Celebrity Deaths in 2022
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- Gary Burgess was born on 13 November 1975 in Manchester, England, UK. He was married to Alan Stirling. He died on 1 January 2022 in Jersey, Channel Islands, UK.
- Barbara Chilcott was born on 10 September 1922 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress, known for BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950), Stop Me Before I Kill! (1960) and Danger Man (1960). She was married to Harry Somers and Max Helpmann. She died on 1 January 2022 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Producer
- Director
- Production Manager
David Cunliffe was born on 18 April 1935 in Cheam, Surrey, England, UK. He was a producer and director, known for The Sandbaggers (1978), The Inside Man (1969) and Timeslip (1985). He was married to Maureen Murphy. He died on 1 January 2022 in England, UK.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Julien began his career in New York's Off-Broadway circuit including Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park. Moving westward, he landed co-starring roles with Jack Nicholson in Psych-Out (1968) and Candice Bergen in Columbia's box-office hit, Getting Straight (1970).
In Uptight (1968), New York Times critic Judith Crist considered him a standout in a standout cast. The Santa Monica Evening Outlook's Raoul Gripenwaldt predicted that Julien's portrayal of Johnny Wells in Paramount's Uptight (1968) could well result in an Academy Award nomination. Julien was invited to Europe to discuss film possibilities. He went on to write the screenplay for and subsequently co-produce Warner Brothers' Cleopatra Jones (1973).
In a joint venture with Columbia Pictures, Julien wrote, produced, and starred in Thomasine & Bushrod (1974). Assuming responsibility for the final look of the film, he assisted in the direction, supervised the editing and created the design concept for the costumes. The New York Times declared it a western of considerable freshness. The film garnered him a NAACP Image Award Nomination for Best Writer of the year. He then took a sabbatical from film, landing on several other continents, exploring the political developments of their cultures and writing poetry. He completed a novel, Dark Clowns Kickin' Ass, and finished 13 pieces of sculpture exhibited in galleries throughout the United States including Los Angeles' prestigious Pacific Design Center. Julien was dubbed one of the most popular and important filmmakers in the United States (L.A. Times), and graced the covers of such magazines as Ebony and Jet.
A group of Nigerian businessmen commissioned Julien to do a feasibility study for the development of a West African Film Colony. He selected a crew from Europe, Australia and the United States, and for a two-month period trained local craftsmen in the art of filmmaking. As a tribute to his accomplishments and international profile, a year later he was invited to return to co-write and star in Bisi & The Sun God.
In the early 1990s, Julien wrote, directed and essayed the title role in the docudrama Sketches Of A Man/The Charles Drew Story, about the African-American doctor who invented blood plasma. The mid-1990s returned him to West Africa starring, writing, executive-producing and directing Sangu, The Silent One. Nigeria's Ibaden Tribune said "Max Julien's Sangu is a masterpiece, a must for every Third World human being; more appropriately, every spiritual, peace loving person on the globe. This gifted, connected thread (Julien) will do much to keep the continents from colliding." Nigeria's Daily Times echoed "The Silent One speaks loudly; Julien's wisdom has not tarnished, his eyes and his words address the inner feelings of the common man of color. He's a joy to look upon, he is to be cherished."
In the billion dollar consumer market of hip hop, Julien became a Brand Name in hot demand by Rap, R&B and Pop entertainers to write and deliver his uniquely lyrical expressions including: Do Or Die's CD featuring Kanye West and R. Kelly, and Houston blues singer Rue Davis's Legends Are Forever album in early 2007. Around the same time he was writing dialogue for a Warner Brothers video game based on Clint Eastwood's iconic "Dirty Harry" character that ended when the studio shelved the project. He was also a sought-after guest speaker.
On May 13, 2011, on Yahoo News, Nick Cannon was being interviewed for his upcoming Showtime comedy special Mr. Showbiz, which included poking fun at his then-wife, Mariah Carey. Earlier reviews indicate one of the most hilarious bits involved him accusing Mariah of pimping him like Julien ("Goldie" from The Mack (1973)).
Despite being notoriously reclusive, in 2012 Julien's popularity reached cult-like proportions. His face hangs in the lobby Walls of Fame in Magic Johnson's Theatres from L.A. to Atlanta to Harlem.
Stevie Wonder included Julien in the dedications on his classic album "Songs In The Key of Life". Dick Kleiner wrote a chapter about him in his book ESP & The Stars. In Miramax's book on 1970s films, What It Is & What It Was, Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson complimented the actor/filmmaker, saying "I always went to see whatever Max Julien was doing." In a February 2008 interview on Fadar-TV, mega Hip-hop star Rick Ross removed his t-shirt and revealed Julien's face tattooed on his body.
Ninety percent of the world's rappers have sampled his voice and the music from The Mack (1973) (Outkast, 50-Cents, Three 6 Mafia etc.) familiarizing him among the 75% male and female consumers between 15 and 25 years of age, who happen to be white.
Quentin Tarantino scripted a film, True Romance, that shows Julien in a clip while Christian Slater says "I know that film. It's The Mack (1973) starring Max Julien." Although he declined a writing credit, Julien co-wrote the script along with co-star Richard Pryor and director Michael Campus. He also made major contributions in designing the costumes. It remains one of the leading DVD rentals/sellers in the world, recently cited by Entertainment Weekly as the 20th top cult film of all times, on a list of 50.
Julien had a starring cameo and wrote his own role in Def Jam's comedy hit, "How To Be A Player", then wrote and performed the intro, 19 interludes and the final recording on the film's platinum selling soundtrack album. He wrote and performed on Rap-A-Lot artist Tela's Gold Now or Never CD; was highlighted throughout The Hughes Brothers' documentary "The American Pimp"; starred in Bradley Smith's award-winning film short film "Restore"; and featured in N.Y.'s 2002 Urban World Film Festival as well as on Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Channel.- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Janusz Leski was born on 12 February 1930 in Radomsko, Lódzkie, Poland. He was a writer and director, known for Miasteczko (1960), Rodzina Lesniewskich (1983) and Janka (1989). He died on 1 January 2022 in Radomsko, Lódzkie, Poland.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Jarmo Jääskeläinen was born on 2 August 1937 in Viipuri, Finland. He was a producer and director, known for Coronation (1979), Famine Disease (1983) and Mass for the Homeland (1985). He died on 2 January 2022 in Helsinki, Finland.- Dorothy McGowan is known for Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966), Dim Dam Dom (1965) and Cinéma (1965).
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Traxamillion was born on 26 February 1979. He was an actor, known for Venom (2018), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) and Traxamillion feat. Chenelle McCoy: Madness (2021). He died on 2 January 2022 in Santa Clara, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Igor Bogdanoff was born on 29 August 1949 in Saint-Lary, Gers, France. He was an actor and writer, known for Steps to the Future (2010), Robo Story (1985) and Chassé-croisé (1982). He was married to Amélie de Bourbon Parme and Ludmilla d'Oultremont. He died on 3 January 2022 in Paris, France.- Gina Cabrera was born on 28 May 1928 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for La mentira (1952), Estrella sin luz (1953) and La rosa blanca (1954). She was married to Helio Dutra and Roberto Garriga. She died on 3 January 2022 in Havana, Cuba.
- Director
- Writer
- Actor
After graduating from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Milan (Accademia dei Filodrammatici) in the early 1950s, and a few experiences directing plays and operas, Mario Lanfranchi was hired at RAI, at the onset of Italian television. He was therefore a pioneer of Italia television and the first one to bring opera to the small screen, in 1956, with "Madama Butterfly", which did rise Anna Moffo to the rank of diva in the brief space of one night. He was meanwhile very active in the theater as a director and producer. In the early Sixties Mario left the Italian Television (coming back occasionally for some inaugurations, like Rai-TV Channel 2, Eurovision, the new Naples studios) and returned to the stage, directing and producing several works by English and American playwrights, premiering a number of plays and musicals. He wrote and produced "Festa Italiana", a colossal show with 120 performers, which broke box-office records at the Madison Square Garden of New York. At that same time, Mario began his career as a film director with the western Death Sentence (1968), followed by several other movies of different genres. In 1980 he moved to London, where he lived for 25 years, staging big musicals like "Lust" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" or plays like David Beaird's "900 Oneonta" at London's Old Vic and Daphne du Maurier's "September Tide" with Susannah York, which ran for years in the West End and Broadway. In 2005 Mario moved back to Italy, where he lived in a 16th century villa near Parma. He still enjoyed staging plays and giving recitals in the little theatre of the villa, periodically opening the doors to anybody.- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Jay Wolpert was born on 29 January 1942 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011). He was married to Roslyn Granowitter. He died on 3 January 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Vladan Zivkovic was born on 15 December 1941 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia. He was an actor, known for Balkan Spy (1984), Covek u srebrnoj jakni (1987) and Beloved Love (1977). He died on 3 January 2022 in Belgrade, Serbia.
