In Memoriam, 2021: Michael Nesmith (78), Anne Rice (80), Les Emmerson (77), Desmond Tutu (90), John Madden (85), Betty White (99)

[DonLever]

I though I would start a thread for people in the Entertainment Business who died in 2021.  Feel free to post whoever you grew up that has died this year.  Could be musician, actor/actress, author. comedian, etc.  I will update the thread regularly.

 

To start up with here are two legendary actresses that died in the last couple of days:

 

Cicely Tyson, iconic and influential actress, dies at 96 (msn.com)

 

Cicely Tyson, an award-winning icon of the stage and screen who broke barriers for Black actresses with surpassing dignity, died Thursday, her longtime manager Larry Thompson confirmed to CNN.

The actress and cherished icon, who was first Oscar-nominated for 1972's "Sounder" and 45 years later was honored with an honorary golden statuette for her body of work, died Thursday at age 96, her manager Larry Thompson confirmed to USA TODAY.

 

"With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon. At this time, please allow the family their privacy," Thompson said in a statement.

 

Tyler Perry said the news of Tyson's death "brought me to my knees." He explained that he received the news from Oprah Winfrey while coincidentally watching Tyson's 1974 television film "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" on a whim.   

"I was sitting at the table working when I got this overwhelming feeling to watch 'Miss Jane Pittman.' I hadn’t seen the movie in years. I didn’t even understand the feeling to turn it on, but I did anyway," he wrote in a touching Instagram tribute. "Not 12 minutes into the movie my phone rang. It was Oprah calling to tell me that Cicely had died."

 

Cloris Leachman Tributes Pour In Across Hollywood After 'Irreplaceable' Star's Death (msn.com)

 

Some of the star's memorable roles included Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein.

Leachman was known for her prolific career as a character actress, portraying the grandmother Ida in Malcolm in the Middle and Timmy's mother in the Lassie series. She also played Ellen DeGeneres' mother in her sitcom Ellen.

She won the best supporting actress Oscar at the 1971 Academy Awards for her portrayal of Ruth Popper, wife of the high-school gym teacher in The Last Picture Show.

 

Despite earning more than 300 acting credits, some of Leachman's other memorable roles include the adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods and Raising Hope, the 2019 revival of Mad About You, Spanglish and The Longest Yard.

In 1977 she appeared in an episode of The Muppet Show and went on to become a successful voice actor in the animation field starring in titles such as A Troll in Central Park and the English dubbing of Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 Castle in the Sky.

Hollywood has been paying tribute to the acting heavyweight with everyone from Reese Witherspoon to Lynda Carter honoring the late talent.

"Cloris Leachman was queen of the Amazons and a queen of industry, breaking barriers and inspiring women in film and TV for decades," tweeted original Wonder Woman star, Carter. "She was a sweet TV mom and a riot to work with. I will miss you, along with the smiles and laughter you brought everywhere you went, Cloris."

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by DonLever

[Coconuts]

I'm not likely to know about most of the people who get mentioned in this thread, but RIP all the same. I'm sure most of em will be noteworthy in their own right. 

[Ghostsof1915]

A toast to Frau Blucher!

 

 

[DonLever]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/dustin-diamond-screech-in-saved-by-the-bell-dead-at-44-1.5290986

 

Dustin Diamond, who played the role of Screech on the popular 1990s high school comedy "Saved by the Bell," died Monday after a recent cancer diagnosis, according to Diamond's manager, Roger Paul.

He was 44.

Diamond first shared news of his cancer diagnosis last month.

At the time, his manager said his client's health was "serious" and that Diamond was undergoing further testing at a Florida hospital. He underwent his first round of chemotherapy days later.

An actor and stand-up comedian, Diamond found fame playing Samuel "Screech" Powers for more than a decade on the "Saved by the Bell" franchise.

The teen series was recently reimagined by the Peacock streaming service with some of the original stars, though not Diamond.

He stirred controversy with his 2009 book "Behind the Bell," in which Diamond shared backstage stories about shooting the series with some of his accounts being less than flattering to his co-stars.

