RIP Dan van Husen

German winter war actor Dan van Husen (75) died

De Telegraaf

May 31, 2020

German actor Dan van Husen passed away at the age of 75. Several fan sites of the actor report this. The actor is said to have died from the effects of the corona virus.

He passed away on May 25, 2020 at his home in Ilminster, Somerset, England. Van Husen was probably best known as the German officer Auer in the movie War Winter War.

Director Martin Koolhoven responds on Twitter to a message that the German actor has died. "I heard this too. Good guy. I worked with him for Brimstone and the Winter of War. ”

The actor starred in dozens of spaghetti westerns and mainly played several minor roles in films such as Band of Brothers, Fellini Casanova and Enemy at the Gates. During his career, he worked with stars such as Dakota Fanning, Jude Law and Lee van Cleef.

Van HUSEN, Dan (Daniel van Husen)

Born: 4/30/1945, Gummersbach, Renania Settentrionale-Vestfalia, Germany

Died: 5/25/2020, Ilminster, Somerset, England, U.K.

Dan van Husen’s westerns – actor:

A Bullet for Sandoval – 1969 (Mestizo)

El Condor – 1969 (bandit)

Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid - 1969 (Ranger)

Another Dollar for the McGregors – 1970 (Frank Landon)

The Arizona Kid – 1970 (outlaw)

Arizona Returns – 1970 (bounty hunter)

Cannon for Cordoba – 1970 (soldier)

Captain Apache – 1970 (Ben)

Cut-Throats Nine – 1970 (Lackey)

‘Doc’ – 1970 (Clanton cowboy)

Gunman in Town – 1970 (deputy sheriff)

Bad Man’s River – 1971 (hired gun)

Catlow – 1971 (Dutch)

Long Live Your Death – 1971 (Kelly)

Pancho Villa – 1971 (Bart)

Alleluia and Sartana, Sons of God – 1972 (Olson)

Cry of the Black Wolves – 1972 (Joe)

Sonny & Jed – 1972 (bounty hunter)

Yankee Dudler – 1973 (bank guard)

Spaghetti Western – 1974 (Zachary)

The White, the Yellow the Black – 1974 (albino)

Montana Trap – 1975 (Smoothie Nestler)

ProSieben Funny Movie – Spiel mir das Lied und Du bist tot (TV) – 2007 (bartender)

Brimstone – 2011 (coach driver)

Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn – 2014 (Windy)

The Price of Death – 2017 (Wolfgang)

RIP Marge Redmond

SAG / AFTRA

Marjorie Redmond was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1924 and was raised in Lakewood by J.V. Redmond, a fire chief, and his wife, Margaret. She first ventured into acting as a member of her high school's drama group, Barnstormers. After graduation, she worked in a bank as a typist and a mail page.

Redmond may be best known as Sister Jacqueline in The Flying Nun, which aired on ABC from 1967-70. She was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Sister Jacqueline during the 1967-68 season. She made guest appearances on television programs ranging from Ben Casey (1962) through Law & Order (1997). She made a guest appearance on Perry Mason in 1965 as Henrietta Hull in "The Case of the Mischievous Doll". Other credits include a recurring role as Mrs. McCardle in Matlock, two appearances (as different characters) on The Munsters, and one-time appearances on Barnaby Jones, Quincy M.E., The Cosby Show, The Sandy Duncan Show, Ryan's Hope, The Donna Reed Show, The Rockford Files, Murphy Brown, Mama's Family, Married...with Children, The Twilight Zone, and others.

Redmond was also well known for her portrayal of sage innkeeper Sarah Tucker in a series of television commercials for Cool Whip during the 1970s.

Films in which Redmond appeared include The Trouble with Angels (1966), Billy Wilder's Fortune Cookie (1966), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976) and Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993).

REDMOND, Marge (Marjorie A. Redmond)

Born: 12/14/1924, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.

Died: 2/10/2020, U.S.A.

Marge Redmond’s westerns – actress:

The Virginian (TV) – 1963, 1965 (Hazel Bailey, Mary Clinchy)

Nichols (TV) – 1972 (Juanita)

RIP Anthony James

Tribute Archive

May 28, 2020

He was always himself but he couldn’t go with just one name. He needed two – his own, Jimmy Anthony, and another, Anthony James, because there was some other actor who was Jimmy Anthony. He needed a stage name.

What’s in a name? What’s in two?

Turns out, quite a lot.

He was born in the segregated South of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, July 22, 1942, and he died two months short of his 78th birthday on May 26, 2020. The cause was cancer.

His mother, Marika, was his hero, and after she died some years ago he wrote his memoir, Acting My Face, whose purpose and theme was, he insisted, to honor his mother more than to call attention to himself. His father, George, a Greek immigrant like his wife, operated a popular fine restaurant in the Myrtle Beach of the 1940s, and died when Jimmy was eight. From then on he was raised by his mother.

The tall skinny boy played tight end on his high school football team, won first prize for a drawing that showed his extraordinary gift for rendering emotion, and he began to dream, like millions of other boys and girls dream, of being a movie actor. That his dream came to fruition in movies and TV Jimmy attributed, as he attributed everything else – to luck, chance and – as the child of Greek parents – fate. Quoting the great Laurence Olivier, Jimmy liked to remind us that actors are all about Look at me!, Look at me!, Look at me! When his actor role model, Marlon Brando, was asked by someone who’d never heard of him what it was he did for living, Brando replied, I make faces. Jimmy liked that story. A real friend, he said, was someone who could listen to his stories again and again. We never tired of them, not for 50 years.

