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sir_luke wrote:Gwen Ifill. She was 61.

I've recorded and watched PBS Newshour for nearly 8 years now. It's the only news program I watch. While I can't quite say I had a personal connection with Gwen-she was part of a informative show that didn't cater to flashing/breaking news. She also had a great smile.

Lisa Lynn Masters, from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

David Mancuso

The Loft was the blueprint.

Jean-Claude Risset, whose music is featured, for example, in this wonderful experimental short.

Photographer and occasional filmmaker David Hamilton.

MichaelB wrote:Photographer and occasional filmmaker David Hamilton.

It was interesting to learn that the first and most famous film that he directed Bilitis (NSFW) (with that memorable Francis Lai score) was co-written by Catherine Breillat! Though given the nature of Hamilton's suicide, I doubt that any of his films will be appearing on home video in the near future.

Andrew Sachs. Mostly remembered for Manuel in Fawlty Towers - and then being the subject of a prank call from Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross that became the bizarre scandal Sachsgate

Dr Amicus wrote:Andrew Sachs. Mostly remembered for Manuel in Fawlty Towers - and then being the subject of a prank call from Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross that became the bizarre scandal Sachsgate

...although it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge his virtuoso achievement as the sole vocal performer on the English soundtrack of Jan Švankmajer's Faust - which I've always thought was substantially superior to the Czech version.

(With the notably glaring exception of Alice, I've generally preferred the English versions of Švankmajer films where they're available - The Fall of the House of Usher plays infinitely better in English, which of course is technically the original language since the Czech soundtrack merely consists of an abridged translation of the Poe story. And Švankmajer is the kind of filmmaker who benefits enormously from not having the visual distraction of subtitles.)

Don Calfa Best known for his wonderful performance in Return of the Living Dead and a familiar face in film and TV.

Dr Amicus wrote:Andrew Sachs. Mostly remembered for Manuel in Fawlty Towers - and then being the subject of a prank call from Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross that became the bizarre scandal Sachsgate

There's a wonderful episode of Newsnight from the early '80s where Sachs angrily doorsteps people selling pirate VHS tapes of Faulty Towers. This was around the time of the video nasties and piracy scares of the early '80s. Sachs doorsteps a seemingly unemployed father who was just flogging an off air recording of the show (this is before the show was legally released on tape). Sachs angrily tells them they are taking money form the pockets of Cleese, himself and others. Sachs seems oblivious that he's harassing what looks like a quite poor family man trying to earn a bit of extra cash for his family. In the same episode an undercover reporter traps a video shop owner to sell him last weekends football match recorded off TV. It's all treated as really big deal and it's really rather amusing to watch more than 30 years later.

I hadn't realised that he did the dubbing of Faust! That's quite a sustained piece of vocal acting, given that he voices all of the characters including the appearances of the devil!

I suppose to slightly temper all of the 'beloved gentleman subjected to shocking prank call' over the top furore about Andrew Sachs, he did turn up in a couple of Pete Walker's horror films, as "Man in church" in House of Mortal Sin and memorably the first pre-credits victim of the power drill cannibal mother (played by similar later 'beloved sitcom stalwart' actress Sheila Keith!) in Frightmare!

So I doubt a couple of silly comedians prank calling him would have phased him that much!

Alphonse Tram wrote:Don Calfa Best known for his wonderful performance in Return of the Living Dead and a familiar face in film and TV.

He's fantastic as Ernie the mortician in that film, and the key to making the situation a whole lot worse! (I particularly like that rather than the wild jobless punk kids causing all the trouble that it ends up being the 'responsible adults' in that film who cause the most problems, anticipating the military critiquing ending!)

Andrew Sachs also write and starred in The Revenge, a half-hour radio play with no dialogue, broadcast in binaural stereo in 1978.

Here's an obscure one: Howard Snider, the entrepreneur at the center of Tom Cohen's terrific 1982 documentary Family Business (part of the Middletown project), died last month. Sounds like the Shakey's Pizza he was struggling to keep afloat in the film turned into a non-franchise restaurant.