Deaths in 2011

[cornershop15]

Thanks, ShirlGirl, and Hello, Philly. Did you notice, from all the posts so far, that as well as Dobie, we also lost Dulcie and Dorian Gray?

Dorian, as she appeared in Toto, Peppino, and the Hussy (1956):

R.I.P.

[Gerald Lovell]

I am indeed sad to learn of Terry Plummer's death. For such a big man, he always seemed to move so gracefully in his stunts. smudge, I know what you mean about Terry's resemblance to Rocky Taylor - Rocky has more dramatic eyebrows though and I'm pleased to say he's still with us. I was gratified to see him listed as a stuntman on the last Harry Potter film and one of my friends interviewed him recently for BBC Radio Scotland as Rocky's as active as ever.

[didi-5]

Maria Mangini! I didn't know she was also called Dorian Gray. She always reminded me of Gloria Grahame, especially in Nights of Cabiria. How sad that she should end her life a suicide.

[torinfan]

Ack Edson Stroll died? I must have missed that in the news. He certainly was very handsome in TZ's "Eye of the Beholder."

RIP Mr Stroll

[A Pemberton]

Cornershop,keeping well I hope ? ,as ever, a noble endeavour to the forum,keep up the good work

A small note on Pete Posthlewaite,very much missed by me, brilliant character actor a few years into stardom after years of largely unnoticed sterling work,and what a face for film,here he is in one of my favourites,Brassed Off

[cornershop15]

Thanks, Arfur. I mostly remember him as Thora Hird's son in the moving drama (but cruelly titled) Lost for Words, where he cared for her after a series of strokes. Hope you got my Christmas gift, by the way - the same as the other Arfur's!

Ack Edson Stroll died? I must have missed that in the news. He certainly was very handsome in TZ's "Eye of the Beholder."

RIP Mr Stroll

Don't forget the recently-late Patricia Breslin, torinfan. I know her best as Laura Brooks in Peyton Place but she was also a guest in The Twilight Zone, as William Shatner's wife in the episode Nick of Time. The one where he's obsessed with a fortune-telling machine:

Worried about him now

I will return in a few minutes with my next post (nearing completion in another window), which has already taken longer than the whole of Gillette Soccer Saturday! Might need the 'Do Not Disturb' sign for the rest of today as I'm determined to make a few other contributions to end the year.

Sorry to report that we've also lost Kaye Stevens in the last few days

[cornershop15]

Addenda
Before I start on the next category, I MUST add a few more names to the list of Directors and Producers who died this year ...

13th February - Paul Marcus, 55 (Maigret, Prime Suspect); 23rd March - Richard Leacock, 89 (documentary filmmaker); 12th June - Christopher Neame, 68 (son of Ronald and producer of TV's The Flame Trees of Thika and The Irish R.M.); 14th December - Don Sharp, 80 (TV's Ghost Squad, Psychomania).

Film and TV-related writers

8th January - Del Reisman, 86 (story editor for The Twilight Zone) (also a producer); 21st January - Tony Geiss, 86 (Sesame Street, including songs); 16th April - Sol Saks, 100 (creator of Bewitched); 17th April - Bob Block, 89 (creator of Children's series Pardon My Genie and Rentaghost) and Ken Taylor, 88; 22nd April – Sidney Michaels, 83 (The Night They Raided Minsky's); 23rd April - John Sullivan, 64 (Just Good Friends, Only Fools and Horses); 3rd May - Jeremy Paul*, 71 (prolific scriptwriter who I mostly associate with Upstairs Downstairs);
5th May - Arthur Laurents*, 93 (books for musicals West Side Story and Gypsy + screenplays for other films).

2nd June - Josephine Hart*, 69 (Damage); 1st August - Stan Barstow, 83 (A Kind of Loving, A Raging Calm); 19th August - Jimmy Sangster, 83 (notably Hammer Horror films like A Taste of Fear and The Nanny); 27th August - N.F. Simpson, 92 (One-Way Pendulum, The Dick Emery Show); 27th September - David Croft, 89 (co-creator of Dad's Army, Are You Being Served?); 20th November - Shelagh Delaney , 72
(A Taste of Honey, Charlie Bubbles); 18th December - Václav Havel, 75 (The Garden Party) (also President of the Czech Republic).