Attention there was plenty. Graduating from high school at 18, he persuaded his mother that they had to go to Hollywood. With almost no money, the two of them took a train to L.A. His mother cleaned houses and Jimmy got a “scholarship” to an acting class which he paid for by cleaning bathrooms. Anthony was 26 when his breakout performance as the killer in the 1967 Academy Award-winning movie by Norman Jewison, “In the Heat of the Night,” captured the attention of Hollywood and launched his 27-year career. His final movie role, also an Academy Award-winning film, was in 1992, as Skinny Dubois, the irritable and contentious owner of a brothel in Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.” In Skinny’s first scene, he rescues one of the workingwomen from a beating, not from compassion (his bad-guy characters were anything but tender-hearted), but from a fierce pride of ownership. Anthony could call up Jimmy’s pride and anger. It’s what actors can do.

So that in David Webb’s script Jimmy’s character is an entrepreneur:

SKINNY: “This here’s a legal contract between me and Delilah Fitzgerald. Now I bring her clear from Boston, paid her expenses and all, and I got a contract which represents an investment of capital.”

That was what Hollywood called “an Anthony James type.’ In almost three decades of films, Anthony James held his own playing against the likes of Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Bette Davis, Richard Harris, Blythe Danner, Jeff Bridges, Leslie Nielsen, Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood who, when he happened to be casting for “Unforgiven” saw one of Jimmy’s films and remembered how great he was in Eastwood’s “High Plains Drifter.”

If Anthony James was a bankable bad guy or an over-the-top funny bad guy in “Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear” (1991), Jimmy Anthony was a sweetheart. He was bookish. He would say that he was quite content to sit and read his way through books. He adored Greek tragedy and the music of Mikis Theodorakis as well as nineteenth- and early twentieth-century poets, writers and philosophers. He had a precise and insightful way of explaining Nietzsche, Camus, and Bonhoeffer as he could explain why a director chose a long shot over a close-up.

He was that legitimately multi-talented artist. After retiring and moving to New England, Anthony focused on his painting. Galleries in Boston, New York, Santa Fe, San Francisco and Japan sold more than a hundred of his paintings. Gorgeous creations they are, many of them multi-layered with Greek letters and bits of text over delicate washes of white or blue or brown. Along with the paintings there were the poems. Scores of them. In 1994, Tuttle published “Language of the Heart,” an exquisite art book of Anthony’s paintings and poems. He was a one-trick poet, he joked. His poetic subject was death, although his language was brimming with life. In 2014, the University Press of Mississippi published his memoir, “Acting My Face.”

Jimmy Anthony never married, having devoted his life to caring for his adoring, strong and consistently wise and funny Marika. He is survived not by siblings or children but by his many friends, including the ones who sat with him and cared for and comforted him at home in his final months and days. In lieu of flowers, donations in Anthony’s memory would be appreciated to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (stjude.org) and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

JAMES, Anthony

Born: 7/22/1942, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S.A.

Died: 5/26/2020, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Anthony James’ westerns – actor:

Cimarron Strip (TV) – 1967 (Benji)

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1967, 1968, 1969 (Ebert Moses, Chickenfoot, Loyal Yewker)

The High Chaparral (TV) – 1967 (Harlry Deever)

Sam Whiskey – 1969 (Cousin Leroy)

Bonanza (TV) – 1970 (Willie)

The Big Valley (TV) – 1967, 1969 (Bart Bleeck, Samuels)

The Culpepper Cattle Co. – 1972 (Nathaniel)

High Plains Drifter – 1973 (Cole Carlin)

Hearts of the West – 1975 (Lean Crook)

Ransom for Alice (TV) – 1977 (James)

Outlaws (TV) – 1987 (Joshua)

Unforgiven – 1992 (Skinny Dubois)

RIP Bert Hinchman

Bert Ross Hinchman III, 74, passed away quietly at his sister's home Saturday, May 16, 2020.

The Southern Illinoisan

May 24, 2020

Bert was born in Murphysboro on March 22, 1946, to Bert Ross Hinchman Jr. and Etta Ann (Snyder) Hinchman.

He graduated from Murphysboro Township High School in 1964. He received a bachelor's of arts in English, German and French Literature from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale in 1968. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study literature in Europe, but his local draft board refused to grant him a deferment. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1970, where he served in military intelligence at Ft. Hood, Texas. He became active in a local theatre company where acting became the love of his life. After his honorable discharge he pursued three years of graduate study in Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and taught Theatre History part time at Webster Groves Conservatory.

He became a member of the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and Actors Equity Association and began a career as a professional actor in theatre, television and radio commercials, industrial films, as well as educational television productions for PBS. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 1978 and worked in television, motion pictures, commercials, industrials and professional stage productions as a character actor. He also wrote and directed productions in the Los Angeles area network of Equity Waiver theatre venues. After more than 40 years in the professional entertainment industry he retired in 2013 and resided in Avon, Indiana. His sister, Nancy, and niece, Amy, took wonderful care of him in the last few years, and Bert enjoyed being close to family again.

Bert was always one of the smartest and funniest people in the room. He loved getting together with friends to share an excellent pot of gumbo which he had cooked, raising a glass of beer, listening to good music and talking into the wee hours of the morning. Bert was a voracious reader enjoying all types of books, fiction and non-fiction, the classics as well as popular novels, especially murder mysteries. In his leisure time, he also composed wonderful poetry which he rarely shared. Bert was a kind and loyal friend who enriched the lives of everyone he came in contact with.

Bert was preceded in death by his parents; and older sister, Brenda Hinchman Dunn.

