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In Memoriam, 2022: Legendary TV Broadcaster Barbara Walters Dead at 93, Pope Benedict XVI (95)


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Tony Sirico, Star of ‘The Sopranos’ Dead at 79

 

Actor’s portrayal of Paulie Walnuts — a no-nonsense mobster with distinctive wingtips and a wry sense of humor — made him a beloved figure to fans of the groundbreaking TV series

 

“It is with great sadness, but with incredible pride, love and a whole lot of fond memories, that the family of Gennaro Anthony “Tony” Sirico Jr. wish to inform you of his death on the morning of July 8, 2022,” a post from Sirico’s brother, Robert Sirico, on Facebook read. A Warner Bros. spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the post to Rolling Stone. “The family is deeply grateful for the many expressions of love, prayer and condolences and requests that the public respect its privacy in this time of bereavement.”

“We found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony,” Sopranos co-star Michael Imperioli wrote in a post on social media. “He was beloved and will never be forgotten.”

 

 

Born July 29, 1942, Sirico grew up on the mean streets of Brooklyn and was a self-described “a rough-and-tumble kid,” he told Rolling Stone in a 2001 cover story. A devotee of James Cagney movies, the young Sirico found himself drawn to the gangsters he’d see in his neighborhood. “They’re all dressed, slicked back, they got cars, they got girls, very enticing,” he said. “I got close to making a huge mistake…. I almost got too close to becoming one of those guys I portray.” Noticing Sirico had issues with authority, a friend refused to sponsor him for membership. “The good thing I had going for me not being involved profoundly with wiseguys was that I don’t like anybody telling me what to do.”

Throughout his acting career, however, Sirico found himself playing the very men he admired as a youth. “And do I mind being stereotyped? “Absolutely not,” he told Rolling Stone in 2001. “I’ve paid my rent, I take care of me and Ma.” He found fans in his neighborhood tough guys as well. “They love me for being in this show,” Sirico said of his role in The Sopranos.  “I’m still part of their family in their hearts. They know I’m a stand-up kid, whether I’m a tough guy or not.”

 

More:

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/tony-sirico-obituary-sopranos-1380241/

 

Edited by Cerridwen
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  • DonLever changed the title to In Memoriam, 2022: James Caan (82) (Godfather), Bradford Freeman (97), Tony Sirico (79) (Sopranos), Larry Storch (99) (F-Troop)

Larry Storch, Comedian and F Troop Actor, Dead at 99 (msn.com)

 

arry Storch, the actor known for scheming and stumbling as Corporal Randolph Agarn on the satirical 1960s sitcom F Troop, has died at 99. “It was with the heaviest of hearts that we share with you the news our beloved Larry passed away in his sleep overnight,” his official Facebook page announced in a July 8 post. “We are shocked and at a loss for words at the moment. Please remember he loved each and every one of you and wouldn’t want you to cry over his passing. He is reunited with his wife Norma and his beloved F Troop cast and so many friends and family.”

 

Born in New York City, Laurence Samuel Storch was a natural comedian — per the Associated Press, he once proudly recalled that he developed a reputation as the class clown at the Bronx’s DeWitt Clinton High School and “was invited not to come back.” Storch served in the Navy during World War II, but later gained fame for his association with a different branch of the military: the Army. On F Troop, Storch played Cpl. Agarn, as well as numerous lookalike relatives that came to visit the show’s fictional Army outpost.

During his decades-long career, Storch took on voiceover work for various cartoons, including Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales and Looney Tunes’ Cool Cat. He also starred in Broadway revivals of Porgy and Bess and Annie Get Your Gun, as well as dozens of other movies, TV shows, and — toward the end of his life — even TikToks. Yet despite this extensive body of work, he was still probably best known for F Troop’s two-season run on ABC. Storch’s manager, Matt Beckoff, told the AP that the veteran entertainer never regretted that reputation. “He embraced it,” Beckoff said. “He loved being Agarn.”

 

ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

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Strangely I don't think I ever saw an episode of F troop.

250 acting credits, many of which I must have seen him.

He had a great run at life.

condolences to his family.

 

 

“We are shocked and at a loss for words at the moment."

He was 99- in my view it should not be shocking.

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  • DonLever changed the title to In Memoriam, 2022: James Caan (82), Bradford Freeman (97), Tony Sirico (79) (Sopranos), Larry Storch (99) (F-Troop), L. Q. Jones (94) (Wild Bunch)

L.Q. Jones, Veteran Character Actor in Sam Peckinpah Films, Dies at 94 (msn.com)

 

L.Q. Jones

L.Q. Jones, a veteran character actor best known for starring in Sam Peckinpah films and whose career spanned seven decades has died, the actor's grandson Erté deGarces confirmed to Variety. Jones died in his Hollywood Hills home on Saturday surrounded by family. He was 94.

