In Memoriam 2021 Tribute: Movies & TV

As 2021 comes to a close, we here at JoBlo.com would like to take a moment to pay tribute to some the people who sadly passed away this year. Our deepest respect goes out to everyone in the industry we have lost, and our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of those who died in 2021. These talented individuals will always be remembered for their impact on the world of film and television.

In Memory Of…

Barbara Shelley

Barbara Shelley was an icon of British horror and appeared in a great number of Hammer Horror movies, so many that she was dubbed “Queen of Hammer.” After starting out as a model, Shelley made her first appearance in a Hammer movie with Mantrap and soon went on to be featured in movies such as Cat Girl, The Camp on Blood Island, Blood of the Vampire, The Solitary Child, Deadly Record, Village of the Damned, The Shadow of the Cat, Postman’s Knock, Death Trap, The Gordon, The Secret of Blood Island, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Rasputin: The Mad Monk, Quatermass and the Pit, and more. “When I first started doing Hammer, all the so-called classic actors looked down on the horror film,” Shelley recalled. “There is a great thrill for me in having done Hammer and being known. All the other things I did, nobody remembers those. But the horror films, I’m very grateful to them because they built me a fan base, and I’m very touched that people will come and ask for my autograph.” She also popped up in TV shows like Danger Man, Suspense, The Third Man, Rupert of Hentzau, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, The Troubleshooters, People Like Us, Prince Regent, Blake’s 7, The Borgias, Doctor Who, and EastEnders. Barbara Shelley died on January 3rd at the age of 88 after contracting COVID-19.

Tanya Roberts

At just fifteen years old, Tanya Roberts dropped out of high school, got married, and hitch-hiked across the United States until her mother tracked her down and had the marriage annulled. She eventually returned to New York and pursued a career as a fashion model and later studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen. Roberts’ first big break arrived when she was chosen from thousands of candidates to replace Shelley Hack in the fifth season of Charlie’s Angels. Roberts played Julie Rogers, a streetwise fighter from New York and it was hoped that she would be able to save the series from cancellation. Unfortunately, the ratings didn’t rise as producers had hoped and the series was cancelled. While speaking with People, Roberts said that while she was devastated by the news, the other Angels were thrilled. “I was bushy-tailed and they were tired of it,” Roberts said. “I’ll never forget Jaclyn Smith screaming with laughter the day we were cancelled. I was crying. Before, I had every magazine cover, then suddenly I was off TV.” In addition to Charlie’s Angels, Tanya Roberts also appeared in TV shows such as Vega$, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Hot Line, The Blues Brothers Animated Series, That ’70s Show, and Barbershop. As for the big-screen side of things, Roberts appeared in movies like The Love Victim, Fingers, Tourist Trap, Racquet, The Beastmaster, Sheena, Body Slam, Night Eyes, Inner Sanctum, and Sins of Desire, but she’s probably best known for playing Bond Girl Stacey Sutton in A View to a Kill, Roger Moore’s final James Bond film. Tanya Roberts died on January 4th at the age of 65 after a urinary tract infection caused sepsis and multi-organ failure.

Gregory Sierra

Gregory Sierra was raised in Spanish Harlem in Manhattan with his large Puerto Rican family, but the neighborhood was rough and Sierra was involved with the gang life as a teenager, all while attending Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception. “I wasn’t going to be a priest!” Sierra once said. “It was hard to study to be a priest during the day and go out and plan gang warfare at night!” His acting career began when he accompanied a friend who was auditioning for an acting class, but the teacher asked Sierra to try some improvisation and was impressed. After touring with the National Shakespeare Company, Sierra moved to L.A. and appeared in movies such as Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Getting Straight, Pocket Money, The Wrath of God, The Thief Who Came to Dinner, Papillon, The Towering Inferno, The Trouble with Spies, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, Hot Shots! Part Deux, Vampires, and The Other Side of the Wind, Orson Welles’ unfinished film that was finally completed in 2018. Sierra was also featured in TV shows such as The Flying Nun, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, Kung Fu, All in the Family, The Waltons, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Columbo, Soap, The Greatest American Hero, Hart to Hart, Hill Street Blues, MacGyver, Murder, She Wrote, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The X-Files, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but he’s best known for playing Julio Fuentes on Sanford and Son as well as Detective Sergeant Chano Amengual on Barney Miller. Gregory Sierra died on January 4th at the age of 83 following a long battle with stomach and liver cancer.

John Richardson

John Richardson didn’t have any dreams of becoming an actor, but after serving in the Merchant Navy, he spotted a notice to appear in a play in his hometown of Worthing, Sussex and soon caught the acting bug. Richardson went on to appear in movies such as A Night to Remember, The 39 Steps, Pirates of Tortuga, The Tough One, One My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who…, John the Bastard, Execution, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Frankenstein ’80, Torso, Eyeball, Four Billion in Four Minutes, War of the Planets, and The Church. He’s probably best known for starring alongside Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. as well as She with Ursula Andress. He reprised his role for The Vengeance of She, the only actor to do so. John Richardson also starred alongside Barbara Steele in Mario Bava’s classic gothic horror Black Sunday. He was also considered for the role of James Bond when Sean Connery first left the franchise after You Only Live Twice, but lost out to George Lazenby. John Richardson died on January 5th at the age of 86 from COVID-19.

Michael Apted

Michael Apted directed films such as The Triple Echo, Agatha, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Continental Divide, Firstborn, Critical Condition, Gorillas in the Mist, Class Action, Thunderheart, Nell, Extreme Measures, The World is Not Enough, Enigma, Enough, Amazing Grace, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and more. Apted is also known for directing the Up series of documentary films that follow a group of young children throughout the decades. Paul Almond directed the initial installment, but Apted served as a researcher and was involved with finding the original children. “The series was an attempt to do a long view of English society,” Apted told Slate Magazine in a 2019 interview. “The class system needed a kick up the backside.” He went on to direct each subsequent film, the last of which was 63 Up released in 2019. “I can’t speak highly enough about the impact of the series,” Apted said. “No one had done it, and it was an original idea. It couldn’t be done like this again. We had inspiration and luck to keep going. People copied it. We tracked major events and progress in society. I’m glad we did it when we did it. We couldn’t have chosen a better period.” Michael Apted also directed episodes of Coronation Street, Rome, Masters of Sex, Ray Donovan, Bloodline, and more. Michael Apted died on January 7th at the age of 79.

Marion Ramsey

Before transitioning to the big-screen, Marion Ramsey appeared on stage in productions such as Hello, Dolly!, Miss Moffat, and Eubie!, as well as TV shows such as The Jeffersons, Keep on Truckin’, and Bill Cosby’s sketch comedy series Cos. Ramsey would take on what became her signature role in 1984 with Police Academy, in which she played the squeaky-voiced Laverne Hooks, a cadet who would occasionally let loose a loud outburst when pushed to her limit. Ramsey would reprise the role multiple times, with Hooks later becoming a Sgt, in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment, Police Academy 3: Back in Training, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach, and Police Academy 6: City Under Siege. Marion Ramsey also appeared in episodes of MacGyver, Beverly Hills, 90210, Johnny Bago, The Addams Family, Daddy Dearest, The Nanny, Robot Chicken, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and more, as well as movies such as Lavalantula and 2 Lava 2 Lantula, which found her reuniting with her Police Academy co-stars Steve Guttenberg and Michael Winslow. Marion Ramsey died on January 7th at the age of 73.

Mira Furlan

Mira Furlan played Ambassador Delenn throughout all five seasons of Babylon 5 and also played Danielle Rousseau on Lost, a French scientist who became shipwrecked on the island sixteen years prior to the crash of Oceanic 815. Furlan also appeared in movies such as When Father Was Away on Business, Beauty of Vice, Three For Happiness, In the Jaws of Life, as well as TV shows like Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Night Stalker, NCIS, Law & Order: LA, and more. Furlan emigrated to the US in 1991 from the former Yugoslavia when the war broke out, and while speaking with Daily Dragon Online in 2021, Furlan said, “It was completely like starting over, as if someone had taken a big eraser and erased my life. It was a strange feeling. But at the same time, we came to New York. I’ve always loved New York, and I’ve always thought that it’s like living in the world. It’s the world, not just one city, but it’s everything!” Furlan added that she and her husband came over with just four suitcases, and when she got an agent, one of the very first auditions she went to was for Babylon 5. “So it was kind of a miracle!” she said. Mira Furlan died on January 20th at the age of 65 due to complications with West Nile Virus.