He is survived by his sister, Nancy Anderson of Avon, Indiana; a niece, Amy Anderson of Avon, Indiana who also shared his birthday, a niece Cheryl Dunn of Crystal Lake; a nephew, Patrick (Karen) Dunn of Palatine; plus his two best friends of more than 60 years, Michael Jones of Murphysboro, and Richard Green of Orange Park, Florida, and special friend, Ken Park of Los Angeles, California.

He asked for his body to be cremated and there to be no formal service. Once the COVID-19 quarantine has been lifted, his friends will gather to raise their glasses and reminisce about a life well-lived of a good, kind man who will be sorely missed.

HINCHMAN, Bert (Bert Ross Hinchman III)

Born: 3/22/1946, Murphysboro, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 5/16/2020, Murphysboro, Illinois, U.S.A.

Bert Hinchman’s Westerns – Actor:

The Chisolms (TV) - 1979 (Jake)

RIP John Reynolds

John Patrick "Jack" Reynolds

Des Moines Register

May 27, 2020

Indianola - John Patrick Reynolds was born March 27, 1952 to Edwin (Jiggs) and Pat Reynolds. They took home a healthy baby boy. Time was to change the path of his life.

He was four years old when a farm accident nearly killed him. It was June 4, 1956. A 100-gallon barrel of water tumbled off of a trailer, rolled over him, and injured him internally. The rest of the summer was spent in Blank Children's Hospital.

Jack started school at Hartford, then on to Carlisle High School as a freshman, graduating in 1970. He then went to Ellsworth Jr. College and after graduation stayed in Iowa Falls for three years doing odd jobs. He took a hitch-hiking trip to Nashville, Tulsa, and then Colorado before returning home.

Christmas Eve, 1974, he went to the hospital feeling ill. He received news he had suffered renal failure and would require dialysis for the rest of his life. Intestinal trauma ruled out a transplant. He was 22 years old.

Through the years he had supplemented his disability income with a series of part time jobs. Jack did a few TV commercials but his best experience was his speaking part in the movie, "Nebraska."

Jack went to Washington D.C. twice a year as a board member of the National nonprofit advocacy group, Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC). They worked to lobby congress to make life better for dialysis patients.

The farm was his refuge. He loved to sit in the shop on the old recliner, Rebel on the old sofa, and watch Mike work on his machinery. He called the farm his "paradise." The years took a toll on his body after brother Mike passed away in January. Jack began to decline. He made the decision to stop dialysis and enter hospice. He had been a dialysis patient for 45 years, 4 months, and 3 days. He drove himself every time except the last few weeks, either Scott or some of Mike's dear friends took him.

He is preceded in death by his father Jiggs and brother Michael. He is survived by his mother, Pat; sister, Susan; cousin, Scott (Bev) James; nephew, John Sautter; niece, Errin Hale and many dear friends.

Public Graveside Services will be held 11 a.m., Monday, May 18, 2020 at the Palmyra Cemetery, Palmyra, IA. You may join family on our Website Live Stream located on his obituary page of our website. Memorials may be given to the Historical Palmyra Church. To view a complete obituary or submit an online condolence, visit our website at www.overtonfunerals.com.

REYNOLDS, John (John Patrick Reynolds)

Born: 3/27/1952, Indianola, Iowa, U.S.A.

Died: 5/13/2020, Carlisle, Iowa, U.S.A.

John Reynolds’ western – actor:

Final Homestead – 2015 (Alex Simpson)

RIP Cindy Butler

Texarkana Funeral Home

Cindy Lu Butler Stevens entered heaven on May 26, 2020, and was welcomed by her parents Jack and Carolton Butler. She was born October 15, 1955, in Texarkana AR.

She is survived by her loving husband, Robert Floyd Stevens, of Texarkana, AR; two brothers and their wives, Phillip and Debbie Ann Butler and Sam and Tammy Butler; mother-in-law Patricia Collum; brothers-in-law John C. Stevens, Jr. and Steve B. Stevens; sister-in-law Nancy Collum; two nephews and, Jerrod and his wife Lindsey Butler and Ben Butler; and a host of special cousins. She was preceded in death by her father-in-law John Calvin Stevens, Sr.

Cindy was an actress and model early in life, and later a homemaker. She was known for her roles in The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Boggy Creek II And The Legend Continues, and Grayeagle. She lived and told unbelievable stories of a life full of adventure and wonder. She was the life of the party and a natural comedian. She had a big heart and a great love for animals.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Texarkana Humane Society: PO Box 5020, Texarkana, TX 75505 in her honor.

BUTLER, Cindy (Cindy Lu Butler Stevens)

Born: 10/15/1955, Texarkana, Texas, U.S.A.

Died: 5/26/2020, Texarkana, Texas, U.S.A.

Cindy Butler’s western – actress:

Grayeagle – 1977 (Ida Coulter)

RIP Richard Herd

Richard Herd, Mr. Wilhelm on 'Seinfeld,' Dies at 87

The Hollywood Reporter
By Chris Koseluk

5/26/2020

He appeared on 'T.J. Hooker' and three 'Star Trek' shows and on the big screen in 'All the President's Men' and 'The China Syndrome.'

Richard Herd, the venerable character actor who played Mr. Wilhelm on Seinfeld and appeared in such notable films as All the President's Men and The China Syndrome, died Tuesday. He was 87.

Herd died of cancer-related causes at his home in Los Angeles, his wife of 40 years, actress Patricia Crowder Herd, told The Hollywood Reporter.

With his commanding features, Herd often portrayed men of authority during his five-decade career, and in his first recurring role in a TV series, he played Captain Sheridan, William Shatner's boss, on the ABC action cop drama T.J. Hooker.

