As 2025 comes to a close, we here at JoBlo.com would like to take a moment to pay tribute to 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 2025. These talented individuals will always be remembered for their impact on the world of film and television.
In Memory Of…
Jeff Baena
Jeff Baena died on January 3 at the age of 47. Baena got his start as a production assistant for Robert Zemeckis before becoming an assistant editor for David O. Russell. However, after a minor car accident injured one of Baena’s eyes, Russell encouraged him to start writing. “He was super-generous, creatively. He allowed me to advocate for any ideas that were in conflict with his ideas,” Baena said of Russell. “We were on the same wavelength, had the same style and interests…It allowed me to have the feeling that I deserved to be there, as opposed to just riding someone’s coattails.” The pair wrote I Heart Huckabees together, which put Baena on the map.
He made his directorial debut with Life After Beth, a zombie comedy starring his future wife, Aubrey Plaza. Baena went on to write and direct Joshy, The Little Hours, Horse Girl, and Spin Me Round. He also created Cinema Toast, an anthology series which told new stories with re-edited, re-scored, and re-dubbed performances from public domain movies.
David Lynch
True to his creative spirit, David Lynch was developing new projects right up until his death on January 9 at the age of 78. Those include a limited series titled Unrecorded Night and a possible return to Twin Peaks.
Lynch made his feature directorial debut with Eraserhead, a surrealist body horror that put him on the map. His next film was The Elephant Man, a historical biopic about the life of Joseph Merrick. It was an enormous critical and commercial success, landing eight Academy Award nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and more.
From there, Lynch adapted Frank Herbert’s Dune, a project which he essentially disowned but is still well worth watching. “It was horrible, just horrible,” Lynch said of Dune. “It was like a nightmare what was being done to the film to make this two-hour-and-17-minute running time that was required. Things were truncated, and whispered voice-overs were added because everybody thought audiences wouldn’t understand what was going on.” He also directed Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. He could always be counted upon to deliver a story that fired your imagination.
On television, Lynch permanently altered what the medium could be. With Twin Peaks, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost blended soap opera, murder mystery, and cosmic horror into something wholly new, influencing decades of serialized storytelling and prestige TV. The 2017 revival, Twin Peaks: The Return, was less a nostalgia play than an audacious, 18-hour film that challenged viewers and defied expectations. Lynch also helmed Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel movie which was released the year after the original series was cancelled.
Jeannot Szwarc
Jeannot Szwarc is best known for directing Jaws 2. Much like the first movie directed by Steven Spielberg, the sequel was a troubled production even before Szwarc signed on. John Hancock was the original director, but after weeks of filming, it became clear that it wasn’t working out, and executives demanded a change.
“I was brought in for this meeting,” Szwarc said in a 2019 interview. “I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t have a clue. So they gave me the script, I read it, and they asked, ‘What do you think?’ I told them that the dialogue was terrible, but the action was good.“
He continued, “I went back, and [Universal executive] Ned Tanen said, ‘Look Jeannot, if you do this, it will be under horrible conditions. You’ll only have one week to prepare, it’s a nightmare, so what do you want from me? Would you like a multiple picture deal?’ I said, ‘No, I only want a handshake that you owe me a favor.’ And he said, ‘Okay.’” That favour was Somewhere in Time, a romantic fantasy drama starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour
Szwarc also directed Extreme Close-Up, Bug, Enigma, Santa Claus: The Movie, and Supergirl. He also became quite a prolific television director, helming episodes of Night Gallery, The Twilight Zone, Ally McBeal, Smallville, Heroes, Bones, Supernatural, Grey’s Anatomy, Fringe, Private Practice, Castle, and much more. Szwarc died on January 15 at the age of 87
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman was one of the greatest actors of his generation, but early on, success hardly seemed guaranteed. When he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California at the beginning of his career, he — along with classmate Dustin Hoffman — was famously voted “the least likely to succeed.”
Hackman later told Vanity Fair that the constant rejection amounted to “more psychological warfare, because I wasn’t going to let those f***ers get me down. I insisted with myself that I would continue to do whatever it took to get a job. It was like me against them, and in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way. But I think if you’re really interested in acting there is a part of you that relishes the struggle. It’s a narcotic in the way that you are trained to do this work and nobody will let you do it, so you’re a little bit nuts. You lie to people, you cheat, you do whatever it takes to get an audition, get a job.“
Hackman more than proved his doubters wrong. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Bonnie and Clyde and went on to build one of the most formidable filmographies in Hollywood history, appearing in classics such as Downhill Racer, I Never Sang for My Father, The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, Young Frankenstein, Night Moves, A Bridge Too Far, Reds, Hoosiers, No Way Out, Mississippi Burning, The Firm, Wyatt Earp, The Quick and the Dead, Crimson Tide, Get Shorty, The Birdcage, Absolute Power, Enemy of the State, The Replacements, Heist, Behind Enemy Lines, The Royal Tenenbaums, Runaway Jury, and Welcome to Mooseport, which marked his final film role before retiring.
Among his most iconic performances was the volatile New York police detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection, a role that earned Hackman his first Academy Award. He reprised the character in French Connection II and later became equally unforgettable to a new generation as Lex Luthor in Superman, Superman II, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. He won his second Academy Award for his chilling turn as Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
Gene Hackman died on February 18 at the age of 95.
Peter Jason
Peter Jason died on February 20 at the age of 80. A prolific character actor, Jason has nearly 300 acting credits on IMDb, so chances are you’ve seen him in more than a few projects.
He made his feature film debut in Rio Lobo, the final film from director Howard Hawks. From there, Jason appeared in movies such as The Driver, The Long Riders, Mommie Dearest, 48 Hrs, Streets of Fire, The Karate Kid, Dreamscape, Brewsters Millions, Red Heat, Alien Nation, The Hunt for Red October, Arachnophobia, Congo, Dante’s Peak, Seabiscuit, Kicking & Screaming, Hail, Caesar!, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and much more.
He also worked frequently with director John Carpenter, appearing in Prince of Darkness, They Live, Body Bags, In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., and Ghosts of Mars.
To me, Jason is best known for playing Con Stapleton on HBO’s Deadwood. “That character was just so much fun,” Jason said. “I mean jeez, talking to breasts? What’s more fun than that? (Laughs) Anytime you can do a Western and not get on a horse, I’m there! Horses, unpredictable beasts that they are, I’ve had to ride a lot of them over the years, because I started off in Gunsmoke, Cimarron Strip, The Blue and the Grey, stuff like that and I can ride them, I just don’t like to. I was always hurting at the end of the week, so damn sore.” Like much of the cast, he also returned for Deadwood: The Movie in 2019.
Jason appeared on television as often as on the big screen, including shows like Gunsmoke, The Incredible Hulk, Starsky & Hutch, Remington Steele, Webster, The Golden Girls, Quantum Leap, Mike Hammer, Private Eye, Carnivàle, Arrested Development, Mad Men, Justified, and more.
Roberto Orci
Roberto Orci died on February 25 at the age of 51. Together with his writing partner Alex Kurtzman, Orci was involved in some of the biggest sci-fi/adventure movies and TV shows of the first two decades of the 2000s. After getting his start as a writer on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, Orci made his big-screen writing debut on Michael Bay’s The Island, which he co-wrote with Kurtzman. The pair went on to write The Legend of Zorro, Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Cowboys & Aliens, People Like Us, Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Orci was a big Star Trek fan and played a crucial role in reviving the franchise with the 2009 movie. The story which Orci and Kurtzman pitched to Paramount relied entirely on Leonard Nimoy agreeing to return as Spock, and Orci told Trek Movie in 2019 that they didn’t have a backup plan. “There was never a plan B for me. Maybe Paramount had a plan B, but for me and Alex, it has to be Nimoy or bust and that is why that meeting with him was so pivotal,” Orci said. “His role had to be essential, otherwise, he wouldn’t have done it. So, to have a plan B would have been disrespectful to him, and the franchise. I didn’t know how else to do an in-canon reboot/sequel original story. If you have a plan B, then your plan A wasn’t so great.“
Michelle Trachtenberg
Gone too soon, Michelle Trachtenberg passed away on February 26 at just 39 years old. She rose to prominence early in her career with her starring role in Harriet the Spy, the 1996 film adaptation of Louise Fitzhugh’s beloved novel, quickly establishing herself as a standout young performer.
Trachtenberg went on to build an impressively diverse résumé, appearing in films such as Inspector Gadget, EuroTrip, Black Christmas, 17 Again, and Cop Out, while also making memorable appearances on television series including All My Children, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Six Feet Under, House, Robot Chicken, Mercy, Weeds, Criminal Minds, NCIS: Los Angeles, Sleepy Hollow, and more.
She remains best known to many fans for her role as Dawn Summers, the younger sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Introduced in the show’s fifth season as if she had always been part of the series, Dawn proved to be a divisive character at first. Over time, however, audience sentiment shifted, a change Trachtenberg acknowledged with characteristic honesty. “Most of the haters don’t have the guts to say things in person,” she said. “I still get comments like, ‘Oh my God! I think Dawn is so annoying!’ I get it. It’s fine. It used to be a 60-40 ‘I hate Dawn.’ Then, it became 50-50. Now, I think it’s 60-40 being supportive of Dawn. Maybe even 70-30.“
Trachtenberg also left a lasting impression as the deliciously manipulative Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl, a role she later reprised in several episodes of the sequel series. Playing a villain was something she openly relished. “It’s actually kind of easy because the words that they write are so fantastic. It’s kind of easy to be evil when you’re saying evil things,” she said. “It’s definitely a lot more fun than playing the good girl. I love the reaction you get. I never understood why some actors don’t want to play villains or evil characters.“
Clive Revill
Clive Revill died on March 11 at the age of 94. Sadly, one of his most well-known performances no longer exists in its original form. Revill was the original voice of Emperor Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back, but his work was replaced by Ian McDiarmid in the 2004 home-video release to better align the character with Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy.
Though the Emperor appears only briefly and speaks just a handful of lines, Revill made a lasting impression. “I got a call from the director, Irvin Kershner, who I’d worked with on ‘A Fine Madness,’” Revill said in 2015. “He needed a voice for the Emperor who would be only appearing as a holographic image. So I tried it several times and found it worked best with no emotion whatsoever.“
Beyond The Empire Strikes Back, Revill enjoyed a long and eclectic career, appearing in films such as Bunny Lake Is Missing, Kaleidoscope, The Assassination Bureau, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Avanti!, The Legend of Hell House, The Black Windmill, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, Zorro, The Gay Blade, Transformers: The Movie, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, among many others.
On television, he guest-starred in series including Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, The Transformers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Babylon 5. He also provided the voice of Alfred Pennyworth in the first three episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, before being replaced by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. due to scheduling conflicts.
While his version of Emperor Palpatine was ultimately replaced, Revill’s voice continues to live on in the Star Wars universe. He lent his talents to several video games, including Star Wars: X-Wing, Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Bruce Glover
Bruce Glover was best known for playing the sinister Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever, who, alongside Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith), spent much of the film attempting to assassinate James Bond in increasingly bizarre fashion.
Glover’s career began in an unconventional way. While posing for students in an art class, Glover was approached by one of his fellow models and asked if he would don a gorilla suit to help with an act. As it turned out, the model was a stripper. “[She] needed a guy strong enough to wear a 100-pound ape suit and toss her around for 15 minutes,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a very dignified thing to do,’ and I did it.”
Never one to half-commit to a role, Glover decided to research the part properly by studying real gorillas at the zoo. “I went down to the [Lincoln Park] zoo and studied Bushman, the famous gorilla, which the guy who owned the act told me to do,” Glover said. “Bushman gave me my first acting lesson. He said, ‘Think my thoughts and do my moves.’”
Over the course of his career, Glover appeared in films such as Chinatown, Hard Times, The Big Score, Popcorn, Warlock: The Armageddon, Night of the Scarecrow, and Ghost World. He also played Deputy Grady Coker opposite Joe Don Baker’s Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, later returning for Walking Tall Part 2 and Walking Tall: Final Chapter, with Bo Svenson taking over the lead role.
On television, Glover was a familiar face across decades, appearing in series including Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, Gunsmoke, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica, B.J. and the Bear, T.J. Hooker, The A-Team, and many more. Bruce Glover died on March 12 at the age of 92.
Richard Chamberlain
Richard Chamberlain died on March 29 at the age of 90. He achieved significant success early in his career, starring in Dr. Kildare, where his portrayal of the compassionate young intern quickly turned him into a television sensation. At the height of the show’s popularity, Chamberlain was reportedly receiving more than 12,000 fan letters a week. Yet behind the scenes, he lived with constant fear of being outed as a gay man.
“When you grow up in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s being gay, it not only ain’t easy, it’s just impossible,” Chamberlain said in 2014, adding that he was taught “that being gay was the worst thing you can possibly be. I assumed there was something terribly wrong with me. And even becoming famous and all that, it was still there.” Despite the overwhelming success of Dr. Kildare, he explained, “There was a terrible danger of being outed. I was a romantic lead, for God’s sake; that was my whole career, practically.” Chamberlain did not publicly come out until 2003, with the release of his autobiography, Shattered Love.
“Suddenly, all that fear, all that self-dislike … it was like an angel had put her hand on my head and said, ‘It’s over, all that negative stuff is over,’” he said. “Being gay is one of the least interesting facts you can know about a person.”
Later in his career, Chamberlain became known as the King of the Miniseries, thanks to starring roles in Centennial, The Thorn Birds, and Shōgun. His television work also included appearances on Touched by an Angel, The Drew Carey Show, Will & Grace, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives, Chuck, Brothers & Sisters, and Twin Peaks: The Return. He also made history as the first actor to portray Jason Bourne, leading the 1988 television adaptation of The Bourne Identity.
On the big screen, Chamberlain appeared in films such as Petulia, Julius Caesar, The Music Lovers, The Towering Inferno, The Swarm, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. He also memorably played Aramis in The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, and The Return of the Musketeers, and starred as Allan Quatermain in King Solomon’s Mines and Lost City of Gold.
Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer’s career was far too brief, but he managed to pack an extraordinary amount into it. He soared through the skies at breathtaking speed, hunted man-eating lions, embodied a rock ’n’ roll icon, fought underwater, and even became the world’s greatest detective. Kilmer died on April 1 at the age of 65.
A certified movie star almost from the start, Kilmer broke out with the anarchic action comedy Top Secret! from Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. He quickly followed that with an eclectic and impressive run that included Real Genius, Willow, The Doors, Tombstone, True Romance, Heat, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Ghost and the Darkness, The Saint, The Prince of Egypt, At First Sight, Red Planet, The Salton Sea, Wonderland, The Missing, Spartan, Alexander, Mindhunter, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Déjà Vu, Felon, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, MacGruber, Twixt, The Snowman, and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.
One of Kilmer’s most iconic roles came opposite Tom Cruise in Tony Scott’s Top Gun, where he played Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Maverick’s cool, confident rival. Ironically, Kilmer was initially reluctant to take the part. “I told Tony at the meeting, ‘Frankly, I don’t like this.’ I loved what I’d seen of his work, but I just didn’t want to do that movie,” Kilmer recalled. “He said, ‘Don’t worry, your hair will look great.’ He thought that would make a difference. He was infectious that way.”
Kilmer later donned the cape and cowl as Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever, stepping into the role after Michael Keaton’s departure. He agreed to the film without even reading the script, but an experience during production made him realize that playing Batman was ultimately a thankless task and that it didn’t much matter who was inside the suit. When billionaire Warren Buffett visited the set with his grandchildren, Kilmer stayed in costume to meet them, only to find the kids far more interested in the Batmobile and props. “That’s why it’s so easy to have five or six Batmans,” he said. “It’s not about Batman. There is no Batman.”
Lar Park Lincoln
Lar Park Lincoln died on April 22 at the age of 63. She was best known for playing Tina Shepard in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, portraying a young woman with telekinetic powers who goes toe-to-toe with Jason Voorhees and delivers an ass-kickin’ he wouldn’t soon forget.
Lincoln was already a fan of the Friday the 13th franchise before landing the role, and her excitement only grew when she realized that the project she had auditioned for—then operating under the working title Birthday Bash—was actually a Jason movie. “I was so excited,” she told Daily Dead in 2017. “And when my husband Michael read it… he read it and said, ‘Oh my God, this is Jason… you go get this.’ Because we used to watch it at drive-ins.” Her love for the character endured, and she later wrote a sequel script that would have seen an adult Tina return as a psychiatrist.
Beyond horror, Lincoln was also well known for her role as the scheming Linda Fairgate on Knots Landing. “I would guess Linda was popular because she was so rotten and so fun at the same time,” Lincoln said in a 2022 interview. “I studied a few people to become Linda, as she went from the brown hair to the blond meanie. I remember having lunch with [series creator] David Jacobs when he told me that they were changing my hair to blond and he said, ‘I’m doing this because you look so sweet and everyone will be shocked how you turn out.’“
Lincoln made numerous television appearances over the years, including episodes of Highway to Heaven, Freddy’s Nightmares, Murder, She Wrote, Space: Above and Beyond, Beverly Hills, 90210, and more. Her film credits included The Princess Academy and House II: The Second Story. She also returned to her most iconic role, reprising Tina Shepard in Rose Blood: A Friday the 13th Fan Film.
James Foley
James Foley died on May 5 at the age of 71. He made his feature directorial debut with Reckless, a romantic drama starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. Foley quickly demonstrated an ability to move comfortably between styles and mediums, next collaborating with Madonna on several of her most iconic music videos, including Live to Tell, Papa Don’t Preach, and True Blue. He also directed the pop star in the 1987 screwball comedy Who’s That Girl.
Over the course of his film career, Foley helmed a wide range of projects, including At Close Range, After Dark, My Sweet, Two Bits, The Chamber, Fear, The Corruptor, Confidence, and Perfect Stranger. Late in his career, he took over the Fifty Shades franchise from Sam Taylor-Johnson, directing the final two entries, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
Foley also made a significant impact on television, directing episodes of Twin Peaks, Hannibal, Wayward Pines, and Billions. However, it was Netflix’s House of Cards where he left his biggest mark, ultimately directing a dozen episodes of the acclaimed series. In a 2017 interview with THR, Foley reflected on his career and his habit of moving freely between genres in both film and television.
“What I love is that it’s fluid. I’ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre,” Foley said. “So the thing I would say I least like is there is an understandable tendency to, of course, pigeonhole somebody or identify them as, ‘He does this kind of movie, so if we’re making that kind of movie, we should get him and he’ll make it like the other ones he’s made.’ That is of no interest to me, personally, to repeat myself. So I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse.“
He continued, “What’s best and what’s worst [about the industry] are almost the same to me. Because what’s worst is you get pigeonholed, and what’s best is I haven’t been. It means that I’m still making movies, despite hopping all over the place, so there’s a great thing about Hollywood where it’s not so purely linear, in terms of a director having a success critically and commercially and continuing that in an unbroken stream, which is true of no one.“
Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker died on May 7 at the age of 89. One of his earliest and most impactful successes came with Walking Tall, in which Baker portrayed Buford Pusser, the real-life former professional wrestler turned lawman. The film struck a nerve with audiences in the early 1970s, tapping into the cultural frustration of the era. “In those days in the early ’70s, I think a lot of people wanted to take a stick to Nixon and all those Watergate guys,” Baker said. “[The story] touched a vigilante nerve in everybody who would like to do in the bad guys but don’t have the power and would get in trouble if [they] did. But Buford was able to pull it off.” Baker did not return for subsequent installments, but Walking Tall spawned two sequels, a TV movie, and a later remake starring Dwayne Johnson, which itself generated two sequels.
Over a long and prolific career, Baker appeared in a wide range of films, including Cool Hand Luke, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, Junior Bonner, Charley Varrick, The Outfit, Golden Needles, Framed, Mitchell — famously lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000 — Checkered Flag or Crash, The Natural, Final Justice (another MST3K favorite), Fletch, The Killing Time, Leonard Part 6, Cape Fear, Congo, Mars Attacks!, Joe Dirt, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Mud.
Baker was also one of the few actors to play multiple prominent roles within the James Bond franchise. He portrayed villainous arms dealer Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, then returned in a very different capacity as CIA agent Jack Wade in GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies.
On television, Baker appeared in series such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Lancer, Mission: Impossible, Edge of Darkness, The Cleaner, and more. He also stepped in for Carroll O’Connor for four episodes of In the Heat of the Night while O’Connor was recovering from coronary bypass surgery.
Robert Benton
Robert Benton died on May 11 at the age of 92. As a child, Benton was dyslexic and struggled in school at a time when the condition was poorly understood. “Nobody knew about dyslexia in those days,” Benton said. “If I read for about 10 minutes, I would get wired and couldn’t read any more. But I could draw, and that uses the other side of the brain. So I drew and I drew and I drew. I took my identity off of that. The other thing that happened was my father would come home from work and instead of saying, ‘Have you done your homework?’ … he would say, ‘Do you want to go to the movies?’ I learned narrative from movies, not books.”
Benton first made his mark as a screenwriter, penning Bonnie and Clyde, There Was a Crooked Man, and What’s Up, Doc? before stepping behind the camera for his feature directorial debut with Bad Company. He went on to direct an acclaimed and varied body of work, including The Late Show, Still of the Night, Places in the Heart, Nadine, Billy Bathgate, Nobody’s Fool, Twilight, The Human Stain, and Feast of Love.
He was also brought in to rewrite Mario Puzo’s Superman script alongside David and Leslie Newman. “The initial script that David and I did was based on the Puzo story,” Benton said in 2018. “It was Superman on the farm, and we also wrote some of the stuff where he first rescues Lois Lane. David wrote one of the movie’s best lines, when Lois is [literally swept off her feet for the first time by Superman] and says: ‘I know you’re holding me but who’s holding you?’ That was David Newman’s line.”
However, Benton is best known for writing and directing Kramer vs. Kramer, the landmark drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a divorcing couple and the toll their separation takes on their young son, Billy.
