The RIP Thread

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Nick Cordero, Broadway actor, dies at 41 after battle with Covid-19
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
Updated 9:55 AM ET, Mon July 6, 2020



(CNN) Nick Cordero, a Broadway actor who had admirers across the world rallying for his recovery, has died after a battle with Covid-19, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots.

He was 41.

"God has another angel in heaven now," Kloots posted on her official Instagram account Sunday night. "My darling husband passed away this morning. He was surrounded in love by his family, singing and praying as he gently left this earth."

Kloots has been regularly updating her social media accounts with news of her husband's ups and downs as he battled the virus and complications, including an amputated leg. She said Cordero battled the disease for 95 days.

Born in Canada, Cordero grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, and eventually made his way to the Big Apple.
In 2014 he was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award his role in "Bullets Over Broadway," a role that earned him a Theatre World Award and Outer Critics Circle Award.

Cordero originated the role of the husband, Earl, in the Broadway production of "Waitress," as well as the role of Sonny in the musical version of Chazz Palminteri's "A Bronx Tale."

He also found success on the small screen, making appearances in episodes of "Blue Bloods," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Lilyhammer."

Cordero and Kloots, a fitness trainer, relocated to Los Angeles, where he starred in the musical "Rock of Ages" in 2019.
He met Kloots, a former Broadway dancer, when they were both performing in "Bullets over Broadway" and they married in 2017.
According to Kloots, Cordero was initially hospitalized in March at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

She shared on social media that Cordero spent some time on a ventilator, suffered multiple Covid-19 complications and in April had to have his leg amputated.

He spent weeks unconscious, even as doctors brought him out of sedation, and the hashtag campaign #WakeUpNick sprung up on social media to support Cordero as he recovered.

In May, Kloots posted that her husband was awake and while very weak, was making progress.

"Even closing his eyes, takes it out of him," she said. "They're waiting for him to regain strength, of course, time and recovery will help with that and then eventually PT will help him get stronger."

Earlier in the month she had said her husband had a low blood count but was not bleeding internally.

Yet on another front the news was not great.

"However, we did learn that due to COVID Nick's lungs are severely damaged," she said. "To look almost like he's been a smoker for 50 years they said. They are that damaged."

Kloots recently told "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King that Cordero had been so critically ill that he may have needed a double lung transplant.

"That is most likely the possibility," she said. "A 99% chance that he would be needing that in order to live the kind of life that I know my husband would want to live."

In addition to Kloots, Cordero is survived by their 1-year-old son, Elvis.

CNN's Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

'Jerry Maguire' actress Kelly Preston, wife of John Travolta, dies of breast cancer at 57
Bryan Alexander USA TODAY
Published 2:46 A.M. ET Jul. 13, 2020 Updated 3:54 p.m. ET Jul. 13, 2020


Anne-Christine Poujoulat, AFP via Getty Images

Actress Kelly Preston died at 57 after a battle with breast cancer.

Preston's husband, actor John Travolta, wrote an emotional post on Instagram Sunday night, confirming that his wife of 28 years had died.

"It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer," Travolta, 66, wrote. "She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many.

"Kelly’s love and life will always be remembered," Travolta wrote, saying he planned to take time off "to be there for my children who have lost their mother. So forgive me in advance if you don’t hear from us for a while. But please know that I will feel your outpouring of love in the weeks and months ahead as we heal."

"I have never met anyone as courageous, strong, beautiful and loving as you," she wrote. "You have a glow and a light that never ceases to shine and that makes anyone around you feel instantly happy. Thank you for being there for me no matter what. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your help and thank you for making this world a better place. You have made life so beautiful and I know you will continue to do so always. I love you so much mama."

A family statement to People magazine said Preston chose to keep her cancer "fight private."

"She had been undergoing medical treatment for some time, supported by her closest family and friends," the statement said. "She was a bright, beautiful and loving soul who cared deeply about others and who brought life to everything she touched."

Preston starred in films such as the comedies "SpaceCamp" (1986) and "Twins" (1988); as Tom Cruise's fiancée, Avery Bishop, in "Jerry Maguire" (1996); and alongside Kevin Costner in the sports drama "For Love of the Game" (1999).

