The RIP Thread

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Gena Rowlands, a luminous leading lady of independent film, has died
August 14, 202410:11 PM ET
Neda Ulaby - Square


Evening Standard/Getty Images/Hulton Archive

A leading lady of 1970s independent film has died. Gena Rowlands was best known for starring in intelligent, idiosyncratic films directed by her husband John Cassavetes.

Rowlands died at the age of 94. Her death was confirmed by the office of Danny Greenberg, the representative for Rowlands' son, Nick Cassavetes. No further details were provided.

Born in 1930, Rowlands was the daughter of a state senator in the now-defunct Wisconsin Progressive Party. She was a sickly, picky child. But as she told Terry Gross on WHYY’s Fresh Air, she was blessed with a playful, artistic mother.

“I remember one time, I wouldn't eat carrots. I wouldn't eat anything yellow,” Rowlands remembered in the 1996 interview. “So she cut a carrot into the shape of a goldfish.... She put it in a goldfish bowl with water in it, and she came in to where I was sick and she said, `I have an uncontrollable urge.' She said, `I can't stand it. I've got to eat this goldfish. I've got to do it.' I said, `No, no, no, no, don't do it.' She said, `I've got to, unless you eat this carrot.'....[She] would go to the most extraordinarily kind of creative lengths to do these things for me.”

In 1950, Rowlands left for New York to study acting at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts, where she met fellow student Cassavetes. But Rowlands dropped out and began appearing professionally on stage, including in a small role in Paddy Chayefsky's Middle of the Night on Broadway.

She married Cassavetes in 1954. The two started working in commercial television, sometimes together. Rowlands fleshed out even the most fragile characters with gusto, and Cassavetes would emerge as one of the most distinctive independent directors of his era.

The couple made 10 films together before his death in 1989. Many of their movies were filmed at their house in Los Angeles, starring friends such as Peter Falk. One of the most famous, A Woman Under the Influence, followed an emotionally unstable housewife trying to please her working-class husband.

“That was my favorite movie. I loved doing that movie,” Rowlands told the film review website RogerEbert.com. “In that film, I was a little wacko, but my husband understood that and he loved me, and it didn’t bother him that I was as strange as I could be. When I have this terrible breakdown and have to go away for a while, leave him and my children, oh — that’s a hard scene. We’re showing a hard moment in a person’s life, a terribly hard moment.”

For her performance, Rowlands was nominated for an Oscar. She would be nominated again for 1980’s Gloria, in which she played a gangster’s ex-girlfriend.

“It wasn’t actually written for me, it was written for another actress, but her audience wanted a more glamorous story,” Rowlands told RogerEbert.com. “I talked John into directing it the movie, we did it, and I had a great time shooting people and dodging people and running after taxis.”

Rowlands, who received an honorary Oscar in 2015, played her husband’s sister in his last film, 1984’s Love Streams. She was the mother in a groundbreaking 1985 TV film about a gay man with AIDS, Early Frost. She also played the lead role in another TV film, The Betty Ford Story, two years before John Cassavetes died. The cause was cirrhosis of the liver, complications from his years of alcoholism.

Rowlands starred opposite Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s 1988 film Another Woman. In Jim Jarmusch’s 1991 movie Night on Earth, she played a Hollywood doyenne driven around Los Angeles by Winona Ryder, her cabdriver.

Early in her career, Rowlands had worked with her mother, an aspiring actress and set designer. Later, when Rowlands' own children matured into filmmakers in their own right, she performed in their films as well. In her son Nick Cassavetes’ 2004 film The Notebook, Rowlands played a character living with Alzheimer’s.

Twenty years later, Nick Cassavetes went public about his mother’s own diagnosis of the disease. "She's in full dementia," he told Entertainment Weekly in June 2024. “We lived it, she acted it, and now it's on us."

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Jack Russell, the former singer of the band Great White, dies at 63
August 16, 20242:27 AM ET
By Ayana Archie



Jack Russell, the former singer of the Great White band, has died after a battle with dementia, his family announced Thursday. He was 63.

A statement posted to his Instagram page said, “Jack is loved and remembered for his sense of humor, exceptional zest for life, and unshakeable contribution to rock and roll where his legacy will forever thrive. His family asks for privacy at this time.”

Russell stopped touring last month after announcing he had been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia and Multiple System Atrophy, which causes loss of coordination and balance, and changes in speech.

Russell, a California native, began singing in bands in high school and, in 1981, joined Great White, which was first named Dante Fox. He stayed with the band for 15 years before splitting away for a while to record his first solo album. Great White had several Billboard-charting songs, including “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” “The Angel Song” and “Rock Me.”

He rejoined the band in 1999, before the band split in 2001. He eventually revamped the band in 2002 under the name “Jack Russell’s Great White."

At one of the band's shows in Rhode Island in 2003, a pyrotechnic malfunction sparked one of the deadliest nightclub fires in history, in which 100 people died — including the band's guitarist — and 230 were injured, according to reports.