Hal Holbrook

Although Hal Holbrook has plenty of credits to his name on both film and television, he’s best known for his one-man stage show, Mark Twain Tonight!. Holbrook developed the show while studying at Denison University and went on to perform it for more than 60 years before retiring the play in 2017. “Who wants to see an evening about a literary figure?” Holbrook said in a 1969 interview with William Goldman. “I knew that in the first act I had to overcome that natural reluctance, so my biggest desire was to make them laugh their asses off at the start, so they’d go out at intermission and say, ‘Hey, this guy’s funny.’ The second act became the social-comment act. I’d start with some funny material to get them again (but not too much of it, or they’d never stop laughing and take the show right away from you). In the last act I gave them the Twain they’d been expecting all along: warm, whimsical, memories of childhood.” Hal Holbrook appeared in films such as Magnum Force, All the President’s Men, Midway, Capricorn One, The Fog, The Kidnapping of the President, Creepshow, Wall Street, The Unholy, The Firm, Hercules, Waking the Dead, Men of Honor, The Majestic, Into the Wild, Water for Elephants, Lincoln, and more, as well as TV shows like The F.B.I., Designing Women, Evening Shade, The Outer Limits, The West Wing, The Sopranos, NCIS, ER, Sons of Anarchy, The Event, Rectify, Bones, Grey’s Anatomy, Hawaii Five-0, and more. Hal Holbrook died on January 23rd at the age of 95.

Cloris Leachman

Cloris Leachman played the recurring role of Phyllis Lindstrom in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary’s snobbish, neurotic neighbour who would eventually receive her own spin-off series in Phyllis. Leachman is also known for appearing in movies such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Muppet Movie, Prancer, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Iron Giant, Bad Santa, Sky High, and The Croods, as well as TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke, Lassie, Rawhide, The Twilight Zone, Dr. Kildare, Night Gallery, Wonder Woman, The Love Boat, The Facts of Life, The Simpsons, The Nanny, Touched by an Angel, Malcolm in the Middle, The Ellen Show, Family Guy, Two and a Half Men, The Office, Hot in Cleveland, Girl Meets World, Bob’s Burgers, Raising Hope, and much more. Leachman also memorably worked with Mel Brooks on several occasions, including High Anxiety, History of the World: Part I, and Young Frankenstein, in which she played Frau Blücher, the delightfully frightening housekeeper whose mere mention of her name sent shivers down the backs of many a horse. The role was one of Leachman’s favourites and she recalled just how much fun she had with Gene Wilder on set as they kept cracking up again and again while shooting one particular scene. “I remember when we were shooting Young Frankenstein there was a scene where I had to get the group up the stairs immediately,” Leachman said. “I had to say, ‘Shtay close to zee candles’ and turn toward him. As I turned around I could see his face was in two pieces. We had to do our scene 14 times over because he’d be laughing so hard.” Cloris Leachman is also best known for starring in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting actress. She also earned eight Emmy Awards over the decades in addition to fourteen nominations, which has her tied with Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the most Emmy wins for a performer. Cloris Leachman died on January 27th at the age of 94.

Cicely Tyson

Over the course of her career, Cicely Tyson frequently refused to play any roles she thought would be demeaning to Black women, and went on to appear in movies such as A Man Called Adam, The Comedians, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Blue Bird, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, The Concorde… Airport ’79, Bustin’ Loose, The Marva Collins Story, Fried Green Tomatoes, Hoodlum, Because of Winn-Dixie, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, Why Did I Get Married Too?, The Help, Alex Cross, as well as TV shows such as Naked City, East Side/West Side, I Spy, The F.B.I., The Bill Cosby Show, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Roots, King, Sweet Justice, Touched by an Angel, The Outer Limits, House of Cards, Cherish the Day, How to Get Away with Murder, and more. The role which earned Tyson widespread recognition was Sounder, a drama that followed a family of Black sharecroppers facing a family crisis in the midst of the Great Depression. The film received a handful of Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actress nomination for Tyson, and she would later receive an honorary Academy Award in 2018. Cicely Tyson was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016, and in her memoir, Just As I Am, admitted that she thought the phone call she received from one of President Obama’s aides about the award was a prank and hung up. Feeling that she had to follow up, Tyson called a friend who had worked on Obama’s campaign who informed her that it was legit. “My manager, of course immediately got the White House on the phone and confirmed my attendance at the celebration,” Tyson wrote. Cicely Tyson died on January 28th at the age of 96.

Dustin Diamond

Dustin Diamond appeared in TV shows such as The Wonder Years, The Munsters Today, American Playhouse, Hang Time, Duck Dodgers, and Robot Chicken, but of course, he’s best known for playing Samuel “Screech” Powers in the Saved by the Bell series. He stuck with the series through all its incarnations, beginning with Good Morning, Miss Bliss to Saved by the Bell to Saved by the Bell: The College Years and to Saved by the Bell: The New Class. Diamond also played Screech in the Saved by the Bell TV movies, Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style and Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas. He didn’t appear in the first season of the Saved by the Bell revival series but there had been plans to include him in the second season before his death. After spending his entire childhood as Screech, Dustin Diamond missed out on just being able to be a real kid. “The hardest thing about being a child star is giving up your childhood. You don’t get a childhood, really,” Diamond said in a 2013 interview. “You’re a performer. You have to know your lines and rehearse and practice, making sure you’re the funniest and the best you can be, because if you weren’t funny, you could be replaced.” He also appeared in feature films like Big Top Pee-wee, Purple People Eater, She’s Out of Control, Big Fat Liar, Pauly Shore Is Dead, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, American Pie Presents: The Book of Love, and more. Dustin Diamond died on February 1st at the age of 44 due to carcinoma.

Christopher Plummer

Christopher Plummer developed a love for the stage when he was young and got his start at the Montreal Repertory Theatre. He appeared in productions of The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Henry V, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Cyrano de Bergerac, and much more. Plummer made his film debut in Sidney Lumet’s Stage Struck and went on to appear in movies such as The Fall of the Roman Empire, Battle of Britain, Waterloo, The Return of the Pink Panther, The Man Who Would Be King, The Silent Partner, Starcrash, Dreamscape, An American Tail, Dragnet, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Malcolm X, Wolf, Dolores Claiborne, The Insider, Dracula 2000, A Beautiful Mind, National Treasure, Alexander, Syriana, The New World, Inside Man, Up, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, All the Money in the World, and Knives Out. Plummer’s best-known role is that of Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, but it’s a role he’s struggled to accept over the years. “The movies I like best, no one seems to care about, that’s always the way. I suppose The Sound of Music is the most popular role I’ve ever done, I really can’t avoid it,” Plummer told The Guardian in 2018. “It did [drive me crazy] for a long time, but I’ve made my peace with it. It annoyed the hell out of me at first. I thought, ‘Don’t these people ever see another movie? Is this the only one they’ve ever seen?’ It doesn’t even have to be my movie, I just wanted to take them to some movies they ought to see. But I’m grateful to the film, and to Robert Wise, who’s a great director and a gentleman, and to Julie [Andrews], who’s remained a terrific friend. I must have been miserable to work with at the time, because I was furious they wouldn’t let me sing. I’d worked on my singing for so long, but in those days, they’d have someone trained who would sing through dubbing. I said, ‘The only reason I did this bloody thing was so I could do a musical on stage on film!’” Christopher Plummer died on February 5th at the age of 91.

