A Tribute to Those We Lost in 2020

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

As 2020 comes to a close, we here at JoBlo.com would like to take a moment to honour some of 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 2020. These talented individuals will always be remembered for their impact on the world of film and television.

In Memory Of…

Buck Henry

Buck Henry passed away on January 8th at the age of 89 due to a heart attack. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Henry joined The Premise, an improv comedy group that performed in the West Village in Manhattan. From there, Henry went on to write for Steve Allen and Garry Moore, and he was even the face of an elaborate hoax created by comedian Alan Abel that spanned close to three years. Henry made many public appearances as G. Clifford Prout, the president of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals. Appearing on numerous talks shows and news programs, Henry expressed his desire to clothe all animals, spouting slogans such as "A nude horse is a rude horse." The hoax was eventually uncovered during an appearance on CBS News with Walter Cronkite, and the newscaster was reportedly furious when he found out. Together with Mel Brooks, Henry also created Get Smart, the popular spy sitcom that centered around bumbling secret Agent 86, Maxwell Smart. Henry's fame grew when he shared an Academy Award nomination with Calder Willingham for penning the screenplay for The Graduate, in which he also played a supporting role. Henry also made many appearances on Saturday Night Live, and was the show's most frequent host during its first five years. Henry had a hand in writing films such as Catch-22, What's Up, Doc?, The Day of The Dolphin, Town & Country, and also co-directed Heaven Can Wait along with Warren Beatty for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Henry also appeared in movies such as Taking Off, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Old Boyfriends, Gloria, Eating Raoul, and Grumpy Old Men, as well as TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Falcon Crest, Murphy Brown, Tales from the Crypt, Will & Grace, 30 Rock, Hot in Cleveland, and Franklin & Bash.

Terry Jones

Terry Jones is best remembered for creating and starring in Monty Python's Flying Circus alongside Eric Idle, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Terry Gilliam. The beloved surreal sketch comedy series was unlike anything else on British television at the time, and Jones was particularly skilled with his depictions of middle-aged women. Jones also took on a larger role behind the scenes as he co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail alongside Terry Gilliam, and went on to helm Monty Python's The Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life by himself. One of Jones' most memorable roles in The Meaning of Life was that of Mr. Creosote, the monstrously obese restaurant patron who is persuaded to eat an after-dinner mint – "It's only wafer-thin" –  and soon explodes with a shower of half-digested food and viscera. Jones also wrote an early screenplay for Jim Henson's Labyrinth and wrote and directed Erik the Viking, The Wind in the Willows, and Absolutely Anything. Jones was also passionate about medieval and ancient history, and wrote and presented several documentary programs on those subjects, including Terry Jones' Medieval Lives and Terry Jones' Barbarians. Additionally, Jones also a prolific author of children's books, penning Fairy Tales, The Saga of Erik the Viking, The Beast with a Thousand Teeth, and many more. Terry Jones died on January 21st at the age of 77 following a long battle with dementia.

Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant died on January 26th at the age of 41 in a helicopter crash that also claimed the lives of his daughter and seven others. After Kobe Bryant announced his retirement from the NBA after twenty years of playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, he was called one of the greatest players of all time. Over the course of his career, Bryant won five NBA championships, an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, NBA Most Valuable Player of 2008, and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also ranks fourth on the high-scoring players of all time, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, and LeBron James. Bryant was also no stranger to non-NBA appearances on our screens, as he appeared in movies such as Daddy's Home and TV shows such as Arli$$, Sister, Sister, In the House, Hang Time, Bette, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, and more. Bryant was also the writer, narrator, and executive producer of Dear Basketball, an animated short-film that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony. "I enjoy the process of creating," Bryant told the LA Times in 2017. "I truly find it fascinating that we can put a story together, and then you can have different interpretations of that story. … How do we create something that, like ‘Dear Basketball,’ you can look at it and feel a certain way, and then someone else can look at it and feel a certain way? Or you may look at it 20 years from now and have a different point of view on it? How do we create things like that, that move people emotionally, that challenge them, that make them go a little deeper? I’m just absolutely fascinated by that art, and how to make more." Bryant also launched his own production company with the intention of developing books, TV shows, and feature-films.

Gene Reynolds

Gene Reynolds got his start as a child actor appearing in films such as Captain Courageous, Love Finds Andy Hardy, Boys Town, The Flying Irishman, The Mortal Storm, Gallant Sons, and more. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Reynolds tried to resume his acting career but grew frustrated at the lack of leading roles and soon turned his attention behind the camera. Reynolds would go on to direct episodes of Peter Gunn, Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, Father of the Bride, My Three Sons, The Donna Reed Show, Wendy and Me, F Troop, Hogan's Heroes, Lou Grant, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Promised Land, Touched by an Angel, and more, but he's best known for co-creating M*A*S*H with Larry Gelbart. The iconic comedy/drama series remains one of the popular TV shows of all-time, and before he left at the end of the fifth season, Reynolds had produced 120 episodes of M*A*S*H in addition to directing 24 and writing 12. Gene Reynolds died of heart failure on February 3rd at the age of 96.

Kevin Conway

Kevin Conway passed away after a heart attack on February 5th at the age of 77. After joining the Navy fresh out of high-school and working at IBM, Conway saw his first play and signed up for an acting class soon after. "I thought I might meet some girls there, so I enrolled," Conway told People. "And the lessons were a way to keep off the streets." Conway's first major role found him playing Roland Weary in George Roy Hill's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and from there, Conway went on to appear in movies such as Portnoy's Complaint, The Funhouse, Flashpoint, Funny Farm, One Good Cop, Jennifer 8, The Quick and the Dead, Mercury Rising, Thirteen Days, Black Knight, Mystic River, and Invincible.The actor also worked with Sylvester Stallone on F.I.S.T. and Paradise Alley, and Stallone even suggested that Conway have an eagle tattooed on his forehead on the latter film, in order to make the hoodlum he played more memorable. "I told him I wasn’t crazy about the idea," said Conway. "A thing like that could cut down your employment opportunities!" Conway also played Sgt. Buster Kilrain in Gettysburg, a role that he reprised for Gods and Generals. In regards to television, Conway made appearances in The Equalizer, In the Heat of the Night, The Beachcombers, Northern Exposure, Star Trek: The Next Generation, New York News, Homicide: Life on the Street, JAG, Oz, The Black Donnellys, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Good Wife, and Person of Interest. You might also recognize Conway as the Control Voice for the revival of The Outer Limits, which aired from 1995 to 2002.

Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas, one of the last stars of Hollywood's golden age, passed away at the age of 103 on February 5th. Over the course of a career that spanned more than six decades, Kirk Douglas appeared in all manner of productions, but it was his friend Lauren Bacall, who he met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, who helped him to get his first feature-film role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Douglas' popularity would soar just a few years later with his starring role in Champion as boxer Midge Kelly, which earned Douglas his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Douglas would go on to appear in films such as Along the Great Divide, Detective Story, The Big Sky, The Bad and the Beautiful, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Ulysses, Lust for Life, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Paths of Glory, and The Vikings, but he's probably best known for starring in Spartacus, Stanley Kubrick's sprawling historical epic about the gladiator who led a slave revolt. By publicly crediting Dalton Trumbo as the screenwriter of Spartacus, who had been blacklisted thanks to McCarthyism, Douglas also helped to bring an end to Hollywood blacklisting. Following Spartacus, Kirk Douglas would appear in Lonely are the Brave, Seven Days in May, The Heroes of Telemark, The Way West, The Brotherhood, The Light at the End of the World, Holocaust 2000, Saturn 3, The Final Countdown, Tough Guys, and much more. Douglas also voiced Chester J. Lampwick, the true creator of Itchy & Scratchy, in an episode of The Simpsons.

Robert Conrad

One of Robert Conrad's early roles was in an episode of Maverick, and during rehearsals for a fight scene, Conrad told the other actor that he was getting too close. "I said to the director, 'Why don't you double him?'" Conrad recalled. "He said, 'We don't have a double for him, he's going to have to smack you.' I said, 'If he does, he's going to regret it.' So we rolled cameras, and sure enough, he hit me, and I hit him back. That went out to one of the executives, and one of them said, 'I like that kid.' And then they put me under contract." From then on, Conrad grew a reputation for doing his own stunts and went on to appear in TV shows such as Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol, Lawman, Colt.45, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Adam-12, The D.A., Assignment Vienna, Columbo, and more, but the actor is best known for starring as secret service agent Jim West in The Wild Wild West and as private investigator Tom Lopaka in Hawaiian Eye. Conrad also starred in World War II fighter pilot drama/comedy Baa Baa Black Sheep. Robert Conrad is also one of the few actors to have been inducted into the Stuntmen's Hall of Fame. Conrad loved performing stunts, and even when his Wild Wild West co-star Ross Martin told Johnny Carson that "Robert does his own stunts, and I do my own acting," he didn't take offense. "I applauded it, it was the truth," said Conrad. "I did my acting tongue in cheek. I didn't take any of it seriously. The last year, I didn't even read the scripts, I just read my part. And it worked." Robert Conrad died of heart failure at the age of 84 on February 8th.

Lynn Cohen

Lynn Cohen passed away on February 14th at the age of 86. Cohen began her career in the theater and didn't make the leap to movies and television until she was well into her 50's, appearing in movies such as Manhattan Murder Mystery, I Shot Andy Warhol, Deconstructing Harry, The Station Agent, Munich, Invincible, Across the Universe, Deception, Snynecdoche, New York, Eagle Eye, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and more. Cohen also appeared in episodes of NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Bored to Death, Nurse Jackie, Damages, The Affair, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and more, but Cohen is probably best known for playing Magda, the housekeeper/nanny to Cynthia Nixon's Miranda on HBO's Sex and the City, a role she also reprised for the Sex and the City movie and its sequel. "It showed a woman of a different age who was smart as the devil, very bossy, and also understood sexuality, and they needed that," Cohen told Cosmopolitan about the role. "It enlarged the canvas on which they were working, that they would not have a typical old lady molding away in some retirement home somewhere, but a woman who worked, and didn’t suffer fools."

