RIP Richard Norton

 

Aussie martial arts legend and Hollywood trainer Richard Norton dies

An Australian mixed martial arts legend, who helped train countless Hollywood stars for iconic movies, has tragically passed away.

News.com.au

 

By Matthew Sullivan

March 30, 2025

 

Australian mixed martial arts legend Richard Norton, who trained some of Hollywood’s most famous actors throughout a storied career, has tragically died at the age of 75.

Norton died in Melbourne and his heartbroken wife Judy Green confirmed his passing in an Instagram post on Sunday.

“I am numb and devastated, I have no words, I have lost my everything,” Green posted.

“I know there is, and will be lots of love and shock that we have lost this incredible human being.

“The love of my life. I’m using this time to come to terms with my great loss. Judy.”

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Suicide Squad star Karen Fukuhara led the tributes, commenting: “I am so sorry.”

Norton was a martial artist, stunt performer actor and stunt co-ordinator who worked with a who’s who of Hollywood A-listers throughout his career. He held black belts in karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

He appeared as a bodyguard in the 1977 ABBA movie and is perhaps best known for his role in the 1980 Chuck Norris film The Octagon. Norton was a contemporary of Norris, one of the most iconic MMA artists of all time.

Norton’s fight scene opposite Cynthia Rothrick in Hong Kong action film The Magic Crystal and his showdown against Norris in The Octagon were some of his most iconic moments on screen.

Norton worked as a fight choreographer for movies including Max Max: Fury Road, Suicide Squad and X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

One of his final acting roles was a small part in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Over his career, Norton helped train star actors including Jackie Chan, Scarlett Johansson, Charlize Theron, Sophie Turner, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ben Affleck, Margot Robbie, Charlie Hunnam and Liam Neeson.

He also worked with musical superstars including ABBA and Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac.

“I did 60 movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s but the older you get the less roles there are unless you are playing someone’s dad or an ageing gangster, and I get that,” Norton told the Sunday Herald Sun in 2023.

“I was lucky enough to learn what it is like behind the camera and that is where my main career is now.

“My job is to train the actors up, figure out the choreography, choreograph the fights and then teach the actors how to perform the fights and make sure they look good on set.

“I just give them the tools …. I teach them the skill set they need to perform certain fights, so then when I get to choreograph the fights they already know how to execute the moves, so we can concentrate on putting the actual fight together.

“I always say what you do and what you put on celluloid is there forever.”

Actor Robert Patrick, who starred in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, paid tribute to Norton, describing the Aussie as an “extraordinary individual”.

“I am deeply saddened to share that my friend Richard Norton has passed away,” Patrick wrote on social media.

“He was an extraordinary individual, a towering figure in the martial arts community, and a contemporary of Chuck Norris.

“In addition to his impressive career as a highly sought-after bodyguard for rock stars, he made his mark as an accomplished fight coordinator on major films.

“More than that, he was a wonderful human being, and I feel fortunate to have shared the screen with him in “Equalizer 2000.”

“My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Judy, and his family during this difficult time.”

The Bulletproof Action account on X posted: “Devastating news. Richard Norton has passed away. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and fans.

“Norton was a superb martial artist who spent decades contributing to the world of action entertainment. He will be greatly missed.”

Action-Flix.com wrote: “R.I.P. to one of the legit bad asses on and off the screen … Richard Norton. A fan since the early days I was actually setting up an interview with him and he couldn’t have been any nicer. He was one of the best there was and ever will be. Action Cinema has lost a true pioneer …”

NORTON, Richard

Born: 1/6/1950, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Died: 3/29/2025, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

 

Richard Norton’s westerns – actor:

Millionaires Express – 1986 (mountain bandit)

Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2000 (Jonas Graves, Frank Scanlon, Tom Munger, Rollins, thug, mercenary) [stunts]

Black Creek – 2024 (Damian Sinclair)

The Brave and the Brutal – 2025 (Tim Lassiter)

RIP Richard Chamberlain

 

Richard Chamberlain, Star of ‘Dr. Kildare’ and King of the Melodramatic Miniseries, Dies at 90

The leading man who thrilled as a young star then centered the epic, melodramatic miniseries ‘Shogun’ and ‘The Thorn Birds.’

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

March 30, 2025

 

Richard Chamberlain, the handsome leading man who thrilled women as the young star of Dr. Kildare and then centered the epic, melodramatic miniseries Shogun and The Thorn Birds, has died. He was 90.

Chamberlain died on Saturday night in Waimanalo, Hawai’i of complications following a stroke, his publicist Harlan Boll told The Hollywood Reporter. He was one day shy of his 91st birthday.

“Our beloved Richard is with the angels now,” Chamberlain’s former longtime partner Martin Rabbett said in a statement. “He is free and soaring to those loved ones before us. How blessed were we to have known such an amazing and loving soul. Love never dies. And our love is under his wings lifting him to his next great adventure

On the big screen, Chamberlain played Julie Christie’s brutal husband in Richard Lester’s Petulia (1968), the woman-loving Aramis in a trio of Three Musketeers films and the fortune hunter Allan Quatermain opposite Sharon Stone in King Solomon’s Mines (1985) and Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986).