Preston's final film role was in 2018's "Gotti," playing Victoria Gotti, the wife of Mafia boss John Gotti. It was a family affair as Travolta portrayed John Gotti.

Travolta and Preston met while filming 1988's "The Experts." They were married at a midnight ceremony in Paris in 1991.

In September, Travolta and Preston celebrated 28 years of marriage with dual social media offerings.

"Happy Anniversary to my wonderful wife," Travolta, 65, wrote on Instagram, posting a photo of the couple embracing.

Soon after, Preston posted her own photo and described on Instagram how much Travolta meant to her.

"To my dearest Johnny, the most wonderful man I know," she wrote. "You have given me hope when I have felt lost, loved me patiently and unconditionally … made me laugh harder than any other human being possible ... shared the most beautiful highs and at times lows."

She said, "You’re a dream Daddio and make life so much fun!! I trust my love with you implicitly ... with you I know I will always be okay no matter what happens ... I love you forever and completely. "

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[only one toddster]

Former MythBusters co-host Grant Imahara has died suddenly aged 49 after reportedly suffering a brain aneurysm.

His long-time MythBusters colleague, Adam Savage, paid tribute to the electronics and robotics expert on Twitter:

Discovery Channel, the maker of MythBusters, also released a statement, saying it was "heartbroken" by the news.

Imahara joined MythBusters in 2005, two years after the show started. He was a member of the "build team" alongside Tory Belleci and Kari Byron, and helped design experiments for the show.

Before his career on camera, Imahara spent nine years at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic, where he started working after gaining an electrical engineering degree from the University of Southern California.

He had visual effects credits for The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), as well as the Matrix sequels.

One of his projects also involved helping to design the lighting for R2-D2 in the Star Wars prequels:

Imahara was a fan of Star Wars and earlier this year showed off an animatronic Baby Yoda he had created following the release of TV show The Mandalorian:

He was also a Trekkie, and had acting credits on fan productions Star Trek: Renegades (2015) and Star Trek Continues (2012).

After leaving MythBusters in 2014, Imahara made Netflix's White Rabbit Project (2016), another science investigation show which ran for one season. He was a co-host along with his fellow MythBusters alumni Belleci and Byron.

Two years ago, during an AMA on Reddit, Imahara was asked which projects he wished he could have pursued on MythBusters.

He replied:

"The holy grail is the upside-down race car. By virtue of its design, an Indy race car has enough downward force at speed to run inverted. Just needed (1) a helical track (2) an Indy race car and (3) a driver."

Imahara also did consultant work for Disney Imagineering, which builds theme park attractions.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Imahara suffered a brain aneurysm before his death.

In August 2019, another MythBusters presenter, American jet-car speed racer Jessi Combs, died after crashing during an attempt to break the world land-speed record for a woman in Oregon's Alvord Desert.

She was awarded the record posthumously last month.

link-{https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/mythbusters-co-host-grant-imahara-dies-aged-49/ar-BB16HK6v?ocid=msedgntp}

[Frothy Afterbirth]

Autopsy confirms Naya Rivera's death was accidental drowning
By ANDREW DALTON, AP Entertainment Writer 21 hrs ago


[SIZE=1AP Photo/Chris Pizzello[/size]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An autopsy confirmed Tuesday that “Glee'' star Naya Rivera died from accidental drowning, officials said, while her family released a statement honoring her ”everlasting legacy and magnetic spirit."

The examination, performed the day after the 33-year-old's body was found in a Southern California lake, showed no signs of traumatic injury or disease that might have contributed to the drowning, and gave no initial indication that drugs or alcohol may have played a role in her death, the Ventura County Medical Examiner said in a statement.

Dental records were used to confirm Rivera's identity, and routine toxicology tests will be performed for the presence of drugs and alcohol, the statement said.

Rivera was found in Lake Piru on Monday, five days after she disappeared while boating with her 4-year-old son, who was found asleep and alone on the boat hours later. The autopsy's findings were all consistent with the expectations of the Sheriff's Office, which conducted the search and investigation.

Rivera's family members released their first public statement Tuesday since her disappearance, saying they are “so grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers for Naya, Josey and our family over the past week. While we grieve the loss of our beautiful legend, we are blessed to honor her everlasting legacy and magnetic spirit.”

