Passages

[Pavel]

Gavin MacLeod

[Feego]

Kevin Clark, musician/former child actor in School of Rock, at age 32.

[hearthesilence]

B.J. Thomas, who announced earlier this year that he had stage 4 lung cancer.

Best-known for this song from Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, but my favorite's this one.

[Lemmy Caution]

Growing up in the 70's, BJ Thomas was a significant musical presence. In the wake of Raindrops Keep Fallin', my sister picked up the 45 of Hooked on a Feeling when she was about 11. And since she only had maybe eight 45's when we were kids, that sure got played plenty (along with Spiders & Snakes; The Night Chicago Died; Billy Don't Be a Hero ...). And in a family with a pretty limited interest in music, Somebody Done Somebody Wrong was one of the few songs which would get my father tapping rhythm on the nearest kids leg and maybe singing along. (Tony Orlando's Sweet Gypsy Rose was another). Musically, Dad never got over the Big Bopper dying. But BJ Thomas' likable mix of country, pop and soul fit the bill pretty well.

I wasn't much familiar with BJ Thomas' career, but he covered a lot of interesting R&B and soul tunes -- Stevie Wonder's Happier Than the Morning Sun; Clyde McPhatter's Treasure of Love; Jackie Wilson's To be Loved. I really like the casual barroom charm of Somebody Done Somebody Wrong song. Bogey requesting their song after there is no more they would seem a likely musical antecedent. I also like think the short intro is pretty brilliant. I also associate that song with Charlie Rich's The Most Beautiful Girl, another pop-country tune about a busted relationship. BJ Thomas had a nice warm voice, with a relaxed charm.

[hearthesilence]

I think I've had a similar experience - the soundtrack to Butch Cassidy is actually the very first vinyl record I ever bought. Strange how that worked out, because it's not a particular favorite in terms of the film or the music, but I was taken to a record store that still stocked a LOT of used records at a time when vinyl was pretty much dead. We were there to pick up a bunch of 12" dance records, and I was told I could pick out something as well. I didn't listen to a whole lot of music then, just whatever came on the radio, so I really had no idea what to get except a soundtrack to a movie I enjoyed, and I hadn't seen a whole lot of movies. So I got the soundtrack, which even had a strange, gold stamp embedded in the sleeve indicating it was "not for sale" because it was a promo. I think we paid three dollars for it, which was close to nothing, and that's actually why I didn't get a CD - they were far more expensive regardless of age, and it seemed like too much to ask. I wound up playing that record a lot and wearing it down, simply because it was the only one I owned.

It's pleasant stuff, but years later, after I became a Beach Boys fan, I found Thomas's loving simulation on "Rock & Roll Lullaby." He really was a highly welcoming and amiable voice, and I can't think of a better setting for it then bathing it in those harmonies.

[FrauBlucher]

Growing up in the 70's, BJ Thomas was a significant musical presence. In the wake of Raindrops Keep Fallin', my sister picked up the 45 of Hooked on a Feeling when she was about 11. And since she only had maybe eight 45's when we were kids, that sure got played plenty (along with Spiders & Snakes; The Night Chicago Died; Billy Don't Be a Hero ...).

Both hitting number one on Billboard's charts for 1974. I remember that well. I also had both (in bold) those 45s that I wore out. You can arguably say BJ Thomas was the precursor to what became known as soft rock.

[Lemmy Caution]

Looking at that #1 list for '74, my sister also had the 45 of Terry Jacks - Seasons in the Sun, which I was even a bit suspicious of as a 9 year old. Elton John and Jim Croce were huge back then. Croce seems to have a good deal of similarity to BJ Thomas' casual conversational approach to singing.

Thomas seems part of the pop-country trend of the early/mid-70's, along with Charley's Pride and Rich, John Denver was big enough to have his own Xmas specials, plus Crystal Gayle, Linda Ronstadt some, which really blew up with Glen Campbell's 1975 Rhinestone Cowboy (and his cover of Allen Toussaint's Southern Nights). Others: Lynn Anderson's Rose Garden; Delta Dawn, Kris Kristofferson, Freddie Fender ...

Not long after my sister's brief interlude with 45's, my brother and I moved into the 8-track era ...

[colinr0380]

Early 90s Direct to Video star Joe Lara, in a plane crash along with his wife.

One of his major feature film starring roles was in the Israel filmed American Cyborg: Steel Warrior from the director of the Lemon Popsicle and Last American Virgin films, which is obviously riffing on the then current Terminator 2 and Universal Soldier films. And he played Tarzan a couple of times, first in the 1989 TV movie Tarzan In Manhattan (opposite Tony Curtis!), which is the film I most remember him for, and then in a short-lived mid-90s TV series.

