Tag Archives: Obituaries

Entertainment

‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ Writer Was 91

Bob Ellison, the two-time Emmy Award winner who wrote for The Mary Tyler Moore Present and served as a game-saving inventive/script guide on Cheers, Wings, Becker and lots of different comedies, has died. He was 91.

He died April 8 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Middle in Los Angeles, his enterprise supervisor, Malcolm Orland, informed The Hollywood Reporter. “He was a sweetheart and so good at what he did,” Orland mentioned.

Ellison got here from the world of selection exhibits, the place he wrote and/or produced a number of specials that starred Julie Andrews and Burt Bacharach. He additionally co-developed the 1988-92 NBC sitcom Expensive John, starring Judd Hirsch.

Ellison wrote 15 episodes and was an government story editor over the past two of The Mary Tyler Moore Present’s seven seasons (from 1975-77). He shared an Emmy with Allan Burns, James L. Brooks, Ed. Weinberger, Stan Daniels and David Lloyd for the beloved collection finale, “The Final Present.”

The unheralded Ellison was a guide on one other legendary sitcom, NBC’s Cheers, for its ultimate seven seasons (1986-93); on NBC’s Wings for its final 4 years (1993-97); and on CBS’ Becker for its ultimate 5 seasons (1999-2004).

He carried out related duties for Caroline within the Metropolis, Andy Controls the Universe, Bob, Amen, Angie, Better of the West and Mr. President.

“He was at all times optimistic, at all times humorous and at all times introduced new power into each writing session,” Becker creator Dave Hackel informed THR. (They labored collectively on Expensive John and Wings as properly.)

So simply what does a inventive guide do? They “come on someday per week on a troubled script, go to a run-through and a studying and discover out what the issues are and attempt to repair them. Generally that entails jokes that don’t work,” he informed fellow comedy author Ken Levine on a 2019 episode of the Hollywood & Levine podcast.

“You at all times must determine that the reply is within the air. You simply have to attend, comprehend it when it comes alongside and seize it. You’ll be able to’t go in and say it’s unattainable, you could’t discover it, that you just’ll by no means get it.”

Throughout one spectacular stretch, he labored on six exhibits per week.

Born in New York on Feb. 25, 1933, Robert Ellison graduated from the LaGuardia Excessive Faculty of Music & Artwork and began out in present enterprise as a trombone participant within the Catskills. He usually had a joke for the stand-up with whom he was sharing a nightclub invoice.

Ellison as soon as wrote a bit concerning the TV present Ben Casey for a comic book and bought paid $68.80 for it, a sum he used to cowl the price of an Olivetti typewriter he’d simply bought. That despatched his profession in a brand new route, and he would write for Tony Bennett, stand-up Pat Henry and lots of others.

He labored on The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, The Dom DeLuise Present and the Robert Morse-starring That’s Life within the Nineteen Sixties, then was employed for specials hosted by the likes of Andrews, Bacharach, Alan King, Bing Crosby, Petula Clark, Jackie Gleason, Mac Davis and Richard Pryor.

Ellison obtained his first Emmy for a 1971 Bacharach particular and was additionally nominated for his writing on The Kraft Music Corridor that yr, Julie and Carol at Lincoln Middle (that might be Andrews and Carol Burnett) in 1972 and The Julie Andrews Hour in 1973.

He labored on the Mary Tyler Moore spinoffs Rhoda and Phyllis and produced The Betty White Present, all for MTM Enterprises, too.

Survivors embrace his spouse, Elaine. That they had no kids.

Levine additionally wrote alongside Ellison on Cheers, Becker and different comedies and introduced him in to assist out on Large Wave Dave’s, the 1993 CBS sitcom he created with David Isaacs. “When David and I might get a present on the air, our first name was at all times to you,” Levine informed him on the podcast.

Ellison recalled a time when an ABC government who had two “henchmen” with him watched a run-through of a sketch he had written. “My Midwest asshole tells me that’s not humorous,” the man informed Ellison. “I mentioned, ‘Which one is he?’”

Entertainment

Kevan Lannister Actor in Game of Thrones Was 74

Ian Gelder, the British actor who performed Kevan Lannister in HBO’s Recreation of Thrones and the villain Zellin in Physician Who, has died. He was 74.