Knowing the child actor would need to hold his own opposite Hoffman and Streep, Benton took a direct approach during auditions. “[At the auditions] I told Dustin, ‘throw everything you have at these kids, because if they can’t take it, we’ve got to find out now,’” he said. “And the one person who gave back as good as he got was Justin [Henry]. He had this authority.” Henry went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of eight and remains the youngest Oscar nominee in any category. The film was both a massive critical and commercial success, winning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Hoffman), Best Supporting Actress (Streep), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director.
George Wendt
Along with Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman, George Wendt was the only member of the Cheers cast to appear in every single episode. Although Norm Peterson famously drank copious amounts of beer throughout the series, the beverage Wendt actually consumed was far less appealing: a warm, flat, non-alcoholic concoction layered with salt to create a foamy head. It sounds… awful. “There I was slamming those down for a whole day. It not only tastes disgusting, I was afraid of keeling over from high blood pressure,” he told The Washington Post in 1985. “Then I got the knack. I didn’t have to put all those brews away. It only mattered when the camera was pointing my way. It took a couple of years, but now I watch the camera. That’s how I make my money. That’s acting.“
Norm Peterson quickly became one of the most beloved characters on Cheers, a status cemented by the thunderous cry of “Norm!” every time he entered the bar. Wendt’s affable, perfectly timed performance earned him six Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series—though he never took home the award. His association with the character didn’t end when Cheers wrapped, either; Wendt reprised Norm on the short-lived spinoff The Tortellis, centered on Carla’s boorish ex-husband (played by Dan Hedaya), and made memorable appearances as Norm on St. Elsewhere, Wings, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Frasier.
After Cheers ended, Wendt starred in his own sitcom, The George Wendt Show, though it was cancelled after just six episodes.
Of course, Wendt’s career extended far beyond the walls of Cheers. His film credits include Airplane II: The Sequel, Dreamscape, Fletch, House, Guilty by Suspicion, Forever Young, Hostage for a Day, The Little Rascals, Space Truckers, King of the Ants, Sandy Wexler, and more. On television, he appeared in episodes of Taxi, Alice, MASH*, Tales from the Crypt, Seinfeld, Columbo, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Becker, Masters of Horror, Ghost Whisperer, Hot in Cleveland, Portlandia, The Goldbergs, and many others.
George Wendt died on May 20 at the age of 76.
Alf Clausen
Alf Clausen, the prolific composer who gave The Simpsons its musical identity for nearly three decades, died on May 29 at the age of 84.
Clausen’s first major break as a television composer came with Moonlighting, the genre-blending comedy-drama starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. He was initially hired alongside another composer, with the intention that they would alternate episodes. However, by the fourth episode, the other composer had been let go, and Clausen went on to score the series for its entire five-season run.
After Moonlighting wrapped, Clausen found himself searching for his next project when Matt Groening approached him about scoring The Simpsons, which had just completed its first season. Clausen was hesitant. “I was posed the question, ‘Would you like to score an animated show?’ and I said, ‘No,’” Clausen recalled during a 2015 interview. “I said, ‘I just got off of four years of Moonlighting and I really want to be a drama composer. I’m more interested in doing longform feature films.’“
Groening, however, made it clear that The Simpsons was not being approached as a traditional cartoon. Instead, he described it as a drama with drawn characters—one that needed to be scored accordingly. “He said he didn’t want it scored like a typical Warner Bros. cartoon. He didn’t want it scored like a typical Disney cartoon,” Clausen said. “He wanted something different.” That conversation marked the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration. Clausen went on to score more than 550 episodes of the series, including his first Treehouse of Horror, and created some of the show’s most iconic musical numbers, such as “We Put the Spring in Springfield,” “See My Vest,” “You’re Checkin’ In,” and countless others.
That relationship came to a bitter end in 2017 when Clausen was dismissed from the series. He later filed a lawsuit against Disney and Fox, alleging that his firing was the result of ageism and disability discrimination. Producers countered that Clausen was let go because he was unable to adapt to more modern musical styles—a claim that struck many as dubious given the extraordinary range of music he had delivered for the show over decades.
Over the course of his career, Clausen received 30 Emmy nominations—more than any other musician.
Loretta Swit
Loretta Swit was best known for her iconic role as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the long-running television series M*A*S*H.
Swit’s career spanned television, film, and the stage, but it was her portrayal of the fiercely independent, deeply compassionate Army nurse during the Korean War that made her a household name. She joined M*A*S*H when it debuted in 1972 and remained a central figure throughout the show’s 11-season run, earning two Emmy Awards and the admiration of millions of viewers. Along with Alan Alda, Swit was the only original cast member to appear in both the pilot episode and the series finale. Sally Kellerman, who originally played Houlihan in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H film, died in 2022.
“[Houlihan] was [unique] at the time and in her time, which was the ’50s, when [the Korean War] was happening,” Swit said in a 2004 interview. “And she became even more unique, I think, because we allowed her to continue to grow — we watched her evolve. I don’t think that’s ever been done in quite that way.“
The emotionally charged finale of M*A*S*H proved just as powerful behind the scenes as it was onscreen. In a 2018 interview with THR, Swit recalled filming the moment when her character said goodbye to Col. Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan). “We could hardly rehearse,” she said. “I had to look at this man whom I adore and say, ‘You dear, sweet man, I’ll never forget you,’ without getting emotional — and I couldn’t. I can’t now even. [Morgan died in 2011.] It wasn’t words on a page. You knew what you were saying was truth.“
Near the end of M*A*S*H’s run, Swit starred alongside Tyne Daly in the movie pilot for Cagney & Lacey. When CBS ordered the series, however, she was unable to continue in the role due to her contractual obligations to M*A*S*H. Meg Foster assumed the role of Christine Cagney for the first season, before Sharon Gless took over for the remainder of the series.
Beyond M*A*S*H, Swit appeared in television series such as Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Bonanza, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote, as well as films including Freebie and the Bean, Race with the Devil, and S.O.B. Off-screen, she was a devoted animal rights activist, author, and philanthropist, dedicating much of her later life to advocacy and humanitarian causes.
Loretta Swit died on May 30 at the age of 87.
Valerie Mahaffey
Valerie Mahaffey died on May 30 at the age of 71. She was best known for playing the wealthy, pathologically hypochondriac wife of Adam (Adam Arkin) on Northern Exposure. Although she hadn’t seen the show when she was cast, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. “Well, you have to play opposite Adam Arkin, do you think you can be really, really mean?’” Mahaffey recalled. “I yelled at him real good and I guess he thought I was funny. That’s how it went. Apparently, they had been looking for [an actress to play] this girl for a long time. Later, I was told there was this big search.”
She continued, “I got a letter from a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in years. I went to school with him and he’s now a doctor. He wrote to me and said, ‘I just wanted to let you know you’re frightening. You’re so much like my hypochondriac patients. You’re great.’ It was the most wonderful letter from somebody I knew. I just gave him the chills, you know?”
Mahaffey was also well known for portraying Alma Hodge on Desperate Housewives, the manipulative ex-wife of Kyle MacLachlan’s character.
A prolific television actor, Mahaffey appeared in an extraordinary range of series over the years, including Newhart, Quantum Leap, Cheers, Seinfeld, Wings, L.A. Law, The Client, ER, Ally McBeal, Judging Amy, The West Wing, Frasier, CSI, Private Practice, Boston Legal, United States of Tara, Glee, Devious Maids, Grey’s Anatomy, Hart of Dixie, The Mindy Project, The Man in the High Castle, Young Sheldon, Dead to Me, Big Sky, and many more.
On the big screen, she appeared in films such as National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, Jungle 2 Jungle, Seabiscuit, My First Wedding, Jack and Jill, Sully, and French Exit.
Jonathan Joss
Jonathan Joss died on June 1 at the age of 59. From 1997 to 2009, Joss provided the voice of John Redcorn on King of the Hill, taking over the role after the death of the original voice actor, Victor Aaron, who was killed in a car accident in 1996. Joss later returned for the King of the Hill revival, recording several episodes before his death. The final episode of the revival’s first season was dedicated to him.
John Redcorn appeared throughout the series’ original 13-season run, and Joss was deeply invested in expanding the character beyond the stereotype of a New Age healer engaged in an affair. “He has his own business. Native characters and guest characters in general aren’t allowed to arc like that,” Joss said in 2013. “People have hit me over the head, saying I was that character sleeping with the white lady and having a kid I don’t care about; but I tell him you didn’t see King of the Hill after the first few seasons. Redcorn changed.”
Joss was also widely recognized for his role as Ken Hotate on Parks and Recreation, playing the shrewd tribal elder of the Wamapoke Native American tribe and owner of the Wamapoke Casino. He told Entertainment Weekly that he considered Hotate to be one of the strongest Native characters ever depicted on television. “In Hollywood, you don’t have a lot of Native people writing for Native characters,” Joss said. “I think the writers developed the character and trusted me enough, because I am a Native person, to step in those shoes and be able to create this three-dimensional character.… He was essentially the best Native character on television.”
Beyond those standout roles, Joss appeared in numerous television series, including Walker, Texas Ranger, Charmed, ER, Friday Night Lights, Ray Donovan, and Tulsa King. His film credits included Almost Heroes, True Grit, The Magnificent Seven, and The Forever Purge.
Harris Yulin
Harris Yulin died on June 10 at the age of 87. Over a career spanning six decades, Yulin began as a stage actor before transitioning to film and television, becoming one of those instantly recognizable performers whose work left a lasting impression across numerous projects. One of his earliest significant screen roles saw him portray Wyatt Earp in Doc, a revisionist Western that retold the story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The film also starred Stacey Keach as Doc Holliday and Faye Dunaway—who Yulin dated for a time—as Kate Elder.
Yulin went on to appear in a wide range of films, including Night Moves, Ghostbusters II, Clear and Present Danger, The Baby-Sitters Club, Cutthroat Island, Multiplicity, Bean, The Hurricane, Rush Hour 2, Training Day, My Soul to Take, and The Place Beyond the Pines, among many others. He also memorably played Mel Bernstein in Scarface, the corrupt Miami police detective on Frank Lopez’s payroll who attempts to extort Tony Montana—an encounter that, unsurprisingly, does not end well.
Just as prolific on television, Yulin delivered standout performances in series such as Little House on the Prairie, Wonder Woman, Law & Order, Murphy Brown, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, 24, The Blacklist, Veep, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Billions, and more. For Star Trek fans, his turn as Aamin Marritza in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Duet remains especially notable, widely regarded as one of the series’ finest episodes. Yulin reportedly became so invested in the role that he attempted to persuade producers not to kill the character off—an unusual move for a guest actor on a television series.
Yulin also played Buddy Dieker during the first two seasons of Netflix’s Ozark and earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as crime boss Jerome Belasco on Frasier.
He may never have been a traditional household name, but Harris Yulin was undeniably a familiar and respected presence. “I just do the next thing that comes along,” he said. “Whatever comes along that I want to do or that I feel I need to do. Oftentimes the things one does you don’t think of doing or you have no idea that you’re going to do.”
Rick Hurst
Rick Hurst was best known for playing Deputy Cletus Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard. His acting career began remarkably early—at just five years old—when a trip to the Houston Public Library with his mother led to an unexpected opportunity. A stranger tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he’d like to star in a commercial for the library. “My pay was a chocolate soda,” he recalled in 2022.
Years later, Hurst launched his television career with an appearance on Sanford and Son, kicking off a long run of guest roles across some of the most popular shows of the era. His television credits included The Bob Newhart Show, Kung Fu, Gunsmoke, Happy Days, Little House on the Prairie, The Six Million Dollar Man, M*A*S*H*, From Here to Eternity, Highway to Heaven, Perfect Strangers, The Wonder Years, Family Matters, and many more.
Hurst also starred in On the Rocks, a short-lived sitcom centered on inmates at the Alamesa Minimum Security Prison.
On the big screen, Hurst appeared in films such as The Cat From Outer Space, Going Ape, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Karate Kid Part III, Steel Magnolias, In the Line of Fire, and Anywhere But Here. He also reprised his most famous role in two Dukes of Hazzard TV movies: The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! in 1997 and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood in 2000.
Rick Hurst died on June 26 at the age of 79.
Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin, the man behind one of the most iconic (and hummable) pieces of cinematic music, died on June 26 at 93 years old.
Schifrin told the New York Post in 2015 that he created the Mission: Impossible theme in just three minutes, without seeing any footage from the show. “Orchestration’s not the problem for me. It’s like writing a letter. When you write a letter, you don’t have to think what grammar or what syntaxes you’re going to use, you just write a letter. And that’s the way it came,” Schifrin said. “Bruce Geller, who was the producer of the series, put together the pilot and came to me and said, ‘I want you to write something exciting, something that when people are in the living room and go into the kitchen to have a soft drink, and they hear it, they will know what it is. I want it to be identifiable, recognizable and a signature.’ And this is what I did.“
The theme won Schifrin a Grammy Award and continued to be used for all the big-screen movies starring Tom Cruise.
Of course, Schifrin is known for so much more than just Mission: Impossible. He composed music for movies such as Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Kelly’s Heroes, Dirty Harry, The Beguiled, THX 1138, Joe Kidd, Enter the Dragon, Magnum Force, The Eagle Has Landed, The Amityville Horror, Sudden Impact, The Sting II, the Rush Hour trilogy, and much more.
He also composed themes and music for many TV shows, such as Mannix, Starsky & Hutch, Planet of the Apes, and more.
Schifrin was also the original composer of The Exorcist before he was replaced. He recorded six minutes of music, which was used in the movie’s trailer, but executives told director William Friedkin to instruct Schifrin to tone it down. He didn’t pass on the message.
Julian McMahon
Julian McMahon died on July 2 at the age of 56. One of his most high-profile film roles saw him portraying Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, though he often felt he never fully got the chance to explore the character’s potential.
“I never got to express Doctor Doom the way that I saw Doctor Doom,” McMahon said in a 2017 interview. “If Marvel Studios got Doctor Doom back, and I could play him the way I always wanted to, as a sniveling, conniving, freaky guy, I would do that for sure. The character I most want to play is the character I’ve already played! There’s so much there!”
Beyond the Fantastic Four films, McMahon appeared in movies such as Premonition, Red, Faces in the Crowd, Bait 3D, Swinging Safari, and The Surfer.
On television, he played FBI Special Supervisory Agent Jess LaCroix across the FBI franchise, appearing in FBI and FBI: International before leading the first three seasons of FBI: Most Wanted. He also co-starred as Agent John Grant throughout all four seasons of Profiler, portrayed the cunning and manipulative Cole Turner on Charmed, and starred opposite Dylan Walsh in Nip/Tuck.
McMahon’s extensive TV résumé further included appearances on Home and Away, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Runaways, The Residence, and many others, cementing a career defined by charismatic, often darkly compelling performances across film and television.
Michael Madsen
Michael Madsen was extraordinarily prolific, appearing in more than 300 film and television productions over the course of his career. Yet for many, he will always be most closely associated with his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, beginning with Reservoir Dogs, where he delivered an indelible performance as the sadistic Mr. Blonde, forever linked to his chilling, ear-slicing dance routine set to “Stuck in the Middle With You.” He went on to play Budd in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2, Joe Gage in The Hateful Eight, and Sheriff Hackett in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
“Quentin is, in my estimation, the best director of my generation. He’s up there with George Stevens and Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan,” Madsen said. “Because of that, because of my relationship with him, it became bigger than anything I ever did. And then Kill Bill put the final stamp on that one. It’s a great blessing to have that and at the same time, it is really hard to get out of it. And people don’t want you to get out of it.”
Outside of his Tarantino work, Madsen’s filmography spanned decades and genres, with roles in WarGames, The Natural, The Killing Time, Kill Me Again, The Doors, Thelma & Louise, Trouble Bound, Free Willy, Money for Nothing, Wyatt Earp, Species, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Mulholland Falls, Donnie Brasco, Species II, Die Another Day, Sin City, Scary Movie 4, BloodRayne, Outlaw Johnny Black, and many more.
He was equally familiar to television audiences, appearing in series such as Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, 24, Bob’s Burgers, Blue Bloods, The Mob Doctor, Hawaii Five-0, and others.
Though he built a formidable screen persona playing hardened criminals and intimidating heavyweights, Madsen was keenly aware of the disconnect between perception and reality. “Fame is a two-edged sword,” he told THR in 2018. “There are a lot of blessings but also a lot of heavy things that come with it. I think it has a lot to do with the characters I’ve played. I think I’ve been more believable than I should have been. I think people really fear me. They see me and go: ‘Holy shit, there’s that guy!’ But I’m not that guy. I’m just an actor.”
Michael Madsen died on July 3 at the age of 67
Mark Snow
It’s difficult to imagine The X-Files without its instantly recognizable theme music, composed by Mark Snow, which set the series’ eerie tone from the very first episode.
Series creator Chris Carter initially had a few ideas about what the theme should sound like and brought Snow a handful of CDs as inspiration. Even so, finding the right approach proved challenging. Snow later admitted that his early attempts sounded “a little generic or what you think would be on a sci-fi show. More pounding and rhythmic and dangerous and muscular.” The breakthrough came unexpectedly—when he accidentally rested his elbow on his keyboard.
“It was that accompanying theme, the ‘da-ba-da-da-ba-da…’ I had some echo-delay thing on the keyboard and I thought it worked well,” Snow told Empire. “Chris was always talking about simple, under-produced, not slick music. So I thought, ‘Okay, that’s a nice part of this.’ Then I had to figure out what else it would be a three-part piece. Some sustained low notes underneath that, some low drums hits here and there, then all we needed was a melody on top of it. That was simple enough. I tried different instruments, including strings and sax and flute and it sounded ordinary. How about piano? Oh, no. So I stumbled upon the whistle sound and my wife said, ‘That’s cool! You should keep that.’ She whistled along with it too, so that’s where that came from.”
Beyond The X-Files television series and feature films, Snow continued his collaboration with Carter by composing the scores for Millennium, Harsh Realm, and The Lone Gunman. His prolific career also included work on series such as Starsky & Hutch, Hart to Hart, Falcon Crest, Dark Justice, Smallville, The Twilight Zone, and Blue Bloods, as well as feature films including Ernest Saves Christmas, Dolly Dearest, Disturbing Behavior, The New Mutants, and more.
Mark Snow died on July 4 at the age of 78.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
Malcolm-Jamal Warner died on July 20 at the age of 54. He was best known for his portrayal of Theodore “Theo” Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a role he reprised multiple times on the spin-off series A Different World.
Reflecting on the show’s cultural impact, Warner explained how it stood apart from earlier sitcoms. “When you look at the history of black sitcoms, they’re all predicated upon the, quote, ‘black experience.’ And therefore, much of the humor is predicated on being black,” Warner told NPR in 2014. “Mr. Cosby wanted to do a show not about an upper-middle-class black family, but an upper-middle-class family that happened to be black. Though it sounds like semantics, they’re very different approaches. Yet the Huxtables were very black, from the style of dress, to the art to the music, to just the culture. So, being black without having to act black, if you will.“
Beyond The Cosby Show, Warner built an extensive television résumé, with appearances on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Here and Now, The Magic School Bus, Touched by an Angel, Sliders, Dexter, The Cleaner, Community, Key & Peele, Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story: Freak Show, Suits, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Sneaky Pete, The Resident, 9-1-1, Alert: Missing Persons Unit, and more.
He also starred opposite Eddie Griffin in Malcolm & Eddie, which ran for four seasons on UPN, and alongside Luke Perry in J. Michael Straczynski’s post-apocalyptic action drama Jeremiah. Though Straczynski had mapped out a five-year plan for the series, it was abruptly cancelled midway through its second season. Fans mounted a campaign to save the show and secure a third year, but ultimately, the effort was unsuccessful.
Ozzy Osbourne
As the co-founder of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne helped invent heavy metal, but his impact extended far beyond music, leaving an unexpected and indelible mark on television as well.
After a memorable appearance on MTV Cribs, a reality series centered on Osbourne and his family—his wife Sharon, daughter Kelly, and son Jack—was put into production. The Osbournes became an instant phenomenon as the most-watched series in MTV history. The show chronicled their daily lives and the often chaotic, frequently hilarious antics of the Osbourne household. Its success helped usher in a new era of celebrity-focused reality television, paving the way for franchises like The Real Housewives and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Ozzy never took The Osbournes too seriously, later admitting he was “stoned during the entire filming” of the series, but even he was taken aback by how profoundly it reshaped his public image. “I never realised TV is the most powerful form of entertainment on the planet. I still wonder what it all means,” he said in a 2002 interview. “I was in Boston, where I’ve performed thousands of times, and this respectable middle-aged woman comes up to me and says, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I tell her I’m here to perform, and she goes, ‘F***. You do that as well?’ I’ve reached an audience with no idea I’m a rock ‘n’ roller. I’m pleased about that. I’m the working-class hero. Not bad for a guy from Aston.”
He went on to make numerous television appearances—almost always as himself—on shows such as South Park, The Bernie Mac Show, CSI, The Conners, and more. His film appearances were equally eclectic, ranging from Trick or Treat and Private Parts to Little Nicky, Moulin Rouge!, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Gnomeo & Juliet, Ghostbusters, Sherlock Gnomes, and Trolls World Tour.
Osbourne ultimately reunited with Black Sabbath for the Back to the Beginning farewell tour. Unable to walk due to advanced Parkinson’s disease, he performed seated on a throne, powering through classics like “Crazy Train,” “Iron Man,” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” He died just 17 days later, on July 22, at the age of 76.
Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan died on July 24 at the age of 71. One of the biggest stars professional wrestling has ever produced, Hogan ignited the Hulkamania phenomenon and became a global household name. But before he ever stepped into the ring, Hogan was a musician playing clubs around Tampa Bay.
In his 2002 autobiography, Hogan recalled working out at Hector’s Gym when he was spotted by wrestling scouts and encouraged to train with Japanese star Hiro Matsuda. “The wrestlers were like Greek gods to me,” he wrote. “They were giants, larger than life, and the combination of entertainment and physicality that I saw in the wrestling ring was something I had never seen in other sports. And that, I guess you’d say, was where it all started for me.”
