Passages

[Matt]

Jesus Christ, I can't take it! I feel like I need to watch a movie in tribute to each of these greats. If only Altman had directed Noiret in a film written by Comden and Green, with a theme sung by Ruth Brown.

[John Cope]

=D> Perhaps an inappropriate response, but, Matt, you earned that one all the same.

[dx23]

'Cinema Paradiso' Actor Philippe Noiret Dies at 76

French actor Philippe Noiret died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was 76. The Cinema Paradiso star appeared in more than 125 films and also took to the stage in a string of plays. Noiret started his career in 1956 in Agnes Varda's film La Pointe Courte. He won two Cesar Awards (the French Oscars) for Best Actor for his roles in Robert Enrico's 1976 film Le Vieux Fusil and Bertrand Tavernier's 1990 production La Vie Et Rien D'Autre. French Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin paid tribute to Noiret, saying, "Through his voice, his allure, his panache, Philippe Noiret knew how to seize and express something within the French soul. The silhouette and the voice, so tender and familiar, will be missed by all."

[Matt]

Today's staggering death: Anita O'Day. She played her own bad self in The Gene Krupa Story and The Outfit.

[zedz]

This is turning into a real nightmare run. It wasn't that long ago that I saw O'Day deliver a sizzling outdoor set that brought back all sorts of fond Jazz on a Summer's Day memories. A great lady!

[HerrSchreck]

Today's staggering death: Anita O'Day. She played her own bad self in The Gene Krupa Story and The Outfit.

She was one badass hardliving woman, never ran from a glass of water and a set of works being slammed down on a table surrounded by raspy hardass junkys.

A whole generation is melting away before our very eyes. These public deaths of our Cool Oldtimers has been mirrored by private losses of some of my cool old NY relatives whose lives went back to the jazz flapper age.

[Dylan]

Film composer and orchestrator Shirley Walker passed away last night, she was 61. A brief appreciation from a fan on Film Score Monthly's message boards:

Some very sad news. Shirley Walker has passed away after suffering a brain aneurism, from which she did not regain consciousness. It's the loss of a real pioneer for female composers, not to mention the loss of a sweet, funny woman whom I long admired, and whose work I was lucky enough to publicize at various junctures.

I was already a fan of Shirley's collaborative work on the amazing acid rock score for APOCALYPSE NOW, her co-composing of THE BLACK STALLION (along with Carmine Coppola), and her orchestrating / conducting duties on such scores as BACKDRAFT, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, NIGHTBREED and BATMAN before meeting her on my move to LA in 1989.

One could hear Shirley's talent for dark, symphonic music on these scores - a talent that more than proved itself with her exciting, Herrmann-esque score for MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN- the first major Hollywood score soley composed by a woman to my knowledge.

Shirley really had a flair for super-heroic action on scores for THE FLASH, additional music for MYSTERY MEN the BATMAN and SUPERMAN animated series, and her terrific score for BATMAN- MASK OF THE PHANTASM. Her music really captured the intimidating menace of the Dark Knight, not to mention the sad, psychological underpinning of his mission of vengeance- a score that ranks as one of the best written for the comic book icon.

Some of Shirley's other notable scores include ASTEROID, SPACE - ABOVE AND BEYOND and SPAWN. More than any other genre, Shirley could bring out the black humor of horror and suspense like few composers. In scores like TURBULENCE and three FINAL DESTINATIONS, Shirley took a macabre delight in playing the bad guys- even Death himself. One of my fondest memories is seeing Shirley amp up the orchestra with a "gore-o-meter" of her devising for the third DESTINATION, previewing the deaths to their knowing, gross-out groans of the players- and a lot of laughter. But perhaps Shirley's best score in my estimation is for WILLARD, which used accordions to play the mad ratman. Surely the coolest, most fiendish use of the instrument in film scoring history. Topped off with a knowingly fearesome orchestra, WILLARD was pure, brilliant camp heaven.

I'll never forget my first meeting with Shirley while covering her work for INVISIBLE MAN- where the biggest monster was a feral cat that would keep attacking at any opportune moment. Shirley had a water bottle at the ready, playing a game of cat-and-mouse with her pet to see when a spritzing would be due.

Later on, I did liner notes for Shirley's terrific ESCAPE FROM LA score, a wonderful hodge-podge of ideas that remains one of my favorite action scores. When interviewing both her and John Carpenter, I could easily see how Snake Plissken's first composer knew, and appreciated that his hero was in good hands- a composer who never missed the satire in the gunplay.

Like the sadly missed Basil Poledouris, Shirley remains, in my estimation, one of the best symphonic composers that Hollywood has had in the last twenty years- someone who had a real grasp for melody and themes, no matter the blood-curdling, of super-fantastical situation she might be playing. And like Basil, she should have worked a whole lot more. But her fans more than knew of her talent, as could be witnessed by the people who showed for an ESCAPE FROM LA signing that she graciously attended at Creature Features.

I like to think that Shirley remains one of the true fan favorites among soundtrack appreciators. A woman who set the tone for dreams of super powers, and a person who could make you laugh and scream at the same time during a particulary nasty ending. And I know that despite Shirley's too-soon one, her music will continue to thrill us all. Aptly, her last score is for BLACK CHRISTMAS, one that will provide horror fans with more gruesome, musical delight.

Walker seldom moved beyond television, horror, and Hollywood action films, but her music was always excellent, and I've been a fan of hers since I was a little kid. She was also one of the very few top female film composers. Sad news. This has been a bad year for the film music community.