Jones is best known to modern audiences for roles in Martin Scorsese's "Casino (1995)," "The Edge (1997)," "The Mask of Zorro (1998)" and Robert Altman's last film "A Prairie Home Companion (2006)."

Justice Ellis McQueen was born on Aug. 19, 1927, in Beaumont Texas. After serving in the Navy, he went to study law at the University of Texas at Austin.

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  • DonLever changed the title to In Memoriam, 2022: James Caan (82), Bradford Freeman (97), Tony Sirico (79), Larry Storch (99), L. Q. Jones (94), Ivana Trump (73)
23 hours ago, thedestroyerofworlds said:

In the clubs section.  Number of regulars who posted in Off-topic created a private club where political discussions can take place.  Mod approved.  I think you may have been given an invite.  

What's the name of the club?  And where would this invite be (assuming there is one)?   Thanks.

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On 7/9/2022 at 1:32 PM, gurn said:

Strangely I don't think I ever saw an episode of F troop.

250 acting credits, many of which I must have seen him.

He had a great run at life.

condolences to his family.

 

 

“We are shocked and at a loss for words at the moment."

He was 99- in my view it should not be shocking.

Decades before the Ghostbusters movie that we all saw & loved was THIS Saturday morning show staring him:

 

 

I wonder if there were any lawsuits?

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‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Law & Order’ actor Paul Sorvino dies at 83

 

paulsorvino-thecooler-1.jpg

 

Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerretta on “Law & Order,” has died. He was 83.

 

His publicist Roger Neal said he died Monday morning in Indiana of natural causes. Sorvino had dealt with health issues over the past few years.

 

“Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage,” his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino, said in a statement. She was by his side when he died.

 

In his over 50 years in the entertainment business, Sorvino was a mainstay in films and television, playing an Italian American communist in Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” and mob boss Eddie Valentine in “The Rocketeer.” He would often say that while he might be best known for playing gangsters, his real passions were poetry, painting and opera.

 

Born in Brooklyn in 1939 to a mother who taught piano and father who was a foreman in a robe factory, Sorvino was musically inclined from a young age and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York where he fell for the theater. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in “Bajour” and his film debut in Carl Reiner’s “Where’s Poppa?” in 1970.

 

With his 6-foot-4-inch stature, Sorvino made an impactful presence no matter the medium. In the 1970s, he acted alongside Al Pacino in “The Panic in Needle Park” and with James Caan in “The Gambler,” reteamed with Reiner in “Oh, God!” and was among the ensemble in William Friedkin’s bank robbery comedy “The Brink’s Job.” In John G.

 

Avildsen’s “Rocky” follow-up “Slow Dancing in the Big City,” Sorvino got to play a romantic lead and use his dance training opposite professional ballerina Anne Ditchburn.

He was especially prolific in the 1990s, kicking off the decade playing Lips in Beatty’s “Dick Tracy” and Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” who was based on the real-life mobster Paul Vario, and 31 episodes on Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order.” He followed those with roles in “The Rocketeer,” “The Firm,” "Nixon,” which got him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” as Juliet’s father, Fulgencio Capulet. Beatty would turn to Sorvino often, enlisting him again for his political satire “Bulworth,” which came out in 1998, and his 2016 Hollywood love letter “Rules Don’t Apply.” He also appeared in James Gray’s “The Immigrant.”

 

Sorvino had three children from his first marriage, including Academy Award-winning actor Mira Sorvino. He also directed and starred in a film written by his daughter Amanda Sorvino and featuring his son Michael Sorvino.

 

When he learned that Mira Sorvino had been among the women allegedly sexually harassed and blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein in the midst of the #MeToo reckoning, he told TMZ that if he had known, Weinstein, “Would not be walking. He’d be in a wheelchair.”

 

He was proud of his daughter and cried when she won the best supporting actress Oscar for “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1996. He the Los Angeles Times that night that he didn’t have the words to express how he felt.

 

“They don’t exist in any language that I’ve ever heard — well, maybe Italian,” he said.

 

But he wanted to be seen for more than what he was on screen and took particular pride in his singing. In 1996, “Paul Sorvino: An Evening of Song” was broadcast on television as a part of a PBS fundraising campaign. Songs performed included “Torna A Sorriento,” “Guaglione,” “O Sole Mio,” “The Impossible Dream” and “Mama.”