The Boston native also made a name for himself in the world of science fiction by portraying Supreme Commander John in the 1983 NBC miniseries V and its sequel a year later; the Klingon L'Kor on Star Trek: The Next Generation; Admiral William Noyce on seaQuest 2032; and Admiral Owen Paris on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Renegades.

Herd played the ex-CIA agent who led the team that broke into The Watergate Hotel in All the President's Men (1976), and when a shift supervisor (Jack Lemmon) takes control of a nuclear plant in The China Syndrome (1979), he was the plant's scheming chairman trying to cover up its problems.

Herd also portrayed Gen. Omar Bradley in the lauded 1979 ABC miniseries Ike: The War Years and military men in Private Benjamin (1980) and Sgt. Bilko (1996).

One of those journeymen actors known more by his face (some say he resembled Karl Malden) than by name, Herd appeared 11 times over three Seinfeld seasons as Wilhelm, the clueless New York Yankees exec who supervised George Costanza (Jason Alexander) after he landed a job with George Steinbrenner's team as an assistant to the traveling secretary.

In the 1996 episode "The Bottle Deposit," Wilhelm goes into great detail about a secret project he wants George to do, not realizing that George has missed most of what he was saying. The more George tries to uncover the details, the more cryptic they become.

George is saved when Wilhelm goes off his meds, completes the project himself and gives George the credit.

In "The Checks" from 1996, George discovers that the company that cleans the Yankee Stadium office carpets is a front for a religious cult and gets upset when the group shows no interest in recruiting him. When the crew arrives for a cleaning, its newest recruit is Wilhelm, now calling himself Tania (the pseudonym Patty Hearst adopted during her kidnapping). Flabbergasted, George asks the crew head, "Him, you brainwashed? What's he got that I don't have?"

"He was always doing things that never got done and always going over to Mr. Steinbrenner and apologizing to him," Herd said of Wilhelm in a 2016 interview. "Some days, he had clear days, other days he didn't. He was very vulnerable. He had an odd sense of humor … He was way out there on occasion. I've taken a few trips out there, so I know all about it."

Wilhelm ultimately got the last laugh on George. In 1997's "The Millennium," George is offered a job as a scout with the New York Mets — but only if the Yankees fire him. Try as he might, he can't get this to happen — that is, until he ties the team's championship trophy to the bumper of his car and drags it around the stadium parking lot while shouting derogatory slurs about the ball club.

Steinbrenner (voiced by Larry David) is all set to fire George, but Wilhelm comes in and takes the fall, telling the owner that it was all his idea. The Boss fires Wilhelm instead, but he doesn't care. He has a new job … as a scout for the Mets.

Herd said he was surprised to be cast because of something he mentioned during his 1995 audition. "It was easy. It was fun. It was very inviting," he recalled. "And as I left, I turned around and said, 'Look, I have to tell you this. I hope it doesn't make a difference, but I'm a Red Sox fan.' And they all threw their scripts at me. The next day they said, 'Come on out and play with us.' "

Richard Thomas Herd Jr. was born in Boston on Sept. 26, 1932. His father, a train engineer, died at an early age. His mother, Katherine, remarried, and the family relocated to Brockton, Massachusetts, where his stepfather worked in an auto shop. His mom instilled in him a love of music and the arts, he noted.

Herd survived a serious illness as a child and said the experience helped shape his career.

"I had osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection, and almost didn't survive," he told The Patriot Ledger in a 2015 interview. "I became ill in second grade and went to the Cotting School, as it's now known, in Lexington, for young people with various ailments. I was in and out of Boston Children's Hospital. Lying there, month after month, you become very stoic. It really stimulated my imagination, and I think actually helped me later as an actor."

Herd was saved when he became one of the first patients to receive the recently introduced drug penicillin.

He had a two-year apprenticeship at the Boston Summer Theatre and got the opportunity to learn from the legendary actor Claude Rains.

"One evening, he heard a group of us rehearsing Shakespeare and offered to come in early each night to work with us," Herd said. "He taught me you shouldn't just get involved with the language, but look ahead for the intent and direction of the character you are portraying."

After a brief stint in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Herd headed to New York, studied acting and art and built a career on the stage. He made his film debut (as did Arnold Schwarzenegger) in the 1970 cult classic Hercules in New York.

When Richard Long died in 1974 before filming on Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men began, Herd took his place.

Herd later appeared on the big screen in F.I.S.T. (1979), The Onion Field (1979), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).

Herd continued to act into his 80s, appearing in A Christmas in New York (2016), Get Out (2017) and The Silent Natural (2020) and on such series as Rizzoli & Isles, Shameless and Hawaii Five-O. He also was a member of the ensemble on the 2012 prank show Betty White's Off Their Rockers.

Herd was a painter and a founding member of The Enterprise Blues Band, made up of castmembers from various Star Trek series. The group released the albums Enterprise Blues and Intergalactic Roots Music in 2004 and '05.

Survivors also include his daughter Erica, son Rick and stepdaughter Alicia.

HERD, Richard (Richard Thomas Herd, Jr.)

Born: 9/26/1932, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Died: 5/26/2020, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Richard Herd’s westerns – actor:

Kate Bliss and the Ticker Tape Kid (TV) – 1978 (Donovan)

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (TV) – 1991 (President Cleveland)

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV) – 1993 (Dr. John Hansen)

Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 1996 (General Garrity)

Love’s Unfolding Dream (TV) – 2007 (Windsor)

RIP Gilbert Thompson

Gilbert Thompson, television actor and teacher, dies at 91

The Philadelphia Inquirer

By Joe Juliano

May 21, 2020

Between earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University, Gilbert Thompson went into acting as a cast member of Action in the Afternoon, which was shot on the back lot of the WCAU-TV studio on City Avenue and promoted as television’s only live daily network Western in 1953.