Hogan’s popularity eventually extended far beyond wrestling, enabling him to crossover into movies and television. He made his film debut as Thunderlips in Rocky III and went on to star in No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, The Secret Agent Club, Santa with Muscles, and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. He also delivered a famously unforgettable cameo in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On television, Hogan appeared in shows such as The A-Team, Baywatch, Suddenly Susan, Walker, Texas Ranger, American Dad!, The Inbetweeners, and The Goldbergs.
Loni Anderson
Loni Anderson was best known for playing Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati, but she initially turned down the now-iconic role. While she liked the show’s premise, Anderson wasn’t enthusiastic about the version of the character creator Hugh Wilson had in mind, “so I refused.”
“I went in and sat on my little soapbox and said, ‘I don’t want to play this part because she’s just here to deliver messages and is window dressing,’” she explained in a 2020 interview. “Then Hugh said, ‘Well, how would you do it?’ … He said, ‘Let’s make her look like Lana Turner and be the smartest person in the room.’” The role earned Anderson three Golden Globe nominations and two Emmy nominations.
Beyond WKRP in Cincinnati, Anderson appeared in films such as Vigilante Force, The Jayne Mansfield Story, Stroker Ace, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Munchie, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, and A Night at the Roxbury. On television, she made memorable appearances on S.W.A.T., Barnaby Jones, The Bob Newhart Show, The Love Boat, The Incredible Hulk, Three’s Company, Empty Nest, Nurses, and Melrose Place.
Loni Anderson died on August 3 at the age of 79.
Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp was best known to mainstream audiences for playing General Zod in Superman and Superman II, and he relished the opportunity to appear onscreen alongside Marlon Brando. “Two actors of my generations were Brando and [James] Dean,” Stamp said in 1988. “They were the two idols. Dean was no longer with us and Brando was still around, so the idea of getting up on film with him, albeit brief, was irresistible.”
That excitement was tempered, however, when Stamp realized Brando hadn’t bothered to learn his lines, instead relying on large cue cards. Frustrated, Stamp asked him, “How are you going to play King Lear and Macbeth if you can’t learn a line?” to which Brando coolly replied, “I’ve learned them already.”
Stamp also earned widespread acclaim for his performance as Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. At first, he was reluctant to take on the role, until a friend helped put his fears into perspective. “She said, ‘Look, just say yes and maybe it will go away. And if it doesn’t, you’ll just have to address the fear,’” Stamp told the BFI in 2013. “And then she said this wonderful thing: ‘Terence, this is not a career move, this is a growth move.’” Stamp later reflected that it was “a challenge, a challenge I couldn’t resist because [otherwise] my life would have been a lie.” He added that the film “became one of the great experiences of my whole career. It was probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Stamp returned to the role in September 2025, filming all of his scenes for a sequel that has yet to be completed.
Over the course of his long and varied career, Stamp appeared in films such as Billy Budd, The Collector, Far from the Madding Crowd, Teorema, The Company of Wolves, Link, The Sicilian, Young Guns, Alien Nation, The Limey, Bowfinger, Red Planet, The Haunted Mansion, Elektra, Wanted, Get Smart, Yes Man, Valkyrie, The Adjustment Bureau, Big Eyes, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and Last Night in Soho. He also portrayed Supreme Chancellor Valorum in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Terence Stamp died on August 17 at the age of 87.
Jerry Adler
Jerry Adler didn’t begin his on-screen acting career until his 60s, but the theater was always in his blood. Several members of his family worked in the business—most notably his cousin, legendary acting teacher Stella Adler—and he initially made his mark behind the scenes. Adler started out as a stage manager, later becoming a production supervisor, and eventually went on to direct productions of his own.
One of his most memorable early experiences came in 1969, when he worked on Coco, the Broadway musical inspired by the life of Coco Chanel. Katharine Hepburn starred in the production, but a problem arose during one of the show’s quieter songs. Construction on the nearby Uris Building (now known as Paramount Plaza) could be heard over the song, disrupting the performance. Hepburn summoned Adler to her dressing room and instructed him to cross the street and ask the workers to halt construction during that single song.
“So I went over to the engineering hut, got a hold of the boss and said I was the stage manager of the show across the street starring Katharine Hepburn and she would like to stop work on the building when she sings this song. They thought I was a [expletive] lunatic,” Adler said. “So I go back to her and tell her it’s impossible and then she goes out, goes across the street, gets in one of those open construction elevators and arranges with the workers herself on every floor that when I come out of the stage door and give them the signal, they stop work and then restart when I come out again. They did that at every matinee for her.”
When Adler eventually transitioned to acting, he found lasting fame as Herman “Hesh” Rabkin on The Sopranos, where he memorably played the sharp-tongued loan shark and trusted advisor to Tony Soprano.
He also appeared as Howard Lyman on The Good Wife and its spinoff, The Good Fight, as well as as NYFD station chief Sidney Feinberg on Rescue Me. Over the course of his career, Adler made guest appearances on numerous television series, including Quantum Leap, Mad About You, Northern Exposure, Hudson Street, Raising Dad, ’Til Death, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent, and Broad City.
Jerry Adler died on August 23 at the age of 96.
Graham Greene
Graham Greene died on September 1 at the age of 73. He was best known for his acclaimed performance as Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Acting wasn’t Greene’s original plan. He held a wide range of jobs before finding his way in front of the camera, and when the opportunity finally presented itself, he realized it suited him just fine. “I started out as a carpenter, a welder, a draftsman, a carpet layer, a roadie and an audio tech,” he said in a 2018 interview. “I stumbled into acting and I thought, These people keep me in the shade, give me food and water, take me over to where I say what I’m supposed to say, then they take me back. Wow—this is the life of a dog!”
Greene went on to build an extensive film career, appearing in movies such as Thunderheart, Maverick, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Grey Owl, The Green Mile, Transamerica, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Wind River, Molly’s Game, Antlers, and many others.
His television work was equally prolific, with appearances on L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Northern Exposure, The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon, The Outer Limits, Numbers, Defiance, Longmire, Goliath, 1883, American Gods, The Last of Us, Reservation Dogs, and Tulsa King. He was also well remembered for playing Edgar K.B. Montrose, an explosives expert, on The Red Green Show.
Scott Spiegel
Scott Spiegel is best known for co-writing Evil Dead II with Sam Raimi, but his connection to the iconic horror franchise stretches back to its very origins. Spiegel met Raimi—and Bruce Campbell—while still in high school, and the trio quickly began collaborating on homemade films. Spiegel appeared as Scotty in Within the Woods, the short film that served as a proof of concept for The Evil Dead.
When it came time to make The Evil Dead, Spiegel was unable to participate directly, though he still found ways to contribute. “I couldn’t break away at the time because I was helping support my family,” he said in a 2011 interview. “The boys called me several times (to work on the movie) down in Morristown but I was making $28,000 back then and that was decent money. When they came back home I helped out in post production. I got a couple of my girlfriends to double some of the actresses in the film, and I supplied a bunch of the meat parts.”
Spiegel was able to return for Evil Dead II, and the film’s success led to his opportunity to write and direct Intruder, a cult slasher notable for its especially brutal practical effects. Among its most famous moments is a kill in which Billy Marti’s character has his head sliced in half with a bandsaw. “When we were about to shoot the sawing of the gelatin head, Billy Marti turned to me and said ‘My Mom can never see this,’” Spiegel recalled. “We rolled cameras and turned on the band saw and sawed the gelatin head in half and it was so real it upset many crew members. Joyce Pepper, our script supervisor was crying. I seriously questioned what I was doing. Man, that’s horrifying but I was, after all making a horror film. This wasn’t Bambi.”
Beyond his work behind the camera, Spiegel made cameo appearances in many of Raimi’s films, including Darkman, The Quick and the Dead, Spider-Man 2, Drag Me to Hell, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. He also co-wrote Clint Eastwood’s buddy-cop action thriller The Rookie, wrote and directed From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, executive-produced Eli Roth’s Hostel and Hostel Part II, and later directed Hostel Part III.
Scott Spiegel died on September 1 at the age of 67.
Robert Redford
Robert Redford died on September 16 at the age of 89. He became a bona fide movie star after appearing opposite Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, though the career-defining role nearly passed him by. The studio was initially hesitant to cast Redford, having already offered the part to Jack Lemmon, Warren Beatty, and Steve McQueen. Redford later credited Newman with stepping in and giving him the break that changed everything.
“The studio didn’t want me,” he recalled. “It all depended on Paul, and I met him and he was very generous and said, ‘Let’s go for this.’ He knew I was serious about the craft. That’s what brought us together, and we became friends.” Four years later, the pair reunited for another classic, The Sting.
Redford went on to appear in an extraordinary range of films, including Barefoot in the Park, Downhill Racer, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate, The Way We Were, The Great Gatsby, Three Days of the Condor, The Great Waldo Pepper, All the President’s Men, A Bridge Too Far, The Natural, Out of Africa, Legal Eagles, Sneakers, Indecent Proposal, The Horse Whisperer, The Last Castle, Spy Game, Lions for Lambs, All Is Lost, Pete’s Dragon, and The Old Man and the Gun.
Late in his career, Redford also entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing Alexander Pierce in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, before returning for a brief cameo in Avengers: Endgame.
Behind the camera, Redford proved just as accomplished. He directed films such as Ordinary People, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Director, along with A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Lions for Lambs, and The Conspirator.
Beyond his own filmography, Redford’s legacy extended to the industry itself. He founded the Sundance Film Festival, which has grown into the largest independent film festival in the United States and helped launch numerous careers.
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale died on September 23 at the age of 87. She’s best known for playing Princess Dala in The Pink Panther and starring alongside Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.
She’s also known for her leading roles in Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, which she shot back-to-back. “Visconti was precise and meticulous, spoke to me in French and wanted me to have long brown hair,” she told Le Monde in 2017. “Fellini was chaotic and didn’t have a script; he spoke Italian to me, cut my hair short and dyed it blond. Those were the two most important films of my life.“
Although Cardinale is best known for her work in Italian films, she was actually born in Tunisia and grew up speaking French, Arabic, and her parents’ native Sicilian dialect. She only learned Italian as an adult. She made her feature film debut in Goha alongside Omar Sharif and was later dubbed “The Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia.” Offers for movie roles soon followed, but she was reluctant to pursue them. Her father eventually convinced her to “give this cinema thing a go.“
However, just as her career was starting, she was raped and became pregnant. To avoid scandal, she went to London to give birth. “I gave birth in London, because in those days it would have been a scandal,” she told Variety in 2017. “We pretended that my son was my little brother. I didn’t want to become an actress; I did it so I could be independent.” She later revealed the truth to her son seven years later.
Her role in Once Upon a Time in the West was special. “I was the only woman in that movie! The thing is … I love music. And that was the first time I worked on a film where the music was composed [by Ennio Morricone] before the cameras started rolling,” she said. “So before shooting my scenes, Sergio would play the music … which really helped me get into the part. Morricone recently invited me to his concert in Paris. I was sitting in the front row and he opened with the theme from Once Upon a Time in the West, while looking straight at me.“
Cardinale also appeared in Big Deal on Madonna Street, Rocco and His Brothers, Circus World, The Professionals, The Hell With Heroes, Fitzcarraldo, and much more.
Patricia Routledge
Patricia Routledge died on October 3 at the age of 96. She was best known for playing the gloriously snobbish social climber Hyacinth Bucket (It’s Bouquet!) on Keeping Up Appearances.
Although Routledge had built a long and varied career across film, television, radio, and the stage, it was Keeping Up Appearances that marked a true turning point. “My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily—on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions—but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found,” she said. “At 50, I accepted the role of Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world.”
Beyond her iconic television role, Routledge appeared in films such as To Sir, With Love, Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River, and Lock Up Your Daughters, and made memorable appearances on television series including Coronation Street, Sense and Sensibility, David Copperfield, and Nicholas Nickleby. Following the success of Keeping Up Appearances, she went on to headline Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, playing Henrietta “Hetty” Wainthropp, a sharp-witted retired working-class woman with a talent for solving crimes.
In recognition of her extraordinary career and charitable work, Routledge was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017.
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton had relatively few screen credits when she was cast as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Even she was baffled by the decision. “I didn’t understand why me,” she recalled. “I mean, I went up to the audition. I didn’t even really — I hadn’t read it. See, this is bad! But I needed a job, so I got up there. I’d been auditioning around for about a year, and then this happened like that. And I kept thinking, ‘Why me? Why would he cast me?’ I didn’t understand it. I still don’t, really.”
Keaton returned for The Godfather Part II, though she later admitted she was initially hesitant to sign on. “At first, I was skeptical about playing Kay again in the Godfather sequel,” she said. “But when I read the script, the character seemed much more substantial than in the first film.” She ultimately reprised the role once more in The Godfather Part III.
Beyond the Godfather trilogy, Keaton became closely associated with director Woody Allen, collaborating with him on films such as Play It Again, Sam, Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Radio Days, and Manhattan Murder Mystery. Her unconventional wardrobe in Annie Hall turned her into an unlikely fashion icon of the late 1970s.
Her extensive filmography also includes Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Reds, Baby Boom, The Good Mother, Father of the Bride, Look Who’s Talking Now!, Father of the Bride Part II, The First Wives Club, Marvin’s Room, The Other Sister, Town & Country, Something’s Gotta Give, The Family Stone, Finding Dory, Book Club, and Book Club: The Next Chapter. On television, she appeared in Night Gallery, The Young Pope, and Green Eggs and Ham.
Diane Keaton died on October 11 at the age of 79.
Drew Struzan
Drew Struzan died on October 13 at the age of 78. Long before movie posters became dominated by rows of Photoshopped faces, Struzan was creating genuine works of art for countless films. His style was instantly recognizable, and for many fans, his posters were just as iconic and enduring as the movies they represented.
While in college, Struzan was told that his career path would likely lead to either fine art or illustration. He chose illustration for practical reasons. “I was poor and hungry, and illustration was the shortest path to a slice of bread, as compared to a gallery showing,” he said. “I had nothing as a child. I drew on toilet paper with pencils – that was the only paper around. Probably why I love drawing so much today is because it was just all I had at the time.”
Struzan became closely associated with the Star Wars franchise and was involved early in its history. For the 1978 re-release of Star Wars, 20th Century Fox initially hired Charles White III to create a new poster. However, White was uncomfortable with portraiture and turned to Struzan for help. The result was the now-famous “Circus” poster, one of the most unique pieces of artwork in the entire franchise.
He went on to design the posters for the Star Wars Special Edition Trilogy, as well as the Prequel Trilogy, with his work on The Phantom Menace remaining a particular favourite of mine.
It would be impossible to catalogue all of Struzan’s extraordinary work in a single paragraph, but his credits include posters for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, The Cannonball Run, The Goonies, Hook, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Green Mile, and many more. He even created the iconic poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing in just a few hours, without being given any details about the film. When the artwork was delivered to the studio the following morning, he received a call saying, “The painting’s still wet.”
When asked which of his posters was his favourite, Struzan offered a characteristically thoughtful response: “If I had a favorite, then I would have already done the best I can do. I’d lose my spark of creativity. My favorite is always the very next one.”
Samantha Eggar
Samantha Eggar died on October 15 at the age of 86. One of her earliest major roles saw her starring opposite Terence Stamp in The Collector, in which she played a young art student kidnapped by a deeply disturbed and lonely man. While the film is harrowing to watch, the ordeal Eggar endured during production was, by her own account, even more challenging than what appears onscreen.
Director William Wyler was famously exacting and went to extraordinary lengths to ensure Eggar felt genuinely isolated on set. He instructed Stamp to remain in character at all times and treat Eggar coldly, and if Wyler felt a scene lacked sufficient tension, he would escalate matters himself. “And if the tension wasn’t there — if I didn’t exude precisely what he wanted — well, Willie just poured cold water over me,” she said. “You remember I was tied up by black leather? Well, use your imagination and go from there! What you see onscreen was really taking place on set.“
Despite the grueling process, Eggar later acknowledged the results of Wyler’s methods. “He works you to your peak,” she said. “When it’s over, you realize that you have done the best you could possibly do.” Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress.
Eggar’s filmography also included Return From the Ashes, Doctor Dolittle, The Molly Maguires, The Light at the Edge of the World, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The Uncanny, Demonoid, Curtains, The Phantom, and The Astronaut’s Wife.
One of her most memorable later roles came in David Cronenberg’s The Brood. “I was really fascinated by how David had come upon this idea of the hives growing on me, these children of anger growing on the outside of my stomach. This little army I was bearing. I thought … ‘Goodness, what a mind this is … to conceive such a fantastical thing,’” she said. “And it wasn’t only David’s concept that was multilayered, multidimensional. It was also reflected in the writing. As an actor, when you have a sort of Shakespearean way to the writing that is so rich and robust, you revel in it.”
Beyond live-action roles, Eggar voiced Hera in Disney’s animated Hercules and reprised the role for the television series. She also made numerous television appearances over the years, popping up on shows such as Columbo, Starsky & Hutch, Hawaii Five-O, The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Star Trek: The Next Generation, Commander in Chief, and more. She also starred alongside Yul Brynner in Anna and the King, a non-musical TV adaptation of The King and I.
June Lockhart
June Lockhart died on October 23 at the age of 100. She was best known for playing two of television’s most beloved mothers: Dr. Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space and Ruth Martin on the long-running Lassie series.
Lockhart’s remarkable nine-decade career began with an appearance in MGM’s 1938 production of A Christmas Carol. Her parents, Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, portrayed Bob and Emily Cratchit, while June appeared as one of their children. From there, she went on to appear in a wide range of films, including Sergeant York, Son of Lassie, She-Wolf of London, Deadly Games, Troll, C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D., and many others.
She joined Lassie in its fifth season, replacing Cloris Leachman as Ruth Martin. Lockhart had initially been offered the role before Leachman but declined it—a decision she later came to regret. When the opportunity arose again, she embraced it wholeheartedly. “I thought about what I had been offered and said to myself, ‘What am I being so damn grand about?’” she recalled. “I have two children to support, the part they want me to play has a lot of dignity, the show is already on the air, I wouldn’t have to film a pilot, and they have a sponsor. This is a really great gift that has been offered to me.”
Her role on Lost in Space sparked a lifelong fascination with astronomy, an interest that extended well beyond the screen. In 2014, she was awarded the NASA Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. “I have been told that my contribution inspired many astronauts to pursue a career in space science and exploration,” Lockhart said. “It is lovely to know that I touched so many people by doing things that interested me!” She later made a cameo appearance in the 1998 Lost in Space feature film and provided a voice cameo in the 2021 Netflix series.
Following Lost in Space, Lockhart played Dr. Janet Craig on Petticoat Junction and continued to work steadily on television for decades. Her many guest appearances included Have Gun — Will Travel, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Bewitched, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Happy Days, Magnum P.I., The Greatest American Hero, General Hospital, Full House, Babylon 5, 7th Heaven, Beverly Hills, 90210, The Drew Carey Show, Grey’s Anatomy, and more.
Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales was best known for her iconic turn as Sybil Fawlty on Fawlty Towers, widely regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. The role produced countless unforgettable moments: Sybil consoling her friend Audrey over the phone (“Oh, I know”), bellowing “BASIL!” at her long-suffering husband, and, of course, unleashing that unmistakable laugh—one which Basil memorably says “always reminds me of somebody machine-gunning a seal.”
At the very first table read for Fawlty Towers, Scales questioned a fundamental aspect of the characters, asking why Sybil and Basil had ever married in the first place. “Oh God, I was afraid you’d ask me that!” Cleese reportedly replied. In response, Scales crafted her own detailed backstory for the couple, imagining that Sybil’s family worked as caterers at a small hotel, where she met Basil when he stopped in for a drink shortly after completing his National Service.
“Sybil’s trouble was that, having married out of her class and been fooled by Fawlty’s flannel, she realized, too late, that she had landed with an upper-class twit for a husband,” Scales wrote in Fawlty Towers: The Story of a Sitcom. “But behind all of Sybil’s apparent disenchantment with Basil, there is still some — just enough — real affection for him, and that is probably what makes her stay.”
Beyond Fawlty Towers, Scales appeared in a wide range of films, including Hobson’s Choice, The Littlest Horse Thieves, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Boys from Brazil, Howards End, Wolf, An Ideal Husband, Johnny English, and many others.
Prunella Scales died on October 27 at the age of 93.
Tchéky Karyo
Tchéky Karyo was born in Istanbul, before moving with his family to Paris at a young age. He first gained widespread recognition with his breakthrough performance in La Balance, which earned him a César nomination for Most Promising Actor. He went on to appear in a remarkable range of films, including La Femme Nikita, in which he played Bob, one of the handlers of the titular assassin. His extensive filmography also includes Vincent and Me, The Bear (in one of the film’s few human roles), 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Nostradamus, Bad Boys, GoldenEye, Operation Dumbo Drop, To Have & To Hold, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Patriot, Kiss of the Dragon, The Core, A Very Long Engagement, Mary Magdalene, and many more.
For me, Karyo is most closely associated with the role of Julien Baptiste. In the first season of the acclaimed mystery series The Missing, the French detective assists Tony Hughes (James Nesbitt) and his wife Emily (Frances O’Connor) in uncovering the fate of their kidnapped son. Spanning more than a decade, the story allowed Karyo to deliver one of the show’s most compelling performances, making it little surprise that Baptiste returned in the second season. The character proved so popular that creators Harry and Jack Williams developed a spin-off series, Baptiste, which ran for two seasons.
Baptiste was also one of Karyo’s favorite roles. “What I love about him is he’s a man of action, but he’s also a deep thinker,” the actor told the BBC. “It’s interesting because even when he’s in a moment of action, he never forgets to think or to express something about the situation. For him…to follow these monsters who did these unspeakable crimes, it’s not a risk, it’s a responsibility.“
Tchéky Karyo died on October 31 at the age of 72.
Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd died on November 3 at the age of 89. Although she had been an established actress for more than a decade, it was her scene-stealing turn as Flo, the sharp-tongued waitress at Mel and Ruby’s Cafe in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, that elevated her career to a new level. Her memorable lines—such as “Kiss me where the sun don’t shine”—had audiences howling, and the performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film went on to inspire the long-running sitcom Alice; while Polly Holliday ultimately played Flo on television, Ladd later joined the series for seasons four and five in a new role.
Ladd received another Oscar nomination for her performance in Wild at Heart as the mother of Laura Dern’s character. Director David Lynch later recalled that Ladd’s instinctive, improvisational approach made it difficult to stick closely to the script. “When she was in her first scene, she was miles away from the text that I’d written. She got the spirit of the scene perfectly, but she didn’t re-create a single word,” he said. “So I took her aside and after that we worked very well together. She was bad at sticking to the dialogue, but she really loved to be seized by an emotion and to be carried away by it. It was quite something to contain all that energy.“
She later reunited with her daughter Laura Dern in Rambling Rose, with both actresses earning Academy Award nominations.
Ladd’s extensive film credits also include White Lightning, Chinatown, Embryo, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Black Widow, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Carnosaur, 28 Days, Inland Empire, Joy, and more. On television, she was a frequent presence on series such as Gunsmoke, The Love Boat, L.A. Law, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire, ER, Enlightened, Ray Donovan, Young Sheldon, and others.
Lee Tamahori
Lee Tamahori died on November 7 at the age of 75. He made his feature directorial debut with Once Were Warriors, widely regarded as one of the finest films ever to emerge from New Zealand. Ironically, it was a project Tamahori was deeply reluctant to take on, convinced from the outset that it was destined to fail.
After reading the novel on which the film was based, Tamahori was blunt in his assessment, saying, “This is the worst movie you could ever f….ing imagine – it’s [got] death, suicide, drugs, alienation, alcoholism, brute force, domination.” When producer Robin Scholes acquired the rights and approached him to direct, Tamahori repeatedly turned her down.
“I said, ‘look, I think it’s a terrible idea. I think it’s doomed to failure’. I said, ‘nobody will go and see a film like this, nobody goes and sees New Zealand films anyway,’” he explained. “I said, ‘I admire your zeal, but this is not going to succeed and so thanks for asking me but no, I’m going to look for another project.’” Eventually, Tamahori relented — a decision that paid off spectacularly, as Once Were Warriors became a major critical and commercial success, earning widespread acclaim and numerous awards.
The film launched an international career that saw Tamahori direct Mulholland Falls, The Edge, Along Came a Spider, XXX: State of the Union, Next, The Devil’s Double, Mahana, and The Convert. He also worked extensively in television, directing episodes of The Sopranos and Billions.
Among his most high-profile projects was Die Another Day, the final James Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan. A lifelong fan of the franchise, Tamahori deliberately leaned into the series’ more flamboyant traditions, embracing larger-than-life villains, outrageous gadgets, and globe-threatening plots. “Basically I was attracted to it because I knew it was going to be the last of the Pierce Brosnan movies, and I was very much in favour – I was a fan – of the James Bond era when there were lasers in space destroying the earth,” he said. “Just over the top, larger than life, where everything is in peril from a space laser, and Bond has got to stop it. Unlike the way the series has gone into Jason Bourne mode with Daniel Craig. I love Daniel’s films, but they went off in a different tangent.”
“I guess I made the last of the big Moonraker, Goldfinger type of James Bond films,” he added.
Sally Kirkland
Sally Kirkland died on November 11 at the age of 84. One of her earliest standout roles saw her make a memorable impression as Crystal opposite Robert Redford in The Sting. “I had a scene with Robert Redford, and the part was enough for me to sink my teeth into and for people to remember me,” she said in 2014. “Over the years, a lot of people have told me that their favourite Redford moment is when he is watching me strip with that huge grin on his face, holding a champagne glass in one hand and a bunch of roses in the other. Redford turned up for rehearsals and watched me in the wings. He said to me ‘Wow! Where did you learn how to do that?’”
Kirkland went on to appear in an eclectic mix of films, including The Way We Were, Big Bad Mama, Blazing Saddles, Breakheart Pass, A Star Is Born, Private Benjamin, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Best of the Best, Two Evil Eyes, Revenge, JFK, The Player, EDtv, Bruce Almighty, and more.
She achieved her greatest critical acclaim starring in Anna, a drama about a former Czech movie star who takes a younger woman under her wing to teach her the ins and outs of acting, only for her protégée to eclipse her own success. Kirkland desperately wanted the role, particularly after learning that director Yurek Bogayevicz didn’t think she was right for the character.
“I would stand in the rain outside Bogayevicz’s apartment waiting for him, so I could persuade him to cast me,” she said. “I sent him flowers all the time, and wrote him long letters.” The persistence paid off. She was eventually invited to audition, though she was committed to teaching an acting workshop in Australia and told Bogayevicz she couldn’t make it. He was stunned but agreed to wait. When she returned, she landed the role, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and winning the Golden Globe.
In addition to her film work, Kirkland appeared on numerous television series, including Kojak, Three’s Company, The Incredible Hulk, Charlie’s Angels, Falcon Crest, Roseanne, The Nanny, Criminal Minds, and more. She also starred in a short-lived soap opera based on Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls.
Udo Kier
Udo Kier died on November 23 at the age of 81. He first made a major impression after being cast as Baron von Frankenstein in Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein. When production wrapped, Kier headed to a cantina for a glass of wine—only for Morrissey to walk in and inform him that he would also be starring in Blood for Dracula.
“They were filming Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula back to back, and he said: ‘I guess we have a German Count Dracula now.’ I said: ‘Who?’ and he said: ‘You, but you have to lose 10 pounds in one week.’ I said: ‘No problem,’ and ate only salad leaves and water for a week,” Kier explained in a 2022 interview. “On the first day of shooting, I was introduced to Vittorio De Sica – this great Italian actor who was also in Dracula. I was so weak from only eating salad leaves and water, I was in a wheelchair because I couldn’t stand up.”
Over the decades that followed, Kier built one of the most eclectic and prolific careers in cinema, appearing in films such as Mark of the Devil, Story of O, Suspiria, My Own Private Idaho, For Love or Money, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Johnny Mnemonic, Barb Wire, The End of Violence, Armageddon, Blade, End of Days, Spy Games, BloodRayne, Grindhouse, Halloween, Iron Sky, Downsizing, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, Iron Sky: The Coming Race, and many more.
He also enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with director Lars von Trier, appearing in nearly all of his films, beginning with Epidemic in 1987 and continuing through Europa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac. Kier also appeared in von Trier’s cult horror miniseries The Kingdom.
On television, Kier made memorable appearances on series such as Red Shoe Diaries, seaQuest DSV, Nash Bridges, Chuck, Borgia, and Hunters.
Kier relished playing villainous characters, believing those roles left the strongest impression. “If you play small or guest parts in movies, it is better to be evil and scare people than be the guy who works in the post office and goes home to his wife and children,” he said in a 2021 interview. “Audiences will remember you more.”
Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard died on November 28 at the age of 88. The acclaimed playwright was best known for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a tragicomedy that unfolds “in the wings” of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The play proved to be a career-defining breakthrough, earning Stoppard his first Tony Award when he was just thirty years old.
While Stoppard’s primary home was the theatre, he also made a significant impact in film. He was involved with the scripts for The Human Factor, Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Russia House, Billy Bathgate, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Anna Karenina, and Tulip Fever.
He also wrote and directed the feature film adaptation of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, though his most celebrated cinematic work remains Shakespeare in Love. The romantic comedy tells a fictionalized story of William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and his romance with a young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires the writing of Romeo and Juliet.
“There were moments when the challenge became, ‘How does Shakespeare speak when he’s just speaking to a friend?’” Stoppard said in 1998. “Does he sound like Shakespeare? Does he sound as though he’s going to be Shakespeare, or does he sound like anybody else?”
He continued, “The thing that makes life easier for someone writing fiction about Shakespeare is that there are very few signposts, very few agreed-upon facts and lots of spaces to invent [during his life from 1585-92]. Some of the film is pure mischief. But then again, you’re riding on the back of [Romeo and Juliet,] the most famous love story ever written, so there are lots of strands to work with.” Stoppard won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for the film.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa died on December 4 at the age of 75. He’s best known for bringing Shang Tsung to life in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, delivering a deliciously sinister turn that became one of the film’s standout elements. His take on the soul-stealing sorcerer proved so memorable that he later reprised the character in episodes of Mortal Kombat: Legacy and Mortal Kombat X: Generations, and even returned to lend both his voice and likeness to the character in the Mortal Kombat 11 video game.
“Mortal Combat, to me, is as classic a bad guy as I can create,” he said in a 2001 interview. “And when I did that, my choice was to go so far over the top for a few reasons. One is, I didn’t think I’d want to play the evil sorcerer again, and I wanted to give him a power and a strength that people would remember. One other thing was the dialogue. As actors, we are reading scripts, and I wasn’t familiar with the game, and when I saw the game, it made more sense. But even more so when I went to act it, I thought, ‘Oh, I can do this. I’ll give him the meanest, nastiest lines.’ And sure enough, it was fun. I never realized I was making him that mean. Sort of shocked me a bit, but certainly that was one of my greatest experiences in acting.“
And while Shang Tsung remains one of Tagawa’s most iconic roles, it represents just a fraction of a career that spanned more than four decades and encompassed far more than a single villainous performance. He appeared in movies such as Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Emperor, Twins, Licence to Kill, Nemesis, The Phantom, Snow Falling on Cedars, Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, Elektra, Memoirs of a Geisha, 47 Ronin, Kubo and the Two Strings, and many more.
As for the small screen, he made appearances in shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, Miami Vice, Moonlighting, Babylon 5, Nash Bridges, Stargate SG-1, Heroes, Revenge, Grimm, Star Wars: Rebels, Lost in Space, Star Wars: Visions, and Blue Eye Samurai. But his most prominent TV role found him playing Trade Minister Nobusuke Tagomi in The Man in the High Castle. The series took place in an alternate world where the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan rule the world after their victory in World War II.
Peter Greene
Peter Greene died on December 12 at the age of 60. He was best known for his chilling turn as the sadistic Zed in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and for playing gangster Dorian Tyrell in The Mask, both of which were released in 1994.
In a 2011 interview, Greene admitted that despite the excitement surrounding the project, he was initially reluctant to take part in Pulp Fiction. “There was this big buzz about Pulp Fiction and I hadn’t seen the script, and they wanted me in it. I didn’t know what the role was, so when I got the script, I was thoroughly disappointed,” he said. “The way it was written wasn’t my cup of tea. If you ever saw Deliverance, you never saw the guy who took Ned Beatty and made him ‘squeal like a pig’ ever again, so I didn’t think it was a great career move.”
Greene explained that he ultimately convinced Tarantino to let him approach the scene on his own terms. “Quentin, I don’t know why he pressed me to do it, but he came back a couple of times and then I finally said, ‘I’ll do it if I can do it any way I wanted to,’ thinking he would never allow me to do it,” he said. “And so we just improvised the whole scene. We kept the language that was there. It was a much more graphic scene originally.”
Beyond Pulp Fiction and The Mask, Greene appeared in films such as Judgment Night, The Usual Suspects, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, The Rich Man’s Wife, Blue Streak, Training Day, The Bounty Hunter, Tesla, and more. He also made memorable television appearances on Law & Order, Justified, Hawaii Five-0, Chicago P.D., Still the King, For Life, and The Continental: From the World of John Wick. Greene was also part of the main cast of The Black Donnellys, in which he played an Irish gangster.
Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, died on December 14. He was 78 years old, and she was 70.
As the son of legendary comedian and filmmaker Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner grew up with a towering legacy, and he once recalled telling his father that he wanted to change his name. “My father thought, ‘Oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of a famous father,’” Reiner said. “And he says, ‘What do you want to change your name to?’ And I said, ‘Carl.’ I just wanted to be like him.”
Reiner began his career with early appearances on television series such as That Girl, Batman, Gomer Pyle – U.S.M.C., and The Beverly Hillbillies, but he achieved stardom playing Michael “Meathead” Stivic on All in the Family. The role became so iconic that Reiner later joked, “I could win the Nobel Prize, and the headline would read, ‘Meathead wins Nobel.’ I wear it as a badge of honor.”
After All in the Family ended, Reiner successfully reinvented himself as a filmmaker, launching his directing career with the rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, in which he also memorably appeared as documentary filmmaker Martin “Marty” Di Bergi. His final film, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, brought his career full circle.
As a director, Reiner built one of the most eclectic and beloved filmographies in Hollywood, helming The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, North, The American President, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Story of Us, Rumor Has It, The Bucket List, And So It Goes, and many more.
Reiner never abandoned acting, however, and continued to appear on screen when the right opportunity arose. His film credits include The Jerk, Throw Momma from the Train, Postcards from the Edge, Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts, The First Wives Club, EDtv, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Sandy Wexler. On television, he made memorable appearances on The Odd Couple, Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, New Girl, Hollywood, and The Bear.
Gil Gerard
Gil Gerard died on December 16 at the age of 82. He was best known for playing Buck Rogers in the classic sci-fi adventure series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The show followed the titular character, a 20th-century astronaut who becomes frozen in space for 504 years before awakening in the year 2491. Despite the project’s eventual success, Gerard was initially hesitant when producer Glen A. Larson approached him about taking on the role.
“I saw what it did to Adam West‘s career with Batman, and this was another cartoon character,” Gerard said. “I didn’t want to do this campy stuff.“
Eventually, however, Gerard came around, finding something relatable in Rogers’ personality and worldview. “I thought the character had a sense of reality about him,” he said. “The sense of humor I liked very much and his humanity, I liked. I thought it was kind of cool. He wasn’t a stiff kind of a guy. He was a guy who could solve problems on his feet, and he wasn’t a superhero.“
Originally intended as a made-for-TV movie, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was released theatrically in 1979, where it grossed $21 million. A weekly television series was quickly ordered, with the film re-edited to serve as the first two episodes. While the show only ran for two seasons, its impact and cult following have endured for decades.
Beyond Buck Rogers, Gerard appeared in films such as Airport ’77 and The Nice Guys, as well as a wide range of television series, including The Doctors, Baretta, Little House on the Prairie, Sidekicks, Drop Dead Diva, and Transformers: Robots in Disguise.
James Ransone
James Ransone died on December 19 at the age of 46. He was best known for his portrayal of Ziggy Sobotka in the second season of The Wire. The character became one of the season’s most memorable figures, sharply dividing fans who either loved or loathed him. As the series grew in stature over the years, Ransone found himself wrestling with how closely he was identified with Ziggy long after the show ended.
“I did [get annoyed at being recognized as Ziggy] for a long time and now some of it has aged with me being more mature. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I should embrace that.’ It’s part of what I did. I should accept that my career wouldn’t be as rich as it is had I not done that,” he said in 2016. “I mistook people’s perception of me as a projection of them thinking that I was weak or incompetent or that I was that person. I don’t know what they’re thinking so that’s none of my business if they think I’m that character. If they do that’s fine because that means they were really invested in the story that I was lucky enough to be a part of. Some of it also is it was so long ago. I don’t think about it. To me it was 14 years ago.“
Ransone later reunited with The Wire creator David Simon on the HBO miniseries Generation Kill and went on to play a recurring role on Simon’s Treme, further cementing a creative partnership that extended beyond his breakout role.
His television work also included appearances on Law & Order, How to Make It in America, Burn Notice, Low Winter Sun, Bosch, Mosaic, The First, SEAL Team, and Poker Face. On the big screen, Ransone appeared in films such as A Dirty Shame, Inside Man, Prom Night, The Next Three Days, Sinister, Starlet, Red Hook Summer, Broken City, Oldboy, Tangerine, Sinister II, In a Valley of Violence, It Chapter Two, The Black Phone, V/H/S/85, and Black Phone 2.
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot died on December 28 at the age of 91. She made her film debut in Crazy for Love, later appearing in films such as Marina, The Girl in the Bikini, Act of Love, Concert of Intrigue, and Helen of Troy before becoming an international sensation with And God Created Woman. The film pushed the boundaries of on-screen sexuality for its time, earning a “C” for “Condemned” rating from the Catholic National Legion of Decency. It also cemented Bardot’s image as a pop-culture icon, saddling her with the nickname “sex kitten,” as audiences around the world couldn’t get enough of her.
Bardot went on to star in films including The Truth, A Very Private Affair, Contempt, Dear Brigitte, Shalako, and many others, but she abruptly stepped away from acting in 1973 while shooting The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot. While on location, she made her decision clear to a journalist: “I’m done with movies. It’s over — this film is the last one. I’m sick of it.“
Following her retirement from the screen, Bardot devoted herself entirely to animal rights activism. She became a vegetarian and founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the welfare and protection of animals, using her fame to campaign against seal hunting, bullfighting, poaching, the farming of horse meat, and other forms of animal cruelty. As she later explained, “I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” she said. “I am going to give my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.“
Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Isiah Whitlock Jr. died on December 30 at the age of 71. He was best known for playing Clayton “Clay” Davis in The Wire, a corrupt Maryland State Senator with a reputation for pocketing bribes and getting into trouble. He was fantastic in the role, which was made all the more popular by his catchphrase. No one could stretch out the word shit as he could, and series creator David Simon knew it would follow the actor for the rest of his life.
“I remember at the closing night party, David Simon came up to me and he said, ‘You know you’re going to have to live with that.’ I said, ‘Eh, you know, in a year or so it’s going to be over.’ He said, ‘I don’t know,’ and it turned into everywhere I went,” Whitlock Jr. told The AV Club. “And I’m talking like around the world. I heard people saying —I saw it in Amsterdam on the other side of the tracks, written in like graffiti with a guy who looked like Fat Albert. I guess that was supposed to be me—I had a problem with that part. [Laughs.] But it was this [graffiti drawing] saying it, and I thought, ‘You know, I’m going to have to deal with this.’“
The actor also frequently collaborated with director Spike Lee, appearing in films such as 25th Hour, She Hate Me, Red Hook Summer, Chi-Raq, BlacKkKlansman, and Da 5 Bloods. In fact, his catchphrase didn’t actually originate in The Wire, but was first said in 25th Hour.
Whitlock Jr. also built an extensive film and television résumé, appearing in movies such as Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Goodfellas, Eddie, 1408, Enchanted, Choke, Cedar Rapids, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Pete’s Dragon, Cars 3, The Old Man & the Gun, I Care a Lot, Lightyear, and Cocaine Bear. On television, his credits were just as impressive, with memorable roles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NYPD Blue, Chappelle’s Show, Rubicon, The Good Wife, Veep, The Blacklist, Gotham, Lucifer, The Mist, The Good Cop, Your Honor, and countless others.
Other notables we lost this year include Ernest Saves Christmas actor Bill Byrge, Enchanted April actress Dame Joan Plowright, Mr. Belvedere actor Bob Uecker, Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter actor Horst Janson, Annie Hall actor Tony Roberts, Street Fighter actor Peter “Navy” Tuiasosopo, Full Metal Jacket actor Kevyn Major Howard, Ellen actress Alice Hirson, Grosse Pointe Blank director George Armitage, Pee-wee’s Playhouse actress Lynne Marie Stewart, The Facts of Life actor John Lawlor, West Side Story actress Carole D’Andrea, Tough Guys Don’t Dance actor Wings Hauser, Little House on the Prairie actor Jack Lilley, Mad Max: Fury Road fight coordinator Richard Norton, Dennis the Menace actor Jay North, Boston Public actor Nicky Katt, First Blood director Ted Kotcheff, Upstairs, Downstairs actress and co-creator Jean Marsh, The Wire actor Charles Joseph Scalies Jr., Happy Gilmore actor Morris the Alligator, Drag Me to Hell actress Lorna Raver, Manifest actor Devin Harjes, Big Trouble in Little China actor Peter Kwong, Weeds actress Renée Victor, Sanford and Son actress Lynn Hamilton, Spider-Man actor Jack Betts, The Empire Strikes Back actor Kenneth Colley, Hogan’s Heroes actor Kenneth Washington, The Cannonball Run actor Alfie Wise, King of the Hill actor and musician Chuck Mangione, Coming Home editor Don Zimmerman, The Dark Knight Rises actor Alon Aboutboul, The Walking Dead actress Kelley Mack, Get Smart actor David Ketchum, What’s Happening!! actress Danielle Spencer, Alice actress Polly Holliday, Freddy vs Jason actress Paula Shaw, Port Charles actress Patricia Crowley, Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig, Vice Principals actress Kimberly Hébert Gregory, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor Floyd Roger Myers Jr, Terminator 2: Judgment Day cinematographer Adam Greenberg, Ran actor Tatsuya Nakadai, The Fantastic Four actor Carl Ciarfalio, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius actor Jeff Garcia, and Murphy Brown actor Pat Finn.
The post In Memoriam 2025 Tribute: All Those We Lost in Movies & TV appeared first on JoBlo.
As 2025 comes to a close, we here at JoBlo.com would like to take a moment to pay tribute to 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 2025. These talented individuals will always be remembered for their impact on the world of film and television.
In Memory Of…
Jeff Baena
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Jeff Baena died on January 3 at the age of 47. Baena got his start as a production assistant for Robert Zemeckis before becoming an assistant editor for David O. Russell. However, after a minor car accident injured one of Baena’s eyes, Russell encouraged him to start writing. “He was super-generous, creatively. He allowed me to advocate for any ideas that were in conflict with his ideas,” Baena said of Russell. “We were on the same wavelength, had the same style and interests…It allowed me to have the feeling that I deserved to be there, as opposed to just riding someone’s coattails.” The pair wrote I Heart Huckabees together, which put Baena on the map.