Chamberlain started off his miniseries career by starring as trapper Alexander McKeag in James Michener’s 16 1/2 hour, 12-episode saga Centennial, which aired on NBC in 1978-79, and he was the first actor to portray Jason Bourne on the screen when he starred as the Robert Ludlum character in an ABC miniseries in 1988.

In his liberating 2003 autobiography Shattered Love, Chamberlain, then 69, came out as gay.

“When you grow up in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s being gay, it not only ain’t easy, it’s just impossible,” he told The New York Times in 2014.

Chamberlain learned while growing up “that being gay was the worst thing you can possibly be. I assumed there was something terribly wrong with me. And even becoming famous and all that, it was still there.”

Raised in Beverly Hills, Chamberlain was a rather inexperienced actor when he was hired to play James Kildare, an earnest intern with terrific bedside manner — and the mentee of Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey) — on Dr. Kildare.

The NBC drama was based on popular MGM radio and film serials (Lew Ayres portrayed the character on the big screen). Female viewers quickly fell for Chamberlain, and he received upward of 12,000 fan letters a week, more than anyone had ever received at MGM, even Clark Gable.

“My self-esteem deep down was very low, low, low for various reasons, so having that kind of public adulation was just wonderful. It was like a wonderful medicine,” Chamberlain said in a 2010 chat for the website The Interviews: An Oral History of Television. “Being thought to be very attractive, I thought that was just great!”

The show aired for five seasons, from September 1961 until August 1966. “I went through life pretending to be perfect, and that helped me play Dr. Kildaire, because he was close to perfect,” he said.

On the Australian-set The Thorn Birds, which aired on ABC over four nights in March 1983, Chamberlain portrayed Father Ralph, a Catholic priest who is involved in a tortured romance with the ravishing young Meggie (Rachel Ward), who seeks solace from a ranch hand (Bryan Brown, her future real-life husband).

“It was one of the great love affairs in the history of the world, except God was in there between them,” Chamberlain said.

The Thorn Birds, based on Colleen McCullough’s novel, was then the second highest-rated miniseries of all time, trailing only 1977’s Roots (both were produced by David L. Wolper). Chamberlain found its success a bit surprising given that “it was one tragedy after another after another after another. Nobody came out on top.”

James Clavell’s Shogun was originally envisioned as a feature starring Robert Redford. NBC got the rights after those plans fell through and wanted Sean Connery to star as the tempestuous Englishman John Blackthorne. When he could do it, the network cast Chamberlain, who had read the book and pushed for the part. He spent six months shooting the miniseries in Japan, and it aired for 12 hours over five nights in 1980.

Shogun earned Chamberlain a best actor Golden Globe and Emmy nomination, and for The Thorn Birds, he took home another Globe for best actor in a miniseries or motion picture for TV.

George Richard Chamberlain was born in Los Angeles on March 31, 1934, the youngest of two sons. His father, Charles, was a salesman for a company that sold fixtures to supermarkets, and his mother, Elsa, was a housewife who played the piano.

He was raised in Beverly Hills, but on the “wrong side of Wilshire Boulevard, the wrong side of Beverly Drive, in an extremely normal neighborhood,” he noted. He attended Beverly Hills High School, where he appeared in such plays as I Remember Mama.

“I wasn’t that attracted to real life, I liked fantasy life,” he said in his Oral History of Television interview. “I liked role-playing and all that stuff. I was really set up to be an actor, because that was when I was happiest, essentially being someone else.”

Chamberlain attended Pomona College as an art major and didn’t decide to fully pursue acting until he was a senior and received applause for his performance as Bluntschli in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms & the Man.

Reps from Paramount came calling, and while he was talking to them about a contract, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent 16 months in Korea, attaining the rank of sergeant.

Back home, he studied with blacklisted actor turned teacher Jeff Corey and signed with influential MCA agent Monique James, and one of his first paying jobs came on a 1959 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as a son of Massey. That was extraordinarily fortunate, because the veteran actor was going to have to sign off on him to play James Kildaire.

MGM had thought of Chamberlain for the role after he had starred in a failed pilot for a Western, Paradise Kid, and after Massey approved, he was signed him to a seven-year contract, one of the last in the studio era. (William Shatner wrote in his autobiography that he turned down the role.)

Even as Dr. Kildaire was a hit, Chamberlain said he was not comfortable. “There was a terrible danger of being outed,” he said. “I was a romantic lead, for God’s sake; that was my whole career, practically.”

It was a halcyon time for TV doctors — ABC’s Ben Casey also was on the air from 1961-66.

After Dr. Kildaire was done, Chamberlain starred with Mary Tyler Moore in a 1966 stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but that lasted just four previews and never opened on Broadway — despite direction by Abe Burroughs and a rewrite by Edward Albee.

“Turned out to be the biggest flop that ever hit Broadway,” he said.

Chamberlain worked on Petulia, then ventured to England in 1968 to learn how to become “a serious actor.” He won acclaim as Ralph Touchett in a BBC adaptation of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and played Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre — the first American to do so since John Barrymore in the late 1920s.