- Joan Copeland, the sister of famed playwright Arthur Miller, is a renowned actress in her own right. She made her name on Broadway, debuting there in 1945 to begin a career that lasted more than 60 years. She also had a long career on television, where she appeared in a number of that medium's most popular soap operas. She played scheming villain Andrea Whiting in Search for Tomorrow (1951), and also appeared in Love of Life (1951) and The Edge of Night (1956), among others. She occasionally worked in films, but made fewer than 20 of them in her career, preferring the stage and television, where she made her debut in 1950.
- María Mérida was born on 5 June 1925 in El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain. She was an actress, known for Talk Back and You're Dead (2014), Alma canaria (1947) and La Perla del Mar (2013). She died on 4 January 2022 in El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain.
- Henny Orri was born on 16 June 1925 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for Puppet on a Chain (1970), Dokter Pulder zaait papavers (1975) and Vroeger kon je lachen (1983). She was married to Theo Kling and Ton Lensink. She died on 4 January 2022 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Bill Bryden was born on 12 April 1942 in Greenock, Scotland, UK. He was a producer and director, known for Ill Fares the Land (1983), Aria (1987) and The Mysteries (1985). He was married to Angela Douglas and Deborah Morris. He died on 5 January 2022 in the UK.- Kim Mi-Soo was born on 16 March 1992 in South Korea. She was an actress, known for Into the Ring (2020), Kiss Sixth Sense (2022) and Drama Special (2010). She died on 5 January 2022.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Despite being born and raised in Scotland, George's roots were from Italy. He was fluent in Italian. The heavy-set Scot made his acting debut in Comfort and Joy (1984) and continued to work throughout the 1980s, which included featuring in the TV pilot Max Headroom (1985) and in The Singing Detective (1986).
In the 1990s, George worked in television and film. He was memorably featured in Crossing the Line (1990) as a fighter alongside Liam Neeson and he then returned to Italy to film For Roseanna (1997), where he portrayed a police sergeant. This would come in useful to George because he would then join the cast of popular police drama series The Bill (1984) in 1998 as Detective Duncan Lennox. Rossi portrayed a down-to-earth yet effective policeman and soon became a fan favorite. After four years, George left the series in January 2003, but he will be remembered for portraying one of the most popular faces on The Bill in the late '90s. During his career, he was featured alongside Jean Reno, Chris O'Donnell, and Sandra Bullock.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter originally was an actor in the 1950s, studying his craft with legendary acting teacher Stella Adler and appearing on television and in summer stock. In the early 1960s he achieved notoriety for programming movies at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. An obsessive cinema-goer, sometimes seeing up to 400 movies a year in his youth, Bogdanovich prominently showcased the work of American directors such as John Ford, about whom he subsequently wrote a book based on the notes he had produced for the MOMA retrospective of the director, and the then-underappreciated Howard Hawks. Bogdanovich also brought attention to such forgotten pioneers of American cinema as Allan Dwan.
Bogdanovich was influenced by the French critics of the 1950s who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema, especially critic-turned-director François Truffaut. Before becoming a director himself, he built his reputation as a film writer with articles in Esquire Magazine. In 1968, following the example of Cahiers du Cinema critics Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer who had created the Nouvelle Vague ("New Wave") by making their own films, Bogdanovich became a director. Working for low-budget schlock-meister Roger Corman, Bogdanovich directed the critically praised Targets (1968) and the not-so-critically praised Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), a film best forgotten.
Turning back to journalism, Bogdanovich struck up a lifelong friendship with the legendary Orson Welles while interviewing him on the set of Mike Nichols' film adaptation of Catch-22 (1970) from the novel by Joseph Heller. Subsequently, Bogdanovich has played a major role in elucidating Welles and his career with his writings on the great actor-director, most notably his book "This is Orson Welles" (1992). He has steadily produced invaluable books about the cinema, especially "Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors," an indispensable tome that establishes Bogdanovich, along with Kevin Brownlow, as one of the premier English-language chroniclers of cinema.
The 32-year-old Bogdanovich was hailed by a critics as a Wellesian wunderkind when his most famous film, The Last Picture Show (1971) was released. The film received eight Academy Award nominations, including Bogdanovich as Best Director, and won two of them, for Cloris Leachman and "John Ford Stock Company" veteran Ben Johnson in the supporting acting categories. Bogdanovich, who had cast 19-year-old model Cybill Shepherd in a major role in the film, fell in love with the young beauty, an affair that eventually led to his divorce from the film's set designer Polly Platt, his longtime artistic collaborator and the mother of his two children.
Bogdanovich followed up The Last Picture Show (1971) with a major hit, What's Up, Doc? (1972), a screwball comedy heavily indebted to Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), starring Barbra Streisand and 'Ryan O'Neal'. Despite his reliance on homage to bygone cinema, Bogdanovich had solidified his status as one of a new breed of A-list directors that included Academy Award winners Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, with whom he formed The Directors Company. The Directors Company was a generous production deal with Paramount Pictures that essentially gave the directors carte blanche if they kept within strict budget limitations. It was through this entity that Bogdanovich's next big hit, the critically praised Paper Moon (1973), was produced.
Paper Moon (1973), a Depression-era comedy starring Ryan O'Neal that won his ten-year-old daughter Tatum O'Neal an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress, proved to be the highwater mark of Bogdanovich's career. Forced to share the profits with his fellow directors, Bogdanovich became dissatisfied with the arrangement. The Directors Company subsequently produced only two more films, Francis Ford Coppola's critically acclaimed The Conversation (1974) which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture of 1974 and garnered Coppola an Oscar nod for Best Director, and Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller (1974), a film that had a quite different critical reception.
An adaptation of the Henry James novella, Daisy Miller (1974) spelled the beginning of the end of Bogdanovich's career as a popular, critically acclaimed director. The film, which starred Bogdanovich's lover Cybill Shepherd as the title character, was savaged by critics and was a flop at the box office. Bogdanovich's follow-up, At Long Last Love (1975), a filming of the Cole Porter musical starring Cybill Shepherd, was derided by some critics as one of the worst films ever made, noted as such in Harry Medved and Michael Medved's book "The Golden Turkey Awards: Nominees and Winners, the Worst Achievements in Hollywood History" (1980). The film also was a box office bomb despite featuring Burt Reynolds, a hotly burning star who would achieve super-nova status at the end of the 1970s.
Bogdanovich insisted on filming the musical numbers for At Long Last Love (1975) live, a process not used since the early days of the talkies, when sound engineer Douglas Shearer developed lip-synching at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The decision was widely ridiculed, as none of the leading actors were known for their singing abilities (Bogdanovich himself had produced a critically panned album of Cybill Shepherd singing Cole Porter songs in 1974). The public perception of Bogdanovich became that of an arrogant director hamstrung by his own hubris.
Trying to recapture the lightning in the bottle that was his early success, Bogdanovich once again turned to the past, his own and that of cinema, with Nickelodeon (1976). The film, a comedy recounting the earliest days of the motion picture industry, reunited Ryan O'Neal and 'Tatum O'Neal' from his last hit, Paper Moon (1973) with Burt Reynolds. Counseled not to use the unpopular (with both audiences and critics) Cybill Shepherd in the film, Bogdanovich instead used newcomer Jane Hitchcock as the film's ingénue. Unfortunately, the magic of Paper Moon (1973) was not be repeated and the film died at the box office. Jane Hitchcock, Bogdanovich's discovery, would make only one more film before calling it quits.