The statement said Rivera was “an amazing talent, but was an even greater person, mother, daughter and sister ... Heaven gained our sassy angel."

The family thanked the search teams for their “commitment and unwavering effort to find Naya.”

The creators of “Glee” also released a statement in tribute to Rivera Tuesday, announcing that they would be creating a college fund for her son and remembering her as a joyful and immensely talented performer.

“Naya was more than just an actor on our show — she was our friend,” Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan said in a statement Tuesday.

“Our hearts go out to her family, especially her mom, Yolanda, who was a big part of the ‘Glee’ family, and her son Josey,” the three producers said, referring to the child as “the beautiful son Naya loved most of all.”

Josey is Rivera’s son with her former husband, actor Ryan Dorsey. She called the boy “my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him.”

While she wasn’t initially hired as a “Glee” cast member, it “didn’t take more than an episode or two for us to realize that we had lucked into finding one of the most talented, special stars we would ever have the pleasure of working with,” the producers said.

Rivera could act, sing, dance and “nail a joke as well as she could crush you with an emotional scene. ... She was a joy to write for, a joy to direct and a joy to be around,” they said.

In portraying a high school student in an openly lesbian relationship on “Glee,” Rivera ensured that her character's love for her partner was “expressed with dignity, strength and with pure intentions,” the producers said.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Rep. John Lewis taken across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma
ABC News

[U
John Bazemore/AP

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Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images

More than five decades after he was slammed in the head by a white state trooper's billy club while he lead a march on behalf of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the late Rep. John Lewis made one last crossing on Sunday.

In an emotional ceremony that symbolizes the 80-year-old Lewis' lifelong work for civil rights, hundreds of mourners watched the procession escort the congressman's casket across the 1,284-foot bridge spanning the Alabama River. A horse-drawn caisson carried Lewis' casket alone across the bridge.

In an act that Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell described a "poetic justice," Alabama state trooper's saluted Lewis' casket, draped in an American flag, as it crossed the bridge.

The somber journey brought Lewis full-circle to the spot he almost died as a 25-year-old on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers attacked him and other civil rights demonstrators in an incident that became known as "Bloody Sunday." Lewis' skull was fractured in the ordeal in which then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace order troopers to use all the force necessary to stop the marchers from reaching their destination at the state capitol building in Montgomery.

"I was hit with a billy club, and I saw the state trooper that hit me," Lewis, who was first elected in 1987 to represent Georgia's 5th Congressional District, would recall later during a federal hearing. "I was hit twice, once when I was lying down and was attempting to get up."

In subsequent interviews, Lewis said, "I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die."

More than five decades after he was slammed in the head by a white state trooper's billy club while he lead a march on behalf of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the late Rep. John Lewis made one last crossing on Sunday.
a group of people riding on the back of a horse: The casket of Rep. John Lewis moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis, July 26, 2020, in Selma, Ala. © John Bazemore/AP The casket of Rep. John Lewis moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis, July 26, 2020, in Selma, Ala.

In an emotional ceremony that symbolizes the 80-year-old Lewis' lifelong work for civil rights, hundreds of mourners watched the procession escort the congressman's casket across the 1,284-foot bridge spanning the Alabama River. A horse-drawn caisson carried Lewis' casket alone across the bridge.

In an act that Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell described a "poetic justice," Alabama state trooper's saluted Lewis' casket, draped in an American flag, as it crossed the bridge.

The somber journey brought Lewis full-circle to the spot he almost died as a 25-year-old on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers attacked him and other civil rights demonstrators in an incident that became known as "Bloody Sunday." Lewis' skull was fractured in the ordeal in which then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace order troopers to use all the force necessary to stop the marchers from reaching their destination at the state capitol building in Montgomery.
a group of people performing on stage in front of a building: The casket of Rep. John Lewis moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse-drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis, July 26, 2020, in Selma, Ala. © Brynn Anderson/AP The casket of Rep. John Lewis moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse-drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis, July 26, 2020, in Selma, Ala. MORE: John Lewis, congressman and civil rights icon, dies at 80

"I was hit with a billy club, and I saw the state trooper that hit me," Lewis, who was first elected in 1987 to represent Georgia's 5th Congressional District, would recall later during a federal hearing. "I was hit twice, once when I was lying down and was attempting to get up."