John Sullivan, who also created Citizen Smith and Dear John.



David Croft, whose other credits include Hi-De-Hi and 'Allo, 'Allo.

*Notes

Jeremy Paul was the son of character actress Joan Haythorne, who I much enjoyed seeing in And Mother Makes Three earlier this year.

A bit of a surprise to find Arthur Laurents wrote the scripts for films like Rope (Hitchcock) and Caught (Max Ophuls), both of which I remember well. I can't have paid enough attention to the credits. A very distinguished career:

Arthur Laurents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My main memories of Josephine Hart are as presenter of a late night programme called Books By My Bedside, circa 1989-90 (she was replaced by Brough Scott). At the time, she had grey hair, tied back, and was modestly dressed. But just a couple of years later she turned up on TV looking very glamorous, with long dark hair this time, and wearing sexier clothes. It was quite a change. This must be when she was interviewed about the film of her book Damage, starring Jeremy Irons as a politician 'loosely based' on David Owen (so it was said!).

Jimmy Sangster was married to actress Mary Peach, another of my cult favourites, and also a producer and a director (The Horror of Frankenstein, Fear in the Night). Also worth mentioning are a few of his other Sixties classics as a screenwriter: Paranoiac, Hysteria and The Anniversary, his second film with Bette Davis following The Nanny.

[ShirlGirl]

Don't forget the recently-late Patricia Breslin, torinfan. I know her best as Laura Brooks in Peyton Place but she was also a guest in The Twilight Zone, as William Shatner's wife in the episode Nick of Time. The one where he's obsessed with a fortune-telling machine

I didn't know Patricia Breslin died. I remember her best for The People's Choice with Jackie Cooper - a distant childhood memory! I see in the IMDb it was pancreatitis; a cruel way to go at 80, very sad.

[theuofc]

I didn't know Patricia Breslin died. I remember her best for The People's Choice with Jackie Cooper - a distant childhood memory! I see in the IMDb it was pancreatitis; a cruel way to go at 80, very sad.

I didn't either, Shirl. I remember her in The People's Choice too.

Barbara

[cornershop15]

I hope to post the rest of my selections soon but am a bit stressed at the moment, looking for all the information I can find for cult series Lift Off (with Ayshea), for another forum, and having to put up with yet more changes to the house. Now it's the dining room - formerly my mother's sewing room - which is being converted into a salon, would you believe. Only 'piece of cake' posts for now so I'd like to add these two pictures as a reminder of the sort of talent we lost in 2011.

A publicity still of Cliff Robertson, as a young JFK, in PT 109 (1963):

I still haven't seen that one, or even his Oscar-winning performance as Charley, but look forward to watching Cliff's guest appearances in The Twilight Zone some time this year. The fight with William Holden in Picnic and a compelling scene with Robert Redford at the end of Three Days of the Condor are what come to mind when I think of this underrated actor.

And how can we forget Elizabeth Taylor? At her most beautiful here:

Dated 1951 - the year she starred in A Place in the Sun.

I thought she and Richard Burton were brilliant in Who's Afraid in Virginia Woolf?. A few years later, Elizabeth played a similarly over-the-top character in X, Y and Zee (also known as Zee and Co.), with Michael Caine as her exasperated husband this time. I always liked her character's foul-mouthed version of Clark Gable's line in Gone with the Wind - "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a s***!".

Co-starring Susannah York, who also died last year (first anniversary in two days' time). Incredible to think these two legends are no longer with us. Elizabeth Taylor was probably the most famous woman in the world when I was a child - before Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and before Lady Diana joined the Royal Family - and yet her death was soon forgotten. In this country anyway. Reunited with Richard, I hope.

[cornershop15]

'We say goodbye to those who died in 2011' (Sunday Express, 18th December 2011)

This is a really excellent selection. I'm especially 'pleased', if that's the word (certainly relieved), to see the likes of Anne Francis, Jet Harris and Jimmy Sangster acknowledged. Nevertheless, I think the lists I've compiled are more definitive as there are more than a few notables who've unfortunately been omitted.

Among those missing for January are Jill Haworth, Margaret Whiting (the singer, not Colin Blakely's actress wife) and even Susannah York.
I can't believe that. Such memorable actors as T.P. McKenna and Michael Gough also failed to make it here. Still a good tribute, however: