Bobby Rydell, 1960's US pop singer.
Obituaries of the famous & not so famous
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Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
From Rolling Stone.
Vangelis, Oscar-Winning Composer of ‘Chariots of Fire’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ Dead at 79
Influential Greek electronic musician also co-founded cult prog-rock band Aphrodite’s Child
By DANIEL KREPS
Greek composer of electronic music, Vangelis, 28th January 1976. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)
Vangelis, the Greek prog-rocker and Oscar-winning composer for films like Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, has died at the age of 79.
The influential artist born Evángelos Papathanassíou died late Tuesday night, a statement from Vangelis’ “private office” announced to his Elsewhere fan page Thursday. The Athens News Agency also confirmed news of Vangelis’ death. No cause of death was provided, but Greek newspaper OT reports that Vangelis died at a hospital in France where he was being treated for Covid-19.
“Vangelis Papathanassiou was a great Greek composer who excelled at a global level,” Greek foreign minister Nikos Dendias wrote in a translated tweet. “We say goodbye with a big ‘thank you’ for what he offered to Music, Culture and Greece.”
“Vangelis Papathanassiou is no longer with us. For the whole world, this sad news demonstrates that the world music scene has lost the international “Vangelis,” the protagonist of electronic sound, of the Oscars, of Mythology and the hits,” Greece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted, as translated by Rolling Stone. “For us Greeks, who know his second name was Odysseus, it means that he’s begun his long trip to the Chariots of Fire. From there, he’ll always send us his notes.”
Born in Agria and raised in Athens, Papathanassíou learned piano at a young age, though despite being enrolled in an Athens music school, he never formally learned how to read or write music. His first band, as a teenager, was the pop group Formynx, but he left his native country in 1968 amid a coup attempt in Greece.
After settling in Paris, Vangelis — a variation of his first name, which he said translates to “an angel that brings good news” — formed the cult progressive rock band Aphrodite’s Child alongside fellow expatriate Greeks. The group released three albums, most notably 1972’s 666, an epic double-LP inspired by the Book of Revelations.
In addition to releasing his own pioneering albums of electronic music, Vangelis branched off in the 1970s into film composing, creating music for documentaries for the French filmmaker Frederic Rossif. One of those scores, 1979’s Opera Sauvage, became a surprise success in the U.S. and led to what became Vangelis’ greatest triumph: The score for 1981’s Chariots of Fire.
Propelled by the film’s instantly iconic theme, Chariots of Fire topped the Billboard 200 for four weeks. Vangelis, who played all the instruments on the soundtrack, would go on to win Best Original Score at the Academy Awards.
While Chariots of Fire earned all the accolades, Vangelis’ next score was perhaps even more influential: In 1982, he created the electronic soundscape that accompanied Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir classic Blade Runner, with Vangelis’ synthesizer radiating the director’s bleak urban future. Scott and Vangelis later reunited for 1992’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise.
Over his prolific career, Vangelis also create the music for Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and international events like the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2012 FIFA World Cup in Japan. Vangelis and Yes singer Jon Anderson also enjoyed a long collaboration (Jon & Vangelis) that resulted in three albums; in the mid-Seventies, Vangelis was rumored as a replacement for Rick Wakeman in that prog-band, but when that pairing didn’t work out, Vangelis and Anderson continued to record together.
“I’ve always tried to extract the maximum out of a sound’s behavior,” Vangelis told Prog in 2016. “I think it’s more important to achieve a harmonious result without giving any importance to the source from which a sound originates. I can remember as a child putting chains in my parents’ piano just to see how it would affect the sound! This kind of attitude has always remained with me.”
Vangelis, Oscar-Winning Composer of ‘Chariots of Fire’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ Dead at 79
Influential Greek electronic musician also co-founded cult prog-rock band Aphrodite’s Child
By DANIEL KREPS
Greek composer of electronic music, Vangelis, 28th January 1976. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)
Vangelis, the Greek prog-rocker and Oscar-winning composer for films like Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, has died at the age of 79.
The influential artist born Evángelos Papathanassíou died late Tuesday night, a statement from Vangelis’ “private office” announced to his Elsewhere fan page Thursday. The Athens News Agency also confirmed news of Vangelis’ death. No cause of death was provided, but Greek newspaper OT reports that Vangelis died at a hospital in France where he was being treated for Covid-19.
“Vangelis Papathanassiou was a great Greek composer who excelled at a global level,” Greek foreign minister Nikos Dendias wrote in a translated tweet. “We say goodbye with a big ‘thank you’ for what he offered to Music, Culture and Greece.”
“Vangelis Papathanassiou is no longer with us. For the whole world, this sad news demonstrates that the world music scene has lost the international “Vangelis,” the protagonist of electronic sound, of the Oscars, of Mythology and the hits,” Greece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted, as translated by Rolling Stone. “For us Greeks, who know his second name was Odysseus, it means that he’s begun his long trip to the Chariots of Fire. From there, he’ll always send us his notes.”
Born in Agria and raised in Athens, Papathanassíou learned piano at a young age, though despite being enrolled in an Athens music school, he never formally learned how to read or write music. His first band, as a teenager, was the pop group Formynx, but he left his native country in 1968 amid a coup attempt in Greece.
After settling in Paris, Vangelis — a variation of his first name, which he said translates to “an angel that brings good news” — formed the cult progressive rock band Aphrodite’s Child alongside fellow expatriate Greeks. The group released three albums, most notably 1972’s 666, an epic double-LP inspired by the Book of Revelations.
In addition to releasing his own pioneering albums of electronic music, Vangelis branched off in the 1970s into film composing, creating music for documentaries for the French filmmaker Frederic Rossif. One of those scores, 1979’s Opera Sauvage, became a surprise success in the U.S. and led to what became Vangelis’ greatest triumph: The score for 1981’s Chariots of Fire.
Propelled by the film’s instantly iconic theme, Chariots of Fire topped the Billboard 200 for four weeks. Vangelis, who played all the instruments on the soundtrack, would go on to win Best Original Score at the Academy Awards.
While Chariots of Fire earned all the accolades, Vangelis’ next score was perhaps even more influential: In 1982, he created the electronic soundscape that accompanied Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir classic Blade Runner, with Vangelis’ synthesizer radiating the director’s bleak urban future. Scott and Vangelis later reunited for 1992’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise.
Over his prolific career, Vangelis also create the music for Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and international events like the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2012 FIFA World Cup in Japan. Vangelis and Yes singer Jon Anderson also enjoyed a long collaboration (Jon & Vangelis) that resulted in three albums; in the mid-Seventies, Vangelis was rumored as a replacement for Rick Wakeman in that prog-band, but when that pairing didn’t work out, Vangelis and Anderson continued to record together.
“I’ve always tried to extract the maximum out of a sound’s behavior,” Vangelis told Prog in 2016. “I think it’s more important to achieve a harmonious result without giving any importance to the source from which a sound originates. I can remember as a child putting chains in my parents’ piano just to see how it would affect the sound! This kind of attitude has always remained with me.”
-
Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
Chicago Sun Times May 26 2022
Ray Liotta, starred in ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Field of Dreams,’ dies at 67
The actor died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic where he had been filming “Dangerous Waters.”
Ray Liotta (right) plays mob informant Henry Hill in a scene with Robert De Niro from the 1990 classic film “Goodfellas.”|Warner Bros.
Ray Liotta, the blue-eyed actor best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and Chicago White Sox player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams,” has died. He was 67.
Liotta’s publicist, Jen Allen, said he was in the Dominican Republic shooting John Barr’s “Dangerous Waters” and didn’t wake up Thursday morning. An official at the Dominican Republic’s National Forensic Science Institute who was not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the death and said his body was taken to the Cristo Redentor morgue.
Robert De Niro, who co-starred with Liotta in “Goodfellas,” said in an emailed statement: “I was very saddened to learn of Ray’s passing. He is way too ... young to have left us. May he Rest in Peace.”
Lorraine Bracco, who played Karen Hill in “Goodfellas,” tweeted Thursday that she was, “Utterly shattered to hear this terrible news about my Ray. I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is ‘Goodfellas.’ Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”
Alessandro Nivola, who recently appeared with Liotta in the “Sopranos” prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark,” wrote, “I feel so lucky to have squared off against this legend in one of his final roles. The scenes we did together were among the all time highlights of my acting career. He was dangerous, unpredictable, hilarious, and generous with his praise for other actors. Too soon.”
David Chase, the “Sopranos” creator who wrote and produced “The Many Saints of Newark,” said in a statement that his passing was a “massive, unexpected shock. ... I have been an admirer of Ray’s work since I saw him in ‘Something Wild,’ a movie he wrenched by the tail. ... Ray was also a very warm and humorous person. A really superior actor. We all felt we lucked out having him on that movie.”
The Newark, New Jersey, native was born in 1954 and adopted at age six months out of an orphanage by a township clerk and an auto parts owner. Liotta always assumed he was mostly Italian — the movies did too. But later in life while searching for his birth parents, he discovered he’s actually Scottish.
Though he grew up focused on playing sports, including baseball, during his senior year of high school, the drama teacher asked him if he wanted to be in a play, which he agreed to on a lark. Whether he knew it or not at the time, it planted a seed, though he still assumed he’d end up working construction. And later, at the University of Miami he picked drama and acting because they had no math requirement attached. He would often say in interviews that he only started auditioning for plays because a pretty girl told him to. But it set him on a course. After graduation, he got an agent and soon he got his first big break on the soap opera “Another World.”