In subsequent interviews, Lewis said, "I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die."
a group of people riding on the back of a horse: The casket of Rep. John Lewis moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis, July 26, 2020, in Selma, Ala. © John Bazemore/AP The casket of Rep. John Lewis moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge by horse drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis, July 26, 2020, in Selma, Ala.

The moment that Lewis was attacked was captured in news photographs that opened the eyes of the world on the brutality civil rights marchers were enduring in the South in a quest for voting rights and equality for Black Americans.

"Our nation is better off because of John Robert Lewis. My life is better. Selma is better. This nation and this world are better because of John Robert Lewis," Sewell said in a brief service outside the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma. "John was determined to fight for equality and justice, putting his own life on the line in the service of others, and a brighter future for everyone. John crossed bridges so many times, insisting our nation live up to the ideals on which it was founded."

A nine-member military honor guard carried Lewis casket from the church to the horse-drawn caisson.

Mourners lining the streets leading up to the bridge shouted "We love you" and "We got this," vowing to carry on Lewis' work for equality and racial justice.

Sunday's tribute to Lewis came during a six-day celebration of the man who became known as the "conscience of the U.S. Congress."

It also occurred as protests against police brutality continued throughout the country in the wake of the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The driver of the caisson carrying Lewis' casket paused at the top of the bridge, where in 1965 Lewis described meeting a sea of blue state troopers and decided to march into the face of the violent confrontation. The driver stood and removed his black top hat for a moment of silence before carrying on.

Members of Lewis' family, including his son, John-Miles Lewis, met the caisson and fell in line behind the casket for the final steps across the bridge.

The Pettus bridge is named after a Confederate Army general, U.S. senator and Klu Klux Klan leader. A movement has been underway to change the name of the bridge to honor Lewis, who along with civil rights activist Hosea Williams led the 1965 march across the span on behalf of Rev. King, who could not attend.

Sunday's bridge crossing commenced a day after Lewis was eulogized in his hometown of Troy, Alabama.

Sunday's march started at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in an event titled "#Good Trouble: Courage, Sacrifice & the Long March for Freedom."

Lewis' body is scheduled to be taken later Sunday to Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery to lie in repose.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced last week that Lewis will be honored in a private ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Monday, followed by an unprecedented public viewing taking place outside, as opposed to inside, the Capitol building due to coronavirus concerns on Monday night and Tuesday.

Lewis will lie in state at the top of the East Front Steps of the U.S. Capitol for the two-day public viewing.

Lewis died on July 17, seven months after a routine medical visit revealed that he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

He will be laid to rest on Thursday at South View Cemetery in Atlanta following a private funeral at Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once led.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Regis Philbin, Beloved TV Host, Dead at 88

Longtime host of Live With Regis & Kathie Lee and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? dies from natural causes
By Daniel Kreps
Rolling Stone


NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via

Regis Philbin, the beloved television host whose broadcast reign spanned from morning talk shows to primetime game shows, has died at the age of 88.

“We are deeply saddened to share that our beloved Regis Philbin passed away last night of natural causes, one month shy of his 89th birthday,” Philbin’s family said in a statement to People.

“His family and friends are forever grateful for the time we got to spend with him – for his warmth, his legendary sense of humor, and his singular ability to make every day into something worth talking about. We thank his fans and admirers for their incredible support over his 60-year career and ask for privacy as we mourn his loss.”

The ever-enthusiastic Philbin — first with Kathie Lee Gifford, then with Kelly Ripa — spent 23 years as the co-host on the syndicated Live With program, appearing on the daily show from 1988 to 2011. During that tenure, Philbin also served as host of the hit ABC game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

A larger-than-life personality, “Reeg” made countless television appearances outside his usual hosting gigs, often starring as himself in memorable guest spots on shows like The Simpsons, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, 30 Rock and most recently Fresh Off the Boat.

Following a brief stint as the announcer on The Tonight Show, Philbin first became known to TV viewers as the sidekick on The Joey Bishop Show. After spending the Seventies and early Eighties popping up on assorted TV series, talk shows and game shows, Philbin became a fixture of ABC New York’s The Morning Show in 1983. Two years later, Gifford joined the program as his co-host and, in 1988, the show was rebranded as Live With Regis and Kathie Lee for syndicated television.

