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Cinematographer Oswald Morris, just two years short of his century.

German producer Karl Baumgartner, a great champion of European arthouse cinema.

Lucius Shepard, a very distinguished writer of fantasy, horror and SF, most of it at novella-length. He's relevant to this forum as a film critic, with a regular column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and elsewhere.

No online links as yet, but he was 66 and had had a stroke last year.

ETA: Locus link added. There's some uncertainly as to his actual birth year. Locus gives it as 1943, but the usual one stated is 1947.

Fred Phelps, founder of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church

Joanna Szczerbic, the one-time wife of Jerzy Skolimowski who mostly appeared in his films (Barrier, Hands Up!, Dialogue 20-40-60, The Shout, Success is the Best Revenge), and was the mother of the latter film's lead actor 'Michael Lyndon' (aka Michał Skolimowski), who later became a director. Tragically, her other son Józef, also a filmmaker, predeceased her.

colinr0380 wrote:British politician Tony Benn - film connections here are that he turns up in a few recent documentaries: Michael Moore's Sicko, Julien Temple's London: The Modern Babylon and Ken Loach's The Spirit of '45.

By the way if you want to see more of Tony Benn, he turns up in a 1980s episode of Channel 4's After Dark, on the accountability of the secret services. I really miss After Dark, which was an excellent discussion series that was usually shown as the very last programme of an evening's TV schedule, something that allowed the programmes to be rather open-ended, allowing discussions to run on as long as they needed to.

James Rebhorn, aged only 65.

One of the most prominent "That guy"s around, really

Oh man, and he ran the International Adult Conspiracy's Wellsville chapter. RIP.

Though the film is flawed (but personally meaningful to me, for whatever reason), I love his performance in Snow Falling on Cedars. That said, his best role is probably in The Game. Sad news.

Calvin wrote:James Rebhorn, aged only 65.

Damn, I always thought he could've had that one role like Richard Jenkins had with The Visitor that would've given him a moment in the spotlight that all character actors deserve.

He kind of sounds like Soderbergh and has some of the same facial features, I always thought there was a big bro-little bro buddy comedy just waiting to happen with those two

Was James Rebhorn in any Criterion titles, other than "The Game"?

Doesn't look like it. Judging from his IMDB, before Scent Of A Woman he just had a lot of TV gigs and minor parts in forgettable movies (was also in a few Mike Nichols pictures). Dennis Haskins posted a nice remembrance of him on Twitter today.

One of my favourite character actors - very sad. He was brilliant in The Talented Mr Ripley ('To my ear jazz is just noise - just an insolent noise'), and lifted just about anything else he appeared in.

Dave Brockie, lead singer of GWAR. Only 50, what a shame. Their live shows veered into performance art and I loved every second of the ones I attended.

Calvin wrote:James Rebhorn, aged only 65.

Now that was a That Guy. R.I.P.

I read that he'd had skin cancer for over 20 years.

Grand Wazoo wrote:Dave Brockie, lead singer of GWAR. Only 50, what a shame. Their live shows veered into performance art and I loved every second of the ones I attended.

Rather sad news. For the uninitiated, here's one of the most surreal moments in tv history: Joan Rivers interviewing Gwar (Dave Brockie as Oderus Urungus)

Calvin wrote:James Rebhorn, aged only 65.

He penned his own obituary, which is lovely and worth reading

Grand Wazoo wrote:Dave Brockie, lead singer of GWAR. Only 50, what a shame. Their live shows veered into performance art and I loved every second of the ones I attended.

I was a pretty big GWAR fan in my early teens, and even saw them live a couple of times as an adult. (Though I had stopped caring about their music long before.) When I still listened to them, I used to not bat an eye at their most outlandish and crude material, but I suppose if one of my favorite bands now were to release a song about (spoiler-tagged for the easily offended/squeamish)

Spoiler

raping and murdering—not necessarily in that order!—a pregnant woman while using her unborn child as a condom

I'd be taken aback.

Harry Novak.

Derek Martinus, director of "Dr. Who" episodes throughout the 60's and 70's.