“It’s with large large unhappiness and a heavy coronary heart damaged into one million items that I’m leaving this publish to announce the passing of my darling husband and life companion Ian Gelder,” the actor Ben Daniels introduced on Instagram. Daniels revealed that Gelder had been recognized with bile duct most cancers 5 months in the past and that “neither of us had any concept that it will all be so quick.”

“He was my absolute rock and we’d been companions for greater than 30 years. If we weren’t collectively we spoke to one another on a regular basis,” Daniels wrote on Instagram. “He was the kindest, most beneficiant spirited and loving human being. He was an exquisite fantastic actor and everybody who labored with him was touched by his coronary heart and lightweight. I truthfully don’t know what I’ll do with out him by my aspect.”

“We’re saddened to listen to of lan Gelder’s demise. Some of the variety and mild folks within the enterprise, lan’s profession spanned many many years,” Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, co-artistic administrators the Royal Shakespeare Firm stated in an announcement on X. “He was a daily on the RSC stage from the 70s onwards, creating many memorable performances together with his Antonio in The Service provider of Venice and Clarence in Richard III. Our ideas are along with his household and buddies.”

A veteran character actor, who appeared on stage and display screen, Gelder’s profession spanned six many years and apart from Recreation of Thrones and Physician Who he made appearances in a number of well-known exhibits, together with Torchwood, Snatch and His Darkish Supplies.

Born June 3, 1949, Gelder made his first appearances on British tv in 1972, showing within the police procedural New Scotland Yard. All through his profession Gelder discovered common work as a personality actor, and made appearances in a number of in style British exhibits together with long-running dramas The Invoice, Eastenders, Casualty and Holby Metropolis.

Solely within the later years of his profession did Gelder discover extra mainstream notoriety, after that includes in 12 episodes of HBO’s phenomenally profitable fantasy present Recreation of Thrones. Within the present, Gelder performed Kevan Lannister, the youthful brother of the scheming Lord Tywin Lannister performed by Charles Dance. Gelder’s character dies within the remaining season of Recreation of Thrones when the Nice Sept of Baelor is incinerated by wildfire.

Gelder had a prolonged and profitable profession in theater and had a protracted affiliation with the Royal Shakespeare Firm and London’s Globe Theater. He appeared within the RSC’s productions of Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, The Service provider of Venice, Richard III and As You Like It, amongst others.

For the Donmar Warehouse, Gelder starred in Arnold Wesker’s Roots (2013), C.P. Taylor’s Good (1999) and Ben Hecht and Charles Macarthur’s The Entrance Web page (1997). And for the Royal Courtroom Theatre he starred in Physique Speak (1996), Fireface (2000), Mouth To Mouth (2001) and The Low Street (2013).

Gelder additionally appeared in options, essentially the most notable of which embody Little Dorrit (1987), King Ralph (1991) and Surge (2020).

Entertainment

‘Virginia Woolf’ Star, Acting Teacher Was 86

Rochelle Oliver, who starred on Broadway in Lillian Hellman’s Toys within the Attic and Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and taught appearing at New York’s revered HB Studio for the reason that Seventies, has died. She was 86.

Oliver died April 13, the HB Studio introduced. “Those that knew Rochelle will know what a luminous artist, delicate and passionate trainer she was,” it stated in an Instagram publish. She died two days shy of her birthday.

For the large display, Oliver starred within the Horton Foote-written 1918 (1985) and Courtship (1987) and appeared in such different movies as The Blissful Hooker (1975), Paul Mazursky‘s Subsequent Cease, Greenwich Village (1976), John Sayles’ Lianna (1983), An Unremarkable Life (1989), Martin Brest’s Scent of a Girl (1992) and Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending (2002).

She additionally recurred as Decide Grace Larkin on Legislation & Order from 1993-03.

A protégé of Uta Hagen — who additionally taught for many years at HB and was married to founder Herbert Berghof — Oliver made her Broadway debut in 1960 in Toys within the Attic as Lily Berniers, the younger, egocentric bride of Jason Robards’ character.