After a three-year hiatus, Bogdanovich returned with the critically and financially underwhelming Saint Jack (1979) for Hugh Hefner's Playboy Productions Inc. Bogdanovich's long affair with Cybill Shepherd had ended in 1978, but the production deal making Hugh Hefner the film's producer was part of the settlement of a lawsuit Shepherd had filed against Hefner for publishing nude photos of her pirated from a print of The Last Picture Show (1971) in Playboy Magazine. Bogdanovich then launched the film that would be his career Waterloo, They All Laughed (1981), a low-budget ensemble comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and the 1980 Playboy Playmate of the Year, Dorothy Stratten. During the filming of the picture, Bogdanovich fell in love with Stratten, who was married to an emotionally unstable hustler, Paul Snider, who relied on her financially. Stratten moved in with Bogdanovich, and when she told Snider she was leaving him, he shot and killed her, then committed suicide.
They All Laughed (1981) could not attract a distributor due to the negative publicity surrounding the Stratten murder, despite it being one of the few films made by the legendary Audrey Hepburn after her provisional retirement in 1967 (the film would prove to be Hepburn's last starring role in a theatrically released motion picture). The heartbroken Bogdanovich bought the rights to the negative so that it would be seen by the public, but the film had a limited release, garnered weak reviews and cost Bogdanovich millions of dollars, driving the emotionally devastated director into bankruptcy.
Bogdanovich turned back to his first avocation, writing, to pen a memoir of his dead love, "The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960-1980)" that was published in 1984. The book was a riposte to Teresa Carpenter's "Death of a Playmate" article written for The Village Voice that had won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize. Carpenter had lambasted Bogdanovich and Hugh Hefner, claiming that Stratten was as much a victim of them as she was of Paul Snider. The article served as the basis of Bob Fosse's film Star 80 (1983), in which Bogdanovich was portrayed as the fictional director "Aram Nicholas".
Bogdanovich's career as a noted director was over, and though he achieved modest success with Mask (1985), his sequel to his greatest success The Last Picture Show (1971), Texasville (1990), was a critical and box office disappointment. He directed two more theatrical films in 1992 and 1993, but their failure kept him off the big screen until 2001's The Cat's Meow (2001). Returning once again to a reworking of the past, this time the alleged murder of director Thomas H. Ince by Welles' bete noir William Randolph Hearst, The Cat's Meow (2001) was a modest critical success but a flop at the box office. In addition to helming some television movies, Bogdanovich has returned to acting, with a recurring guest role on the cable television series The Sopranos (1999) as Dr. Jennifer Melfi's analyst.
Bogdanovich's personal reputation suffered from gossip about his 13-year marriage to Dorothy Stratten's 19-year-old-kid sister Louise Stratten, who was 29 years his junior. Some gossip held that Bogdanovich's behavior was akin to that of the James Stewart character in Alfred Hitchcock's necrophiliac masterpiece Vertigo (1958), with the director trying to remold Stratten into the image of her late sister. The marriage ended in divorce in 2001.
Now in his early eighties, Bogdanovich has arguably imitated his hero Orson Welles, but in an unintended fashion, as filmmaker who never regained the acclaim bestowed on their first major success. However, unlike the widely acclaimed master Welles, the orbit of Bogdanovich's reputation has never recovered from the apogee it reached briefly in the early 1970s.
There has been speculation that Peter Bogdanovich's ruin as a director was guaranteed when he ditched his wife and artistic collaborator Polly Platt for Cybill Shepherd. Platt had worked with Bogdanovich on all his early successes, and some critics believe that the controlling artistic consciousness on The Last Picture Show (1971) was Platt's. Parting company with Platt after Paper Moon (1973), Bogdanovich promptly slipped from the heights of a wunderkind to a has-been pursuing epic folly, as evidenced by Daisy Miller (1974) and At Long Last Love (1975).
In 1998 the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress named The Last Picture Show (1971) to the National Film Registry, an honor awarded only to the most culturally significant films.- Actor
- Production Designer
Raymond Cornelius Boyle, frequently credited as Dirk London, was an American small part character actor of the 1950s. Predominantly active on the small screen, he became best known for playing Morgan Earp (1851-1882) in fifteen episodes of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955), starring Hugh O'Brian as the eponymous gunfighter. Boyle found steady work in a staple of early western and police shows, including some recurring appearances in Gang Busters (1952), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (1955), Highway Patrol (1955) and Gunsmoke (1955). A rare higher profile role saw him cast as a gangster colluding with Martians in Republic's hilarious serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) (Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy -- then very much at the beginning of his career -- can be glimpsed as one of the zombies!).
After his retirement from acting, Boyle worked as production designer/art director on a couple of films in the 1970s. His second wife (from 1954) was the actress Jan Shepard.- F. Sionil Jose was born on 3 December 1924 in Rosales, Pangasinan, Philippine Islands. He was a writer, known for Waywaya (1982) and Francisco Sionil Jose - a Filipino Odyssey (1996). He was married to Tessie Jovellanos Jose. He died on 6 January 2022 in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines.
- Maria Klenskaja was born on 29 January 1951 in Tartu, Estonian SSR, USSR [now Estonia]. She was an actress, known for Varastatud kohtumine (1989), Doktor Stockmann (1989) and Keskea rõõmud (1987). She was married to Aarne Üksküla. She died on 6 January 2022 in Estonia.
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Mariano Laurenti was born on 15 April 1929 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a director and assistant director, known for Popcorn e patatine (1985), Fotoromanzo (1986) and Girls Will Be Girls (1980). He died on 6 January 2022 in Gubbio, Umbria, Italy.- Gloria Piedimonte was born on 27 May 1955 in Mantua, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress, known for Insanlari Seveceksin (1979), Baila guapa (1979) and Violence for Kicks (1976). She was married to Tony. She died on 6 January 2022 in Mantua, Lombardy, Italy.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal education and at the age of 15 was sent to Miami to live with his brother, in order to forestall a growing tendency toward delinquency. In the U.S., he experienced the racial chasm that divides the country, a great shock to a boy coming from a society with a majority of African descent.
At 18, he went to New York, did menial jobs and slept in a bus terminal toilet. A brief stint in the Army as a worker at a veterans' hospital was followed by more menial jobs in Harlem. An impulsive audition at the American Negro Theatre was rejected so forcefully that Poitier dedicated the next six months to overcoming his accent and improving his performing skills. On his second try, he was accepted. Spotted in rehearsal by a casting agent, he won a bit part in the Broadway production of "Lysistrata", for which he earned good reviews. By the end of 1949, he was having to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance as a doctor treating a white bigot got him plenty of notice and led to more roles. Nevertheless, the roles were still less interesting and prominent than those white actors routinely obtained. But seven years later, after turning down several projects he considered demeaning, Poitier got a number of roles that catapulted him into a category rarely if ever achieved by an African-American man of that time, that of leading man. One of these films, The Defiant Ones (1958), earned Poitier his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Five years later, he won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963), the first African American to win for a leading role.
He remained active on stage and screen as well as in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. His roles in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and To Sir, with Love (1967) were landmarks in helping to break down some social barriers between blacks and whites. Poitier's talent, conscience, integrity, and inherent likability placed him on equal footing with the white stars of the day. He took on directing and producing chores in the 1970s, achieving success in both arenas.- Calvin Simon was born on 22 May 1942 in Beckley, West Virginia, USA. He died on 6 January 2022 in the USA.
- Actress
- Stunts
Dee Booher, better known as "Queenie," first used the stage name of "Queen Kong" while skating for 5 years with such roller derby teams the Chicago Hawks, the New York Bombers, the Detroit Devils and the Texas Outlaws. Her acting career was augmented by a short-lived stint as a rock star. The video to her hit single, "(I Eat) Raw Meat", was played often by Los Angeles sportscaster Fred Rogin for a number of years on KNBC-TV4.
She appeared on numerous games shows such as "Win, Lose or Draw" and "The Gong Show" (where she was a co-host for 14 episodes). She also made a living delivering very physical singing telegrams known as "Slam-A-Grams", where she would take down the victim, errr, guest of honor at a party in various professional wrestling moves, all designed to look extremely painful and brutal, but ultimately harmless. Due to various injuries over the years from wrestling and roller derby, she no longer performed "Slam-A-Grams" for health reasons.
Some of her greatest fans were children. During her "Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling" (aka G.L.O.W.) days, her personal appearances were often mobbed by kids. Despite her rough and gruff image, she was in real life a most sweet and gregarious person, treating her friends and fans alike with immense kindness and affection. The "Matilda The Hun" moniker was given to her by G.L.O.W. producers. It wasn't until the show was over for a number of years she discovered they had taken the name directly from a character played by Roberta Collins in Death Race 2000 (1975).