“To my friend Jack Russell, such an amazing voice. May you rest in peace,” singer Bret Michaels said.

“Just heard of the passing of our good friend Jack Russell,” said Fred Coury, a former member of the band Cinderella. “So sad. Jack and I had a lot of great adventures through the years, on and off of the ocean. The world lost 1 of the nicest guys in the business & 1 of the great voices to sail across the airways of the 80’s. RIP,Captain.”

Russell’s family said he died in the company of his wife, son, cousin and two close friends.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Pioneer talk show host Phil Donahue dies at 88
August 19, 202411:38 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
Eric Deggans


Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Phil Donahue united a broadcaster’s telegenic appeal, an insistent curiosity, and a taste for provocative topics to create a new genre of television – the audience participation talk show – which briefly took over daytime television and sealed his status as a TV pioneer. The broadcaster, who was age 88, died on Sunday, his family said.

No cause of death was given, though his family said he'd "passed away peacefully following a long illness."

But even though he built his legend on cheeky stunts, Donahue often led earnest conversations on newsy topics. From interviewing former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke in 1991 as he was running for governor of Louisiana to jousting with conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, Donahue dug into hot-button issues with the zeal of an investigative journalist – emulating the kind of mainstream media figures who always inspired him.

“I grew up in this game with stars in my eyes,” Donahue said in an interview with NPR in 2021. “I always admired mainstream media types. They went right for the jugular. It appeared to me they didn’t have to be popular. They just had to be aggressive and have their facts straight.”

Donahue sat his guests before a large studio audience, stalking through the crowd with a microphone, mixing questions from the onlookers with his own queries and – for a time – questions from callers over the telephone.

The former radio announcer lobbed questions with a down-to-earth charm and a flair for dramatic pauses so distinctive that impressionist Darrell Hammond captured it on Saturday Night Live. Another SNL alum, Phil Hartman, actually lampooned him to his face in 1989.

One of Donahue’s innovations was that he spoke to a predominantly female TV audience without talking down to them, highlighting a single topic per show: atheism, abortion, racism.

The host himself said controversy was the key to his show’s survival. “The coin of our realm is the size of the audience,” Donahue said in a 2016 interview with the New York Public Media show MetroFocus. “What will draw a crowd, especially to a visually dull program? And we thought: Controversy. Controversy is what will do it.”

Born Philip John Donahue in Cleveland, Ohio, he graduated from the University of Notre Dame and worked for a radio station in a small town in Michigan. “I could stop the Mayor of Adrian, Michigan in the hallway,” he told NPR in 2021. “I was, like 21 – I may have looked 16 – and it was kind of a first-grade lesson in the power of journalism.”

In 1967, Donahue moved a radio talk show he was hosting in Dayton, Ohio to local TV, and The Phil Donahue Show was born. His first guest was renowned atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair – who had brought a lawsuit against prayer in schools -- and a few years later, his show was syndicated nationally, kicking off a 26-year run in daytime television, mostly with little competition.

His mix of hot-button topics with earnest discussion was so successful that it was eventually emulated by everyone from Geraldo Rivera, Jerry Springer, and Morton Downey Jr. to Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey said as much while handing Donahue a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Daytime Emmy Awards in 1996, noting, “Had there not been a Phil Donahue, I don’t think there could have been an Oprah.”

Donahue, speaking with the Archive of American Television, said he was always surprised no one came along to really try copying what he did until Winfrey’s debut in 1986. “Along comes Oprah Winfrey, and it is not possible to overstate the enormity of her impact on the daytime television game,” he said. “In many ways, she raised all the boats with her success. If you didn’t have Oprah, you had to have me. And we were a lot less expensive.”
Winfrey’s success led many other hosts to try the format, with some featuring increasingly combative and tawdry subjects, including fistfights onstage. Once considered outrageous himself, Donahue found his show beaten in ratings by more explicit programs and retired from daytime TV in 1996 after more than 6,000 shows.

He wouldn’t return to a regular TV job until 2002 when he hosted a show for MSNBC called Donahue. He tried emulating the fearless truth-telling he always idolized in mainstream journalism, but Donahue lasted less than a year there. He didn’t hold back when telling NPR why it was canceled.

“I was fired because I did not support the invasion of Iraq,” he added. “I thought I was going to be a hit because I was different. Everybody else was beating the war drums. I wanted to get on the air and say, 'Why are you doing this?’”

Donahue said the firing essentially ended his TV career. He did co-direct a 2007 documentary Body of War and co-wrote a book in 2020 called What Makes a Marriage Last with wife and actress Marlo Thomas.

He married Thomas – a TV star, producer and outspoken feminist — in 1980 after meeting her when she was a guest on his show.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Sid Vicious Dies: Pro Wrestler Whose Career Ended With A Gruesome Televised Injury Was 63
Greg Evans Mon, August 26, 2024 at 2:08 PM PDT



Pro wrestler Sid Vicious, a star at the height of the WrestleMania era of the early 1990s whose career ended with a horrific (and televised) leg injury, has died after battling cancer for several years. He was 63.