He made his directorial debut with Life After Beth, a zombie comedy starring his future wife, Aubrey Plaza. Baena went on to write and direct Joshy, The Little Hours, Horse Girl, and Spin Me Round. He also created Cinema Toast, an anthology series which told new stories with re-edited, re-scored, and re-dubbed performances from public domain movies.
David Lynch
True to his creative spirit, David Lynch was developing new projects right up until his death on January 9 at the age of 78. Those include a limited series titled Unrecorded Night and a possible return to Twin Peaks.
Lynch made his feature directorial debut with Eraserhead, a surrealist body horror that put him on the map. His next film was The Elephant Man, a historical biopic about the life of Joseph Merrick. It was an enormous critical and commercial success, landing eight Academy Award nominations, including nods for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and more.
From there, Lynch adapted Frank Herbert’s Dune, a project which he essentially disowned but is still well worth watching. “It was horrible, just horrible,” Lynch said of Dune. “It was like a nightmare what was being done to the film to make this two-hour-and-17-minute running time that was required. Things were truncated, and whispered voice-overs were added because everybody thought audiences wouldn’t understand what was going on.” He also directed Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. He could always be counted upon to deliver a story that fired your imagination.
On television, Lynch permanently altered what the medium could be. With Twin Peaks, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost blended soap opera, murder mystery, and cosmic horror into something wholly new, influencing decades of serialized storytelling and prestige TV. The 2017 revival, Twin Peaks: The Return, was less a nostalgia play than an audacious, 18-hour film that challenged viewers and defied expectations. Lynch also helmed Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a prequel movie which was released the year after the original series was cancelled.
Jeannot Szwarc
Jeannot Szwarc is best known for directing Jaws 2. Much like the first movie directed by Steven Spielberg, the sequel was a troubled production even before Szwarc signed on. John Hancock was the original director, but after weeks of filming, it became clear that it wasn’t working out, and executives demanded a change.
“I was brought in for this meeting,” Szwarc said in a 2019 interview. “I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t have a clue. So they gave me the script, I read it, and they asked, ‘What do you think?’ I told them that the dialogue was terrible, but the action was good.“
He continued, “I went back, and [Universal executive] Ned Tanen said, ‘Look Jeannot, if you do this, it will be under horrible conditions. You’ll only have one week to prepare, it’s a nightmare, so what do you want from me? Would you like a multiple picture deal?’ I said, ‘No, I only want a handshake that you owe me a favor.’ And he said, ‘Okay.’” That favour was Somewhere in Time, a romantic fantasy drama starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour
Szwarc also directed Extreme Close-Up, Bug, Enigma, Santa Claus: The Movie, and Supergirl. He also became quite a prolific television director, helming episodes of Night Gallery, The Twilight Zone, Ally McBeal, Smallville, Heroes, Bones, Supernatural, Grey’s Anatomy, Fringe, Private Practice, Castle, and much more. Szwarc died on January 15 at the age of 87
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman was one of the greatest actors of his generation, but early on, success hardly seemed guaranteed. When he joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California at the beginning of his career, he — along with classmate Dustin Hoffman — was famously voted “the least likely to succeed.”
Hackman later told Vanity Fair that the constant rejection amounted to “more psychological warfare, because I wasn’t going to let those f***ers get me down. I insisted with myself that I would continue to do whatever it took to get a job. It was like me against them, and in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way. But I think if you’re really interested in acting there is a part of you that relishes the struggle. It’s a narcotic in the way that you are trained to do this work and nobody will let you do it, so you’re a little bit nuts. You lie to people, you cheat, you do whatever it takes to get an audition, get a job.“
Hackman more than proved his doubters wrong. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Bonnie and Clyde and went on to build one of the most formidable filmographies in Hollywood history, appearing in classics such as Downhill Racer, I Never Sang for My Father, The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, Young Frankenstein, Night Moves, A Bridge Too Far, Reds, Hoosiers, No Way Out, Mississippi Burning, The Firm, Wyatt Earp, The Quick and the Dead, Crimson Tide, Get Shorty, The Birdcage, Absolute Power, Enemy of the State, The Replacements, Heist, Behind Enemy Lines, The Royal Tenenbaums, Runaway Jury, and Welcome to Mooseport, which marked his final film role before retiring.
Among his most iconic performances was the volatile New York police detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection, a role that earned Hackman his first Academy Award. He reprised the character in French Connection II and later became equally unforgettable to a new generation as Lex Luthor in Superman, Superman II, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. He won his second Academy Award for his chilling turn as Sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
Gene Hackman died on February 18 at the age of 95.
Peter Jason
Peter Jason died on February 20 at the age of 80. A prolific character actor, Jason has nearly 300 acting credits on IMDb, so chances are you’ve seen him in more than a few projects.
He made his feature film debut in Rio Lobo, the final film from director Howard Hawks. From there, Jason appeared in movies such as The Driver, The Long Riders, Mommie Dearest, 48 Hrs, Streets of Fire, The Karate Kid, Dreamscape, Brewsters Millions, Red Heat, Alien Nation, The Hunt for Red October, Arachnophobia, Congo, Dante’s Peak, Seabiscuit, Kicking & Screaming, Hail, Caesar!, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and much more.
He also worked frequently with director John Carpenter, appearing in Prince of Darkness, They Live, Body Bags, In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., and Ghosts of Mars.
To me, Jason is best known for playing Con Stapleton on HBO’s Deadwood. “That character was just so much fun,” Jason said. “I mean jeez, talking to breasts? What’s more fun than that? (Laughs) Anytime you can do a Western and not get on a horse, I’m there! Horses, unpredictable beasts that they are, I’ve had to ride a lot of them over the years, because I started off in Gunsmoke, Cimarron Strip, The Blue and the Grey, stuff like that and I can ride them, I just don’t like to. I was always hurting at the end of the week, so damn sore.” Like much of the cast, he also returned for Deadwood: The Movie in 2019.
Jason appeared on television as often as on the big screen, including shows like Gunsmoke, The Incredible Hulk, Starsky & Hutch, Remington Steele, Webster, The Golden Girls, Quantum Leap, Mike Hammer, Private Eye, Carnivàle, Arrested Development, Mad Men, Justified, and more.
Roberto Orci
Roberto Orci died on February 25 at the age of 51. Together with his writing partner Alex Kurtzman, Orci was involved in some of the biggest sci-fi/adventure movies and TV shows of the first two decades of the 2000s. After getting his start as a writer on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, Orci made his big-screen writing debut on Michael Bay’s The Island, which he co-wrote with Kurtzman. The pair went on to write The Legend of Zorro, Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Cowboys & Aliens, People Like Us, Star Trek Into Darkness, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Orci was a big Star Trek fan and played a crucial role in reviving the franchise with the 2009 movie. The story which Orci and Kurtzman pitched to Paramount relied entirely on Leonard Nimoy agreeing to return as Spock, and Orci told Trek Movie in 2019 that they didn’t have a backup plan. “There was never a plan B for me. Maybe Paramount had a plan B, but for me and Alex, it has to be Nimoy or bust and that is why that meeting with him was so pivotal,” Orci said. “His role had to be essential, otherwise, he wouldn’t have done it. So, to have a plan B would have been disrespectful to him, and the franchise. I didn’t know how else to do an in-canon reboot/sequel original story. If you have a plan B, then your plan A wasn’t so great.“
Michelle Trachtenberg
Gone too soon, Michelle Trachtenberg passed away on February 26 at just 39 years old. She rose to prominence early in her career with her starring role in Harriet the Spy, the 1996 film adaptation of Louise Fitzhugh’s beloved novel, quickly establishing herself as a standout young performer.
Trachtenberg went on to build an impressively diverse résumé, appearing in films such as Inspector Gadget, EuroTrip, Black Christmas, 17 Again, and Cop Out, while also making memorable appearances on television series including All My Children, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Six Feet Under, House, Robot Chicken, Mercy, Weeds, Criminal Minds, NCIS: Los Angeles, Sleepy Hollow, and more.
She remains best known to many fans for her role as Dawn Summers, the younger sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Introduced in the show’s fifth season as if she had always been part of the series, Dawn proved to be a divisive character at first. Over time, however, audience sentiment shifted, a change Trachtenberg acknowledged with characteristic honesty. “Most of the haters don’t have the guts to say things in person,” she said. “I still get comments like, ‘Oh my God! I think Dawn is so annoying!’ I get it. It’s fine. It used to be a 60-40 ‘I hate Dawn.’ Then, it became 50-50. Now, I think it’s 60-40 being supportive of Dawn. Maybe even 70-30.“
Trachtenberg also left a lasting impression as the deliciously manipulative Georgina Sparks on Gossip Girl, a role she later reprised in several episodes of the sequel series. Playing a villain was something she openly relished. “It’s actually kind of easy because the words that they write are so fantastic. It’s kind of easy to be evil when you’re saying evil things,” she said. “It’s definitely a lot more fun than playing the good girl. I love the reaction you get. I never understood why some actors don’t want to play villains or evil characters.“
Clive Revill
Clive Revill died on March 11 at the age of 94. Sadly, one of his most well-known performances no longer exists in its original form. Revill was the original voice of Emperor Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back, but his work was replaced by Ian McDiarmid in the 2004 home-video release to better align the character with Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy.
Though the Emperor appears only briefly and speaks just a handful of lines, Revill made a lasting impression. “I got a call from the director, Irvin Kershner, who I’d worked with on ‘A Fine Madness,’” Revill said in 2015. “He needed a voice for the Emperor who would be only appearing as a holographic image. So I tried it several times and found it worked best with no emotion whatsoever.“
Beyond The Empire Strikes Back, Revill enjoyed a long and eclectic career, appearing in films such as Bunny Lake Is Missing, Kaleidoscope, The Assassination Bureau, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Avanti!, The Legend of Hell House, The Black Windmill, One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, Zorro, The Gay Blade, Transformers: The Movie, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It, among many others.
On television, he guest-starred in series including Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, The Transformers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Babylon 5. He also provided the voice of Alfred Pennyworth in the first three episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, before being replaced by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. due to scheduling conflicts.
While his version of Emperor Palpatine was ultimately replaced, Revill’s voice continues to live on in the Star Wars universe. He lent his talents to several video games, including Star Wars: X-Wing, Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Bruce Glover
Bruce Glover was best known for playing the sinister Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever, who, alongside Mr. Kidd (Putter Smith), spent much of the film attempting to assassinate James Bond in increasingly bizarre fashion.
Glover’s career began in an unconventional way. While posing for students in an art class, Glover was approached by one of his fellow models and asked if he would don a gorilla suit to help with an act. As it turned out, the model was a stripper. “[She] needed a guy strong enough to wear a 100-pound ape suit and toss her around for 15 minutes,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a very dignified thing to do,’ and I did it.”
Never one to half-commit to a role, Glover decided to research the part properly by studying real gorillas at the zoo. “I went down to the [Lincoln Park] zoo and studied Bushman, the famous gorilla, which the guy who owned the act told me to do,” Glover said. “Bushman gave me my first acting lesson. He said, ‘Think my thoughts and do my moves.’”
Over the course of his career, Glover appeared in films such as Chinatown, Hard Times, The Big Score, Popcorn, Warlock: The Armageddon, Night of the Scarecrow, and Ghost World. He also played Deputy Grady Coker opposite Joe Don Baker’s Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, later returning for Walking Tall Part 2 and Walking Tall: Final Chapter, with Bo Svenson taking over the lead role.
On television, Glover was a familiar face across decades, appearing in series including Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, Gunsmoke, The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica, B.J. and the Bear, T.J. Hooker, The A-Team, and many more. Bruce Glover died on March 12 at the age of 92.
Richard Chamberlain
Richard Chamberlain died on March 29 at the age of 90. He achieved significant success early in his career, starring in Dr. Kildare, where his portrayal of the compassionate young intern quickly turned him into a television sensation. At the height of the show’s popularity, Chamberlain was reportedly receiving more than 12,000 fan letters a week. Yet behind the scenes, he lived with constant fear of being outed as a gay man.
“When you grow up in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s being gay, it not only ain’t easy, it’s just impossible,” Chamberlain said in 2014, adding that he was taught “that being gay was the worst thing you can possibly be. I assumed there was something terribly wrong with me. And even becoming famous and all that, it was still there.” Despite the overwhelming success of Dr. Kildare, he explained, “There was a terrible danger of being outed. I was a romantic lead, for God’s sake; that was my whole career, practically.” Chamberlain did not publicly come out until 2003, with the release of his autobiography, Shattered Love.
“Suddenly, all that fear, all that self-dislike … it was like an angel had put her hand on my head and said, ‘It’s over, all that negative stuff is over,’” he said. “Being gay is one of the least interesting facts you can know about a person.”
Later in his career, Chamberlain became known as the King of the Miniseries, thanks to starring roles in Centennial, The Thorn Birds, and Shōgun. His television work also included appearances on Touched by an Angel, The Drew Carey Show, Will & Grace, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives, Chuck, Brothers & Sisters, and Twin Peaks: The Return. He also made history as the first actor to portray Jason Bourne, leading the 1988 television adaptation of The Bourne Identity.
On the big screen, Chamberlain appeared in films such as Petulia, Julius Caesar, The Music Lovers, The Towering Inferno, The Swarm, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. He also memorably played Aramis in The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, and The Return of the Musketeers, and starred as Allan Quatermain in King Solomon’s Mines and Lost City of Gold.
Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer’s career was far too brief, but he managed to pack an extraordinary amount into it. He soared through the skies at breathtaking speed, hunted man-eating lions, embodied a rock ’n’ roll icon, fought underwater, and even became the world’s greatest detective. Kilmer died on April 1 at the age of 65.
A certified movie star almost from the start, Kilmer broke out with the anarchic action comedy Top Secret! from Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. He quickly followed that with an eclectic and impressive run that included Real Genius, Willow, The Doors, Tombstone, True Romance, Heat, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Ghost and the Darkness, The Saint, The Prince of Egypt, At First Sight, Red Planet, The Salton Sea, Wonderland, The Missing, Spartan, Alexander, Mindhunter, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Déjà Vu, Felon, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, MacGruber, Twixt, The Snowman, and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.
One of Kilmer’s most iconic roles came opposite Tom Cruise in Tony Scott’s Top Gun, where he played Lt. Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Maverick’s cool, confident rival. Ironically, Kilmer was initially reluctant to take the part. “I told Tony at the meeting, ‘Frankly, I don’t like this.’ I loved what I’d seen of his work, but I just didn’t want to do that movie,” Kilmer recalled. “He said, ‘Don’t worry, your hair will look great.’ He thought that would make a difference. He was infectious that way.”
Kilmer later donned the cape and cowl as Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever, stepping into the role after Michael Keaton’s departure. He agreed to the film without even reading the script, but an experience during production made him realize that playing Batman was ultimately a thankless task and that it didn’t much matter who was inside the suit. When billionaire Warren Buffett visited the set with his grandchildren, Kilmer stayed in costume to meet them, only to find the kids far more interested in the Batmobile and props. “That’s why it’s so easy to have five or six Batmans,” he said. “It’s not about Batman. There is no Batman.”
Lar Park Lincoln
Lar Park Lincoln died on April 22 at the age of 63. She was best known for playing Tina Shepard in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, portraying a young woman with telekinetic powers who goes toe-to-toe with Jason Voorhees and delivers an ass-kickin’ he wouldn’t soon forget.
Lincoln was already a fan of the Friday the 13th franchise before landing the role, and her excitement only grew when she realized that the project she had auditioned for—then operating under the working title Birthday Bash—was actually a Jason movie. “I was so excited,” she told Daily Dead in 2017. “And when my husband Michael read it… he read it and said, ‘Oh my God, this is Jason… you go get this.’ Because we used to watch it at drive-ins.” Her love for the character endured, and she later wrote a sequel script that would have seen an adult Tina return as a psychiatrist.
Beyond horror, Lincoln was also well known for her role as the scheming Linda Fairgate on Knots Landing. “I would guess Linda was popular because she was so rotten and so fun at the same time,” Lincoln said in a 2022 interview. “I studied a few people to become Linda, as she went from the brown hair to the blond meanie. I remember having lunch with [series creator] David Jacobs when he told me that they were changing my hair to blond and he said, ‘I’m doing this because you look so sweet and everyone will be shocked how you turn out.’“
Lincoln made numerous television appearances over the years, including episodes of Highway to Heaven, Freddy’s Nightmares, Murder, She Wrote, Space: Above and Beyond, Beverly Hills, 90210, and more. Her film credits included The Princess Academy and House II: The Second Story. She also returned to her most iconic role, reprising Tina Shepard in Rose Blood: A Friday the 13th Fan Film.
James Foley
James Foley died on May 5 at the age of 71. He made his feature directorial debut with Reckless, a romantic drama starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. Foley quickly demonstrated an ability to move comfortably between styles and mediums, next collaborating with Madonna on several of her most iconic music videos, including Live to Tell, Papa Don’t Preach, and True Blue. He also directed the pop star in the 1987 screwball comedy Who’s That Girl.
Over the course of his film career, Foley helmed a wide range of projects, including At Close Range, After Dark, My Sweet, Two Bits, The Chamber, Fear, The Corruptor, Confidence, and Perfect Stranger. Late in his career, he took over the Fifty Shades franchise from Sam Taylor-Johnson, directing the final two entries, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.
Foley also made a significant impact on television, directing episodes of Twin Peaks, Hannibal, Wayward Pines, and Billions. However, it was Netflix’s House of Cards where he left his biggest mark, ultimately directing a dozen episodes of the acclaimed series. In a 2017 interview with THR, Foley reflected on his career and his habit of moving freely between genres in both film and television.
“What I love is that it’s fluid. I’ve had a very fluid career of ups and downs and lefts and rights, and I always just responded to what I was interested in at the moment and I was very unconscious about genre,” Foley said. “So the thing I would say I least like is there is an understandable tendency to, of course, pigeonhole somebody or identify them as, ‘He does this kind of movie, so if we’re making that kind of movie, we should get him and he’ll make it like the other ones he’s made.’ That is of no interest to me, personally, to repeat myself. So I’ve always just followed my nose, for better or for worse, sometimes for worse.“
He continued, “What’s best and what’s worst [about the industry] are almost the same to me. Because what’s worst is you get pigeonholed, and what’s best is I haven’t been. It means that I’m still making movies, despite hopping all over the place, so there’s a great thing about Hollywood where it’s not so purely linear, in terms of a director having a success critically and commercially and continuing that in an unbroken stream, which is true of no one.“
Joe Don Baker
Joe Don Baker died on May 7 at the age of 89. One of his earliest and most impactful successes came with Walking Tall, in which Baker portrayed Buford Pusser, the real-life former professional wrestler turned lawman. The film struck a nerve with audiences in the early 1970s, tapping into the cultural frustration of the era. “In those days in the early ’70s, I think a lot of people wanted to take a stick to Nixon and all those Watergate guys,” Baker said. “[The story] touched a vigilante nerve in everybody who would like to do in the bad guys but don’t have the power and would get in trouble if [they] did. But Buford was able to pull it off.” Baker did not return for subsequent installments, but Walking Tall spawned two sequels, a TV movie, and a later remake starring Dwayne Johnson, which itself generated two sequels.
Over a long and prolific career, Baker appeared in a wide range of films, including Cool Hand Luke, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, Junior Bonner, Charley Varrick, The Outfit, Golden Needles, Framed, Mitchell — famously lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000 — Checkered Flag or Crash, The Natural, Final Justice (another MST3K favorite), Fletch, The Killing Time, Leonard Part 6, Cape Fear, Congo, Mars Attacks!, Joe Dirt, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Mud.
Baker was also one of the few actors to play multiple prominent roles within the James Bond franchise. He portrayed villainous arms dealer Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, then returned in a very different capacity as CIA agent Jack Wade in GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies.
On television, Baker appeared in series such as Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Lancer, Mission: Impossible, Edge of Darkness, The Cleaner, and more. He also stepped in for Carroll O’Connor for four episodes of In the Heat of the Night while O’Connor was recovering from coronary bypass surgery.
Robert Benton
Robert Benton died on May 11 at the age of 92. As a child, Benton was dyslexic and struggled in school at a time when the condition was poorly understood. “Nobody knew about dyslexia in those days,” Benton said. “If I read for about 10 minutes, I would get wired and couldn’t read any more. But I could draw, and that uses the other side of the brain. So I drew and I drew and I drew. I took my identity off of that. The other thing that happened was my father would come home from work and instead of saying, ‘Have you done your homework?’ … he would say, ‘Do you want to go to the movies?’ I learned narrative from movies, not books.”
Benton first made his mark as a screenwriter, penning Bonnie and Clyde, There Was a Crooked Man, and What’s Up, Doc? before stepping behind the camera for his feature directorial debut with Bad Company. He went on to direct an acclaimed and varied body of work, including The Late Show, Still of the Night, Places in the Heart, Nadine, Billy Bathgate, Nobody’s Fool, Twilight, The Human Stain, and Feast of Love.
He was also brought in to rewrite Mario Puzo’s Superman script alongside David and Leslie Newman. “The initial script that David and I did was based on the Puzo story,” Benton said in 2018. “It was Superman on the farm, and we also wrote some of the stuff where he first rescues Lois Lane. David wrote one of the movie’s best lines, when Lois is [literally swept off her feet for the first time by Superman] and says: ‘I know you’re holding me but who’s holding you?’ That was David Newman’s line.”
However, Benton is best known for writing and directing Kramer vs. Kramer, the landmark drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a divorcing couple and the toll their separation takes on their young son, Billy.
Knowing the child actor would need to hold his own opposite Hoffman and Streep, Benton took a direct approach during auditions. “[At the auditions] I told Dustin, ‘throw everything you have at these kids, because if they can’t take it, we’ve got to find out now,’” he said. “And the one person who gave back as good as he got was Justin [Henry]. He had this authority.” Henry went on to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of eight and remains the youngest Oscar nominee in any category. The film was both a massive critical and commercial success, winning five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Hoffman), Best Supporting Actress (Streep), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director.