She acquired the Clarence Derwent Award for her efficiency within the Arthur Penn-directed manufacturing, which additionally featured Maureen Stapleton and Anna Revere and was nominated for the Tony Award for finest play (it misplaced to The Miracle Employee).

From left: Jason Robards, Anne Revere, Maureen Stapleton and Rochelle Oliver within the 1960-61 Broadway drama ‘Toys within the Attic.’

Courtesy Everett Assortment

After Tony nominee Melinda Dillon give up the extreme Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? after 9 months — she would spend time in a psychiatric hospital — Oliver stepped into the function of Honey within the unique Broadway manufacturing in 1963 that starred Hagen, Arthur Hill and George Grizzard.

Born in New York Metropolis on April 15, 1937, Oliver started learning with Hagen at age 17 and in 1957 appeared in an off-Broadway manufacturing of The Brothers Karamazov. Two years later, she landed on episodes of the TV dramas Bare Metropolis and Deadline.

Later, she would work on such different exhibits as The Defenders, The Medical doctors and the Nurses, The Better of The whole lot and Ryan’s Hope.

Oliver additionally appeared on Broadway in Harold (with Anthony Perkins and Don Adams) in 1962 and in Bernard Slade’s Fortunately By no means After in 1966 and stood by for Ellen Burstyn in Similar Time, Subsequent Yr, which premiered in 1975, and for Polly Holliday as Massive Mama in Cat on a Scorching Tin Roof in 1990.

She labored with Foote on his three one-act performs that grew to become The Orphans’ House Cycle and have been filmed for public tv.

Oliver taught in HB’s Hagen Core Program and acted and directed on the HB Playwrights stage. Her objective as an appearing trainer, she stated in her instructing assertion on the HB web site, was to “information college students to search out their very own voice as theater artists. I insist college students take the time to ask the questions, do the wanted exploration, perceive the significance of course of in our work and to please not go away their imaginations behind on this tradition of instantaneous solutions. The enjoyment for me is our working collectively as we uncover and study.”

She was a key member of the transition board assembled by Richard Mawe to information the college after Hagen’s demise in 2004 and continued as an energetic member of the HB board and on HB’s creative council till 2022, HB famous.

Oliver was married to actors James Patterson (Within the Warmth of the Night time) from 1959 till his demise in 1972 and to Fritz Weaver (Fail-Secure, The Day of the Dolphin) from 1997 till his demise in 2016.

Survivors embody her son, John.

“Educating appearing meant all the things to Rochelle; and HB gave her the outlet and the liberty she wanted to show her approach. Thanks to the HB Studio neighborhood from the Oliver/Patterson household,” he stated.

Entertainment

Producer, Angela Lansbury Brother Was 94

Edgar Lansbury, the Tony-winning producer and youthful brother of famed actress Angela Lansbury who guided the Broadway and big-screen variations of The Topic Was Roses and Godspell, has died. He was 94. 

He died Thursday at his dwelling in Manhattan, his son David Lansbury informed The Hollywood Reporter.

Lansbury additionally produced the favored 1974-75 Broadway revival of Gypsy that starred his sister in a Tony-winning flip and labored on different movies together with The Wild Celebration (1975), directed by James Ivory.

Angela Lansbury, winner of 5 Tony Awards and star of Homicide, She Wrote, died on Oct. 11, 2022, at age 96. His twin brother, TV producer Bruce Lansbury, died in February 2017 at age 87. 

Lansbury’s first Broadway manufacturing, the extraordinary household drama The Topic Was Roses, opened in 1964, ran for 2 years, and gained a Pulitzer Prize and the Tony for finest play. Written by Frank Gilroy and directed by Ulu Grosbard, it starred Martin Sheen as a returning veteran and son of warring dad and mom performed by Jack Albertson and Irene Dailey.

Sheen, Albertson, Gilroy and Grosbard then reprised their roles for the MGM model, with Albertson backing up his Tony victory by profitable the Oscar for supporting actor reverse Patricia Neal as his spouse.