She resided in the Los Angeles area with her husband, Ken. Her website features many photos of herself throughout her career.- Harpdog Brown was born on 28 January 1962 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor, known for Jinxed (2013). He died on 7 January 2022 in Alberta, Canada.
- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Director
Guy Cavagnac was born on 15 September 1934 in Paris, France. He was a producer and assistant director, known for Le soldat Laforêt (1972), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and La campagne de Cicéron (1990). He died on 7 January 2022 in France.- Gerson Da Cunha was born in June 1929 in British India. He was an actor, known for The Maharaja's Daughter (1994), Asoka (2001) and Rangoon (2017). He died on 7 January 2022 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
- Actor and bodybuilder Mark Forest was born in Brooklyn as Lorenzo Luis Degni, a third generation Italian-American (his grandparents hailed from Naples). He began as a bodybuilder at the tender age of thirteen, found himself featured on the cover of magazines and soon operated his own gym on Long Island. He entered and won several bodybuilding competitions before finding his way into show business via Mae West's troupe of musclemen (who featured as ladies' eye candy in her touring act along with the singers and dancers). West's entourage variously included other luminaries of the muscular fraternity, such as Ed Fury, Gordon Mitchell and Reg Lewis.
Mark Forest came to international fame after being recruited to star in Italian peplum (sword and sandal) epics, becoming only the second American actor (after Steve Reeves) to find lucrative work and popularity in that medium. His success was greatly helped by the fact that he was already fluent in Italian. Forest's film career spanned a modest five years (1960-1965), in the course of which he starred in a dozen pictures. Most often, he portrayed either Hercules or the equally brawny hero Maciste, created by Gabriele D'Annunzio and Giovanni Pastrone. In fact, Forest played Maciste seven times - more than any other actor.
At the end of his brief fling with the movies, Forest turned to his other passion and reinvented himself as an opera singer (tenor) in Europe. He became adept at the bel canto technique, trained by Giovanni Milillo, a composer and former tenor at the New York Opera and father of operatic soprano Aprile Millo. After his return to the U.S., Forest settled in California, latterly teaching vocal technique in Studio City. - Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Bobby Harrison was born on 22 June 1939 in London, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Amy's Orgasm (2001), Children on Their Birthdays (2002) and Attraction (1969). He died on 7 January 2022.- Producer
- Soundtrack
R. Dean Taylor was born on 11 May 1939 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a producer, known for Last Night in Soho (2021), Phenomenon (1996) and Striptease (1996). He was married to Janee. He died on 7 January 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
- Music Department
- Script and Continuity Department
Aleksandr Timofeevskiy was born on 21 October 1933 in Moscow, USSR. He was a writer, known for Leto 43-go goda (1968), Skazki starogo volshebnika (1985) and KOAPP (1984). He was married to Natalia Dyakova, Lyudmila Kichina and Irina Alexandrovna Ulanovskaya. He died on 7 January 2022.- Actor
- Writer
Vitaliano Trevisan was born on 12 December 1960 in Sandrigo, Veneto, Italy. He was an actor and writer, known for Primo amore (2004), Still Life (2007) and Senza lasciare traccia (2016). He died on 7 January 2022 in Crespadoro, Veneto, Italy.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Baktash Abtin was born in 1974 in Rey, Iran. He was a director and producer, known for Mika (2007), Park Mark (2010) and Fariborz Raisdana (2020). He died on 8 January 2022 in Tehran, Iran.- Actor
- Producer
Ramesh Babu Ghattamaneni was born on 13 October 1965 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. He was an actor and producer, known for Dookudu (2011), Sooryavansham (1999) and Athidhi (2007). He was married to Mrudula Ghattamaneni. He died on 8 January 2022 in Hyderabad, Telangana, India.- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
Prolific songwriter ("Nice 'n' Easy", "Yellow Bird"), composer and author Marilyn Bergman wrote several theme songs for television and songs for revues, night clubs, and films. Joining ASCAP in 1953, her chief musical collaborators included her husband Alan Bergman, Lew Spence, Norman Luboff, Paul Weston, Sammy Fain, and Alex North. Her other song compositions included "Cheatin' Billy", "Don't Know Where I'm Goin'", "I've Never Left Your Arms", "Never Be Afraid", "Outta My Mind", "The Right Approach" (for film), "Marriage-Go-Round" (for film), "Sentimental Baby", "Sleep Warm", "Sogni D'Oro", "That Face", "Baby, the Ball is Over", "Ol' MacDonald", "If I Were in Love" (for film) and "That's Him Over There."- Actress
- Soundtrack
Truus Dekker was born on 13 May 1922 in Wormerveer, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for De lachende scheerkwast (1981), Opzoek naar Yolanda (1984) and Plafond over de vloer (1986). She died on 8 January 2022 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.- Actor
- Stunts
- Director
Robin Fernando was born in 1938 in Sri Lanka. He was an actor and director, known for Ninja Sri Lanka (1997), Kalu Sudu Mal (2002) and Gini Avi Saha Gini Keli (1998). He was married to Violet Jayaweera. He died on 8 January 2022 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.- Producer
- Additional Crew
Michael Lang was born on 11 December 1944 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer, known for Bottle Rocket (1996), The Master and Margarita and A Bright Light: Karen and the Process (2018). He was married to Tamara Pajic and Jayne Ann Bell. He died on 8 January 2022 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Stanislav Rudolf was born on 16 February 1932 in Jicín, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was a writer, known for Kopretiny pro zámeckou paní (1981), Atomová katedrála (1985) and Operace me dcery (1986). He died on 8 January 2022 in Brandýs nad Labem, Czech Republic.
- Nicholas Donnelly was born in 1938 in Kensington, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Lifeforce (1985), Dixon of Dock Green (1955) and Grange Hill (1978). He was married to Alrun Donnelly. He died on 9 January 2022 in England, UK.
- Maria Ewing was born on 27 March 1950 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She was an actress, known for The Marriage of Figaro (1976), Great Performances (1971) and Carmen (1989). She was married to Peter Hall. She died on 9 January 2022 in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Blond, boyishly handsome Dwayne Hickman, the younger brother of Darryl Hickman, followed in his sibling's tiny footsteps as a moppet film actor himself. Born Dwayne Bernard Hickman in Los Angeles on May 18, 1934, the brothers had a younger sister as well, Deidre (born 1940). He had minor roles in such films as Captain Eddie (1945) (Darryl had a major role in this), The Secret Heart (1946), The Boy with Green Hair (1948), Mighty Joe Young (1949), The Happy Years (1950) (again with Darryl in a major role), and topped his youthful film career as "Nip Worden" in the canine movie series "Rusty", which began with The Son of Rusty (1947) and ended with Rusty's Birthday (1949).
Graduating from Cathedral High School in 1952 (Darryl graduated from the same school in 1948), Dwayne enrolled at Loyola Marymount University. He returned to Hollywood following college studies and, unlike his brother, focused strongly on television work, making appearances on such series as Public Defender (1954), The Loretta Young Show (1953), The Lone Ranger (1949), and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). He also appeared in the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward comedy film Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958) playing the secondary teen couple with Tuesday Weld. He grabbed major comedy attention, especially from young female baby-boomers, as Chuck, the girl-crazy nephew, in The Bob Cummings Show (1955). (Cummings became his mentor.)
Hickman then played the titular lovesick title high school teen in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959), the role for which he is best known, and in which he was reunited with Tuesday Weld as the prime object of his attention, although Weld did not remain with the series for the entirety of its run. Laying low for a few years, Hickman returned to the screen, making a strong impression in the western film Cat Ballou (1965), and then began hanging out with the young beach crowd in several AIP movies including Ski Party (1965), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), and a few slapstick comedies such as Sergeant Dead Head (1965) and Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967). He guested on a mix of comedic and dramatic TV shows including Combat! (1962), Mod Squad (1968), Ellery Queen (1975), The Flying Nun (1967), and Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974).