Gifford’s tenure with the morning show ended in 2000; after a year of rotating guest hosts on Live With Regis, the long-running program permanently brought in Kelly Ripa, who remained co-host of the show following Philbin’s own retirement in 2011. Philbin was also a late-night favorite, winning over David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel (who hosted a Millionaire revival) and more.

In 2008, Philbin received the Emmy Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award, capping a career filled with wins for Outstanding Talk Show Host, Outstanding Talk Show and Outstanding Game Show Host. According to Variety, Philbin holds the Guinness World Record for most hours on camera on U.S. television with more than 16,700 hours over the course of his career.

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

Olivia de Havilland, a Star of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Dies at 104
Ms. de Havilland, a classic Hollywood beauty, built an illustrious film career punctuated by a successful fight to loosen studios’ grip on actors.
By Robert Berkvist
July 26, 2020 Updated 2:24 p.m. ET



(New York Times) Olivia de Havilland, an actress who gained movie immortality in “Gone With the Wind,” then built an illustrious film career, punctuated by a successful fight to loosen the studios’ grip on contract actors, died on Sunday at her home in Paris. She was 104 and one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s fabled Golden Age.

Her death was confirmed by her publicist Lisa Goldberg.

Ms. de Havilland was both a classic Hollywood beauty and an honored screen actress whose very name and bearing suggested membership in a kind of aristocracy of moviedom. Though she was typecast early in her career as the demure ingénue, she went on to earn meatier roles that led to five Academy Award nominations, two of which brought her the Oscar, for “To Each His Own” (1946) and “The Heiress” (1949).

Those roles came to her in no small part because of the resolve she showed when she stood up to the studios and won a battle that helped push Hollywood into the modern era, surprising the movie moguls, who may not have expected such steel in an actress so softly attractive and, at 5-foot-3, so unintimidatingly petite.

She had shown similar grit a decade earlier, in her breakthrough role, when she held her own against her formidable co-stars — Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard — in “Gone With the Wind.”

The 1939 Civil War epic was briefly pulled from the HBO Max streaming service last month and returned with an introduction saying that the film presents the Georgia plantation at its center as “a world of grace and beauty, without acknowledging the brutalities of the system of chattel slavery upon which this world is based.”

As Melanie Hamilton Wilkes, the beau and then wife of Mr. Howard’s Ashley Wilkes, she brought intelligence and grace to her portrait of a woman whose shy, forgiving, almost too kindly nature stood in sharp contrast to the often venomous jealousy of her high-spirited sister-in-law, Scarlett O’Hara (Ms. Leigh).

Ms. de Havilland’s performance led to an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress, though the award went to another member of the cast, Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, Scarlett’s housekeeper. (Ms. Leigh won in the best-actress category.)

Ms. de Havilland was under contract to Warner Bros. when the film’s original director, George Cukor, working for MGM, invited her to audition for the role of Melanie. (He was later replaced by Victor Fleming.) After getting the part, she had to plead with her studio boss, Jack Warner, to lend her to the MGM production, which was being overseen by David O. Selznick.

By then she had established herself at Warner as a familiar heroine in some 20 films and had begun a long collaboration with the prolific director Michael Curtiz, encompassing nine films. Most notable was a string of action features and costume dramas opposite the dashing Errol Flynn, among them “Captain Blood” (1935), “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1936) and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), in which she played Maid Marian.

Ms. de Havilland and Flynn were such a popular onscreen couple that rumors flew of an on-set romance, fueled in part by Flynn’s reputation for bedding his co-stars and reports that he was infatuated with her. By all accounts there was no truth to the whisperings of an affair, though some years later Ms. de Havilland admitted to having had “a great crush” on Flynn and suggested that “circumstances at the time” — he was married when they met — stood in the way of a romance.

“So naughty and so charming,” she said of him.

Warner had signed Ms. de Havilland to a seven-year contract in 1935 on the strength of her performance that year as Hermia, the defiant daughter who resists an arranged marriage, in Max Reinhardt’s film adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” (The year before, she had made her professional stage acting debut in the same role in a Hollywood Bowl production by Reinhardt.)

