Gone-dhi

Or

Attenburied

Richard Attenborough, escaper of Nazis (sort of), raiser of dinosaurs, bestower of miracles on 34th Street, has died at the age of 90. A mosquito that bit him earlier this year has been stored in amber with the expectation of bringing him back some day. No expense will be spared. His first major role was as a baby-faced killer in the British noir film Brighton Rock. He led The Great Escape, where he got nearly all of his men killed. He played British serial killer John Christie. He got lots of people killed by dinosaurs as John Hammond in Jurassic Park. He won Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture for Gandhi, which chronicled the Indian leader’s overthrow of British rule, which got him killed. His performance as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street was remarkably carnage free.

Saturday Night Dead

(A bit of obviousness shared with Monty)

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Pardo, the Interruption

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Pardo is Such Sweet Sorrow...

Don Pardo, who showed that if you do anything for long enough, even if it’s just reading names enthusiastically, you become a legend, has died at the age of 96. Among the shows graced by his intonations in his 70-year career at NBC were The Price Is Right (where he served as the original announcer), Jackpot, Jeopardy!, Three on a Match, Winning Streak, NBC Nightly News and for 39 years, Saturday Night Live. He attempted to retire in 2004, but Lorne Michaels begged him to stay. He wanted to pre-record the introduction from a studio near his home in Phoenix, but producers were unable to handle the complexity of planning around a pre-recorded bit of tape and insisted the feeble old man fly cross-country every week to do his part. As the on-duty booth announcer on WNBC-TV and the NBC network, he was the first to announce to NBC viewers that President Kennedy had been shot, though somehow Walter Cronkite’s broadcast is the one preserved in history, and after years of hearing fake news broadcasts voiced by Pardo, the broadcast today sounds like the start of a sick skit. 

Put Your Lips Together… So the Mortician Can Sew Your Mouth Shut

Or

To Have Not

Or

The Big Sleep

Lauren Bacall, the only actress to get hit on by Bugs Bunny and name dropped by Madonna, has died of a stroke at the age of 89. The 19-year-old former model found herself selected to star opposite Humphrey Bogart, then 45, in To Have and Have Not, prime evidence that pairing hot young women with old men is not a modern Hollywood invention. She lowered her naturally high-pitched nasal voice to a husky growl, and to keep her chin from quivering, she tucked it into her chest and gazed upward at Bogart, creating “The Look” and snaring a husband. They would star together in 3 more noir films, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo. She turned in a comedic version of her independent woman with the acid tongue schtick in How to Marry a Millionaire. She also learned how to bury a millionaire, as Bogart died of throat cancer at the age of 58. Other roles included The Shootist, John Wayne’s last film, where she put her talents in dealing with movie stars dying of cancer to good use; The Mirror Has Two Faces, for which she received an Academy Award nomination, and didn’t even attempt to fake the happy loser face when she lost to Juliette Binoche, and the voice of Fancy Feast.

Death to Smoochy II: The Quickening

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Dead Poets Society

(Admittedly, a little spot on, but how can you not?)

Or

Shazbot

Robin Williams, who turned a short attention span into an empire that funded his ex-wives’ spending, has joined the dead poet’s society at the age of 63. Long suspected of being a manic depressive, Williams finally reached the end of his rope. For a man so wildly inventive in his stage performances, his star-making role as Mork, his bravura performance as the Genie in Aladdin, being revealed as a “crying on the inside” type of clown was a disappointingly trite cliché. If he could survive Popeye, you’d have thought nothing would do him in. For his undeniable comedic skill, and his surprising dramatic chops in The World According to Garp, Awakenings and Good Will Hunting, he proved staggeringly inept at selecting quality projects – as evidenced by Man of the Year, Bicentennial Man, Jumanji, RV, Patch Adams and Old Dogs.

Chapman Stuck

Chapman Pincher, chronicler and exposer of the deviousness of the last century, has died at the age of 100. A journalist, historian and novelist focusing on the shadowy world of espionage, Pincher learned how to live the good life, which he used to insinuate himself with royalty, spies, military men and politicians to access the UK’s deepest secrets. Pincher chronicled details of the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima before the American press, and exposed Klaus Fuchs, one of the bomb’s architects, as the man who had leaked the atomic bomb details to the Soviet Union. He was the Edward Snowden of his day, reporting that the UK was reading the cables and telegrams of its citizens. Pincher may best be known for exposing suspicions that Roger Hollis, the former head of MI5, had been a Soviet agent, suspicions that included extensive investigations within the intelligence community after dozens of British intelligence operations had been foiled during his tenure as Director General. And wouldn’t having M turn traitor have been a better plot than most of the James Bond films between Connery and Brosnan? Pincher also pursued suspicions that former Prime Minister Harold Wilson, in addition to being the Taxman of Beatles fame, was also a Soviet agent. He was not above letting his name be used for the government’s interests, printing a false story to confuse Japanese protesters who intended to shut down an atomic test, and allowing Lord Mountbatten to dictate an article while on a grouse hunt.