[colinr0380]

Leon Niemczyk died yesterday in Warsaw at the age of 83. His career spanned 53 years - he debuted in Jerzy Kawalerowicz "Celullose" in 1953 and appeared in 195 movies according to IMBd. Probably best known for his roles in "Knife in the Water" and "The Saragossa Manuscript", he also appears in upcoming "Inland Empire" by David Lynch.

According to polish website he served in the American Army during WWII - 444 Battalion of the General Patton's 3rd Army.
From IMBd website:

Has been married six times, each time to a non-Polish woman.

One of his wives, Diana, was Cuban. Another wife, Doroti, was German. He was also married to a Yugoslavian woman. In current interviews (2004), being over 80 years old, he teases he would like to marry an Eskimo lady.

[GringoTex]

Claude Jade

[portnoy]

per Criterionco.com:

[quote]Perry Henzell, 1936-2006
Legendary filmmaker and author Perry Henzell, who has been called “the godfather of film in Jamaica,â€

[hangthadj]

Claude Jade

I never saw her in anything but the Doinel movies, and still this hits me hard.

I think I will watch Bed and Board tonight.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Actor Peter Boyle dead at 71

NEW YORK - Peter Boyle, the actor known for playing everything from a tap-dancing monster in "Young Frankenstein" to the curmudgeonly father in the long-running TV sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," has died. He was 71.

Boyle died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, said his publicist, Jennifer Plante.

Boyle was beginning to gain notice playing hard-bitten, angry types when he took on the role of the hulking, lab-created monster in Mel Brooks' 1974 send-up of horror films. The movie's defining moment came when Gene Wilder, as scientist Frederick Frankenstein, introduced his creation to an upscale audience. Boyle, decked out in tails, performed a song-and-dance routine to the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' On the Ritz."

It showed another side of the Emmy-winning actor, one that would be exploited in countless other films and perhaps best in "Everybody Loves Raymond," in which he played incorrigible paterfamilias Frank Barone for 10 years.

"He's just obnoxious in a nice way, just for laughs," he said of the character in a 2001 interview. "It's a very sweet experience having this happen at a time when you basically go back over your life and see every mistake you ever made."

[portnoy]

It's hard for me to mourn one of the men responsible for the decline of animation in America, but
Joe Barbara, co-creator of Tom and Jerry (and later half of the Hanna-Barbera production onslaught of television animation), has passed away at 95:

[kinjitsu]

Kyoko Kishida, 76, Is Dead; Actress in ‘Woman in the Dunes'

Filmography

[flyonthewall2983]

James Brown dead at 73

[Steven H]

James Brown dead at 73

Joining the likes of Emperor Yoshihito, Joan Blondell, Charles Chaplin, Leon Schlesinger, W.C. Fields, and Ooka Shohei (guy who wrote Fires on the Plain) in Christmas deaths.

[denti alligator]

oining the likes of Emperor Yoshihito, Joan Blondell, Charles Chaplin, Leon Schlesinger, W.C. Fields, and Ooka Shohei (guy who wrote Fires on the Plain) in Christmas deaths.

Don't forget Robert Walser. Died 50 years ago today on a solitary walk near Herisau, Switzerland.

[HerrSchreck]

And a horrible load of folks during that awful Xmas tsunami. Few thousand years ago and you've got your biblical flood story.

Back OT-- RIP Godfather. He was one badass dude who spawned such a deep cool it leapt outa him fully formed to the utter maximum, everyone who came after was doomed to always be a James Brown Wannabe. Volcano of charisma.

Farewell mac man.

[Gordon]

I always hoped that the Godfather would have died on stage like Tommy Cooper - it would have been so appropriate and would have sealed his mythologization perfectly.

Git up 'n do yo' thang one mo' time, brutha!

[skuhn8]

Too short of a show, but glad I saw JB live in concert. Funny thing, it's not like I was waiting for his next album or anything, but just like with Sinatra I just liked living in a world where James Brown was walking and breathing. Existence is just a touch less bearable now.

[colinr0380]

Mobius Forum has said that A.I. Bezzerides died on New Year's Day, at 98 years old.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Scooby-Doo Designer Takamoto Dead

[Matt]

Scooby-Doo Designer Takamoto Dead

Surely this man was a god among men. Among his creations:

Scooby Doo (and all the other characters, yes even Velma)
Muttley
Astro
Secret Squirrel
Atom Ant
Grape Ape
Josie and the Pussy Cats
Penelope Pitstop
and oh good Christ... THE GREAT GAZOO!

And to think he learned how to draw in a Japanese-American internment camp.

[milk114]

LA Times Obit for A.I. Bezzerides

A.I. Bezzerides, a novelist and short-story writer who became a Hollywood screenwriter best known for the post-World War II film noir classics "Kiss Me Deadly," "On Dangerous Ground" and "Thieves' Highway," has died. He was 98.

[Ashirg]

[url=http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2007-01-10T104151Z_01_L10305180_RTRUKOC_0_US-ITALY-PONTI.xml&WTmodLoc=EntNewsHome_C2_entertainmentNews-4]Film producer Ponti, Sophia Loren's husband, dies[/url]

ROME (Reuters) - Carlo Ponti, one of Italy's best known film producers and the husband of actress Sophia Loren, has died at the age of 94, ANSA news agency said on Wednesday.

Ponti produced classics including La Strada in 1954 and Dr. Zhivago in 1965. ANSA said Ponti died in a hospital in Geneva.