After her success in “Gone With the Wind,” Ms. de Havilland returned to Warner with the expectation of more challenging roles. For the most part, they did not materialize

One exception was “Hold Back the Dawn” (1941), in which she played an American schoolteacher who is seduced in Mexico by a wily European exile (Charles Boyer). Her performance earned her another Oscar nomination, but this time she lost to her sister, Joan Fontaine, who won for “Suspicion.” The two were rarely on speaking terms after that. (They are the only sisters to win best-actress Academy Awards, and their sibling rivalry was called the fiercest in Hollywood history.)

The formula roles kept coming. When Ms. de Havilland complained, she was told that she had been hired because she photographed well and that she wasn’t required to act.

The studio had misread her determination. She began to refuse roles she considered inferior. Warner retaliated by suspending her several times, for a total of six months, and, after her contract expired, insisting that because of the suspensions she was still the studio’s property for six more months.

Ms. de Havilland sued. The case dragged on for a year and a half but David finally beat Goliath when the California Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling in her favor in 1945. What became known as the de Havilland decision established that a studio could not arbitrarily extend the duration of an actor’s contract.

When she resumed her career, Ms. de Havilland appeared in four films in rapid succession, all released in 1946. In one, “The Dark Mirror,” she played twins, one good and one evil. In her Oscar-winning performance in “To Each His Own,” she was an unwed mother who must give up her infant son when his father, her lover, a World War I flying ace, is killed in action.

Ms. de Havilland soon took on one of her most demanding roles, that of a young bride who becomes mentally ill and is sent to an institution, in “The Snake Pit” (1948). The film, directed by Anatol Litvak, was an unflinching study of mental illness and the treatments available then, from narcotics to electroshock. Ms. de Havilland was nominated for a best-actress Oscar but did not win.

She captured her second Oscar the next year with “The Heiress,” directed by William Wyler and adapted by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from their Broadway play based on Henry James’s “Washington Square.” Ms. de Havilland presented an affecting portrait of a repressed, spinsterish young woman dominated by her rigidly protective father (Ralph Richardson).

It was one of Ms. de Havilland’s favorite roles. “The films I loved,” she said in 1964, “the great loves, are ‘The Snake Pit,’ ‘The Heiress’ and, of course, ‘Gone With the Wind.’”

But she did not love Hollywood, and in the 1950s she startled the town when she abandoned it to live in Paris with a new husband, though she kept her American citizenship.

“For Olivia,” William Stadiem wrote in a profile of her in Vanity Fair magazine in 2016, “there was a whiff of decay and disappointment about Hollywood.”

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916, to British parents in Tokyo, where her father, Walter, a cousin of the aviation pioneer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, ran a firm of patent lawyers, though he was not a lawyer himself. In 1919 her mother, the former Lillian Ruse, an elocution teacher, moved with Olivia and Joan, her younger sister by 15 months, to Saratoga, Calif., near San Francisco. The de Havillands divorced and Lillian married George M. Fontaine, a department store executive, whose surname Joan later took as her stage name.

Ms. de Havilland was married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. The first, in 1946, was to Marcus Aurelius Goodrich, a Texas-born novelist, screenwriter and journalist; they had a son, Benjamin, and divorced in 1952. She married Pierre Galante, the author of military histories and at one point editor of the magazine Paris Match, in 1955 after the couple met in France. They moved to Paris, had a daughter, Gisele, and divorced in 1979. Ms. de Havilland’s son died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1991.

Before she was married, Ms. de Havilland had romantic relationships with James Stewart, Howard Hughes and the director John Huston, with whom she reunited for a time after her first divorce. By her account she also turned away a smitten young John F. Kennedy, who was visiting Hollywood after his PT-boat service in World War II.

She is survived by her daughter, Giselle Galante Chulack. Joan Fontaine died in 2013 at 96.

Though she had decamped to Paris, Ms. de Havilland remained a creature of Hollywood for most of her career. But she did try her hand at theater again, making her Broadway debut in 1951, to good reviews, as Juliet in a short-lived production of “Romeo and Juliet.”

She returned to Broadway in 1952 for another brief run in Shaw’s “Candida” and was last seen there in 1962, when she starred with Henry Fonda in “A Gift of Time,” adapted by Garson Kanin from Lael Tucker Wertenbaker’s book “Death of a Man,” about the last days of the author’s husband, Charles, who died of cancer.

