Hollywood.com would like to offer up a reminder of the wonderful people we have lost in the past year.
Jack Lemmon
The classic everyman, Lemmon was a one-of-a-kind actor who could handle both drama and comedy flawlessly in the same scene. The two-time Oscar winner’s films ranged from the hilarious (Some Like It Hot) to the dark and haunting (Days of Wine and Roses). Lemmon’s career spanned more than 50 films over 47 years, as he became a true Hollywood icon. Lemmon had a long habit of exulting “Magic time!” before every take–magic that can easily be seen in each of his movies.
Anthony Quinn
Despite his Mexican lineage, Quinn was best known for his titular role as Zorba the Greek, and indeed, no ethnicity was too foreign for Quinn to represent. Another two-time Oscar winner, Quinn’s rough-hewn charm and no-nonsense, tough-guy attitude lasted long after his movie star looks had faded (early) and served him better than his visage ever could. Quinn’s love for life (and the ladies) remained strong, as he fathered 13 children by three wives, including the son he sired at the age of 81.
Carroll O’Connor
Long before he became Archie Bunker (at age 46) to millions of adoring fans, O’Connor had become known as a fine actor to many directors. O’Connor appeared in 18 movies in the 1960s, including Hawaii, before landing TV’s All in the Family in 1971. He landed another critically acclaimed series, In the Heat of the Night in 1988. O’Connor was best known for his bluster on camera, never more so than in 1967’s Point Blank when he told Lee Marvin he was “a very bad man.”
Stanley Kramer
Kramer, a producer and director, simply liked to make movies that appealed to the moral core of the country. Kramer’s most famous works that bear his stamp are High Noon, Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremburg. That’s not to say Kramer didn’t like to have fun every now and then–he also helped steer the 1963 raucous comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
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Ray Walston
Walston started on the stage (he won a Tony for Damn Yankees) before switching to the big screen and landing parts in notable films such as The Apartment and The Sting. His signature role was as the martian in the 1960s TV series My Favorite Martian, but his lengthy career included such memorable roles as Mr. Hand in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Dale Evans
Evans met Roy Rogers on the set of the 1944 Western, Cowboy and the Senorita. Turned out that Evans was Rogers’ senorita, as the two married and co-starred in more than 25 movies before moseying on to television fame. Our everlasting picture of Evans will be her sitting on her horse Buttermilk, crooning “Happy Trails.”
Troy Donahue
A onetime matinee idol, Donahue spent much of his later career running from the image he had created. From teen heartthrob (A Summer Place) to hippie (Sweet Saviour to faded playboy (The Godfather Part II), Donahue played roles that were as varied and flashy as his real life.
Nigel Hawthorne
An intense-looking British character player of stage, TV and film, Hawthorne was often cast as an older dignitary or man of official stature. Indeed, Hawthorne was nominated for an Oscar for his lead role in 1994’s The Madness of King George. Hawthorne first gained notice in the States for his classic portrayal of the stiff-lipped, quick-witted civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby in the acclaimed British series Yes, Minister.
Kathleen Freeman
Freeman will be remembered most for her turn as Sister Mary Stigmata in The Blues Brothers, even though she has appeared in more than 100 movies over the last five decades. Freeman was known for her brash turns, as her characters were usually loudmouthed, nosy or ill tempered–and oftentimes all three. Freeman’s final on-screen role came in Joe Dirt, playing Joe’s crotchety foster mom.
Kim Stanley
An actress who purposely stayed on the fringes of show business, Stanley still managed to reel in two Oscar nominations. Stanley received the first for her portrayal of a crazed psychic in 1964’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon. It took 18 years for the second to come, this time for her role as Jessica Lange’s grasping mom in Frances.
Julius Epstein
Epstein could have hung his career as a screenwriter on any of the following films: The Man Who Came to Dinner, Mr. Skeffington and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Yet there’s still one classic standard that will define Epstein’s career forever, and that’s Casablanca. Clearly, Epstein was one of Hollywood’s best writers.
Budd Boetticher
Boetticher split his career between directing lyrical tributes to bullfighting and lone hero Westerns, including The Bullfighter and the Lady and Seven Men From Now. Despite his late-in-life renunciation of the genres he helped define, Boetticher’s work still stands as a formidable canon.
Sam Arkoff
Dismissed by critics, Arkoff’s AIP Productions made schlock movies–and plenty of them, starting in the 1950s–but made no apologies. AIP didn’t have to: their low-budget, high-return formula tapped into markets long ignored by mainstream Hollywood, teens and horror fans. AIP launched many mainstream actors’ careers, including Michael Landon, Charles Bronson, Jack Nicholson, Don Johnson and Nick Nolte. The producer’s willingness to experiment also helped jumpstart the directing careers of Frances Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen.
Ted Demme
A director and producer, Demme’s life was cut tragically short at the age of 38. The nephew of Jonathan Demme, Ted cut his teeth on television, before breaking through on the big screen with 1994’s The Ref, starring Denis Leary. Demme’s star was on the ascent, as went on to direct Beautiful Girls (Uma Thurman, Natalie Portman), produce Rounders (Matt Damon), before finally producing and directing Blow (Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz).
Others we lost include: Dorothy McGuire, Oscar-nominated actress; Tedd Mann, owner, Mann’s Chinese Theater; John Springer, publicist; Imogene Coca, actress; Peggy Lee, singer and Oscar nominated actress; William Hannah, cartoonist; George Harrison, singer and actor; Ken Kesey, writer; Ann Sothern, Oscar-nominated actress; James Bernard, Oscar-winning screenwriter; Howard W. Koch, producer; Jay Livingston, Oscar-winning songwriter; Herbert Ross, Oscar-nominated director and choreographer; Pauline Kael, film critic; Ken Hughes, director; Aaliyah, singer and actress; Berry Berenson, actress; Lewis Arquette, actor; Ralph Burns, Oscar-winning composer; Beatrice Straight, Oscar-winning actress; Jane Greer, actress; Rosemary DeCamp, actress; and Charlotte Coleman, actress.
