Passages

[bottled spider]

The local butcher has a chalk signboard
"Rest in Peace, Meatloaf 1952 - 2022"
then
"20% off all meatloaves"

[acroyear]

Thich Nhat Hanh

[Fred Holywell]

Mark Forest, Italian peplum star.

[hearthesilence]

I didn't know where else to post this as it comes over five years too late, but I was shocked to find out that Adrian McElwee had died. He's a key figure in his father's work, and both his passing and the apparent circumstances behind his death make the final scene of Time Indefinite very chilling and sobering.

[GaryC]

Australian director and screenwriter Michael Thornhill, on 22 January aged 80. He was best known for Between Wars (1973) and The FJ Holden (1977). (No online obituaries yet.)

ETA: This death notice in the Sydney Morning Herald gives his year of birth as 1940 instead of the 1941 which is in every reference source I've seen. So he was actually eighty-one.

[Aunt Peg]

Australian director and screenwriter Michael Thornhill, aged 81. He was best known for Between Wars (1973) and The FJ Holden (1977). (No online obituaries yet.)

My partner's former sister-in-law was an extra (aka background person) in a restaurant scene in The FJ Holden.

[MichaelB]

Polish actress Barbara Krafftówna, who appeared in such major titles as Ashes and Diamonds and a number of Wojciech Jerzy Has films (Gold Dreams, How To Be Loved, The Saragossa Manuscript, The Codes) before becoming a rather bigger but strictly local theatre and television star. Her most memorable big-screen role is widely considered to be Felicja in How to Be Loved (1962), a flat-out stunning film (if it's not as well known as Has's later The Saragossa Manuscript or The Hourglass Sanatorium, it honestly should be), about which I wrote a few years ago:

Like Wajda's film [the 1962 short Warsaw], it's about the lasting psychological damage inflicted on ordinary Poles by WWII - in this case the actors Felicja (Barbara Krafftówna) and Wiktor (Zbigniew Cybulski). They first work together in a pre-war production of Hamlet - he's the title role, she's Ophelia, he's a big name, she's a debutante. But their relationship shifts radically when he's suspected of murder and has to go into hiding: she conceals him in her flat for years, even to the point of letting German soldiers use her as a regular fuck-toy in exchange for them not searching it thoroughly. Far from being grateful, Wiktor resents this confinement - like all actors, he craves an audience, and is oblivious of the damage that his subsequent selfishness does to Felicja both professionally (after the war, she's accused of being a collaborator) and personally. Has's masterstroke is to narrate all this in flashback with the help of Felicja's waspish, cynical voiceover - so we know from the start that she'll survive her many brushes with death (sheltering a wanted man is a capital crime in Nazi-occupied Poland), but we also know upfront that she pays a terrible psychological price that leaves her unable to form lasting relationships with anyone, despite two very promising prospects. Krafftówna gives one of the strongest female lead performances that I've seen in a Polish film, while Cybulski bravely plays against type as an arrogant but weak-willed man who becomes more loathsome with each successive scene.

[Habit Rouge]

Thierry Mugler

[GaryC]

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, aged 85. She played the title role in Jedda (1955) under the name Ngarla Kunoth. That was her only film acting credit, but she appeared as herself in John Pilger's 2013 documentary Utopia.

[CSM126]

Peter Robbins, the original voice of Charlie Brown

[hearthesilence]

Peter Robbins, the original voice of Charlie Brown

Very sad reading about his struggles.

[Aunt Peg]

Sister Janet Mead passed away at the age of 84. She became a huge chart toping star with her 1973 recording of The Lords's Prayer: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... es-aged-83

[colinr0380]

The comedian Barry Cryer at 86. He doesn't appear in too many films and is mainly famous as a radio comedian (in the great I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue) but wrote jokes behind the scenes for many of the most famous comedians. I see mention that he wrote for Jasper Carrott too, which makes me wonder if he had a hand in Carrott's most famous sketch about various reports being made by people involved in driving accidents when claiming on their insurance: "I saw a slow moving, sad-faced old gentleman... as he bounced off the bonnet of my car"!