Yaphet Kotto

Yaphet Kotto found his first major success playing the villainous Kananga in Live and Let Die, Roger Moore’s first James Bond movie. On the page, the role could have easily turned into a racist stereotype. “That was the danger of that role,” Kotto said in a 2015 interview. “When I read that script, I said man, if this is played the wrong way… I had to play Kananga in a way that was so believable you became mesmerized. You see a guy who is completely together – almost as together as James Bond himself.” In addition to Live and Let Die, Yaphet Kotto is probably best known for playing Parker in Ridley Scott’s Alien, but the actor also appeared in movies such as The Thomas Crown Affair, Bone, Report to the Commissioner, Sharks’ Treasure, Drum, The Monkey Hustle, Brubaker, Eye of the Tiger, The Running Man, Midnight Run, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, and The Puppet Masters. There were also rumblings that Kotto was up for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, but he was actually offered the role of Lando Calrissian on The Empire Strikes Back by director Irvin Kershner. Having just done Alien, Yotto didn’t want to typecast himself as the space adventure guy and turned it down. He was also considered for the role of Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek; The Next Generation and later regretted not taking the opportunity. “I should have done [Star Trek] but I walked away,” Kotto said. “When you’re making movies, you’d tend to say no to TV. It’s like when you’re in college and someone asks you to the high school dance. You say no.” Kotto can also be seen in episodes of The Big Valley, Bonanza, Daniel Boone, Mannix, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Night Gallery, The A-Team, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Murder, She Wrote, SeaQuest DSV, and starred as Lieutenant Al Giardello in Homicide: Life on the Street. Yaphet Kotto died on March 15th at the age of 81.

George Segal

George Segal has musical aspirations as a young boy and started playing the ukulele, but when he got to high school, he realized that “you couldn’t play in a band with a ukulele, so I moved on to the four-string banjo.” Much better. Segal played in a Dixieland jazz band throughout his post-secondary schooling and kept playing even when serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Once he was discharged George Segal turned his attention to acting and studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen. Segal went on to appear in movies such as The Longest Day, Invitation to a Gunfighter, King Rat, Lost Command, Where’s Poppa?, A Touch of Class, The Black Bird, Fun with Dick and Jane, Look Who’s Talking, To Die For, Flirting with Disaster, The Cable Guy, 2012, Love & Other Drugs, and more. Segal found critical acclaim when he starred alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Sandy Dennis in Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. George Segal also appeared in TV shows like Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Murphy’s Law, Murder, She Wrote, The Larry Sanders Show, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Just Shoot Me! (starring role), Private Practice, Boston Legal, Pushing Daisies, Entourage, American Dad!, The Simpsons, and The Goldbergs. George Segal died on March 23rd at the age of 87.

Jessica Walter

After starting her career on the stage, Jessica Walter moved to television and appeared in shows such as Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Flipper, The Defenders, For the People, The Fugitive, The F.B.I., Then Came Bronson, Love, American Style, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Columbo, Ironside, Hawaii Five-O, The Love Boat, Trapper John, M.D., Bare Essence, Murder, She Wrote, Wildfire, Dinosaurs, Babylon 5, Coach, Saving Grace, 90210, Gravity, Retired at 35, NCIS, Good Girls, and more, but Walters won a new legion of fans due to her portrayal of Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development. “It exposed me to a demographic of people who thought I was sick or dead,” Walter said in a 2013 interview with The Associated Press. The series received low ratings throughout its original run despite the critical acclaim and was cancelled by Fox after just three seasons. Arrested Development was revived for two more seasons by Netflix years later with Jessica Walter and the rest of the cast returning to reprise their roles. Walter is also known for voicing Malory Archer on the animated series Archer. On the big-screen side of things, Jessica Walter appeared in Grand Prix, The Group, Play Misty for Me, Going Ape!, The Flamingo Kid, Tapeheads, Unaccompanied Minors, and more. Jessica Walter died on March 24th at the age of 80.

James Hampton

After serving in the U.S. Army, James Hampton turned to show business and met one of his greatest friends — Burt Reynolds. Hampton got a role in a 1963 episode of Gunsmoke as a young man accused of stealing a horse. Reynolds played the recurring role of blacksmith Quint Asper and the two quickly became friends. “I think he liked my sense of humor,” Hampton said. James Hampton would go on to appear in many of Reynolds’ movies, including The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, The Longest Yard, W.W. and the Dixie Danceking, Hustle, as well as several more episodes of Gunsmoke. He also appeared in movies such as The Cat from Outer Space, The China Syndrome, Condorman, Teen Wolf, Teen Wolf Too, Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, Pump Up the Volume, Sling Blade, The Last Ride, and more. He’s best remembered for playing the father of Michael J. Fox’s character in Teen Wolf and reprised the role for Teen Wolf Too. He also returned for the animated Teen Wolf TV series, the only member of the film’s cast to do so. Hampton appeared in other TV shows such as Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Rawhide, The Doris Day Show, The F.B.I., Mannix, The Red Hand Gang, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Greatest American Hero, Who’s the Boss?, Murder, She Wrote, Punky Brewster, Days of Our Lives, and Full House, and he also played Private Hannibal Shirley Dobbs in F Troop. James Hampton died on April 7th at the age of 84 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Richard Rush

Richard Rush was one of the first students to graduate from UCLA’s film program, and after working for the U.S. military creating programs highlighting America’s involvement in the Korean War, turned his attention to the counterculture. He started out making exploitation films such as Too Soon to Love and Of Love and Desires as well as motorcycle and racing films like Thunder Alley, Hells Angels on Wheels, and The Savage Seven. Rush went on to direct Getting Straight, Freebie and the Bean, and his greatest film, The Stunt Man. A mish-mash of genres, The Stunt Man starred Steve Railsback as a young fugitive who becomes a stunt double on the set of a World War I movie helmed by a charismatic director played by Peter O’Toole willing to do anything for the sake of his art. “Peter O’Toole was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Rush said in a 2017 interview. “Having your favorite actor in the world play the best character you have ever written is almost too much to ask for. Once he read the script he called me from London and said ‘Richard, I’ve just read the screenplay and if you don’t let me play the part, I’ll kill you!’ It was about the best response you could get.” The film took years to get off the ground and despite critical acclaim and two Academy Awards for Best Actor (Peter O’Toole) and Best Director (Richard Rush), it never received a wide release. “The film wasn’t released, it escaped,” O’Toole remarked. Rush’s final film was Color of Night, an erotic thriller starring Bruce Willis and Jane March. The film was a box-office flop and won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Film, but it did win Maxim Magazine’s Best Sex Scene in Film History award, which Rush was extremely proud of and kept in his bathroom. Richard Rush died on April 8th at the age of 91.

Helen McCrory

Like many actors, Helen McCrory started her life on the stage performing in productions such as The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth, Pride and Prejudice, Twelfth Night and more. From there she transitioned to the big screen with roles in movies such as Interview with a Vampire, Charlotte Gray, The Count of Monte Cristo, Casanova, The Queen, Becoming Jane, Flashbacks of a Fool, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Hugo, Skyfall, and The Woman in Black: Angel of Death. She also played Narcissa Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 & 2. McCrory was actually originally cast as Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but had to depart when she learned she was pregnant. “I got pregnant with my first child, and insurance wouldn’t cover pregnant witches!” McCrory told Parade in 2011. “It was lovely that they invited me back and wanted me to be a part of it somehow.” She was replaced by Helena Bonham Carter. Helen McCrory also appeared in TV shows like Life, Doctor Who, Inside No. 9, Penny Dreadful, Fearless, MotherFatherSon, and His Dark Materials, but her biggest role on the small screen was starred as Elizabeth “Polly” Gray on Peaky Blinders. Helen McCrory died on April 16th at the age of 52 after battling breast cancer.

Felix Silla

Felix Silla is best known for playing Cousin Itt on The Addams Family, but he also appeared in TV shows such as Bonanza, Star Trek, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Monkees, H.R. Pufnstuf, Bewitched, Night Gallery, Lidsville, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Battlestar Galactica, Mork & Mindy, The Dukes of Hazard, Married with Children, and more. Silla also played Twiki on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, although the voice of the robot was supplied by other actors. He also appeared in movies such as Point Blank, Planet of the Apes, The Black Bird, Demon Seed, The Kentucky Fried Movie, The Manitou, The Brood, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Spaceballs, Ghostbusters II, and Batman Returns. Silla was also a stunt performer, often doubling for children in dangerous scenes. One such scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (where Silla was doubling for Short Round) almost led to his death when the inflatable life raft he was riding in for the rapids scene flipped over and trapped him underneath, nearly drowning him. During a 2015 interview, Silla spoke of working on The Black Bird (his favourite role) during the day and serving as a stunt double for a young girl on The Towering Inferno. Silla had a mustache at the time which Black Bird director David Giler wanted him to keep but Towering Inferno producer Irwin Allen wanted him to shave. “I explained to [Allen] that I was doing another movie in the daytime,” Silla said. “I’m on Paul Newman’s back and the camera is on my head pointing down anyways.  So, the only thing you saw was this long blonde wig.  They didn’t have me in any close-ups.  So, Irwin Allen was okay.  He said ‘Forget about it.  We’ll put on some makeup.  Nobody will see it.’” Felix Silla died on April 16th at the age of 84 from pancreatic cancer.