In the 1970s, Hickman began working behind the scenes as a publicist, a Las Vegas entertainment director and, most successfully, as a programming executive for CBS. He would return only occasionally to acting. He revisited his Dobie Gillis character, albeit a fully grown-up version, in such made-for-television movies as Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis? (1977) and Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis (1988). In addition to guest appearances on Murder, She Wrote (1984) and Hi Honey, I'm Home (1991), he appeared in glorified cameos in High School U.S.A. (1983), had a recurring role on Clueless (1996), and was glimpsed in Cops n Roberts (1995), A Night at the Roxbury (1998), and Angels with Angles (2005). He began episodic directing chores in the 1980's, working on such episodes as "Charles in Charge", "Designing Women", "Head of the Class", "Harry and the Hendersons", and "Sister, Sister". In 1994, he published his biography, aptly titled 'Forever Dobie'.
Thrice wed, Hickman has two children -- one by his first wife, actress/model/beauty pageant winner Carol Christensen (1963-1972) who appeared a few times on "Dobie Gillis", and the other by his present wife, actress/voiceover artist Joan Roberts, to whom he has been married since 1983.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Akira Inoue was born on 10 December 1928 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a director and assistant director, known for Zatoichi's Revenge (1965), Showdown at Night's End (1964) and Tokyo Bodyguards (1965). He died on 9 January 2022 in Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Dusan Klein was born on 27 June 1939 in Michalovce, Czechoslovakia. He was a director and writer, known for Jak svet prichází o básníky (1982), Konec básníku v Cechách (1993) and Prípad mrtvého muze (1975). He was married to Silvera Rasková. He died on 9 January 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
James Mtume was born on 3 January 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Rush Hour 3 (2007), Hamilton (2020) and 8 Mile (2002). He was married to Kamili. He died on 9 January 2022 in South Orange, New Jersey, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Bob Saget was an American actor, stand-up comedian, and television host from Philadelphia. His best known role was playing pater familias Danny Tanner on the hit sitcom "Full House" (1987-1995). He played the character again in the sequel series "Fuller House" (2016-2020). Saget served as the original host of the long-running clip show "America's Funniest Home Videos" from 1989 to 1997. Saget voiced the narrator in the hit sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" (2005-2014), depicted as an older version of main character Ted Mosby.
In 1956, Saget was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia. His parents were supermarket executive Benjamin Saget and hospital administrator Rosalyn "Dolly" Saget. The Saget family eventually moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Bob received his early religious education at Temple Israel, a synagogue of Norfolk which adhered to Conservative Judaism. He was reportedly a rebellious student.
Saget spend part of his high school years in Los Angeles, where he befriended veteran comedian Larry Fine (1902-1975). He attended a Philadelphia high school during his senior year. He was originally interested in a medical career but his English teacher Elaine Zimmerman convinced Saget to aspire to an acting or filmmaking career instead.
Saget received his college education at the "Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts", a college associated with the Temple University of Philadelphia. One of his student films won a merit award at the Student Academy Awards. He graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts in 1978. He had already started performing in comedy clubs during his college years.
In 1978, Saget intended to take graduate courses at the University of Southern California. He dropped out due to health-related problems. He almost died due to a gangrenous appendix, costing him a loss of confidence. He decided afterwards to lose some weight, in the belief that it would improve his health.
Following his graduation, Saget spend about a decade working mostly as a comedian. He appeared in minor acting roles in both films and television. In 1987, Saget was performing comedy bits for the short-lived non-fiction show "The Morning Program". The show offered a mix of "news, entertainment and comedy", but was canceled due to low ratings.
Saget's big break came when he was chosen to portray widowed father Danny Tanner in the sitcom "Full House" (1987-1995). The series depicted Danny's efforts to raise three young daughters, with the assistance of his best friends. The show suffered from poor viewership in its first season, but attracted a family audience due to its portrayal of the struggles associated with parenting. By its third season, it was ranked among Nielsen's Top 30 shows. Saget became a household name, and the series lasted for 8 seasons and 192 episodes. The series was eventually canceled due to its increasing production costs. Its rating had remained high until its final episode.
In 1989, Saget was chosen as the host of the clip show "America's Funniest Home Videos". The show featured humorous homemade videos which were submitted by its viewers, often highlighting physical comedy, pranks, or unusual behavior by children and pets. While the show was popular with viewers, Saget himself was increasingly frustrated with its repetitive format. When his contract for the show expired in 1997, Saget was not interested in negotiating for a renewal.
In 1996, Saget directed the dramatic television film "For Hope". The film depicted the struggles of a woman who is slowly dying due to being afflicted with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease with no known cure. Saget was reportedly inspired by the life and death of his sister Gay Saget, who had died due to scleroderma. The film received high ratings in its debut.
In 1998, Saget directed the comedy film "Dirty Work". It depicted two half-brothers who offer to perform revenge schemes for paying clients, but have a personal grudge against a man who reneged on a deal with them. The film under-performed at the box office, but gained a cult following due to its reputation as a "gag-fest".
From 2001 to 2002, Saget had the starring role of Matt Stewart in the sitcom "Raising Dad". The premise of the series was that widowed father Matt Stewart was trying to raise two daughter, while pursuing a teaching career at his eldest's daughter's high school. Despite the series having a similar concept to "Full House", it failed to find an audience. It lasted for a single season.
In 2005, Saget was cast as the narrator in the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" (2005-2014). The premise of the series was that middle-aged Ted Mosby narrates his life story (and the life stories of his best friends) to his son and daughter. The series repeatedly implied that Ted was an unreliable narrator, who either embellished or censored aspects of his various stories. The series was quite popular, lasting for 9 seasons and 208 episodes.
In 2007, Saget directed the direct-to-video parody film "Farce of the Penguins". The film was a full-length parody of the documentary film "March of the Penguins" (2005), featuring penguins conversing about their love lives. It featured the voices of several then-popular actors, including several of Saget's former co-stars from "Full House".
In 2009, Saget was cast in the main role of Steve Patterson in the sitcom "Surviving Suburbia". The premise of the series was that the members of a suburban family have problems in interacting both with each other, and with their new neighbors. The series only lasted a single season, and struggled with low ratings.
In 2014, Saget published his memoirs under the title "Dirty Daddy". In 2016, a sequel series to "Full House" was introduced under the title "Fuller House". It featured the lives of two of Danny Tanner's daughters, and Danny's grandchildren. Saget played the recurring role of Danny for 15 episodes. The sequel series lasted for 5 seasons. This was Saget's last major role in a sitcom. He continued, however, to regularly host television events.
In January 2022, Saget was in Florida for a stand-up tour. On January 9, Saget was discovered dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, located south of Orlando, Florida. He was 65-years-old. His autopsy revealed that the cause of death was blunt head trauma from an accidental blow to the back of his head, likely from a fall. He had died in his sleep. He was buried at the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery, next to the graves of his parents and his sister. Mourners honored Saget by offering donations to the charity "Scleroderma Research Foundation" (SRF), since Saget had long served in its board of directors. Saget is gone, but his popularity endures due to his acting and directing roles in several popular films and television shows.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
He grew up with his grandmother in the Bavarian Forest. When he graduated from high school in Cham in 1960, he was adopted by his biological father, to whom his mother, a swimming athlete, was never married. From then on he used the name Achternbusch. After briefly studying at the Munich-Pasing University of Education, Achternbusch moved to the Nuremberg Art Academy in 1961. Then he also studied at the Munich Art Academy. In 1962 Achternbusch married an art teacher. In the following years he made ends meet with odd jobs. He also painted a lot. The couple initially lived in Munich, then in Starnberg, Gauting and, from 1975, in Buchendorf. Achternbusch presented his first publications in the mid-1960s: they were poems and etchings. In 1969 his first book was published under the title "Hülle".
At the beginning of the 1970s, Achternbusch's artistic interest shifted to film. He started making small films. In the 1973/74 film "Overnight in Tirol" by Volker Schlöndorff he played the role of the teacher. In 1974 Achternbusch presented the script for his first film, which was released in cinemas under the title "The Andechser Feeling". The artist made this and the subsequent films himself as a screenwriter, director, leading actor and producer. Achternbusch's films are idiosyncratic works of a high artistic level. They are based on his bizarre prose texts, which he usually has amateur actors interpret in a comical way. The director's home region is discussed in a kind of love-hate relationship with Bavaria, with autobiographical themes also playing a role. Achternbusch gained national fame as a provocative director who liked to break social taboos.
