Passages

[Feego]

Chuck Norris made a fun appearance on “The Tonight Show” in the 70s in which he got beat up by a little kid.

[dx23]

Sam Kieth, co-creator of The Sandman (by way of pencilling the initial run and co-designing the characters) and creator of The Maxx.

The Maxx was a hugely important comic to me during my formative years. Incredibly dense, surreal, and hilarious. William Messner-Loebs took Kieth’s at times unwieldy plotting and gave it a focus and great dialogue that made it iconic. I adore the MTV animated adaptation of it as well. Kieth’s other creator-works, such as Zero Girl and My Inner Bimbo show what an amazingly gifted artist he was, but he really needed someone like Messner-Loebs to rein him in and make his work more palatable.

Kieth also directed a live action feature for Roger Corman in 1998 about teen rock climbers that I have never seen.

This is extremely heartbreaking. I love Keith's art and the Maxx was just such a beautiful, funny story. From what I've hear over the past 10 years, Keith was struggling financially along with how the illness was consuming him and his wife. I believe he was given that Maxx/Batman crossover to help him both mentally and financially but the series had delays, thus not making it profitable to either IDW or DC. IDW had the publishing rights to the Maxx for a while doing reprints of the original series, but for some reason the series itself has now been out of print at least for the past 10 years.

[beamish14]

Sam Kieth, co-creator of The Sandman (by way of pencilling the initial run and co-designing the characters) and creator of The Maxx.

The Maxx was a hugely important comic to me during my formative years. Incredibly dense, surreal, and hilarious. William Messner-Loebs took Kieth’s at times unwieldy plotting and gave it a focus and great dialogue that made it iconic. I adore the MTV animated adaptation of it as well. Kieth’s other creator-works, such as Zero Girl and My Inner Bimbo show what an amazingly gifted artist he was, but he really needed someone like Messner-Loebs to rein him in and make his work more palatable.

Kieth also directed a live action feature for Roger Corman in 1998 about teen rock climbers that I have never seen.

This is extremely heartbreaking. I love Keith's art and the Maxx was just such a beautiful, funny story. From what I've hear over the past 10 years, Keith was struggling financially along with how the illness was consuming him and his wife. I believe he was given that Maxx/Batman crossover to help him both mentally and financially but the series had delays, thus not making it profitable to either IDW or DC. IDW had the publishing rights to the Maxx for a while doing reprints of the original series, but for some reason the series itself has now been out of print at least for the past 10 years.

Yes, the Most IDW reprints are excellent. Channing Tatum bought the film rights several years ago. As a creator-owned title, I’m sure someone will republish the whole run at some point

[hearthesilence]

Philippe Labro, an author (often blurring the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction), a film director, a lyricist and a host of TV and radio shows. He died last year on June 4th, but it was not mentioned here and I didn't realize he was gone until Made in USA screened this weekend at Anthology Film Archives. (In 35mm to boot - more screenings are scheduled and Metrograph will screen it in 35mm next month as well.) He makes an appearance in its final scene.

[Gregory]

Valerie Perrine, 82, complications from Parkinson's (Honey Bruce in Bob Fosse's Lenny, Eve Teschmacher in Superman and Superman II). Just learned she played Carlotta Monti, the female lead in W.C. Fields and Me. I have that book, never finished it, and didn't know it was adapted to film.

[colinr0380]

Valerie Perrine, 82, complications from Parkinson's (Honey Bruce in Bob Fosse's Lenny, Eve Teschmacher in Superman and Superman II). Just learned she played Carlotta Monti, the female lead in W.C. Fields and Me. I have that book, never finished it, and didn't know it was adapted to film.

A few really interesting early film roles too, with in addition to Lenny, appearing in George Roy Hill's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 and in The Last American Hero (which has the distinction of being the last film ever shown on the BBC's Moviedrome series in 2000). Plus that Tony Richardson film with Jack Nicholson, The Border.

And in total contrast are the films that probably badly affected Perrine's career with notorious completely out of step with the times 1980 Village People disco-musical Can't Stop The Music (with gobsmackingly a pre-transition Bruce Jenner as both the literal and figurative 'straight man'! And, perhaps because of being directed by a woman, it does not seem to have gotten its head around the idea that the Village People may actually be gay icons(?), instead presenting them as macho ladies men!); and one of the most bizarre of all of the Handmade Production films, 1985's Water (though you could probably do a remake of it now about the whole Chagos Islands situation).

[MichaelB]

Water and Shanghai Surprise were supposed to be HandMade Films' big mid-80s hits that would subsidise everything else.

Whoops.