His death was announced on social media by son Gunnar Eudy.

“He was a man of strength, kindness, and love, and his presence will be greatly missed,” Gunnar Eudy wrote about Vicious, who also went by the ring names Lord Humungous, Vicious Warrior, Sid Justice and Sycho Sid but was born Sidney Raymond Eudy on December 6, 1960.

Taking his most enduring ring name from the doomed punk rocker and Sex Pistols bassist who died in 1979, Eudy began wrestling in 1987, rising to national prominence two years later when he joined World Championship Wrestling. Moving over to the WWE in 1991 as Sid Justice, Eudy entered into a notorious feud with Hogan a year later.

In the early to mid-1990s, Eudy was among the headliners for the popular WrestleMania events. Winning various world championships for both the WWE and WCW, Eudy also took part in 1997 on Monday Night Raw.

Eudy’s grappling career came to a stomach-churning end in what remains one of the ghastliest moments in televised wrestling history: During a pay-per-view match in January 2001, Eudy jumped off a turnbuckle and landed badly, his left leg snapped and dangling at a grotesque angle, bones poking through his skin.

Decades later, Eudy would remember the life-changing injury in a TV interview, saying that he was still recuperating from a shoulder injury when he was convinced by a WCW executive to return and perform the rope jump. Although Eudy agreed to the return, the stunt, he said, “was something I didn’t want to do and I wasn’t comfortable doing.”

Plans for a memorial service are pending.

Eudy is survived by wife Sabrina Paige and sons Gunnar and Frank.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

James Darren, Teen Idol Actor in ‘Gidget,’ Singer and Director, Dies at 88
By Pat Saperstein Sep 2, 2024 4:44 pm PT


Courtesy Everett Collection

James Darren, who went from teen idol status acting in youth-oriented movies like “Gidget” to becoming an actor in TV shows such as “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “T.J. Hooker” and a singer and director, died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 88.

His son Jim Moret said that he had been able to express his love for his family while being treated in the cardiac unit. “He was a good man. He was very talented,” Moret said. “He was forever young.”

Moret said he was grateful that his father had been able to embrace his signature role as the surfer Moondoggie in the “Gidget” movie and that he continued to interact with his fans.
Born in Philadelphia, he studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and was signed to Columbia Pictures, where his first role was in “Rumble on the Docks.” He went on to appear in films including “Operation Madball” and “Gunmen’s Walk” before being cast in the 1959 teen movie “Gidget,” starring Sandra Dee and Cliff Robertson. Darren also sang the title track for the hit movie, which was based on the experiences of a teenaged surfer girl in Malibu and later became a popular TV series.

The “Gidget” theme song launched a successful singer career for Darren, who had a gold record with “Goodbye Cruel World” in 1961 and released at least 14 albums. He continued to appear in feature films including “The Guns of Navarone,” “The Gene Krupa Story,” “All the Young Men” and “Because They’re Young.”

He reprised his role as Moondoggie in “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and again in “Gidget Goes to Rome,” though he was tired of the typecasting by then.

Moving into television, he starred in the series “The Time Tunnel” and after a brief sojourn in Italy appearing in Jess Franco’s “Venus in Furs,” he went on to guest-star on numerous series including “Love, American Style,” “Fantasy Island” and “The Love Boat.”

Darren was a regular on “T.J. Hooker” from 1983 to 1986 and also moved into TV directing, working on series including “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Melrose Place.”

He found a new generation of fans in 1998 as Vic Fontaine, the holographic lounge singer on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

He is survived by his wife Evy; sons Jim Moret, Christian Darren and Tony Darren; and five grandchildren.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

James Earl Jones, Distinguished Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies at 93
By Adam B. Vary, Carmel Dagan Sep 9, 2024 1:42pm PT


Getty Images

James Earl Jones, the prolific film, TV and theater actor whose resonant, unmistakable baritone was most widely known as the voice of “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader, died Monday morning at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y., his rep confirmed to Variety. He was 93.

After overcoming a profound stutter as a child, Jones established himself as one of the pioneering Black actors of his generation, amassing a bountiful and versatile career spanning over 60 years, from his debut on Broadway in 1958 at the Cort Theatre — renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre in 2022 — to his most recent performance in 2021’s “Coming 2 America.” For that film, Jones reprised his role as King Jaffe Joffer from the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy “Coming to America” — one of several roles, along with Darth Vader, that Jones revisited, including the voice of King Mufasa in Disney’s animated feature “The Lion King” in 1994, the 1998 direct-to-video sequel and the 2019 remake, and CIA deputy director Vice Admiral James Greer in three Jack Ryan movies, 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October,” 1992’s “Patriot Games” and 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger.”