In 1977 he rejected the Petrarch Prize that was intended for him. His films were sometimes subject to censorship measures when they were broadcast on television. The then Bavarian Federal Minister of the Interior refused funding for "The Ghost" (1982). The blasphemy accusations against the film caused a scandal in the Federal Republic of Germany's film world. In addition to his films, Achternbusch also produces plays that he directs himself.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Robert Allan Ackerman was born on 30 June 1944 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), My House in Umbria (2003) and The Ramen Girl (2008). He died on 10 January 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Marion Brasch was born on 27 March 1931 in Berlin, Germany. She was an actress, known for Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950), Man Against Crime (1949) and Search for Tomorrow (1951). She died on 10 January 2022 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Cinematographer
Jim Drake was born on 2 December 1944 in the USA. He was a director and assistant director, known for Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Speed Zone (1989) and Buffalo Bill (1983). He died on 10 January 2022 in Freeland, Washington, U.S.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Ciro Durán was born on 10 December 1937 in Convención, Norte de Santander, Colombia. He was a director and writer, known for La toma de la embajada (2000), La nave de los sueños (1996) and Gamín (1977). He died on 10 January 2022.- Robert Durst was born on 12 April 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Debrah Lee Charatan and Kathie Durst. He died on 10 January 2022 in Stockton, California, USA.
- Writer
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Joyce Eliason was born on 14 May 1934 in Manti, Utah, USA. She was a writer and producer, known for Mulholland Drive (2001), The Jacksons: An American Dream (1992) and The Last Don (1997). She was married to Stuart Margolin and Allan Dotson. She died on 10 January 2022 in the USA.- Costume Designer
- Actor
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Christian Gasc was born on 6 August 1945 in Dunes, Tarn-et-Garonne, France. He was a costume designer and actor, known for Ridicule (1996), On Guard (1997) and Farewell, My Queen (2012). He died on 11 January 2022 in Paris, France.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Christian Görlitz was born in 1944 in Hamburg, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Freier Fall (1997), Fleisch ist mein Gemüse (2008) and Ein Job (2008). He died on 10 January 2022 in Hamburg, Germany.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Gerry Granahan has been a DJ a Pop Rock singer, songwriter, and later a record producer as well as an executive for Dot Records. He appeared on ABC TVs "American Bandstand" and "The Saturday Night Dick Clark Show", circa 1958-59, first as the lead singer of the group "Dicky Doo and The Don'ts" and as a solo performer with the hit novelty single "No Chemise Please". As a record producer. he worked with The Fireflies (You Were Mine), The Angels (My Boyfriend's Back) and Jay and The Americans (Cara Mia). In 1965, he was the producer for the original recording of "Wild Thng" written by Chip Taylor, for Jordan Christopher and The Wild Ones. The following year, that song was covered by the British Invasion group The Troggs and has become a world wide rock standard. Jimi Hendrix also successfully adapted the song. Gerry still performs on occasion.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
After leaving school, he formed own jazz band and played gigs, featuring himself on trumpet. Won scholarship to Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) but left before end of course to sing in cabaret. Was for many years the Chairman at the Players Victorian Music Hall in Charring Cross, London Immediately after filming his episodes in Dr Who in 1972, he left to run a theatre in Mallorca. As a result, he never saw his Dr Who performance until a fan sent him a digitally re-mastered version on DVD just three years ago. His controversial book on the sinking of the Titanic features his great uncle, Charles Herbert Lightoller, the only senior officer to survive the tragedy. The book throws light on the possible conspiracy surrounding the Titanic's end. Is a successful voice artist.- Tina Scala was born on 16 July 1935 in Messina, Sicily, Italy. She was an actress, known for Midnight Cowboy (1969), Capone (1975) and How's Your Love Life? (1971). She died on 10 January 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
This balding, impeccably well-spoken London-born character actor made his name on the Shakespearean stage well before becoming a known quantity on television. Gary was the son of Austrian-Jewish émigrés Siegfried Waldhorn and his wife Liselotte (née Popper). As a youngster, he became enamoured with acting after seeing Richard Burton on stage as Henry V at the Old Vic. After graduating from the Yale School of Drama in 1967, Waldhorn made his theatrical debut as an extra in a National Theatre production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. For several years after, he served his apprenticeship as a small part supporting player. By the early 70s, Waldhorn had established himself as a serious actor, headlining as Milo Tindle in Sleuth (the part played by Michael Caine in the classic film version) at the West End. In 1972, he took the play on the road through Australia and New Zealand, along with Richard Todd, who essayed the role of mystery novelist Andrew Wyke. As a Shakespearean actor, Waldhorn later frequently performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Over the years, his roles have included Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, a highly acclaimed title role of Henry V (at the Old Vic, 1996-97) and the King of France in All's Well that Ends Well.
On screen from 1969, Waldhorn appeared in a variety of TV shows, his credits including perennial murder suspect William H. Druitt in the miniseries Jack the Ripper (1973), the diplomat and advisor Marquis de Caulaincourt in Napoleon and Love (1974), Conservative politician Henry 'Chips' Channon in Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978), as well as recurring roles in the comedies All at Number 20 (1986) and Brush Strokes (1986). He also guested (usually as establishment figures) in diverse genre series, ranging from Space: 1999 (1975) to Robin Hood (1984) and from Rumpole of the Bailey (1978) to Lovejoy (1986) and Heartbeat (1992). In the final analysis, Gary Waldhorn will be most fondly remembered as David Horton, the conservative, wealthy, often starchy chairman of the parish council in the ever-popular sitcom The Vicar of Dibley (1994).
From April 1967 until his passing on January 10 2022, Waldhorn was married to Christie Dickason, playwright, poet, theatre director/choreographer, librettist and author of (to date) nine novels.- Actor
- Writer
Stephen Churchett was born on 10 April 1947 in Bromley, London England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Secrets & Lies (1996), A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Marple (2004). He died on 11 January 2022 in England, UK.- Mihir Das was born on 17 February 1959 in Baripada, Mayurbhanj, India. He was an actor, known for Je Panche Para Manda (2003), Sakhi Rahila Ae Singha Duara (1994) and Kiese Dakuchi Kouthi Mate (2011). He died on 11 January 2022 in Cuttack, Odisha, India.
- Richard Folmer was born on 13 February 1942 in Cortland, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Straw Dogs (2011), Cleaner (2007) and The Root Cellar (2016). He was married to Ginger Folmer. He died on 11 January 2022 in Shreveport Louisiana, USA.
- Tim Rosaforte was born on 25 October 1955 in Mount Kisco, New York, USA. He died on 11 January 2022 in the USA.
- Iraj Pezeshkzad was educated in Iran and France where he received his degree in Law. He served as a judge in the Iranian Judiciary for five years prior to joining the Iranian Foreign Service. He served as a diplomat until the Iranian revolution in 1979, and left the Foreign Service to reside in France after revolution.
He began writing in the early 1950s by translating the works of Voltaire and Molière into Persian and by writing short stories for magazines. His novels include Haji Mam-ja'far in Paris, and Mashalah Khan in the Court of Haroun al-Rashid. He has also written several plays and various articles on the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution.
His most recent novel is Khanevade-ye Nik-Akhtar (The Nik-Akhtar Family). He has recently published his autobiography titled Golgashtha-ye Zendegi (The Pleasure-grounds of Life). He is currently living in Paris where he works as a journalist.
My Uncle Napoleon is a social satire and a masterpeice of contemporary Persian litterature. The book was turned into a tv series in 1970s and immediately captured the imagination of the whole nation-its story became a cultural reference point and its characters national icons. The story is set in a garden in Tehran in the early 1940s, where three families live under the tyranny of a paranoid patriarch. The book was translated to English by Dick Davis. - Actress
- Writer
- Music Department
Ronnie Spector is an American singer. Spector was the lead singer of the rock/pop vocal girl group The Ronettes, who had a string of hits during the early to mid-1960s such as "Be My Baby", "Baby, I Love You", and "The Best Part of Breakin' Up". Subsequently, Ronnie Spector launched her solo career and has since released five studio albums (Siren in 1980, Unfinished Business in 1987, Something's Gonna Happen in 2003, Last of the Rock Stars in 2006, English Heart in 2016) and one extended play (She Talks to Rainbows in 1999).