It wasn’t an easy gig, according to Mr. Thompson’s daughter, Lori Maxfield.

“Inside the building, they would have the bar scene, and they would ride their horses on the lot,” she said of the actors. “It would seem like they were just strolling into the bar. But actually they had to run all the way around the parking lot to get to where those swinging doors would be. He said that was just so hard.

“Then they would be riding their horses, and there would be cars driving by on the street. So you had city noise on what was supposed to be a setting that was out in the country.”

Mr. Thompson, 91, who worked in the broadcasting industry before going into teaching, a career that included 15 years on the faculty at Pennsylvania State University, died Thursday, April 30, of obstructive lung disease at Valley View Haven Retirement Home in Belleville, Pa.

After Action in the Afternoon ended in January 1954, Mr. Thompson continued working at WCAU and WFIL (now WPVI) on live children’s shows, including Pixanne and Chief Halftown.

His daughter said she “felt like I hit the jackpot” getting to know actress Jane Norman, who played Pixanne.

“My parents were friends with her and her husband, and we always had these huge Fourth of July parties when we lived in Philadelphia,” she said. “One year, [Norman] came, and my cousin to this day still talks about it. As a kid, you wouldn’t believe these people would come to a party and you’d really see that person.”

Ms. Maxfield said her father was a happy and personable man who always was interested in people. He began teaching at Penn State in 1987 and took a keen interest in his students, giving them tips if they had an upcoming interview.

He also liked to be theatrical around family and friends and make them laugh, she said.

“Everything was always kind of like he was acting,” she said. “On his birthday, it would take so long for him to open the presents and read the cards, because he would read every line with this big voice.”

Mr. Thompson joined the Navy after graduating from Northeast High School in 1946 and later attended Temple. He met Emalee Ann Earon while performing at the Lambertville (N.J.) Music Circus and married her in 1952, and the couple later sang together on cruise ships.

A member of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, Mr. Thompson was a broadcasting account executive with CBS and its subsidiary Columbia Records. He also worked as an ABC regional manager. He later taught at Suffolk County (N.Y.) Community College before moving to State College, Pa., in 1985.

At Penn State, he taught a variety of subjects, including marketing, oral communications, and sales management, his daughter said. During his tenure, he received a 1996 faculty award after one of his sales management students with the highest honors over four years at the School of Business Management recognized Mr. Thompson as the teacher who had the biggest influence on him.

After retirement, Mr. Thompson and his wife attended many athletic events on campus and were active in the community, particularly with Special Olympics.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Thompson is survived by four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife and daughter Lee Ann.

Funeral services are to be held at a later date.

THOMPSON, Gilbert

Born: 8/20/1928, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Died: 4/30/2020, Belleville, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Gilbert Thompson’s westerns – actor:

Action in the Afternoon – 1953-1954

Chief Halftown – 1950’s

RIP Martin Cohen

Marty Cohen, Post-Production Collaborator With Steven Spielberg, Dies at 67

Variety

By Dave McNary

May 19, 2020

Martin “Marty” Cohen, longtime colleague of Steven Spielberg and head of postproduction at Amblin Entertainment, Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures, died May 17 in Los Angeles of natural causes after a battle with heart disease. He was 67.

“Marty began in the editing room with Michael Kahn and me on “The Color Purple’ and then made the transition to a post-production supervisory role on both DreamWorks and Paramount films,” Spielberg said in a statement. “Later, he worked with me and other filmmakers on film preservation, a passion we both shared. But more than anything, Marty was a dedicated and loyal member of our Amblin family for more than three decades. He cared deeply about the way movies looked to audiences, both in theaters and in homes. His keen eye and warm heart will be missed dearly at the finish line of every film we make from here on out.”

Cohen was a native of New York. He broke into the industry by working as a production assistant on Ralph Bakshi’s rotoscoping animation adaptation of “The Lord of The Rings” in 1978, followed by work on “Pennies From Heaven” and as an assistant editor on Amblin’s “The Goonies.” He began working for Spielberg on “The Color Purple” and then served as an associate editor on “Empire of the Sun.”

Cohen served as head of post-production for Amblin starting in 1987 and oversaw work on “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Back to the Future Part II and III,” “Hook,” and best picture winner “Schindler’s List.” He joined DreamWorks as head of post-production from 1994, when the studio was launched and worked on best picture winners “American Beauty” and “Gladiator” in addition to Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” “Catch Me If You Can,” “Minority Report,” “War of the Worlds” and “Munich.”

In 2005, Cohen joined Paramount Pictures and oversaw feature post-production through 2010. He was also a co-producer on 2012’s “The Hunger Games” and supervised the restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy and Spielberg’s “Jaws.” Cohen was awarded the Motion Picture Editors Guild’s Fellowship and Service Award last October.

He is survived by his wife, Kathy; daughter, Maggie; son Gabriel; son Hershel, who works at EFILM; son Elijah, and two grandchildren, Alexis and Maya.

The family will hold a private burial at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary on May 22. A celebration of life will follow at a later date. Donations may be made to the Martin Cohen Memorial Scholarship Fund at Queen’s College.