Kellye Nakahara

Kellye Nakahara was best known for playing Lt. Kellye Yamato on M*A*S*H, a nurse at the 4077 who appeared in more episodes than any other recurring character on the series. Originally starting as an extra, Nakahara's appearances grew steadily until her character was the focus of an episode in the final season of the series where she calls Hawkeye (Alan Alda) out for neglecting her romantically. While speaking with Rachel Martin on NPR, Nakahara expressed just how much fun the M*A*S*H set was. "I just was so thrilled to be on that set," Nakahara said. "I loved the smell of the tents. I loved the people. So I would have a great time with the writers and talk to them and the crew, who I loved. And really, we became such great friends that I think I was in every scene because I put myself in every scene…and nobody told me to get out." Nakahara also appeared in episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Little House on the Prairie, Growing Pains, NYPD Blue, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and more. She was also featured in movies such as She's Having a Baby, Shattered, 3 Ninjas Kick Back, and Dr. Dolittle, but her most well known role on the big-screen was as The Cook in Clue. Kellye Nakahara died on February 16th after battling cancer at the age of 72.

Ja'Net DuBois

Ja'Net DuBois passed away on February 17th due to cardiac arrest at the age of 87. DuBois is best known for starring in Good Times as Willona Woods, the close friend and gossipy neighbour of Florida (Esther Rolle) and James Evans (John Amos), but that wasn't her only major involvement with producer Norman Lear as she also co-wrote and performed "Movin' on Up," the theme song for The Jeffersons. Ja'Net DuBois also appeared in TV shows such as Sanford and Son, Shaft, Kojack, Roots: The Next Generations, The Love Boat, A Different World, Beverly Hills 90210, The Golden Palace, Home Improvement, ER, Touched by an Angel, The Wayans Bros., Crossing Jordan, and more. She also starred in The PJ's, a stop-motion animated sitcom co-created by Eddie Murphy. DuBois was also featured in movies such as Five on the Black Side, A Piece of the Action, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Heart Condition, Hard Time, and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

José Mojica Marins

Not everyone may be familiar with Jose Mojica Marins, but in his native Brazil, Marins is responsible for creating and playing the character of Coffin Joe, who has been called the Brazilian equivalent of Freddy Krueger. Coffin Joe was an amoral undertaker who was driven by his desire to have a son by the perfect woman, believing that immortality was achieved through procreation. The character was also known for his distinctive features, including a thick beard and long curled fingernails Marins caught the film-making bug earlier as his father ran a local cinema and he had been given a camera as a present from his parents. Soon, Marins was making short films starring himself and his neighbours and he even set up a film studio in an abandoned synagogue where he gave acting lessons and trained others in order to finance his films. Marins' character of Coffin Joe first appeared in At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, which is said to be the first Brazilian-produced horror film. From there, José Mojica Marins directed This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, The Strange World of Coffin Joe, Awakening of the Beast, The End of Man, When The Gods Fall Asleep, The Blood Exorcism of Coffin Joe, The Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures, Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind, and Embodiment of Evil, and also appeared as Coffin Joe in many of those films. Marins passed away on February 19th at the age of 83 due to complications caused by bronchopneumonia.

Diana Serra Cary

While many people may not be familiar with Diana Serra Cary nowadays, she was once one of the biggest stars of Hollywood's silent film era. Born Peggy-Jean Montgomery, Cary got her start when she was a mere 19 months old while visiting Century Film Studio in Hollywood with her mother. Director Fred Fishbach was so impressed with Cary's well-mannered behavior that he hired her to star in a series of short films where she became known as Baby Peggy. Over the next few years, Cary made nearly 150 short films for the studio, including Playmates, Miles of Smiles, and Sweetie. Soon afterwards, Cary made the jump to Universal Studios and began appearing in feature films such as The Darling of New York and Helen's Babies. Cary was paid an annual $1.5 million salary and received millions of fan letters; she also had her own line of products, including a Baby Peggy doll. Despite all this success, Cary faced harsh working conditions as she was forced to work eight hours a day, six days a week, and do her own stunts, all while still a toddler. Cary's film career came to an abrupt conclusion when her father fought with a producer over her salary and was subsequently blacklisted. Unfortunately, Cary's family had squandered nearly all of her earnings and the stock market crash of 1929 took care of the rest. Cary was forced to return to Hollywood in order to to help her struggling family, but could only find low-paying work as an extra alongside other former silent film stars. Sick of it all, Cary finally ran away from Hollywood and her parents, got married, and began working as a writer and journalist. Decades later, Cary would write several books on the silent film era and the treatment of child stars, but unfortunately, very few of her Baby Peggy shorts and films have survived. Diana Serra Cary died on February 24th at the age of 101.

Dieter Laser

Although best known for starring in The Human Centipede (First Sequence) and The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence), actor Dieter Laser performed on both stage and screen for decades before he took on those disturbing roles. Laser was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household where the only reading material he was allowed was the Bible. After leaving home at 16, Laser began working in a theater as a stage hand and eventually found parts as a performer, but he later said that he had been so "brainwashed" by his family's beliefs that he felt that becoming an actor would be condemning his soul to Hell, so he made a deal with the devil. "I will become an actor and I'll pay later on — in hell," Laser said. Prior to stitching people together mouth to anus, Laser appeared in films such as The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, The Elixirs of the Devil, The Glass Cell, Wir, The man Inside, Conversation with the Beast, The Ogre, Big Girls Don't Cry, and Baltic Storm. Laser also played the villainous Mantrid on the German/Canadian sci-fi series Lexx. Dieter Laser died on February 29th at the age of 78.

James Lipton

James Lipton passed away after battling bladder cancer on March 2nd at the age of 93. Lipton is best known as the host of the long-running interview series Inside the Actors Studio, where his gentle and easy-going style found him interviewing guests such as Alan Alda, Jon Bon Jovi, Francis Ford Coppola, Jane Fonda, James Gandolfini, Anjelica Huston, Spike Lee, Paul Newman, Will Smith, Steven Spielberg, and many more. Prior to his career in entertainment, Lipton enlisted in the United States Air Force and even worked as a pimp while living in Paris in the 1950s. After running out of money, Lipton was about to return home when a friend of his, who was a sex worker, arranged for him to become her mec aka pimp. "I had to be okayed by the underworld," Lipton said while speaking with Parade, "otherwise they would’ve found me floating in the Seine." Lipton originally represented his friend, but came to represent a whole bordello. "I did a roaring business, and I was able to live for a year," Lipton explained. "The French mecs didn’t exploit women. They represented them, like agents. And they took a cut. That’s how I lived. I was going through my rites of passage, no question about it. It was a great year of my life." A few of Lipton's early roles included appearances on Guiding Light, Inner Sanctum, The Goldbergs, As the World Turns, and more. Lipton also wrote hundreds of episodes for soap operas such as The Edge of Night, Another World, Guiding Light, The Best of Everything, The Doctors, and Return to Peyton Place. Lipton frequently made appearances as himself in films such as Betwitched and Igor, as well as TV shows such as The Simpsons, Joey, Family Guy, Saturday Night Live, Glee, and more. Lipton also played Stefan Gentles on Arrested Development, the warden of Orange County Prison who also happens to be an aspiring screenwriter as well as infatuated with Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter).

Max von Sydow

Max von Sydow appeared timeless for much of his career as he often played characters who were much older than he was, the best example of this being Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist, which is likely his best known role. "Somebody gave me the [William Peter Blatty] book to read and said, 'they want you to play a priest,'" von Sydow told the LA Times in 2013. "I read the book and I thought, of course, it was for the young priest. So I said, 'That's a good part.' And they said, 'No, no no. They want you for the exorcist!' I still don't really know why." The character of Father Merrin was nearly 80 years old, but Max von Sydow was only 43 at the time, so it was the actor's performance, combined with the masterful makeup effects by Dick Smith, that led to many audiences not even realizing that von Sydow was so much younger than he appeared. In addition to The Exorcist, Max von Sydow was also featured in movies such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Magician, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Three Days of the Condor, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, Dune, Awakenings, Judge Dredd, What Dreams May Come, Minority Report, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Shutter Island, Robin Hood, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and more. The actor also appeared in TV shows much as The Last Place on Earth, Quo Vadis?, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, The Tudors, The Simpsons, and Game of Thrones. Max von Sydow passed away on March 8th at the age of 90.

Stuart Whitman

Stuart Whitman passed away on March 16th at the age of 92. Like many actors, Whitman caught the acting bug early on when he would be allowed to watch plays performed at Tammany Hall, where his father worked as a ticket collector at the time. Whitman went on to enlist in the U.S. Army and serve in the Corps of Engineers for three years; he was also a lightweight boxer throughout his army career, winning 31 out of his 32 bouts, but he had always assumed that he would be joining his father at his law firm. That was still the plan when he enrolled in Los Angeles City College and discovered that "law was a real bore." That was all Whitman needed to pursue his dramatic ambitions, but his father wasn't overly pleased. "My father wanted me to join his law firm and dabble in real estate on the side," recalled Whitman. "There was a family row about boxing, but nothing like the battle when I told my father I was going to be an actor. He said, 'If that's the case you're on your own.' No money from him. And he kept his word." Thankfully, Whitman's career took off with roles in movies such as When Worlds Collide, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Darby's Rangers, The Comancheros, The Longest Day, The Day and The Hour, Rio Conchos, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Captain Apache, Night of the Lepus, and more. Whitman was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in THE MARK. Additionally, Whitman appeared in TV shows such as The Roy Rogers Show, Gunsmoke, Highway Patrol, Cimarron Strip, Night Gallery, The F.B.I., The Magical World of Disney, S.W.A.T., Fantasy Island, The A-Team, Knots Landing, Murder, She Wrote, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., and Walker, Texas Ranger. Whitman also played Jonathan Kent on Superboy.

Stuart Gordon

From the very beginning, Stuart Gordon wanted to shock you. As a young man, Gordon produced The Game Show, a play that locked the audience in the theater and humiliated, beat, and raped them (using audience plants) until every performance ended with the audience rioting and stopping the show. "The Game Show's game is you," Gordon told The Daily Cardinal in 1968. "It is completely dedicated to destroying the complacency of every member in the audience, to making you react. It wants you to get up and be forcibly smashing in the head and the body, it wants you to throw up, to scream out, to lose the trust of the person sitting right next to you, to reach and act. It wants you – all by yourself – to do something." Stuart Gordon would go on to direct films such as Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dolls, Robot Jox, The Pit and the Pedulum, Castle Freak, Space Truckers, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, Dagon, King of the Ants, Edmond, and Stuck. Together with Brian Yuzna and Ed Naha, Gordon also co-created Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; in fact, Gordon was also slated to direct the film as well, something Disney wasn't entirely comfortable with. "Disney was worried that I was going to kill all the kids," the director told TCM. "And I kept saying…'No, I don't really want to kill them, but I want the audience to think that they might die. There should be a lot of tension in that story.'" Gordon finally won them over, but was forced to pull out at the last moment due to health concerns and was replaced by Joe Johnston. Gordon would finally get his shot at directing his creation years later with an episode of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show. Gordon also helmed installments of Masters of Horror and Fear Itself. Stuart Gordon died on March 24th at the age of 72 of multiple organ failure.