It would take a few years for him to land his first big movie role, in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild” as Melanie Griffith’s character’s hotheaded ex-convict husband Ray. He was 30 years old at the time and hadn’t had a steady job in five years. In an interview in 1993, he told The Associated Press that he wanted to get the part on his own merits even though he knew Griffith. When that didn’t work, he “phoned Melanie.”
“I hated doing it, because that’s politics for me, calling someone to help you out. But I kind of realize that’s part of what it’s all about,” he said.
The turn earned him a Golden Globe nomination. A few years later, he would get the memorable role of the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams.” Though it moved many to tears, it wasn’t without its critics. Liotta remembered hearing a baseball announcer during a Mets game complain that he batted the opposite way Joe Jackson did.
“[Bleep] you! He didn’t come back from the dead either!” Liotta recalled thinking.
His most iconic role, as real life mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” came shortly after. He and Scorsese had to fight for it though, with multiple auditions and pleas to the studio to cast the still relative unknown.
Roger Ebert, in his review, wrote that “Goodfellas” solidified Liotta (and Bracco) as “two of our best new movie actors.”
“He creates the emotional center for a movie that is not about the experience of being a Mafioso, but about the feeling,” Ebert continued.
In a 2012 interview, Liotta said, “Henry Hill isn’t that edgy of a character. It’s really the other guys who are doing all the actual killings. The one physical thing he does do, when he goes after the guy who went after Karen — you know, most audiences, they actually like him for that.”
In the same interview, he marveled at how “Goodfellas” had a “life of its own” and has only grown over time.
“People watch it over and over, and still respond to it, and different ages come up, even today, teenagers come up to me and they really emotionally connect to it,” he said.
It didn’t matter the size of the role, or even the genre, Liotta always managed to stand out and steal scenes in both dramas and comedies, whether as Johnny Depp’s father in “Blow” or Adam Driver’s bullish divorce lawyer in “Marriage Story.”
Mafiosos seemed to be his specialty (he even narrated an AMC docuseries called “The Making of the Mob”), though he was wary of being typecast. He turned down the part of Ralphie on “The Sopranos” because of it. But he’d still end up playing a mob type with James Gandolfini in Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly.” And later, he would pay for his own ticket to audition for “The Many Saints of Newark.”
“I’m really not sure what made me so determined,” he told The Guardian last year. “But I was and luckily it all worked out.”
Liotta also often played various law enforcement types, from cops and detectives to federal agents in films as diverse as “Unlawful Entry,” “Cop Land,” “Narc,” “The Place Beyond the Pines” and “Observe and Report.” Many were corrupt.
He got to be a victim of Hannibal Lecter in the 2001 film “Hannibal” and played Frank Sinatra in the TV movie “The Rat Pack,” which got him a Screen Actors Guild nomination. For gamers, he’s immortalized as the voice of Tommy Vercetti in the video game “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.” He also starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in the series “Shades of Blue.”
His only regret, he once told the Los Angeles Times, was turning down a meeting to talk to Tim Burton about starring in “Batman.”
Liotta has one daughter, Karsen, with ex-wife Michelle Grace and was engaged to be married to Jacy Nittolo at the time of his death.
He also had a number of projects recently wrapped and upcoming, including “Cocaine Bear,” directed by Elizabeth Banks, which is supposed to come out in February, and the Apple TV+ crime series “Black Bird,” developed by Dennis Lehane and starring Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser. He was due to start another film soon too: “The Substance” with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.
“The business is rough, no matter where you’re at in your career,” Liotta said in 2012. “There’s always some reason for them to say no to you — that part of it is horrible. ... But the job itself — making people believe that what they’re seeing is really happening—that’s still a challenge, putting that puzzle together. You know, what can I say, I still like playing pretend. And it’s sure a fun way to make a living.”
Ray Liotta, starred in ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Field of Dreams,’ dies at 67
The actor died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic where he had been filming “Dangerous Waters.”
Ray Liotta (right) plays mob informant Henry Hill in a scene with Robert De Niro from the 1990 classic film “Goodfellas.”|Warner Bros.
Ray Liotta, the blue-eyed actor best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and Chicago White Sox player “Shoeless” Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams,” has died. He was 67.
Liotta’s publicist, Jen Allen, said he was in the Dominican Republic shooting John Barr’s “Dangerous Waters” and didn’t wake up Thursday morning. An official at the Dominican Republic’s National Forensic Science Institute who was not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the death and said his body was taken to the Cristo Redentor morgue.
Robert De Niro, who co-starred with Liotta in “Goodfellas,” said in an emailed statement: “I was very saddened to learn of Ray’s passing. He is way too ... young to have left us. May he Rest in Peace.”
Lorraine Bracco, who played Karen Hill in “Goodfellas,” tweeted Thursday that she was, “Utterly shattered to hear this terrible news about my Ray. I can be anywhere in the world & people will come up & tell me their favorite movie is ‘Goodfellas.’ Then they always ask what was the best part of making that movie. My response has always been the same…Ray Liotta.”
Alessandro Nivola, who recently appeared with Liotta in the “Sopranos” prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark,” wrote, “I feel so lucky to have squared off against this legend in one of his final roles. The scenes we did together were among the all time highlights of my acting career. He was dangerous, unpredictable, hilarious, and generous with his praise for other actors. Too soon.”
David Chase, the “Sopranos” creator who wrote and produced “The Many Saints of Newark,” said in a statement that his passing was a “massive, unexpected shock. ... I have been an admirer of Ray’s work since I saw him in ‘Something Wild,’ a movie he wrenched by the tail. ... Ray was also a very warm and humorous person. A really superior actor. We all felt we lucked out having him on that movie.”
The Newark, New Jersey, native was born in 1954 and adopted at age six months out of an orphanage by a township clerk and an auto parts owner. Liotta always assumed he was mostly Italian — the movies did too. But later in life while searching for his birth parents, he discovered he’s actually Scottish.
Though he grew up focused on playing sports, including baseball, during his senior year of high school, the drama teacher asked him if he wanted to be in a play, which he agreed to on a lark. Whether he knew it or not at the time, it planted a seed, though he still assumed he’d end up working construction. And later, at the University of Miami he picked drama and acting because they had no math requirement attached. He would often say in interviews that he only started auditioning for plays because a pretty girl told him to. But it set him on a course. After graduation, he got an agent and soon he got his first big break on the soap opera “Another World.”
It would take a few years for him to land his first big movie role, in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild” as Melanie Griffith’s character’s hotheaded ex-convict husband Ray. He was 30 years old at the time and hadn’t had a steady job in five years. In an interview in 1993, he told The Associated Press that he wanted to get the part on his own merits even though he knew Griffith. When that didn’t work, he “phoned Melanie.”
“I hated doing it, because that’s politics for me, calling someone to help you out. But I kind of realize that’s part of what it’s all about,” he said.
The turn earned him a Golden Globe nomination. A few years later, he would get the memorable role of the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams.” Though it moved many to tears, it wasn’t without its critics. Liotta remembered hearing a baseball announcer during a Mets game complain that he batted the opposite way Joe Jackson did.
“[Bleep] you! He didn’t come back from the dead either!” Liotta recalled thinking.
His most iconic role, as real life mobster Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” came shortly after. He and Scorsese had to fight for it though, with multiple auditions and pleas to the studio to cast the still relative unknown.
Roger Ebert, in his review, wrote that “Goodfellas” solidified Liotta (and Bracco) as “two of our best new movie actors.”
“He creates the emotional center for a movie that is not about the experience of being a Mafioso, but about the feeling,” Ebert continued.
In a 2012 interview, Liotta said, “Henry Hill isn’t that edgy of a character. It’s really the other guys who are doing all the actual killings. The one physical thing he does do, when he goes after the guy who went after Karen — you know, most audiences, they actually like him for that.”
In the same interview, he marveled at how “Goodfellas” had a “life of its own” and has only grown over time.
“People watch it over and over, and still respond to it, and different ages come up, even today, teenagers come up to me and they really emotionally connect to it,” he said.
It didn’t matter the size of the role, or even the genre, Liotta always managed to stand out and steal scenes in both dramas and comedies, whether as Johnny Depp’s father in “Blow” or Adam Driver’s bullish divorce lawyer in “Marriage Story.”
Mafiosos seemed to be his specialty (he even narrated an AMC docuseries called “The Making of the Mob”), though he was wary of being typecast. He turned down the part of Ralphie on “The Sopranos” because of it. But he’d still end up playing a mob type with James Gandolfini in Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly.” And later, he would pay for his own ticket to audition for “The Many Saints of Newark.”
“I’m really not sure what made me so determined,” he told The Guardian last year. “But I was and luckily it all worked out.”
Liotta also often played various law enforcement types, from cops and detectives to federal agents in films as diverse as “Unlawful Entry,” “Cop Land,” “Narc,” “The Place Beyond the Pines” and “Observe and Report.” Many were corrupt.
He got to be a victim of Hannibal Lecter in the 2001 film “Hannibal” and played Frank Sinatra in the TV movie “The Rat Pack,” which got him a Screen Actors Guild nomination. For gamers, he’s immortalized as the voice of Tommy Vercetti in the video game “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.” He also starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in the series “Shades of Blue.”
His only regret, he once told the Los Angeles Times, was turning down a meeting to talk to Tim Burton about starring in “Batman.”