Among his more than 80 film credits, Jones’ other notable movies include as a B-52 bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire “Dr. Strangelove” (his feature film debut), as the first Black president of the United States in 1972’s “The Man,” as the fearsome villain in 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian,” as a reclusive author in 1989’s “Field of Dreams,” as a blind former baseball star in 1993’s “The Sandlot,” and as a minister living in apartheid South Africa in 1995’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

Jones was nominated for four Tony Awards, and won two, in 1969 for playing boxer Jack Johnson in “The Great White Hope” (which he reprised on film in 1970, receiving his only Oscar nomination), and in 1987 for originating the role of Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Fences.” He was nominated for eight primetime Emmy awards, winning twice in 1991, for supporting actor in the miniseries “Heat Wave,” about the 1965 Watts riots, and for lead actor in the drama series “Gabriel’s Fire,” about a wrongfully imprisoned ex-cop who becomes a private detective. It was the first time an actor won two Emmys in the same year.

Jones earned a Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement award in 2009, an honorary Oscar in 2011 and a lifetime achievement Tony Award in 2017. His Grammy award in 1977 for spoken word album makes Jones only one a handful of actors to receive an EGOT.

Jones’ looming yet ultimately affable presence and rich speaking voice made him a natural for Shakespeare, and he played some of the great roles, such as Macbeth and Othello, for Joseph Papp’s American Shakespeare Festival. Jones narrated several documentaries, from 1972’s “Malcom X” to the 2007 Disneynature doc “Earth,” and, famously, he intoned the tagline “This is CNN” for the cable news channel.

His television credits, which number over 70, including many movies and miniseries such as “Roots” and “The Atlanta Child Murders,” recurring roles on “L.A. Law,” “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “Everwood,” and guest roles on shows like “The Simpsons,” “Picket Fences,” “Law & Order,” “Frasier” and “House.”

As for his most famous role, Jones was paid $7,000 to lend his voice to Darth Vader in 1977’s “Star Wars: A New Hope,” but he declined screen credit for that film and its sequel, 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back,” out of deference to the actor who played the role on screen, David Prowse. By 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” however, Jones had become fully synonymous with one of the most memorable and terrifying villains in cinema history, and received credit for his work. He returned to Vader’s voice again for 2005’s “Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” and 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” but for the 2022 Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Jones instead authorized Lucasfilm to use archival recordings and AI technology to recreate Vader’s voice.

When asked in 2014 by the New York Times about how he’d kept his career alive for so long, Jones’ response evoked the kind of plainspoken humility that he had so often brought to his performances as well.

“The secret is never forgetting that you’re a journeyman actor and that nothing is your final thing, nothing is your greatest thing, nothing is your worst thing,” Jones said. “I still consider myself a novice.”

James Earl Jones was born in 1931 on a farm in in Arkabutla, Miss. His father, Robert Earl Jones, left home soon after to pursue his own acting career (the two more-or-less reconciled when the younger Jones was in his 20s, and they even performed together). When Jones was 5, he moved with his maternal grandparents to Michigan. The shock of the relocation induced a stammer so severe that he often could communicate only in writing. It wasn’t until high school when he started to overcome his stutter, when his English teacher, upon learning that Jones composed poetry, encouraged him to read his writing aloud in class.

As an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, Jones initially set out to study medicine, but wound up more interested in drama. His first stage role was a small part in the 1957 Off Broadway production “Wedding in Japan.” He took side jobs to supplement occasional theater work in Broadway’s “Sunrise at Campobello,” “The Cool World” and “The Pretender.” He also appeared in summer stock.

In 1960, Jones joined Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. The following year he made his first serious impact in a landmark Off Broadway production of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks” as the protagonist Deodatus. Afterwards, for Papp, he played Oberon in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the first of many heralded Shakespearean turns. His masterful 1964 performance as Othello for Papp was moved Off Broadway, where the production ran for almost a year.

Jones’ first big break into cinema came by way of Papp’s production of “The Merchant of Venice,” in which Jones played the Prince of Morocco to George C. Scott’s Shylock. When Stanley Kubrick came to see Scott, whom he was considering for one of the leads in “Dr. Strangelove,” the film director was so impressed that he cast Jones in the film, too. In 1966, Jones had the title role in “Macbeth” at the New York Shakespeare Festival, again to great acclaim. He also booked a recurring role on “As the World Turns” in 1966, marking the first time a Black actor had a continuing role on a daytime soap opera

Still, he was almost one of Broadway’s best-kept secrets until 1968 with his performance in Howard Sackler’s “The Great White Hope” as Jack Johnson, the first Black man to win the world heavyweight boxing championship. The Tony, the acclaim and its timing in the late ’60s propelled Jones into the spotlight at a time when it was difficult for Black actors to secure quality roles. The actor, however, has said that the accolades he received for for both the play and its film adaptation did not do that much for his career.