The movies kept calling, however. In 1952 she starred in “My Cousin Rachel,” based on the best-selling novel by Daphne du Maurier. She played the bride of an older man, and Richard Burton, in his Hollywood debut, played the son who thinks his attractive new stepmother may be capable of murder.

By the time she traveled to Italy to film “The Light in the Piazza” (1962), in which she played the protective mother of a beautiful but mentally impaired young woman (Yvette Mimieux), Ms. de Havilland had appeared in some 40 movies and was living in semiretirement in Paris. She also published a book in 1962, a collection of lighthearted observations about life in France titled “Every Frenchman Has One.”

Ms. de Havilland made only a handful of films after that. She was in her mid-40s by then, receiving fewer acting offers and finding many scripts too prurient for her tastes.

One she liked, however, was “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1964), which gave her the opportunity to co-star with Bette Davis, another Hollywood legend nearing the end of her career.

The film, a weaker echo of the similarly gothic Bette Davis-Joan Crawford melodrama, “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” tells the tale of an increasingly demented woman (Ms. Davis) and a scheming relative who comes to live with her (Ms. de Havilland, who replaced Ms. Crawford after filming began).

From the mid-60s onward, Ms. de Havilland’s acting was largely confined to sporadic roles in television series like “The Love Boat”; television movies like “The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana” (1982), in which she played the Queen Mother; and mini-series like “Roots: The Next Generation” (1979). Her work in the 1986 NBC mini-series “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna,” in which she played a Russian empress, brought her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination.

In 1965 she became the first woman to head the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

She returned to feature films only occasionally, among them the hugely successful 1977 disaster movie “Airport ’77,” in which she joined a ensemble cast of veteran actors. Her last Hollywood film was “The Fifth Musketeer” (1979), in which she played the mother of Louis XIV (Beau Bridges).


But even when she was well into her 80s, she had not entirely given up the idea of returning to the spotlight. She was a presenter at the Academy Awards in 2003. She narrated “I Remember Better When I Paint,” a 2009 documentary about the positive impact of art therapy on people with Alzheimer’s disease.

In Paris, Ms. de Havilland had lived in a five-story townhouse, built around 1880, since 1958 (in recent years next door to the former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing), all the while never missing Hollywood, she said.

“I loved being around real buildings, real castles, real churches — not ones made of canvas,” she told Vanity Fair.

She maintained an active lifestyle there into her second century, defying her advancing years.

“Olivia doesn’t seem 99,” Mr. Stadiem wrote in his 2016 Vanity Fair profile. “Her face is unlined, her eyes sparkling, her fabled contralto soaring (only Orson Welles had an equally imposing instrument), her memory photographic. She could easily pass for someone decades younger.”

She was in the news — and in court — once again in 2018, when she sued the FX network and Ryan Murphy Productions over her portrayal by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the mini-series “Feud: Bette and Joan,” about the rivalry between Davis and Crawford.

She maintained that her portrayal constituted unauthorized use of her name and likeness and showed her in “a false light” as a hypocrite “with a public image of being a lady and a private one as a vulgarity-using gossip.” A California appellate court dismissed the suit, ruling that the portrayal was “not highly offensive to a reasonable person as a matter of law.”

Ms. de Havilland’s readings of scripture on Christmas and Easter at the American Cathedral, on the Avenue George V, became annual events in Paris. In 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy, then the president of France, awarded her the Légion d’Honneur. And her association with a distant era of Hollywood glamour made her a living legend in her adopted city.

In 1999 she was honored with a party in Paris to celebrate the 60th anniversary of “Gone With the Wind.” At one point, one of the hosts recalled, with a glass in hand, she toasted the film and its leading actors, reminding the room that she was the last one still standing.

“Let us raise a mint julep to our stars,” she proclaimed, “on that great veranda in the sky!”

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[Frothy Afterbirth]

John Saxon, 'Enter the Dragon,' 'Nightmare on Elm Street' Actor, Dies at 83
4:41 PM PDT 7/25/2020 by Mike Barnes



The Brooklyn tough guy also starred in 'The Appaloosa,' 'The Unguarded Moment' and 'Black Christmas.'