Liotta has one daughter, Karsen, with ex-wife Michelle Grace and was engaged to be married to Jacy Nittolo at the time of his death.
He also had a number of projects recently wrapped and upcoming, including “Cocaine Bear,” directed by Elizabeth Banks, which is supposed to come out in February, and the Apple TV+ crime series “Black Bird,” developed by Dennis Lehane and starring Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser. He was due to start another film soon too: “The Substance” with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.
“The business is rough, no matter where you’re at in your career,” Liotta said in 2012. “There’s always some reason for them to say no to you — that part of it is horrible. ... But the job itself — making people believe that what they’re seeing is really happening—that’s still a challenge, putting that puzzle together. You know, what can I say, I still like playing pretend. And it’s sure a fun way to make a living.”
-
Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
The Guardian May 26 2022
Andy Fletcher, keyboard player of Depeche Mode.
Depeche Mode’s Andrew Fletcher dies aged 60
Pioneering British electronic band confirm his death on social media, saying ‘Fletch had a true heart of gold’
Andrew Fletcher, keyboardist and founding member of British electronic band Depeche Mode, has died aged 60. A statement issued by the band on social media said: “We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member, and bandmate Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher.”
Formed in Basildon in the late 1970s, the band has had 17 Top 10 albums in the UK, and international chart success with songs including Enjoy The Silence, Personal Jesus and Just Can’t Get Enough.
The band went on to say in their statement: “Fletch had a true heart of gold and was always there when you needed support, a lively conversation, a good laugh, or a cold pint. Our hearts are with his family, and we ask that you keep them in your thoughts and respect their privacy in this difficult time.”
Fletcher was born in 1961 in Nottingham, and moved to Basildon where he formed the band Composition Of Sound in the late 1970s alongside Martin Gore and Vince Clarke. With the recruitment of singer Dave Gahan they changed their name to Depeche Mode, and the quartet went on to enjoy a spree of early 80s chart hits.
With the departure of Clarke, who went on to form Yazoo and then Erasure, Gore became chief songwriter, and, with the addition of Alan Wilder, the band’s sound took a darker, more gothic turn. They had huge international success in the late 80s and early 90s.
Fletcher leaves behind a wife, Grainne, to whom he was married for almost 30 years, and two children, Megan and Joe.
He played on all of Depeche Mode’s studio albums, including Songs Of Faith And Devotion in 1993 and Ultra in 1997, which both reached No 1 in the album chart in the UK.
Not being the singer or the main songwriter, Fletcher was often regarded in later years by fans as the manager figure within the band, looking after the business side of a group credited with selling more than 100m records worldwide. In 2013 he told an interviewer that he was “the tall guy in the background, without whom this international corporation called Depeche Mode would never work”.
In the 1989 documentary 101 by director D A Pennebaker, which was based around the 101st date of the band’s Music For The Masses tour, Fletcher was even more understating about his role, saying “Martin’s the songwriter, Alan’s the good musician, Dave’s the vocalist, and I bum around.”
Wilder quit in 1995, leaving the group as a three-piece. The band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Andy Fletcher, keyboard player of Depeche Mode.
Depeche Mode’s Andrew Fletcher dies aged 60
Pioneering British electronic band confirm his death on social media, saying ‘Fletch had a true heart of gold’
Andrew Fletcher, keyboardist and founding member of British electronic band Depeche Mode, has died aged 60. A statement issued by the band on social media said: “We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member, and bandmate Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher.”
Formed in Basildon in the late 1970s, the band has had 17 Top 10 albums in the UK, and international chart success with songs including Enjoy The Silence, Personal Jesus and Just Can’t Get Enough.
The band went on to say in their statement: “Fletch had a true heart of gold and was always there when you needed support, a lively conversation, a good laugh, or a cold pint. Our hearts are with his family, and we ask that you keep them in your thoughts and respect their privacy in this difficult time.”
Fletcher was born in 1961 in Nottingham, and moved to Basildon where he formed the band Composition Of Sound in the late 1970s alongside Martin Gore and Vince Clarke. With the recruitment of singer Dave Gahan they changed their name to Depeche Mode, and the quartet went on to enjoy a spree of early 80s chart hits.
With the departure of Clarke, who went on to form Yazoo and then Erasure, Gore became chief songwriter, and, with the addition of Alan Wilder, the band’s sound took a darker, more gothic turn. They had huge international success in the late 80s and early 90s.
Fletcher leaves behind a wife, Grainne, to whom he was married for almost 30 years, and two children, Megan and Joe.
He played on all of Depeche Mode’s studio albums, including Songs Of Faith And Devotion in 1993 and Ultra in 1997, which both reached No 1 in the album chart in the UK.
Not being the singer or the main songwriter, Fletcher was often regarded in later years by fans as the manager figure within the band, looking after the business side of a group credited with selling more than 100m records worldwide. In 2013 he told an interviewer that he was “the tall guy in the background, without whom this international corporation called Depeche Mode would never work”.
In the 1989 documentary 101 by director D A Pennebaker, which was based around the 101st date of the band’s Music For The Masses tour, Fletcher was even more understating about his role, saying “Martin’s the songwriter, Alan’s the good musician, Dave’s the vocalist, and I bum around.”
Wilder quit in 1995, leaving the group as a three-piece. The band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
-
Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
New York Post July 7 2022
James Caan, ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Elf’ and ‘Misery’ star, dead at 82
By Nadine DeNinno and Eric Hegedus
James Caan, the Bronx-born actor who starred in “The Godfather,” “Elf,” “Brian’s Song,” “El Dorado” and “Misery” among countless other films, has died. He was 82.
“It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6. The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time,” a statement on his official Twitter account read.
No cause of death was immediately given.
Caan, who was best known for playing Santino “Sonny” Corleone, the brother to Al Pacino’s Michael, reflected on the iconic Francis Ford Coppola film for its 50th anniversary earlier this year.
“One of the things that made ‘The Godfather’ successful, besides brilliant directing and writing and wonderful actors … was that everyone really enjoyed making it, and that comes off on the screen,” Caan told The Post in March 2022. “And I think the audience can tell that we were having a good time doing what we were doing up there.”
Caan, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the movie based on the Mario Puzo book, also called his co-star Brando “great” and suggested he had a significant sense of humor.
Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan, John Cazale, 1972
Marlon was great,” Caan said of Brando. “He had a great sense of humor, but he would have trouble figuring out the f—ing punch line sometimes. We’d go to lunch — those stupid Polish jokes were coming out at the time … and then two hours later, in the middle of a scene, I’d look at him and say something and all the sudden [imitates Brando laughing] I’d say, ‘What the f–k’s the matter with you?’ and he said [referring to the joke] ‘That’s funny.’ Two hours later it was playing in his f—ing head. He was like a child like that. I loved him.”
As for Caan, acting wasn’t always his dream growing up as the son of a butcher. While attending Hofstra University, Caan played football and aspired to be a professional player. But Hofstra was where he ended up falling in love with acting, after joining the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.
His first credit was on Broadway in the 1961 production of “Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole,” followed by minor film and TV roles.
His first leading role was in 1965 in Howard Hawks’ “Red Line 7000,” followed by a star-making turn in 1966 western “El Dorado” opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.
He was eventually led to the “The Godfather” after starring in the 1969 film “The Rain People,” directed by Coppola, who later cast him in the iconic picture.
In the interview with The Post, timed to the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather,” Caan reminisced about numerous scenes — including a key improvised segment in which Sonny beats up his pregnant sister’s husband, Carlo (Gianni Russo) on the street with his fists, his legs and the top of a garbage can.
“The stick I threw at [Carlo] when he’s running away, that wasn’t in the script,” he said. “I took one of those industrial brooms and cut the end off and put it under my seat [in the car as Sonny drives up to confront Carlo]. They said, ‘It’s not in the script’ and I said, ‘What the f–k’s the difference, just put it down there.’ I swear to God I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I knew that’s what a lot of guys did in my neighborhood. We called them ‘attitude adjusters.’ I just grabbed it and fired [the stick] at him and Francis said, ‘That’s great, Jimmy, you looked like you were going to miss him.’ So he’s lying behind the cars on the other side and luckily, on the upswing, I caught him on the top of the coconut.”
Regarding his character Sonny’s big, bloody death scene, Caan told The Post earlier this year that it was a dangerous sequence to film.
James Caan in 1972 filming a scene for “The Godfather.”
“I would never have shot that scene under any other conditions — but there were girls on the set, and I couldn’t look like a p—y,” Caan said. “That’s the only reason I did it. There were 147 squibs on my body … Those squibs were made like brass caskets, a square inch of brass with a little V on top where they pour gunpowder and they were sewn into my jacket. The effects guy, AD Flowers, said, ‘I don’t know if I ever put this many squibs on anybody, ever.’”
As for “The Godfather” as a whole, he said the film is sincere — but also revealed he was gunning for Pacino’s part.
“Yeah, I had a number of auditions for different parts,” he told Variety. “I wanted to play Sonny, because that’s what Francis wanted. But he called me one night from New York and said, “Jimmy the studio wants you to come here and test.” I said, “test what? You got a Porsche you want me to drive around the block?” And Francis told me they wanted me to play Michael. So I went to New York and read for the role and then they had Al [Pacino] come in and test and he was a little self-destructive. They warned him, don’t do that again or you’re fired. But Francis got what he wanted in the end. He always does.”
He also said working with the film’s cast was as legendary as the movie, which is beloved by fans decades on.