Not many of the films appear to be particularly notable (we're getting into the truly obscure film territory here! Such as Lara starring in Live Wire 2, which was the DTV sequel to the already obscure Pierce Brosnan film!) but some of his films had eye opening casts that may be worth checking out just for that aspect alone, such as his minor role in 1992's Sunset Heat (aka Midnight Heat) which features Dennis Hopper, Adam Ant(!), Little Richard (!!) and Tony Todd! Or one of his last starring roles in the James Bond-style action film Doomsdayer, which seems worth seeing just for having the scenery chewing euro-baddies played by Udo Kier and Brigitte Nielsen! Or co-starring with John Savage in 2001's Dead Man's Run.

I am quite curious about seeing Lima, Breaking The Silence some time, just to discover how politically iffy it is (given it is directed by Menahem Golan I am guessing quite politically iffy!). But the film that I would be most interested in tracking down however would be 2000's Very Mean Men in which Lara appears playing a detective among an astonishing cast of Matthew Modine, Ben Gazzara, Martin Landau, Burt Young and Charles Durning! Its inevitably a mob film, and I was almost put off by the familiar Pulp Fiction music cue appearing in the trailer! And (warning) the regular seemingly real animal deaths by being squashed under car wheels that occurs to the music cue that seems quite extreme to get shown in just a trailer.

(Red Letter Media's Best of the Worst series tackled one Joe Lara film a while ago with Hologram Man)

[GaryC]

Australian actor (based in the UK in the 1970s), John Gregg.

[GaryC]

UK playwright and screenwriter David Holman.

[MichaelB]

Long-term Clint Eastwood associate (from Coogan's Bluff in 1968 to J. Edgar in 2011) Buddy Van Horn, whose credits include stuntman (often Eastwood's stunt double), stunt coordinator, second unit director and director (exclusively of three Eastwood vehicles, Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool and Pink Cadillac), plus similar stunt-related roles on other films, including Michael Cimino's first three (Cimino's debut, of course, being another Eastwood vehicle).

[knives]

Pink Cadillac is as much ridiculous fun as that name implies.

[Mr Sausage]

Long-term Clint Eastwood associate (from Coogan's Bluff in 1968 to J. Edgar in 2011) Buddy Van Horn, whose credits include stuntman (often Eastwood's stunt double), stunt coordinator, second unit director and director (exclusively of three Eastwood vehicles, Any Which Way You Can, The Dead Pool and Pink Cadillac), plus similar stunt-related roles on other films, including Michael Cimino's first three (Cimino's debut, of course, being another Eastwood vehicle).

He plays a key role in sustaining the central ambiguity of High Plains Drifter. It was rather clever use of a stunt double's resemblance to the star.

[dwk]

F. Lee Bailey

[therewillbeblus]

Bulgarian actress Lorina Kamburova at age 29 from Covid-19 complications leading to pneumonia

[Pavel]

Surprised a foreign publication reported this. It happened roughly a week ago and it's been pretty big news, with virtually all local news sites publishing numerous (sort of exploitative) articles about "the real cause of her death" and similar stuff

[therewillbeblus]

I’m always surprised when someone that young passes and the cause of death isn’t related to drug use or suicide, but that’s also my world

[dwk]

Clarence Williams III

[MichaelB]

Libuše Šafránková, prolific Czech actress who was the female lead in the Oscar-winning Kolya and worked with Jiří Menzel several times, but she’d be immortal in the Czech public consciousness even if she’d only ever played her most famous role, the title character in the local megablockbuster Three Wishes for Cinderella.

[Aunt Peg]

Producer and director of one feature film Jerome Hellman https://variety.com/2021/film/news/jero ... 234984197/

Small but great line up of producer credits: The World of Henry Orient, A Fine Madness, Midnight Cowboy, The Day of the Locust, Coming Home, Promises in the Dark (which he also directed) and The Mosquito Coast.

[britcom68]

The Rev. Dr. Kay Slocum

https://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/ ... um-Dillon/

For those who missed my earlier post in the Some Like it Hot thread, this woman was an incredible pastor for the Lutheran church I attended in my hometown for several decades and was one of just a mere handful of cast members left standing of Some Like it Hot, as well as The Ten Commandments (1956).

[Never Cursed]

Ned Beatty

[knives]

How is Lex Luthor ever going to defeat Superman? (Also the single best thing about Network)

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I’ll always remember him for Network and as the semi-incompetent hit man in Mikey and Nicky. A great actor and a nice example of the unusual looking characters that used to populate cinema.

[esl]

Ned Beatty

No report I have read says where he died. I know that he lived for the past few years in Karlstad, Minnesota. My family is from there and I would see him when I came to visit, most recently two years ago on the local golf course. I have met many celebrities but who would think of meeting one in BFE Minnesota.