# Babylon 5 actor Mira Furlan becomes star stuff **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** celebrity-death\ **Created:** [January 22, 2021, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233 "2021-01-22T19:16:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/21 "2021-01-23T20:39:23Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > And that doesn’t include Michael O’Hare. Yes, he is listed below because he was not in the cast picture. Sachs was prominent on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well. His death was, kind of like Biggs, a huge shock. Biggs and the man who portrayed his character’s father(Paul Winfield) died two months apart. Biggs was the first B5 actor to die and one of the healthiest looking. A total shock. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/22 "2021-01-23T20:48:07Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/DtNtw2HTFtA/maxresdefault.jpg "Babylon 5 you are in front of me 1080P") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtNtw2HTFtA) ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/23 "2021-01-23T21:13:28Z")
A great clip from her. She was essential to the show. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/24 "2021-01-23T21:43:54Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > > [@E-DUB](#): > > > > And that doesn’t include Michael O’Hare. > > Yes, he is listed below because he was not in the cast picture. > > Sachs was prominent on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well. His death was, kind of like Biggs, a huge shock. Biggs and the man who portrayed his character’s father(Paul Winfield) died two months apart. > > Biggs was the first B5 actor to die and one of the healthiest looking. A total shock. Biggs was a shock. Died from an aortic dissection like John Ritter. I didn’t realize Sachs played the bad guy in Galaxy Quest. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2021, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/25 "2021-01-23T21:55:56Z")
By the way, I like the “starstuff” quote. Ms. Furlan apparently attributed it to Straczynski, but he was paraphrasing Carl Sagan. ---
**Author:** ![Moris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moris/32/2846_2.png) [@Moris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moris)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2021, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/26 "2021-01-24T03:03:19Z")
Mira Furlan was somewhat of a Yugoslavian diva. Croatia today is in a weird, bipolar state of mourning and repentance. Public opinion treated her very harshly in the war years - simply because she stood her ground. [Her letter](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=hr&tl=en&u=https://slobodnadalmacija.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/pismo-mire-furlan-hrvatskoj-iz-1991-hvala-sugradanima-koji-su-se-pridruzili-hajci-na-mene-hajci-koja-ce-promijeniti-i-oznaciti-cijeli-moj-zivot-1072592) from 1991 is worthy of Google translator. May you finally rest in peace, Mira. ---
**Author:** ![wrecche](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wrecche/32/5775_2.png) [@wrecche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wrecche)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2021, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/27 "2021-01-24T07:34:09Z")
Oh wow, I’d not heard about this… Very sad news. Luckily B5 is available on a streaming service I use, and as I only vaguely remember it when it was on, I think I have my sunday afternoon sorted… ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/28 "2021-01-24T19:49:49Z")
That episode came up last night and damned if it’s not just as powerful now as it was when I first watched the show. I think a good argument could be made that JMS ushered in the era of premium tv, _Babylon5_ was way ahead of its time. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2021, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/29 "2021-01-24T20:57:51Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > …I think a good argument could be made that JMS ushered in the era of premium tv, _Babylon5_ was way ahead of its time. There was a real uptick in TV quality around here and I think what Babylon 5 tried to establish is that people will be onboard for a story that continues week to week for an entire multi-season show. It had its bumps along the way(O’Hare left, show was canceled after S4, etc.), but they managed to course correct and tell a TV-novel type story. It worked and I think it contributed to more shows like that in the future, some that worked and some that did not. X-files was another huge contributor to the improvement of TV. It failed gloriously in its story(unlike B5), but it upped the quality of episodes so that they felt like mini-movies every week. And if one show was ahead of them both, it was Twin Peaks, which felt like a movie and told a story(until they revealed Palmer’s killer way too early). ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2021, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/30 "2021-01-24T21:19:20Z")
JMS had the devil of a time getting a network to accept the idea of a show that had its end point already plotted out before it even started, and that also had a definite story arc rather than being endlessly a series of standalone episodes where everything reset at the end of the hour. He also had a devil of a time getting the network to commit to letting him finish the story and a couple times had to quick like a bunny figure out how to compress the ending in case of cancellation. It is one of the great miracles of our modern age that B5 was actually allowed to finish out as it was meant to. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2021, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/31 "2021-01-26T23:09:07Z")
“Faith manages”. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/32 "2021-02-02T19:17:35Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > By the way, I like the “starstuff” quote. Ms. Furlan apparently attributed it to Straczynski, but he was paraphrasing Carl Sagan. I watched the show when it came out and I thought it was clear that it came from Sagan. Cosmos didn’t feel like it was that long before. I also felt at the time it was a clumsy use of Sagan’s words. It felt right coming from him. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/33 "2021-02-02T19:46:42Z")
My girlfriend (who’s never seen the show before) and I just finished watching the two-part War Without End episode, one of the pivotal episodes of the series. After it ended, she sat there stunned, and continued to repeat “wow” for a good hour afterwards. I think that show is really in a different league than anything that had ever been done on TV before. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2021, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/34 "2021-02-02T23:40:40Z")
…I’ll never forget my reaction to **Severed Dreams**. (Open Spoilers.) You get so used to the “reset button” on TV. Things get bad, but by the end of the episode things are pretty much back to where things were. But **Severed Dreams** blew up the reset button. It took us to the point of no return. (The title of the previous episode kinda said it all) You don’t expect the battle to happen. You expect the Earth Force Captain to recognize that the orders were illegal. But then the shooting starts. I don’t remember blinking during the entire battle. I remember the battle was so long that it spanned a couple of commercial breaks. And I remember going “how are they going to get out of this?” Enter Delenn. “Be Somewhere Else.” One of my most cherished television memories. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/35 "2021-02-03T00:19:59Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …I’ll never forget my reaction to **Severed Dreams**. (Open Spoilers.) You get so used to the “reset button” on TV. Things get bad, but by the end of the episode things are pretty much back to where things were. When B5 started, I saw the pilot, didn’t like it, and didn’t watch the first two seasons. A friend talked me into giving it another chance in season three. When the intro narration started, I remembered the kinda cheesy rhapsodizing from the pilot. “Last, best hope,” “shining beacon in the dark,” etc. etc. And then the narrator said, “It failed,” and shit started blowing up. Pretty much hooked me right there. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233/36 "2021-02-07T21:35:23Z")
No mention of her role on Lost? Danielle Rousseau? She was one of my favorites. Wild woman toting that rifle as big as she was into the early morning camp, gave me a chill! She was a fascinating character and was killed off on the show as casually as a fly. Gone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/babylon-5-actor-mira-furlan-becomes-star-stuff/931233.md?page=1)