“There’s something that doesn’t get dated and that’s the truth,” he said. “‘The Godfather’ has a lot of truth to it, a lot of sincerity to it and a lot of art. The cast was great and we all had a lot of fun making it. Having fun and liking the people you’re working with is a very important ingredient, which I found out after 130 movies or whatever.”
Caan also said the scene in which Sonny brutally is taken out was done in just one take.
“F–k yeah,” he said. “Once was enough.”
He also added that the squibs, or miniature explosive devices, “would blow a hole in you.”
“It was very scary. I had 147 squibs on me and there were 5,000 in the tollbooth and the truth is that I only did it because there were girls on the set. I remember [special effects head] A.D. Flowers putting these wires on me, and as he’s putting them on me he’s mumbling to himself about how he never put this many squibs on somebody in his life. I told him, ‘shut the f–k up A.D., will ya for god’s sake?’ Thankfully we only did it once.”
While Caan played a tough guy in “The Godfather,” the actor said the exact opposite for “Misery,” alongside Kathy Bates.
“I play a total victim. I get the crap beat out of me. And I look like I’m between 80 and death,” he proudly told the Los Angeles Times in 1990 of his memorable role in the thriller.
“I sometimes wondered if this was a sadistic joke on Rob’s part,” he said of director Rob Reiner’s take on the adaptation of Stephen King’s work. In the film, Caan plays an injured, bedridden author who is held hostage by an infatuated fan, played by Bates. “You know, ‘Let’s get the most hyper guy in Hollywood to stay in bed for 15 weeks.’ . . . I was doing something I’d never done. For me, this being a totally reactionary character is really much tougher.”
James Caan appeared with his son, James Arthur Caan, at a celebration for the 50th year of "The Godfather" in February of this year
Despite the tough guy visage in “Godfather,” Caan also took on comedy, starring as Will Ferrell’s long-lost biological dad in “Elf.” While fans have clamored for a sequel to the beloved Christmas flick, Caan said it never happened over a dispute between Ferrell and director Jon Favreau.
“We were gonna do it and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I finally got a franchise movie, I could make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do.’ And the director and Will didn’t get along very well,” Caan told the Bull & Fox radio show in 2020. “So, Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director, and he had it in his contract, it was one of those things.”
Caan had five children, “Ocean’s 11” star Scott Caan, 45; James Arthur Caan, 26; Tara A. Caan, 57; Jacob Nicholas Caan, 23; and Alexander James Caan, 31.
James Caan, ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Elf’ and ‘Misery’ star, dead at 82
By Nadine DeNinno and Eric Hegedus
James Caan, the Bronx-born actor who starred in “The Godfather,” “Elf,” “Brian’s Song,” “El Dorado” and “Misery” among countless other films, has died. He was 82.
“It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6. The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time,” a statement on his official Twitter account read.
No cause of death was immediately given.
Caan, who was best known for playing Santino “Sonny” Corleone, the brother to Al Pacino’s Michael, reflected on the iconic Francis Ford Coppola film for its 50th anniversary earlier this year.
“One of the things that made ‘The Godfather’ successful, besides brilliant directing and writing and wonderful actors … was that everyone really enjoyed making it, and that comes off on the screen,” Caan told The Post in March 2022. “And I think the audience can tell that we were having a good time doing what we were doing up there.”
Caan, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the movie based on the Mario Puzo book, also called his co-star Brando “great” and suggested he had a significant sense of humor.
Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, James Caan, John Cazale, 1972
Marlon was great,” Caan said of Brando. “He had a great sense of humor, but he would have trouble figuring out the f—ing punch line sometimes. We’d go to lunch — those stupid Polish jokes were coming out at the time … and then two hours later, in the middle of a scene, I’d look at him and say something and all the sudden [imitates Brando laughing] I’d say, ‘What the f–k’s the matter with you?’ and he said [referring to the joke] ‘That’s funny.’ Two hours later it was playing in his f—ing head. He was like a child like that. I loved him.”
As for Caan, acting wasn’t always his dream growing up as the son of a butcher. While attending Hofstra University, Caan played football and aspired to be a professional player. But Hofstra was where he ended up falling in love with acting, after joining the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.
His first credit was on Broadway in the 1961 production of “Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole,” followed by minor film and TV roles.
His first leading role was in 1965 in Howard Hawks’ “Red Line 7000,” followed by a star-making turn in 1966 western “El Dorado” opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.
He was eventually led to the “The Godfather” after starring in the 1969 film “The Rain People,” directed by Coppola, who later cast him in the iconic picture.
In the interview with The Post, timed to the 50th anniversary of “The Godfather,” Caan reminisced about numerous scenes — including a key improvised segment in which Sonny beats up his pregnant sister’s husband, Carlo (Gianni Russo) on the street with his fists, his legs and the top of a garbage can.
“The stick I threw at [Carlo] when he’s running away, that wasn’t in the script,” he said. “I took one of those industrial brooms and cut the end off and put it under my seat [in the car as Sonny drives up to confront Carlo]. They said, ‘It’s not in the script’ and I said, ‘What the f–k’s the difference, just put it down there.’ I swear to God I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I knew that’s what a lot of guys did in my neighborhood. We called them ‘attitude adjusters.’ I just grabbed it and fired [the stick] at him and Francis said, ‘That’s great, Jimmy, you looked like you were going to miss him.’ So he’s lying behind the cars on the other side and luckily, on the upswing, I caught him on the top of the coconut.”
Regarding his character Sonny’s big, bloody death scene, Caan told The Post earlier this year that it was a dangerous sequence to film.
James Caan in 1972 filming a scene for “The Godfather.”
“I would never have shot that scene under any other conditions — but there were girls on the set, and I couldn’t look like a p—y,” Caan said. “That’s the only reason I did it. There were 147 squibs on my body … Those squibs were made like brass caskets, a square inch of brass with a little V on top where they pour gunpowder and they were sewn into my jacket. The effects guy, AD Flowers, said, ‘I don’t know if I ever put this many squibs on anybody, ever.’”
As for “The Godfather” as a whole, he said the film is sincere — but also revealed he was gunning for Pacino’s part.
“Yeah, I had a number of auditions for different parts,” he told Variety. “I wanted to play Sonny, because that’s what Francis wanted. But he called me one night from New York and said, “Jimmy the studio wants you to come here and test.” I said, “test what? You got a Porsche you want me to drive around the block?” And Francis told me they wanted me to play Michael. So I went to New York and read for the role and then they had Al [Pacino] come in and test and he was a little self-destructive. They warned him, don’t do that again or you’re fired. But Francis got what he wanted in the end. He always does.”
He also said working with the film’s cast was as legendary as the movie, which is beloved by fans decades on.
“There’s something that doesn’t get dated and that’s the truth,” he said. “‘The Godfather’ has a lot of truth to it, a lot of sincerity to it and a lot of art. The cast was great and we all had a lot of fun making it. Having fun and liking the people you’re working with is a very important ingredient, which I found out after 130 movies or whatever.”
Caan also said the scene in which Sonny brutally is taken out was done in just one take.
“F–k yeah,” he said. “Once was enough.”
He also added that the squibs, or miniature explosive devices, “would blow a hole in you.”
“It was very scary. I had 147 squibs on me and there were 5,000 in the tollbooth and the truth is that I only did it because there were girls on the set. I remember [special effects head] A.D. Flowers putting these wires on me, and as he’s putting them on me he’s mumbling to himself about how he never put this many squibs on somebody in his life. I told him, ‘shut the f–k up A.D., will ya for god’s sake?’ Thankfully we only did it once.”
While Caan played a tough guy in “The Godfather,” the actor said the exact opposite for “Misery,” alongside Kathy Bates.
“I play a total victim. I get the crap beat out of me. And I look like I’m between 80 and death,” he proudly told the Los Angeles Times in 1990 of his memorable role in the thriller.
“I sometimes wondered if this was a sadistic joke on Rob’s part,” he said of director Rob Reiner’s take on the adaptation of Stephen King’s work. In the film, Caan plays an injured, bedridden author who is held hostage by an infatuated fan, played by Bates. “You know, ‘Let’s get the most hyper guy in Hollywood to stay in bed for 15 weeks.’ . . . I was doing something I’d never done. For me, this being a totally reactionary character is really much tougher.”
James Caan appeared with his son, James Arthur Caan, at a celebration for the 50th year of "The Godfather" in February of this year
Despite the tough guy visage in “Godfather,” Caan also took on comedy, starring as Will Ferrell’s long-lost biological dad in “Elf.” While fans have clamored for a sequel to the beloved Christmas flick, Caan said it never happened over a dispute between Ferrell and director Jon Favreau.
“We were gonna do it and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I finally got a franchise movie, I could make some money, let my kids do what the hell they want to do.’ And the director and Will didn’t get along very well,” Caan told the Bull & Fox radio show in 2020. “So, Will wanted to do it, he didn’t want the director, and he had it in his contract, it was one of those things.”
Caan had five children, “Ocean’s 11” star Scott Caan, 45; James Arthur Caan, 26; Tara A. Caan, 57; Jacob Nicholas Caan, 23; and Alexander James Caan, 31.
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Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
Washington Post July 8 2022
Tony Sirico, who played Paulie Walnuts on ‘The Sopranos,’ dies at 79
Actor Tony Sirico was a natural fit for the part of Paulie Walnuts in “The Sopranos,” having grown up in the Italian mob world himself.