Invited by future Hill Road Blues actor Charles Haid to a efficiency of Godspell on the New York experimental theater membership La MaMa in March 1971, Lansbury and his frequent producing accomplice Joseph Beruh took the musical to the off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre in 1971 after which to Broadway in 1976. (Victor Garber performed Jesus within the 1973 Columbia adaptation.)

The onetime scenic designer additionally acquired Drama Desk nominations in 1977 and 1998, respectively, for producing American Buffalo, starring Robert Duvall in David Mamet‘s Broadway debut, and Douglas Carter Beane’s As Bees in Honey Drown.

In 2007, he was offered with the John Houseman Award from The Performing Firm to honor his dedication to the event of classical actors and a nationwide viewers for the theater. (He served on its board of administrators for greater than 4 many years since its begin in 1972.)

Edgar Lansbury and sister Angela Lansbury in 2012

Rob Kim/Getty

Edgar George Lansbury was born in London on Jan. 12, 1930. His mom, Moyna Macgill, was a Belfast-born stage actress, and his father, additionally Edgar, was a politician and timber service provider. His grandfather was George Lansbury, a former Labor Celebration chief in England and a member of Parliament.

As World Battle II was heating up, he got here to New York in 1940 aboard a refugee boat along with his sister, brother and mom (his dad had died of abdomen most cancers when Edgar was 4). They lived in upstate New York after which in Greenwich Village earlier than he and Bruce attended the Choate College in Wallingford, Connecticut.

After the twins joined their mother and Angela in Los Angeles — each ladies had landed performing contracts at MGM by then — he graduated from College Excessive College, served within the U.S. Military for 2 years and have become a U.S. citizen in 1954.

Lansbury studied drawing and portray on the Otis Artwork Institute and at UCLA, then landed a job as artwork director at CBS Tv Metropolis. He labored as an artwork director on The Crimson Skelton Hour, Climax!, Studio One, Playhouse 90 and The Defenders and on the 1962 movie Battle Hunt, starring John Saxon.

In 1967, he produced Coronet Blue, a CBS drama that starred Frank Converse as an amnesia sufferer in the hunt for his true identification.

With Beruh, Lansbury took a 10-year lease on a lodge ballroom on Broadway at 76th Road in New York and designed and constructed the 400-seat Promenade Theater, which opened in 1969. The venue hosted lots of of performs earlier than shuttering in 2006.

Lansbury’s producing résumé additionally included the Broadway tasks The Solely Recreation in City, Doug Henning’s The Magic Present, The Evening That Made America Well-known and Lennon; off-Broadway revivals of Ready for Godot and Lengthy Day’s Journey Into Evening (with a solid that included Robert Ryan, Stacy Keach and Geraldine Fitzgerald); and the 1977 movie Blue Sunshine.

In his later years, he turned to portray and sculpture.

Along with David, an actor, survivors embody his second spouse, artist Louise Peabody (they married in 2008), and his different kids, James (an assistant director on Seinfeld), George, Michael, Brian and Kate.

Entertainment

Marvel Art Director, Production Designer Was 56 

Ray Chan, the artwork director and manufacturing designer for Marvel Studios who contributed to Guardians of the Galaxy, three Avengers films, the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine and extra, has died. He was 56.

Chan died Tuesday close to his house in Wales, his household introduced. No reason for dying was divulged.

“Ray really was top-of-the-line, in so some ways,” they mentioned. “He had an exuberance for all times, which was tragically reduce brief and can be sorely missed. He cherished his profession and lived a wealthy and great life, and his reminiscence will dwell on by way of all these he knew and the movies he helped make occur.”

Chan served as supervising artwork director on Thor: The Darkish World (2013), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Physician Unusual (2016) and the Avengers movies Age of Ultron (2015), Infinity Battle (2018) and Endgame (2019).

He additionally was an artwork director on Spider-Man: Far From Residence (2019) and manufacturing designer on the 2021 miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves (2023) and Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine, which stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman and hits theaters in July.

“He was as beneficial a inventive pressure on Deadpool & Wolverine because the writers, director and stars,” Reynolds said on social media.

“I don’t faux to know each chapter of Ray’s coronary heart, however I do know it’s uncommon to come across somebody with that stage of artistry who concurrently moved by way of the world with such indelible humanity.