He also faced some legal troubles, serving three months in jail for stabbing a man during a 2014 altercation at a bar in Wisconsin.

The actor has appeared in a number of reality shows over the years, including "Celebrity Fit Club," "Celebrity Boxing 2" and "Celebrity Championship Wrestling."

Diamond's "Save by the Bell" costars, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez and Tiffany Thiessen, paid tribute to the late actor on social media.

[DonLever]

Christopher Plummer Has Passed Away At 91 (msn.com)

 

Christopher Plummer, the Canadian actor who charmed us as Captain Von Trapp in the 1965 movie "The Sound of Music", has died at the age of 91.

 

Plummer is a well-known veteran of stage and screen, playing iconic characters like Shakespeare's King Lear at the Stratford Festival and starring in independent films like 2012's "Beginners", which landed him his only Academy Award at age 82 (he is the oldest actor to ever win an Oscar). In what can only be described as an incredible career, Plummer also won two Emmy awards, two Tony awards, a SAG award, a BAFTA award and a Golden Globe.

 

His ability to transcend character boundaries and add his own unique trademark to the roles is rare in acting, and Plummer belonged to that original era of thespians who, quite literally, threw themselves into their work.

Born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer on Dec. 13, 1929 in Toronto, his parents divorced shortly after his birth and he was raised in Senneville, Que., just outside of Montreal. Bilingual in English and French, Plummer originally wanted to be a concert pianist, but became interested in acting after seeing Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944).

Plummer's career trajectory started to rise after he was spotted in a high-school performance of Pride & Prejudice by the Montreal Repertory Theatre director, who swiftly cast the then-18-year-old as Oedipus in his production of La Machine infernale.

From there, the low-and-smooth-voiced Plummer became a master of the theatre, appearing in countless plays and taking on challenging, varied roles. He made his Broadway debut in 1954 in The Starcross Story, and flew across the pond for much of the '60s to perform in London's prestigious West End. A Shakespeare lover from the start, Plummer has played numerous characters from that universe, including King Lear (as mentioned above), Hamlet, Henry V, Iago, Mercutio, Mark Antony and Macbeth, to name only a few.

Plummer's big-screen career began in 1958 when renowned director Sidney Lumet cast him as a young writer in "Stage Struck". After that, his film work was scattered for several years and he barely acted on-screen. Plummer never looked back after his big breakout in "The Sound of Music". He was instantly recognizable to millions of people (and still is) for his portrayal of the stern Captain.

Ironically, Plummer hated the film and thought it overly sweet and cheesy. He called the Von Trapp role "so awful and sentimental and gooey," and found the only non-annoying element to be his co-star, Julie Andrews. To this day, he avoids calling the movie by its name, instead calling it "that movie," "S&M," or "The Sound of Mucous."

"I was a bit bored with the character," he said to a Boston publication in an interview. "Although we worked hard enough to make him interesting, it was a bit like flogging a dead horse. And the subject matter is not mine. I mean it can’t appeal to every person in the world. It’s not my cup of tea.’"

 

Plummer found fulfillment in the majority of his other film roles, which, like his theatre experience, cut a wide swath across genres and audiences. He thrilled the "Star Trek" fandom as Chang in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" (1991), tried his hand at comedy in 1987's "Dragnet" (alongside fellow Canuck Dan Aykroyd and a young Tom Hanks) and popped up in 1995 psychological thriller "12 Monkeys".

 

The beauty of Plummer's career is he's so prolific and so varied, you'll never know when he's going to waltz into a scene. But it's always a treat. When he received his first-ever Oscar nomination in 2010 for "The Last Station" (which he ultimately lost to Christoph Waltz), he joked to the CBC, "Well, it's about time! I mean, I'm 80 years old, for God's sake. Have mercy."

 

Of course, Plummer also appeared on his fair share of television shows, mostly in the U.S., and has nearly 100 TV roles to his name. Some notable shows include 1958's "Little Moon of Alban" (for which he received his first Emmy nomination), 1959's "The Philadelphia Story" and 2000's "American Tragedy".