Actor Tony Sirico, known for his role as Paulie Walnuts in the popular American television show ‘The Sopranos,” died Friday at 79, his family and manager announced.
Sirico — who grew up around the Italian mobsters he later portrayed in a number of films and shows — died Friday morning at an assisted-living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., according to Bob McGowan, his manager of 25 years. McGowan said he did not know the cause of death.
“He was a really good guy,” McGowan said, adding that Sirico “always gave to charities” and visited hospitals to comfort children.
In a Facebook post the actor’s brother, Robert Sirico, said: “The family is deeply grateful for the many expressions of love, prayer and condolences and requests that the public respect its privacy in this time of bereavement.”
Michael Imperioli, Sirico’s co-star who played Christopher Moltisanti on “The Sopranos,” posted a photo of the duo on Instagram Friday evening, writing that he was “heartbroken today.”
“We found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony,” Imperioli’s post said. “I will miss him forever.”
On “The Sopranos” — which Rolling Stone rated as the greatest TV show of all time in 2016 — Sirico played the violent henchman to mobster Tony Soprano, shaking down rivals and doing his boss’s dirty work when asked.
Sirico was a natural fit for the part, having grown up in the Italian mob world himself. Born in New York City in 1942, he was arrested 28 times beginning at age 7, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1990.
“After all the times I was pinched, I knew every judge in town,” he told the publication. “In our neighborhood, if you weren’t carrying a gun, it was like you were the rabbit during rabbit-hunting season.”
“He was that person,” McGowan said of Sirico’s character on “The Sopranos.” “He grew up with that world.”
During his last prison stay in the early 1970s, the Times reported, he saw a performance by a group of ex-con actors that inspired him.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Sirico played the kind of gangsters he grew up around, appearing in minor roles in some of the most influential mobster films, including Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.” He had acted in 27 films by 1990 and died in 13 of them, he told the Times that year.
He landed the role as Paulie on “The Sopranos” in 1999, ultimately appearing in nearly every episode of its six-season run.
McGowan said Sirico was an Army veteran and longtime supporter of the Wounded Warrior Project. In 2010, Sirico and his “Sopranos” co-star James Gandolfini joined chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen for a USO tour visiting troops across the Middle East.
Sirico is survived by his two children, Joanne Sirico Bello and Richard Sirico, siblings, grandchildren, and other relatives, his brother wrote on Facebook.
Stevie Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante on “The Sopranos,” tweeted Friday that Sirico was “legendary” in his role as “Silvio’s best buddy” on the show.
“A larger than life character on and off screen,” Zandt wrote. “Gonna miss you a lot my friend.”
Tony Sirico, who played Paulie Walnuts on ‘The Sopranos,’ dies at 79
Actor Tony Sirico was a natural fit for the part of Paulie Walnuts in “The Sopranos,” having grown up in the Italian mob world himself.
Actor Tony Sirico, known for his role as Paulie Walnuts in the popular American television show ‘The Sopranos,” died Friday at 79, his family and manager announced.
Sirico — who grew up around the Italian mobsters he later portrayed in a number of films and shows — died Friday morning at an assisted-living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., according to Bob McGowan, his manager of 25 years. McGowan said he did not know the cause of death.
“He was a really good guy,” McGowan said, adding that Sirico “always gave to charities” and visited hospitals to comfort children.
In a Facebook post the actor’s brother, Robert Sirico, said: “The family is deeply grateful for the many expressions of love, prayer and condolences and requests that the public respect its privacy in this time of bereavement.”
Michael Imperioli, Sirico’s co-star who played Christopher Moltisanti on “The Sopranos,” posted a photo of the duo on Instagram Friday evening, writing that he was “heartbroken today.”
“We found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony,” Imperioli’s post said. “I will miss him forever.”
On “The Sopranos” — which Rolling Stone rated as the greatest TV show of all time in 2016 — Sirico played the violent henchman to mobster Tony Soprano, shaking down rivals and doing his boss’s dirty work when asked.
Sirico was a natural fit for the part, having grown up in the Italian mob world himself. Born in New York City in 1942, he was arrested 28 times beginning at age 7, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1990.
“After all the times I was pinched, I knew every judge in town,” he told the publication. “In our neighborhood, if you weren’t carrying a gun, it was like you were the rabbit during rabbit-hunting season.”
“He was that person,” McGowan said of Sirico’s character on “The Sopranos.” “He grew up with that world.”
During his last prison stay in the early 1970s, the Times reported, he saw a performance by a group of ex-con actors that inspired him.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Sirico played the kind of gangsters he grew up around, appearing in minor roles in some of the most influential mobster films, including Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.” He had acted in 27 films by 1990 and died in 13 of them, he told the Times that year.
He landed the role as Paulie on “The Sopranos” in 1999, ultimately appearing in nearly every episode of its six-season run.
McGowan said Sirico was an Army veteran and longtime supporter of the Wounded Warrior Project. In 2010, Sirico and his “Sopranos” co-star James Gandolfini joined chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen for a USO tour visiting troops across the Middle East.
Sirico is survived by his two children, Joanne Sirico Bello and Richard Sirico, siblings, grandchildren, and other relatives, his brother wrote on Facebook.
Stevie Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante on “The Sopranos,” tweeted Friday that Sirico was “legendary” in his role as “Silvio’s best buddy” on the show.
“A larger than life character on and off screen,” Zandt wrote. “Gonna miss you a lot my friend.”
-
fatboyjoe90
- Posts: 5690
- Joined: Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:29 pm
- Location: merseyside
Happy Mondays star Paul Ryder dies aged 58,his family confirmed.
Paul was one of the founding members of the Manchester band Happy Mondays (Picture: Andrew Benge/Redferns
Ryder, brother of band member Shaun Ryder, was the bass player and one of the founding members of the Manchester band.
Announcing his death on Twitter, his family wrote: ‘The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning.
‘A true pioneer and legend.
He will be forever missed.
‘We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time.
‘Long live his funk.’
Paul was one of the founding members of the Manchester band Happy Mondays (Picture: Andrew Benge/Redferns
Ryder, brother of band member Shaun Ryder, was the bass player and one of the founding members of the Manchester band.
Announcing his death on Twitter, his family wrote: ‘The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning.
‘A true pioneer and legend.
He will be forever missed.
‘We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time.
‘Long live his funk.’
Cheers Joe.
-
Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
July 25, 2022, Chicago Sun Times
Paul Sorvino, veteran actor known for ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Law & Order,’ dies at 83
Father of Oscar winner Mira Sorvino, he also appeared in ‘Reds,’ ‘Nixon’ and ‘The Rocketeer.’
By Lindsey Bahr | Associated Press Film Writer
Paul Sorvino arrives at the 29th annual Producers Guild Awards in 2018.Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerretta on “Law & Order,” has died. He was 83.
His publicist Roger Neal said he died Monday morning at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, of natural causes.
“Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage,” his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino, said in a statement.
In his over 50 years in the entertainment business, Sorvino was a mainstay in films and television, playing an Italian American communist in Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” and mob boss Eddie Valentine in “The Rocketeer.” He would often say that while he might be best known for playing gangsters, his real passions were poetry, painting and opera.
Born in Brooklyn in 1939 to a mother who taught piano and father who was a foreman in a robe factory, Sorvino was musically inclined from a young age and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, where he fell for the theater. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in “Bajour” and his film debut in Carl Reiner’s “Where’s Poppa?” in 1970.
With his 6-foot-4-inch stature, Sorvino made an impactful presence no matter the medium. In the 1970s, he acted alongside Al Pacino in “The Panic in Needle Park” and with James Caan in “The Gambler,” reteamed with Reiner in “Oh, God!” and was among the ensemble in William Friedkin’s bank robbery comedy “The Brinks Job.”
In John G. Avildsen’s “Rocky” follow-up “Slow Dancing in the Big City,” Sorvino got to play a romantic lead and use his dance training opposite professional ballerina Anne Ditchburn.
He was especially prolific in the 1990s, kicking off the decade playing Lips in Beatty’s “Dick Tracy,” Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” who was based on the real-life mobster Paul Vario, and Cerretta on 31 episodes of Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order.” He followed those with roles in “The Rocketeer,” “The Firm,” “Nixon,” which got him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” as Juliet’s father, Fulgencio Capulet.
Beatty would turn to Sorvino often, enlisting him again for his political satire “Bulworth,” which came out in 1998, and his 2016 Hollywood love letter “Rules Don’t Apply.” Sorvino also appeared in James Gray’s “The Immigrant.”
Sorvino had three children from his first marriage, including Academy Award-winning actor Mira Sorvino. He also directed and starred in a film written by his daughter Amanda Sorvino and featuring his son Michael Sorvino.
When he learned that Mira Sorvino had been among the women allegedly sexually harassed and blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein in the midst of the #MeToo reckoning, he told TMZ that if he had known, Weinstein, “Would not be walking. He’d be in a wheelchair.”
He was proud of his daughter and cried when she won the best supporting actress Oscar for “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1996. He the Los Angeles Times that night that he didn’t have the words to express how he felt.
“They don’t exist in any language that I’ve ever heard — well, maybe Italian,” he said.
Paul Sorvino, veteran actor known for ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Law & Order,’ dies at 83
Father of Oscar winner Mira Sorvino, he also appeared in ‘Reds,’ ‘Nixon’ and ‘The Rocketeer.’
By Lindsey Bahr | Associated Press Film Writer
Paul Sorvino arrives at the 29th annual Producers Guild Awards in 2018.Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerretta on “Law & Order,” has died. He was 83.