George Wendt
Along with Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman, George Wendt was the only member of the Cheers cast to appear in every single episode. Although Norm Peterson famously drank copious amounts of beer throughout the series, the beverage Wendt actually consumed was far less appealing: a warm, flat, non-alcoholic concoction layered with salt to create a foamy head. It sounds… awful. “There I was slamming those down for a whole day. It not only tastes disgusting, I was afraid of keeling over from high blood pressure,” he told The Washington Post in 1985. “Then I got the knack. I didn’t have to put all those brews away. It only mattered when the camera was pointing my way. It took a couple of years, but now I watch the camera. That’s how I make my money. That’s acting.“
Norm Peterson quickly became one of the most beloved characters on Cheers, a status cemented by the thunderous cry of “Norm!” every time he entered the bar. Wendt’s affable, perfectly timed performance earned him six Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series—though he never took home the award. His association with the character didn’t end when Cheers wrapped, either; Wendt reprised Norm on the short-lived spinoff The Tortellis, centered on Carla’s boorish ex-husband (played by Dan Hedaya), and made memorable appearances as Norm on St. Elsewhere, Wings, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Frasier.
After Cheers ended, Wendt starred in his own sitcom, The George Wendt Show, though it was cancelled after just six episodes.
Of course, Wendt’s career extended far beyond the walls of Cheers. His film credits include Airplane II: The Sequel, Dreamscape, Fletch, House, Guilty by Suspicion, Forever Young, Hostage for a Day, The Little Rascals, Space Truckers, King of the Ants, Sandy Wexler, and more. On television, he appeared in episodes of Taxi, Alice, MASH*, Tales from the Crypt, Seinfeld, Columbo, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Becker, Masters of Horror, Ghost Whisperer, Hot in Cleveland, Portlandia, The Goldbergs, and many others.
George Wendt died on May 20 at the age of 76.
Alf Clausen
Alf Clausen, the prolific composer who gave The Simpsons its musical identity for nearly three decades, died on May 29 at the age of 84.
Clausen’s first major break as a television composer came with Moonlighting, the genre-blending comedy-drama starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. He was initially hired alongside another composer, with the intention that they would alternate episodes. However, by the fourth episode, the other composer had been let go, and Clausen went on to score the series for its entire five-season run.
After Moonlighting wrapped, Clausen found himself searching for his next project when Matt Groening approached him about scoring The Simpsons, which had just completed its first season. Clausen was hesitant. “I was posed the question, ‘Would you like to score an animated show?’ and I said, ‘No,’” Clausen recalled during a 2015 interview. “I said, ‘I just got off of four years of Moonlighting and I really want to be a drama composer. I’m more interested in doing longform feature films.’“
Groening, however, made it clear that The Simpsons was not being approached as a traditional cartoon. Instead, he described it as a drama with drawn characters—one that needed to be scored accordingly. “He said he didn’t want it scored like a typical Warner Bros. cartoon. He didn’t want it scored like a typical Disney cartoon,” Clausen said. “He wanted something different.” That conversation marked the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration. Clausen went on to score more than 550 episodes of the series, including his first Treehouse of Horror, and created some of the show’s most iconic musical numbers, such as “We Put the Spring in Springfield,” “See My Vest,” “You’re Checkin’ In,” and countless others.
That relationship came to a bitter end in 2017 when Clausen was dismissed from the series. He later filed a lawsuit against Disney and Fox, alleging that his firing was the result of ageism and disability discrimination. Producers countered that Clausen was let go because he was unable to adapt to more modern musical styles—a claim that struck many as dubious given the extraordinary range of music he had delivered for the show over decades.
Over the course of his career, Clausen received 30 Emmy nominations—more than any other musician.
Loretta Swit
Loretta Swit was best known for her iconic role as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the long-running television series M*A*S*H.
Swit’s career spanned television, film, and the stage, but it was her portrayal of the fiercely independent, deeply compassionate Army nurse during the Korean War that made her a household name. She joined M*A*S*H when it debuted in 1972 and remained a central figure throughout the show’s 11-season run, earning two Emmy Awards and the admiration of millions of viewers. Along with Alan Alda, Swit was the only original cast member to appear in both the pilot episode and the series finale. Sally Kellerman, who originally played Houlihan in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H film, died in 2022.
“[Houlihan] was [unique] at the time and in her time, which was the ’50s, when [the Korean War] was happening,” Swit said in a 2004 interview. “And she became even more unique, I think, because we allowed her to continue to grow — we watched her evolve. I don’t think that’s ever been done in quite that way.“
The emotionally charged finale of M*A*S*H proved just as powerful behind the scenes as it was onscreen. In a 2018 interview with THR, Swit recalled filming the moment when her character said goodbye to Col. Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan). “We could hardly rehearse,” she said. “I had to look at this man whom I adore and say, ‘You dear, sweet man, I’ll never forget you,’ without getting emotional — and I couldn’t. I can’t now even. [Morgan died in 2011.] It wasn’t words on a page. You knew what you were saying was truth.“
Near the end of M*A*S*H’s run, Swit starred alongside Tyne Daly in the movie pilot for Cagney & Lacey. When CBS ordered the series, however, she was unable to continue in the role due to her contractual obligations to M*A*S*H. Meg Foster assumed the role of Christine Cagney for the first season, before Sharon Gless took over for the remainder of the series.
Beyond M*A*S*H, Swit appeared in television series such as Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Bonanza, The Love Boat, and Murder, She Wrote, as well as films including Freebie and the Bean, Race with the Devil, and S.O.B. Off-screen, she was a devoted animal rights activist, author, and philanthropist, dedicating much of her later life to advocacy and humanitarian causes.
Loretta Swit died on May 30 at the age of 87.
Valerie Mahaffey
Valerie Mahaffey died on May 30 at the age of 71. She was best known for playing the wealthy, pathologically hypochondriac wife of Adam (Adam Arkin) on Northern Exposure. Although she hadn’t seen the show when she was cast, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. “Well, you have to play opposite Adam Arkin, do you think you can be really, really mean?’” Mahaffey recalled. “I yelled at him real good and I guess he thought I was funny. That’s how it went. Apparently, they had been looking for [an actress to play] this girl for a long time. Later, I was told there was this big search.”
She continued, “I got a letter from a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in years. I went to school with him and he’s now a doctor. He wrote to me and said, ‘I just wanted to let you know you’re frightening. You’re so much like my hypochondriac patients. You’re great.’ It was the most wonderful letter from somebody I knew. I just gave him the chills, you know?”
Mahaffey was also well known for portraying Alma Hodge on Desperate Housewives, the manipulative ex-wife of Kyle MacLachlan’s character.
A prolific television actor, Mahaffey appeared in an extraordinary range of series over the years, including Newhart, Quantum Leap, Cheers, Seinfeld, Wings, L.A. Law, The Client, ER, Ally McBeal, Judging Amy, The West Wing, Frasier, CSI, Private Practice, Boston Legal, United States of Tara, Glee, Devious Maids, Grey’s Anatomy, Hart of Dixie, The Mindy Project, The Man in the High Castle, Young Sheldon, Dead to Me, Big Sky, and many more.
On the big screen, she appeared in films such as National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, Jungle 2 Jungle, Seabiscuit, My First Wedding, Jack and Jill, Sully, and French Exit.
Jonathan Joss
Jonathan Joss died on June 1 at the age of 59. From 1997 to 2009, Joss provided the voice of John Redcorn on King of the Hill, taking over the role after the death of the original voice actor, Victor Aaron, who was killed in a car accident in 1996. Joss later returned for the King of the Hill revival, recording several episodes before his death. The final episode of the revival’s first season was dedicated to him.
John Redcorn appeared throughout the series’ original 13-season run, and Joss was deeply invested in expanding the character beyond the stereotype of a New Age healer engaged in an affair. “He has his own business. Native characters and guest characters in general aren’t allowed to arc like that,” Joss said in 2013. “People have hit me over the head, saying I was that character sleeping with the white lady and having a kid I don’t care about; but I tell him you didn’t see King of the Hill after the first few seasons. Redcorn changed.”
Joss was also widely recognized for his role as Ken Hotate on Parks and Recreation, playing the shrewd tribal elder of the Wamapoke Native American tribe and owner of the Wamapoke Casino. He told Entertainment Weekly that he considered Hotate to be one of the strongest Native characters ever depicted on television. “In Hollywood, you don’t have a lot of Native people writing for Native characters,” Joss said. “I think the writers developed the character and trusted me enough, because I am a Native person, to step in those shoes and be able to create this three-dimensional character.… He was essentially the best Native character on television.”
Beyond those standout roles, Joss appeared in numerous television series, including Walker, Texas Ranger, Charmed, ER, Friday Night Lights, Ray Donovan, and Tulsa King. His film credits included Almost Heroes, True Grit, The Magnificent Seven, and The Forever Purge.
Harris Yulin
Harris Yulin died on June 10 at the age of 87. Over a career spanning six decades, Yulin began as a stage actor before transitioning to film and television, becoming one of those instantly recognizable performers whose work left a lasting impression across numerous projects. One of his earliest significant screen roles saw him portray Wyatt Earp in Doc, a revisionist Western that retold the story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The film also starred Stacey Keach as Doc Holliday and Faye Dunaway—who Yulin dated for a time—as Kate Elder.
Yulin went on to appear in a wide range of films, including Night Moves, Ghostbusters II, Clear and Present Danger, The Baby-Sitters Club, Cutthroat Island, Multiplicity, Bean, The Hurricane, Rush Hour 2, Training Day, My Soul to Take, and The Place Beyond the Pines, among many others. He also memorably played Mel Bernstein in Scarface, the corrupt Miami police detective on Frank Lopez’s payroll who attempts to extort Tony Montana—an encounter that, unsurprisingly, does not end well.
Just as prolific on television, Yulin delivered standout performances in series such as Little House on the Prairie, Wonder Woman, Law & Order, Murphy Brown, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, 24, The Blacklist, Veep, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Billions, and more. For Star Trek fans, his turn as Aamin Marritza in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Duet remains especially notable, widely regarded as one of the series’ finest episodes. Yulin reportedly became so invested in the role that he attempted to persuade producers not to kill the character off—an unusual move for a guest actor on a television series.
Yulin also played Buddy Dieker during the first two seasons of Netflix’s Ozark and earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as crime boss Jerome Belasco on Frasier.
He may never have been a traditional household name, but Harris Yulin was undeniably a familiar and respected presence. “I just do the next thing that comes along,” he said. “Whatever comes along that I want to do or that I feel I need to do. Oftentimes the things one does you don’t think of doing or you have no idea that you’re going to do.”
Rick Hurst
Rick Hurst was best known for playing Deputy Cletus Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard. His acting career began remarkably early—at just five years old—when a trip to the Houston Public Library with his mother led to an unexpected opportunity. A stranger tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he’d like to star in a commercial for the library. “My pay was a chocolate soda,” he recalled in 2022.
Years later, Hurst launched his television career with an appearance on Sanford and Son, kicking off a long run of guest roles across some of the most popular shows of the era. His television credits included The Bob Newhart Show, Kung Fu, Gunsmoke, Happy Days, Little House on the Prairie, The Six Million Dollar Man, M*A*S*H*, From Here to Eternity, Highway to Heaven, Perfect Strangers, The Wonder Years, Family Matters, and many more.
Hurst also starred in On the Rocks, a short-lived sitcom centered on inmates at the Alamesa Minimum Security Prison.
On the big screen, Hurst appeared in films such as The Cat From Outer Space, Going Ape, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Karate Kid Part III, Steel Magnolias, In the Line of Fire, and Anywhere But Here. He also reprised his most famous role in two Dukes of Hazzard TV movies: The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! in 1997 and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood in 2000.
Rick Hurst died on June 26 at the age of 79.
Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin, the man behind one of the most iconic (and hummable) pieces of cinematic music, died on June 26 at 93 years old.
Schifrin told the New York Post in 2015 that he created the Mission: Impossible theme in just three minutes, without seeing any footage from the show. “Orchestration’s not the problem for me. It’s like writing a letter. When you write a letter, you don’t have to think what grammar or what syntaxes you’re going to use, you just write a letter. And that’s the way it came,” Schifrin said. “Bruce Geller, who was the producer of the series, put together the pilot and came to me and said, ‘I want you to write something exciting, something that when people are in the living room and go into the kitchen to have a soft drink, and they hear it, they will know what it is. I want it to be identifiable, recognizable and a signature.’ And this is what I did.“
The theme won Schifrin a Grammy Award and continued to be used for all the big-screen movies starring Tom Cruise.
Of course, Schifrin is known for so much more than just Mission: Impossible. He composed music for movies such as Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Kelly’s Heroes, Dirty Harry, The Beguiled, THX 1138, Joe Kidd, Enter the Dragon, Magnum Force, The Eagle Has Landed, The Amityville Horror, Sudden Impact, The Sting II, the Rush Hour trilogy, and much more.
He also composed themes and music for many TV shows, such as Mannix, Starsky & Hutch, Planet of the Apes, and more.
Schifrin was also the original composer of The Exorcist before he was replaced. He recorded six minutes of music, which was used in the movie’s trailer, but executives told director William Friedkin to instruct Schifrin to tone it down. He didn’t pass on the message.
Julian McMahon
Julian McMahon died on July 2 at the age of 56. One of his most high-profile film roles saw him portraying Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, though he often felt he never fully got the chance to explore the character’s potential.
“I never got to express Doctor Doom the way that I saw Doctor Doom,” McMahon said in a 2017 interview. “If Marvel Studios got Doctor Doom back, and I could play him the way I always wanted to, as a sniveling, conniving, freaky guy, I would do that for sure. The character I most want to play is the character I’ve already played! There’s so much there!”
Beyond the Fantastic Four films, McMahon appeared in movies such as Premonition, Red, Faces in the Crowd, Bait 3D, Swinging Safari, and The Surfer.
On television, he played FBI Special Supervisory Agent Jess LaCroix across the FBI franchise, appearing in FBI and FBI: International before leading the first three seasons of FBI: Most Wanted. He also co-starred as Agent John Grant throughout all four seasons of Profiler, portrayed the cunning and manipulative Cole Turner on Charmed, and starred opposite Dylan Walsh in Nip/Tuck.
McMahon’s extensive TV résumé further included appearances on Home and Away, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Runaways, The Residence, and many others, cementing a career defined by charismatic, often darkly compelling performances across film and television.
Michael Madsen
Michael Madsen was extraordinarily prolific, appearing in more than 300 film and television productions over the course of his career. Yet for many, he will always be most closely associated with his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, beginning with Reservoir Dogs, where he delivered an indelible performance as the sadistic Mr. Blonde, forever linked to his chilling, ear-slicing dance routine set to “Stuck in the Middle With You.” He went on to play Budd in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2, Joe Gage in The Hateful Eight, and Sheriff Hackett in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
“Quentin is, in my estimation, the best director of my generation. He’s up there with George Stevens and Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan,” Madsen said. “Because of that, because of my relationship with him, it became bigger than anything I ever did. And then Kill Bill put the final stamp on that one. It’s a great blessing to have that and at the same time, it is really hard to get out of it. And people don’t want you to get out of it.”
Outside of his Tarantino work, Madsen’s filmography spanned decades and genres, with roles in WarGames, The Natural, The Killing Time, Kill Me Again, The Doors, Thelma & Louise, Trouble Bound, Free Willy, Money for Nothing, Wyatt Earp, Species, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Mulholland Falls, Donnie Brasco, Species II, Die Another Day, Sin City, Scary Movie 4, BloodRayne, Outlaw Johnny Black, and many more.
He was equally familiar to television audiences, appearing in series such as Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, 24, Bob’s Burgers, Blue Bloods, The Mob Doctor, Hawaii Five-0, and others.
Though he built a formidable screen persona playing hardened criminals and intimidating heavyweights, Madsen was keenly aware of the disconnect between perception and reality. “Fame is a two-edged sword,” he told THR in 2018. “There are a lot of blessings but also a lot of heavy things that come with it. I think it has a lot to do with the characters I’ve played. I think I’ve been more believable than I should have been. I think people really fear me. They see me and go: ‘Holy shit, there’s that guy!’ But I’m not that guy. I’m just an actor.”
Michael Madsen died on July 3 at the age of 67
Mark Snow
It’s difficult to imagine The X-Files without its instantly recognizable theme music, composed by Mark Snow, which set the series’ eerie tone from the very first episode.
Series creator Chris Carter initially had a few ideas about what the theme should sound like and brought Snow a handful of CDs as inspiration. Even so, finding the right approach proved challenging. Snow later admitted that his early attempts sounded “a little generic or what you think would be on a sci-fi show. More pounding and rhythmic and dangerous and muscular.” The breakthrough came unexpectedly—when he accidentally rested his elbow on his keyboard.
“It was that accompanying theme, the ‘da-ba-da-da-ba-da…’ I had some echo-delay thing on the keyboard and I thought it worked well,” Snow told Empire. “Chris was always talking about simple, under-produced, not slick music. So I thought, ‘Okay, that’s a nice part of this.’ Then I had to figure out what else it would be a three-part piece. Some sustained low notes underneath that, some low drums hits here and there, then all we needed was a melody on top of it. That was simple enough. I tried different instruments, including strings and sax and flute and it sounded ordinary. How about piano? Oh, no. So I stumbled upon the whistle sound and my wife said, ‘That’s cool! You should keep that.’ She whistled along with it too, so that’s where that came from.”
Beyond The X-Files television series and feature films, Snow continued his collaboration with Carter by composing the scores for Millennium, Harsh Realm, and The Lone Gunman. His prolific career also included work on series such as Starsky & Hutch, Hart to Hart, Falcon Crest, Dark Justice, Smallville, The Twilight Zone, and Blue Bloods, as well as feature films including Ernest Saves Christmas, Dolly Dearest, Disturbing Behavior, The New Mutants, and more.
Mark Snow died on July 4 at the age of 78.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
Malcolm-Jamal Warner died on July 20 at the age of 54. He was best known for his portrayal of Theodore “Theo” Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a role he reprised multiple times on the spin-off series A Different World.
Reflecting on the show’s cultural impact, Warner explained how it stood apart from earlier sitcoms. “When you look at the history of black sitcoms, they’re all predicated upon the, quote, ‘black experience.’ And therefore, much of the humor is predicated on being black,” Warner told NPR in 2014. “Mr. Cosby wanted to do a show not about an upper-middle-class black family, but an upper-middle-class family that happened to be black. Though it sounds like semantics, they’re very different approaches. Yet the Huxtables were very black, from the style of dress, to the art to the music, to just the culture. So, being black without having to act black, if you will.“
Beyond The Cosby Show, Warner built an extensive television résumé, with appearances on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Here and Now, The Magic School Bus, Touched by an Angel, Sliders, Dexter, The Cleaner, Community, Key & Peele, Sons of Anarchy, American Horror Story: Freak Show, Suits, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, Sneaky Pete, The Resident, 9-1-1, Alert: Missing Persons Unit, and more.
He also starred opposite Eddie Griffin in Malcolm & Eddie, which ran for four seasons on UPN, and alongside Luke Perry in J. Michael Straczynski’s post-apocalyptic action drama Jeremiah. Though Straczynski had mapped out a five-year plan for the series, it was abruptly cancelled midway through its second season. Fans mounted a campaign to save the show and secure a third year, but ultimately, the effort was unsuccessful.
Ozzy Osbourne
As the co-founder of Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne helped invent heavy metal, but his impact extended far beyond music, leaving an unexpected and indelible mark on television as well.
After a memorable appearance on MTV Cribs, a reality series centered on Osbourne and his family—his wife Sharon, daughter Kelly, and son Jack—was put into production. The Osbournes became an instant phenomenon as the most-watched series in MTV history. The show chronicled their daily lives and the often chaotic, frequently hilarious antics of the Osbourne household. Its success helped usher in a new era of celebrity-focused reality television, paving the way for franchises like The Real Housewives and Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Ozzy never took The Osbournes too seriously, later admitting he was “stoned during the entire filming” of the series, but even he was taken aback by how profoundly it reshaped his public image. “I never realised TV is the most powerful form of entertainment on the planet. I still wonder what it all means,” he said in a 2002 interview. “I was in Boston, where I’ve performed thousands of times, and this respectable middle-aged woman comes up to me and says, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I tell her I’m here to perform, and she goes, ‘F***. You do that as well?’ I’ve reached an audience with no idea I’m a rock ‘n’ roller. I’m pleased about that. I’m the working-class hero. Not bad for a guy from Aston.”
He went on to make numerous television appearances—almost always as himself—on shows such as South Park, The Bernie Mac Show, CSI, The Conners, and more. His film appearances were equally eclectic, ranging from Trick or Treat and Private Parts to Little Nicky, Moulin Rouge!, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Gnomeo & Juliet, Ghostbusters, Sherlock Gnomes, and Trolls World Tour.
Osbourne ultimately reunited with Black Sabbath for the Back to the Beginning farewell tour. Unable to walk due to advanced Parkinson’s disease, he performed seated on a throne, powering through classics like “Crazy Train,” “Iron Man,” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” He died just 17 days later, on July 22, at the age of 76.
Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan died on July 24 at the age of 71. One of the biggest stars professional wrestling has ever produced, Hogan ignited the Hulkamania phenomenon and became a global household name. But before he ever stepped into the ring, Hogan was a musician playing clubs around Tampa Bay.
In his 2002 autobiography, Hogan recalled working out at Hector’s Gym when he was spotted by wrestling scouts and encouraged to train with Japanese star Hiro Matsuda. “The wrestlers were like Greek gods to me,” he wrote. “They were giants, larger than life, and the combination of entertainment and physicality that I saw in the wrestling ring was something I had never seen in other sports. And that, I guess you’d say, was where it all started for me.”
Hogan’s popularity eventually extended far beyond wrestling, enabling him to crossover into movies and television. He made his film debut as Thunderlips in Rocky III and went on to star in No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, The Secret Agent Club, Santa with Muscles, and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. He also delivered a famously unforgettable cameo in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. On television, Hogan appeared in shows such as The A-Team, Baywatch, Suddenly Susan, Walker, Texas Ranger, American Dad!, The Inbetweeners, and The Goldbergs.