John Saxon, the rugged actor who kicked around with Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon and appeared in three Nightmare on Elm Street movies for director Wes Craven, died Saturday. He was 83.

Saxon died of pneumonia in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, his wife, Gloria, told The Hollywood Reporter.

An Italian-American from Brooklyn, Saxon played characters of various ethnicities during his long career.

His portrayal of a brutal Mexican bandit opposite Marlon Brando in The Appaloosa (1966) earned him a Golden Globe, and he had a recurring role on ABC's Dynasty as Rashid Ahmed, a powerful Middle East tycoon who romanced Alexis Colby (Joan Collins). And on another 1980s primetime soap, CBS' Falcon Crest, he played the father of Lorenzo Lamas' character.

Years earlier, Saxon starred from 1969-72 as the surgeon Theodore Stuart on "The New Doctors" rotating segment of the NBC drama series The Bold Ones.

Discovered by the same agent who launched the careers of Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, Saxon first gained notice for his performance as a disturbed high school football star who taunts Esther Williams in The Unguarded Moment (1956). In the film's credits, he's billed as "the exciting new personality John Saxon."

He played a police chief who makes a fatal mistake in the Canadian cult classic Black Christmas (1974), featuring Margot Kidder and Keir Dullea, and his horror résumé also includes two films for Roger Corman: Queen of Blood (1966) and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), playing a tyrannical warlord.

In Warner Bros.' Enter the Dragon (1973), Lee's first mainstream American movie and last before his death at age 32, Saxon portrayed Roper, a degenerate gambler who participates in a martial arts tournament. In real life, his fighting skills did not approach those possessed by Lee and another co-star, karate champion Jim Kelly.

Saxon, though, said that Lee "took me seriously. I would tell him I would rather do it this way, and he'd say, 'OK, try it that way,' " he told the Los Angeles Times in 2012.

Saxon played the cop Donald Thompson in the first and third films in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, where he's eventually killed by Freddy Krueger's skeleton. He then returned to play a version of himself in New Nightmare (1994).

He was born Carmine Orrico on Aug. 5, 1936, the eldest of three children of an Italian immigrant house painter. While in high school, he worked as a spieler at a Coney Island archery concession, becoming proficient with the bow and arrow.

"Brooklyn was a tough place to grow up in, but it taught you survival, and if you were ambitious, it taught you to want better things," he once said.

Walking out of a movie theater after skipping class at New Utrecht High School, he was spotted by a male modeling agent and then appeared in magazines like True Romances.

One photo shoot, which he said pictured him as a "Puerto Rican guy" leaning against a garbage can after he had been shot, caught the attention of Henry Willson, the legendary Hollywood agent who had discovered Hudson and Hunter.

Then just 17, Saxon signed with Willson, studied dramatics for six months with Betty Cashman at Carnegie Hall and flew to Hollywood, where he was quickly signed by Universal. He attended the studio's workshop for 18 months and then worked with Mamie Van Doren in Running Wild (1955).

After Unguarded Moment, Saxon appeared as young rock 'n' roll musicians in Rock, Pretty Baby (1956) and Summer Love (1958) and played opposite Sandra Dee in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), directed by Vincente Minnelli, and Debbie Reynolds in Blake Edwards' This Happy Feeling (1958).

In Cry Tough (1959), Saxon starred as a tough Puerto Rican kid from New York, and in War Hunt (1962), he was top-billed as a psychotic solider. (Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack also were in the cast, and the three would reunite in 1979 for The Electric Horseman.)

Never shy about showing off his machismo, Saxon also co-starred with Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd (1972) and played a dirty union lawyer in Andrew McLaglen's Mitchell (1975).

His film résumé also included Mario Bava's Evil Eye (1963), Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), Blood Beast From Outer Space (1965), The Swiss Conspiracy (1976), Wrong Is Right (1982), Richard Brooks' Fever Pitch (1985), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and God's Ears (2008).

He was married three times, to screenwriter Mary Ann Murphy, airline attendant turned actress Elizabeth Saxon and, since 2008, cosmetician Gloria Martel. Survivors also include his son, Antonio, and his sister, Dolores.

Memorial contributions in his name may be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

Duane Byrge contributed to this report.

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[qcmalebox]

Regis Philbin, Beloved TV Host, Dead at 88

[qcmalebox]