It wasn’t until 1977, when Jones’ voice terrified audiences for the first time as Darth Vader, that things truly began to shift for him. That same year, Jones also appeared in ABC’s “Roots” playing the author Alex Haley, whose genealogical novel of the same title inspired the groundbreaking miniseries. He never quite became an outright star in the classic sense of the word, but the back-to-back successes that year did ultimately make Jones a household name, whose presence connoted a stature and gravitas to projects that might otherwise be lacking.

Theatre is where Jones most frequently was a box office draw in his own right — and well into his 80s. He returned to Broadway in 2005 for a production of “On Golden Pond” opposite Leslie Uggams, drawing another Tony nomination. In 2008, he played Big Daddy in a production of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” that featured an all-Black cast including Terrence Howard, Anika Noni Rose and Phylicia Rashad.

Two years later, he returned to Broadway in a revival of “Driving Miss Daisy” opposite Vanessa Redgrave; the production’s move to London in 2011 meant he had to miss the Honorary Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles. Instead, Sir Ben Kingsley surprised Jones with his statuette in person after he’d concluded a matinee performance of the show.

Jones was first married to actress-singer Julienne Marie. His second wife of 34 years, actress Cecilia Hart, died in 2016. He is survived his son, Flynn Earl Jones.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Sailor Jupiter Voice Actress Emi Shinohara Dies at 61
posted on 2024-09-10 05:50 EDT by Joanna Cayanan



Voice talent company 81 Produce announced on Tuesday that voice actress Emi Shinohara died on Sunday. She was undergoing medical treatment for an unspecified illness, but the treatment did not prove effective. She was 61.

Shinohara (real name Emiko Watanabe) was born on August 8, 1963 in Nagano Prefecture. She is best known as Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter in the Sailor Moon series, Kushina Uzumaki in Naruto Shippūden, Presea in the two seasons of Magic Knight Rayearth, Biko "B-Ko" Daitokuji in the Project A-ko anime film and original video anime projects, Kaho Mizuki in the Card Captor Sakura and Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card series, and Charlotte Elbourne in the Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust film.

Shinohara's non-anime roles include Perdita in the Japanese dub of 101 Dalmatians, and Matilda, portrayed by Natalie Portman, in the Japanese dub of the 1994 film Léon: The Professional.

Sources: 81 Produce agency's website, Comic Natalie

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Emi Shinohara, the Voice of Sailor Jupiter, Dies at 61
Emi Shinohara began work on Sailor Moon back in 1992.
By Megan Peters - September 10, 2024 10:37 am EDT


Today, the anime fandom is coming together to mourn the loss of a beloved talent. Emi Shinohara, a veteran voice actress, has passed away. The 61-year-old died on September 8 as she was undergoing treatment for an unnamed illness.

For those who do not know Shinohara by name, you will know her voice. The actress began working in anime decades ago. Her first role came through Dream Hunter Realm in 1986, but it was Sailor Moon in 1992 that put Shinohara on the map. In the original anime, the star voiced Sailor Jupiter (Makoto Kino) as well as several background roles.

Following her addition to Sailor Moon, Shinohara's career took off. She continued to oversee Sailor Jupiter on film for years before other actress like Mew Azama began filling in for the scout. As for Shinohara, she never lacked for work. From Ninja Scroll to Magic Knight Rayearth and Cardcaptor Sakura, the voice actress took part in a slew of popular series. She earned plenty of praise for voicing Kushina Uzumaki in Naruto Shippuden years after Sailor Moon took off. And as for her last anime credit, it can be found in A Whisker Away as she played Sachiko in the 2020 project.

As you can imagine, the anime fandom is coming together to share their best memories of Shinohara. Her work on Sailor Moon helped kickstart one of anime's most magical stories. Usagi led a colorful cast of scouts in the series, and Sailor Jupiter was beloved by many for her no-nonsense attitude. Loyal to a fault, Sailor Jupiter was as strong on the inside as she was outside. Shinohara brought that headstrong performance to life with ease. And in the wake of her death, the world is remembering all the good Shinohara is leaving behind through her work.

Our thoughts are with Shinohara's loved ones during this difficult time.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Chad McQueen, ‘The Karate Kid’ Star and Steve McQueen’s Son, Dies at 63
Diego Ramos Bechara
Thu, September 12, 2024 at 2:39 PM PDT

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Chad McQueen, son of the legendary actor Steve McQueen who played “Dutch” in “The Karate Kid” film series, died Wednesday in Palm Springs. He was 63.

His wife Jeanie and his children Chase and Madison said in a statement to Variety, “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of our father, Chad McQueen. His remarkable journey as a loving father to us, along with his unwavering commitment to our mother, truly exemplified a life filled with love and dedication,” reads the statement. “His passion for racing not only highlighted his exceptional talent but also served as a way to honor his father’s legacy, a testament to the values instilled in him.”