Amazingly, Plummer continued to work on stage and screen into his late 80s, a feat not many actors can brag about.

Edited February 5, 2021 by DonLever

[Heretic]

The dogs of war!

RIP Mr. Plummer...RIP
 

 

[DonLever]

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt dies at 78 (msn.com)

 

LOS ANGELES — Porn purveyor Larry Flynt, who built Hustler magazine into an adult entertainment empire while championing First Amendment rights, died Wednesday. He was 78.

Flynt had been in frail health and died of heart failure at his Hollywood Hills home, said his nephew, Jimmy Flynt Jr.

From his beginnings as an Ohio strip club owner to his reign as founder of one of the most explicit adult-oriented magazines, Flynt constantly challenged the establishment and became a target for the religious right and feminist groups.

Flynt scored a surprising U.S. Supreme Court victory over the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who had sued him for libel after a 1983 Hustler alcohol ad suggested Falwell had lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.

Flynt’s company produced not only Hustler but other niche publications. He owned a video production company, various websites, a Los Angeles-area casino and 10 Hustler boutiques. He also licensed the Hustler name to independently owned strip clubs.

His publishing and financial successes were offset in equal measure by controversies and tragedies.

Shot by a sniper in 1978, Flynt was paralyzed from the waist down and used a wheelchair the rest of his life. He fought battles with drug and alcohol addiction, and his fourth wife died of a heroin overdose.

His daughter, Lisa Flynt-Fugate, died in a 2014 car crash in Ohio at age 47.

With a fortune estimated at more than $100 million, Flynt spent his later years in the political arena. When Gov. Gray Davis was recalled by California voters in 2003, Flynt was among 135 candidates who ran to replace him. He called himself “a smut peddler who cares” and gathered more than 15,000 votes.

A self-described progressive, Flynt was no fan of former President Donald Trump. Before the 2016 election, he offered up to $1 million for video or audio recordings of Trump engaging in illegal or “sexually demeaning or derogatory” activity.

In 2017, Flynt offered a $10 million reward for evidence that would lead to Trump’s impeachment, and in 2019, Larry Flynt Publications sent a Christmas card to some Republican congressional members that showed Trump lying dead in a pool of blood, with the killer saying: “I just shot Donald Trump on Fifth Avenue and no one assassinated me” — a reference to Trump’s boast that he could commit such a killing and wouldn’t lose votes.

Flynt’s life was depicted in the acclaimed 1996 film “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” which brought Oscar nominations for director Milos Forman and Woody Harrelson, who played Flynt.

John Rogers, The Associated Press

Edited February 11, 2021 by DonLever

[DonLever]

Rush Limbaugh, radio king and architect of right wing, dies | The Star

 

Rush Limbaugh called himself a truth detector, doctor of democracy, lover of mankind, all-around good guy and harmless fuzz ball, titles his legions of followers embraced as he boomed from their radios in a daily ritual.

To those who hated him, the names he conjured were often unfit for print.

Such was the nature of Limbaugh, who died of lung cancer Wednesday at the age of 70: Prized by adherents as the voice of conservatism, pilloried by critics as the worst of American politics’ extreme right wing.

 

He was divisive to the very end, but it did little to diminish his importance as the dominant force of talk radio, one of the most influential voices in Republican politics and an architect of the modern right-wing.

Unflinchingly conservative, wildly partisan, bombastically self-promoting and larger than life, Limbaugh had for the past quarter-century galvanized listeners with his politically incorrect, sarcasm-laced commentary. He called himself an entertainer, but with his three-hour weekday radio show broadcast on nearly 600 stations across the U.S., and a massive audience of millions hanging on his every word, Limbaugh’s rants shaped the national political conversation, swaying the opinions of average Republicans and the direction of the party.

 

He drew people in with his wit, his sense of the theatrical and a made-for-broadcast voice offering listeners a blueprint for what he saw as the grand scheme of the opposition. And he did it with such unyielding confidence, his followers heard his words as sacred truth.

 

 

“I want to persuade people with ideas. I don’t walk around thinking about my power,” he told author Zev Chafets in his 2010 book, “Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One.” “But in my heart and soul, I know I have become the intellectual engine of the conservative movement.”

 

Limbaugh took as a badge of honour the title of “most dangerous man in America,” and called himself “America’s anchorman.” But his assessments of those with whom he disagreed were not nearly so kind.

[Tortorella's Rant]

When you hear the news for the first time.

[kingofsurrey]

[DonLever]

George Segal, Durable Veteran of Drama and TV Comedy, Is Dead at 87 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

 

George Segal, whose long career began in serious drama but who became one of America’s most reliable and familiar comic actors, first in the movies and later on television, died on Tuesday in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 87.

The cause was complications following bypass surgery, according to his wife, Sonia Segal, who announced his death.

Sandy-haired, conventionally if imperfectly handsome, with a grin that could be charming or smug and a brow that could knit with sincerity or a lack of it, Mr. Segal walked a line between leading man and supporting actor.

To younger people, he was best known for his work in comedy ensembles on prime-time network shows, playing the publisher of a fashion magazine on a titillation-fest,“Just Shoot Me!” and a frolicsome grandfather on a raucous family show set in the 1980s, “The Goldbergs.”

 

But decades earlier, when he was a rising young actor, a handful of dramatic roles placed him on the verge of being an A-list star.

 

 

In 1965 he starred as a conniving American corporal in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in “King Rat,” a grim survival drama based on a novel by James Clavell, leading a cast that included James Fox, Patrick O’Neal, Denholm Elliott and Tom Courtenay. The same year he played an idealistic painter whose agonizing and probably doomed love affair with a beautiful bourgeois young woman (Elizabeth Ashley) was one of several plotlines in Stanley Kramer’s adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter’s novel “Ship of Fools,” which places a buffet of class and ethnic conflicts aboard a German passenger ship on a trans-Atlantic crossing in the 1930s.

“He looks real,” Mr. Kramer told Life magazine about Mr. Segal in 1965, “and he has what John Garfield had. He can draw appeal from an unsympathetic role.”

From 1966 to 1968, Mr. Segal starred in three dramas adapted for television. In “The Desperate Hours,” he played Glenn Griffin, an escaped convict who holds a family hostage, a role made famous by Paul Newman on Broadway and Humphrey Bogart in the movies. In John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” he was George, the itinerant farmworker who looks out for his friend Lenny (Nicol Williamson), a childlike behemoth. And he was Biff Loman, the elder son of Willy Loman (Lee J. Cobb, repeating his Broadway role), in Arthur Miller’s masterpiece of a warped and failed American dream, “Death of a Salesman.”

 

In his best-remembered and best-rewarded dramatic role, Mr. Segal played Nick, the young husband in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966), adapted from Edward Albee’s grueling depiction of marital combat.

 

The film, directed by Mike Nichols, famously starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as an embittered, longtime campus couple harboring a mutual delusion and, over the course of a long, boozy night in which they entertain a newly arrived biology professor (Mr. Segal) and his wife (Sandy Dennis), engaged in a scabrous war of words. All four actors were nominated for Oscars, Mr. Segal for the only time. (The women won.)

Beginning in the late 1960s, however, Mr. Segal’s gift for comedy, especially social satire, redirected the path of his career. He spent most of the decade as a leading man in contemporary roles, generally in films aiming at both humor and poignancy in their observations of romance, marriage, friendship, class and the meaningful life.

 

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by DonLever

[thedestroyerofworlds]

 

https://deadline.com/2021/03/jessica-walter-dead-actress-arrested-development-1234721873/

Jessica Walter Dies: Emmy-Winning ‘Arrested Development’, ‘Archer’ Actress Was 80

Jessica Walter, the award-winning actress whose career spanned five decades, passed away in her sleep at home in New York City on Wednesday, March 24. She was 80.

Walter’s career included everything from a standout turn in Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, to The Flamingo Kid and her Emmy-nominated turns on Trapper John M..D. and Streets of San Francisco. For her performance as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, Walter earned yet another Emmy nomination (Outstanding Supporting Actress) and two SAG nominations.