His publicist Roger Neal said he died Monday morning at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, of natural causes.
“Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage,” his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino, said in a statement.
In his over 50 years in the entertainment business, Sorvino was a mainstay in films and television, playing an Italian American communist in Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” and mob boss Eddie Valentine in “The Rocketeer.” He would often say that while he might be best known for playing gangsters, his real passions were poetry, painting and opera.
Born in Brooklyn in 1939 to a mother who taught piano and father who was a foreman in a robe factory, Sorvino was musically inclined from a young age and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, where he fell for the theater. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in “Bajour” and his film debut in Carl Reiner’s “Where’s Poppa?” in 1970.
With his 6-foot-4-inch stature, Sorvino made an impactful presence no matter the medium. In the 1970s, he acted alongside Al Pacino in “The Panic in Needle Park” and with James Caan in “The Gambler,” reteamed with Reiner in “Oh, God!” and was among the ensemble in William Friedkin’s bank robbery comedy “The Brinks Job.”
In John G. Avildsen’s “Rocky” follow-up “Slow Dancing in the Big City,” Sorvino got to play a romantic lead and use his dance training opposite professional ballerina Anne Ditchburn.
He was especially prolific in the 1990s, kicking off the decade playing Lips in Beatty’s “Dick Tracy,” Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” who was based on the real-life mobster Paul Vario, and Cerretta on 31 episodes of Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order.” He followed those with roles in “The Rocketeer,” “The Firm,” “Nixon,” which got him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” as Juliet’s father, Fulgencio Capulet.
Beatty would turn to Sorvino often, enlisting him again for his political satire “Bulworth,” which came out in 1998, and his 2016 Hollywood love letter “Rules Don’t Apply.” Sorvino also appeared in James Gray’s “The Immigrant.”
Sorvino had three children from his first marriage, including Academy Award-winning actor Mira Sorvino. He also directed and starred in a film written by his daughter Amanda Sorvino and featuring his son Michael Sorvino.
When he learned that Mira Sorvino had been among the women allegedly sexually harassed and blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein in the midst of the #MeToo reckoning, he told TMZ that if he had known, Weinstein, “Would not be walking. He’d be in a wheelchair.”
He was proud of his daughter and cried when she won the best supporting actress Oscar for “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1996. He the Los Angeles Times that night that he didn’t have the words to express how he felt.
“They don’t exist in any language that I’ve ever heard — well, maybe Italian,” he said.
-
Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
The Times July 14 2022
Brian Jackson, appeared on TV as "The Man from Del Monte"
The Thornleigh College he attended was otherwise known as Salesian College Bolton.
We used to play the Salesian Colleges in Bolton and Shrigley each year at football and cricket.
Brian Jackson, appeared on TV as "The Man from Del Monte"
The Thornleigh College he attended was otherwise known as Salesian College Bolton.
We used to play the Salesian Colleges in Bolton and Shrigley each year at football and cricket.
-
Dan
- Posts: 4730
- Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:24 pm
From Variety July 31 2022
Nichelle Nichols, Uhura in ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89
Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed communications officer Uhura on the original “Star Trek” series, died Saturday night in Silver City, N.M. She was 89 years old.
Nichols’ death was confirmed by Gilbert Bell, her talent manager and business partner of 15 years.
Nichols shared one of the first interracial kisses in television history on “Star Trek.” That moment, with her co-star William Shatner, was a courageous move on the part of her, “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and NBC considering the climate at the time, but the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which aired in 1968, was written to give all involved an out: Uhura and Captain Kirk did not choose to kiss but were instead made to do so involuntarily by aliens with the ability to control the movements of humans. Nevertheless, it was a landmark moment.
There had been a couple of interracial kisses on American television before. A year earlier on “Movin’ With Nancy,” Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Nancy Sinatra on the cheek in what appeared to be a spontaneous gesture but was in fact carefully planned. The Uhura-Kirk kiss was likely the first televised white/African American lip-to-lip kiss.
But Uhura, whose name comes from a Swahili word meaning “freedom,” was essential beyond the interracial kiss: A capable officer who could man other stations on the bridge when the need arose, she was one of the first African American women to be featured in a non-menial role on television.
Nichols played Lt. Uhura on the original series, voiced her on “Star Trek: The Animated Series” and played Uhura in the first six “Star Trek” films. Uhura was promoted to lieutenant commander in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and to full commander in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
Nichols mulled leaving “Star Trek” after the first season to pursue a career on Broadway, but the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fan of the series and understood the importance of her character in opening doors for other African Americans on television, personally persuaded her to stay on the show, she told astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in an interview for the Archive of American Television.
Whoopi Goldberg, who later played Guinan on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has described Uhura as a role model, recalling that she was astounded and excited to see a black woman character on television who was not a maid.
Nichols and Shatner remembered the shooting of the famous kiss very differently. In “Star Trek Memories,” Shatner said NBC insisted that the actors’ lips never actually touch (though they appear to). But in Nichols’ 1994 autobiography “Beyond Uhura,” the actress insisted that the kiss was in fact real. Nervous about audience reaction, the network insisted that alternate takes be shot with and without a kiss, but Nichols and Shatner deliberately flubbed every one of the latter so NBC would be forced to air what appeared to be a kiss (whether their lips actually touched or not).
Both the “Star Trek” and “Movin’ With Nancy” moments drew some negative reactions, though Nichols recalled that the fan mail was overwhelmingly positive and supportive.
NASA later employed Nichols in an effort to encourage women and African Americans to become astronauts. NASA Astronaut Group 8, selected in 1978, included the first women and ethnic minorities to be recruited, including three who were Black. Dr. Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, cited “Star Trek” as an influence in her decision to join the space agency.
Nichols remained a supporter of the space program for decades.
In 1991, Nichols became the first African American woman to have her handprints immortalized at the TCL Chinese Theatre. The ceremony also included other members of the original “Star Trek” cast.
Born Grace Nichols in Robbins, Ill. on Dec. 28, 1932, Nichols began her show business career at age 16 singing with Duke Ellington in a ballet she created for one of his compositions. Later, she sang with his band.
She studied in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Her break came with an appearance in Oscar Brown’s high-profile but ill-fated 1961 musical “Kicks and Co.,” in which she played campus queen Hazel Sharpe, who’s tempted by the devil and Orgy Magazine to become “Orgy Maiden of the Month.” The play closed after its brief Chicago tryout, but Nichols attracted the attention of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, who booked her at his Chicago Playboy Club.
Nichols also appeared in the role of Carmen for a Chicago stock company production of “Carmen Jones” and performed in a New York production of “Porgy and Bess,” making her feature debut in an uncredited role as a dancer in an adaptation of that work in 1959. (Later she would display her singing talents on occasion on “Star Trek.”)
While working in Chicago, Nichols was twice nominated for that city’s theatrical Sarah Siddons Award for best actress. The first came for “Kicks and Co.,” while the second was for her performance in Jean Genet’s “The Blacks.”
She had small roles in the films “Made in Paris,” “Mr. Buddwing” and the Sandra Dee vehicle “Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding!” before she was cast on “Star Trek.”
During the early ’60s, before “Star Trek,” Nichols had an affair with Gene Roddenberry that lasted several years, according to her autobiography. The affair ended when Roddenberry realized he was in love with Majel Hudec, whom he married. When Roddenberry’s health was failing decades later, Nichols co-wrote a song for him, entitled “Gene,” that she sang at his funeral.
In January 1967, Nichols was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine, which published two feature articles on her within five years.
In the early ’70s, the actress made a few guest appearances on TV and appeared in the 1974 Blaxploitation film “Truck Turner” starring Isaac Hayes. She appeared in a supporting role in a 1983 TV adaptation of “Antony and Cleopatra” that also featured her “Star Trek” co-star Walter Koenig. She starred with Maxwell Caulfield and Talia Balsam in the 1986 horror sci-fi feature “The Supernaturals.”
Later, Nichols began to do voice work, lending her talent to the animated series “Gargoyles” and “Spider-Man.” She also voiced herself on “Futurama.”
The actress played the mother of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s lead character in 2002’s “Snow Dogs” and Miss Mable in the 2005 Ice Cube comedy “Are We There Yet?”
In 2007, Nichols recurred on the second season of the NBC drama “Heroes” as Nana Dawson, matriarch of a New Orleans family devastated by Hurricane Katrina who cares for her orphaned grandchildren and great-nephew, Micah Sanders (series regular Noah Gray-Cabey). The following year she appeared in the films “Tru Loved” and “The Torturer.”
Nichols suffered a stroke in 2015 and was diagnosed with dementia in 2018, touching off a conservatorship dispute between her manager Bell and her son as well as a friend.
Nichols was married and divorced twice. She is survived by her son, Kyle Johnson.
Nichelle Nichols, Uhura in ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89
Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed communications officer Uhura on the original “Star Trek” series, died Saturday night in Silver City, N.M. She was 89 years old.
Nichols’ death was confirmed by Gilbert Bell, her talent manager and business partner of 15 years.
Nichols shared one of the first interracial kisses in television history on “Star Trek.” That moment, with her co-star William Shatner, was a courageous move on the part of her, “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and NBC considering the climate at the time, but the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which aired in 1968, was written to give all involved an out: Uhura and Captain Kirk did not choose to kiss but were instead made to do so involuntarily by aliens with the ability to control the movements of humans. Nevertheless, it was a landmark moment.
