I’m actually NOT Bubbadog. It’s a part I play on the SDMB. When I croak you’d better not quote any of this stuff.
The grocer from Tenafly died??? NOOOOOO!!!
Fuck you, 2016!
O.K., but that guy was an asshole.
I don’t really have a lot of support for the OP, but I do think it’s a bit creepy all the people I’ve seen celebrating his reunion with his wife of five years while feeling no condolence for his now widowed wife of twenty-five years.
Like it’s a warm fuzzy feeling to imagine that, when Karen eventually dies, she’ll enter the afterlife to find Gene and Gilda sharing a booth together as Gene tells her “Oh, I think there’s an open seat at the bar. Y’know, mingle!”
spits coffee
The perfect way to sum up this thread!
No, no you don’t, as evidenced by the hissy fit that is this pit thread.
Oh, didn’t you know that since Fox News once funded a pro-tobacco study, every single show that Fox studios and Fox Sports produce endorse smoking? It’s true.
This I agree with.
No one knows what the private lives of celebrities are. Maybe Gilda was starting to resent Gene, and now that she’s died, her and Belushi hooked up, and are snorting consequence-free coke off an angel’s wings. Maybe Gene will just have to wait for Karen, but she’ll have remarried that nice accountant from Glendale and no longer want to spend eternity with Gene.
Or, you know, maybe there’s no afterlife, and they’re all just dead and we’re all alone in a cold universe.
I know, right? I was so close to picking that grocer for my deathpool list but I didn’t do it.
I understand the irritation. Gene was in heaven a half an hour before Debillw3 knew he was dead.
This part seems to be contradictory. It is precisely HIS performance of THAT character that makes it memorable.
Either way, as many others have said, I agree that I see it as a way of honoring an actor that he should be remembered for one or more of his iconic roles. If it wasn’t precisely that he brought something special to that performance, it wouldn’t be iconic, it wouldn’t be memorable, and many actors struggle to have even one iconic role, much less many. I’m not an actor, but if I were, I’d consider it a success to have such an iconic role that impacted people so much.
Beyond that, also as others pointed out, we don’t know these people. Yes, in a general sense, I’m always saddened at the loss of life, but at that, I and society as a whole ought to mourn the deaths of everyone equally, but we don’t. I CAN’T meaningfully mourn him because I don’t KNOW him. I, and society, are mourning what he contributed to society, and the greater that contribution or the more it touched us personally, the more we mourn. This is why actors like Gene Wilder or Alan Rickman or especially Robin Williams were so heart breaking; other actors, not so much.
And this isn’t limited to actors either. For instance, think about the death of Prince or David Bowie or Lemmy Kilmster in the last year. Surely, at least one of those deaths touched most people. I never met any of them, I don’t know them personally, of COURSE they’re more than their music, but I still mourned them. Hell, Lemmy hit me the hardest of those three, and he was “that guy from Motorhead” to most people because they didn’t know his name. His music WAS his life, it was his contribution, and I’m certain he’d be proud to be remembered as such. And this holds true for non-artistic types too like politicians, scientists, athletes, explorers.
In fact, I see it as the polar opposite to the OP. A person is remembered for who they are. To their family, they’re a son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, brother or sister, a friend. To the rest of society, they aren’t that, they’re great thinkers or leaders or creators or just doers. To their friends and family they ARE remembered as the rich human being they likely were, and their job was just some small aspect of that. To everyone else, they ARE their job, and their personal story is just something that helps inform that for us. Really, isn’t that what legacy is? Being remembered for something you’ve done rather than just being who you are.
Yes and no. The stories about him I heard discussed his roles, but also Gilda Radner. Media needs pictures and quotes, and he might not have left many in comparison to his roles. So I don’t blame them.
But people who confuse actors and their roles do bother me. Movie reviewers always say “the Gene Wilder character” in discussing what Willy Wonka does, not “Gene Wilder.” But civilians sometimes screw it up. Not this time, though.
“Nice grouping!”
Hey, it’s not my fault that I blew “Actors and their roles for $200” on Jeopardy. 
Hell, a blew a question involving actors and their roles in Final Jeopardy, so I feel for you. We both did - it was a crap question. (Or answer.)
Perfect!
What was the answer, loser? 
That would be “What was the question, loser?”
Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?