Walter won an Emmy starring in Amy Prentiss, an Ironside spinoff in the mid-1970s about a young San Francisco police detective. She also voiced Malory Archer on FXX’s animated series Archer.

Speaking of SAG, Walter served as 2nd National Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild, and was an elected member of the SAG Board of Directors for over a decade.

Walter began her career in her hometown of New York City where she appeared in numerous Broadway productions including Advise and Consent, Neil Simon’s Rumors, A Severed Head, Nightlife and Photo Finish, for which she earned the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Also on stage, Walter worked at New York’s Playwright’s Horizons and the Los Angeles Theater Center, where she starred in Tartuffe opposite the late Ron Leibman, her Emmy- and Tony-winning husband. She also starred in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, which picked up several Tony Awards.

Walter is survived by daughter Brooke Bowman, who is SVP Drama Programming at Fox Entertainment, and grandson Micah Heymann.

Bowman said in a statement: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom Jessica. A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to others through her storytelling both on screen and off. While her legacy will live on through her body of work, she will also be remembered by many for her wit, class and overall joie de vivre.”

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

[Down by the River]

41 minutes ago, thedestroyerofworlds said:

 

https://deadline.com/2021/03/jessica-walter-dead-actress-arrested-development-1234721873/

Jessica Walter Dies: Emmy-Winning ‘Arrested Development’, ‘Archer’ Actress Was 80

Jessica Walter, the award-winning actress whose career spanned five decades, passed away in her sleep at home in New York City on Wednesday, March 24. She was 80.

Walter’s career included everything from a standout turn in Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, to The Flamingo Kid and her Emmy-nominated turns on Trapper John M..D. and Streets of San Francisco. For her performance as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, Walter earned yet another Emmy nomination (Outstanding Supporting Actress) and two SAG nominations.

Walter won an Emmy starring in Amy Prentiss, an Ironside spinoff in the mid-1970s about a young San Francisco police detective. She also voiced Malory Archer on FXX’s animated series Archer.

Speaking of SAG, Walter served as 2nd National Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild, and was an elected member of the SAG Board of Directors for over a decade.

Walter began her career in her hometown of New York City where she appeared in numerous Broadway productions including Advise and Consent, Neil Simon’s Rumors, A Severed Head, Nightlife and Photo Finish, for which she earned the Clarence Derwent Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Also on stage, Walter worked at New York’s Playwright’s Horizons and the Los Angeles Theater Center, where she starred in Tartuffe opposite the late Ron Leibman, her Emmy- and Tony-winning husband. She also starred in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, which picked up several Tony Awards.

Walter is survived by daughter Brooke Bowman, who is SVP Drama Programming at Fox Entertainment, and grandson Micah Heymann.

Bowman said in a statement: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom Jessica. A working actor for over six decades, her greatest pleasure was bringing joy to others through her storytelling both on screen and off. While her legacy will live on through her body of work, she will also be remembered by many for her wit, class and overall joie de vivre.”

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

She was the absolute best part of an already amazing show. RIP.

 

 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

On 3/23/2021 at 7:56 PM, DonLever said:

George Segal, Durable Veteran of Drama and TV Comedy, Is Dead at 87 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

 

George Segal, whose long career began in serious drama but who became one of America’s most reliable and familiar comic actors, first in the movies and later on television, died on Tuesday in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 87.

The cause was complications following bypass surgery, according to his wife, Sonia Segal, who announced his death.

Sandy-haired, conventionally if imperfectly handsome, with a grin that could be charming or smug and a brow that could knit with sincerity or a lack of it, Mr. Segal walked a line between leading man and supporting actor.

To younger people, he was best known for his work in comedy ensembles on prime-time network shows, playing the publisher of a fashion magazine on a titillation-fest,“Just Shoot Me!” and a frolicsome grandfather on a raucous family show set in the 1980s, “The Goldbergs.”