Andrew Jack

Andrew Jack passed away on March 31st at the age of 76 due to COVID-19. Jack served as a dialect coach on over a hundred projects, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Last of the Mohicans, Chaplin, Backbeat, Richard III, Goldeneye, The Jackal, Lost in Space, Sexy Beast, Girl With a Pearl Earring, Cold Mountain, Troy, Alien vs. Predator, Batman Begins, Eastern Promises, Sherlock Holmes, The Wolfman, Robin Hood, Captain America: The First Avenger, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Endgame, Men in Black: International, Dolittle, and many more. Jack was also vitally important to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy as he created the accents of Middle-Earth and taught them to the cast, along with Elvish and Black Speech. This was no small task and Jack was all too aware that fans would be very critical of how these languages would be used. "We were very strict with ourselves," Jack said in an interview on his website. "We followed the rules that Tolkien wrote — the information you can find in the appendices of the book — virtually to the letter." The one change came with the Orcs. "We originally intended that the Orcs would sound more evil without any accent," Jack explained, "but then decided that the Orcs should be 'Cockney' to bring in a modern sound to what was supposed to be a rural and altogether separate world of accents. Nevertheless, I think we pleased the audience by doing it like this and not dramatically changing a lot by keeping the pronunciation very close to the way Tolkien had originally intended." Jack also served as a dialect coach on the majority of Disney's Star Wars films, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Solo: A Star Wars Story. Jack also played General Ematt in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and voiced Moloch in Solo. Andrew Jack's final project will be Matt Reeves' The Batman, which he was working on at the time of his death.

Honor Blackman

Most of us likely best remember Honor Blackman thanks to her roles of Cathy Gale on The Avengers alongside Patrick Macnee and as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger opposite Sean Connery. In fact, it was Blackman's time on The Avengers that led to James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli casting her in Goldfinger. "The Brits would love her because they knew her as Mrs. Gale," Broccoli said. "The Yanks would like her because she was so good, it was a perfect combination." As she was five years older than Sean Connery, Honor Blackman also held the distinction of being the oldest actress to play a Bond girl at the time. Honor Blackman also appeared in movies such as A Night to Remember, The Square Peg, Serena, Jason and the Argonauts, Life at the Top, Moment to Moment, Shalako, The Last Roman, The Virgin and the Gypsy, Fright, Something Big, To the Devil a Daughter, Age of Innocence, The Cat and the Canary, and Bridget Jones's Dairy, as well as TV shows such as The Vise, Probation Officer, The Four Just Men, Never the Twain, Doctor Who, Midsomer Murders, The Royal, Coronation Street, Hotel Babylon, and more, and also starred as Laura West on the ITV sitcom The Upper Hand. Although her roles in The Avengers and Goldfinger made her well known around the globe, Blackman's career didn't take off as she had hoped as producers tended to go for younger actresses.  "We have all these older men with their guts hanging out still acting," Blackman said in a 2009 interview, "they can barely put their belts round their stomach so have to belt up round their crotch, and they all carry on getting roles and are accepted and praised, whereas older women are given rather boring parts or are cut off at their prime." Honor Blackman passed away on April 5th at the age of 94.

James Drury

James Drury spent much of his childhood at a family ranch in Oregon where he grew to love horses and the outdoors, but he caught the acting bug early on and went on to appear in a number of theatrical productions before making the move to Hollywood. James Drury went on to appear in movies such as Forbidden Planet, Love Me Tender, Bernardine, Toby Tyler, Pollyanna, Ten Who Dared, Ride the High Country, and Maverick, as well as TV shows such as Gunsmoke, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Texan, The Rifleman, Rawhide, Lawman, Steve Canyon, Cheyenne, Wagon Train, Alias Smith and Jones, Firehouse, Walker, Texas Ranger, and The Adventures of Brisco Country, Jr. However, the actor is best known for starring in The Virginian, one of the longest-running western shows on television. With each season averaging thirty 90-minute episodes, The Virginian had one of the more demanding schedules of any TV show at the time. "There were times when we had five Virginian episodes shooting on the same day," said Drury in the biography on his official site. "I would literally ride on horseback from set to set to give two lines here, three lines there, then over here to do 10 pages of scripts." James Drury died on April 6th at the age of 85.

Nobuhiko Obayashi

Nobuhiko Obayashi died on April 10th at the age of 82 from lung cancer. When he was eight years old, Obayashi's father gave him an 8mm camera that sparked a life-time of making movies. After a series of experimental films throughout the '60s, Obayashi went on to direct thousands of commercials for Japanese television, with some featuring Western stars such as Kirk Douglas, Charles Bronson, Sophia Loren, and Catherine Deneuve. Obayashi also directed feature-films such as Take Me Away!, I Are You, You Am Me, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Lonely Heart, His Motorbike, Her Island, The Drifting Classroom, The Discarnates, Chizuko's Younger Sister, Samurai Kids, Sada, Casting Blossoms to The Sky, Seven Weeks, Hanagatami, and Labyrinth of Cinema, but he's best known for House, a surreal horror comedy that really must be seen to be believed. After the huge success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, Toho approached Obayashi with developing a similar script and he wound up looking to his young daughter for inspiration. Obayashi believed that adults "only think about things they understand… everything stays on that boring human level," while "children can come up with things that can't be explained." When Obayashi was diagnosed with cancer and given just three months to live in 2016, he defied expectations and went on to write, direct, and edit two more feature-films, and his love of cinema never left him. "Some say that because movies have a long history and everyone all over the world has been making them everything has been done already. There’s nothing more to do," Obayashi told the Japan Times last year. "I say that’s nonsense. There are still a lot of things that have never been done."

Allen Daviau

After graduating high-school, Allen Daviau bought his own 16mm camera and dove headfirst into the entertainment industry, shooting music videos for The Who, The Animals, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but it was a meeting with a young Steven Spielberg in 1967 that would launch both their careers. "Steven had seen some of my 16mm work," Daviau recalled while speaking with the ASC in 2007. "He and I shared a great love of movies and tried to show that in this little film." That "little film" was Amblin', Steven Spielberg's first completed 35mm short that would go on to become the namesake of Spielberg's production company. "Amblin' was a pretty big break for both of us," Spielberg told the ASC. "I don’t know how crazy we are today about our individual work in that film, but I always think of Allen as a terrifically versatile cinematographer." Daviau would go on to reunite with Spielberg over a decade later as he served as the cinematographer on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun. Daviau also assisted on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and also shot Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante's segments in Twilight Zone: The Movie. He was also the director of photography on Ghost Train, the first episode of the Amazing Stories anthology series that was directed by Spielberg. Daviau was also behind the camera for The Falcon and the Snowman, Harry and the Hendersons, Avalon, Bugsy, Defending Your Life, Fearless, Congo, The Astronaut's Wife, The Tigger Movie, and Van Helsing. Daviau received five Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography for his work on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Avalon, and Bugsy. Allen Daviau passed away on April 15th at the age of 77 due to complications from COVID-19.

Brian Dennehy

Brian Dennehy died on April 15th at the age of 81. Before Dennehy got his start on the big-screen, the actor worked a variety of blue-collar jobs to support his family, but later said that the odd hours allowed him to attend matinee theater performances that served as his own acting education. "I never went to acting school," Dennehy said. "I was a truck driver and I used to go see everything I could see [on] Wednesday afternoons." Dennehy went on to appear in movies such as Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Semi-Tough, F.I.S.T., Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, 10, First Blood, Finders Keepers, The River Rat, Cocoon, Silverado, F/X, Legal Eagles, The Belly of an Architect, Best Seller, The Last of the Finest, Presumed Innocent, Tommy Boy, Romeo + Juliet, She Hate Me, Assault on Precinct 13, Ratatouille, Righteous Kill, The Next Three Days, Knight of Cups, Tag, and much more. Dennehy also appeared in TV shows such as Kojack, M*A*S*H, Dallas, Knots Landing, Dynasty, Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice, Just Shoot Me, The West Wing, The 4400, 30 Rock, Rules of Engagement, The Good Wife, The Big C, Public Morals, The Blacklist, Hap and Leonard, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, and more. He also played real-life Cook County Sheriff's Homicide Investigator Jack Reed in a series of six TV movies and even directed four of them himself. Dennehy was also active in the world of theater, receiving rave reviews, not to mention a Tony Award, for his starring performance in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The play was adapted into a TV movie that also earned Dennehy a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor as well as an Emmy Award nomination.

Shirley Knight

Shirley Knight was born in one of the smallest communities in Kansas, but thanks to radio, Knight caught the entertainment bug earlier on as her family would listen to the Metropolitan Opera every Saturday. While attending Wichita State University, an advertisement for the Pasadena Playhouse caught her eye. "Toward the end of my junior year, I saw an advertisement in Theater Arts magazine that said you could go to the Pasadena Playhouse for six weeks [to learn acting]," Knight said in a 2014 interview. "$200 room and board. So I got on a train, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and went to Los Angeles, then to Pasadena." After appearing in several films and TV shows, Knight found great success starring in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, a drama that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She took her father as her date to the ceremony, and when she didn't win, her dad said, "You know you can always come home." Knight explained that "I think he thought that the fact I didn't win meant that was [the end of] it." Thankfully, that wasn't the end of it as Shirley Knight appeared in movies such as Five Gates to Hell, Ice palace, The Couch, Sweet Bird of Youth, Dutchman, The Counterfeit Killer, Petulia, Juggernaut, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, Color of Night, Diabolique, As Good As It Gets, Angel Eyes, The Salton Sea, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Grandma's Boy, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Our Idiot Brother, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, and more, as well as TV shows such as Buckskin, Maverick, Naked City, The Virginian, The Outer Limits, The Fugitive, The Invaders, Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, Thirtysomething, The Equalizer, Murder, She Wrote, Law & Order, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Maggie Winters, Desperate Housewives, and more. Shirley Knight died on April 22nd at the age of 83.

