Passages

[Aunt Peg]

Gina Lollobrigida "La Lollo"...

And just a few months ago she ran for parliament in Italy as a candidate against the far-right. R.I.P.

[ellipsis7]

Gina Lollobrigida: a life in pictures

Gina Lollobrigida, da Miss Italia al Quirinale 70 anni di tappeti rossi

[colinr0380]

We missed this from the 5th January: film editor Mike Hill who with his editing partner Daniel P. Hanley edited all of Ron Howard's films between 1982's Night Shift and 2015's In The Heart of the Sea (plus the John Candy starring comedy Armed & Dangerous from 1986 and in addition to Ron Howard's Parenthood in 1989 the pair also did two wildly contrasting films about parenthood the same year: the first film version of Pet Sematary and Problem Child!)

[senseabove]

No official sources yet, but the infamous Wade Williams reportedly died last week.

[Caligula]

Al Brown, who many here will rmember as Stan Valchek from The Wire

[GaryC]

Cinematographer Brian Tufano. aged 83. He had a long career on television in the 1960s and 1970s before working in the cinema, his films including Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and Billy Eliot.

[MichaelB]

British director Piers Haggard, whose masterpiece is probably the original BBC version of Pennies From Heaven, but he also made a handful of features, of which Blood on Satan's Claw is one of the more distinguished. And working with Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski on Venom at least produced a hilarious DVD commentary when they were both safely dead.

[Roger Ryan]

British director Piers Haggard, whose masterpiece is probably the original BBC version of Pennies From Heaven, but he also made a handful of features, of which Blood on Satan's Claw is one of the more distinguished. And working with Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski on Venom at least produced a hilarious DVD commentary when they were both safely dead.

Haggard also had the "honor" of helming Peter Sellers' final film The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu. His appearance in the recent documentary The Ghost of Peter Sellers was amusing and insightful.

[colinr0380]

Haggard also directed the final television Quatermass series (albeit a mini-series for ITV rather than the BBC), The Quatermass Conclusion, with John Mills in the title role in 1979, between Pennies From Heaven the year before and The Fiendish Plot of Fu Manchu in 1980! That looks to have been a very busy period!

Fingers crossed that this news may prompt the BBC to re-air any of the three Plays For Today he directed in their BBC4 'archive television' strand.

[flyonthewall2983]

Bruce Gowers, director of many classic music videos going back to the one of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, up to the early years of MTV.

[Yakushima]

A Soviet and Georgian singer, actor, screenwriter, producer and composer Vakhtang Kikabidze, a charismatic star of Georgy Daneliya's Don't Grieve (Не горюй!) (1969), Hopelessly Lost (Совсем пропащий) (1972), Mimino (Мимино) (1977) and Fortune (Фортуна) (2000), and a very fine, charming and honorable person off-screen passed away at 85.

[Yakushima]

Inna Churikova, a star of many Soviet films, died at 79.

[GaryC]

Australian singer and occasional actress Renée Geyer, aged 69.

[MichaelB]

Legendary independent producer and very occasional actor (Crimewave) Edward R. Pressman.

[beamish14]

Legendary independent producer and very occasional actor (Crimewave) Edward R. Pressman.

An incredible force in cinema. Parlayed his family’s fortune into producing some of the most significant American films of the last 50 years. His CV is unbelievably huge, and movies like To Sleep with Anger and Badlands would never have come to fruition without his support. He even has an executive producer credit on Zhang Yimou’s Happy Times

[Calvin]

Director Paul Vecchiali

[kubelkind]

Director Paul Vecchiali

Sad news, even though he was 92 he was still very active and fiercely independent, and apparently just managed to complete a new film (a short in tribute to Godard) a month or so ago. Its a pity his films are so under-seen - you need to have access to back channels for anything English-friendly, though things show up on YouTube from time to time. Also noteable as a writer and producer, indeed one of the producers of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, and an actor in early films by Varda and Eustache.

[flyonthewall2983]

David Crosby

[hearthesilence]

I was hoping it would be a hoax - the first reports were a little weird - but I guess it's settled.

I first knew him only as a punchline (see The Simpsons), and then CSN&Y which I've always had mixed feelings about, but then I discovered the Byrds. Still one of my favorite bands and he was a big part of those first five albums, even if he was fired midway through the fifth one. All great - a few are a little uneven, but they also had great outtakes to make up for that.

[hearthesilence]

Also surprisingly CSN&Y were one of THE highlights of the Woodstock film, so he's earned a nice spot in cinematic history in my book. (He also has a cameo in Monterey Pop, but he doesn't perform - there are outtakes with the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield that do feature him though.)

[therewillbeblus]

Waiting for Phoebe Bridgers to pay tribute

[L.A.]

Van Conner, Screaming Trees bassist and co-founder.

[brundlefly]

Waiting for Phoebe Bridgers to pay tribute

It would have to be Lucy Dacus, no?

[therewillbeblus]

I'm being sarcastic, because of their ongoing social media war

[FrauBlucher]

The self titled CSN album (sitting on the sofa) I still throw on from time to time. So many great tunes