 

But decades earlier, when he was a rising young actor, a handful of dramatic roles placed him on the verge of being an A-list star.

 

 

In 1965 he starred as a conniving American corporal in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in “King Rat,” a grim survival drama based on a novel by James Clavell, leading a cast that included James Fox, Patrick O’Neal, Denholm Elliott and Tom Courtenay. The same year he played an idealistic painter whose agonizing and probably doomed love affair with a beautiful bourgeois young woman (Elizabeth Ashley) was one of several plotlines in Stanley Kramer’s adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter’s novel “Ship of Fools,” which places a buffet of class and ethnic conflicts aboard a German passenger ship on a trans-Atlantic crossing in the 1930s.

“He looks real,” Mr. Kramer told Life magazine about Mr. Segal in 1965, “and he has what John Garfield had. He can draw appeal from an unsympathetic role.”

From 1966 to 1968, Mr. Segal starred in three dramas adapted for television. In “The Desperate Hours,” he played Glenn Griffin, an escaped convict who holds a family hostage, a role made famous by Paul Newman on Broadway and Humphrey Bogart in the movies. In John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” he was George, the itinerant farmworker who looks out for his friend Lenny (Nicol Williamson), a childlike behemoth. And he was Biff Loman, the elder son of Willy Loman (Lee J. Cobb, repeating his Broadway role), in Arthur Miller’s masterpiece of a warped and failed American dream, “Death of a Salesman.”

 

In his best-remembered and best-rewarded dramatic role, Mr. Segal played Nick, the young husband in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966), adapted from Edward Albee’s grueling depiction of marital combat.

 

The film, directed by Mike Nichols, famously starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as an embittered, longtime campus couple harboring a mutual delusion and, over the course of a long, boozy night in which they entertain a newly arrived biology professor (Mr. Segal) and his wife (Sandy Dennis), engaged in a scabrous war of words. All four actors were nominated for Oscars, Mr. Segal for the only time. (The women won.)

Beginning in the late 1960s, however, Mr. Segal’s gift for comedy, especially social satire, redirected the path of his career. He spent most of the decade as a leading man in contemporary roles, generally in films aiming at both humor and poignancy in their observations of romance, marriage, friendship, class and the meaningful life.

 

 

Here's a probably not well known movie of his set in various locations in BC!  (Segal plays a RCMP constable):

 

 

The "good old cold war days".  Cool seeing how the province looked in the 1970s (and Vancouver is actually playing itself lol! unlike the Jackie Chan movie "Rumble in the Bronx").

[DonLever]

Jessica Waller was a staple on TV for 60 years.  I remember her on old time classic TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Hawaii 5-0, Ironside, Mission Impossible, Streets of San Francisco, Columbo, etc.

 

How many actors/actresses have such a prolific career on TV for so long?   Very few if any.

[King Heffy]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/helen-mccrory-dies-1.5990539

Quote

Peaky Blinders, Harry Potter actor Helen McCrory dead at 52

Social Sharing

 

McCrory, who had cancer, 'died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love,' husband says

CBC News · Posted: Apr 16, 2021 12:15 PM ET | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

 

Actor Helen McCrory has died after a battle with cancer, her husband, Damian Lewis, announced on Friday. She was 52. ( Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)

Britain's Helen McCrory, who starred in Harry Potter films and the Peaky Blinders television series, has died after a battle with cancer, her husband, actor Damian Lewis, said on Twitter on Friday. She was 52.

"I'm heartbroken to announce that after an heroic battle with cancer, the beautiful and mighty woman that is Helen McCrory has died peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family," Lewis said.

 

"She died as she lived. Fearlessly. God we loved her and know how lucky we are to have had her in our lives. She blazed so brightly. Go now, Little One, into the air, and thank you." 

Acting career began on stage 

McCrory played Polly Gray, the matriarch of a crime family on Peaky Blinders, taking a starring role in all five seasons thus far.

The show's official Twitter account posted a tribute to the actor and her time as Polly soon after news of her death broke.

Cillian Murphy, who plays the central role of gangland boss Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, set in the early 20th-century English underworld, said he was "broken-hearted to lose such a dear friend."