“He constructed worlds from scratch — and did so in probably the most collaborative and inclusive methods. Ray was peerless. He’ll be missed by so many, however most of all by his household. 

“The final time I noticed Ray was precisely two weeks in the past. One in every of [the] final issues I mentioned to him was that he makes magic, and there’s no person on Earth like him. He and I might additionally give one another lots of good-natured shit. So … of all of the final issues you might say to somebody you like, that’s a bit of scrap of comfort I’ll cling onto perpetually.”

Mentioned Levy: “Ray did greater than design the world of our film; he lit up the world round him. Actually, anybody who knew Ray, or was fortunate sufficient to collaborate with him as we have been, skilled this beacon of a person: sort, heat, tenaciously devoted and relentlessly inspiring — Ray labored and lived with a joyous and contagious humanity that’s uncommon.”

The oldest of three youngsters of Hong Kong immigrants, Raymond Chan was born on Dec. 1, 1967, in Oldham, Better Manchester. His mom was a machinist and his father a bus driver. He graduated with a graphic design diploma from the Liverpool College of Artwork, then moved to London to affix the brand new movie and tv M.A. postgraduate program at Kingston Artwork Faculty.

After commencement and work as a butcher, Chan served as an artwork division assistant on The Secret Rapture (1993), then was a senior draughtsman on Hackers (1995). He went on to work on different movies together with Johnny English (2003), Nationwide Treasure (2004), Alien vs. Predator (2004), Youngsters of Males (2006), Flyboys (2006), Knight and Day (2010) and Robin Hood (2010).

Chan collaborated with manufacturing designer Charles Wooden on six Marvel movies and 10 films in all.

“Every movie that Marvel [puts out], it’s all the time a really concerned course of, for myself and Charlie, each is exclusive and a problem,” Chan mentioned in a 2018 interview with The Credit. “Guardians of the Galaxy is completely different to Ultron, which is completely different to Dr. Unusual.

“Infinity Wars was most likely the largest problem. It comes off as a collaboration, working with an important studio like Marvel. There are nice scriptwriters, administrators, they convey so much to the desk. They’d provide you with concepts, first, and we’d bounce off that.”

In an announcement to The Hollywood Reporter, Wooden known as Chan “an unimaginable expertise, a superb designer, a real artist and an inspiring and steadfast chief. Ray was stuffed with the best kindness, unending generosity and implausible humor; he had probably the most extraordinary vitality and was so deeply treasured by everybody who met him.”

“From Xandar to the Sanctum Sanctorum, Ray introduced distinct, lived-in worlds to the display screen, spanning the far reaches of house to a Louisiana fishing boat,” Marvel mentioned. “He was additionally an exquisite buddy and colleague.”

Chan shared excellence in manufacturing design awards from the Artwork Administrators Guild in 2015 and 2020 for Guardians of the Galaxy and Endgame, respectively.

Survivors embrace his spouse, Lindsay; his sons, Caspar and Sebastian; and his daughter-in-law, Danielle.

“If not occupied with household or movie,” they mentioned, “Ray would almost definitely have his thoughts set on one of many three issues, every of which, in one other life, Ray would have excelled in: meals, for Ray dearly cherished to prepare dinner for household and pals and was a first-rate chef and benevolent host; vehicles, be it his beloved Vary Rover P38, the mechanics of a Jeep’s engine or Method One; his backyard, at his home in Cowbridge, Wales, which he deliberate together with his typical design aptitude. A lover of traditional movie, Ray additionally, maybe surprisingly, cherished musicals, with The Sound of Music being a agency favourite.”

Any tales or recollections of Chan could be left right here. Donations in his reminiscence could be made to the Stroke Affiliation.

Entertainment

‘Young and the Restless’ Actress Was 85

Marla Adams, the Emmy-winning cleaning soap opera veteran who starred because the scheming Dina Abbott Mergeron throughout elements of 5 many years on The Younger and the Stressed, has died. She was 85.

Adams died Thursday in Los Angeles, Matt Kane, director of media and expertise for Y&R, introduced.