There had been a couple of interracial kisses on American television before. A year earlier on “Movin’ With Nancy,” Sammy Davis Jr. kissed Nancy Sinatra on the cheek in what appeared to be a spontaneous gesture but was in fact carefully planned. The Uhura-Kirk kiss was likely the first televised white/African American lip-to-lip kiss.
But Uhura, whose name comes from a Swahili word meaning “freedom,” was essential beyond the interracial kiss: A capable officer who could man other stations on the bridge when the need arose, she was one of the first African American women to be featured in a non-menial role on television.
Nichols played Lt. Uhura on the original series, voiced her on “Star Trek: The Animated Series” and played Uhura in the first six “Star Trek” films. Uhura was promoted to lieutenant commander in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and to full commander in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
Nichols mulled leaving “Star Trek” after the first season to pursue a career on Broadway, but the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fan of the series and understood the importance of her character in opening doors for other African Americans on television, personally persuaded her to stay on the show, she told astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson in an interview for the Archive of American Television.
Whoopi Goldberg, who later played Guinan on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has described Uhura as a role model, recalling that she was astounded and excited to see a black woman character on television who was not a maid.
Nichols and Shatner remembered the shooting of the famous kiss very differently. In “Star Trek Memories,” Shatner said NBC insisted that the actors’ lips never actually touch (though they appear to). But in Nichols’ 1994 autobiography “Beyond Uhura,” the actress insisted that the kiss was in fact real. Nervous about audience reaction, the network insisted that alternate takes be shot with and without a kiss, but Nichols and Shatner deliberately flubbed every one of the latter so NBC would be forced to air what appeared to be a kiss (whether their lips actually touched or not).
Both the “Star Trek” and “Movin’ With Nancy” moments drew some negative reactions, though Nichols recalled that the fan mail was overwhelmingly positive and supportive.
NASA later employed Nichols in an effort to encourage women and African Americans to become astronauts. NASA Astronaut Group 8, selected in 1978, included the first women and ethnic minorities to be recruited, including three who were Black. Dr. Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, cited “Star Trek” as an influence in her decision to join the space agency.
Nichols remained a supporter of the space program for decades.
In 1991, Nichols became the first African American woman to have her handprints immortalized at the TCL Chinese Theatre. The ceremony also included other members of the original “Star Trek” cast.
Born Grace Nichols in Robbins, Ill. on Dec. 28, 1932, Nichols began her show business career at age 16 singing with Duke Ellington in a ballet she created for one of his compositions. Later, she sang with his band.
She studied in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Her break came with an appearance in Oscar Brown’s high-profile but ill-fated 1961 musical “Kicks and Co.,” in which she played campus queen Hazel Sharpe, who’s tempted by the devil and Orgy Magazine to become “Orgy Maiden of the Month.” The play closed after its brief Chicago tryout, but Nichols attracted the attention of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, who booked her at his Chicago Playboy Club.
Nichols also appeared in the role of Carmen for a Chicago stock company production of “Carmen Jones” and performed in a New York production of “Porgy and Bess,” making her feature debut in an uncredited role as a dancer in an adaptation of that work in 1959. (Later she would display her singing talents on occasion on “Star Trek.”)
While working in Chicago, Nichols was twice nominated for that city’s theatrical Sarah Siddons Award for best actress. The first came for “Kicks and Co.,” while the second was for her performance in Jean Genet’s “The Blacks.”
She had small roles in the films “Made in Paris,” “Mr. Buddwing” and the Sandra Dee vehicle “Doctor, You’ve Got to Be Kidding!” before she was cast on “Star Trek.”
During the early ’60s, before “Star Trek,” Nichols had an affair with Gene Roddenberry that lasted several years, according to her autobiography. The affair ended when Roddenberry realized he was in love with Majel Hudec, whom he married. When Roddenberry’s health was failing decades later, Nichols co-wrote a song for him, entitled “Gene,” that she sang at his funeral.
In January 1967, Nichols was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine, which published two feature articles on her within five years.
In the early ’70s, the actress made a few guest appearances on TV and appeared in the 1974 Blaxploitation film “Truck Turner” starring Isaac Hayes. She appeared in a supporting role in a 1983 TV adaptation of “Antony and Cleopatra” that also featured her “Star Trek” co-star Walter Koenig. She starred with Maxwell Caulfield and Talia Balsam in the 1986 horror sci-fi feature “The Supernaturals.”
Later, Nichols began to do voice work, lending her talent to the animated series “Gargoyles” and “Spider-Man.” She also voiced herself on “Futurama.”
The actress played the mother of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s lead character in 2002’s “Snow Dogs” and Miss Mable in the 2005 Ice Cube comedy “Are We There Yet?”
In 2007, Nichols recurred on the second season of the NBC drama “Heroes” as Nana Dawson, matriarch of a New Orleans family devastated by Hurricane Katrina who cares for her orphaned grandchildren and great-nephew, Micah Sanders (series regular Noah Gray-Cabey). The following year she appeared in the films “Tru Loved” and “The Torturer.”
Nichols suffered a stroke in 2015 and was diagnosed with dementia in 2018, touching off a conservatorship dispute between her manager Bell and her son as well as a friend.
Nichols was married and divorced twice. She is survived by her son, Kyle Johnson.
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Dan
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Son of the former headmaster of Balliol Road school, Mr. Elliott.
From the Time magazine site.
Former Editor of TIME International Michael Elliott Dies at 65
BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE JULY 15, 2016
Michael Elliott, who had the rare distinction of working as an editor for all three prominent newsmagazines, TIME, Newsweek and the Economist, died on July 14. He was 65 and had been battling cancer.
Elliott, who was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2003 for his services to journalism, was known and loved by all who worked with him for his ability to be fascinated, his generosity and his almost giddy, unbridled gusto. He loved new stories, new people, new places. There was apparently no realm in which his mind did not wish to roam and in which he could find nothing to pique his curiosity. In meetings in which magazine writers would pitch stories he was relied upon as a lifeline. In the silence after a suggestion, in which a story’s fate — and a writer’s — would hang precariously, waiting for that first reaction, he would often chime in with one of his trademark phrases: “Nothing but readers!” “Top shelf!” or the best, a slow, wondrous “terrific stuff,” with an emphasis on the Fs.
That nearly all his trademark phrases were expressions of enthusiasm is no accident. He was an inveterate optimist, and when he believed in a project, proved himself right about its success with the energy and industry he brought to it. After leaving journalism in 2011, he became president and CEO of the ONE campaign, the global development organization founded by U2 lead singer Bono. In five years, ONE’s membership rose from 2 million to more than 7 million, of which 2.8 million members are in Africa. “As the leader of ONE he communicated with ease just how doable was the transformation of the lives of the poorest,” said Bono. “His decades as scribe and editor had not made him cynical, rather he saw himself as an evidence-based optimist.”
Elliott’s good cheer was indefatigable, a crucial quality during what can be brutal hours at a newsmagazine. “Michael is one of the very few people I’ve ever known who deserved the description ‘larger than life,'” says TIME editor Nancy Gibbs. “He lived life large, buoyantly, flamboyantly, delightedly chasing the next big idea, spotting the next great talent, inviting us all to his table to listen and learn. He was preacher and teacher, mentor to generations of journalists and model to all of us as editors. We will miss him terribly.”
Elliott was a great editor—he first suggested the idea that became the TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the world’s most influential people — who also wrote more than 20 cover stories for the magazine. He could write on any subject and at any height, from the minutely observed to 20,000 feet in the air. He witnessed the 2004 Asian tsunami from his hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, and sent in a searing report of the situation on the ground. “They are burning bodies on the shore of Tamil Nadu in southern India, and Manikimuttu, 24, whose grandfather is among the 60 or so in the pyre, is crazed with grief, one moment scooping water into cooking pots and throwing it on the flames, the next collapsing in uncontrollable sobs,” he wrote. “Fifty miles south in Patong, a honky-tonk beach town on Phuket Island, 100 bodies are laid out in front of a morgue that has room to refrigerate only two. In Batticaloa, on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, dozens of men have lined up on either side of a bridge, watching for bodies trapped underwater to pop up to the surface of a lagoon.”
He could also make sense of dizzying macroeconomic global trends, always with a cautious hopefulness that was as much his trademark as his Kangaroo-skin Akubra hat. “Though romantics want revolutions to have charismatic leaders,” he wrote about the Arab Spring, “successful ones channel the revolutionary instinct into habits of effective government.” To the end he was a fierce supporter of a united Europe, raging about Brexit on Twitter until a day or two before he died.
He never talked down to readers and expected as much of them as of himself, always writing to unite, not divide. “It’s right that we get mad about Ebola — mad that the world waited so long to tackle the outbreak; mad that poor, vulnerable societies don’t have the resources needed to tackle infectious diseases,” he wrote in 2015. “But we should remember too that in the past few years, Liberia — in fact, every country, rich or poor — has seen small miracles and sees more of them each year.” In what might termed be the ultimate expression of confidence in his subscribers’ thirst for knowledge, he once devoted a magazine cover to diarrhea.