"Helen was a beautiful, caring, funny, compassionate human being," he said in a statement. "She was also a gifted actor — fearless and magnificent.

"She elevated and made humane every scene, every character she played. It was a privilege to have worked with this brilliant woman, to have shared so many laughs over the years. I will dearly miss my pal. My love and thoughts are with Damian and her family."

 

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling also took to Twitter to pay respects, calling McCrory "an extraordinary actress and a wonderful woman who's left us far too soon."

McCrory portrayed the scheming Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies — with her last appearance in the series' final entry Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. She also appeared in Martin Scorsese's Hugo, James Bond movie Skyfall, and the TV series His Dark Materials last year.

Earlier in 2000, McCrory starred in a Channel 4 adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. In an article for the British newspaper the Guardian, McCrory wrote about the play and how the main character's journey reflected modern life as a woman. 

"How should a woman live her life? By the end of the story, Anna's choice is to return to her husband, disgraced, and live a lie, or to say: 'I did it, I've lived and that's enough,' McCrory wrote. "She jumps, not from something but to something. There is no defeat. It's wonderful to see a woman playing the heroine."

 

McCrory performs as Yelena in the play Uncle Vanya at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theater on Jan. 16, 2003, in New York City. (Matthew Peyton/Getty Images)

McCrory was born in 1968 in London to Welsh and Scottish parents Anne and Iain McCrory. 

Though she saw great success on the screen, McCrory's career first took off from the stage.

She was a regular in U.K. theatre, and made a name for herself playing Rose Trelawny in Trelawny of 'Wells' in 1993, and Lady Macbeth in the 1995 West End production of the Shakespearean tragedy.

She later received three awards, including a London Evening Standard award, for her portrayal of Yelena in Uncle Vanya, and was nominated for an Olivier award for her performance in As You Like It. 

 

McCrory poses with husband Damian Lewis after she was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace on Nov. 7, 2017 in London, England. ( Steve Parsons/Getty Images)

Though she had roles as far back as the early '90s — her first was in Interview with the Vampire with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise — her film career took off in 2006. That year, she earned a best supporting actress nomination from the London Critics' Circle for her work in The Queen.

McCrory married Damian Lewis the following year, and they had a daughter together.

She had been slated to play the villainous Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but was forced to pull out due to her pregnancy. She was later cast as Bellatrix's sister, Narcissa Malfoy.

 

Meaty roles

McCrory and Lewis had a second child in 2008, and in a 2018 interview, Lewis said they made the "difficult" decision to continue working while their children were young.

McCrory's commitment to work seemed to pay off. While many performers struggle to find meaty female roles in film and television, she played a string of them.

"Having said that, there are a lot of things I turn down," she told The Associated Press in 2016, describing the sort of roles where "all your lines are 'But what did you do at work?' 'That's so clever, darling.' 'How did you do that?' 'And then what did you do?' "

"Of course, there's so much sexism within the profession," McCrory said. "But I think you approach it in different ways, and my approach is just to forge forward."

Far too young.  I can't imagine Peaky Blinders without her.

[thedestroyerofworlds]

On 4/16/2021 at 4:45 PM, King Heffy said:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/helen-mccrory-dies-1.5990539

Far too young.  I can't imagine Peaky Blinders without her.

me too

[thedestroyerofworlds]

I thought I'd throw this in here. 

 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/509599284/forgotten-astronaut-michael-collins-dies

Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Dies

[Ilunga]

8 hours ago, thedestroyerofworlds said:

I thought I'd throw this in here. 

 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/509599284/forgotten-astronaut-michael-collins-dies

Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Dies

Sad to hear about this.

Some call him the forgotten astronaut of the Apollo 11 mission.

 

He will literally go back into the universe eventually.

[thedestroyerofworlds]

 

 

 

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/olympia-dukakis-dead-dies-oscar-winner-moonstruck-1234964478/

Olympia Dukakis, Oscar-Winning ‘Moonstruck’ Actress, Dies at 89