Irrfan Khan

Before turning his attention to acting, Irrfan Khan was a skilled cricketer and was even selected to play in a tournament that would have been his stepping stone to playing professionally. As his family didn't encourage a career in sports, Khan had been forced to lie about where he was while playing, and when it came time to come up with the travel expenses for the cricket tournament, Khan realized that he needed a new direction. Irrfan Khan attended the National School of Drama in New Delhi, and upon graduation, made his film debut in Salaam Bombat!, going on to appear in films such as The Warrior, Haasil, Maqbool, The Namesake, Life in a… Metro, A Mighty Heart, The Darjeeling Limited, Slumdog Millionaire, New York, I Love You, Hisss, Paan Singh Tomar, The Amazing Spider-Man, Life of PI, The Lunchbox, Gunday, Haider, Jurassic World, Inferno, Hindi Medium, and more. Khan also appeared in TV shows such as Bharat Ek Khoj, Just Mohabbat, The Great Maratha, In Treatment, and Tokyo Trial. The actor became one of Bollywood's most beloved stars, but he told The Guardian that he "always [objected] to the word Bollywood," explaining, "I don't think it's fair to have that name. Because that industry has its own technique, its own way of making films that has nothing to do with aping Hollywood. It originates in Parsi theatre." As for what defines Indian cinema, Khan responded, "Celebration, [we] celebrate everything and Indian cinema is an extension of that, so why did they lose their identity by calling it Bollywood?" After battling cancer for two years, Irrfan Khan died on April 29th at the age of 53 due to a colon infection.

Sam Lloyd

Sam Lloyd died on April 30th at the age of 56 of complications from lung cancer. Lloyd appeared in TV shows such as Night Court, City, Matlock, Seinfeld, Coach, Mad About You, The Drew Carey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Spin City, The West Wing, NYPD Blue, Desperate Housewives, Malcolm in the Middle, Numbers, Medium, Cougar Town, The Middle, Modern Family, Bones, and Shameless, as well as movies such as Rising Sun, Flubber, Galaxy Quest, and more. However, Sam Lloyd is probably best known for his work on Scrubs, the medical comedy/drama in which he was featured as Ted Buckland, the frequently depressed lawyer for Sacred Hearts Hospital. While speaking with the University Observer in 2014, Lloyd said that it wasn't always easy playing a character who was constantly being put down. "I was able to keep a sense of humour about it, but after a while, you know, I was ready to be happy again," Lloyd explained. "Because he’s always sad, and everyone’s always treating him like crap. I’m wearing suits that don’t fit, and bad makeup, and sweat, and I look horrible, I feel horrible. People are telling me I’m horrible. So yeah, after a while it got kinda tiring." However, Lloyd admitted that ultimately, "It was a blast. And you know, at the end of the day it was all for the fun, so it was great." In addition to his acting career, Lloyd was also an accomplished musician, performing in the a cappela group The Blanks (who made many appearances on Scrubs) as well as playing bass guitar in The Butties, a Beatles tribute group.

Jerry Stiller

After serving in the U.S. Army near the end of World War II, Jerry Stiller attended Syracuse University and earned a degree in speech and drama before returning to New York City, which is fortunate, because that's where his met his wife and longtime comedic partner Anne Meara. The pair met in an agent's office after Meara had burst out in tears following a bad interaction with the casting agent. Stiller took her out for coffee and it didn't take long before the pair were married. At the time, Meara was set on becoming a dramatic actress, but Stiller saw their potential as a comedy team and the pair soon began performing together in nightclubs. Stiller and Meara became national sensations following their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and they were invited back dozens of ties over the years. Stiller told the Los Angeles Times that, "Ed Sullivan brought us up to the level that we never knew we could get to — him standing there on the right side of the wings laughing, tears coming out of his eyes." Jerry Stiller also appeared in movies such as The Taking of Pelham One Two Tree, Airport 1975, The Ritz, Hairspray, Heavyweights, Zoolander, The Heartbreak Kid, Zoolander 2, and more, as well as TV shows such as The Defenders, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Love, American Style, The Carol Burnett Show, The Paul Lynde Show, Joe and Sons, Phyllis, Rhoda, The Love Boat, Archie Bunker's Place, Hart to Hart, Trapper John, M.D., The Equalizer, Tales from the Darkside, Murder, She Wrote, Law & Order, L.A. Law, Homicide: Life on the Street, Touched by an Angel, Teacher's Pet, Sex and the City, Mercy, Fish Hooks, The Good Wife, and more. Stiller is best known for playing Frank Costanza, George's quick-tempered father, on Seinfeld, as well as Arthur Spooner on The King of Queens. Jerry Stiller died on May 11th at the age of 92.

Fred Willard

Fred Willard died on May 15th at the age of 86. Although Willard rarely found himself playing leading roles throughout his long career, he could always be counted upon to steal the show. Willard got his start in improv, but soon rose to fame when he starred alongside Martin Mull in Fernwood 2 Night, a spin-off of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman which parodied night-time talk shows. Willard told the New York Times in 2008 that he liked "to play the guy that has no self-awareness, kind of the likable buffoon who will stick his foot in his mouth and say the wrong thing." Willard would go on to appear in movies such as Silver Streak, Fun with Dick and Jane, This is Spinal Tap, Roxanne, Idle Hands, Austin Power: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Best in Show, The Wedding Planner, How High, A Mighty Wind, American Wedding, Harold & Kumor Go To White Castle, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Date Movie, WALL-E, Youth in Revolt, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, and more, as well as TV shows like Get Smart, Love, American Style, The Bob Newhart Show, Salem's Lot, The Love Boat, Trapper John, M.D., D.C. Follies, The Golden Girls, Married…with Children, Family Matters, Murphy Brown, Roseanne, Mad About You, The Simpsons, Ally McBeal, King of the Hill, Family Guy, That '70s Show, Everybody Loves Raymond, Stargate SG-1, Modern Family, Family Tree, The Bold and the Beautiful, New Girl, Space Force, and much more. Although it seems like Willard had a part in just about everything, there was one role that got away – the lead role in Airplane!. Upon receiving the script, Willard realized it was all puns and wordplay and promptly threw the script across the room. Of course, Airplane! was one of the biggest films of 1980 and has since become a comedy classic, but Willard's wife Mary knew just what to say to make him feel better: "Fred, don't worry, if you had been the star it might not have been that successful."

Lynn Shelton

Lynn Shelton began her career in the film industry as an editor and soon started making a series of experimental film, and although she had always wanted to become a director, she feared that she was too old to begin. That all changed when she heard that french director Claire Denis was 40 when she directed her first feature-film, and Shelton soon began writing what would become her feature directorial debut, We Go Way Back. Shelton would go on to direct films such as What the Funny, My Effortless Brilliance, Humpday, Your Sister's Sister, Touchy Feely, Laggies, Outside In, and Sword of Trust, as well as episodes of TV shows like Mad Men, New Girl, The Mindy Project, Fresh Off the Boat, Master of None, Maron, Shameless, GLOW, A.P. Bio, The Morning Show, and Little Fires Everywhere. Thanks to Shelton's independent success, she was approached by studios to take on bigger films and was even in early talks with Marvel to take the helm of Black Widow, but she always turned them down. "It’s very easy to have creative freedom when you’re making movies for a very small amount of money," Shelton told Variety in a 2014 interview. "The more money involved, the more complicated it becomes because there are people involved who want to make sure they’re not throwing their cash down a big hole." Lynn Shelton passed away due to leukemia on May 16th at the age of 54.

Richard Herd

During a two-year apprenticeship at the Boston Summer Theater, Richard Herd was fortunate enough to be taught by legendary actor Claude Rains. "One evening, he heard a group of us rehearsing Shakespeare and offered to come in early each night to work with us," Herd said in a 2015 interview. "He taught me you shouldn't just get involved with the language, but look ahead for the intent and director of the character you are portraying." Richard Herd appeared in movies such as Hercules in New York, F.I.S.T., Wolf Lake, Schizoid, Private Benjamin, Trancers, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Sgt. Bilko, Dog Days of Summer, Get Out, The Oath, The Mule, and more, as well as TV shows like Kojak, Eight is Enough, Starsky & Hutch, Hart to Hart, M*A*S*H, Dallas, Simon & Simon, V, Falcon Crest, V: The Final Battle, The A-Team, Knight Rider, Dynasty, Murder, She Wrote, Hill Street Blues, Matlock, The Golden Girls, Knots Landing, Quantum Leap, Tales from the Crypt, Star Trek: The Next Generation, SeaQuest DSV, ER, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, Everwood, NYPD Blue, Desperate Housewives, CSI: Miami, Shameless, and Hawaii Five-0. Herd is probably best known for playing Matt Wilhelm on Seinfeld, George Costanza's supervisor at the New York Yankees, as well as Dennis Sheridan in T.J. Hooker, the station captain in charge of William Shatner's no-nonsense cop. As Herd also had a close association with the Star Trek franchise, as well as sci-fi in general, the actor was also a member of the Enterprise Blues Band. "It was made up of cast and crew from the five Star Trek series. We had a mandolin, violin, drums, piano, and I played the gutbucket, which has a hell of a good sound if you do it right," Herd explained. Richard Herd died on May 26th at the age of 87 due to complications from colon cancer.

Mary Pat Gleason

Mary Pat Gleason died of cancer on June 2nd at the age of 70. Gleason appeared in films such as Fat Man and Little Boy, Defending Your Life, Basic Instinct, Lorenzo's Oil, Speechless, The Crucible, Traffic, Bruce Almighty, 13 Going on 30, A Cinderella Story, The Island, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Bottle Shock, Drillbit Taylor, Buck Larson: Born to be a Star, Earth to Echo, Why Him?, and Sierra Burgess is a Loser, as well as TV shows such as Guiding Light, Full House, Highway to Heaven, Murphy Brown, Peter Gunn, Quantum Leap, Night Court, Who's the Boss, L.A. Law, Save by the Bell, Perfect Strangers, Nurses, Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Palace, Coach, Blossom, Friends, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, ER, Duckman, NYPD Blue, Family Matters, Will & Grace, Sex and the City, Malcolm in the Middle, Desperate Housewives, Nip/Tuck, The Middleman, United States of Tara, The Mentalist, Chuck, NCIS: Los Angeles, Hawaii Five-0, The Middle, 2 Broke Girls, 1600 Penn, Grey's Anatomy, Instant Mom, Shameless, How to Get Away with Murder, The Blacklist, Mom, and much more. If you couldn't tell, Mary Pat Gleason appeared in just about everything over her long career, but she was also a writer on Guiding Light and was part of the team that won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series Writing Team in 1986.

