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First Bowie and now Rickman, Aaron Ramsay strikes again!

If nothing else Rickman should always be remembered as the best Die Hard villain and for his infamous line in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Both of those roles added a much needed sense of humanity and malicious glee to the bad guys. I guess you could add in his grumpy angel Metatron from Kevin Smith's Dogma into that bunch too!

I don't know if watching Truly, Madly, Deeply would be wise given its subject matter of dealing with the death of a loved one, but he's also great in that Stephen Poliakoff film Close My Eyes as the third wheel in an incestual relationship.

As much as I loathe Kevin Smith, I always have loved Dogma since watching it on Comedy Central every weekend in the early-2000s. Rickman is superb, and it's the first movie I saw him in.

Spoiler

So much so that when I finally saw Die Hard for the first time last year, I was like, "that's the guy from Dogma and Harry Potter!

My favourite Alan Rickman role is probably in the incredibly tense and claustrophobic Closet Land

Closet Land is an excellent chamber piece!

And how could I forget his frustrated thespian forced into cheesy sci-fi in Galaxy Quest! (Another gloriously grumpy performance!)

I watched Neil Jordan's 'Michael Collins' at uni when I was studying Irish history and was really just noting the historical inaccuracies used for dramatic effect! Rickman plays Eamon De Valera, with a somewhat wonky accent, but given that Dev was Irish-American, maybe it wasn't so bad.

ellipsis7 wrote:Franco Citti (aka. Accattone)

Big fan of Oedipus Rex too.

Galaxy Quest would be a run of mill Star Trek parody if not for Rickman. "By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged..." makes the whole movie for me.

I'm a big fan of Anthony Minghella's filmed version of Beckett's Play with Rickman playing the man in the middle of a love triangle with Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliet Stevenson. It's mesmerizing dialogue.

Silvana Pampanini (beautiful surname) also died January, the 6th.

Dan Haggerty, aka Grizzly Adams. The Grim Reaper is sure taking a lot of people with him this month.

Veteran British TV scriptwriter Robert Banks Stewart, a very familiar onscreen name in the 1970s and 80s.

ellipsis7 wrote:Franco Citti (aka. Accattone)

January sure is a disastrous month. Oedipus Rex is quite possibly my favourite film ever.

MichaelB wrote:Veteran British TV scriptwriter Robert Banks Stewart, a very familiar onscreen name in the 1970s and 80s.

Crikey, yes. Bergerac was a mainstay in our house (almost local...), I remember liking Shoestring, but not much about it - and of course two absolutely fantastic Doctor Who stories from the show's heyday (Terror of the Zygons and The Seeds of Doom)

Ruth Leuwerik (no English obituary) one of the biggest film stars of 50s West Germany. Probably most known for her roles in Die Trapp Familie and its sequel which were huge blockbusters and were the starting point for the musical The Sound of Music as well as the equally successful film where Julie Andrews played Leuwerik's role.
However the actress with which Leuwerik can be best compared is clearly Deborah Kerr and she could bring the same mixture of ladylike demeanor and a hidden brooding sensuality to her roles, Siodmak's Dorothea Angermann and Käutner's Die Rote were probably her best performances.

dx23 wrote:Dan Haggerty, aka Grizzly Adams. The Grim Reaper is sure taking a lot of people with him this month.

Yikes. I just recently started watching Grizzly Adams, so this is terrible news. For those who haven't seen the show - its beautifully filmed and has lots of insert shorts of Grizzly with his animal friends. Its a ton of fun and I highly recommend it.

Glen Frey of the Eagles.

Here goes another one... Eagles guitarist, Glenn Frey.

In a band with Joe Walsh and Don Felder, it's easy to overlook his own skills as a guitar player. The solo on "I Can't Tell You Why" was played by him for instance. He also dabbled in acting, most notably in an episode of Miami Vice (who made extensive use of his "Smuggler's Blues") and Jerry Maguire.

I'd heard he underwent surgery, which is why the band didn't make it to the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony last month. And that the group might be disbanding soon, per some things I heard Don Henley talk about while promoting his latest record.

I believe it's his acoustic 12-string guitar that opens the title track (and album) Hotel California. I'm not an Eagles fan, but it's a gorgeous intro. For a short while, the first side of that LP alone won over a lot of skeptics, even Greil Marcus.

(EDIT: Never mind, it was Don Felder playing that intro. Mistook it for Frey since he was credited with "acoustic 12-string" on the album in general.)

I think it is him playing the acoustic 12-string, Felder (who wrote the chord progression) plays an electric 12-string on the intro as well.

Don Henley's statement.