 

“I’m a pop singer in the sense Mario Lanza was,” Sorvino said in an interview the Tampa Tribune. “It astonishes me that no American male singer sings with a full voice anymore. Where have all the tenors gone?”

 

The weight of his voice, he thought, made it difficult to train.

 

“It’s like trying to park a bus in a VW parking space,” he said.

 

He also ran a horse rescue in Pennsylvania, had a grocery store pasta sauce line based on his mother’s recipe, and sculpted a bronze statue of the late playwright Jason Miller that resides in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Sorvino had starred in Miller’s Tony and Pulitzer-winning play “That Championship Season” on Broadway in 1972 and its film adaptation.

 

In 2014, he married political pundit Dee Dee Benkie and said that a goal of his later life was to “disabuse people of the notion that I’m a slow-moving, heavy-lidded thug.”

As with most who starred in “Goodfellas,” the image would follow him for the rest of his life which he had complex feelings about.

 

’Most people think I’m either a gangster or a cop or something,” he said. “The reality is I’m a sculptor, a painter, a best-selling author, many, many things — a poet, an opera singer, but none of them is gangster.... It would be nice to have my legacy more than that of just tough guy.”

Edited by nuckin_futz
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8 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Law & Order’ actor Paul Sorvino dies at 83

 

paulsorvino-thecooler-1.jpg

 

Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerretta on “Law & Order,” has died. He was 83.

 

His publicist Roger Neal said he died Monday morning in Indiana of natural causes. Sorvino had dealt with health issues over the past few years.

 

“Our hearts are broken, there will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage,” his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino, said in a statement. She was by his side when he died.

 

In his over 50 years in the entertainment business, Sorvino was a mainstay in films and television, playing an Italian American communist in Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” and mob boss Eddie Valentine in “The Rocketeer.” He would often say that while he might be best known for playing gangsters, his real passions were poetry, painting and opera.

 

Born in Brooklyn in 1939 to a mother who taught piano and father who was a foreman in a robe factory, Sorvino was musically inclined from a young age and attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York where he fell for the theater. He made his Broadway debut in 1964 in “Bajour” and his film debut in Carl Reiner’s “Where’s Poppa?” in 1970.

 

With his 6-foot-4-inch stature, Sorvino made an impactful presence no matter the medium. In the 1970s, he acted alongside Al Pacino in “The Panic in Needle Park” and with James Caan in “The Gambler,” reteamed with Reiner in “Oh, God!” and was among the ensemble in William Friedkin’s bank robbery comedy “The Brink’s Job.” In John G.

 

Avildsen’s “Rocky” follow-up “Slow Dancing in the Big City,” Sorvino got to play a romantic lead and use his dance training opposite professional ballerina Anne Ditchburn.

He was especially prolific in the 1990s, kicking off the decade playing Lips in Beatty’s “Dick Tracy” and Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” who was based on the real-life mobster Paul Vario, and 31 episodes on Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order.” He followed those with roles in “The Rocketeer,” “The Firm,” "Nixon,” which got him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” as Juliet’s father, Fulgencio Capulet. Beatty would turn to Sorvino often, enlisting him again for his political satire “Bulworth,” which came out in 1998, and his 2016 Hollywood love letter “Rules Don’t Apply.” He also appeared in James Gray’s “The Immigrant.”

 

Sorvino had three children from his first marriage, including Academy Award-winning actor Mira Sorvino. He also directed and starred in a film written by his daughter Amanda Sorvino and featuring his son Michael Sorvino.

 

When he learned that Mira Sorvino had been among the women allegedly sexually harassed and blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein in the midst of the #MeToo reckoning, he told TMZ that if he had known, Weinstein, “Would not be walking. He’d be in a wheelchair.”

 

He was proud of his daughter and cried when she won the best supporting actress Oscar for “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1996. He the Los Angeles Times that night that he didn’t have the words to express how he felt.

 

“They don’t exist in any language that I’ve ever heard — well, maybe Italian,” he said.

 

But he wanted to be seen for more than what he was on screen and took particular pride in his singing. In 1996, “Paul Sorvino: An Evening of Song” was broadcast on television as a part of a PBS fundraising campaign. Songs performed included “Torna A Sorriento,” “Guaglione,” “O Sole Mio,” “The Impossible Dream” and “Mama.”

 

“I’m a pop singer in the sense Mario Lanza was,” Sorvino said in an interview the Tampa Tribune. “It astonishes me that no American male singer sings with a full voice anymore. Where have all the tenors gone?”