He really loved America, often wearing cowboy boots and a belt buckle to his New York City office jobs and marveling in his book The Day Before Yesterday about how Americans didn’t really appreciate it enough. For only one U.S. institution did Elliott have no time. Oh, how he hated the increasing prominence of Halloween. “A hint of mist in the damp air, a rustle from the trees as they shed their leaves in nature’s annual striptease and, everywhere you look, ripe, corrugated pumpkins, waiting to be turned into something delicious by a touch of nutmeg and a hot oven,” he wrote in an essay called “Boo, Humbug.” “Except that the mist comes from dry ice stuck in a grinning skull, the whisper in the trees from nylon ghosts hung in the boughs, and the pumpkin, made of bilious orange plastic, has a gizmo inside that groans ‘Whoooooooo …’ as you walk past. Halloween is upon us again.”
Elliott was born in Liverpool, England, in 1951, and raised in a home, he noted “where the Messiah was considered light entertainment.” He attended Oxford University and spent some time in academia before being hired by the Economist in 1984 right on the eve of joining Deloitte. “[Editor Andrew Knight] told me, ‘You will make much less money but you will have much more fun,’” Elliott once told a reporter, “both of which were true.” After several years as that magazine’s Washington bureau chief, he was hired by Newsweek, where he rose to the title of international editor.
An early adapter to the online world, Elliott spent some time at a tech startup before coming to TIME in 2001, where he eventually rose to be deputy editor and editor of all the international editions under Richard Stengel. “I couldn’t have asked for a better deputy,” says Stengel, now Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. “Thoughtful but decisive, independent but loyal, he made everyone around him better. He was also a prodigious worker, writing and editing late into the night with only the occasional cigarette to keep him going. He once described himself as a ‘hod carrier’ and teased me for not knowing what it really meant.” (It’s a worker who brings the bricks to the master builder.)
When he left journalism for advocacy, shortly after signing what he called his best publishing contract ever, only he was surprised by the move. Wanting things to be better had always been an essential part of him. “Mike loved his life, lived it boldly and wanted the rest of the world to have that same experience of it,” said Bono. “He was annoyed and sometimes angry at the waste of human potential. Above all else, he wanted his life to be useful. If you were around him, that’s what he demanded of you.”
Of all Elliott’s catchphrases, perhaps the one he used most was from Winnie the Pooh: “Mustn’t grumble,” he’d say when he was asked about how things were. Even as he battled cancer, “his awareness that he might run out of time far too soon only deepened his appreciation of life” said his wife Emma Oxford, with whom he had two daughters, Roxana and Gina.
Two days before his death, Elliott was at a celebration of his work at ONE. He was feted by chairman Tom Freston and many of his friends and colleagues. During his speech he read a Derek Walcott poem which compares writing to women ferrying coal in baskets: “Look, they climb, and no one knows them/ They take their copper pittances, and your duty/ From the time you watched them from your grandmother’s house/ As a child wounded by their power and beauty/ Is the chance you now have, to give those feet a voice.”
Elliott took every chance he had to give many a voice before his was stilled.
From the Time magazine site.
Former Editor of TIME International Michael Elliott Dies at 65
BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE JULY 15, 2016
Michael Elliott, who had the rare distinction of working as an editor for all three prominent newsmagazines, TIME, Newsweek and the Economist, died on July 14. He was 65 and had been battling cancer.
Elliott, who was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 2003 for his services to journalism, was known and loved by all who worked with him for his ability to be fascinated, his generosity and his almost giddy, unbridled gusto. He loved new stories, new people, new places. There was apparently no realm in which his mind did not wish to roam and in which he could find nothing to pique his curiosity. In meetings in which magazine writers would pitch stories he was relied upon as a lifeline. In the silence after a suggestion, in which a story’s fate — and a writer’s — would hang precariously, waiting for that first reaction, he would often chime in with one of his trademark phrases: “Nothing but readers!” “Top shelf!” or the best, a slow, wondrous “terrific stuff,” with an emphasis on the Fs.
That nearly all his trademark phrases were expressions of enthusiasm is no accident. He was an inveterate optimist, and when he believed in a project, proved himself right about its success with the energy and industry he brought to it. After leaving journalism in 2011, he became president and CEO of the ONE campaign, the global development organization founded by U2 lead singer Bono. In five years, ONE’s membership rose from 2 million to more than 7 million, of which 2.8 million members are in Africa. “As the leader of ONE he communicated with ease just how doable was the transformation of the lives of the poorest,” said Bono. “His decades as scribe and editor had not made him cynical, rather he saw himself as an evidence-based optimist.”
Elliott’s good cheer was indefatigable, a crucial quality during what can be brutal hours at a newsmagazine. “Michael is one of the very few people I’ve ever known who deserved the description ‘larger than life,'” says TIME editor Nancy Gibbs. “He lived life large, buoyantly, flamboyantly, delightedly chasing the next big idea, spotting the next great talent, inviting us all to his table to listen and learn. He was preacher and teacher, mentor to generations of journalists and model to all of us as editors. We will miss him terribly.”
Elliott was a great editor—he first suggested the idea that became the TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the world’s most influential people — who also wrote more than 20 cover stories for the magazine. He could write on any subject and at any height, from the minutely observed to 20,000 feet in the air. He witnessed the 2004 Asian tsunami from his hotel room in Phuket, Thailand, and sent in a searing report of the situation on the ground. “They are burning bodies on the shore of Tamil Nadu in southern India, and Manikimuttu, 24, whose grandfather is among the 60 or so in the pyre, is crazed with grief, one moment scooping water into cooking pots and throwing it on the flames, the next collapsing in uncontrollable sobs,” he wrote. “Fifty miles south in Patong, a honky-tonk beach town on Phuket Island, 100 bodies are laid out in front of a morgue that has room to refrigerate only two. In Batticaloa, on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, dozens of men have lined up on either side of a bridge, watching for bodies trapped underwater to pop up to the surface of a lagoon.”
He could also make sense of dizzying macroeconomic global trends, always with a cautious hopefulness that was as much his trademark as his Kangaroo-skin Akubra hat. “Though romantics want revolutions to have charismatic leaders,” he wrote about the Arab Spring, “successful ones channel the revolutionary instinct into habits of effective government.” To the end he was a fierce supporter of a united Europe, raging about Brexit on Twitter until a day or two before he died.
He never talked down to readers and expected as much of them as of himself, always writing to unite, not divide. “It’s right that we get mad about Ebola — mad that the world waited so long to tackle the outbreak; mad that poor, vulnerable societies don’t have the resources needed to tackle infectious diseases,” he wrote in 2015. “But we should remember too that in the past few years, Liberia — in fact, every country, rich or poor — has seen small miracles and sees more of them each year.” In what might termed be the ultimate expression of confidence in his subscribers’ thirst for knowledge, he once devoted a magazine cover to diarrhea.
He really loved America, often wearing cowboy boots and a belt buckle to his New York City office jobs and marveling in his book The Day Before Yesterday about how Americans didn’t really appreciate it enough. For only one U.S. institution did Elliott have no time. Oh, how he hated the increasing prominence of Halloween. “A hint of mist in the damp air, a rustle from the trees as they shed their leaves in nature’s annual striptease and, everywhere you look, ripe, corrugated pumpkins, waiting to be turned into something delicious by a touch of nutmeg and a hot oven,” he wrote in an essay called “Boo, Humbug.” “Except that the mist comes from dry ice stuck in a grinning skull, the whisper in the trees from nylon ghosts hung in the boughs, and the pumpkin, made of bilious orange plastic, has a gizmo inside that groans ‘Whoooooooo …’ as you walk past. Halloween is upon us again.”
Elliott was born in Liverpool, England, in 1951, and raised in a home, he noted “where the Messiah was considered light entertainment.” He attended Oxford University and spent some time in academia before being hired by the Economist in 1984 right on the eve of joining Deloitte. “[Editor Andrew Knight] told me, ‘You will make much less money but you will have much more fun,’” Elliott once told a reporter, “both of which were true.” After several years as that magazine’s Washington bureau chief, he was hired by Newsweek, where he rose to the title of international editor.
An early adapter to the online world, Elliott spent some time at a tech startup before coming to TIME in 2001, where he eventually rose to be deputy editor and editor of all the international editions under Richard Stengel. “I couldn’t have asked for a better deputy,” says Stengel, now Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. “Thoughtful but decisive, independent but loyal, he made everyone around him better. He was also a prodigious worker, writing and editing late into the night with only the occasional cigarette to keep him going. He once described himself as a ‘hod carrier’ and teased me for not knowing what it really meant.” (It’s a worker who brings the bricks to the master builder.)
When he left journalism for advocacy, shortly after signing what he called his best publishing contract ever, only he was surprised by the move. Wanting things to be better had always been an essential part of him. “Mike loved his life, lived it boldly and wanted the rest of the world to have that same experience of it,” said Bono. “He was annoyed and sometimes angry at the waste of human potential. Above all else, he wanted his life to be useful. If you were around him, that’s what he demanded of you.”
Of all Elliott’s catchphrases, perhaps the one he used most was from Winnie the Pooh: “Mustn’t grumble,” he’d say when he was asked about how things were. Even as he battled cancer, “his awareness that he might run out of time far too soon only deepened his appreciation of life” said his wife Emma Oxford, with whom he had two daughters, Roxana and Gina.
Two days before his death, Elliott was at a celebration of his work at ONE. He was feted by chairman Tom Freston and many of his friends and colleagues. During his speech he read a Derek Walcott poem which compares writing to women ferrying coal in baskets: “Look, they climb, and no one knows them/ They take their copper pittances, and your duty/ From the time you watched them from your grandmother’s house/ As a child wounded by their power and beauty/ Is the chance you now have, to give those feet a voice.”
Elliott took every chance he had to give many a voice before his was stilled.