COHEN, Marty (Martin Cohen)

Born:  1953, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Died: May 17, 2020, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Martin Cohen’s westerns – post production;

Back to the Future Part III – 1990 [post production supervisor]

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West – 1991 [post production supervisor]

Unmasking Zorro – 2001 [post production]

RIP Peter Thomas

The man for big dreams

Peter Thomas set music to hundreds of films and TV productions. The "space patrol" theme became his inescapable classic. Now he died at the age of 94.

Suddeutsche Zeitung

By Tobias Kniebe

May 19, 2020

Peter Thomas, composer for film and television, hit and musical, band leader and sound maker, experimenter, visionary, Berlin wearer and tireless Prussian workhorse, is dead. He died on Monday night in his villa in Lugano, at the age of 94, as his DVD distributor and a friend of mine said. A sad news for everyone who still has his immortal title theme of the television series "Raumpatrouille" in his ear. And yet it is significant that even at this moment one primarily remembers the lightness that he radiated personally, that he celebrated in his music, that he opposed to the serious seriousness that dominates so much in this country.

The world of Peter Thomas, you could think of it as an endless cocktail party that is remote at all times. Elegant location, lots of mahogany and frosted glass lamps in spherical shapes, depending on the season, behind Kitzbühel, the beach of St. Tropez or Lake Lugano lie behind panoramic windows. Brigitte Bardot and Gunther Sachs stand in front of it, he is wearing a white turtleneck, she wears her smile from 1967. At the bar sits a lonely woman with huge sunglasses, it must be one of those great old divas, right: Zarah Leander. And the man there in the crumpled white suit who shoots flaming glances across the room is Klaus Kinski - but nobody pays attention to him, you only know that he is in the cinemaconstantly playing the bad guy. George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino are also there and toast to the future. Because that, everyone feels that this evening, has its best time ahead of it at this moment.

Peter Thomas wrote the soundtrack for this party. From the beginning his music was an assertion that could not be proven, but trumpeted its theses into the world with such verve that there was simply no contradiction: Berlin can swing just like New York or Rio de Janeiro; nothing is as idiotic as the distinction between art and commerce; true coolness is never a question of place, time or origin; and good music goes to heaven, but evil goes everywhere. In this spirit, he set music to hundreds of films and TV productions: Edgar Wallace, Jerry Cotton, Erich von Däniken, Francis Durbridge, Will Tremper - everything that went to the cinema and swept the streets on television. The "space patrol" theme became his inescapable classic.

Thomas was the example of a consistently awkward German artist's existence

The countdown with a vocoder voice that started it in 1966 is one of the earliest testimonials to what later became dominant German electronics engineering - the master himself spoke into a huge distortion device in the Siemens cellar dungeons. The driving bass that then starts is imported directly from America - or rather from the legendary "Tabarin" club in Munich-Schwabing, where black GIs danced their nights through and a brilliant bass player was at work, who Peter Thomas immediately went into Delayed studio. But four unison trumpets are already thundering on the way to galaxies that no one has ever seen before - they are a legacy of family tradition: the grandfather was still the bandmaster at the 4th Prussian Ward Regiment on foot, the young Thomas sucked in winds and marching music with breast milk. The militaristic pathos, however, is immediately broken again, after all, this is the Federal Republic in its teenage years, the trombones give peace and let go of an electric piano that has a magical effect on women in unbelievable bobbed heads: They follow the secret command to move their butts in motion offset...

Peter Thomas was never entirely satisfactory for the taste judges of great art and the bodies of the film academies - the muse who kissed him then seemed too easy for fundamental recognition. It also did not help that his income soon bubbled so steadily that he actually bought villas in Lugano, Kitzbühel and St. Tropez, stared at the sunset with Gunther Sachs and Brigitte Bardot and completely lost sight of the small minds at home. Klaus Doldinger, who was sometimes allowed to blow the saxophone for him in his early years, later became better known. Then others had to come to clarify what kind of a titan had been here among us: Jarvis Cocker from "Pulp", for example, who inquired about a music quote in the nineties and couldn't believe it, how young the person on the other end of the line still sounded; or an archivist like, indeed, Quentin Tarantino, who at the same time came across a few melodies in his infinite vinyl archive, which he then urged his friend George Clooney to make for his directorial debut. It so happens that the whole beginning of the film "Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind" is filled with music by Peter Thomas - exactly in the form it was recorded forty years earlier.

Yes, Peter Thomas was one of the greatest composers of popular music we had - the example of a consistently embarrassing German artist's existence and a role model for all who are determined to dream themselves beyond the borders of this small, safe country and yet not across the pond to try their luck. The immortality of his best melodies carries a lesson that one cannot take to heart enough: that what is really visionary and lasting often does not come from tortured effort, celebrated great artistry and dogged authorship, but also from easy routine.

THOMAS, Peter

Born: 12/1/1925, Breslau, Silesia, Germany

Died: 6/17/2020, Lugano, Switzerland

Peter Thomas’ westerns – composer:

The Last Tomahawk – 1964 (co)

Thunder at the Border – 1966

My Friend Winnetou (TV) – 1979

RIP Ken Osmond

Ken Osmond, ‘Leave It to Beaver’ Star Who Played Eddie Haskell, Dies at 76

Variety

By Dave McNary

May 18, 2020

Ken Osmond, best known for his role at the troublemaker Eddie Haskell on the television comedy “Leave It to Beaver,” died on Monday morning. He was 76.

Sources tell Variety Osmond passed away at his Los Angeles home surrounded by family members. The cause of death is unknown.

Henry Lane, Osmond’s former partner at the Los Angeles Police Department, also confirmed the news and said he had suffered from respiratory issues.

Osmond was injured on duty, shot three times in 1980.

