R.I.P. CELEBRITY DEATHS 2020(NON WRESTLERS)

[on_the_edge]

Charley Pride was a true icon.

[jimsteel]

Pierre Lacroix, former Avalanche/Nordiques GM, dies at 72

Eye for talent, regard for athletes made him successful team builder, says Bettman

Pierre Lacroix, the astute executive who was the architect of two Colorado Avalanche Stanley Cup championship teams, has died. He was 72.

The Avalanche confirmed his death Sunday. No cause of death was given.

Lacroix was a driving force behind turning the Avalanche into a perennial power after the team relocated from Quebec to Denver for the 1995-96 season. The Avalanche hoisted the '96 Stanley Cup Trophy in their first season in the Mile High City and again in 2001.

Known for his shrewd trades, Lacroix struck a deal with Montreal to acquire Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy during the '95-96 season. It paid off with the city of Denver's first major sports championship.

[jimsteel]

John le Carré, Best-Selling Author of Cold War Thrillers, Dies at 89
Graham Greene called “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” featuring the plump, ill-dressed George Smiley, the greatest spy story he had ever read.


John le Carré, whose exquisitely nuanced, intricately plotted Cold War thrillers elevated the spy novel to high art by presenting both Western and Soviet spies as morally compromised cogs in a rotten system full of treachery, betrayal and personal tragedy, died on Saturday in Cornwall, England. He was 89.

The cause was pneumonia, his publisher, Penguin Random House, said on Sunday.

Before Mr. le Carré published his best-selling 1963 novel “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” which Graham Greene called “the best spy story I have ever read,” the fictional model for the modern British spy was Ian Fleming’s James Bond — suave, urbane, devoted to queen and country. With his impeccable talent for getting out of trouble while getting women into bed, Bond fed the myth of spying as a glamorous, exciting romp.

Mr. Le Carré upended that notion with books that portrayed British intelligence operations as cesspools of ambiguity in which right and wrong are too close to call and in which it is rarely obvious whether the ends, even if the ends are clear, justify the means.

Led by his greatest creation, the plump, ill-dressed, unhappy, brilliant, relentless George Smiley, Mr. le Carré’s spies are lonely, disillusioned men whose work is driven by budget troubles, bureaucratic power plays and the opaque machinations of politicians — men who are as likely to be betrayed by colleagues and lovers as by the enemy.

Smiley has a counterpart in the Russian master spy Karla, his opposite in ideology but equal in almost all else, an opponent he studies as intimately as a lover studies his beloved. The end of “Smiley’s People,” the last in a series known as the Karla Trilogy, brings them together in a stunning denouement that is as much about human frailty and the deep loss that comes with winning as it is about anything.

[jimsteel]

Ann Reinking, Tony Winner and Star of Broadway’s ‘Chicago,’ Dies at 71

The star got her acting start in a Seattle Opera House production of “Bye Bye Birdie” in 1965. She soon found her way onto the Broadway stage when she was cast in the ensemble for the 1969 production of “Cabaret.”

She is perhaps best known for playing Roxie Hart in 1977’s “Chicago,” replacing Gwen Verdon. She reprised the part when she returned for the 1996 revival of the famed production.

“The hope is that in rediscovering ‘Chicago,’ audiences will rediscover what theater was,” Reinking told The New York Times at the time of the show’s revival. “It was sophisticated, complicated, adult.”

Reinking’s other Broadway roles include “Sweet Charity,” “Over Here!” and “Goodtime Charley.”

In Bob Fosse’s 1979 autobiographical film “All That Jazz,” Reinking played a fictionalized version of herself, as the main character’s girlfriend and one of his muses. Reinking, who was with Fosse for years, was played by Margaret Qualley in FX’s 2019 limited series “Fosse/Verdon.”

“I really did watch her [on video] in the back of a minivan on my way to dance countless times,” Qualley said of Reinking in a 2019 interview with IndieWire. “I was really nervous because I wanted to do right by her. I looked up to her for so long, was so familiar with her. More than anything, I wanted her to like it.”

Reinking choreographed for theater as well. Her work on the later “Chicago” ultimately earned her a Tony Award for best choreography.

Reinking was also the co-creator, co-director and co-choreographer for “Fosse,” a musical meant to showcase Fosse’s choreography. She created the project alongside Richard Maltby Jr. and Chet Walker. The musical was Reinking’s final bow on Broadway, as she served as a replacement ensemble member in 2001.

[jimsteel]

Ex-Liverpool and Aston Villa manager Gerard Houllier dies aged 73 following heart surgery

[jimsteel]

Former Notre Dame football player Taylor Dever dies at age 31

[jimsteel]

Lorenzo Taliaferro, who played three seasons in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens, died on Wednesday, the York-Poquoson Sheriff's Office announced. He was 28 years old.

According to the sheriff’s office, deputies were dispatched to an apartment in Williamsburg, Virginia, where Taliaferro required medical attention. Medics later arrived and transported Taliafer to a local hospital, where he died.

Taliaferro’s cause of death was not disclosed.

A bruising, physical running back, Taliaferro landed in Baltimore when the team selected him in the fourth round of the 2014 NFL draft after a standout career at Coastal Carolina. Taliaferro soon broke onto the scene with a 91-rushing yard, one-touchdown effort in the third game of his rookie season.

Taliaferro would finish his rookie year with 292 rushing yards and four touchdowns. Injuries would plague his next two seasons, with him appearing in only six games total. After a switch to fullback, the Ravens released him before the 2017 season.

Taliaferro’s career then took him to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League, then the American Flag Football League.

[jimsteel]

First we lose Darth Vader now Boba Fett

R.I.P. BOBA FETT



Star Wars: Original Boba Fett Actor Jeremy Bulloch Dies at 75

Actor Jeremy Bulloch, most known for having sported the original armor for Boba Fett in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, has passed away at the age of 75. While it's hard to rival embodying Fett for the galaxy far, far away, the actor has more than a hundred credits to his name, which included Doctor Who and multiple James Bond films. Bulloch had a small role in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and, while he hadn't acted in a Star Wars film in a substantial capacity for years, he was a regular on the convention circuit up until he retired from live appearances in 2018.

[TTX]

RIP for the guy who played my favorite movie character to this day.

[jimsteel]

Beavis and Butt-Head Animator Doug Crane Dies at 85

Animator Doug Crane, whose six-decade career included working on Spider-Man, She-Ra, and He-Man cartoons in addition to films such as Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, died Thursday, December 17th at the age of 85.

He went on to work for Hanna-Barbera, Paramount, MTV, Oriolo Films and Zander Animation Parlour. His credits include films such as 1977's Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure, 1987's Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, and 1996's Beavis and Butt-Head Do America among many others. In terms of television, Crane also worked on Challenge of the Superfriends, Mighty Thor, She-Ra: Princess of Power, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Smurfs, Godzilla, Super Friends, and many more.

In addition to film and television, Crane also did work for commercials, receiving a Clio Award for his animation of The Wall Street Journal commercial. He also was a cartoonist whose work appeared in Archie comics. Additionally, Crane both designed and taught a comprehensive course in cartooning and animation at his alma mater, Eastchester High School, and was a professor of classical animation at The School of Visual Arts in new York City for 15 years. He was also invited to teach at the Institute of Animation and Film at the Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and served as the artist in residence at the Thornton-Donovan school in New Rochelle.