Ian Holm

Following his graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Ian Holm quickly rose through the ranks of the Royal Shakespeare Company with roles in Othello, Titus Andronicus, MacBeth, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry V, Richard III, and more, but unfortunately, Holm suffered an intense bout of stage fright in the midst of a performance of The Iceman Cometh and wouldn't return to the theater again for close to twenty years. "The moment arrived when I knew I would not be able to continue," Holm explained. "The black curtain which slowly cowled my brain had become a complete hood… By the time I got back to the dressing room area, I had even lost the ability to walk." Thankfully, Ian Holm was able to transition to feature films and would go on to appear in movies such as Oh! What a Lovely War, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Homecoming, Juggernaut, Robin and Marian, Jesus of Nazareth, Alien, S.O.S. Titanic, Chariots of Fire, Time Bandits, Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, Brazil, Henry V, Hamlet, Naked Lunch, Kafka, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Sweet Hereafter, The Fifth Element, Animal Farm, Existenz, From Hell, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Day After Tomorrow, Garden State, Aviator, Lord of War, Ratatouille, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and more, as well as TV shows such as The Lost Boys, The Borrowers, The Return of the Borrowers, and more. Ian Holm died on June 19th at the age of 88.

Joel Schumacher

Joel Schumacher died of cancer on June 22nd at the age of 80. Schumacher was originally set on working in the fashion industry after studying at Parson School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology, but elected to pursue a career in film-making instead. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Schumacher worked as a costume designer on films such as Blume in Love, Sleeper, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Interiors, and more. He then penned screenplays for Sparkle, Car Wash, and The Wiz before making his feature directorial debut with The Incredible Shrinking Woman. Schumacher would go on to direct films such as D.C. Cab, St. Elmo's Fire, The Lost Boys, Flatliners, Dying Young, Falling Down, The Client, Batman Forever, A Time to Kill, Batman & Robin, 8mm, Flawless, Tigerland, Bad Company, Phone Booth, The Phantom of the Opera, The Number 23, Blood Creek, and Trespass. Schumacher also directed episodes of 2000 Malibu Road and House of Cards. Schumacher also famously boasted that he had had sex with somewhere between 10,000-20,000 partners in his lifetime, but has kept most of those relationships secret, telling Vulture that he "never kissed and told about anybody who gives me the favor of sharing a bed with me." Of course, it's hard to talk about Joel Schumacher without bringing up Bat-nipples. With the advances that had been made since the Bat-suits for the first two Batman movies had come out, Schumacher wanted to evoke Greek statues and anatomical drawings, but fans were focused on the nipples. "Such a sophisticated world we live in where two pieces of rubber the size of erasers on old pencils, those little nubs, can be an issue," Schumacher said while speaking to Vice in 2017. "It's going to be on my tombstone, I know it."

Carl Reiner

While serving in the United States Air Force during World War II, Carl Reiner caught the show business bug and was transferred to Special Services and spent the remainder of the war entertaining troops across the Pacific theater. Upon returning home, Reiner began writing for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, which is where he met Mel Brooks, who would go on to become a life-long friend. The pair wound up forming a comedy duo who became famous for their classic The 2,000 Year Old Man routine. Reiner also appeared in movies such as It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Art of Love, The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Majestic, and Toy Story 4. Reiner also played Saul Bloom in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, and Ocean's Thirteen, and reprised the role for a cameo in Ocean's 8, which was ultimately cut. Reiner also directed The Comic, The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains, Summer Rental, Summer School, Sibling Rivalry, Fatal Instinct, and That Old Feeling, and made appearances in many of them. Reiner also appeared in TV shows such as Caesar's Hour, Night Gallery, The Carol Burnett Show, Frasier, Mad About You, King of the Hill, The Bernie Mac Show, Crossing Jordan, Ally McBeal, Father of the Pride, Boston Legal, Two and a Half Men, Hot in Cleveland, The Cleveland Show, American Dad, Parks and Recreation, Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, Angie Tribeca, and more. Reiner also created The Dick Van Dyke Show, although the series was originally called Head of the Family and would have starred Reiner in the leading role; unfortunately, the network didn't take to the pilot, but they did enjoy the scripts that Reiner had written and wound up recasting and retitling the show to become the classic sitcom we know today. Reiner would still go on to make many appearances as Alan Brady, the high-maintenance host of The Alan Brady Show. Carl Reiner died on June 29th at the age of 98.

Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone was musical from nearly the very beginning, after his father taught him how to read music and play several instruments, Morricone began composing and later entered the National Academy of Saint Cecila at the age of 12. He would go on to compose music for radio programs and television but made the leap to big-screen, going on to compose music for hundreds of films, including A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars more, The Return of Ringo, The Hawks and The Sparrows, The Battle of Algiers, Navajo Joe, The Big Gundown, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Witches, The Hellbenders, Danger: Diabolik, The Mercenary, Death Rides a Horse, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Great Silence, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Duck, You Sucker!, The Cat O' Nine Tails, Who Saw Her Die?, What Have You Done to Dolange?, My Name is Nobody, Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodem, 1900, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Days of Heaven, Butterfly, The Professional, The Thing, Once Upon a Time in America, The Mission, The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso, Bugsy, Lorenzo's Oil, In the Line of Fire, Wolf, The Phantom of the Opera, Bulworth, Malena, Mission to Mars, The Hateful Eight, and much more. Morricone would receive Academy Award nominations for Best Original Score for Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy, and Malena, before finally winning for The Hateful Eight. Much of Morricone's music, particularly his sublime The Ecstasy of Gold for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, still stand of some of my favourite cinematic music of all-time. Although Morricone valued a close relationship and collaboration with the director's he worked with, he said in a 2009 interview that "they must put their complete trust in the composer: Some directors have very clear, sometimes restrictive, ideas on what they want from a musical point of view, which limts composers' creativity." Ennio Morricone died on July 6th at the age of 91.

Kelly Preston

Kelly Preston died on July 12th at the age 57 after battling breast cancer. After being discovered by a fashion photographer when she was a teenager, Preston began working in commercials and other small parts. She also auditioned for the leading role in The Blue Lagoon, but wound up losing out to Brooke Shields. Preston would go on to appear in movies such as 10 to Midnight, Christine, Mischief, Space Camp, Spellbinder, Twins, The Experts, Waiting to Exhale, Citizen Ruth, From Dusk till Dawn, Jerry Maguire, Holy Man, Jack Frost, For the Love of the Game, Battlefield Earth, View From the Top, The Cat in the Hat, Eulogy, Sky High, Broken Bridges, Death Sentence, Old Dogs, Gotti, and more, as well as TV shows like Hawaii Five-O, Quincy, M.E., CHiPs, For Love and Honor, Blue Thunder, Tales from the Crypt, Joey, Fat Actress, Medium, and CSI: Cyber. In a 1988 interview about Twins, Preston spoke about working with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and although she said that the actor had plenty of experience when it came to action, he was somewhat lacking in the waltz department. "Sometimes I thought I deserved hazard pay," Preston said. "My toes were black and blue. He can dance really well when it comes to, say, rock n' roll, but it's just the two of you and your feet and nowhere near the soles of his feet."

Grant Imahara

Grant Imahara passed away on July 13th at the age of 49 due to a ruptured brain aneurysm. Although Imahara once considered pursuing a career as a screenwriter, he stuck with engineering and never looked back. "I liked the challenge of designing and building things, figuring out how something works and how to make it better or apply it in a different way," said Imahara in a 2008 interview. "When I was a kid, I never wanted to be James Bond. I wanted to be Q, because he was the guy who made all the gadgets. I guess you could say that engineering came naturally." Upon graduating from the University of Southern California, Imahara was hired as an engineer for Lucasfilm's THX company, but soon began working as a model maker for Industrial Light & Magic, lending his craft to films such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, The Matrix Reloaded, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Matrix Revolutions, Van Helsing, xXx: State of the Union, and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Imahara is best known for his involvment with MythBusters, where he served as a main member of the Build Team alongside Kari Byron and Tory Belleci. Imahara later reunited with Byron and Belleci for White Rabbit Project, a Netflix series that found the team investigating jailbreaks, superpower technology, heists, and crazy World War II weapons. Imahara also constructed Geoff Peterson, the wise-cracking robot sidekick for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and also played Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek Continues, a fan-created web-series that served as an unofficial continuation of The Original Series.

Phyllis Somerville

Phyllis Somerville was the daughter of a Methodist minister, and although the family would move around a lot, Somerville's father frequently took her to see plenty of film and theater. "If you’re a Methodist minister’s daughter, until you get to the big church — which my dad never did — they move you around a lot," Somerville explained in a 2010 interview. "So I was a little bit of a gypsy as a kid. Also, my father had a great sense of theater in the pulpit. Not an evangelical fervor; he just knew how to get focus. And he took me to a lot of movies. He took me to [Laurence] Olivier’s Hamlet when I was 4. I’m from Iowa, so there wasn’t a lot of professional theater around, but there were colleges, so he would take me there. Before I was 10, I saw Pygmalion, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice. He took me to see Marian Anderson in a small college in Iowa in the ’50s." Phyllis Somerville would go on to appear in films such as Arthur, Leap of Faith, The Imposters, Bringing Out The Dead, Swinfan, Little Children, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Stoker, and The Double, as well as TV shows such as Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Sex and the City, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Sopranos, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Chappelle's Show, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Kidnapped, Life on Mars, CSI: Miami, The Big C, Fringe, House of Cards, Elementary, The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, Daredevil, The Good Wife, Outsiders, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Castle Rock, Madam Secretary, and more. Phyllis Somerville passed away on July 16th at the age of 76.

John Saxon

John Saxon died on July 25th at the age of 83 due to pneumonia. Upon graduating from high-school, John Saxon began studying with famed acting coach Stella Adler and would go on to appear in a number of teen comedies, westerns, thrillers, and dramas, becoming something of a teen idol. However, it wasn't long before he began to grow weary of the Hollywood scene and decided to make the move to Italy. "It was 1962," Saxon told The Flashback Files in 2002. "At the time Hollywood was going through a crisis, but England and Italy were making a great many films. Besides, I thought the European films were of a much more mature quality than most of what Hollywood was making at the time." Over the course of his career, John Saxon appeared in films like A Star is Born, Rock, Pretty Baby, Cry Tough, The Unforgiven, The Plunderers, War Hunt, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Queen of Blood, The Appaloosa, Joe Kidd, Enter the Dragon, Black Christmas, The Swiss Conspiracy, The Bees, Beyond Evil, Cannibal Apocalypse, Battle Beyond the Stars, Blood Beach, The Scorpion with Two Tails, Tenebrae, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Nightmare Beach, My Mom's a Werewolf, Hellmaster, Beverly Hills Cop III, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, and From Dusk till Dawn, as well as TV shows like Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildare, Bonanza, Ironside, The Virginian, Night Gallery, Kung Fu, Police Story, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files, The Bionic Woman, Starsky & Hutch, Wonder Woman, Quincy, M.E., Fantasy Island, Hawaii Five-O, Dynasty, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The A-Team, Magnum, P.I., Murder, She Wrote, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Matlock, Melrose Place, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, CSI, and Masters of Horror. Saxon also has the distinction of appearing in Death of a Gunfighter, which was the very first film to use the Allen Smithee pseudonym.

Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland, one of the last stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, died on July 26th at the age of 104. From a young age, De Havilland was raised to appreciate the arts, and she would make her theatre debut in an amateur production of Alice in Wonderland, going on to appear in The Merchant of Venice and Hansel and Gretel, but her stepfather wasn't overly keen on her acting ambitions. When she won the lead role in a school fund-raising production of Pride and Prejudice, De Havilland's stepfather told her she had to choose between staying home or appearing in the play and not being allowed to return; As De Havilland didn't want to let down the production, she left home. De Havilland eventually signed a contract with Warner Bros. and would go on to appear in films such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Winds of the Navy, Dodge City, Santa Fe Trail, The Strawberry Blonde, Hold Back the Dawn, They Died with Their Boots On, To Each His Own, The Snake Pit, The Heiress, My Cousin Rachel, That Lady, Lady in a Cage, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Airport '77, The Swarm, and The Fifth Musketeer, as well as TV shows such as Roots: The Next Generations, The Love Boat, and Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna. Of course, Olivia de Havilland is most famous for starring alongside Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind. Although she outlived all of her co-stars, De Havilland told Entertainment Weekly that she's watched Gone with the Wind over thirty times over the years as it gives her the chance to reconnect with all those people who have since passed on. "Luckily, it does not make me melancholy," De Havilland said. "Instead, when I see them vibrantly alive on screen, I experience a kind of reunion with them, a joyful one."

Alan Parker

Alan Parker died on July 31st at the age of 76. As a young man, Alan Parker had little interest in the film industry, but after working as a copywriter for an advertising agency, Parker transitioned to directing commercials, which he credited for his later success. "Looking back, I came from a generation of filmmakers who couldn't have really started anywhere but commercials," Parker said in a 2003 interview, "because we had no film industry in the United Kingdom at the time. People like Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne, Hugh Hudson, and myself. So commercials proved to be incredibly important." Parker would go on to direct Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express, Fame, Shoot the Moon, Pink Floyd – The Wall, Birdy, Angel Heart, Mississippi Burning, Come See the Paradise, The Commitments, Evita, Angela's Ashes, and The Life of David Gale. After decades spent making films, Parker began to grow disillusioned with the film industry and the constant battles for money and creative control. "I found the whole process of raising the money for a film debilitating," Parker said while speaking with The Observer in 2017. "Whenever I go to the cash machine outside my local Tesco’s, I see this guy who sits there nursing his dog in his lap, with his hand outstretched. I suddenly thought, that’s me – except, instead of a dog in my lap, I have my script. And there I am in the office of some studio executive where I offer up my hand to beg for the money. Their notes on the script can turn great writing into a pedestrian movie." Although Parker left the film industry behind, he found a new creative outlet in painting, saying that "it was refreshing to do something creative on my own, without the help of 100 other people. I can honestly say that since I’ve concentrated on the painting full time, the last three years have been the most enjoyable of my life."

Wilford Brimley

After serving in the Marines during the Korean War, Wilford Brimley worked as a ranch hand, wrangler, blacksmith, and even served as a bodyguard for the reclusive Howard Hughes at one point, but he got his first taste of Hollywood when he started shoeing horses for a variety of film and television projects. At the urging of close friend Robert Duvall, Brimley later made the leap to acting, and went on to appear in films such as True Grit, The China Syndrome, Brubaker, Death Valley, The Thing, 10 to Midnight, Harry & Son, The Natural, Country, Cocoon, Cocoon: The Return, The Firm, Hard Target, In & Out, Progeny, and Did You Hear about The Morgans?, as well as TV shows like The Waltons, Kung Fu, The Oregon Trail, Our House, Billy the Kid, Walker, Texas Ranger, and Seinfeld. Brimley also starred in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, the second of two made-for-TV films set in the Star Wars universe. Brimley never received any formal acting training, but told the Associated Press in 1984 that, "My years as an extra were good background for learning about camera techniques and so forth. I was lucky to have had that experience; a lot of newcomers don’t. Basically my method is to be honest. The camera photographs the truth — not what I want it to see, but what it sees. The truth." In addition to his acting career, Brimley also spent decades raising awareness of diabetes. Wilford Brimley died on August 1st at the age of 85.

Reni Santoni

Reni Santoni appeared in movies such as Enter Laughing, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, Dirty Harry, They Went That-A-Way, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Bad Boys, Brewster's Millions, Cobra, The Pick-Up Artist, and Private Parts, as well as TV shows like Love, American Style, The Odd Couple, The F.B.I., Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, Charlie's Angels, CHiPs, Manimal, Hill Street Blues, Sanchez of Bel Air, Miami Vice, Murphy's Law, Midnight Caller, Quantum Leap, Murder, She Wrote, NYPD Blue, Murder One, Murder One: Dairy of a Serial Killer, The Practice, Judging Amy, According to Jim, CSI, Grey's Anatomy, and Franklin & Bash. Santoni is likely the most well known for making multiple appearances on Seinfeld as Poppie, a restaurant owner who caused Jerry Seinfeld no end of grief. "Seinfeld, has given me a new life," Santoni later said in an interview. "Young, high-school aged guys who weren’t really aware of me suddenly were saying ‘hi’ on the street — very cool." Reni Santoni passed away on August 1st at the age of 82.

Ben Cross

Ben Cross died on August 18th at the age of 72 due to cancer. Growing up in a working-class family, Cross worked a number of manual jobs before he got his foot in the entertainment door by becoming a carpenter for the Welsh National Opera and property master for the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. It wasn't long before Cross wanted to appear on stage himself and he applied and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Cross would go on to perform in productions such as Macbeth, Death of a Salesman, Equus, Chicago, and more before starring alongside Ian Charleson in the Oscar-winning drama Chariots of Fire. Cross played Harold Abrahams, a Jewish athlete overcoming prejudice at the 1924 Olympics. The opening scene, combined with the theme by Vangelis, is one of the most memorable in cinema. "The water was freezing," recalled Cross in an interview, "and we had bare feet – completely ridiculous. If you spoke to a sports trainer about running barefoot in ice-cold water, they’d ask you if you were mad. But, look, it made for a good opening sequence." In addition to Chariots of Fire, Ben Cross also appeared in movies such as A Bridge Too Far, The Assisi Underground, The Unholy, Paperhouse, Live Wire, First Knight, The Order, Exorcist: The Beginning, War, Inc., Star Trek, and The Hurricane Heist, as well as TV shows such as The Flame Tree of Thika, The Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, Tales from the Crypt, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Trial & Retribution, Spartacus, Banshee, 12 Monkeys, and Pandora.

Chadwick Boseman

It was quite a shock when it was announced that Chadwick Boseman had passed away on August 28th at the age of 43 due to complications related to colon cancer. Boseman had been diagnosed in 2016, but very few people outside his family knew that he was even sick, and audiences definitely wouldn't have guessed that anything was wrong based on the level of commitment and energy he brought to his roles during that time. Boseman initially wasn't interested in acting, and had first started out wanting to write and direct. "I really only started acting because I wanted to know what the actors were doing, "Boseman told New York's Power 105.1, "how to communicate with the actors. And then I realized I'm supposed to do all of it." Boseman went on to appear in movies such as The Kill Hole, 42, Draft Day, Get On Up, Gods of Egypt, Message From the King, Marshall, 21 Bridges, Da 5 Bloods, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, but his best known role is that of T'Challa/Black Panther, which he played in Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Boseman also appeared in TV shows such as All My Children, Third Watch, Law & Order, CSI: NY, ER, Cold Case, Lincoln Heights, Lie to Me, Persons Unknown, The Glades, Castle, Fringe, Detroit 1-8-7, Justified, and What If…?. A sequel to Black Panther is in development, but Marvel Studio's president Kevin Feige confirmed that that Boseman's role will not be recast. "I wanted to acknowledge the devastating loss of a dear friend and member of the Marvel Studios family," Feige said. "Chadwick Boseman was an immensely talented actor and an inspirational individual who affected all of our lives professionally and personally. His portrayal of T’Challa the Black Panther is iconic and transcends iteration of the character in any other medium from Marvel’s past. To honor the legacy that Chad helped us build through his portrayal of the king of Wakanda, we want to continue to explore the world of Wakanda and all of the rich and varied characters introduced in the first film."

Diana Rigg

Diana Rigg died on September 10th at the age of 82 due to lung cancer. Rigg joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and went on to appear in productions such as The Caucasian Chalk Circle, King Lear, Twelfth Night, and more, but Rigg exploded in popularity when she joined the cast of The Avengers as Emma Peel opposite Patrick Macnee's John Steed. Almost overnight, Rigg became a sex symbol, which she told The Guardian last year was somewhat shocking. "I didn't know how to handle it and I kept all the unopened fan mail in the boot of my car because I didn't know how to respond and thought it was rude to throw it away," Rigg explained. "Then my mother became my secretary and replied to the really inappropriate ones saying: 'My daughter's far too old for you. Go Take a cold shower!'" Upon finding out that she was earning less than the cameraman on The Avengers, Rigg successfully battled for a wage increase. "That was my first battle with male authority," Rigg said while speaking with Variety last year. "I discovered after a while in The Avengers that I was earning less than the cameraman. I made a bit of a song and dance about it and demanded more. I was ahead of the game, in that respect, because nobody backed me up. There was no sisterhood. In those days, you were on your own." Rigg also appeared in movies such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Assassination Bureau, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Julius Caesar, The Hospital, Theatre of Blood, The Great Muppet Caper, Evil Under the Sun, A Good Man in Africa, The Painted Veil, Breathe, and Last Night in Soho, as well as TV shows like Diana, Bleak House, Road to Avonlea, The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries, Extras, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Detectorists, You, Me and the Apocalypse, All Creatures Great and Small, and Black Narcissus.

