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Birgit Nordin. Soprano with the Royal Swedish Opera. Played the Queen of the Night in
Ingmar Bergman's The Magic Flute.

https://www.tidskriftenopera.se/birgit- ... 1934-2022/

mfunk9786 wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:48 pm

Jack Kubrick wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 7:28 pm Gilbert Gottfried, per Jason Alexander Twitter.

Obit from CNN. One of the most naturally funny human beings ever to exist.

Well, that news made me return to his 'sensual' reading of Fifty Shades of Grey!

colinr0380 wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:11 pm Well, that news made me return to his 'sensual' reading of Fifty Shades of Grey!

His double cameo as Patrick Swayze and Jerry Seinfeld on the short-lived Clerks: The Animated Series pops into my mind with unusual regularity (though I can't find it on YouTube just now).

colinr0380 wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:11 pm Well, that news made me return to his 'sensual' reading of Fifty Shades of Grey!

LMAO, this was funny. There isn't a whole lot of his stuff that I've seen - the one thing I can recall with much clarity is the scene in Problem Child where he sells Ritter on the idea of adopting an older kid, something that surprisingly comes to mind quite a bit whenever I'm around someone struggling with their baby. Otherwise, the most I've seen comes from his one disappointing season on SNL, further proof of that show's unquestionable ability to find talent as well as its embarrassingly erratic history of how well it utilized its cast.

Michel Bouquet

Appeared in many Truffaut and Chabrol films. Was also the narrator of Resnais' Night and Fog

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c97y9d44wn7o

One of the most omnipresent of French actors, RIP

Bouquet never won a best actor Cesar until the 21st century? Crazy.

To be fair, they didn’t start until the second half of the 70s, and first half of the 70s is arguably when he was at the height of his popularity

at least they made up for it by giving it to him twice in five years

I will always associate Bouquet with his amazing role as the husband seemingly willing to do anything to keep his wife close by in Chabrol's The Unfaithful Wife. It is similar to Le Boucher in that whilst the reactions of Stéphane Audran to the events that occur is enormously important, there also needed to be a co-star also able to work at that same kind of level that the complicated twists of the story needs in order to work. Where by the final shot we as the audience get lost in an ambiguous haze of sympathy for someone (or everyone in this case!) who has committed terrible acts.

dekadetia wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 1:38 pm

colinr0380 wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:11 pm Well, that news made me return to his 'sensual' reading of Fifty Shades of Grey!

His double cameo as Patrick Swayze and Jerry Seinfeld on the short-lived Clerks: The Animated Series pops into my mind with unusual regularity (though I can't find it on YouTube just now).

His real Seinfeld imitation is the best I’ve ever heard. Dead accurate to a scary degree.

Sonny Caldinez - https://twitter.com/fantomfilms/status/ ... 6118080514

A recurrent Ice Warrior in Doctor Who, and Scaramanga's tech henchman in The Man with the Golden Gun

Jazz bassist Charnett Moffett

Mike Bossy

fdm wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2022 5:22 pm Jazz bassist Charnett Moffett

Terrible loss. Black Codes is a great album, and Ask the Ages is even greater - they're both available to stream, but if you want a physical copy of the latter, they're pretty expensive. (Wynton's Columbia/Sony albums like the former are usually cheap and easy to find - they pressed a lot of them.)

Two of my favorites.

Liz Sheridan

According to an email from Hemlock Books, Denis Meikle has passed. One of my favourite writers on British horror, his book on Hammer is probably the best single volume history of the studio.

Art Rupe, 104, founder of Specialty Records. Most famous for giving Little Richard his break and the subsequent string of classic early Rock hits. Also took a pass on You Send Me and Sam Cooke's soul career, after recording a good deal of Cooke gospel with the Soul Stirrers. Before Little Richard's breakout, Rupe was recording tons of great R&B in the late 40's and early 50's, mostly from New Orleans -- Lloyd Price (in the Criterion Collection), Clifton Chenier, Art Neville, Larry Williams, etc -- and Los Angeles -- Percy Mayfield, Roy Milton, Jimmy Liggins, etc -- capturing the post-war transition to Rock 'n Roll. Specialty also recorded lots of gospel in the early 50's. Really a key label for that era.\

Rupe was one of a number of white businessmen who dug black American music, had a terrific ear for talent and opened an independent record label. Through which he both promoted black musicians to fame and profited by seriously underpaying them. Typical of the racial dynamics of the time.

I wonder if any of those label owners from that era actually compensated their Black artists fairly? (I think John Hammond tried to at Columbia - supposedly when Decca got to Count Basie and his band before he could, he looked over the contract and told Basie Decca was ripping them off. He helped them renegotiate and get at least a "fair" deal but it was still much less than their worth. Fortunately he was able to sign them to Columbia a few years later for much more pay, but those Decca recordings are still their best.)

Anyway, I always felt like this kind of thing never got enough attention, or rather everyone who practiced it got off easy, especially thugs like Don Deadric Robey who flat out took songwriting credit (and royalties) through threats and actual force. With Rupe, Little Richard did sue him in 1959 for back royalties but settled out of court for a measly $11,000.

I have the Little Richard Specialty sessions box set from Ace and the Soul Stirrers collections with Sam Cooke, can't recommend them enough. Outside of that, I mostly have singles collected on multi-artist compilations, but I did get Clifton Chenier's Bayou Blues recently, which is a great little album - easy to find cheap.

British composer Harrison Birtwistle

ellipsis7 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 2:44 pm British composer Harrison Birtwistle

...whose involvement with film was minimal in the extreme, but he did score Sidney Lumet's The Offence. And of course as arguably the greatest British opera composer since Britten (and much else besides) his place in the creative pantheon has been rock-solid for decades.

Amusingly, the IMDB lists what are clearly broadcasts of National Theatre and Royal Opera House performances as "TV movies"!