Loni Anderson
Loni Anderson was best known for playing Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati, but she initially turned down the now-iconic role. While she liked the show’s premise, Anderson wasn’t enthusiastic about the version of the character creator Hugh Wilson had in mind, “so I refused.”
“I went in and sat on my little soapbox and said, ‘I don’t want to play this part because she’s just here to deliver messages and is window dressing,’” she explained in a 2020 interview. “Then Hugh said, ‘Well, how would you do it?’ … He said, ‘Let’s make her look like Lana Turner and be the smartest person in the room.’” The role earned Anderson three Golden Globe nominations and two Emmy nominations.
Beyond WKRP in Cincinnati, Anderson appeared in films such as Vigilante Force, The Jayne Mansfield Story, Stroker Ace, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Munchie, 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, and A Night at the Roxbury. On television, she made memorable appearances on S.W.A.T., Barnaby Jones, The Bob Newhart Show, The Love Boat, The Incredible Hulk, Three’s Company, Empty Nest, Nurses, and Melrose Place.
Loni Anderson died on August 3 at the age of 79.
Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp was best known to mainstream audiences for playing General Zod in Superman and Superman II, and he relished the opportunity to appear onscreen alongside Marlon Brando. “Two actors of my generations were Brando and [James] Dean,” Stamp said in 1988. “They were the two idols. Dean was no longer with us and Brando was still around, so the idea of getting up on film with him, albeit brief, was irresistible.”
That excitement was tempered, however, when Stamp realized Brando hadn’t bothered to learn his lines, instead relying on large cue cards. Frustrated, Stamp asked him, “How are you going to play King Lear and Macbeth if you can’t learn a line?” to which Brando coolly replied, “I’ve learned them already.”
Stamp also earned widespread acclaim for his performance as Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. At first, he was reluctant to take on the role, until a friend helped put his fears into perspective. “She said, ‘Look, just say yes and maybe it will go away. And if it doesn’t, you’ll just have to address the fear,’” Stamp told the BFI in 2013. “And then she said this wonderful thing: ‘Terence, this is not a career move, this is a growth move.’” Stamp later reflected that it was “a challenge, a challenge I couldn’t resist because [otherwise] my life would have been a lie.” He added that the film “became one of the great experiences of my whole career. It was probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Stamp returned to the role in September 2025, filming all of his scenes for a sequel that has yet to be completed.
Over the course of his long and varied career, Stamp appeared in films such as Billy Budd, The Collector, Far from the Madding Crowd, Teorema, The Company of Wolves, Link, The Sicilian, Young Guns, Alien Nation, The Limey, Bowfinger, Red Planet, The Haunted Mansion, Elektra, Wanted, Get Smart, Yes Man, Valkyrie, The Adjustment Bureau, Big Eyes, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and Last Night in Soho. He also portrayed Supreme Chancellor Valorum in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.
Terence Stamp died on August 17 at the age of 87.
Jerry Adler
Jerry Adler didn’t begin his on-screen acting career until his 60s, but the theater was always in his blood. Several members of his family worked in the business—most notably his cousin, legendary acting teacher Stella Adler—and he initially made his mark behind the scenes. Adler started out as a stage manager, later becoming a production supervisor, and eventually went on to direct productions of his own.
One of his most memorable early experiences came in 1969, when he worked on Coco, the Broadway musical inspired by the life of Coco Chanel. Katharine Hepburn starred in the production, but a problem arose during one of the show’s quieter songs. Construction on the nearby Uris Building (now known as Paramount Plaza) could be heard over the song, disrupting the performance. Hepburn summoned Adler to her dressing room and instructed him to cross the street and ask the workers to halt construction during that single song.
“So I went over to the engineering hut, got a hold of the boss and said I was the stage manager of the show across the street starring Katharine Hepburn and she would like to stop work on the building when she sings this song. They thought I was a [expletive] lunatic,” Adler said. “So I go back to her and tell her it’s impossible and then she goes out, goes across the street, gets in one of those open construction elevators and arranges with the workers herself on every floor that when I come out of the stage door and give them the signal, they stop work and then restart when I come out again. They did that at every matinee for her.”
When Adler eventually transitioned to acting, he found lasting fame as Herman “Hesh” Rabkin on The Sopranos, where he memorably played the sharp-tongued loan shark and trusted advisor to Tony Soprano.
He also appeared as Howard Lyman on The Good Wife and its spinoff, The Good Fight, as well as as NYFD station chief Sidney Feinberg on Rescue Me. Over the course of his career, Adler made guest appearances on numerous television series, including Quantum Leap, Mad About You, Northern Exposure, Hudson Street, Raising Dad, ’Til Death, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent, and Broad City.
Jerry Adler died on August 23 at the age of 96.
Graham Greene
Graham Greene died on September 1 at the age of 73. He was best known for his acclaimed performance as Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Acting wasn’t Greene’s original plan. He held a wide range of jobs before finding his way in front of the camera, and when the opportunity finally presented itself, he realized it suited him just fine. “I started out as a carpenter, a welder, a draftsman, a carpet layer, a roadie and an audio tech,” he said in a 2018 interview. “I stumbled into acting and I thought, These people keep me in the shade, give me food and water, take me over to where I say what I’m supposed to say, then they take me back. Wow—this is the life of a dog!”
Greene went on to build an extensive film career, appearing in movies such as Thunderheart, Maverick, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Grey Owl, The Green Mile, Transamerica, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Wind River, Molly’s Game, Antlers, and many others.
His television work was equally prolific, with appearances on L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Northern Exposure, The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon, The Outer Limits, Numbers, Defiance, Longmire, Goliath, 1883, American Gods, The Last of Us, Reservation Dogs, and Tulsa King. He was also well remembered for playing Edgar K.B. Montrose, an explosives expert, on The Red Green Show.
Scott Spiegel
Scott Spiegel is best known for co-writing Evil Dead II with Sam Raimi, but his connection to the iconic horror franchise stretches back to its very origins. Spiegel met Raimi—and Bruce Campbell—while still in high school, and the trio quickly began collaborating on homemade films. Spiegel appeared as Scotty in Within the Woods, the short film that served as a proof of concept for The Evil Dead.
When it came time to make The Evil Dead, Spiegel was unable to participate directly, though he still found ways to contribute. “I couldn’t break away at the time because I was helping support my family,” he said in a 2011 interview. “The boys called me several times (to work on the movie) down in Morristown but I was making $28,000 back then and that was decent money. When they came back home I helped out in post production. I got a couple of my girlfriends to double some of the actresses in the film, and I supplied a bunch of the meat parts.”
Spiegel was able to return for Evil Dead II, and the film’s success led to his opportunity to write and direct Intruder, a cult slasher notable for its especially brutal practical effects. Among its most famous moments is a kill in which Billy Marti’s character has his head sliced in half with a bandsaw. “When we were about to shoot the sawing of the gelatin head, Billy Marti turned to me and said ‘My Mom can never see this,’” Spiegel recalled. “We rolled cameras and turned on the band saw and sawed the gelatin head in half and it was so real it upset many crew members. Joyce Pepper, our script supervisor was crying. I seriously questioned what I was doing. Man, that’s horrifying but I was, after all making a horror film. This wasn’t Bambi.”
Beyond his work behind the camera, Spiegel made cameo appearances in many of Raimi’s films, including Darkman, The Quick and the Dead, Spider-Man 2, Drag Me to Hell, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. He also co-wrote Clint Eastwood’s buddy-cop action thriller The Rookie, wrote and directed From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, executive-produced Eli Roth’s Hostel and Hostel Part II, and later directed Hostel Part III.
Scott Spiegel died on September 1 at the age of 67.
Robert Redford
Robert Redford died on September 16 at the age of 89. He became a bona fide movie star after appearing opposite Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, though the career-defining role nearly passed him by. The studio was initially hesitant to cast Redford, having already offered the part to Jack Lemmon, Warren Beatty, and Steve McQueen. Redford later credited Newman with stepping in and giving him the break that changed everything.
“The studio didn’t want me,” he recalled. “It all depended on Paul, and I met him and he was very generous and said, ‘Let’s go for this.’ He knew I was serious about the craft. That’s what brought us together, and we became friends.” Four years later, the pair reunited for another classic, The Sting.
Redford went on to appear in an extraordinary range of films, including Barefoot in the Park, Downhill Racer, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate, The Way We Were, The Great Gatsby, Three Days of the Condor, The Great Waldo Pepper, All the President’s Men, A Bridge Too Far, The Natural, Out of Africa, Legal Eagles, Sneakers, Indecent Proposal, The Horse Whisperer, The Last Castle, Spy Game, Lions for Lambs, All Is Lost, Pete’s Dragon, and The Old Man and the Gun.
Late in his career, Redford also entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing Alexander Pierce in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, before returning for a brief cameo in Avengers: Endgame.
Behind the camera, Redford proved just as accomplished. He directed films such as Ordinary People, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Director, along with A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Lions for Lambs, and The Conspirator.
Beyond his own filmography, Redford’s legacy extended to the industry itself. He founded the Sundance Film Festival, which has grown into the largest independent film festival in the United States and helped launch numerous careers.
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale died on September 23 at the age of 87. She’s best known for playing Princess Dala in The Pink Panther and starring alongside Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.
She’s also known for her leading roles in Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, which she shot back-to-back. “Visconti was precise and meticulous, spoke to me in French and wanted me to have long brown hair,” she told Le Monde in 2017. “Fellini was chaotic and didn’t have a script; he spoke Italian to me, cut my hair short and dyed it blond. Those were the two most important films of my life.“
Although Cardinale is best known for her work in Italian films, she was actually born in Tunisia and grew up speaking French, Arabic, and her parents’ native Sicilian dialect. She only learned Italian as an adult. She made her feature film debut in Goha alongside Omar Sharif and was later dubbed “The Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia.” Offers for movie roles soon followed, but she was reluctant to pursue them. Her father eventually convinced her to “give this cinema thing a go.“
However, just as her career was starting, she was raped and became pregnant. To avoid scandal, she went to London to give birth. “I gave birth in London, because in those days it would have been a scandal,” she told Variety in 2017. “We pretended that my son was my little brother. I didn’t want to become an actress; I did it so I could be independent.” She later revealed the truth to her son seven years later.
Her role in Once Upon a Time in the West was special. “I was the only woman in that movie! The thing is … I love music. And that was the first time I worked on a film where the music was composed [by Ennio Morricone] before the cameras started rolling,” she said. “So before shooting my scenes, Sergio would play the music … which really helped me get into the part. Morricone recently invited me to his concert in Paris. I was sitting in the front row and he opened with the theme from Once Upon a Time in the West, while looking straight at me.“
Cardinale also appeared in Big Deal on Madonna Street, Rocco and His Brothers, Circus World, The Professionals, The Hell With Heroes, Fitzcarraldo, and much more.
Patricia Routledge
Patricia Routledge died on October 3 at the age of 96. She was best known for playing the gloriously snobbish social climber Hyacinth Bucket (It’s Bouquet!) on Keeping Up Appearances.
Although Routledge had built a long and varied career across film, television, radio, and the stage, it was Keeping Up Appearances that marked a true turning point. “My life didn’t quite take shape until my forties. I had worked steadily—on provincial stages, in radio plays, in West End productions—but I often felt adrift, as though I was searching for a home within myself that I hadn’t quite found,” she said. “At 50, I accepted the role of Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. I thought it would be a small part in a little series. I never imagined that it would take me into people’s living rooms and hearts around the world.”
Beyond her iconic television role, Routledge appeared in films such as To Sir, With Love, Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River, and Lock Up Your Daughters, and made memorable appearances on television series including Coronation Street, Sense and Sensibility, David Copperfield, and Nicholas Nickleby. Following the success of Keeping Up Appearances, she went on to headline Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, playing Henrietta “Hetty” Wainthropp, a sharp-witted retired working-class woman with a talent for solving crimes.
In recognition of her extraordinary career and charitable work, Routledge was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017.
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton had relatively few screen credits when she was cast as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Even she was baffled by the decision. “I didn’t understand why me,” she recalled. “I mean, I went up to the audition. I didn’t even really — I hadn’t read it. See, this is bad! But I needed a job, so I got up there. I’d been auditioning around for about a year, and then this happened like that. And I kept thinking, ‘Why me? Why would he cast me?’ I didn’t understand it. I still don’t, really.”
Keaton returned for The Godfather Part II, though she later admitted she was initially hesitant to sign on. “At first, I was skeptical about playing Kay again in the Godfather sequel,” she said. “But when I read the script, the character seemed much more substantial than in the first film.” She ultimately reprised the role once more in The Godfather Part III.
Beyond the Godfather trilogy, Keaton became closely associated with director Woody Allen, collaborating with him on films such as Play It Again, Sam, Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Radio Days, and Manhattan Murder Mystery. Her unconventional wardrobe in Annie Hall turned her into an unlikely fashion icon of the late 1970s.
Her extensive filmography also includes Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Reds, Baby Boom, The Good Mother, Father of the Bride, Look Who’s Talking Now!, Father of the Bride Part II, The First Wives Club, Marvin’s Room, The Other Sister, Town & Country, Something’s Gotta Give, The Family Stone, Finding Dory, Book Club, and Book Club: The Next Chapter. On television, she appeared in Night Gallery, The Young Pope, and Green Eggs and Ham.
Diane Keaton died on October 11 at the age of 79.
Drew Struzan
Drew Struzan died on October 13 at the age of 78. Long before movie posters became dominated by rows of Photoshopped faces, Struzan was creating genuine works of art for countless films. His style was instantly recognizable, and for many fans, his posters were just as iconic and enduring as the movies they represented.
While in college, Struzan was told that his career path would likely lead to either fine art or illustration. He chose illustration for practical reasons. “I was poor and hungry, and illustration was the shortest path to a slice of bread, as compared to a gallery showing,” he said. “I had nothing as a child. I drew on toilet paper with pencils – that was the only paper around. Probably why I love drawing so much today is because it was just all I had at the time.”
Struzan became closely associated with the Star Wars franchise and was involved early in its history. For the 1978 re-release of Star Wars, 20th Century Fox initially hired Charles White III to create a new poster. However, White was uncomfortable with portraiture and turned to Struzan for help. The result was the now-famous “Circus” poster, one of the most unique pieces of artwork in the entire franchise.
He went on to design the posters for the Star Wars Special Edition Trilogy, as well as the Prequel Trilogy, with his work on The Phantom Menace remaining a particular favourite of mine.
It would be impossible to catalogue all of Struzan’s extraordinary work in a single paragraph, but his credits include posters for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, The Cannonball Run, The Goonies, Hook, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Green Mile, and many more. He even created the iconic poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing in just a few hours, without being given any details about the film. When the artwork was delivered to the studio the following morning, he received a call saying, “The painting’s still wet.”
When asked which of his posters was his favourite, Struzan offered a characteristically thoughtful response: “If I had a favorite, then I would have already done the best I can do. I’d lose my spark of creativity. My favorite is always the very next one.”
Samantha Eggar
Samantha Eggar died on October 15 at the age of 86. One of her earliest major roles saw her starring opposite Terence Stamp in The Collector, in which she played a young art student kidnapped by a deeply disturbed and lonely man. While the film is harrowing to watch, the ordeal Eggar endured during production was, by her own account, even more challenging than what appears onscreen.
Director William Wyler was famously exacting and went to extraordinary lengths to ensure Eggar felt genuinely isolated on set. He instructed Stamp to remain in character at all times and treat Eggar coldly, and if Wyler felt a scene lacked sufficient tension, he would escalate matters himself. “And if the tension wasn’t there — if I didn’t exude precisely what he wanted — well, Willie just poured cold water over me,” she said. “You remember I was tied up by black leather? Well, use your imagination and go from there! What you see onscreen was really taking place on set.“
Despite the grueling process, Eggar later acknowledged the results of Wyler’s methods. “He works you to your peak,” she said. “When it’s over, you realize that you have done the best you could possibly do.” Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress.
Eggar’s filmography also included Return From the Ashes, Doctor Dolittle, The Molly Maguires, The Light at the Edge of the World, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The Uncanny, Demonoid, Curtains, The Phantom, and The Astronaut’s Wife.
One of her most memorable later roles came in David Cronenberg’s The Brood. “I was really fascinated by how David had come upon this idea of the hives growing on me, these children of anger growing on the outside of my stomach. This little army I was bearing. I thought … ‘Goodness, what a mind this is … to conceive such a fantastical thing,’” she said. “And it wasn’t only David’s concept that was multilayered, multidimensional. It was also reflected in the writing. As an actor, when you have a sort of Shakespearean way to the writing that is so rich and robust, you revel in it.”
Beyond live-action roles, Eggar voiced Hera in Disney’s animated Hercules and reprised the role for the television series. She also made numerous television appearances over the years, popping up on shows such as Columbo, Starsky & Hutch, Hawaii Five-O, The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Star Trek: The Next Generation, Commander in Chief, and more. She also starred alongside Yul Brynner in Anna and the King, a non-musical TV adaptation of The King and I.
June Lockhart
June Lockhart died on October 23 at the age of 100. She was best known for playing two of television’s most beloved mothers: Dr. Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space and Ruth Martin on the long-running Lassie series.
Lockhart’s remarkable nine-decade career began with an appearance in MGM’s 1938 production of A Christmas Carol. Her parents, Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, portrayed Bob and Emily Cratchit, while June appeared as one of their children. From there, she went on to appear in a wide range of films, including Sergeant York, Son of Lassie, She-Wolf of London, Deadly Games, Troll, C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D., and many others.
She joined Lassie in its fifth season, replacing Cloris Leachman as Ruth Martin. Lockhart had initially been offered the role before Leachman but declined it—a decision she later came to regret. When the opportunity arose again, she embraced it wholeheartedly. “I thought about what I had been offered and said to myself, ‘What am I being so damn grand about?’” she recalled. “I have two children to support, the part they want me to play has a lot of dignity, the show is already on the air, I wouldn’t have to film a pilot, and they have a sponsor. This is a really great gift that has been offered to me.”
Her role on Lost in Space sparked a lifelong fascination with astronomy, an interest that extended well beyond the screen. In 2014, she was awarded the NASA Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. “I have been told that my contribution inspired many astronauts to pursue a career in space science and exploration,” Lockhart said. “It is lovely to know that I touched so many people by doing things that interested me!” She later made a cameo appearance in the 1998 Lost in Space feature film and provided a voice cameo in the 2021 Netflix series.
Following Lost in Space, Lockhart played Dr. Janet Craig on Petticoat Junction and continued to work steadily on television for decades. Her many guest appearances included Have Gun — Will Travel, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Bewitched, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Happy Days, Magnum P.I., The Greatest American Hero, General Hospital, Full House, Babylon 5, 7th Heaven, Beverly Hills, 90210, The Drew Carey Show, Grey’s Anatomy, and more.
Prunella Scales
Prunella Scales was best known for her iconic turn as Sybil Fawlty on Fawlty Towers, widely regarded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. The role produced countless unforgettable moments: Sybil consoling her friend Audrey over the phone (“Oh, I know”), bellowing “BASIL!” at her long-suffering husband, and, of course, unleashing that unmistakable laugh—one which Basil memorably says “always reminds me of somebody machine-gunning a seal.”
At the very first table read for Fawlty Towers, Scales questioned a fundamental aspect of the characters, asking why Sybil and Basil had ever married in the first place. “Oh God, I was afraid you’d ask me that!” Cleese reportedly replied. In response, Scales crafted her own detailed backstory for the couple, imagining that Sybil’s family worked as caterers at a small hotel, where she met Basil when he stopped in for a drink shortly after completing his National Service.
“Sybil’s trouble was that, having married out of her class and been fooled by Fawlty’s flannel, she realized, too late, that she had landed with an upper-class twit for a husband,” Scales wrote in Fawlty Towers: The Story of a Sitcom. “But behind all of Sybil’s apparent disenchantment with Basil, there is still some — just enough — real affection for him, and that is probably what makes her stay.”
Beyond Fawlty Towers, Scales appeared in a wide range of films, including Hobson’s Choice, The Littlest Horse Thieves, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Boys from Brazil, Howards End, Wolf, An Ideal Husband, Johnny English, and many others.
Prunella Scales died on October 27 at the age of 93.
Tchéky Karyo
Tchéky Karyo was born in Istanbul, before moving with his family to Paris at a young age. He first gained widespread recognition with his breakthrough performance in La Balance, which earned him a César nomination for Most Promising Actor. He went on to appear in a remarkable range of films, including La Femme Nikita, in which he played Bob, one of the handlers of the titular assassin. His extensive filmography also includes Vincent and Me, The Bear (in one of the film’s few human roles), 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Nostradamus, Bad Boys, GoldenEye, Operation Dumbo Drop, To Have & To Hold, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Patriot, Kiss of the Dragon, The Core, A Very Long Engagement, Mary Magdalene, and many more.
For me, Karyo is most closely associated with the role of Julien Baptiste. In the first season of the acclaimed mystery series The Missing, the French detective assists Tony Hughes (James Nesbitt) and his wife Emily (Frances O’Connor) in uncovering the fate of their kidnapped son. Spanning more than a decade, the story allowed Karyo to deliver one of the show’s most compelling performances, making it little surprise that Baptiste returned in the second season. The character proved so popular that creators Harry and Jack Williams developed a spin-off series, Baptiste, which ran for two seasons.
Baptiste was also one of Karyo’s favorite roles. “What I love about him is he’s a man of action, but he’s also a deep thinker,” the actor told the BBC. “It’s interesting because even when he’s in a moment of action, he never forgets to think or to express something about the situation. For him…to follow these monsters who did these unspeakable crimes, it’s not a risk, it’s a responsibility.“
Tchéky Karyo died on October 31 at the age of 72.
Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd died on November 3 at the age of 89. Although she had been an established actress for more than a decade, it was her scene-stealing turn as Flo, the sharp-tongued waitress at Mel and Ruby’s Cafe in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, that elevated her career to a new level. Her memorable lines—such as “Kiss me where the sun don’t shine”—had audiences howling, and the performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The film went on to inspire the long-running sitcom Alice; while Polly Holliday ultimately played Flo on television, Ladd later joined the series for seasons four and five in a new role.
Ladd received another Oscar nomination for her performance in Wild at Heart as the mother of Laura Dern’s character. Director David Lynch later recalled that Ladd’s instinctive, improvisational approach made it difficult to stick closely to the script. “When she was in her first scene, she was miles away from the text that I’d written. She got the spirit of the scene perfectly, but she didn’t re-create a single word,” he said. “So I took her aside and after that we worked very well together. She was bad at sticking to the dialogue, but she really loved to be seized by an emotion and to be carried away by it. It was quite something to contain all that energy.“
She later reunited with her daughter Laura Dern in Rambling Rose, with both actresses earning Academy Award nominations.
Ladd’s extensive film credits also include White Lightning, Chinatown, Embryo, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Black Widow, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Carnosaur, 28 Days, Inland Empire, Joy, and more. On television, she was a frequent presence on series such as Gunsmoke, The Love Boat, L.A. Law, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Grace Under Fire, ER, Enlightened, Ray Donovan, Young Sheldon, and others.
Lee Tamahori
Lee Tamahori died on November 7 at the age of 75. He made his feature directorial debut with Once Were Warriors, widely regarded as one of the finest films ever to emerge from New Zealand. Ironically, it was a project Tamahori was deeply reluctant to take on, convinced from the outset that it was destined to fail.
After reading the novel on which the film was based, Tamahori was blunt in his assessment, saying, “This is the worst movie you could ever f….ing imagine – it’s [got] death, suicide, drugs, alienation, alcoholism, brute force, domination.” When producer Robin Scholes acquired the rights and approached him to direct, Tamahori repeatedly turned her down.
“I said, ‘look, I think it’s a terrible idea. I think it’s doomed to failure’. I said, ‘nobody will go and see a film like this, nobody goes and sees New Zealand films anyway,’” he explained. “I said, ‘I admire your zeal, but this is not going to succeed and so thanks for asking me but no, I’m going to look for another project.’” Eventually, Tamahori relented — a decision that paid off spectacularly, as Once Were Warriors became a major critical and commercial success, earning widespread acclaim and numerous awards.
The film launched an international career that saw Tamahori direct Mulholland Falls, The Edge, Along Came a Spider, XXX: State of the Union, Next, The Devil’s Double, Mahana, and The Convert. He also worked extensively in television, directing episodes of The Sopranos and Billions.
Among his most high-profile projects was Die Another Day, the final James Bond film to star Pierce Brosnan. A lifelong fan of the franchise, Tamahori deliberately leaned into the series’ more flamboyant traditions, embracing larger-than-life villains, outrageous gadgets, and globe-threatening plots. “Basically I was attracted to it because I knew it was going to be the last of the Pierce Brosnan movies, and I was very much in favour – I was a fan – of the James Bond era when there were lasers in space destroying the earth,” he said. “Just over the top, larger than life, where everything is in peril from a space laser, and Bond has got to stop it. Unlike the way the series has gone into Jason Bourne mode with Daniel Craig. I love Daniel’s films, but they went off in a different tangent.”
“I guess I made the last of the big Moonraker, Goldfinger type of James Bond films,” he added.
Sally Kirkland
Sally Kirkland died on November 11 at the age of 84. One of her earliest standout roles saw her make a memorable impression as Crystal opposite Robert Redford in The Sting. “I had a scene with Robert Redford, and the part was enough for me to sink my teeth into and for people to remember me,” she said in 2014. “Over the years, a lot of people have told me that their favourite Redford moment is when he is watching me strip with that huge grin on his face, holding a champagne glass in one hand and a bunch of roses in the other. Redford turned up for rehearsals and watched me in the wings. He said to me ‘Wow! Where did you learn how to do that?’”
Kirkland went on to appear in an eclectic mix of films, including The Way We Were, Big Bad Mama, Blazing Saddles, Breakheart Pass, A Star Is Born, Private Benjamin, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Best of the Best, Two Evil Eyes, Revenge, JFK, The Player, EDtv, Bruce Almighty, and more.
She achieved her greatest critical acclaim starring in Anna, a drama about a former Czech movie star who takes a younger woman under her wing to teach her the ins and outs of acting, only for her protégée to eclipse her own success. Kirkland desperately wanted the role, particularly after learning that director Yurek Bogayevicz didn’t think she was right for the character.
“I would stand in the rain outside Bogayevicz’s apartment waiting for him, so I could persuade him to cast me,” she said. “I sent him flowers all the time, and wrote him long letters.” The persistence paid off. She was eventually invited to audition, though she was committed to teaching an acting workshop in Australia and told Bogayevicz she couldn’t make it. He was stunned but agreed to wait. When she returned, she landed the role, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and winning the Golden Globe.
In addition to her film work, Kirkland appeared on numerous television series, including Kojak, Three’s Company, The Incredible Hulk, Charlie’s Angels, Falcon Crest, Roseanne, The Nanny, Criminal Minds, and more. She also starred in a short-lived soap opera based on Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls.
Udo Kier
Udo Kier died on November 23 at the age of 81. He first made a major impression after being cast as Baron von Frankenstein in Paul Morrissey’s Flesh for Frankenstein. When production wrapped, Kier headed to a cantina for a glass of wine—only for Morrissey to walk in and inform him that he would also be starring in Blood for Dracula.
“They were filming Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula back to back, and he said: ‘I guess we have a German Count Dracula now.’ I said: ‘Who?’ and he said: ‘You, but you have to lose 10 pounds in one week.’ I said: ‘No problem,’ and ate only salad leaves and water for a week,” Kier explained in a 2022 interview. “On the first day of shooting, I was introduced to Vittorio De Sica – this great Italian actor who was also in Dracula. I was so weak from only eating salad leaves and water, I was in a wheelchair because I couldn’t stand up.”
Over the decades that followed, Kier built one of the most eclectic and prolific careers in cinema, appearing in films such as Mark of the Devil, Story of O, Suspiria, My Own Private Idaho, For Love or Money, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Johnny Mnemonic, Barb Wire, The End of Violence, Armageddon, Blade, End of Days, Spy Games, BloodRayne, Grindhouse, Halloween, Iron Sky, Downsizing, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, Iron Sky: The Coming Race, and many more.
He also enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with director Lars von Trier, appearing in nearly all of his films, beginning with Epidemic in 1987 and continuing through Europa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac. Kier also appeared in von Trier’s cult horror miniseries The Kingdom.
On television, Kier made memorable appearances on series such as Red Shoe Diaries, seaQuest DSV, Nash Bridges, Chuck, Borgia, and Hunters.
Kier relished playing villainous characters, believing those roles left the strongest impression. “If you play small or guest parts in movies, it is better to be evil and scare people than be the guy who works in the post office and goes home to his wife and children,” he said in a 2021 interview. “Audiences will remember you more.”
Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard died on November 28 at the age of 88. The acclaimed playwright was best known for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a tragicomedy that unfolds “in the wings” of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The play proved to be a career-defining breakthrough, earning Stoppard his first Tony Award when he was just thirty years old.
While Stoppard’s primary home was the theatre, he also made a significant impact in film. He was involved with the scripts for The Human Factor, Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Russia House, Billy Bathgate, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Anna Karenina, and Tulip Fever.
He also wrote and directed the feature film adaptation of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, though his most celebrated cinematic work remains Shakespeare in Love. The romantic comedy tells a fictionalized story of William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and his romance with a young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires the writing of Romeo and Juliet.
“There were moments when the challenge became, ‘How does Shakespeare speak when he’s just speaking to a friend?’” Stoppard said in 1998. “Does he sound like Shakespeare? Does he sound as though he’s going to be Shakespeare, or does he sound like anybody else?”
He continued, “The thing that makes life easier for someone writing fiction about Shakespeare is that there are very few signposts, very few agreed-upon facts and lots of spaces to invent [during his life from 1585-92]. Some of the film is pure mischief. But then again, you’re riding on the back of [Romeo and Juliet,] the most famous love story ever written, so there are lots of strands to work with.” Stoppard won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay for the film.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa died on December 4 at the age of 75. He’s best known for bringing Shang Tsung to life in Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, delivering a deliciously sinister turn that became one of the film’s standout elements. His take on the soul-stealing sorcerer proved so memorable that he later reprised the character in episodes of Mortal Kombat: Legacy and Mortal Kombat X: Generations, and even returned to lend both his voice and likeness to the character in the Mortal Kombat 11 video game.
“Mortal Combat, to me, is as classic a bad guy as I can create,” he said in a 2001 interview. “And when I did that, my choice was to go so far over the top for a few reasons. One is, I didn’t think I’d want to play the evil sorcerer again, and I wanted to give him a power and a strength that people would remember. One other thing was the dialogue. As actors, we are reading scripts, and I wasn’t familiar with the game, and when I saw the game, it made more sense. But even more so when I went to act it, I thought, ‘Oh, I can do this. I’ll give him the meanest, nastiest lines.’ And sure enough, it was fun. I never realized I was making him that mean. Sort of shocked me a bit, but certainly that was one of my greatest experiences in acting.“
And while Shang Tsung remains one of Tagawa’s most iconic roles, it represents just a fraction of a career that spanned more than four decades and encompassed far more than a single villainous performance. He appeared in movies such as Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Emperor, Twins, Licence to Kill, Nemesis, The Phantom, Snow Falling on Cedars, Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, Elektra, Memoirs of a Geisha, 47 Ronin, Kubo and the Two Strings, and many more.
As for the small screen, he made appearances in shows such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, Miami Vice, Moonlighting, Babylon 5, Nash Bridges, Stargate SG-1, Heroes, Revenge, Grimm, Star Wars: Rebels, Lost in Space, Star Wars: Visions, and Blue Eye Samurai. But his most prominent TV role found him playing Trade Minister Nobusuke Tagomi in The Man in the High Castle. The series took place in an alternate world where the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan rule the world after their victory in World War II.
Peter Greene
Peter Greene died on December 12 at the age of 60. He was best known for his chilling turn as the sadistic Zed in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and for playing gangster Dorian Tyrell in The Mask, both of which were released in 1994.
In a 2011 interview, Greene admitted that despite the excitement surrounding the project, he was initially reluctant to take part in Pulp Fiction. “There was this big buzz about Pulp Fiction and I hadn’t seen the script, and they wanted me in it. I didn’t know what the role was, so when I got the script, I was thoroughly disappointed,” he said. “The way it was written wasn’t my cup of tea. If you ever saw Deliverance, you never saw the guy who took Ned Beatty and made him ‘squeal like a pig’ ever again, so I didn’t think it was a great career move.”
Greene explained that he ultimately convinced Tarantino to let him approach the scene on his own terms. “Quentin, I don’t know why he pressed me to do it, but he came back a couple of times and then I finally said, ‘I’ll do it if I can do it any way I wanted to,’ thinking he would never allow me to do it,” he said. “And so we just improvised the whole scene. We kept the language that was there. It was a much more graphic scene originally.”
Beyond Pulp Fiction and The Mask, Greene appeared in films such as Judgment Night, The Usual Suspects, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, The Rich Man’s Wife, Blue Streak, Training Day, The Bounty Hunter, Tesla, and more. He also made memorable television appearances on Law & Order, Justified, Hawaii Five-0, Chicago P.D., Still the King, For Life, and The Continental: From the World of John Wick. Greene was also part of the main cast of The Black Donnellys, in which he played an Irish gangster.
Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, died on December 14. He was 78 years old, and she was 70.
As the son of legendary comedian and filmmaker Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner grew up with a towering legacy, and he once recalled telling his father that he wanted to change his name. “My father thought, ‘Oh, my God, this poor kid is worried about being in the shadow of a famous father,’” Reiner said. “And he says, ‘What do you want to change your name to?’ And I said, ‘Carl.’ I just wanted to be like him.”
Reiner began his career with early appearances on television series such as That Girl, Batman, Gomer Pyle – U.S.M.C., and The Beverly Hillbillies, but he achieved stardom playing Michael “Meathead” Stivic on All in the Family. The role became so iconic that Reiner later joked, “I could win the Nobel Prize, and the headline would read, ‘Meathead wins Nobel.’ I wear it as a badge of honor.”
After All in the Family ended, Reiner successfully reinvented himself as a filmmaker, launching his directing career with the rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, in which he also memorably appeared as documentary filmmaker Martin “Marty” Di Bergi. His final film, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, brought his career full circle.
As a director, Reiner built one of the most eclectic and beloved filmographies in Hollywood, helming The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, North, The American President, Ghosts of Mississippi, The Story of Us, Rumor Has It, The Bucket List, And So It Goes, and many more.
Reiner never abandoned acting, however, and continued to appear on screen when the right opportunity arose. His film credits include The Jerk, Throw Momma from the Train, Postcards from the Edge, Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts, The First Wives Club, EDtv, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Sandy Wexler. On television, he made memorable appearances on The Odd Couple, Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, New Girl, Hollywood, and The Bear.
Gil Gerard
Gil Gerard died on December 16 at the age of 82. He was best known for playing Buck Rogers in the classic sci-fi adventure series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The show followed the titular character, a 20th-century astronaut who becomes frozen in space for 504 years before awakening in the year 2491. Despite the project’s eventual success, Gerard was initially hesitant when producer Glen A. Larson approached him about taking on the role.
“I saw what it did to Adam West‘s career with Batman, and this was another cartoon character,” Gerard said. “I didn’t want to do this campy stuff.“
Eventually, however, Gerard came around, finding something relatable in Rogers’ personality and worldview. “I thought the character had a sense of reality about him,” he said. “The sense of humor I liked very much and his humanity, I liked. I thought it was kind of cool. He wasn’t a stiff kind of a guy. He was a guy who could solve problems on his feet, and he wasn’t a superhero.“
Originally intended as a made-for-TV movie, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was released theatrically in 1979, where it grossed $21 million. A weekly television series was quickly ordered, with the film re-edited to serve as the first two episodes. While the show only ran for two seasons, its impact and cult following have endured for decades.
Beyond Buck Rogers, Gerard appeared in films such as Airport ’77 and The Nice Guys, as well as a wide range of television series, including The Doctors, Baretta, Little House on the Prairie, Sidekicks, Drop Dead Diva, and Transformers: Robots in Disguise.
James Ransone
James Ransone died on December 19 at the age of 46. He was best known for his portrayal of Ziggy Sobotka in the second season of The Wire. The character became one of the season’s most memorable figures, sharply dividing fans who either loved or loathed him. As the series grew in stature over the years, Ransone found himself wrestling with how closely he was identified with Ziggy long after the show ended.
“I did [get annoyed at being recognized as Ziggy] for a long time and now some of it has aged with me being more mature. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I should embrace that.’ It’s part of what I did. I should accept that my career wouldn’t be as rich as it is had I not done that,” he said in 2016. “I mistook people’s perception of me as a projection of them thinking that I was weak or incompetent or that I was that person. I don’t know what they’re thinking so that’s none of my business if they think I’m that character. If they do that’s fine because that means they were really invested in the story that I was lucky enough to be a part of. Some of it also is it was so long ago. I don’t think about it. To me it was 14 years ago.“
Ransone later reunited with The Wire creator David Simon on the HBO miniseries Generation Kill and went on to play a recurring role on Simon’s Treme, further cementing a creative partnership that extended beyond his breakout role.
His television work also included appearances on Law & Order, How to Make It in America, Burn Notice, Low Winter Sun, Bosch, Mosaic, The First, SEAL Team, and Poker Face. On the big screen, Ransone appeared in films such as A Dirty Shame, Inside Man, Prom Night, The Next Three Days, Sinister, Starlet, Red Hook Summer, Broken City, Oldboy, Tangerine, Sinister II, In a Valley of Violence, It Chapter Two, The Black Phone, V/H/S/85, and Black Phone 2.
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot died on December 28 at the age of 91. She made her film debut in Crazy for Love, later appearing in films such as Marina, The Girl in the Bikini, Act of Love, Concert of Intrigue, and Helen of Troy before becoming an international sensation with And God Created Woman. The film pushed the boundaries of on-screen sexuality for its time, earning a “C” for “Condemned” rating from the Catholic National Legion of Decency. It also cemented Bardot’s image as a pop-culture icon, saddling her with the nickname “sex kitten,” as audiences around the world couldn’t get enough of her.
Bardot went on to star in films including The Truth, A Very Private Affair, Contempt, Dear Brigitte, Shalako, and many others, but she abruptly stepped away from acting in 1973 while shooting The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot. While on location, she made her decision clear to a journalist: “I’m done with movies. It’s over — this film is the last one. I’m sick of it.“
Following her retirement from the screen, Bardot devoted herself entirely to animal rights activism. She became a vegetarian and founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the welfare and protection of animals, using her fame to campaign against seal hunting, bullfighting, poaching, the farming of horse meat, and other forms of animal cruelty. As she later explained, “I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” she said. “I am going to give my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.“
Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Isiah Whitlock Jr. died on December 30 at the age of 71. He was best known for playing Clayton “Clay” Davis in The Wire, a corrupt Maryland State Senator with a reputation for pocketing bribes and getting into trouble. He was fantastic in the role, which was made all the more popular by his catchphrase. No one could stretch out the word shit as he could, and series creator David Simon knew it would follow the actor for the rest of his life.
“I remember at the closing night party, David Simon came up to me and he said, ‘You know you’re going to have to live with that.’ I said, ‘Eh, you know, in a year or so it’s going to be over.’ He said, ‘I don’t know,’ and it turned into everywhere I went,” Whitlock Jr. told The AV Club. “And I’m talking like around the world. I heard people saying —I saw it in Amsterdam on the other side of the tracks, written in like graffiti with a guy who looked like Fat Albert. I guess that was supposed to be me—I had a problem with that part. [Laughs.] But it was this [graffiti drawing] saying it, and I thought, ‘You know, I’m going to have to deal with this.’“
The actor also frequently collaborated with director Spike Lee, appearing in films such as 25th Hour, She Hate Me, Red Hook Summer, Chi-Raq, BlacKkKlansman, and Da 5 Bloods. In fact, his catchphrase didn’t actually originate in The Wire, but was first said in 25th Hour.
Whitlock Jr. also built an extensive film and television résumé, appearing in movies such as Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Goodfellas, Eddie, 1408, Enchanted, Choke, Cedar Rapids, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Pete’s Dragon, Cars 3, The Old Man & the Gun, I Care a Lot, Lightyear, and Cocaine Bear. On television, his credits were just as impressive, with memorable roles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NYPD Blue, Chappelle’s Show, Rubicon, The Good Wife, Veep, The Blacklist, Gotham, Lucifer, The Mist, The Good Cop, Your Honor, and countless others.
Other notables we lost this year include Ernest Saves Christmas actor Bill Byrge, Enchanted April actress Dame Joan Plowright, Mr. Belvedere actor Bob Uecker, Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter actor Horst Janson, Annie Hall actor Tony Roberts, Street Fighter actor Peter “Navy” Tuiasosopo, Full Metal Jacket actor Kevyn Major Howard, Ellen actress Alice Hirson, Grosse Pointe Blank director George Armitage, Pee-wee’s Playhouse actress Lynne Marie Stewart, The Facts of Life actor John Lawlor, West Side Story actress Carole D’Andrea, Tough Guys Don’t Dance actor Wings Hauser, Little House on the Prairie actor Jack Lilley, Mad Max: Fury Road fight coordinator Richard Norton, Dennis the Menace actor Jay North, Boston Public actor Nicky Katt, First Blood director Ted Kotcheff, Upstairs, Downstairs actress and co-creator Jean Marsh, The Wire actor Charles Joseph Scalies Jr., Happy Gilmore actor Morris the Alligator, Drag Me to Hell actress Lorna Raver, Manifest actor Devin Harjes, Big Trouble in Little China actor Peter Kwong, Weeds actress Renée Victor, Sanford and Son actress Lynn Hamilton, Spider-Man actor Jack Betts, The Empire Strikes Back actor Kenneth Colley, Hogan’s Heroes actor Kenneth Washington, The Cannonball Run actor Alfie Wise, King of the Hill actor and musician Chuck Mangione, Coming Home editor Don Zimmerman, The Dark Knight Rises actor Alon Aboutboul, The Walking Dead actress Kelley Mack, Get Smart actor David Ketchum, What’s Happening!! actress Danielle Spencer, Alice actress Polly Holliday, Freddy vs Jason actress Paula Shaw, Port Charles actress Patricia Crowley, Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig, Vice Principals actress Kimberly Hébert Gregory, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor Floyd Roger Myers Jr, Terminator 2: Judgment Day cinematographer Adam Greenberg, Ran actor Tatsuya Nakadai, The Fantastic Four actor Carl Ciarfalio, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius actor Jeff Garcia, and Murphy Brown actor Pat Finn.
Tags: Alf Clausen, Bruce Glover, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Claudia Cardinale, Clive Revill, David Lynch, Diane Keaton, Diane Ladd, Drew Struzan, Gene Hackman, George Wendt, Gil Gerard, Graham Greene, Harris Yulin, Hulk Hogan, Isiah Whitlock Jr., James Foley, James Ransone, Jeannot Szwarc, Jeff Baena, Jerry Adler, Joe Don Baker, Julian McMahon, Lalo Schifrin, Lee Tamahori, Loni Anderson, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Michael Madsen, Michelle Trachtenberg, Ozzy Osbourne, Peter Greene, Peter Jason, Richard Chamberlain, Rick Hurst, Rob Reiner, Robert Benton, Robert Redford, Roberto Orci, Sally Kirkland, Samantha Eggar, Scott Spiegel, Tcheky Karyo, Terence Stamp, Tom Stoppard, Udo Kier, Val Kilmer, Valerie Mahaffey
JoBlo