Cryer does make a very young appearance in Stanley Long produced entry into the mondo film genre Primitive London Beyond that he is in a small role in Bloodbath At The House of Death (aka the Kenny Everett feature film), and like every other British comedian of the time turns up in 2012's Danny Dyer 'comedy' Run For Your Wife!

It is hard to underestimate his importance to the comedy scene (up there with Bob Monkhouse), and his lack of presence may explain why comedy in recent years, whether on radio or television, has seemed so banal (when not excruciating) at times.

[flyonthewall2983]

I watched this years NASCAR Hall of Fame with my dad last night and discovered that back in August, the announcer Bob Jenkins passed away. Dad told me a nice story about meeting him after seeing the nice tribute they put together.

[MitchPerrywinkle]

Peter Robbins, the original voice of Charlie Brown

Very sad reading about his struggles.

My brother got a chance to meet him at a convention in late 2019. He was apparently very candid about his lifelong struggles with depression and his time in prison, but at the time he was on medication and was optimistic about finally finding some peace in what had been a turbulent life. The news of his passing is just all the more devastating.

[swo17]

Howard Hesseman

[domino harvey]

Funny guy with two memorable sitcom leading roles. I think Head of the Class is on HBO Max now for some reason too

[flyonthewall2983]

Interesting day for Cincinnati

[beamish14]

I've always loved Howard Hesseman in Trent Harris' Rubin & Ed opposite Crispin Glover. He replaced Peter Boyle, who apparently had a heart attack during the production (according to Harris, many years later).

[hearthesilence]

In his memory, here's every song they (and Dr. Johnny Fever) played on WKRP. VERY impressive list.

[hearthesilence]

I didn't realize Hesseman was a great improviser. Remembrances from the Arquettes (he acted on-stage with their father) and the Spinal Tap guys all single out his talents for improvising.

Apparently his character's introduction/moment of conception of his "Johnny Fever" DJ persona was improvised.

And his cameo in This Is Spinal Tap was apparently throw together at the last minute, and I guess Hesseman came up with the line "We’d love to chat but we have to sit in the lobby and wait for the limo."

From Michael McKean: "Impossible to overstate Howard Hesseman’s influence on his and subsequent generations of improvisors. The first time I saw him on stage (Troubadour, ’71, with The Committee) I saw that he was the real deal. [Harry Shearer also mentions seeing him many times with the Committee and always knocking out of the park.] He was a friend for 50 years.

“Howard’s character in Spinal Tap didn’t even exist until 24 hours before the shoot: we’d discovered that the musician we’d hired to play Duke Fame couldn’t improvise, so Rob [Reiner] said let’s give him a manager. "I’ll call Howard." He blitzed it, of course.

“We’d go years without seeing each other (Howard and Caroline lived mostly in Europe) but when we did, he’d hilariously fill me in on the great music, dumb show biz and silly-ass humans he’d encountered. RIP Don Sturdy.”

An excellent NY Times profile done at the height of his fame. (He was in town to host SNL.)

[Bressonaire]

There's been no official announcement, but Carleton Carpenter has died. He was a friend for many years, and his representative has notified me that he passed away this morning at his home in Orange County, New York. He was 95. Just recently Richard Brody of The New Yorker praised one of his movies, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, but he's better known for introducing the song "Aba Daba Honeymoon" with Debbie Reynolds in Two Weeks With Love. He was also in Summer Stock, Up Periscope, and Father of the Bride. His personal favorite of his movies, as I recall, was Sky Full of Moon.

[Matt]

Sorry for your loss, he seemed like a cool guy to have known. I’ve tried to watch as many of his films as I can, and Sky Full of Moon is indeed a good role for him and a pleasure to watch.

[Bressonaire]

Thanks, Matt. Carleton was kind of reticent at times, but he did have stories about playing bridge with Burt Lancaster and about encounters with Tallulah Bankhead, Tab Hunter, and Estelle Winwood, who was a neighbor in Hollywood. He also was a composer, and a song of his called "Christmas Eve" was a hit in the early 1950s. Here's a link to an obituary:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235084543/

[FrauBlucher]

Bressonaire, sorry for the loss of your friend. It's sad when that generation gets further and further away. I love Aba Daba Honeymoon with Debbie Reynolds. RIP