Olympia Dukakis

The daughter of Greek immigrants, Olympia Dukakis was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her family faced a deal of ethnic discrimination and when she began acting on stage, she was told that she should change her name to something “less ethnic” if she wanted to be successful. She refused. Dukakis and her husband, Louis Zorich, went on to found the Whole Theater Company which staged multiple productions a year for nearly two decades. She found her first major success on the big screen when she starred as Cher’s nitpicking mother in Moonstruck. She would win the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. The success of Moonstruck brought Dukakis a lot of attention, but she wrote in her 2003 autobiography that she found it hard to be happy about everything good that was happening to her. “I talked with a friend of mine, the wonderful actor Austin Pendleton, and I told him how I felt guilty about all the attention I was receiving,” Dukakis wrote. “‘Look at all this work that I had done in my whole career and all the other wonderful characters I had played,’ I told him. `Now everyone is telling me that Rose in “Moonstruck” is so great and how I’ve arrived because I’m working with Cher.’ But I’ve always worked with brilliant actors. Cher is wonderful, and I don’t want to take anything away from her, but it was just hard for me. But Austin said to me something wonderful. He said he saw all of my work in Rose Castorini.” Dukakis also appeared in movies such as John and Mary, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, Working Girl, Look Who’s Talking, Steel Magnolias, Dad, Look Who’s Talking Too, The Cemetery Club, Look Who’s Talking Now, Naked Gun 33+1⁄3: The Final Insult, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Mafia!, The Event, The Thing About My Folks, Away from Her, The Infiltrator, and more. She also appeared in TV shows like Dr. Kildare, American Playhouse, The Equalizer, Sinatra, Tales of the City, Touched by an Angel, More Tales of the City, Joan of Arc, The Simpsons, Frasier, Worst Week, Bored to Death, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and more. Olympia Dukakis died on May 1st at the age of 89.

Norman Lloyd

Driven by his mother’s love of theater, Norman Llyod became a vaudeville performer at a young age and later became a charter member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre, performing in plays such as Caesar, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, King Lear, Don Juan in Hell, and more. Norman Lloyd and the other members of the Mercury Theatre soon ventured to Hollywood, where they were set to take part in what would have been Orson Welles’ first film, Heart of Darkness. But the studio pulled the plug on the film and Welles asked the actors to stick around while he prepared his next project, but Lloyd impulsively returned to New York. “Those who stayed did Citizen Kane,” Lloyd recalled. “I have always regretted it.” Although Lloyd didn’t get to appear in Citizen Kane, he did return to Hollywood where he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur and a slew of other films, including The Southerner, The Unseen, Spellbound, M, Limelight, FM, Dead Poet’s Society, The Age of Innocence, Trainwreck, and more. Norman Lloyd also appeared in TV shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery, Kojack, The Twilight Zone, Wiseguy, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wings, Murder, She Wrote, Seven Days, The Practice, and Modern Family, but he’s best known for playing Dr. Daniel Auschlander on St. Elsewhere, the kindly and wise Chief of Services at St. Eligius hospital. Lloyd’s talents weren’t just seen in front of the camera, as Alfred Hitchcock later hired him to serve as an associate producer on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a role which expanded to executive producer as the series went on. Lloyd was happy to step behind the camera, as he said “It’s steadier work.” Lloyd would also direct over twenty episodes of the series and also helmed episodes of Columbo, Tales of the Unexpected, and more. Norman Lloyd died on May 11th at the age of 106.

Charles Grodin

After making his film debut in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Charles Grodin went on to appear in movies like Sex and the College Girl, Rosemary’s Baby, and Catch-22, but he achieved notice after starring in Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid. Grodin played self-absorbed sporting goods salesman Lenny Cantrow, a recently married man who starts pursuing another woman while on his honeymoon. “I thought the character in The Heartbreak Kid was a despicable guy, but I play it with full sincerity,” Grodin said in a 2009 interview. “My job isn’t to judge it. If it wasn’t for Elaine May, I probably would never have had that movie career.” From there, Grodin appeared in 11 Harrowhouse, King Kong, Thieves, Heaven Can Wait, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, The Great Muppet Caper, The Woman in Red, Ishtar, Midnight Run, Beethoven, Dave, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Heart and Souls, Beethoven’s 2nd, Clifford, and more. Grodin also appeared in TV shows such as The Young Marrieds, Shane, The F.B.I., The Virginian, Saturday Night Live, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Michael J. Fox Show, Louie, and Madoff. Charles Grodin died on May 18th at the age of 86 from bone marrow cancer.

Gavin MacLeod

After serving in the United States Air Force, Gavin MacLeod went on to appear in movies such as Pork Chop Hill, Operation Petticoat, High Time, War Hunt, The Sword of Ali Baba, The Sand Pebbles, A Man Called Gannon, The Party, The Comic, Kelly’s Heroes, and more. He was also featured in TV shows like Peter Gunn, Mr. Lucky, The Untouchables, Death Valley Days, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Perry Mason, The Munsters, Rawhide, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Andy Griffith Show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., My Favorite Martian, Hogan’s Heroes, The Big Valley, It Takes a Thief, Hawaii Five-O, Murder, She Wrote, Oz, The King of Queens, and That ’70s Show. MacLeod is also known for playing Seaman Joseph “Happy” Hanes in McHale’s Navy and reprised the role on the big-screen in McHale’s Navy and McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force. He also played Murray Slaughter throughout all seven seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He was originally asked to audition for the part of Lou Grant, the gruff editor-in-chief who wound up being played by Ed Asner, but asked if he could read for the part of the more kind-natured Murray instead. “I never played a good guy with a bald head until Murray,” MacLeod said. Of course, MacLeod also played the beloved Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat. “I loved it,” MacLeod told Entertainment Weekly. “I said: ‘This is gonna take people away from the everyday burdens of life. It’ll give them something to dream about.’” Gavin MacLeod died on May 29th at the age of 90.

Clarence Williams III

Clarence Williams III enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division for several years. Upon returning home, Williams appeared on multiple Broadway productions, even receiving a Tony Award nomination for his work on William Hanley’s Slow Dance on the Killing Ground. His breakout role arrived when he was cast to play Lincoln “Linc” Hayes on The Mod Squad. Williams told the Los Angeles Times that Linc “was a very different role for an African-American and a wonderful lead character that a lot of youngsters, Black and white, and principally African-American youngsters could identify with.” Aaron Spelling, who executive produced The Mod Squad, recalled how Williams came to his attention in a 1999 interview. The actor was playing the part of a getaway driver in an episode of The Danny Thomas Hour, but when Williams drove off, he immediately smashed right into a telephone pole. “I thought everybody was killed,” Spelling said. “We all rushed over. I said, ‘Clarence, Clarence, what happened?’ He said, ‘I’ve never driven before.’ I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’ He said, ‘Because I wanted the job.’ I hired him that night for Mod Squad.’” In addition to The Mod Squad, Clarence Williams III was also featured in TV shows like Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, The Cosby Show, Twin Peaks, Tales from the Crypt, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Law & Order, American Dragon: Jake Long, Everybody Hate Chris, Justified, Memphis Beat, and Empire, as well as movies such as Purple Rain, 52 Pick-Up, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, Deep Cover, Sugar Hill, Tales from the Hood, Hoodlum, Half Baked, Life, The General’s Daughter, Reindeer Games, American Gangster, and The Butler. Clarence Williams III died on June 4th at the age of 81 from colon cancer.