It continues: “He passed his passion, knowledge and dedication down to us, and we will continue not only his legacy but our grandfather’s as well. As a family, we need to navigate this difficult time, and we kindly ask for privacy as we remember and celebrate his extraordinary life.”

McQueen is best known for his role as “Dutch” in “The Karate Kid” (1984) and its sequel, “The Karate Kid Part II” (1986). His portrayal of one of the Cobra Kai members was iconic in ’80s pop culture. His character, in particular, exhibited a merciless attitude and encouraged Johnny Lawrence (played by William “Billy” Zabka) to brutally beat up Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) during the night of the Halloween dance.

His character also mocks and threatens the New Jersey native before the All-Valley Tournament. During the second season of the TV series “Cobra Kai,” it is revealed that Dutch has been serving time in prison. Though there were talks of McQueen potentially appearing in the show, scheduling issues reportedly prevented it.

Although he would continue to appear in other films, such as “New York Cop” (1993) and “Red Line” (1995), his film career was not as extensive as his father’s. Following in his father’s footsteps, however, McQueen had a successful career in auto racing, his true passion. He competed professionally in events like the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring and founded McQueen Racing, a company that develops high-performance cars and motorcycles, continuing the family legacy of passion for automobiles.

In 2006, McQueen suffered a near-fatal crash while practicing for the Daytona International Speedway’s Rolex 24 event. Though he eventually pulled through, the crash effectively ended his professional racing career, but he has remained involved in motorsports through his company and other ventures.

McQueen was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 28, 1960. He was raised in Malibu.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanie, and his children, Chase, Madison and Steven, a professional actor best known for his role in “The Vampire Diaries.”

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

SIZE=5]Sharp-tongued, indomitable, and beloved actress Dame Maggie Smith dies at 89[/size]
SEPTEMBER 27, 202410:08 AM ET
Bob Mondello


Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Dame Maggie Smith – whose acting career spanned seven decades and traversed the stage and screen – has died at age 89. She passed away peacefully surrounded by family and friends on Friday morning, her publicist confirmed.

Smith was once so slender and delicate as Desdemona that Laurence Olivier's Othello could easily smother her with a pillow. By the end of her career, no one would've dared try.

Though she was fine-featured and stood barely five-foot-five, casting directors realized early-on that her characters would inevitably appear indomitable, whether she was bristling with epithets in Shaw, casting spells as Harry Potter's Professor McGonagall, or silencing opposition with sideways glances as Downton Abbey's formidable Lady Viole

Act One: Precise diction in her prime

What Maggie Smith learned about holding audiences rapt, she learned early. She arrived on the professional stage in her teens, and graduated quickly to Britain's National Theater, the West End and Broadway, where her precise diction proved ideal for delivering the barbs of restoration comedy, and the epigrams of Noel Coward. Let her play the sort of chatterbox that George Bernard Shaw wrote in The Millionairess, and it was sometimes hard for her co-stars to get a word in edgewise.

Almost as nonstop was the title role that won her a Best Actress Oscar in 1970 — her deluded teacher at a Scottish girls' school in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

"Give me a gherll at an impressionable age," she purred, "and she is mine for life."

The character was not, in fact, in her prime, but Smith most definitely was. In the next eight years, she starred in six films, including Travels With My Aunt and Death on the Nile, triumphed on TV in everything from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice to The Carol Burnett Show, and on stage, held title roles from Hedda Gabler to Peter Pan.

All of this before winning another Oscar in Neil Simon's California Suite, for playing multiple characters including a conniving actress who is herself up for an Oscar, and who practices a delicious, hammily self-deprecating acceptance speech at one point, saying she doesn't want to "sob all over Burt Reynolds."

No sobs in Smith's actual acceptance speech at the Oscars. She thanked her writer, director and co-star.



Roy Jones/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Act Two: Best exotic roles, some written just for her

All of this was well before a sort of second act in Smith's career that found her prim and proper as a chaperone in A Room with a View, primly comic as the mother superior in Sister Act with Whoopi Goldberg, cranky in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies, crankier still as the woman who came to stay in Alan Bennett's driveway in The Lady in the Van, and downright viperish as mother to Ian McKellen's King in Shakespeare's Richard III.

Though he'd been slaughtering all comers for most of the movie at that point, there was such venom in her declaration that he was "proud, subtle, sly and bloody," that McKellen looked shaken. As well he might.

Contemporary playwrights had also taken note. Peter Shaffer, the author of Amadeus and Equus, remembered he was once asked by Smith at a party why he kept writing plays about two men talking. He responded by going home and writing Lettice and Lovage specifically for her, about an extravagantly over-imaginative tour guide "to celebrate her glee and glitter and perfect timing," he told interviewers. "And above all wit — her presence is witty. "

Act Three: From Harry Potter to Downton

And then Smith's career — for which she'd been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and later a Dame and a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor — had a third act. One in which her fame grew out of all proportion to what she'd known before. Children recognized her on the street from the Harry Potter movies (she was in all but one of them).