 

The weight of his voice, he thought, made it difficult to train.

 

“It’s like trying to park a bus in a VW parking space,” he said.

 

He also ran a horse rescue in Pennsylvania, had a grocery store pasta sauce line based on his mother’s recipe, and sculpted a bronze statue of the late playwright Jason Miller that resides in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Sorvino had starred in Miller’s Tony and Pulitzer-winning play “That Championship Season” on Broadway in 1972 and its film adaptation.

 

In 2014, he married political pundit Dee Dee Benkie and said that a goal of his later life was to “disabuse people of the notion that I’m a slow-moving, heavy-lidded thug.”

As with most who starred in “Goodfellas,” the image would follow him for the rest of his life which he had complex feelings about.

 

’Most people think I’m either a gangster or a cop or something,” he said. “The reality is I’m a sculptor, a painter, a best-selling author, many, many things — a poet, an opera singer, but none of them is gangster.... It would be nice to have my legacy more than that of just tough guy.”

Rough year for movie gangsters

 

"Now I gotta turn my back on you"

 

RIP Paulie.........the real Paulie I might add

 

 

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Veteran British actor David Warner, star of The Omen and Tron, dies aged 80

The stage and screen veteran’s multifaceted career included roles in Titanic, Time Bandits and Straw Dogs, as well as a renowned Hamlet for the RSC

2065.jpg

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  • DonLever changed the title to In Memoriam, 2022: Ivana Trump (73), Paul Sorvino (83), David Warner (80)

Tony Dow, Who Played Wally Cleaver on ‘Leave It to Beaver,’ Dies at 77

1414a2a647d31957ce67a9aa11d24001

 

Tony Dow, the actor and director best known for playing the stalwart older brother Wally Cleaver to Jerry Mathers’ Beaver in the iconic series “Leave It to Beaver,” has died. He was 77.

 

His official Facebook page posted that he died Tuesday morning. “It is with an extremely heavy heart that we share with you the passing of our beloved Tony this morning. Tony was a beautiful soul – kind, compassionate, funny and humble,” read the message from his management team.

 

Dow and his wife Lauren announced in May that his cancer, which he had been diagnosed with years before, had returned.

 

Dow was born in Hollywood and his mother was an early stunt woman and double for Clara Bow. He was a Junior Olympics diving champion, but didn’t have much showbiz experience when he tagged along with a friend and ended up auditioning for and winning the role of Wally. “Leave it to Beaver” began airing in 1957 and ran until 1963. The popular black-and-white sitcom, centered around the typical idealized family of the time, followed the adventures of mischievous young Beaver, his practical brother Wally, their devious friend Eddie Haskell, and their long-suffering but understanding parents played by Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont.

 

The show’s writers, Bob Mosher and Joe Connelly, based the characters on their own children, incorporating such details as Wally’s constant hair-combing they observed in their own teenagers. As the show came to an end, Wally was about to start college while Beaver was ready for high school.

 

Dow returned in the 1980s for the TV movie “Still the Beaver” and series “The New Leave It to Beaver,” for which he also directed five episodes and wrote one.

 

He moved into writing, producing and directing while continuing to act, and helmed several episodes of “Harry and the Hendersons,” “Coach,” “Babylon 5,” “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” and an episode of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

 

After “Leave It to Beaver,” Dow appeared on series including “General Hospital,” “Mr. Novak,” “Never Too Young,” “Lassie,” “Love, American Style,” “Square Pegs” and “The Love Boat,” on which he played himself. He also played himself in the 2003 comedy “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star,” which featured cameos of dozens of former young actors, and appeared in the John Landis skit comedy feature “The Kentucky Fried Movie.”

 

Dow battled depression in his 20s, making the self-help video “Beating the Blues” to help others, and later survived two bouts of cancer. He also became a sculptor and started a construction company.

 

He is survived by his wife Lauren and two children.

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  • DonLever changed the title to In Memoriam, 2022: Ivana Trump (73), Paul Sorvino (83), David Warner (80), Tony Dow (77) (But not yet, As he is still Aiive)
12 hours ago, gurn said:

Old timers would remember how rumors of the Beaver (Jerry Mathers) dying in Vietnam war spread.  And this was before the internet/ social media.

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The media- trying to tell me that Tony Dowis actually, really dead now;

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/tv/news/tony-dow-leave-it-to-beaver-star-dies-at-77/ar-AA102qMt?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=e90e47f06b5c4ca7ac0879bbe6b0d6e8

 

Tony Dow, who was best known for playing Wally on "Leave It to Beaver," has died at 77. Confirmation of the actor's death comes after it was prematurely reported by a since-deleted post on his official Facebook.