In 1986, Ronnie Spector experienced a career resurgence when she was featured on Eddie Money's Grammy nominated pop rock song "Take Me Home Tonight" which reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. She has sung and collaborated with multiple other acts. In 2007, Ronnie and the Ronettes were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2018, Spector appeared in the music documentary; Amy Winehouse: Back to Black (2018), which is based on the late singer Amy Winehouse and her final studio album Back to Black (2006). The album was inspired by 60's girl groups Winehouse gathered inspiration from listening to, such as The Ronettes.- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Producer
- Director
A rabid movie fan when he was young, Jean-Jacques Beineix first studied medicine before entering the movie business. During the seventies, he became an established assistant director, working with Claude Berri, René Clément, Claude Zidi and even Jerry Lewis. But, like many assistants, Beineix's ultimate dream was to direct. He had a pass at it in 1977 with the short Le chien de Monsieur Michel (1977). A promising debut, it won the first price at Trouville Festival and earned a César nomination for best short film (fiction).
In 1981, came his first long feature Diva (1981), a stylish thriller based on a book by Delacorta. When it came out, Diva was not supported by French critics and seemed at first well on its way to crash and burn. But slowly the film gained momentum due to good word of mouth and positive reactions in various festivals like Moscow and Toronto. Ultimately, the film became a great success internationally, winning four Césars along the way.
Next came the expensive The Moon in the Gutter (1983). An adaptation of a David Goodis novel, the film was even more radical than 'Diva' in its deliberate artificiality. Premiering in competition at the 36th Cannes Film Festival in 1983, the film was booed and most critics found it pretentious and boring. Only few voices rose up to defend the movie but it was not enough to save it. It flopped at the box office but manage to win one César for set design.
At that point, Beineix's career was in serious danger of biting the dust, but he came back in force in 1986 with Betty Blue (1986) (aka 'Betty Blue'), based on a 'Philippe Djian' novel. Despite mixed reviews, the film was another international hit, won the top price at Montréal festival, and was nominated for best foreign film at both the Oscars and Golden Globes, each time losing to Fons Rademakers' 'De Aanslag'. It also earned 9 César nominations including best film and best director ... but won only for best poster !
Beineix's next movie Roselyne and the Lions (1988), set in the circus world, came and went unnoticed. In 1992, IP5: The Island of Pachyderms (1992) got attention mostly for being Yves Montand's last role. Beineix then resurfaced where he was least expected with social documentaries. He did a film about children in Romania; Otaku (1994) was shot in Japan; Assigné à résidence (1997) was about locked-in syndrome victim Jean-Dominique Bauby.
In 2001, he came back to fiction with Mortal Transfer (2001), a psycho-thriller based on a Jean-Pierre Gattegno novel. Once again, critics were lukewarm and the film performed poorly at the box-office. In 2002, however, Beineix drew strong ratings with made for TV documentary Loft Paradoxe (2002), an attempt to analyse the success of reality show 'Loft Story'.
With his intense focus on the power of images, Beineix paved the way for directors like Luc Besson, Leos Carax and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. A self-proclaimed misanthropist who never hid his contempt for producers and was often deemed excessive and irascible, he will go down in the history books as a director who raised controversy not for the subjects he tackled but for his stylistic approach. Still, with Diva (1981) and Betty Blue (1986), he directed two of the few French films of the eighties that reached an international audience.- Lissek initially studied law at Melbourne University but left halfway through his course in order to take up acting. Already involved with amateur dramatics since high school, he honed his skills on stage as a member of the Marlowe Society in the late 1950s. In 1963, Lissek moved to Buckinghamshire in England, became a member of Peter Brook's avant-garde Theatre of Cruelty and then made his British screen debut as Lavoisier in Marat/Sade (1967). Specialising in off-beat, eccentric characters of assorted ethnicity, he went on to appear in small roles on television (The Avengers (1961), Special Branch (1969), EastEnders (1985), Foyle's War (2002)) and motion pictures (Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Countess Dracula (1971) and Time Bandits (1981)). The self-professed "non-resident Australian" returned to the country of his birth in the 1970s to play colourful criminal solicitor David Garside in the mini-series Power Without Glory (1976). This, in turn, led to his casting as Jewish grocer Hans Kauffman in the popular Australian TV soap The Sullivans (1976). By the end of the decade, Lissek went to Japan for eight weeks to play the role of a Jesuit priest in Shogun (1980), alongside Richard Chamberlain and Toshirô Mifune. His extensive theatrical portfolio has encompassed diverse roles in Australia with the Union Theatre Repertory Company, as well as in Britain and in the United States (both on and off-Broadway). Lissek was married to the English stage and TV actress Heather Canning who predeceased him in 1996.
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Fred Parris was born on 26 March 1936 in Milford, Connecticut, USA. He was a composer, known for Dead Ringers (1988), Dirty Dancing (1987) and The Irishman (2019). He was married to Emma. He died on 13 January 2022 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.- Terry Teachout was born on 6 February 1956 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA. He was married to Hilary Dyson and Liz Cullers. He died on 13 January 2022 in Smithtown, New York, USA.
- Sonny Turner was born in 1939. He was married to Arlen Fairley, Lavinia Eaton and Roxie Turner. He died on 13 January 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Flo Ayres was born on 12 July 1923 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She was an actress, known for Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1997). She died on 14 January 2022 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Boris Brozhovsky was born on 26 July 1935. He was a cinematographer, known for I Am Cuba (1964), The Cold Summer of 1953 (1988) and Tainstvennaya stena (1968). He was married to Nina Popova. He died on 14 January 2022 in Russia.- Soundtrack
Dallas Frazier was born on 27 October 1939 in Spiro, Oklahoma, USA. He was married to Sharon Carpani. He died on 14 January 2022 in Gallatin, Tennessee, USA.- Ron Goulart was born on 13 January 1933 in Berkeley, California, USA. He was a writer, known for Welcome to Paradox (1998), Monsters (1988) and Thundercats (1985). He was married to Frances Sheridan Goulart. He died on 14 January 2022 in Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA.
- Sean Rice is known for The Cutting Edge (1992).
- Bill Seward is an anchor/host for NBC Sports and CBS Radio in Los Angeles. Seward previously anchored at ESPN, hosting such shows as SportsCenter, ESPNEWS, 2Day at the Races and was a regular contributor on ABC's World News this Morning. A native of Los Angeles, Seward anchored at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles and KNX-AM, where he was frequently named one of the Best Sports Anchors by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters. Seward graduated from Loyola Marymount University and was a successful football and baseball coach, working with several future pro athletes and earning "Coach of the Year" honors before embarking on a broadcasting career.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Cute, bubbly, and adorable actress Carol Speed achieved a considerable amount of cult cinema popularity with her often lively and delightful contributions to a handful of enjoyably down'n'dirty 1970s blaxploitation features.
She was born Carolyn Stewart on March 14, 1945, in Bakersfield, California. She holds the distinction of being the first black homecoming queen in Santa Clara County and was one of the first black people to receive a scholarship for the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Carol got her start in show business as a back-up singer for Bobbie Gentry at Harrah's club in Reno, Nevada. She made her film debut as a hooker in The New Centurions (1972). Speed's most memorable movie roles include sassy prison inmate Mickie in Jack Hill's hilarious babes-behind-bars parody The Big Bird Cage (1972), pimp Max Julien's loyal prostitute girlfriend Lulu in the terrific The Mack (1973), sarcastic rock groupie Janyce in Bummer (1973), club owner Rockne Tarkington's sweet gal pal Leslie in the fun Black Samson (1974) and deaf-mute Sarah in Al Adamson's Dynamite Brothers (1974).
Carol gave an especially inspired and impressive performance as a minister's innocent wife who becomes possessed by the malevolent spirit of an evil demon in William Girdler's immensely entertaining horror flick Abby (1974). She had a recurring part on the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives (1965) in the summer of 1970. Moreover, she made a guest appearance on an episode of Sanford and Son (1972), appeared in several TV commercials, and pops up in the made-for-TV films The Girls of Huntington House (1973), Love Hate Love (1971), Tenafly (1973), Getting Away from It All (1972), and The Psychiatrist (1970).
Outside of acting, Carol was also a successful writer (she's the author of the books "Inside Black Hollywood" and "The Georgette Harvey Story"), singer and songwriter (she sang her own compositions "I Can Make It" in "The Girls of Huntington House" and "My Soul Is A Witness" in "Abby"). After taking a regrettably lengthy hiatus from acting following Disco Godfather (1979) (she was slated to do a small role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997), but backed out at the last minute), Speed made a welcome comeback with a supporting part in the independent thriller Village Vengeance (2006).