Nick Briggs/PBS

And while she was casting spells on kids, their parents and grandparents awaited her every utterance on TV's Downton Abbey, where for six seasons, she brought a capricious sense of humor to the sort of woman she never was in real life — aloof, entitled, un-diplomatic, impatient, argumentative, hidebound, and so thoroughly winning, audiences couldn't get enough of her.

That, at least, Lady Violet had in common with the woman who played her. Maggie Smith left audiences craving more of her presence for seven decades, though she worked so constantly that the dowager countess' most famously clueless question — "what is a weekend?" — might almost have been her own.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Kris Kristofferson, musical rebel and movie star, has died at age 88
September 29, 20246:51 PM ET
By Melissa Block


Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Kris Kristofferson, who wrote indelible songs about lovers, loners, boozers and a footloose pair of hitchhikers — and who later became a screen star, appearing in dozens of films — has died at age 88.

According to his representative, the singer, songwriter and actor died peacefully in his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday, Sept. 28, surrounded by family. No cause of death was shared.

Kristofferson made his name as a songwriter in Nashville starting in the late 1960s, penning songs including "Me and Bobby McGee," "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and "Help Me Make It Through the Night," which other singers (Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash and Sammi Smith, respectively) took to the top of the charts.

His fame and sex symbol status grew through his movie roles, most notably when he co-starred with Barbra Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star is Born.

"I imagined myself into a pretty full life," Kristofferson told NPR's Fresh Air in 1999. "I was certainly not equipped, by God, to be a football player, but I got to be one. And I got to be a Ranger, and a paratrooper, and a helicopter pilot, you know, and a boxer, and a lot of things that I don't think I was built to do. I just imagined 'em."

Kristofferson won three Grammy awards, two of them for duets with his then-wife Rita Coolidge, to whom he was married from 1973-80. His performance in A Star Is Born earned him a Golden Globe in 1976.

In 2004, Kristofferson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 2014, he was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early on, he found his calling as a writer

Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas to a military family; his father was a major general in the U.S. Air Force. It was there, at age 11, that he wrote his first song, titled "I Hate Your Ugly Face." (He included that number as a bonus track on one of his last albums, Closer to the Bone, in 2009.)

At Pomona College in southern California, Kristofferson majored in creative literature. His many diverse talents drew the attention of Sports Illustrated, which highlighted him as one of its "Faces in the Crowd" in 1954. "This dashing young man," the magazine trumpeted, not only played rugby and varsity football and was a Golden Gloves boxer; he was also sports editor of the college paper, a folk singer, an award-winning writer and an "outstanding" ROTC cadet.

From Pomona, Kristofferson won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University, where he dove into the works of Shakespeare and William Blake.

In a 1999 interview with NPR's Morning Edition, he explained that Blake "was a wonderful example for somebody who wanted to be an artist, because he believed if you were cut out to be one, it was your moral responsibility to be one, or you'd be haunted throughout your life and after death — 'til eternity!"

Perhaps inspired by Blake's admonition, Kristofferson harbored dreams of writing the Great American Novel. Instead, after Oxford he followed his father into the military, joining the U.S. Army, where he became a helicopter pilot and attained the rank of Captain. Assigned to teach literature at West Point, Kristofferson decided to ditch the Army, and he moved to Nashville to pursue his dream of songwriting.

For that choice, he was disowned by his parents. "They thought that somewhere between Oxford and the Army I had gone crazy," Kristofferson told Pomona College Magazine in 2004. "My mother said nobody over 14 listens to that kind of stuff anyway.... But I was more and more determined to go that way. And being virtually disowned was kind of liberating for me, because I had nothing left to lose."


From janitor to hit songwriter

Arriving in Nashville in 1965, Kristofferson got a job as a janitor at Columbia Studios, sweeping floors and emptying ashtrays, while writing songs on the side.

He often compared the creative ferment of Nashville in the '60s to that of Paris in the '20s. "When I got there," he said in the 1999 Fresh Air interview, "it was so different from any life that I'd been in before; just hanging out with these people who stayed up for three or four days at a time, and nights, and were writing songs all the time."

"I think I wrote four songs during the first week I was there," he continued. "And it was just so exciting to me. It was like a lifeboat, you know? It was like my salvation."

The story goes that Kristofferson was so desperate to get his songs into the hands of Johnny Cash that he landed a helicopter on Cash's lawn. In the version Cash used to tell, Kristofferson emerged with a tape in one hand and a beer in the other.

"It's a great story, and a story that good needs to be believed, even if it's not true," quips musician Rodney Crowell, who became Cash's son-in-law when he married Rosanne Cash. "But, you know, according to John, that literally happened."

Johnny Cash would turn out to be instrumental in launching Kristofferson's career, introducing him at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival and inviting him to perform on his television variety show.