When she was simply beginning out, Adams appeared in 1958 alongside Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne on Broadway in The Go to and portrayed June, the highschool finest pal of Natalie Wooden‘s Deanie, in Elia Kazan‘s Splendor within the Grass (1961).

Her first outstanding function on a daytime drama got here on CBS’ The Secret Storm, the place she performed unhealthy lady Belle Clemens from 1968 till the present’s 1974 demise. “I used to be the bitch of daytime,” she stated in a 2016 interview. “I performed bitch.”

Adams joined Y&R in 1982 however left when her three-year contract was up. She returned to Genoa Metropolis for transient stints in 1991, 1996 and 2008 earlier than being requested by head writer-producer Sally Sussman to go it once more in 2017.

“I bear in mind when [Sussman told her], ‘I’m going to carry you again on The Younger and the Stressed, however you’ve bought Alzheimer’s,’ and I stated, ‘What!? You’re bringing me again so you possibly can kill me off?’” she recalled in 2020. “And he or she stated, ‘Oh no, it’ll be a few yr.’ That dissolved into 4 years.”

Viewers watched the Abbott matriarch slowly and heartbreakingly unravel earlier than dying in an episode in October 2020. In her remaining moments, she addressed her children, Traci (Beth Maitland), Jack (Peter Bergman) and Ashley (Eileen Davidson), earlier than being welcomed into heaven by her first husband, John Abbott (Jerry Douglas).

Eight months later, Adams obtained the lone Daytime Emmy of her lengthy profession.

“From all of the characters I’ve performed, from The Secret Storm to Broadway, this has been essentially the most astonishing, wonderful half I’ve had the privilege to play,” she stated.

Marla Adams was born on Aug. 28, 1938, in Ocean Metropolis, New Jersey. She was named Miss Diamond Jubilee on the seventy fifth anniversary celebration of her hometown in 1954 and graduated two years later from Ocean Metropolis Excessive Faculty.

She spent two years with The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was employed for The Go to, directed by Peter Brook, on the day she graduated. “I performed Alfred Lunt’s daughter, and I believed, ‘Nicely, it’s going to be downhill from right here,’” she instructed Cleaning soap Opera Digest in 2018.

Adams made her big-screen debut within the interval drama Splendor within the Grass, which was Warren Beatty‘s first film, too.

Actors on ‘The Secret Storm,’ clockwise from left: Christina Crawford, Keith Charles, Nicolas Coster, Lori March, Jada Rowland and Marla Adams.

Everett

After Belle made life depressing for Jada Rowland’s Amy Ames on The Secret Storm, she moved to Los Angeles when the cleaning soap was canceled and guest-starred on episodes of The New Dick Van Dyke Present, Harry O, Adam-12, Starsky and Hutch, Marcus Welby, M.D., Barnaby Jones, The Love Boat, Emergency! and Archie Bunker’s Place earlier than touchdown on Y&R.

The actress additionally portrayed Mildred Deal on ABC’s Common Hospital in 1963; the conniving Myrna Clegg — between turns by Carolyn Jones and Marj Dusay — on CBS’ Capitol in 1983; Helen Mullin on NBC’s Generations in 1989-90; Beth Logan on CBS’ The Daring and the Lovely in 1990-91; and Dr. Claire McIntyre on NBC’s Days of Our Lives in 1999.

She was additionally nominated for a Daytime Emmy for her flip as Dina in 2018 earlier than profitable one three years later.

“On behalf of the complete firm of The Younger and the Stressed, we ship our deepest sympathies to Marla’s household,” Josh Griffith, govt producer and head author of Y&R, stated in an announcement. “We’re so grateful and in awe of Marla’s unbelievable efficiency as Dina Mergeron as each Marla and Dina made an unforgettable mark on [the show].”

Survivors embody her kids, Gunnar and Pam; grandchildren Gefjon and Stone; and great-grandson Remi.

In her later years, Adams stated she was nonetheless getting noticed in public. “I’m very large at Walmart,” she stated with amusing. “After I was youthful, I used to be acknowledged on a regular basis, and now that I’m older, individuals are like, ‘Is that her? No, that’s not her. It couldn’t be! Just a few previous woman in sneakers and sweats.’”