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Ayten Kuyululu. Late entry - she died in May 2019 at the age of 88 or 89, but I didn't see a single obituary and hadn't heard before now. The piece I've linked to is by David Stratton in The Australian yesterday, seemingly prompted by a recent television programme which repeated the often-stated but inaccurate claim that My Brilliant Career was the first Australian feature film directed by a woman since the McDonagh sisters in 1933. It wasn't - the actual first was The Golden Cage, directed by Kuyululu in 1975.

I have seen The Golden Cage - on a timecoded VHS tape in the Mediatheque at ACMI in Melbourne in 2016. I don't know what the rights situation is, but the NFSA have 16mm preservation materials. I'd review it if it were commercially available, even to stream - I suspect a DVD, let alone a Blu-ray, would be too much to ask for nowadays. It's not unflawed but it is definitely worth seeing, over and above its historical interest. A disc release could include her 40-minute short A Handful of Dust as an extra.

Originally from Turkey, Kuyululu appears to have directed films in Sweden and Turkey, but information is sparse and these films are missing IMDB entries. She was also a stage director, radio playwright, opera singer and occasional actress.

hearthesilence wrote: Sat Jan 30, 2021 6:39 am Hilton Valentine, guitarist for the great British rock band, the Animals. Most will be familiar with his opening riff to their landmark cover of "House of the Rising Sun" - Scorsese placed it over Ginger's death scene in Casino.

Before "Stairway to Heaven", many is the high school dance that used that song as the finale.

Music producer and electronic musician SOPHIE.

acroyear wrote: Sat Jan 30, 2021 1:24 pm Music producer and electronic musician SOPHIE.

This has ruined my morning. I played "Nothing Left to Say" on my radio show 2 weeks ago! RIP SOPHIE.

Same here, I felt excited to a rare degree by her music and will hate not finding out where she was headed.

That's deeply upsetting how quickly all this happened. He just announced he was going to try chemotherapy.

Holy crap, he had stage 4 lung cancer at 44?

I think that's part of the reason it was so awful. Cancer in younger people tends to be really aggressive.

Wow, crazy!

I don’t think I ever saw a pic of him smoking, but I guess he went at life pretty hard, as I only have superficial knowledge of his tabloid coverage. He was incredibly cute and funny on Saved by the Bell. Curious how the cast will pay tribute...

bearcuborg wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:29 pm I don’t think I ever saw a pic of him smoking,

As far as I’ve read, he wasn’t a smoker. I read one claim that he blamed years of travelling and staying in shitty, mold-infested motels.

The reporting seems a little sloppy, but apparently he had cancer and it spread to his lungs rather than start there...I'm no doctor, but wouldn't that suggest another serious form of cancer in addition to lung cancer? (The logic being that a tumor would have to have significant growth in the original location if it spreads and substantially grows in another organ.)

Hal Holbrook, over a week ago, but only just officially confirmed.

That's a shame. Hal actually came to where I live to perform. Great guy.

They might not be the classiest roles of his career (which otherwise seem quite political in nature) but I'll always be fond of Holbrook's performance in John Carpenter's The Fog (especially the recounting of the historical backstory to Janet Leigh's alternately indulgent and bored town mayor!) and the ironic 'it's not over yet!' ending. He's playing the equivalent of the Donald Pleasance character from Halloween in that film, telling us about the danger but eventually as powerless to permanently stop things as anyone else who confronts it.

He's also great in the severely underrated post-Deliverance Canadian horror Rituals as well.

Holbrook has a nice guest starring role in season 6 of The Sopranos, but he was great in everything I saw him in - the last time I saw him in a movie was Into the Wild, where he gave a touching performance. In the book the person he played (Ron) had a larger role in Chris’s life, but in his limited screen time Holbrook really showed what a wonderful man his Ron was in real life.

willoneill wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:55 pm

bearcuborg wrote: Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:29 pm I don’t think I ever saw a pic of him smoking,

As far as I’ve read, he wasn’t a smoker. I read one claim that he blamed years of travelling and staying in shitty, mold-infested motels.

Per Hearthesilence, in his case it may not have begun as lung cancer; coincidentally though, just a couple days ago, I read this article about the increasing percentage of cases of lung cancer from non-smokers.

MichaelB wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 6:42 am Hal Holbrook, over a week ago, but only just officially confirmed.

The villains throughout most of the Dirty Harry series are pretty much stereotyped criminals not too far removed from the TV cop shows of it's time. His performance in Magnum Force stands out particularly with how he matches up with Eastwood, on a moral level throughout much of it until his character showed his true colors. A lesser actor would have overplayed the moment but he made it work using his own trademarks of silence and monotone dialogue.

Christopher Plummer: https://variety.com/2021/film/news/chri ... 234901760/

Under discussion here

Butch Reed, former pro wrestler and NFL veteran.

NFL.com writer and podcast host Chris Wesseling