Michael Chapman

Michael Chapman died from congestive heart failure on September 20th at the age of 84. Michael Chapman began his career as a camera operator, working on films such as The Landlord, Klute, The Godfather, Jaws, and more. Chapman soon transitioned to cinematography and served as director of photography on Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Waltz, as well as Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Paul Schrader's Hardcore, Carl Reiner's Dead Men Don't Were Plaid and The Man with Two Brains, Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys, Richard Donner's Scrooged, Ivan Reitman's Kindergarten Cop, Andrew Davis' The Fugitive, Gregory Hoblit's Primal Fear, Joe Pytka's Space Jam, and much more. Chapman also served as DP on Michael Jackson's music video for Bad. His final film credit was Gabor Csupo's Bridge to Terabitha in 2007. Chapman also directed a few projects of his own, including All the Right Moves, a sports drama that starred a young Tom Cruise. Michael Chapman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography on both Raging Bull and The Fugitive, and was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Cinematographers in 2004.

Ron Cobb

Even if you'd never heard his name, there's a very good chance that your childhood was shaped in part by Ron Cobb's amazing designs. After working as an "in-betweener" artist and breakdown artist at Disney, Cobb was laid off along with many others after the box-office failure of Sleeping Beauty. Cobb was soon drafted into the Vietnam War, but turned to freelance illustration and cartoons upon his return, even designing the cover for Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's album. It wouldn't take long for Cobb to devote his talents to cinema once again, first contributing conceptual designs to John Carpenter's Dark Star, Alejandro Jodorwsky's unmade adaptation of Dune, and George Lucas' Star Wars. From there, Cobb went on to work on Alien, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Conan the Barbarian, The Last Starfighter, Back to the Future, Aliens, The Abyss, Robot Jox, Leviathan, Total Recall, Space Truckers, Titan A.E., The 6th Day, Southland Tales, Joss Whedon's Firefly TV series, and more. Cobb was also approached by Steven Spielberg to direct a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. "Everyone in Hollywood is waiting for the phone call that will change his life," Cobb told the L.A. Times in 1988. "How many people does that happen to? Steven Spielberg wants me to direct a movie. I've never directed a movie in my life, and Steven Spielberg wants me to direct a movie!" Known as Night Skies, the film would have been quite different from Close Encounters with its grisly yet quirky content as it followed a group of aliens as they terrorized a young family. Night Skies would eventually transform into E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Cobb departed the project. Ron Cobb died September 21st at the age of 83 from complications of Lewy body dementia.

Michael Lonsdale

Michael Lonsdale died on September 21st at the age of 89. Lonsdale appeared in movies such as The Trial, The Bride Wore Black, Stolen Kisses, The Day of the Jackal, Galileo, The Passage, Chariots of Fire, Chronopolis, Enigma, The Holcroft Covenant, The Name of the Rose, The Remains od the Day, Ronin, Munich, Agore, Of Gods and Men, and much more, but Lonsdale is best known for playing Hugo Drax in Moonraker, a diabolical villian looking to destroy the human race with the exception of a small group of genetically perfect humans who would later repopulate the Earth. During an interview with Mi6 HQ, Lonsdale said that he was never worried that playing a James Bond villain would negatively impact his career. "Not at all!" Lonsdale said. "On the contrary! Because, I made so many films that were not really very popular or didn't make much money, and I only made poor films, so I thought I might like to be in a rich film." Lonsdale added that his teacher when he was at school for theatre told him that he would one day play someone very nasty, and Drax definitely fit the bill. "He is such a terrible character, a sort of Nazi," Lonsdale said. "I mean, Drax is like Hitler. He wanted to destroy everybody and rain down a new order of very athletic, young people…he was mad completely."

Clark Middleton

When Clark Middleton was just four years old, he discovered that he had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. In a 1993 interview, Middleton said, "At first it distorted my hands. Then the cortisone I had to take made my cheeks fat. At 8, I lost movement in my neck. When I was 15, my hip snapped. After an operation, I had to be on crutches and later, after I broke my leg falling over my dog, on canes." Despite his struggles, Middleton never considered himself to be a victim. "I always felt like a hero because I survived each bad time," Middleton said. "I played Little League ball and touch Football between each attack and at my high school graduation I tossed out my canes." Middleton wrote and performed a one-act play about his struggle with the disease and was also a spokesperson for the Arthritis Foundation. He went on to appear in movies such as Serendipity, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Sin City, Live Free of Die Hard, Day Zero, The Good Heart, Snowpiercer, and Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), as well as TV shows like Law & Order, CSI, Fringe, Gotham, The Path, Twin Peaks, American Gods, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Blacklist, and more. Clark Middleton died on October 4 at the age of 63 of complications from West Nile virus.

Conchata Ferrell

Conchata Ferrell passed away on October 12 at the age of 77 from complications following a cardiac arrest. Ferrell appeared in movies such as Network, Mystic Pizza, Edward Scissorhands, True Romance, Erin Brockovich, Mr. Deeds, Frankenweenie, and Krampus, as well as TV shows such as Maude, The Rockford Files, Knots Landing, B.J. and the Bear, Quincy M.E., Cagney & Lacey, St. Elsewhere, E/R, L.A. Law, Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man, Hearts Afire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Touched by an Angel, JAG, Friends, and The Ranch, but Ferrell is best known for playing Berta the outspoken housekeeper on Two and a Half Men. During an interview with The AV Club, Ferrell said that Berta was originally supposed to be an ethnic character, but Ferrell decided to give Berta a trailer park spin during her audition. "I thought, 'If you want this role, go in there and do it the best you possibly can… and the best I possibly can do is in my voice,'" Ferrell explained. "So I went into the room, and I said, 'I know that you’re looking for, like, a Russian or a Polish accent, and I’ve got a pretty good Russian. However, I bring my own ethnicity to this, and I’ve worked this material. It works better in Trailer Park than it does in anything else.' And Chuck [Lorre] just laughed and said, 'Well, do whatever makes you happy.' And I did it, and it was really funny, and I left thinking, 'Well, if I don’t get it, it’s not because I didn’t do the best I could.'" Ferrell obviously won the role, and what was originally slated to be a two-episode appearance transformed into a main role and she appeared in all twelve seasons of the series.

Rhonda Fleming

Rhonda Fleming was discovered by Hollywood agent Henry Wilson quite by chance. "It's so weird," Fleming recalled. "He stopped me crossing the street. It kinda scared me a little bit — I was only 16 or 17. He signed me to a seven-year contract without a screen test. It was a Cinderella story, but those could happen in those days." Fleming soon became known as the "Queen of Technicolor" because of how well she photographed in the medium, but she would come to regret it. "Suddenly my green eyes were green. My red hair was flaming red. My skin was porcelain white," Fleming explained in a 1990 interview. "There was suddenly all this attention on how I looked rather than the roles I was playing. I’d been painted into a corner by the studios, who never wanted more from me than my looking good and waltzing through a parade of films." Fleming's first major role was in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, where the director told her she was going to play a nymphomaniac. "I remember rushing home to look it up in the dictionary and being quite shocked," Fleming said. She would go on to appear in other films such as The Spiral Staircase, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Great Lover, The Eagle and the Hawk, The Redhead and the Cowboy, Serpent of the Nile, Pony Express, Jivaro,The Queen of Babylon, While the City Sleeps, and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, as well as TV shows such as The Investigators, The Red Skelton Show, Wagon Train, Burke's Law, McMillan & Wife, Kung Fu, The Love Boat, and more. Rhonda Fleming died on October 14th at the age of 97.

Sean Connery

Sean Connery passed away on October 31st at the age of 90. Following a stint in the Royal Navy and a variety of odd-jobs, including lorry driver, lifeguard, and nude model, Sean Connery began bodybuilding and even placed third in the Mr. Universe contest, but his destiny was on the big-screen. Connery would go on to appear in movies such as Darby O'Gill and the Little People, The Longest Day, Marine, The Hill, Shalako, The Offense, Zardoz, Murder on the Orient Express, The Wind and the Lion, The Man Who Would be King, Robin and Marian, A Bridge Too Far, Meteor, Outland, Time Bandits, Highlander, The Name of the Rose, The Untouchables, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander II: The Quickening, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, First Knight, Dragonheart, The Rock, The Avengers, Entrapment, Finding Forrester, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Of course, Sean Connery is best known for playing James Bond in Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds are Forever. He also returned to the role over a decade after his last outing with Never Say Never Again, an unofficial installment of the franchise. When asked why the James Bond franchise took off like it did in a 2002 interview, Sean Connery said, "It was refreshing and had a certain kind of style, although it didn’t cost anything because we only had a million to make the picture." Connery added that the key ingredient was humor, which paired well with the constant threat of death. "Well, I took it seriously on one level, which was one had to be menacing, one had to be strong enough to do all this stuff," Connery explained. "Or seem old enough to do it. And the humor was one element that was missing from the books of Fleming himself." At the end of the day, Connery said that the James Bond films were "exciting and funny and had good stories and pretty girls and intriguing locations. And it didn't take anything for granted."

Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer died on November 5th at the age of 93. Palmer appeared in movies such as Cast a Giant Shadow, The Outsider, Beyond the Limit, Clockwise, A Fish Called Wanda, Hawks, The Madness of King Geroge, Mrs. Brown, Tomorrow Never Dies, Anna and the King, Peter pan, The Pink Panther 2, W.E., and Paddington, as well as TV shows such as The Army Game, Family Solicitor, Garry Halliday, Bootsie and Snudge, The Avengers, Doctor Who, The Last Song, Butterflies, Fairly Secret Army, Executive Stress, Hot Metal, Blackadder Goes Forth, The Savages, and more. Palmer was also featured in the classic Fawlty Towers episode, The Kipper and the Corpse, as Dr. Price, who only wants to enjoy a nice plate of breakfast sausages while Basil attempts to conceal a corpse. Palmer also starred alongside Judi Dench in As Time Goes By, a romantic comedy series that followed the relationship between two former lovers who reunite decades later. Throughout his decades-long career, Palmer also developed a passion for fly-fishing to the point where he'd prefer to do nothing else. "Once I was offered a super part in a film – but the date clashed with fishing in Scotland," Palmer said in a 2019 interview. "My son Charlie said, 'Dad, you’ve been working for sixty years – do the fishing.' So I did. And the film wasn’t any good, anyway."