Ned Beatty

After a decade of performing on stage, Ned Beatty made his first feature film appearance in Deliverance, John Boorman’s survival thriller that also starred Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, and Ronny Cox. One hell of a film to make your debut, but it wasn’t actually Beatty’s first time on camera. Beatty played the role of a bank robber in a training film produced by the FBI. The film was sent out to small police departments all across America and Beatty told Backstage in 2001 that he started getting arrested at random within the year. “If I went into a small town somewhere, I’d get arrested,” Beatty said. “I’m serious. That’s the way cops work. They’re used to seeing pictures of bad guys. If they see you and they know that you’re a bad guy, they arrest you. So that went on for a little while, until I started getting known as a film actor.” After Deliverance, Ned Beatty went on to appear in movies such as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Thief Who Came to Dinner, The Last American Hero, White Lightning, Nashville, All the President’s Men, Network, Silver Streak, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Gray Lady Down, Superman, 1941, Superman II, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, The Toy, Back to School, The Trouble with Spies, The Unholy, Purple People Eater, Repossessed, Captain America, Rudy, Radioland Murders, Just Cause, He Got Game, Life, Where the Red Fern Grows, Shooter, Charlie Wilson’s War, Toy Story 3, Rango, and more. He was also featured in episodes of TV shows like The Waltons, Kojak, The Rockford Files, M*A*S*H, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Szysnky, Murder, She Wrote, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Highway to Heaven, Roseanne, The Golden Palace, Homicide: Life on the Street, CSI, Law & Order and more. Ned Beatty died on June 13th at the age of 83.

Joanne Linville

For Star Trek fans such as myself, Joanne Linville is instantly recognizable as the Romulan Commander in The Enterprise Incident, one of the best episodes of The Original Series. Linville’s character, who went unnamed, was the powerful commander of a Romulan ship that was infiltrated by Kirk and Spock as part of a secret plot to steal a Romulan cloaking device. She found herself drawn to Spock and even enjoyed a brief romance with him. Linville also starred alongside James Gregory in the Civil War-set Twilight Zone episode, The Passerby. Linville would go on to appear in dozens of TV shows, such as Guiding Light, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Third Man, Have Gun — Will Travel, Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, Route 66, The Defenders, Naked City, I Spy, The Fugitive, Bonanza, The Invaders, Gunsmoke, The F.B.I., Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, Kojak, CHiPs, Barnaby Jones, Dynasty, L.A. Law, and more. She was also featured in movies like The Goddess, Scorpio, Gable and Lombard, A Star is Born, The Seduction, James Dean, and more. Joanne Linville was a longtime friend and protégée of famed actress and acting teacher Stella Adler, and together with Irene Gilbert, she co-founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in Los Angeles. Linville also wrote Seven Steps to an Acting Craft, which was published in 2011. Joanne Linville died on June 20th at the age of 93.

Richard Donner

Richard Donner is best known for making us believe a man could fly with Superman, one of the first comic-book movies that took its characters and genre seriously and set off a wave of superhero movies that continues to this day. Donner was certainly a fan of Superman, but he had no idea just how big the film would become. “Look, I made a movie,” Donner told Empire in 2019. “I had no idea how it was gonna turn out. I had a purpose in making it, and I felt we served its purpose in observing what I felt was important about Superman, and the respect I had for him over my lifetime. And it turned out well. So when people tell me they like it, it makes me feel great. Wow. I say to myself: ‘Job well done, old boy.’ It feels wonderful. It makes me proud.” Of course, Donner also brought Mel Gibson and Danny Glover together for the Lethal Weapon franchise and was even working on what would have been the fifth and final installment of the series just last year. Richard Donner started his career in television, directing episodes of Wanted Dead or Alive, Wagon Train, Have Gun — Will Travel, The Rifleman, The Lieutenant, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Gilligan’s Island, Perry Mason, Get Smart, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Cannon, Kojak, Tales from the Crypt, and much more. Donner also helmed several episodes of The Twilight Zone, including the famous Nightmare at 20,000 Feet starring William Shatner. Richard Donner made his breakthrough film with The Omen starring Gregory Peck, and went on to direct Superman, The Toy, The Goonies, Ladyhawke, Scrooged, Radio Flyer, Maverick, Conspiracy Theory, Timeline, 16 Blocks, and more. He also helmed about 75% of Superman II before the producers fired him and replaced him with Richard Lester, who reshot a good portion of the movie. Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut was later completed and released in 2006. Donner also produced a number of blockbusters, typically with his wife Lauren, including The Lost Boys, Free Willy, and X-Men. Richard Donner died on July 5th at the age of 91.

William Smith

William Smith accumulated nearly 300 credits throughout his career over the course of seven decades. To get a sense of how long William Smith was active in Hollywood, one only needs to look at his first credit, which shows him making an appearance in The Ghost of Frankenstein back in 1942. After a series of roles as a child actor, Smith enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served in the Korean War. Due to his fluency in multiple languages, Smith began working with the CIA and NSA, but while working on his doctorate in foreign-languages studies, Smith landed an acting contract at MGM. He went on to make appearances in TV shows such as The Asphalt Jungle, Combat!, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Zero One, I Dream of Jeannie, The Virginian, Daniel Boone, Mod Squad, Columbo, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Gunsmoke, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Hawaii Five-O, Fantasy Island, The Dukes of Hazzard, CHiPs, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Airwolf, and so much more. He’s probably best known for playing the villainous Anthony Falconetti in the Rich Man, Poor Man mini-series, a role which he also reprised for the sequel series. Smith also starred in Laredo alongside Neville Brand and Peter Brown. Smith also appeared in films such as Run, Angel, Run!, The Losers, The Thing with Two Heads, Hammer, Invasion of the Bee Girls, Black Samson, Twilight’s Last Gleaming, The Frisco Kid, The Outsiders, Red Dawn, Rumble Fish, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Maniac Cop, Maverick, and more. Smith is also known for playing Conan’s father in Conan the Barbarian, as well as facing off against Rod Taylor for a hard-hitting fight in Darker than Amber. “Fight choreography and staging went out the window when Rod decided to really hit me,” Smith recalled in a 2010 interview. “And so the fight was on. That was a real fight with real blood and real broken bones. Rod is a skilled fighter and at the same time a real scrapper. Now that was a good fight!” Speaking of brawls, Smith also traded blows with Clint Eastwood in Any Which Way You Can for what has been called “the most knuckle-busting, gut-wrenching, brain-scrambling, butt-bruising, lip-splitting brawl of all time.” William Smith died on July 5th at the age of 88.

Jackie Mason

Jackie Mason came from a long line of rabbis, which included his father, grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather, so naturally, Mason followed in their footsteps. When he was 18, Mason became a cantor and at age 25 he received semikhah from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and was ordained as a rabbi. Upon leading congregations in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, word started spreading about just how funny his sermons were. “I was a rabbi at a shul in Weldon, North Carolina, and I used to do comedy in my sermons to keep people entertained in what I was saying,” Mason told The Jerusalem Post. “Word got out that I was so funny that gentiles started coming to my sermons. At one point I had more gentiles than Jews in the congregation. That is when I realized I would be a comedian.” Upon the death of his father several years later, he resigned as a rabbi in order to become a comedian because, as he put it, “somebody in the family had to make a living.” In addition to his stand-up career, Jackie Mason also appeared in movies such as The Stoolie, The Jerk, History of the World: Part I, Caddyshack II, and Jackie Goldberg Private Dick. He also starred alongside Lynn Redgrave in the short-lived sitcom Chicken Soup, as well as making appearances in The Fairly OddParents and 30 Rock. Mason is best known to animation fans as the voice of Rabbi Hyman Krustofski on The Simpsons, the father of Krusty the Clown. Mason voiced the character in nearly a dozen episodes of the series. Jackie Mason died on July 24th at the age of 93.