Osmond, a native of Glendale, Calif., began his career as a child actor with his first speaking part at age 9 in the film “So Big,” starring Jane Wyman and Sterling Hayden, followed by “Good Morning Miss Dove,” and “Everything But the Truth.” He also guest-starred on television series including “Lassie,” “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” “Wagon Train,” “Fury” and “The Loretta Young Show.”

In 1957, Osmond auditioned for the the Eddie Haskell role, which was originally intended to be a guest appearance, but those involved with the show were so impressed with Osmond’s portrayal that the character became a key component of the series throughout its six-season run of 234 episodes.

Osmond portrayed Haskell as sycophantic to grownups while making fun of them behind their backs. He was a high school friend of Wally Cleaver, older brother of Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver, and constantly trying to entice his friends into activities that would get them into trouble.  During the final years of the show, Osmond was in the U.S. Army Reserve.

When the series ended, Osmond continued working as an actor, appearing on “Petticoat Junction,” “The Munsters,” and a return appearance on “Lassie.” He was cast in the feature films “C’mon Let’s Live a Little” and “With Six You Get Eggroll” but  found himself typecast as Eddie Haskell.

Osmond joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1970 and grew a mustache to be less recognizable. In 1980, Osmond was struck by five bullets while in a foot chase with a suspected car thief and was protected from four of the bullets by his bullet-resistant vest, with the fifth bullet ricocheting off of his belt buckle. He was placed on disability and retired from the force in 1988.

Osmond filed a class-action lawsuit in 2007 against the Screen Actors Guild, asserting that SAG had over-stepped its authority in collecting foreign royalties without disclosing the collection agreements until he and Jack Klugman threatened to file suit. The action was settled in 2010.

He is survived by his wife, Sandra, and two sons, Christian and Eric.

OSMOND, Ken (Kenneth Charles Osmond)

Born: 6/7/1943, Glendale, California, U.S.A.

Died: 5/18/2020, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Ken Osmond’s westerns – actor:

Annie Oakley (TV) – 1956 (Scotty)

Fury (TV) – 1956, 1957 (Johnny, Kenny)

Circus Boy (TV) – 1957 (Skinny)

Colt .45 (TV) – 1957 (Tommy)

Wagon Train (TV) – 1958 (Tommy Jenkins)

RIP Michel Piccoli

Michel Piccoli, Betrayed by Brigitte Bardot in Jean-Luc Godard's 'Contempt,' Dies at 94

The Hollywood Reporter

By Jordan Mintzer

May 18, 2020

The busy French actor also starred with Catherine Deneuve in 'Belle de jour,' one of six films he made for Luis Buñuel.

Michel Piccoli, the prolific French actor known for his leading roles in such films as Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt and Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour, has died. He was 94.

Piccoli's family shared the news Monday. Agence France-Presse and French newspaper Le Figaro reported the news, among others. 

Piccoli starred in 230-plus movies throughout a career that spanned eight decades, beginning in the late 1940s and lasting all the way until 2015. He also boasted a bountiful stage and television career, performing in dozens of plays and telefilms.

Among the major filmmakers Piccoli worked with were Godard (1963's Contempt, 1982's Passion), Luis Buñuel (1967's Belle de jour, 1969's The Milky Way, 1972's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), Claude Sautet (1970's The Things of Life, 1971's Max et les ferrailleurs), Marco Ferreri (1969's Dillinger Is Dead, 1973's La Grande Bouffe), Jean Renoir (1955's French Cancan), Jacques Rivette (1991's La Belle Noiseuse), Jean-Pierre Melville (1962's Le Doulos) and Alfred Hitchcock (playing a Soviet spy in 1969's Topaz).

He received best actor prizes in Cannes in 1980 for Marco Bellocchio's A Leap in the Dark and a Silver Bear in Berlin two years later for Pierre Granier-Deferre's Strange Affair. Although he was nominated four times for a Cesar award in France and twice for a Molière (his country's equivalent of the Tony) for playing the lead in King Lear, he never received either prize during his lifetime.

Piccoli's last major role was as a newly elected pope with major misgivings about his appointment in Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam. The film premiered in competition in Cannes in 2011 and earned him a David di Donatello award for best actor in Italy. 

Discreet and professional, Piccoli often played quiet types with a dark streak or seductive types who could not be trusted. "When you're acting, you need to take a step back from yourself and remain extremely confidential about the character you're playing," he told the French magazine Télérama in 2011 during one of his final interviews.

Born in Paris on Dec. 27, 1925, to a violinist father of Swiss origin and a French mother, Piccoli studied acting and landed his first major screen role as a coal miner in Louis Daquin's social drama The Mark of the Day (1949).

He spent the next decade playing secondary roles in various shorts and features — including Renoir's period piece French Cancan — before breaking out as a disgruntled lovesick playwright in Godard's behind-the-scenes drama Contempt.

The film, adapted from Alberto Moravia's novel but inspired by Godard's personal life, also featured Brigitte Bardot as his wife; she winds up betraying him for a Hollywood producer portrayed by Jack Palance. "The character was 99 percent Godard himself," Piccoli said of the role. "The producers, who were fans of his, gave him an incredible amount of freedom. I had no idea that we were going to make a masterpiece."

The first time Piccoli was cast by Spanish auteur Buñuel was for the 1956 adventure film Death in the Garden, where he played a priest. In Belle de jour, his character tips off a housewife (Catherine Deneuve) to a brothel, and he worked with Buñuel on four other features: Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), The Milky Way, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty (1974).