Carol Speed died at age 76 on January 14, 2022 in Muskogee, Oklahoma.- Anastasiya Voznesenskaya was a Russian actress, active in older films, and at the Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT).
She was born Anastasiya Valentinovna Voznesenskaya on July 27, 1943, in the Soviet Union (now Russia). From 1961 - 1965 she studied acting at the Acting School of Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT), graduating in 1965 as an actress. From 1965 - 1977 she was member of the troupe at Sovremennik Theatre in Moscow. There, her stage partners were such actors as Oleg Efremov, Evgeniy Evstigneev, Galina Volchek, Stanislav Lyubshin, Viktor Sergachyov, Alla Pokrovskaya, Oleg Tabakov, Oleg Dal, Igor Kvasha, Valentin Gaft and other notable Russian actors. In 1967, she shot to fame with the leading role as Anya in the popular Soviet TV series 'Mayor Vikhr.'
In 1977, Anastasiya became a permanent member of the troupe at Moscow Art Theatre (MKhAT). There, her stage partners were such renown Russian actors as Oleg Efremov, Evgeniy Evstigneev, Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, Yekaterina Vasilyeva, Tatyana Doronina, Oleg Tabakov, Aleksandr Kalyagin, Andrei Popov and other notable Russian actors. During the 1970s and 1980s Voznesenskaya gave memorable performances in classic plays by Anton Chekhov, such as Barabanova in 'Ivanov', and as Masha in 'Chaika' (aka.. The Seagull). She also shone as Maria in popular play 'Eldorado'. Later Voznesenskaya suffered through a severe emotional breakdown and had a slowdown in her acting career.
Since 1987, after the split of the troupe, she was a permanent member of MKhAT named after Chekhov. She made memorable stage appearances as retired ballerina Roza Pesochinskaya in the 2002 production of Aleksandr Galin's play 'Retro.'
Anastasiya Voznesenskaya was designated People's Actress of Russia (1986). She was married to actor Andrey Myagkov, until his death, and the couple lived in Moscow, Russia. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Ralph Emery was born on 10 March 1933 in McEwen, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for Nashville Rebel (1966), Girl from Tobacco Row (1966) and Dolly (1976). He was married to Joy Kott and Skeeter Davis. He died on 15 January 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.- Daniel Guerrero was born on 7 August 1945 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor, known for Quiero gritar tu nombre (1981), Tu mundo y el mío (1987) and Cara a cara (1983). He was married to Zulma Faiad. He died on 15 January 2022 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Sound Department
Jon Lind was born on 15 April 1948 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer, known for The Firm (1993), The Nice Guys (2016) and The Do-Over (2016). He was married to Mary Jane D'Astuges , Francine Tacker and Susan Drew. He died on 15 January 2022 in the USA.- Director
- Script and Continuity Department
- Writer
Jean-Claude Lord was born on 6 June 1943. He was a director and writer, known for Éclair au chocolat (1979), Bingo (1974) and The Vindicator (1986). He was married to Lise Thouin. He died on 15 January 2022 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Aurora Del Mar was born on 3 July 1934 in Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Somos novios (1969), Me llaman Gorrión (1972) and La familia hippie (1971). She died on 15 January 2022 in Bernal, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Soundtrack
Beverly Ross was born on 5 September 1934 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was married to Ferris Butler. She died on 15 January 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Michel Ruhl was born on 2 February 1934 in France. He was an actor, known for Wild Reeds (1994), Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret (1967) and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015). He died on 15 January 2022 in Guérande, Pays de la Loire, France.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carmela Corren was born Carmela Bizman in Tel Aviv, Israel. Her ambition was to become a dancer, but an injury prompted her to opt for a career as a popular singer instead. After completing her mandatory military service in the Israeli Defense Forces, Carmela made her public debut on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) in New York in 1956. In 1961, she accompanied Cliff Richard on a tour of South Africa. Two years later, she was chosen by the broadcast network ORF to represent Austria in the 1963 Eurovision contest where her rendition of "Vielleicht geschieht ein Wunder" gained her a seventh placed finish. Until the late 70s, Carmela released several albums of ballads and chansons in German, English, French, Spanish and Greek under the Ariola, Vogue and Decca labels.
Carmela appeared in several films during the 1960s, including the spy thriller Voyage to Danger (1962) and the mountaineering drama Sein bester Freund (1962), starring opposite the legendary alpine ski racing champion Toni Sailer. She also acted in a few musicals and crooned popular songs in English clubs, and, with greater success, in Austrian and German TV variety specials. Between 1966 and 1970, she was married to the German music producer Horst Geiger with whom she had two children. In 1973, she resettled in Florida, having abandoned show business to raise her family.- Actress
- Director
Françoise Forton was born on 8 July 1957 in Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil. She was an actress and director, known for The Clone (2001), The Mutants: Ways of the Heart (2008) and Estúpido Cupido (1976). She was married to Eduardo Barata and Ênio Viotti. She died on 16 January 2022 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Shaonli Mitra was born in 1948 in West Bengal, India. She was an actress, known for Reason, Debate and a Story (1974). She died on 16 January 2022 in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
- Lucienne Moreau was born on 17 February 1933 in Renazé, Mayenne, France. She was an actress, known for Qui a tué Bambi? (2003), Hénaut président (2012) and Vol 69 (2018). She died on 16 January 2022 in Sarcelles, Val-d'Oise, France.
- Composer
- Director
- Writer
Alleppy Ranganath was born in 1949 in India. He was a composer and director, known for Ambadi Thannilorunni (1986), Arante Mulla Kochu Mulla (1984) and Pappan Priyappetta Pappan (1986). He died on 16 January 2022 in Kerala, India.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Casting Director
Jill Robb was born in 1934 in London, England, UK. She is a producer and casting director, known for Careful, He Might Hear You (1983), The More Things Change... (1986) and Wake in Fright (1971).- Soundtrack
Armando Gama was born on 1 April 1954 in Luanda, Angola, Portugal [now Angola]. He was married to Valentina Torres. He died on 17 January 2022 in Lissabon, Portugal.- Bill Jackson was born on 15 September 1935 in Unionville, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991), Gigglesnort Hotel (1976) and Walker, Texas Ranger (1993). He was married to Jo. He died on 17 January 2022 in Paso Robles, California, USA.
- Rasheed Naz was a Pakistani film and television actor. He started his television career in 1971 as an actor in Pashto television play and has worked in several Pashto, Hindko and Urdu language plays. His first Urdu play was Aik Tha Gaoon (1973). His first popular play was Namoos. He also worked in Pakistan's first private television play Dasht, telecast on N T M.
In 1988, he worked in his first Pashto film Zama Jang (in Urdu "Meri Jang"). His first Urdu film was Syed Noor's Dakait. He also worked in Shoaib Mansoor's film Khuda Ke Liye. Rasheed Naz also worked in a Shoaib Mansoor's video song "Ishq Mohabbat Apna Pan" with Iman Ali. Aside from that, Raheed Naz also starred in the Bollywood film Baby in 2015 alongside Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, and Madhurima Tuli. - Raima Islam Shimu is known for Graduate (2010).
- Michel Subor was born Mischa Subotzki in Paris, France in 1935, to anti-Bolshevik parents from the Soviet Union who had immigrated a few years earlier. His father was an engineer in Moscow, and his mother was born in Azerbaijan. Michel's sister moved to the United States as an adult. His career started with small roles in Frou-Frou (Augusto Genina, 1955) with Dany Robin, and the comedy Un drôle de dimanche/A Strange Sunday (Marc Allégret, 1958), followed by playing Jean Richard's son in the comedy Mon pote le gitan/My buddy the Gypsy (François Gir, Guy Lionel, 1959). He had his first leading role as the lover of Brigitte Bardot's character in the sexy comedy La Bride sur le Cou/Please, Not Now! (Roger Vadim, 1961). The year before Subor had completed his most important early role in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Petit Soldat/The Little Soldier (1960). The film was banned from release in France for three years because it refers to the use of torture on both the French and Algerian sides during the Algerian struggle for independence. Subor plays Bruno Forestier, a young, disillusioned man who becomes involved in politics, yet in spite of the fact that he stands up to torture and commits murder because of this involvement, he does not have deep political beliefs. Subor also provided the narrator's voice in another classic of the Nouvelle Vague, Jules and Jim (1962) (François Truffaut, 1962).