The star of that movie, Sandy Dennis, died much too young as well, at 54. What a great talent she was. She and Jack Lemmon just nailed it in The Out of Towners (one of the funniest movies ever made) and her performance in *Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? *was riveting. She was the Queen of Quirk.
How true, how true. I should have mentioned her as well.
That dude was hot! I was really sorry when I heard he’d died.
I had to look this up because I knew the song was on his album in 1994. I did not realize it was only officially released as a single in 2007 and enjoyed a resurgence after being performed by other singers on American Idol and elsewhere in 2007-2008. Buckley’s version made Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Songs of All Time” in 2004. So there was some acclaim for it prior to that commercial single release, but I think it’s cool it reached a wider audience later. His single “Last Goodbye” did well on modern rock/alternative radio and he received good press during his lifetime, but around the 10th anniversary of his death appreciation for his music reached new levels.
Tim Buckley (Jeff’s father), also a musician, died at 28 of a drug overdose. So Jeff outlived his dad by about two years. Sigh…
He was also the great love of Meryl Streep’s life. She cared for him as he was dying and took acting jobs to pay the incredible medical bills.
Cazale was going to be fired from the Deer Hunter due to his cancer but Streep said if he is fired then she would quit the movie so he stayed on.
Cartooniverse writes:
> He was also the great love of Meryl Streep’s life. . .
Um, maybe this is to exaggerate slightly. Six months after he died, she married Donald Gummer, who she’s been married to for over forty years. I sure hope she doesn’t have regular conversations with her husband where she says, “You know, don’t you, that John Cazale was the great love of my life.”
Well, omitting the ‘great talent’ part. . . I recently saw the original 1936 “Flash Gordon” serial, and looked up Priscilla Lawson, a bona find knockout who played Princess Aura. Looks like she drank herself to death by the age of 44. She didn’t have any noteworthy ‘career,’ and she was definitely not an ‘actress’.
Myrna Fahey was in the 1960s “Batman” series as the villain’s brazen moll — or, as Adam West would say, The Poor Deluded Girl — who, after kayoing Robin and trying to steal the Batmobile and succeeding at jewel-heist hijinks, sees the error of her ways in time to betray False Face and become a law-abiding citizen.
She was memorable and over-the-top, even given the candy-colored excess of that show; but IMDB says she only had a handful of roles following it. Wiki explains that, shortly after her last role, she died “after a long battle with cancer.”
In ten years heath ledger will have this happen as all the people who were too young to remember his death discover his movies.
Watched some stupid show on MTV with some young woman. I thought, “Who is this, and why is she famous?”. A quick search, and I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.
She hung herself a couple years ago.
Stevie Ryan. 33.
I caught a little bit of Billion Dollar Brain on TV today, it’s the third of the Michael Caine/“Harry Palmer” spy thrillers made in the '60s. I checked the Wikipedia entry and found out it was the last role for the female lead, Françoise Dorléac. She was 25, killed in a car accident before the film was released.
In terms of unexpected deaths:
I was watching the “Hands to Heaven” video from the music group Breathe the other day. I didn’t know the drummer (a really hot drummer) died in a car crash in the 90s. By that time, not much announcement since their heyday was over.
Thuy Trang who played the yellow Power Ranger. She died in a car crash after the series was over. Incidentally, involved in the car crash was Dustin Nguyen (from 21 Jump Street)'s wife who became a paraplegic. They had been married for years after the accident and then divorced without children. Dustin then remarried and had children. That wife was on a reality show about handicapped and fabulous women I think on E channel?
I finally got around to re-watching The Last of Sheila last night. (Which might deserve its own thread.) I recognized most of the main cast, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen Lee before. I looked her up on IMDb and discovered that the actress, Joan Hackett, died in 1983. She was 49.
Ernie Kovacs was a pioneer of television comedy. I only found out he existed in the early to mid 1990s when Comedy Central began airing his various shows under the title The Ernie Kovacs show. His comedy was often absurd and surreal which I’m a big fan of. He died in 1962 at the age of 42 in an automobile accident.
You know, I don’t understand while I am surprised at the 42 since I’ve seen that before. He just always seemed so much older than that.
It happens to me more with music. I discovered Katzenjammer three months after Marianne Sveen left the band, and only really started getting into Warren Zevon in 2005. Of course, most of my favorite music predates my birth, so it’s kind of the default for me.
As for actors, Thelma Todd tops my list. She’s up there with Edgar Kennedy and Margaret Dumont as one of the few supporting actors who really added something to a Marx Brothers movie, and it would have been nice to see more of her.
“It’s a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years” - Tom Lerher, then age 38.
At the age of 62, I have just discovered the gloriousness of Small Faces and Humble Pie. I’m gutted that Steve Marriott died many years ago.