Markie Post

Before she turned attention to acting, Markie Post worked on a variety of game shows. She served as associate producer on Alex Trebek’s Double Dare and as a card dealer on Card Sharks. Even when she had established herself as an actor, she still appeared in game shows like The Match Game, Hollywood Squares, Super Password, and The $100,000 Pyramid where she helped a contestant win the grand prize. Post went on to appear in TV shows such as CHiPs, The Incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Hart to Hart, B.J. and the Bear, Eight is Enough, Semi-Tough, The Greatest American Hero, The Love Boat, Cheers, Fantasy Island, The A-Team, Odd Man Out, Scrubs, Transformers Prime, Chicago P.D., Santa Clarita Diet, and The Kids Are Alright. Post also starred alongside Lee Majors in the action/adventure series The Fall Guy and played Mary’s mother in There’s Something About Mary. Of course, Markie Post is best known for playing Christine Sullivan on Night Court. She made her first appearance guest-starring in the second season of the series before joining the main cast beginning with season three. She also played herself in an episode of 30 Rock that found her reuniting with fellow Night Court actors Harry Anderson and Charles Robinson. “They built the entire set exactly so when Harry and I went on, it was weird,” Post said in a 2011 interview. “We really felt like welcome to our show. We were right back in mode. That was fun.” Markie Post died on August 7th at the age of 70 after battling cancer.

Alex Cord

Alex Cord was stricken with polio when he was just twelve years old, causing one of his legs to become paralyzed. Doctors advised him to take up horseback riding as a therapeutic exercise so he went to live on a ranch in Wyoming. He developed a real love for riding and once he recovered, he became a rodeo rider. That came to an end when a steer landed on him, rupturing his spleen and sending him to the hospital for eight months. He first considered becoming an actor while studying English literature in college when he noticed that “all the pretty girls were in the Dramatic Arts Department.” Alex Cord went on to appear in movies such as Stagecoach, A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, The Brotherhood, Stiletto, The Last Grenade, The Dead Are Alive, Inn of the Damned, Grayeagle, Uninvited, The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission, and more. He was also featured in TV shows like Naked City, Route 66, Night Gallery, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Police Story, Police Woman, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Murder, She Wrote, War of the Worlds, Freddy’s Nightmares, Jake and the Fatman, and Walker, Texas Ranger. He also starred in Genesis II, a pilot for a sci-fi series written by Gene Roddenberry, but he’s best known for starring alongside Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine in Airwolf as Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III, aka Archangel. Alex Cord died on August 9th at the age of 87.

Sonny Chiba

Sonny Chiba was a martial arts legend and a huge figure in Japanese cinema for decades. His career began on television, with Chiba starring in tokusatu superhero shows like Seven Color Mask and Messenger of Allah. He went on to appear in a great many movies, including Invasion of the Neptune Men, Kamikaze Man: Duel at Noon, Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima, The Bullet Train, Champion of Death, Doberman Cop, Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon, Shogun’s Samurai, Message from Space, Hunter in the Dark, Battle Royale II: Requiem, Kill Bill: Volume 1 & 2, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and more. Sonny Chiba achieved international fame with The Street Fighter, a spectacularly violent martial arts action film that spawned several sequels (Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge) but also a spin-off series, Sister Street Fighter. Chiba appeared in the first Sister Street Fighter movie, but not as the same character in the main series. Chiba also appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 1 & 2 as Hattori Hanzō, the wise sushi chef and master swordsmith who agrees to craft a sword for the Bride. Sonny Chiba died on August 19th at the age of 82 due to complications from COVID-19.

Ed Asner

Ed Asner was studying journalism at the University of Chicago when one of his professors told him there was little money to be made in the profession. He quickly switched to drama classes but eventually dropped out of school and worked a variety of odd jobs before serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the early ’50s. Upon the completion of his military service, Ed Asner’s career took off and he went on to appear in TV shows such as Naked City, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, The Untouchables, The Outer Limits, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, Roots, Highway to Heaven, Batman: The Animated Series, Duckman, Gargoyles, Spider-Man, The X-Files, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Practice, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Cleveland Show, The Boondocks, American Dad, Cobra Kai, and much more. He’s best known for playing Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the cantankerous news director at WJW-TV, and he continued to play the character in the spinoff series, Lou Grant. Unlike The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant switched from a thirty-minute comedy to an hour-long drama, but Ed Asner missed the laughter. “The effect of the laugh at the right moment was enormously restorative and energizing. You don’t have that with an hour show, you just don’t,” Asner said in a 2021 interview. “There’s nothing more fun than hearing rip-roaring laughter from an audience.” Ed Asner also appeared in movies such as El Dorado, Gunn, They Call Me Mister Tibbs!, JFK, Hard Rain, Elf, Up, and more. Ed Asner died on August 29th at the age of 91.

Jean-Paul Belmondo

Throughout his career, Jean-Paul Belmondo was called the French counterpart of James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Humphrey Bogart. After getting his start with supporting roles in a variety of films, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s fame skyrocketed when he starred in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. The film made him a star as well as an icon the the French New Wave movement. From there, he went on to appear in films such as Léon Morin, Priest, Two Women, Seven Days… Seven Nights, Le Doulos, The Man from Rio, Pierrot le Fou, Casino Royale, The Brain, Borsalino, Fear Over the City, Animal, The Professional, The Outsider, Ace of Aces, and much more. While reflecting on his career in a 2016 interview with Premiere, Jean-Paul Belmondo said, “I’ve had the luck to be among those actors who’ve delved into all sorts of genres, from brainy New Wave films to laugh-out-loud comedies. I really have no regrets.” Belmondo’s fame in France led to plenty of offers from Hollywood, but he never made the leap, mostly because he just didn’t want to. “Why complicate my life?” he said. “I am too stupid to learn the language and it would only be a disaster.” Jean-Paul Belmondo died on September 6th at the age of 88.

Michael K. Williams

Against the wishes of his family, Michael K. Williams quit his job in order to pursue a career as a dancer and wound up working with artists like George Micheal and Madonna, but on his 25th birthday, he was slashed with a razor blade across his face in a bar fight and left with a distinctive scar. This led to the world of film and one of his first roles found him starring alongside Tupac Shakur in Bullet. While speaking with THR, Williams said that Shakur had seen a Polaroid picture of him on the wall of a production company. “[Tupac] saw that, and he said he could see my scar, and he said, ‘Yo! Go find this dude — this dude looks thugged out enough to play my little brother!’” Williams said. “And he had Julien Temple’s production company, like, look for me all over New York, and then, you know, I got a call to come in, and I read for it, and, yeah, the rest is history.” From there, Williams went on to appear in movies such as Bringing Out the Dead, I Think I Love My Wife, Gone Baby Gone, Brookyln’s Finest, The Road, Snitch, 12 Years a Slave, Robocop, The Purge: Anarchy, Inherent Vice, The Gambler, Ghostbusters, Assassin’s Creed, The Red Sea Diving Resort, and more. Williams also made appearances in TV shows like Law & Order, The Sopranos, Alias, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Boston Legal, CSI, Community, CSI: NY, The Spoils Before Dying, The Night Of, Hap and Leonard, When They See Us, and Lovecraft Country. Of course, Michael K. Williams is probably best known for playing Omar Little on The Wire as well as Chalky White on Boardwalk Empire. Michael K. Williams died on September 6th at the age of 54 as the result of an accidental overdose.

Norm Macdonald

Making someone laugh is a very powerful thing, and Norm Macdonald remembered the exact moment he first experienced it. “In school, they were talking about probability [when] flipping a coin — 50 percent heads, 50 percent tails,” Macdonald explained in a 2018 interview. “One kid said, ‘Wait, what if it landed on its edge?’ And the teacher said, ‘A coin could never land on its edge.’ And I said, ‘What if you were standing in mud?’ I got a huge laugh. It was grade 2. I remember it very, very vividly.” And thus, a comedian was born. Norm Macdonald began performing in comedy clubs and appeared on late-night shows, such as Late Night with David Letterman. He soon got a job as a writer on Rosanne but the biggest comedy gig in town came calling: Saturday Night Live. Macdonald anchored the Weekend Update section, but his controversial jokes landed him in hot water so many times that president of NBC’s West Coast division Don Ohlmeyer had him removed, but Macdonald admitted that he just wasn’t good at taking orders. “I think the whole show was tired of me not taking marching orders,” Macdonald said. “Lorne would hint at things … I’d do Michael Jackson jokes. And Lorne would say, Do you really want a lawsuit from Michael Jackson? And I’d say, ‘Cool! That’d be f**kin’ cool, Michael Jackson suing me!’” Norm Macdonald went on to be featured in movies such as Billy Madison, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Dirty Work, Man on the Moon, Screwed, Farce of the Penguins, Grown Ups, Jack and Jill, The Ridiculous 6, Klaus, and more. He also voiced Lucky the dog in the Dr. Dolittle series, starring with the first film and including Doctor Dolittle 2, Doctor Dolittle 3, Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief, and Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts. Macdonald also appeared on TV shows like The Drew Carey Show, Family Guy, NewsRadio, The Fairly OddParents, My Name is Earl, The Middle, Skylanders Academy, and The Orville. He also starred in his own sitcom, The Norm Show. Norm Macdonald died on September 14th at the age of 61 from acute leukemia.