"He taught me to be modest and to have a sense of humor," Piccoli said of Buñuel. "Generally, he didn't really like actors, but he loved being surrounding by an acting troupe. You were cast based on your personality, not because you were famous." 

Piccoli's other major collaboration was with French writer-director Sautet, for whom he headlined five features throughout the 1970s. Like The Things of Life, in which he starred opposite Romy Schneider, the other films — including Vincent, François, Paul and the Others (1974) and Mado (1976) — were intimate, emotional dramas where Piccoli often played quietly anguished men in the midst of midlife crises.

In the '80s and '90s, Piccoli continued to work steadily — he had eight credits alone in 1982 — starring in such movies as Passion, Claude Lelouch's Viva la vie (1984), Leos Carax's Mauvais sang (1986), Louis Malle's May Fools (1990) and Raoul Ruiz's Genealogies of a Crime (1997).

He memorably played a painter trying to capture the nude portrait of a young woman in Jacques Rivette's 1991 four-hour drama of artistic creation and obsession, La Belle Noiseuse, adapted from Balzac's short story "The Unknown Masterpiece." 

On stage, where he began acting in the 1940s, he starred in plays by Strindberg, Ibsen, Kleist, Chekov, Schnitzler, Molière, Marivaux and Paddy Chayefsky, among others.

Piccoli also directed three features and wrote the autobiography J'ai vecu dans mes reves (I Lived in My Dreams) with former Cannes topper Gilles Jacob. Published in 2017, the book revisits his long and prosperous career and reveals his thoughts about acting.

"My ideal would be to astonish people through simplicity and without pretension," he wrote. "A truly great actor can be extremely modest about his work, in the pleasure he takes in such an extravagant and amusing profession. His success has nothing to do with being a mediocre braggart.... I prefer those actors who remain completely secretive."

Piccoli in 1954 wed Swiss actress Eléonore Hirt, with whom he had a daughter, Anne-Cordelia. He also was married to French singer Juliette Greco from 1966 to 1977 and to screenwriter Ludivine Clerc from 1978 until his death.

PICCOLI, Michel (Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli)

Born: 12/27/1925, Paris, Île-de-France, France

Died: 5/12/2020, France

Michel Piccoii’s western – actor:

Terreur en Oklahoma – 1951 (Tommy Goudchote)

Don’t Touch the White Woman! – 1973 (Buffalo Bill)

Far West – 1973 (Indian chief)

RIP Lisa Simone

Los Angeles Times

May 17, 2020

Lisa SIMONE, Miss France 1957, passed away in Rome at 85.Born Liliane Czajka in the Paris suburbs, her Polish father was executed during WWII occupation of France. Her father's heroism motivated Carlos Capel to enroll her in his ballet school alongside Brigitte Bardot. She later became one of the "Blue Bell Girls" at the Lido cabaret and in 1957 was elected Miss France in the pageant sponsored by film magazine, "Cinémonde". Lisa then represented France in the Miss Universe pageant in Long Beach, CA. She stayed in the LA area for several years, was highly solicited for advertisements and began a short acting career. She had roles in films starring Tony Curtis, Clark Gable, and with Marlon Brando in "Mutiny on the Bounty", 1962. She married film star and long-time LA resident Steve Barclay (born Kufferman) in Beverly Hills, 1958. They moved to Rome, where Steve pursued his film career, starring aside Sophia Loren in her early films. Steve Barclay died in 1994. Lisa is survived by daughter Kathleen, and has family in France and the US. She will be remembered as a beautiful, kind and gentle person.

SIMONE, Lisa (Liliane Czajka)

Born: 1935, Paris, Île-de-France, France

Died: 5/6/2020, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Lisa Simone’s western – actress;

Wagon Train (TV) 1959 (Marquessa)

RIP Geno Silva

Albuquerque Journal

May 17, 2020

Geno Silva died in Los Angeles on May 9, 2020, of complications from frontotemporal degeneration, with which he had been afflicted for 15 years.

Born in Albuquerque on January 20, 1948 to parents Jerry and Lucille Silva, Geno grew up in the Barelas neighborhood with his sister, Liz Gallegos and brother, Jerry Silva. After moving to Los Angeles, Geno appeared in over 100 films, television shows and plays during his decades-long career as an actor. Geno is survived by his wife, Pamela Phillips; daughter, Lucia Silva and husband Micah, granddaughter Eva Redman; grandson Levon Redman; sister Liz Gallegos, and many beloved nieces, nephews, and cousins. He is preceded in death by his parents, and his brother, Jerry Silva.

SILVA, Geno

Born: 1/20/1948, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.

Died: 5/9/2020, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Geno Silva’s westerns – actor:

Thomasine & Bushrod -1974 (Taffy)

The Quest (TV) – 1976 (army scout)

ABC Weekend Specials: Trouble River (TV) – 1977 (Indian)

How the West Was Won (TV) – 1977 (Red Hawk)

Ishi: The Last of His Tribe (TV) – 1978 (elder uncle)

The Young Pioneers (TV) – 1978 (Fool’s Crow)            

The Chisolms (TV) – 1979 (Ferocious Storm)

Wanda Nevada – 1979 (Apache ghost)

Belle Starr (TV) – 1980 (Blue Duck)

Wild Times – 1980 (Ibran)

Bret Maverick (TV) - 1982 9Running Wolf)

The Mystic Warrior (TV) – 1984 (Huste)

El Diablo (TV) – 1990 (Chak Mol)

Geronimo (TV) – 1993 (General Carbinisco)

Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 1996 (El Coyote)

Into the West (TV) – 2005 (Padre Jose Bernardino Sanchez)