[b]His songs were like short stories

Rodney Crowell was one of many young songwriters who were drawn to Nashville by the beacon of Kristofferson's success. "Because of Kris Kristofferson, a lot of songwriters came into Nashville, came in droves. And I was part of that wave," he tells NPR.

What set Kristofferson's music apart, Crowell says, was the way he wove a story and sustained a narrative through his songs. Take "Sunday Morning Coming Down," for example — a vivid portrait of bleak, hungover loneliness. Crowell calls the song "a beautifully-written short story."

"Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day"

In the world of Nashville songwriters, lyrics like this were a revelation. "Along comes Kris, a Rhodes Scholar with a high IQ and a very poetic sensibility," Crowell says. "Kris brought it. He brought it in a big way."

Musician Steve Earle recalls that when he first heard "Sunday Morning Coming Down" as a teenager in Texas, it made such an impact that he rushed out to buy Kristofferson's first two records.

"The imagery and the use of language is just being cranked up to a level higher than really anything that came before in country music, for sure," Earle says.

Kristofferson, he says, "raised the bar single-handedly in country music lyrically to a place that writers are still aspiring to, and I still aspire to, to this day."

[b]He was a master of seduction, in song and on screen[/B[

For Nashville, Kristofferson's 1970 song of naked, unapologetic desire, "Help Me Make It Through the Night," was nothing short of revolutionary. "It was earth-shaking, and a paradigm shift," Crowell says. "It is literally a form of seduction. It's silver-tongue seduction."

"Take the ribbon from your hair
Shake it loose and let it fall
Layin' soft upon my skin
Like the shadows on the wall
Come and lay down by my side
'Til the early morning light
All I'm takin' is your time
Help me make it through the night"

"There's a description of intimacy in it that probably had never existed before," Earle says. "And of course, when other people, lesser songwriters, tried to do it, it became smut."

In person and on the screen, Kristofferson was magnetic: movie-star gorgeous, with a roguish grin and electric blue eyes.

"Women loved him, you know? I mean, absolutely fell over," Crowell says. "He was a sex symbol and a rock star."

For a young, eager musician like Crowell, Kristofferson offered an intoxicating role model.

"It was like, 'Hmm, I want to be like that,'" Crowell says. "I was like, 'How do you do that? How do you have that kind of swagger?'"

Kristofferson brought that same sensual swagger to his movie roles over his decades-long career. He starred in films including Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, A Star Is Born, Semi-Tough, Heaven's Gate and Lone Star, working with directors Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, Alan Rudolph and John Sayles, among others.

For a stretch in the 1980s and '90s, Kristofferson was part of an occasional country outlaw supergroup, joining with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson to form the Highwaymen. Recalling that time in an interview with the British magazine Classic Rock years later, he said, "I just wish I was more aware of how lucky I was to share a stage with those people. I had no idea that two of them [Cash and Jennings] would be done so soon. Hell, I was up there and I had all my heroes with me – these are guys whose ashtrays I used to clean. I'm kinda amazed I wasn't more amazed."

In the '80s and '90s, Kristofferson also embraced a number of leftist political causes. He protested nuclear testing in Nevada, and vocally opposed U.S. policy in Central America, making several trips to Nicaragua in support of the Sandinista government, and excoriating the U.S. backing of El Salvador's military-led junta in that country's brutal civil war. "I'm a songwriter," he said in a 1988 Fresh Air interview, "but I'm also concerned with my fellow human beings. And I'm real concerned with the soul of my country." His 1990 album, Third World Warrior, is filled with songs expressing his political views:

"Broken rules and dirty warriors spreading lies and secret funds
Can't defeat the Campesino with their money and their guns
Cause he's fighting for his future and his freedom and his sons
In the third world war"

Music connected him to memory

In his later years, Kristofferson suffered from profound memory loss, but he kept performing up until 2020. Among those he shared the stage with was Margo Price. "Without a doubt," she says, "he still had all the same charisma and all the sex appeal, every time."

On stage, Price says, Kristofferson could connect with his musical memories and "feel like he was himself.... There's been times where I've got off stage with Kris and I'm like, 'Great show, Kris!' He's like, 'Oh, thanks. You know, I wish I could have been there!' I mean, that was the powerful thing about seeing him perform his songs, was that he could remember songs he'd written so long ago, but yet not remember something from five minutes ago."

In an interview with NPR in 2013, Kristofferson reflected on his life and career. At 76, he had just released an album titled Feeling Mortal.

"To my surprise," he told Rachel Martin, "I feel nothing but gratitude for being this old, and still above ground, living with the people I love. I've had a life of all kinds of experiences, most of 'em good. I got eight kids and a wife that puts up with everything I do, and keeps me out of trouble."

Kristofferson lived for many years on the island of Maui, in a home built high on the slope of the Haleakala volcano, with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. He told an interviewer in 2015, "I've had so much blessing, so much reward for my life that I want to stay right where I am, which is on an island with no neighbors and 180 degrees of empty horizon. It's a beautiful view."

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