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2017 Celebrity Deaths


Oerwinde

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So we had Miguel Ferrer, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Mary Tyler Moore, and now John Hurt. 2017 seems to be off to a bad start.

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The area between the balls and the butt is a hotbed of terrorist activity.

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Jaki Leibezeit also died earlier this week. He was one of rock's greatest drummers and performed with a number of great pioneers in the scene, and was a founder of Can. To those who don't know the band, go check it out, it's fantastic. R.I.P. to one of the greats.

 

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They keep coming...

 

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/emmanuelle-riva-french-star-hiroshima-mon-amour-amour-dies-age-89

 

Emmanuelle Riva, in my opinion one of the greatest actresses of all time and best known for Amour and Hiroshima Mon Amour, just died. Of course she was of a very advanced age by now, but all the same it's sad news. R.I.P.

 

Between Leibezeit, Hurt and Riva, this week's been devastating. Real shame, but as I've mentioned elsewhere, what with the 50s through 70s having presented such a huge boom in the arts it's only likely that we'll experience more of these huge losses in the coming years.

Edited by algroth

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Beyond the above listed individuals, I'll add that William Peter Blatty author of THE EXORCIST, author of the book it was based on and director/screenplay writer for the great, strange philosophical film THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (aka TWINKLE, TWINKLE, KILLER KANE) passed away on the 12th.

 

And Mike Connors.  Probably best known to US TV audiences as the lead in MANNIX (or if they're old enough, they might remember his days as a basketball player at UCLA).  Possibly best known to Fallout fans as the small-time criminal who survived the post-apocalypse in Roger Corman's THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (one of the many listed influences, IIRC on Fallout).

 

We also lost Barbara Hale, probably best known as Della Street in the long-running Raymond Burr TV version of Earl Stanley Gardner's seminal lawyer-as-detective character, PERRY MASON.  She had a long career, although primarily in small roles before taking the Street role. She originally wanted to be an animator and worked as a model for Roy Ketcham's comic strip RAMBLIN' BILL (aka BOWLEGGED BILL)

 

And lastly, but not least, Alman Brother's Band drummer Butch Trucks has also passed away.  He was #71 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time with the bands other drummer Jaimoe Johanson.

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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Well, at least the folks we've lost in '17 have been elderly who lived long happy lives. Still sad but less so than when 2016 was devouring young and old alike.

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"While it is true you learn with age, the down side is what you often learn is what a damn fool you were before"

Thomas Sowell

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Beyond the above listed individuals, I'll add that William Peter Blatty author of THE EXORCIST, author of the book it was based on and director/screenplay writer for the great, strange philosophical film THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (aka TWINKLE, TWINKLE, KILLER KANE) passed away on the 12th.

 

True, I'd forgotten about that. The Ninth Configuration is excellent, and The Exorcist III, which he directed, is second in the series only to the original film (which may not be saying that, but it's still a very good film).

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More people should see The Ninth Configuration.  In fact I should re-watch it again myself, its been a few years.  Weirdly as much as I liked the original THE EXORCIST, I've never seen any of the sequels, including Blatty's 3rd.

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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More people should see The Ninth Configuration.  In fact I should re-watch it again myself, its been a few years.  Weirdly as much as I liked the original THE EXORCIST, I've never seen any of the sequels, including Blatty's 3rd.

Best to avoid Boorman's Exorcist II: The Heretic, it's a travesty in every way. Haven't seen the rest I think, but all I've heard points to them being little better.

 

For the sake of getting more people interested in The Ninth Configuration, here's the scene I watched that made me want to check it out in the first place:

 

Edited by algroth

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The reputation of Exorcist II: The Heretic is part of why I never proceeded with watching the rest.  Boorman has made some genuinely great films (IMO), but its my understanding that Excorsist II was made under the conditions ripe for bad film making - the script was still being re-written while they filmed.

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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The reputation of Exorcist II: The Heretic is part of why I never proceeded with watching the rest.  Boorman has made some genuinely great films (IMO), but its my understanding that Excorsist II was made under the conditions ripe for bad film making - the script was still being re-written while they filmed.

Oh yeah, this is not indicative of Boorman's overall career or my opinion of him, just that the film is a notorious flop even amidst fans of the director and the saga. I have my gripes with Boorman myself, I think his disparagement of the more, err... Fantastical genres (to my awareness at least) are visible in the films he's made in each (The Heretic, Zardoz, Excalibaur), and I do think these feel like very lazy films because of it. Deliverance, Hell in the Pacific and Point Break are all very good though.

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Geoff Nicholls, keyboardist for Black Sabbath from 1979 to 2004 - http://www.artistdirect.com/entertainment-news/article/geoff-nicholls-black-sabbath-keyboardist-dead-at-68/11867262

 

Not sure if these really count as 'celebrity' deaths, but...

 

Comic Artist Dan Spiegle; I mostly knew him from various Gold Key titles (including the first Doctor Spektor with Don Glut), his work in Blackhawks and the Eclipse comic Crossfire with Mark Evanier

http://www.newsfromme.com/2017/01/30/dan-spiegle-r-p/

Namco founder Masaya Nakamura; originally the business was Nakamura Manufacturing before changing their name to Namco.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/business/pac-man-masaya-nakamura-dead.html

I cannot - yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do "must" and "cannot" meet? Yet I must - but I cannot! ~ Ro-Man

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Wetton was a founding member of ASIA and U.K., IIRC.  RIP

You recall correctly. I am slightly ashamed to admit I've only ever seen him live in the context of Asia, but even in that live show (and with a formation that essentially could have been a prog supergroup, including Carl Palmer, Steve Howe and Geoff Downes) they played a handful of tracks from their most reknown bands respectively and absolutely killed on each. No Tomorrow, U.K., Atomic Rooster or Crazy World of Arthur Brown though, unfortunately. ;_; (Not that I was expecting any though.)

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I'd suspect at this point most would know him better as Tom Zarek in the remake rather than Apollo in the original. Probably more effective as a villain than any of the cylons, and if he and Gaeta had flushed all the self righteous gits out of an airlock in S4 I would have cheered.

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Oh no, Apollo died? The REAL Apollo, not the whiny Jamie Bamber version. 

"While it is true you learn with age, the down side is what you often learn is what a damn fool you were before"

Thomas Sowell

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Mike Ilitch died the other day. I don't know anything about him other than he was a Marine, owned some teams, and a pizza joint

kinda weird.  a friend o' ours passed away a few years ago.  he owned a half dozen little caesars franchises and he were a former head coach of the atlanta flames hockey team. weren't a marine, 'cause he were, y'know, kanadian.  anyway, the hockey + little caesars connection made us recall the passing o' a good friend.

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