan acting up again. If it ISN'T my computer, I just want to make it known that I'm not deleting comments-I don't roll that way

Goodnight Emily

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Suzanne Pleshette, best known for her role as Bob Newhart's wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died, just days before a ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Pleshette, who underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006, died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said attorney and family friend Robert Finkelstein. The beautiful, husky-voiced TV, film and theater star was set to attend the Jan. 31 ceremony, her 71st birthday.

"She was a pro's pro," Bob Newhart said. "Although we knew she was quite sick, she was one of those people that you thought would go on forever."

"The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette — as his sardonic wife — provided the voice of reason.

Four years after the show ended in 1978, Newhart went on to the equally successful "Newhart" series in which he was the proprietor of a New England inn populated by more eccentrics. When that show ended in 1990, Pleshette reprised her role — from the first show — in one of the most clever final episodes in TV history...


Indeed.


AP

Hey, You Got Your RIP in My Saturday Movie

I was all set to go to bed earlier when I read that 50s horror host and all-around cool chica, Vampira, Had Passed Away. In addition to her hosting gig, she was also a sometime actress, and her most notable role was in a little movie called Plan 9 From Outer Space-perhaps you've heard of it?

I have and I consider it one of my most favorite movies of all time and I say that without (hardly) any irony. It's not a good movie in the classic sense of the word, but it is entertaining. I think Ed Wood's goal was to tell a frightening tale of the ignorance of humanity and where it's going to lead us (kinda like The Day The Earth Stood Still, I guess), but instead he ended up making one of the best unintentional comedies of all time. Basically, poor Ed's heart was in the right place, he just didn't have the means, the encouragement or the talent that was required to pull it off.

Regardless of what he meant to do, Plan 9 ended up being the greatest bad movie of all time (Hal P. Warren can kiss my little white butt-HIS movie was just bad-bad) and the death of Vampira reminded me of that. So I watched it. Again. And it was good. Or bad. Whichever.

So. Even though I've posted it once before, I'm going to post it again in honor of Vampira. The way I look at it, there's only 2 kinds of people in the world-those who've seen Plan 9 and those who haven't. The people who haven't seen it need to see it and the ones who have, the ones who've actually managed to sit through the whole thing, are the types who'd sit through it again-and like it. I'm performing a public service, really, in addition to showing my respect for an awesome lady.

2 birds, one stone. Yay me.