Passages

[hearthesilence]

Rudolph Isley of the Isley Brothers

[Feego]

Phyllis Coates, TV's first Lois Lane and the last surviving regular cast member of The Adventures of Superman.

[fdm]

Mark Goddard

[jazzo]

Comic artist Keith Giffen

This was a hard one for me. As a teen in the early 80s, his Ambush Bug hit me at just the right time; a Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker comics joint, eviscerating the medium with much love and affection.

And his and Robert Loren Fleming’s comic adaptation of Robert Bloch’s Hell On Earth (within DC’s brief Sci-Fi graphic novel line) remains a delicious mix of pulpy thrills and formalist experimentation, and a personal favourite of mine.

EDIT:
Just to illustrate what a class act he was, here's the final Facebook post from the legendary co-creator of Ambush Bug, Rocket Raccoon and a zillion other superhero properties being exploited for film, and making everyone in the studio boatloads of cash but him:

I told them I was sick…

Anything not to go to New York Comic Con

Thanx

Keith Giffen 1952-2023

Bwah ha ha ha ha

[Gregor Samsa]

Louise Glück

[senseabove]

Piper Laurie

[therewillbeblus]

Piper Laurie

An amazing talent with a lot of potential never realised in the 15 years she broke from acting. I hope this news prompts the board to check out the original Playhouse 90 TV production of Days of Wine and Roses. Lee Remick is fantastic in the theatrical version, but Laurie's total embodiment of the role is still the most realistic alcoholic perf I've ever seen

[Solaris]

Piper Laurie was a phenomenal actress who stole the show in just about every production she was in. Her major roles are of course "The Hustler" and "Carrie", and she was brilliant in the original "Twin Peaks" (such a shame she didn't return for the new series).

She will be missed,

[colinr0380]

It's that ecstatic-orgasmic crucifixion scene that her character has at the end of Carrie that feels an essential part of what contributes to making that film so audaciously memorable.

Piper Laurie is also really good as Asia Argento's mother in Dario Argento's first US-set film, Trauma, from 1993. Her character disappears early in the film, although at the end (major spoilers)...

Spoiler

she is revealed to be the one killing everyone and after staging her own death during the early seance scene in a very baroque manner (by holding up the severed head of her husband next to hers in the middle of a torrential rainstorm - making it appear to the traumatised daughter that the killer was holding up both of her parent's heads - and leaving another woman's decapitated body next to the husband's to stand in for hers) she was the one going around decapitating all of the doctors responsible for the birth complications that killed her first baby.

Trauma is a film that I have grown to like a lot, and works really well paired with Deep Red, which is also about a crazed mother destroying their family (as well as being involved in a key early scene providing all of the clues in plain sight to a witness in retrospect) and then ironically losing their heads at the climax!

[soundchaser]

I always think of her in two very different modes — Sirk’s Has Anybody Seen My Gal? and the obvious Twin Peaks. A very versatile actress for those two alone.

[hearthesilence]

Keith Baxter, who most famously played Prince Hal to Orson Welles’s Falstaff, at the age of 90.

[Pavel]

Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and his wife were apparently murdered last night. Didn’t find any articles, but there are tweets about it and it’s on his Wikipedia page.

[What A Disgrace]

I was thoroughly enamored by his film The Cow over a decade ago, and unfortunately was never able to see any more of his films. A masterpiece of politically charged 60s realism on the same level as Vidas Secas, Black Girl and Dry Summer.

[hearthesilence]

A couple of his films were already scheduled to be screened from 35mm prints at MoMA later this month and next, including The Cow.

It goes without saying, cinema has been hit hard with major losses these past few days.

[brundlefly]

That is terrible. Just re-watched The Cow and The Cycle a few months ago for the '70s project; the former a transfixing portrait of insularity, the latter a well-greased systemic critique -- then of the Shah's Iran, but applicable to any dehumanizing society built on the hustle, and its healthcare setting makes it translate easily. The most recently released film of his I've seen was Leila ('97), and that a decade ago, but remember its second-wife domestic drama as unique (to me, at least) and heartbreakingly sympathetic.

[ellipsis7]

Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and his wife were apparently murdered last night. Didn’t find any articles, but there are tweets about it and it’s on his Wikipedia page.

Both stabbed to death in their own home... An awful crime & a terrible loss...

[hearthesilence]

Except for a social media post from Mubi, I didn’t find any English language outlets covering this, but I did find this personal Facebook post written in English:

Iranians are shaken by the horrific news of the vicious murder of the prominent Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui and his wife, Vahideh Mohammadifar which was released tonight. They have been knifed to death in their villa in Karaj today. Their daughter found them dead and informed the police. No one has been arrested yet and their mysterious murder is currently under investigation.

My generation grew up with Mehrjui’s movies. He revolutionized modern Iranian cinema. Hamoun, Pear Tree, Mom’s Guest, Sara, Pari, Leila, Santouri… and many more are some of the most unforgettably moving and powerful masterpieces of Iranian cinema. What an absolutely horrifying news!

There had received multiple threats in the past and the incompetent government that specilizes in oppressing innocent people refused to offer them extra security and protection. It’s devastating, infuriating, and shameful.

Also someone posted this video with the following caption:

Dariush Mehrjui, a pioneer of the new wave in Iranian cinema, had released an impassioned video statement some time ago, addressed to the Islamic Republic, demanding that either he be given his rights as an artist or a citizen, or that he be killed.

Yesterday morning he and his wife, Vahideh, were found murdered, stabbed with a knife, in their house in Zibadasht, Karaj, in Alborz province.

The Islamic Republic has created the conditions that have snuffed out another brilliant Iranian mind.
Mehrjui was 84 years old.

[A Tempted Christ]

The way they were killed immediately brings to the mind of any Iranian the "Franchise Murders" of the 80s and 90s. Many writers, thinkers and even entertainers who were deemed dangerous to the Islamic Republic were brutally murdered by operatives of the ministry of intelligence. What's sad is that the Islamic Republic is trying to blame this on Afghan immigrants and direct the general public's anger and frustration (especially as a result of Mahsa Amini protests coming to an end without achieving much) at them. Also Armita Geravand, the 17 year old who was recently attacked by the hijab police in Tehran's subway, is still in coma and may have a similar fate to Mahsa Amini which can cause another wave of protests, so a lot of Iranians think that the government is trying to distract people from that case.

[captveg]

Suzanne Somers

[hearthesilence]

Random thing I learned about Somers, I was surprised to find out that Thighmaster made her enormously wealthy, earning her far more money than her entire career in acting. EDIT: $300,000,000 to be exact.

[hearthesilence]

FWIW, Film Forum still has the intro and Q&A they did with Keith Baxter back on January 6, 2016 tucked away in this corner of their website. (Same page also has one they did with Beatrice Welles.)

[ellipsis7]

Guardian piece on Mehrjui...

[hearthesilence]

This wasn't widely reported, but Henri Serre (Jim from Truffaut's Jules et Jim) passed away a week ago per Craig Keller and IMDB.

[dadaistnun]

Carla Bley

[dwk]

Burt Young