 

"We have received confirmation from Christopher, Tony's son, that Tony passed away earlier this morning, with his loving family at his side to see him through this journey," a new post on the account reads. "We know that the world is collectively saddened by the loss of this incredible man. He gave so much to us all and was loved by so many. One fan said it best--'It is rare when there is a person who is so universally loved like Tony.'"

Dow was re-diagnosed with liver cancer in May. On Tuesday, the star's official Facebook page erroneously announced his death, which included statements from family members. That post was deleted as his son, Christopher Dow, told Fox News Digital that his father was alive but living out his "last hours" in hospice care, which was later confirmed to CBS News by Dow's wife, Lauren.

Wednesday's announcement continued, "Our heart goes out to Tony's wife, Lauren, who will miss her soulmate of 42 years...To his son, Christopher, who will dearly miss his father, who was also his best friend...to his daughter-in-law, Melissa, who loved him like her own father...To his Granddaughter, Tyla, who will undoubtedly carry on her Grandfather's kind soul, To his Brother Dion and Sister-in-Law, Judy, and to all of his extended family and friends. Words cannot express how much we will all feel his absence, but will cherish the memories he left to each and every one of us."

Christopher's statement added, "Although this is a very sad day, I have comfort and peace that he is in a better place. He was the best Dad anyone could ask for. He was my coach, my mentor, my voice of reason, my best friend, my best man in my wedding, and my hero. My wife said something powerful and shows the kind of man he was. She said: 'Tony was such a kind man. He had such a huge heart and I've never heard Tony say a bad or negative thing about anyone.'"

Aside from portraying Wally Cleaver, the title character's (Jerry Mathers) older and reliable brother, from 1957 to 1963, Dow appeared in many other TV series, including "Adam-12," "My Three Sons," "Mod Squad," "Emergency!," "The Love Boat," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Knight Rider." He later reprised his iconic sitcom role for 1983's TV reunion movie "Still the Beaver" and the Disney Channel's 1980s sequel series, "The New Leave It to Beaver," for which he wrote a 1986 episode. Dow also played the role in a crossover episode for "The Love Boat." Additionally, he portrayed a version of Wally in the 1977 sketch comedy film "The Kentucky Fried Movie."

Three years later, he made his directorial debut with an episode of "The New Lassie," a revival of another 1950s favorite that aired in syndication. He went on to helm episodes of "Get a Life," "Harry and the Hendersons," "Coach," "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Babylon 5." He also served as the visual effects supervisor for "Babylon 5."

Dow was born to mother Muriel Montrose, a stunt woman in early Westerns and who served as Clara Bow's double, on April 13, 1945 in Hollywood. Prior to show business, he joined the U.S. Army National Guard in 1965 and was a junior Olympics diving champion. Outside of the industry, Dow was a modern-art sculptor, and one of his bronze statues ended up in an annual exhibition at the Louvre in Paris.

The family asks for privacy in their time of mourning.

 

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On 7/10/2022 at 1:01 AM, DonLever said:

L.Q. Jones, Veteran Character Actor in Sam Peckinpah Films, Dies at 94 (msn.com)

 

L.Q. Jones

L.Q. Jones, a veteran character actor best known for starring in Sam Peckinpah films and whose career spanned seven decades has died, the actor's grandson Erté deGarces confirmed to Variety. Jones died in his Hollywood Hills home on Saturday surrounded by family. He was 94.

Jones is best known to modern audiences for roles in Martin Scorsese's "Casino (1995)," "The Edge (1997)," "The Mask of Zorro (1998)" and Robert Altman's last film "A Prairie Home Companion (2006)."

Justice Ellis McQueen was born on Aug. 19, 1927, in Beaumont Texas. After serving in the Navy, he went to study law at the University of Texas at Austin.

RIP Six Fingered Jack. 

(Mask of Zorro)

"Peckerwood?"

 

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On 7/25/2022 at 2:31 PM, thedestroyerofworlds said:

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Veteran British actor David Warner, star of The Omen and Tron, dies aged 80

The stage and screen veteran’s multifaceted career included roles in Titanic, Time Bandits and Straw Dogs, as well as a renowned Hamlet for the RSC

2065.jpg

Outside of Patrick Stewart I can't think of a better actor in the Star Trek Movies or TV. He was so creepy and menacing as the Cardassian that tortures Picard. 

 

 

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