Passages

[knives]

Yeah, I love his sitcom (the first minus live audience/laugh track after they became popular trivia fans) and A Face in the Crowd is possibly the best thing everyone involved did (certainly the case with Bud Schulberg). There's also this great Corman movie he did with Shatner that I recommend to fans of trash cinema.

[Roger Ryan]

My introduction to Andy as a five-year-old. I wore out at least two copies of this (with the B side No 1 Street) on my kiddie Victrola. I still think the ending is a pretty good metaphor for trying to get through life.

This was my introduction as well. I was about the same age when I borrowed my Dad's 45 single to play on my little phonograph (other favorites from this era were Stan Freberg's Lawrence Welk parody "Wun'erful, Wun'erful" and "The Witch Doctor" song). Few actors have created such an iconic character as "Sheriff Andy Taylor" who is seemingly admired by generations, but A FACE IN THE CROWD shows that he had a versatility that was not really mined in later years.

[triodelover]

This was my introduction as well. I was about the same age when I borrowed my Dad's 45 single to play on my little phonograph (other favorites from this era were Stan Freberg's Lawrence Welk parody "Wun'erful, Wun'erful" and "The Witch Doctor" song).

Of course, I turned five the year the single was released.

[tarpilot]

Stephen Dwoskin.

Link to follow.

What with Jeff Keen too, this has not been a good month for the British avant-garde.

Behindert is one of the films that, absolutely, changed the way I watch movies and I very much look forward to exploring more of his work. A huge loss.

[MichaelB]

Eric Sykes.

Composer/pianist Neil Brand has just posted this on his Facebook wall:

I played the piano for Eric's son David's wedding, and in his speech at the reception Sykes said "We're very proud of David, he's a good man, my wife and I have always brought him up to do the right thing..." and as he gestured to him a bunch of silver spoons fell out of his sleeve - then a couple more... then, after a long pause, as he continued to stare at the spoons, one more. He bestrode the comedy world and was never funnier than when he was with Hat - I hope they're all laughing like drains up there. They bloody should be.

[Forrest Taft]

I only know Eric Sykes from The Plank, which I have really fond memories of. Should probably see it again soon.

[MichaelB]

The BFI Screenonline biography is a handy career overview before the main obituaries arrive.

I suspect he's not that well known internationally (though he pops up in films like The Others), but he was massive in Britain - unquestionably one of the leading UK TV comedy stars from the 1950s to the 1970s. In fact, it's ironic that his death coincides almost perfectly with that of Andy Griffith, as their careers had a great deal in common.

[zedz]

I only know Eric Sykes from The Plank, which I have really fond memories of. Should probably see it again soon.

Sykes was also Spike Milligan's writing partner for The Goon Show, so basically one of the primary architects of the best British comedy of the last fifty years. That also gives an idea of his range: purely verbal comedy for that show to pure pantomime in The Plank etc.

[antnield]

Ernest Borgnine

[MichaelB]

Link.

95 isn't a bad innings.

[flyonthewall2983]

He was heart-breaking on the last episode of ER.

[domino harvey]

My Aunt and Uncle entertained him for some cowboy event a couple years ago and said he was a genuinely nice and down to earth guy

[knives]

I guess masturbation isn't the secret to immortality afterall. He was still amazingly spry and managing to get a lot of work done. Really just an amazing career.

[colinr0380]

I think I might just watch Emperor of the North (Pole) in tribute! I think that is my favourite Borgnine performance.

And while that Sean Penn film in the 11'09"01 anthology felt quite crass in its use of the destruction of the World Trade Center as a blunt metaphor (For the weight of capitalism on ordinary people's lives being lifted as its symbol is destroyed. Or the way that people labour under the delusion of an old way of life continuing until an event occurs to wake them up to that delusion, awakening them to grief but also allowing them to eventually move on. Or something like that?), I think it is almost purely down to Borgnine's performance that that particular segment still ended up being as touching as it was.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'll always remember him as Sgt 'Fatso' Judson in From Here to Eternity.

(Seriously, though, between that episode of the Simpsons, The Wild Bunch, Escape from New York, the Dirty Dozen, and what may be the creepiest movie ever featured on Mystery Science Theater, the guy was part of fully half of the things I loved most as a teenager. The best kind of cult actor.)

[knives]

Don't forget his never ending quest to stop evIL. One of the few good things about having younger siblings.

[domino harvey]

I'm embarrassed to always associate him with childhood reruns of that Home Improvement episode where he and Jack Elam teach Tim Allen about how to live life-- in retrospect, what a bizarro casting coup that was!

[bearcuborg]

I love MARTY, but some of my favorite tidbits about Ernest Borgnine are from Howard Stern revelations that he liked to dutch oven Ethel Merman, and this classic bit...

[Michael Kerpan]

YAMADA Isuzu (5 February 1917 - 9 July 2012)

Reported in Daily Mainichi: http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20120710 ... 3000c.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Japanese only)

As far as I can tell, her first major roles were in the films pf Mizoguchi -- Downfall of Osen, Oyuki the Virgin, Osaka Elegy, Sisters of Gion. she also played major roles in films by Naruse, Kurosawa, Ozu, Gosho and Kinugasa. She remained active as an actress into the latter 1980s. Her roles in Naruse (e.g. Song Lantern and Flowing) are some of my favorites.

[warren oates]

Borgnine is my favorite movie hothead. There's nothing better than him getting all worked up into a spitting angry frenzy in films like Bad Day at Black Rock, The Poseidon Adventure and of course The Wild Bunch: "It's not your word that counts, but who you give it to!"

[manicsounds]

Yamada's role in "Throne Of Blood" goes down as one of the best and creepiest. She will be missed.

[George Kaplan]

Borgnine is my favorite movie hothead. There's nothing better than him getting all worked up into a spitting angry frenzy in films like Bad Day at Black Rock, The Poseidon Adventure and of course The Wild Bunch: "It's not your word that counts, but who you give it to!"

I love the way that line echoes the earlier "It''s not what you meant to do, it's what you did I don't like." I think Holden has some refrain as well, no?

[colinr0380]

Yamada's role in "Throne Of Blood" goes down as one of the best and creepiest. She will be missed.

Most definitely - just some of the looks she gives in the film are chilling! And she also does one of the most powerful versions of the scene of trying desparately to wash the blood from her hands as she descends into madness at the end.

[Michael Kerpan]

Isuzu Yamada obituary from Variety: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056380?refCatId=19" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Kyodo News obituary: http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2012/07/168646.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Throne of Blood is a very impressive film overall -- but Yamada's "Lady Macbeth" (including but not limited to the hand washing scene) is the best thing in it.

[MichaelB]

Lol Coxhill.

Obviously he'll be primarily remembered for musical reasons, but he also acted in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio and Sally Potter's Orlando.