Alex Trebek

Alex Trebek died on November 8th at the age of 80 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Alex Trebek was the host of a number of variety and game shows, including Music Hop, Reach for the Top, Strategy, The Wizard of Odds, High Rollars, Double Dare, The $128,000 Question, Battlestars, and more, but he's most famous as the host of Jeopardy!, which he hosted from 1984 until 2020. In a quote on the official Jeopardy! website, Trebek said, "I think what makes Jeopardy! special is that, among all the quiz and game shows out there, ours tends to reward and encourage learning." Trebek also frequently played himself on a number of TV shows, including Cheers, The Golden Girls, The Larry Sanders Show, The Nanny, Beverly Hills, 90210, Blossom,The X-Files, The Simpsons, Baywatch, Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, Hot in Cleveland, Orange is the New Black, and more. Throughout his battle with pancreatic cancer, Trebek was very open with his diagnosis and the challenges he faced, but always took the time to support others also facing the same disease. "Just make up your mind that you're going to be a cancer survivor," Trebek said. "Be optimistic. There are going to be bad days. And understand you'll deal with them. Hey, try to be as positive as you can. And relish the fact that you've had another day. That's a pretty good deal." Trebek was also at peace with his own mortality, saying, "I've had one hell of a good life and I've enjoyed it. And the thought of passing on doesn't frighten me. It doesn't. Hey folks, it comes with the territory."

Daria Nicolodi

Daria Nicolodi appeared in movies such as Property is No Longer Theft, Deep Red, Inferno, Tenebrae, Phenomena, Delirium, Opera, Paganini Horror, Notes of Love, Mother of Tears, and more. Additionally, Nicolodi co-wrote Suspira alongside Dario Argento and Paganini Horror alongside Luigi Cozzi, and also had a hand in writing Inferno and The Black Cat. "It was actually difficult to have my name on the treatment for Suspira," Nicolodi explained in a video interview. "Even though I came up with the title and the screenplay. And there was also some gender struggle with writing Inferno, so I preferred to just 'donate' my ideas to the Argento family. This is something that often happens in the cinema world, let's say things often just come down to money. It's sad but true." Nicolodi said that she was also responsible for pushing Dario Argento "towards the fantastic, the occult, alchemy, and fantasy in general, an area he had never covered before. It made me happy as he totally realized my dreams within this genre." Daria Nicolodi passed away on November 26th at the age of 70.

David Prowse

David Prowse appeared in movies such as Casino Royale, Hammerhead, The Horror of Frankenstein, A Clockwork Orange, Vampire Circus, Black Snake, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Jabberwocky, and The People That Time Forgot, as well as TV shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies, The Champions, The Saint, The Benny Hill Show, Ace of Wands, From a Bird's Eye View, Doctor Who, The Tomorrow People, Little House on the Prairie, Space: 1999, A Horseman Riding By, Thr Rose Medallion, and more. Of course, Prowse is best known as the man who played Darth Vader in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. George Lucas initially offered Prowse two different parts: Chewbacca and Darth Vader, but Prowse told NPR that "all I could think of was 3 months in gorilla skin… how hot and sweaty and smelly that's gonna be. And I thought, 'No, you can keep that one, George.'" Of course, Prowse picked Darth Vader, and when Lucas asked him why, Prowse responded, "Well, if you think back on all the movies that you've ever seen where there are goodies and baddies… you always remember the baddie." In addition to his acting career, Prowse was also an active bodybuilder and weightlifter and even helped to train actors for physically demanding roles, such as Christopher Reeve for Superman and Cary Elwes for The Princess Bride. David Prowse passed away on November 28th at the age of 85.

Hugh Keays-Byrne

Hugh Keays Byrne passed away on December 1st at the age of 73. Hugh Keays-Byrne appeared in films such as Stone, The Dragon Flies, Mad Dog Morgan, The Trespassers, Blue Fun, One More Minute, Going Down, Ginger Meggs, Where the Green Ants Dream, Strikebound, Lorca and the Outlaws, Burke and Wills, For Love Alone, Kangaroo, The Blood of Heroes, Resistance, and Sleeping Beauty, as well as TV shows like Boy Meets Girl, This Love Affair, Ben Hall, The Outsiders, Chopper Squad, Secret Valley, Runaway Island, Moby Dick, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Farscape, and Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. Of course, Hugh Keays-Byrne is most well known for his roles in George Miller's Max Mad and Mad Max: Fury Road. The actor played violent gang-leader Toecutter in the 1979 original film, but when an early print of the film replaced the actor's voice with a terrible American dub, Miller knew that he had to bring Keays-Byrne back. "I always felt so guilty about that," Miller told USA Today in 2015. "I thought I had to make up for it in some way." And make up for it he did; Keays-Byrne would play Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road, a role that was arguably even more memorable than Toecutter. As with many actors who play villains, Keays-Byrne told The Independent that neither character was 100% evil, rather, they were misunderstood, with Toecutter a member of an "oppressed nomadic minority" and Immortan Joe simply a "renaissance man" who was "simply trying to bring order into an apocalyptic world." The actor was also reportedly onboard to play Martian Manhunter in Miller's Justice League: Mortal before the project fell apart.

David Lander

David Lander appeared in films such as 1941, Wholly Moses!, Used Cars, The Man with One Red Shoe, Funland, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, A League of Their Own, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, A Bug's Life, The Iron Giant, Titan A.E., Scary Movie, Say It Isn't So, Dr. Dolittle 2, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Geius, Christmas with the Kranks, and Zoom, as well as TV shows like Love, American Style, The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, Barney Miller, Happy Days, The Love Boat, Highway to Heaven, Matlock, Simon & Simon, Married… with Children, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Freddy's Nightmares, Twin Peaks, Family Matters, The Nanny, Pacific Blue, The Bold and the Beautiful, The Simpsons, and more. Lander is best known for playing Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman on Laverne & Shirley, the lovable goofball who lived above Laverne and Shirley's apartment with his long-time best-friend, Lenny Kosnowski (Michael McKean) and always entered the room with his distinctive, "Hellooo." A year after Laverne & Shirley concluded, Lander was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and later spent much of his time speaking at conventions and fundraisers for those struggling with the disease. "My doctor painted a fairly bleak picture of the disease, even going so far as to tell me I probably wouldn't walk again…," Lander said while speaking with Brain & Life Magazine. "Whatever happens, MS can't take it all. I will always have my heart and soul, my wit and wisdom. Wherever the chips may fall, if I fall with them I will make it a point to do so gracefully—and laughing." David Lander died on December 4th at the age of 73.

Tommy Lister Jr.

Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr. passed away on December 10th at the age of 62. Lister appeared in movies such as 8 Million Ways to Die, Beverly Hills Cop II, Prison, No Holds Barred, Universal Soldier, The Meteor Man, Friday, Barb Wire, The Fifth Element, Jackie Brown, Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies, Next Friday, Little Nicky, The Wash, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Dracula 3000, The Dark Knight, The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence), Zootopia, and more. Lister also appeared in episodes of Perfect Strangers, 1st and Ten, Matlock, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Renegade, Walker, Texas Ranger, In the Heat of the Night, ER, NYPD Blue, Nash Bridges, Fish Hooks, Mann and Wife, and more. The actor is also known for playing Klaang, the first Klingon encountered by humans in the series premiere of Star Trek: Enterprise. After starring alongside Hulk Hogan in No Holds Barred, Lister began wrestling professionally in the World Wrestling Federation as Zeus and continued his on-screen feud with Hogan. Lister also wrestled for World Championship Wrestling as Z-Gangsta. Lister Jr. was also born blind in one eye as the result of a detached retina, and although he was once ashamed of his eye and frequently tried to hide it with tinted glasses, he later embraced it. "I started doing these movies and God said, You thought it was a curse. It was a blessing,'" Lister Jr. told Grantland in 2014. "[My eye] became my trademark in Hollywood."

Jeremy Bulloch

Jeremy Bulloch appeared in films such as A Night to Remember, The Cat Gang, Carry On Teacher, The Young Jacobites, A French Mistress, Spare the Rod, Play It Cool, The Devil's Agent, Summer Holiday, The Idol, Hoffman, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Spy Who Loved Me, The Lady Vanishes, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and Swing Kids, as well as TV shows such as Counter-Attack!, The Chequered Flag, Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, Compact, The Newcomers, Doctor Who, Agony, Robin Hood, Sloggers, Starhyke, and more. Of course, Bulloch is best known for playing infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back (where he also played an Imperial officer) and Return of the Jedi, and he would later return to the Star Wars franchise with a cameo in Revenge of the Sith. Although Boba Fett didn't have much screen-time in those films, Bulloch's performance in combination with the costume ensured that the character would never be forgotten. "Occasionally, I would make a movement, but a little one, because the less you do, the stronger the character is," Bulloch said in a 2000 interview. "So I would just stand with my hip one way, and I’d cradle the gun a certain way. He’s aware that something could happen any time, so he’s quick with the gun. It’s ready cocked. He knows exactly what’s going on behind him. He may be moving slowly, but he’s deadly when it comes to that sudden movement… I thought of Boba Fett as Clint Eastwood in a suit of armor." Jeremy Bulloch died on December 17th at the age of 75 due to complications from Parkinson's disease.

Other notables we lost this year include 77 Sunset Strip and Grease actor Edd Byrnes, The Andromeda Strain and Soylet Green actress Paula Kelly, Wonder Woman actor Lyle Waggoner, The Gambler actor and singer Kenny Rogers, Wings actor David Schramm, The Flash actor Logan Williams, Dead Ringers actress Shirley Douglas, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome co-director George Ogilvie, Child's Play 2 director John Lafia, Scarface actor Geno Silva, Leave It to Beaver actor Ken Osmond, The Fly and Dead Ringers costume designer Denise Cronenberg, The New Normal playwright Larry Kramer, Splash co-writer Bruce Jay Friedman, Dracula: Prince of Darkness actor Philip Latham, Thunderball actor Earl Cameron, Glee actress Naya Rivera, Twin Peaks and M.A.N.T.I.S. actress Galyn Gorg, Superman III actress Annie Ross, The Fugitive actress Jacqueline Scott, talk show host Regis Philbin, Good Times and Sanford & Son actor Raymond Allen, Days of Heaven and Gummo actress Linda Manz, How to Marry a Millionaire actress Lori Nelson, Kojack actor Kevin Dobson, Empire Strikes Back and Batman Begins art director Alan Tomkins, Ring actress Yuko Takeuchi, Pete's Dragon actress Helen Reddy, She's Gotta Have It actor Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Goldfinger actress Margaret Nolan, Oscar-winning costume designer for Ghandi Bhanu Athaiya, Oz actor Anthony Chisholm, Disney model and dancer Marge Champion, Brian's Song and Roots writer William Blinn, Die Hard producer Charles Gordon, Blazing Saddles actress Carol Arthur, Desilu executive in charge of production of Star Trek and Mission: Impossible Herbert F. Solow, The Cannonball Run actor Warren Berlinger, Eastenders actress Barbara Windsor, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring writer/director Kim Ki-duk, Titanic and James Bond production designer Peter Lamont, and Alien franchise writer/producer David Giler.