Willie Garson

Willie Garson is best known for playing Stanford Blatch on Sex and the City, but it’s a role he very nearly missed out on. In one of his last interviews, Garson explained that he had gotten offers to do two pilots on the same day, one was for Fox and the other was for Sex and the City. Garson took the Fox gig because HBO wasn’t a big deal at that point, but they did let him guest-star in the Sex and the City pilot, which wound up becoming a good thing when the Fox series was cancelled after just 13 episodes. The first season of Sex and the City hadn’t started shooting yet, so he asked if he could come back. “It was a full year before episodes started shooting,” Garson said. “So we called up Sex and the City and said, ‘Hey, listen, uh, we made a mistake and we’d like to come back.’ And they said, ‘Well, we kind of like it this way, as a recurring character instead of a regular character.’ So I stayed a recurring character for, you know, six-and-a-half seasons — a very popular recurring character.” Garson reprised the role for the two Sex and the City movies as well as the recent sequel series, And Just Like That… Garson also appeared in TV shows like Newhart, Mr. Belvedere, Coach, Quantum Leap, Twin Peaks, Boy Meets World, The X-Files, NYPD Blue, The Practice, Melrose Place, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Party of Five, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate SG-1, CSI, CSI: Miami, John from Cincinnati, Pushing Daisies, Hawaii Five-0, Supergirl, Big Mouth, and starred in White Collar as Moxxie, a con man and friend of Matt Boomer’s character. Willie Garson also appeared in movies such as Brain Dead, Repossessed, Soapdish, Ruby, Groundhog Day, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, The Rock, Kingpin, Mars Attacks, There’s Something About Mary, Being John Malkovich, Freaky Friday, Fever Pitch, Zoom, and The Polka King. Willie Garson died on September 21st at the age of 57 from pancreatic cancer.

Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles is considered to be the Godfather of modern Black cinema and he certainly helped pave the way for directors like Spike Lee, John Singleton, and more. After serving in the Air Force for several years, Peebles began making several short films, learning the process as he went. Unable to get Hollywood interested in his short films, he moved to Europe and wrote several novels, including La permission, which he later directed as his first feature film. The film retitled The Story of a Three-Day Pass for American audiences and was selected as the French entry into the San Francisco Film Festival. The film caught the attention of Columbia Pictures who tapped Peebles to direct Watermelon Man, which told the story of an extremely bigoted white insurance salesman named Jeff Gerber who woke up one morning to discover that he has become Black. The film was a big success and Columbia wanted to sign Peebles to a three-picture deal, but Peebles turned them down in favour of developing what would become his most recognized work: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. In addition to directing the film, Melvin Van Peebles also wrote it, produced it, edited it, composed the music for it, and starred in it. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song ushered in the era of Blaxploitation cinema, but Peebles didn’t consider it to be a Blaxploitation film. “It was not really a Blaxploitation film,” Peebles told NPR in 1990. “It started Blaxploitation, which took out the political content and just kept the action and the winning Black person. In fact, the revolutionary aspect of ‘Sweetback’ was put at a 180-degree turn and became almost an apology for the man. Up until that time, there had really been no Black movies that mirrored the ethos, the want and the desires of the lumpenproletariat, the urban proletariat. And that’s what ‘Sweetback’ did.” Peebles went on to direct Don’t Play Us Cheap, Identity Crisis, Gang in Blue, and more, and he also appeared in movies such as Jaws: The Revenge, Boomerang, Last Action Hero, Terminal Velocity, and Peeples, as well as TV shows like Sonny Spoon, Homicide: Life on the Street, and The Shining. Melvin Van Peebles died on September 21st at the age of 89.

Tommy Kirk

Once upon a time, Tommy Kirk was Disney’s golden boy. The young actor starred in many of Disney’s biggest films, including Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, The Absent-Minded Professor, and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, but he tortured himself keeping his sexuality secret. “I consider my teenaged years as being desperately unhappy,” Kirk recalled. “I knew I was gay, but I had no outlet for my feelings. It was very hard to meet people and, at that time, there was no place to go to socialize. It wasn’t until the early ’60s that I began to hear of places where gays congregated. The lifestyle was not recognized and I was very, very lonely.” Kirk feared that his career would come to an end if Disney found out, which is exactly what happened. Disney elected not to renew Kirk’s contract, with Walt Disney firing Kirk himself, but he was asked back to appear in a Merlin Jones sequel, The Monkey’s Uncle. Despite that, Kirk’s career wasn’t over and he went on to appear in a number of teen films like Pajama Party, It’s a Bikini World, Village of the Giants, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Catalina Caper, and more. Unfortunately, Kirk had developed a fairly serious substance abuse problem that wound up bringing his career to a halt. “I was drinking, taking pills, and smoking grass,” Kirk said. “In fact, I was pretty wild. I came into a whole lot of money, but I threw a lot of parties and spent it all. I wound up completely broke. I had no self-discipline and I almost died of a drug overdose a couple of times. It’s a miracle that I’m still around. All of that didn’t help the situation. Nobody would touch me; I was considered box-office poison.” Upon hitting rock bottom, Tommy Kirk largely walked away from show business and successfully got himself off drugs. In 2006, he was inducted as a Disney Legend. In addition to his movie career, Kirk also appeared in TV shows like Gunsmoke, The Mickey Mouse Club, Matinee Theater, Disneyland, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, as well as starring alongside Tim Considine in The Hardy Boys serials. Tommy Kirk died on September 28th at the age of 79.

Ruthie Tompson

Ruthie Tompson grew up in the same neighborhood as Walt Disney himself and would frequently pass him by while she walked to school. “They were sitting right in the store window, painting, and I’m going by on the way to grammar school,” Tompson said. Walt Disney later offered Tompson a job as a painter in the Paint and Ink Department and one of her first jobs was working on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s very first animated feature film. “I just got in on the tail end of Snow White,” Tompson said. “I got in on the dirty work, more or less. It was at the end of it where you had to clean cels and patch up little things that might have popped off, and do legwork. I was a gopher, really.” From there, Ruthie Tompson went on to work on Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Donald in Math Magic Land, Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, Winne the Pooh and Tigger Too, and The Rescuers. She was a true Disney legend. Ruthie Tompson also worked on the Popeye the Sailer TV series as well as Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings. Ruthie Tompson died on October 10th at the age of 111.

William Lucking

William Lucking graduated from UCLA with a degree in literature and completed advanced studies in theater arts at the Pasadena Playhouse. From there, Lucking went on to appear in movies like Hell’s Belles, Harold & Maude, The Magnificent Seven Ride, Oklahoma Crude, The Return of a Man Called Horse, 10, The Ninth Configuration, Stripes, The River Wild, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, K-PAX, Red Dragon, The Rundown, The World’s Fastest Indian, and more. He was also featured in episodes of TV shows such as Mission: Impossible, Lancer, Bonanza, Kung Fu, Gunsmoke, Mannix, The Rockford Files, The Incredible Hulk, M*A*S*H, Knight Rider, Newhart, Magnum, P.I., T.J. Hooker, The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, The X-Files, Millennium, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, JAG, and Star Trek: Enterprise, but he’s likely best known for playing aging biker Piermont ‘Piney’ Winston on Sons of Anarchy. Despite his reputation for playing tough guys, William Lucking’s wife Sigrid said that he was “an elegant man with a brilliant intellect who loved to argue about politics and current affairs, discuss philosophy and physics, and assert fine-pointed opinions about art and poetry. He was a giant of a man with the soul of a poet.” William Lucking died on October 18th at the age of 80.

