Tag: In Memoriam (61-70 of 273)

Jul 14 2011 01:02 PM ET

'Home Alone' actor Roberts Blossom passes away. We bless this highly nutritious microwavable macaroni and cheese dinner in his honor.

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Image Credit: Everett Collection

Some seriously sad news: Roberts Blossom — the character actor best known for playing the wrongly-accused South Bend Shovel Slayer, a.k.a. “Old Man Marley,” in Home Alone — has passed away at the age of 87. The L.A. Times reports that Blossom died of natural causes in a nursing home in Santa Monica.

While Blossom, a three-time Obie Award winner, had an illustrious career on stage and screen that spanned 40 years (he was featured in films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Always, Christine, and the cult horror movie Deranged, and appeared in TV shows such as Moonlighting, Northern Exposure, and Chicago Hope) he’ll best be remembered by younger folk everywhere as the neighbor who saves Macaulay Culkin’s trouble-making Kevin McCallister from being murdered by the Wet Bandits. (Oh, if only he’d been there when Thomas Jay stumbled upon that beehive… ) READ FULL STORY »

Jul 12 2011 06:09 PM ET

Remembering Sherwood Schwartz, creator of 'Gilligan's Island' and 'The Brady Bunch'

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Image Credit: Alan Levenson/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

In 1997, when Sherwood Schwartz, who died today at the age of 94, sat down for a six-hour interview for the Archive of American Television, he was asked how he’d like to be remembered. “As a man who tried to explain, in his own way, that people have to learn to get along with each other,” he answered. It’s the concept at the center of his two most beloved shows, Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch. When creating Gilligan’s Island in the early 1960s, he wanted to place seven disparate people in a place they couldn’t escape. “Where could they be that they had to get along with each other? That was the idea for the show, and it’s the most important idea in the world today,” he said. “For people who toss away the show as just a silly broad comedy, it’s deeper than that.”  READ FULL STORY »

Jul 4 2011 02:30 PM ET

Wim Wenders pays tribute to the late Peter Falk

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Image Credit: Everett Collecton

Peter Falk died on June 23 at the age of 83, and while most fans know him best from his starring turn as Columbo or the kindly grandfather from The Princess Bride, Wim Wenders had the distinction of directing him twice, in Wings of Desire (1987) and Faraway, So Close (1993). The German director put his thoughts about the beloved actor on paper in a tribute for People, titled “About Peter Falk.” READ FULL STORY »

Jul 1 2011 12:46 PM ET

'Jackass' stars post tribute to Ryan Dunn online

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The production team behind Jackass posted an online video tribute to Ryan Dunn, the daredevil who died last week in a car accident. It’s the first time Dunn’s fans can see the poignant montage, which was first played at the 34-year-old’s Pennsylvania memorial. Dunn, who had been drinking and driving, died along with another passenger, Zachary Hartwell. See the full video after the jump. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 27 2011 09:47 AM ET

Johnny Knoxville pens online tribute to Ryan Dunn

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Image Credit: Eddie Malluk/WireImage.com

At Wednesday’s memorial for Jackass star Ryan Dunn, who died last Monday in an alcohol-related car crash, Johnny Knoxville spoke about his friend and what the 34-year-old meant to the close-knit crew that found fame and fun in dangerous antics. But Knoxville was barely holding himself together at the podium, and he writes in an online tribute that “what came out were the mumblings of a man trying his best not to cry.”

In a post titled, “in memory of ryan, pt. 2 — from knoxville with love,” the Jackass ringleader writes:

“I felt 34-percent funnier when I was with Ryan, but I guess everyone did. He had such a hair trigger laugh reflex. He lived his life wanting to laugh and wanting you to laugh with him. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 24 2011 04:50 PM ET

Celebrities mourn Peter Falk on Twitter

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Peter Falk, beloved character actor who starred in Columbo and The Princess Bride, passed away last night. The two-time Oscar nominee had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for three years at the time of his death. He was 83 years old. Here’s what some of his celebrity fans have Tweeted about his eclectic career:

Michael McKean: “As many film fans know, Falk was already an angel. The rest is just paperwork.”

Kevin Pollak: “Peter Falk will always be one of my favorite actors. Check his work in Murder Inc. Oscar-nominated, I believe. Sad…” READ FULL STORY »

Jun 21 2011 09:55 AM ET

Roger Ebert chides Ryan Dunn for drinking and driving: Too soon?

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Hours after Jackass star Ryan Dunn and another passenger were killed in an early morning car accident in eastern Pennsylvania yesterday, film critic and habitual tweeter Roger Ebert posted the news of his passing, with a link to the local NBC News report. Moments later, he followed with, “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.”

Though the West Goshen Police Department’s accident report made no mention of alcohol as a cause of the accident, Dunn had posted a photo on his own Twitter account just hours before the crash that showed him and two friends drinking at a local bar. Though the manager of the bar told CNN, “He didn’t seem to be intoxicated at the time he left,” there’s no denying that Dunn was drinking and driving. READ FULL STORY »

May 13 2011 06:15 PM ET

'Brothers & Sisters' is canceled. Re-live the final moment.

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Brothers & Sisters will not be returning to ABC in the fall. Something tells us the producers knew the season 5 finale would likely be the series finale when they ended it with Nora quoting George Eliot in voiceover at Sarah’s wedding — “It’s never too late to be what you might have been” — and dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” In case you missed it, watch the final moment of the series below. RIP, Brothers & Sisters. You were no longer the show we fell in love with, so we can’t pretend we’re devastated to see you go, but we did spend many a Sunday night enjoying your Walker family dinner fights and wine consumption. (At least we still have Cougar Town.)  READ FULL STORY »

May 12 2011 02:30 PM ET

Dolores Fuller, Ed Wood's angora-wearing muse, dead

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Dolores Fuller, the muse to the “worst director of all-time” Ed Wood, passed away on Monday from complications of a stroke, according to the New York Times. She was 88. Fuller had been a small-time television actress when she answered a casting call from an unknown director in the early 1950s. Wood was immediately smitten by her beauty — and her angora sweater — and the couple went on to live together for four years, during which the cross-dressing filmmaker turned his fetish into the film, Glen or Glenda. “The first time I saw the whole film, I wanted to crawl under 
the seat,” Fuller, who hadn’t been allowed to read the entire script, recalled to the Kansas City Star in 1994. “I wasn’t crazy about our private life
 becoming public.” READ FULL STORY »

May 4 2011 07:26 PM ET

'Our Gang,' 'Superman' actor Jackie Cooper dies. A love letter to the late Rascal.

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Most audiences might know Jackie Cooper as Perry White in four Superman movies. Or for his role in 1931′s The Champ. Or for his appearance in Skippy, which made him the first child actor to ever be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. But, to me, the actor — who passed away Tuesday at the age of 88 after a brief illness — will always be known as Our Gang‘s Jackie.

Perhaps it was because I was an old soul, or both my parents enjoyed catching re-runs of the series when they were youths, but I grew up on Our Gang, otherwise known as The Little Rascals. Unlike in my childhood world, where most films and TV shows featured kids achieving great victories that involved fame and fortune, Our Gang was one of the few series in history who showed kids being, well, kids. READ FULL STORY »

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