(It's something of a miracle that HandMade lasted as long as it did, as it only had three real hits, and they were right at the start - Life of Brian, The Long Good Friday and Time Bandits. The fact that it was co-founded by a Beatle had the magical power of preventing the banks from asking too many questions about the company's financial state... until that fateful day when they finally asked George Harrison for actual proof of wealth, whereupon he found out that HandMade's co-founder Denis O'Brien had been bleeding him dry for years. At which point HandMade pretty much had to throw in the towel, although at least this was after the likes of Withnail & I and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne had been made; had it been a normal company with normal accounting, they'd most likely have had to shut up shop several years earlier.)

[Matt]

Perrine's life was full of truly wild coincidences and accidents, including walking away from a plane crash and being invited to but having to skip the party at Sharon Tate's house the night the Manson murders occurred.

I had hoped that Criterion would include her in their extras for Lenny, but one could see from the short documentary about her from several years back that she was already in a very bad state from the Parkinson's. I can't imagine that death wasn't a blessing for her.

As a kid, I always loved her in the Superman movies, but seeing her in Lenny was a revelation. It's one of those performances people would call "brave," but in this case it's actually true. I think she had the capacity to be spoken of in the same terms as (and have the same success as) Jane Fonda and Julie Christie, but she just didn't get the roles. Also, her showgirl background, appearance in Playboy, and earliest acting roles probably pigeonholed her as an actress willing to show her breasts, so she wasn't taken seriously later.

[Aunt Peg]

Alexander Kluge, 94, German film director much of whom's brilliant filmography is available through Edition Filmmusuem: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/m ... man-cinema

Link to Alexander Kluge thread for further discussion: viewtopic.php?t=9466&start=75

[okcmaxk]

James Tolkan

[flyonthewall2983]

I’m surprised he never worked with Tony Scott again, he is note perfect in Top Gun

[Lowry_Sam]

it does not seem to have gotten its head around the idea that the Village People may actually be gay icons(?), instead presenting them as macho ladies men!)

Actually, when Macho Man & YMCA became top 40 hits, The Village People became more reviled or considered an annoyance in the gay community and their music was no longer played in gay clubs (which generally preferred more underground tracks that weren't on top 40 radio). So when the movie came out, this actually might not be completely off as probably more straight women than gay men were listening to their music.

[hearthesilence]

Ross "The Boss" Friedman (aka Funichello), founding member of both the punk band the Dictators and the heavy metal band Manowar. The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! alone is wonderful, a classic in some circles that should be better known.

[Aunt Peg]

Gerard Lee, 74, longtime screen writer and collaborator of Jane Campion and also a director screen writer in his own right with All Men Are Liars (1995) amongst others.

He passed away last November: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Lee

[jt938]

Mary Beth Hurt

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/mary ... 236702265/

[Aunt Peg]

Mary Beth Hurt was one of my many favourites. I wish she had worked more in cinema as I always welcomed her presence. Must say that the first time I remember seeing her was in Interiors in 1978 and gosh she scared me and impressed me to no end. She charmed the hell out of me a couple of years later with Chilly Scenes of Winter and made me laugh out loud in The World According Garp to long after that.

Wonderful actress.

[colinr0380]

"I mean, I had mine removed surgically under general anesthesia. But to have it bitten off in a Buick..."

Love The World According To Garp, and how it really doesn't hate any of the characters, just presents everyone as somewhat flawed and searching for meaning and connection. She is also part of the ensemble cast of the similarly socially cutting satire Six Degrees of Separation.

And she is also really good as the adoptive mother in D.A.R.Y.L., which is kind of the emotional antithesis to Spielberg's later A.I.!

[Gregory]

Lili Hinstin, 48, French film producer and artistic director (Locarno Film Festival, Entrevues Belfort Film Festival)

Wikipedia

[hearthesilence]

No one's mentioned it yet, but Hurt played Jean Seberg in one of Mark Rappaport's best films, From the Journals of Jean Seberg - amazingly, Seberg was Hurt's babysitter.

[GaryC]

No online obituaries as yet, but Laurie Webb, UK actor, on 29 March, just over a month short of his 102nd birthday. Most of his career was on TV, including Doctor Who (The Three Doctors, 1973), Paul Temple and Doomwatch.

I have updated the list in the Centenarians and Near-Centenarians thread.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Shozin Fukui

[MichaelB]

Prolific German character actor Mario Adorf, whose massive filmography includes work by Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Corbucci, and Claude Chabrol.

[JSC]

Prolific German character actor Mario Adorf, whose massive filmography includes work by Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Corbucci, and Claude Chabrol.

I thought he was really funny in Weak Spot.

[domino harvey]

I mainly remember him in Italian movies, I had no idea he was German!

[MichaelB]

His father was Italian (hence, presumably, the name), but he was born in Zürich and German was his first and main professional language.