Peter Scolari

One of Peter Scolari’s first major roles found him starring alongside a then-unknown Tom Hanks in Bosom Buddies, a sitcom that found the pair disguising themselves as women in order to live in an affordable, all-female apartment building. Although the series only lasted two seasons, Scolari and Hanks became life-long friends. He went on to appear in Hanks’ feature directorial debut, That Thing You Do!, From the Earth to the Moon, which Hanks produced, and lent his voice to The Polar Express, which featured Hanks in a variety of roles. Scolari also appeared in TV shows such as Remington Steele, Happy Days, Family Ties, The Love Boat, The Twilight Zone, Animaniacs, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, Duckman, Pinky and the Brain, Touched by an Angel, The West Wing, Big Love, American Dad, Gotham, Girls, Lisey’s Story, and Evil. He also starred in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Series as Wayne Szalinski, the role played by Rick Moranis in the original film. Aside from Bosom Buddies, Peter Scolari is probably best known for playing Michael Harris on Newhart, the producer of Dick Loudon’s (Newhart) TV show. Peter Scolari saw Bob Newhart as a mentor, and although advice wasn’t his thing, Scolari said that Newhart taught him by example. “The grace and the class were not lost on me,” Scolari said in a 2019 interview. “Among any advice, his example was what stood paramount among them—be classy, be quiet and don’t be a big shot. And he was a huge big shot, like Mary Tyler Moore-level of big shot.” Peter Scolari died on October 22nd at the age of 66 due to leukemia.

Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell got his start when he was a young boy and an agent from MGM saw him perform in a play and signed him to a contract. He appeared in movies such as Anchors Aweigh, Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, Song of the Thin Man, The Boy with Green Hair, The Secret Garden, and more, but he didn’t particularly enjoy acting at that period. “I thought it was a lot of work,” Stockwell said in a 1995 interview. “There were a few films that I enjoyed, they were comedies, they were not important films, weren’t very successful, so I was always pretty much known as a serious kid.  I got those kind of roles and I didn’t care for them very much.” Stockwell went on to appear in The Dunwich Horror, The Last Movie, Paris, Texas, Dune, The Legend of Billie Jean, To Live and Die in L.A., Blue Velvet, Beverly Hills Cop II, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, Married to the Mob, McHale’s Navy, Air Force One, The Rainmaker, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, CQ, The Manchurian Candidate, and much more. Stockwell also appeared in TV shows like The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Columbo, Mission: Impossible, Night Gallery, The A-Team, Miami Vice, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, The Langoliers, The Tony Danza Show, JAG, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Stargate SG-1, but he’s best known for playing Al Calavicci alongside Scott Bakula on Quantum Leap. Stockwell also played the sinister Cylon John Cavil on Battlestar Galactica. Dean Stockwell died on November 7th at the age of 85.

Art LaFleur

Before stepping into the world of acting, Art LaFleur played football at the University of Kentucky but knew that professional football wasn’t in his future. “I was too small, even then, it seemed to me,” LaFleur said in a 2011 interview. “I was about six foot and weighed 210 pounds. Halfbacks were bigger than I was!” After moving to California, a friend convinced him to take up acting, and Art LaFleur appeared in TV shows such as Charlie’s Angels, M*A*S*H, The Incredible Hulk, Webster, The A-Team, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Home Improvement, Tales from the Crypt, Matlock, JAG, The Practice, Malcolm in the Middle, The Mentalist, and more. LaFleur also appeared in movies like Any Which Way You Can, Wargames, Trancers, The Man with One Red Shoe, Cobra, The Blob, Oscar, Trancers II, Mr. Baseball, First Kid, The Replacements, Hostage, Speed Racer, and more. He also played Chick Gandil in Field of Dreams. When he auditioned for the role, the producers took LaFleur and a dozen other guys out to the baseball field to see how they handled themselves. LaFleur’s competition was younger than he was, which had him worried until he saw him play. “They hit a ground ball to me and I fielded it and threw it back,” LaFleur said. “They hit another ground ball and I fielded it and threw it back. Then it was his turn. They hit him a ground ball, he fielded it…but the guy couldn’t throw. It was like he never played baseball before. And I remember standing outside the baseline watching and thinking to myself, ‘I think I’m going to get this job!’” Art LaFleur is also known for playing The Tooth Fairy in The Santa Clause 2 and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause as well as Babe Ruth in The Sandlot. Art LaFleur died on November 17th at the age of 78 after a long battle with atypical Parkinson’s.

Jean-Marc Vallée

Jean-Marc Vallée was studying business management in Montreal but he really didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. Out of “pure laziness,” he took a class called Cinema and Society and fell in love with the world of film. “This class changed my life and I went, ‘Oh, I’m going to try to do this.’ And I got introduced to all these masters from Europe, from the States,” Vallée told DGA Quarterly in 2019. “It changed my way of seeing and watching films. I was introduced to all German cinema, the Soviet cinema from the ’20s, and then the Italian cinema and the Japanese. So the whirlwind. I am from a middle-class family. My parents didn’t read a lot, and it’s something that we, that I, learned late to love. And so, yeah, that was a new experience and a way of considering this as an art form and embracing it.” Jean-Marc Vallée started out in the world of music videos and went on to direct movies such as Black List, Los Locos, Loser Love, C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria, Café de Flore, Dallas Buyers Club, Wild, and Demolition. He also executive produced HBO’s Big Little Lies and directed the entire first season of the series. He also directed and executive produced the HBO mini-series Sharp Objects. Jean-Marc Vallée died on December 26th at the age of 58 from a heart attack.

Other notables we lost this year include Lone Wolf McQuade director Steve Carver, General Hospital actor John Reilly, Smokey and the Bandit actor Mike Henry, Dark Shadows actress Diana Millay, Agent X-44 actor Tony Ferrer, Le Samouraï actress Nathalie Delon, Columbo actor Bruce Kirby, Ben-Hur actress Haya Harareet, The Hitcher actor Henry Darrow, Battles Without Honor and Humanity actor Kunie Tanaka, Brokeback Mountain co-writer Larry McMurtry, Dennis the Menace actress Gloria Henry, Pee-wee’s Playhouse writer/director/actor John Paragon, Quantum of Solace and Harry Potter actor Paul Ritter, Romeo Must Die actor and rapper Earl “DMX” Simmons, Bachelor Party actress Tawny Kitaen, Clint Eastwood stunt-double Buddy Van Horn, writer/comedian Paul Mooney, Face/Off actress Romy Walthall, Sleepaway Camp actress Desiree Gould, The Little Mermaid actor Samuel E. Wright, School of Rock actor Kevin Clark, Tarzan: The Epic Adventures actor Joe Lara, Gone Girl actress Lisa Banes, WKRP in Cincinnati actor Frank Bonner, The Man with Bogart’s Face actor Robert Sacchi, Doctor Who actress Jackie Lane, General Hospital actor Stuart Damon, Putney Swope writer/director Robert Downey Sr., Night Court actor Charles Robinson, Crocodile Dundee writer John Cornell, Do the Right Thing actor Rick Aiello, The World’s Fastest Indian and The Lone Ranger actor Saginaw Grant, In Like Flint actress Jean Hale, Psycho actress Pat Hitchcock, Sherlock actress Una Stubbs, Dynasty and All My Children actor Michael Nader, My Big Fat Greek Wedding actor Michael Constantine, Friday actor Anthony Johnson, Happy Days actor Gavan O’Herlihy, Night of the Living Dead actress Marilyn Eastman, Mad About You actress Cynthia Harris, Pumping Iron director George Butler, Archenemy director of photography Halyna Hutchins, Friends actor James Michael Tyler, Doctor Who and Wallace & Gromit writer Bob Baker, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure actor Lou Cutell, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street composer and lyricst Stephen Sondheim, Crocodile Dundee actor David Gulpilil, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang actress Sally Ann Howes.