“That was what blasted me out of the extreme gravity of Dr. Kildaire,” he said. “People back in the States were saying, ‘He played Hamlet? What?’ It changed the way people thought about me.”

Chamberlain then landed high-profile telefilm work in the U.S., portraying Scott Fitzgerald in ABC’s F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘The Last of the Belles’ in 1974; the vengeful Edmond Dantes in NBC’s The Count of Monte Cristo in 1975; and Phillipe/Louis in NBC’s The Man in the Iron Maskin 1977.

His film résumé also included Twilight of Honor (1963), Joy in the Morning (1965), The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), Julius Caesar (1970), The Music Lovers (1971), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella (1976), Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977) and The Swarm (1978).

More recently, Chamberlain guest-starred on Nip/Tuck, playing a gay millionaire who forces his younger lover to have plastic surgery so as to resemble himself; recurred on Brothers & Sisters as a former love interest of Ron Rifkin’s character; hilariously portrayed Craig Ferguson’s mom, Maggie Wick, on The Drew Carey Show; and appeared on the Twin Peaks reboot.

He was the first person ever interviewed on Entertainment Tonight.

Chamberlain also was a singer, and his “These Stars Will Shine Tonight” — the theme from Dr. Kildaire — reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962.

In his Oral History of Television interview, Chamberlain said he found great relief after he came out with the publication of his book.

“Suddenly, all that fear, all that self-dislike … it was like an angel had put her hand on my head and said, ‘It’s over, all that negative stuff is over,’ ” he said. “Being gay is one of the least interesting facts you can know about a person.”

CHAMBERLAIN, Richard (George Richard Chamberlain)

Born: 3/31/1934, · Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 3/29/2025, Waimanalo, Hawaii, U.S.A.

 

Richard Chamberlain’s westerns – actor:

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1960 (Pete)

Riverboat (TV) – 1960 (Lieutenant Dave Winslow)

Thunder of Drums – 1961 (Lieutenant Porter)

The Deputy (TV) - 1961 (Jerry Kirk)

Whispering Smith (TV) – 1961 (Chris Harrington)

Centennial (TV) – 1978-1979 (Alexander McKeag)

Dream West – 1986 (John Charles Fremont)

The Pavilion – 2000 (Huddlestone)

RIP Bruce Glover

 

Bruce Glover, the Villainous Mr. Wint in ‘Diamonds Are Forever,’ Dies at 92

The father of Crispin Glover worked opposite Bette Davis and Anne Bancroft on Broadway and appeared in ‘Chinatown,’ ‘Hard Times’ and the ‘Walking Tall’ films.

TheHollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

March 29, 2025

 

Bruce Glover, the unorthodox actor who portrayed Mr. Wint, the assassin with the distinctive aftershave who partnered with Putter Smith’s Mr. Kidd in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, has died. He was 92.

His son, Back to the Future actor Crispin Glover, shared on Instagram that he died on March 12. His cause of death wasn’t immediately available.

Glover played Deputy Grady Coker alongside Joe Don Baker as Sheriff Buford Pusser in the unexpected box-office hit Walking Tall (1973), then returned for the 1975 and ’77 sequels that had Bo Svenson as the lead.

The Chicago native also portrayed a redneck thug in Stanley Kramer’s Bless the Beasts and Children (1971); Duffy, an associate of Jack Nicholson’s J.J. Gittes, in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974); and a brutish debt collector leaning on a hustler (James Coburn) in Walter Hill’s Hard Times (1975).

Glover performed in hundreds of plays, appearing on Broadway opposite Bette Davis in Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana in 1961 and alongside Anne Bancroft in Mother Courage and Her Children in 1963.

In Guy Hamilton’s Diamonds Are Forever (1971) — the sixth and final Eon film to star Sean Connery — Glover and jazz musician Smith entertained moviegoers as Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, gay assassins who do the bidding for diamond smuggler Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Charles Gray).

As they complete each other’s sentences, the pair kill a dentist with a scorpion, blow up a helicopter with a time bomb and try three times to off Connery’s James Bond before meeting their demise on a cruise ship. (Both characters were featured in the 1956 Ian Fleming novel on which the movie is based.)

The burly Glover was a natural who never went to acting school or took an acting class — yet taught acting throughout his career, by most accounts quite effectively.

“If I am anything as an actor, it is that I will never the usual,” he said in a 2019 interview for The Original Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology website. “I will be the unusual, and I intend to continue that whatever I am doing, whether it be acting, or I’m writing, or I am going to be painting or whatever I am going to be doing. It is uniquely my own.”

Bruce Herbert Glover was born in Chicago on May 2, 1932. His father, Herbert, was a religious man who didn’t want his son going to the movies, but his mother, Eva, took him anyway.

“I was always an actor and didn’t know I was acting,” he told the James Bond Radio Podcast in 2015. “I loved going to movies, and I would direct people in scenes that I’d seen in movies and act different roles. I had an instinct for it.”

He thought about making a living as an artist (he painted) or athlete (he played football at Carl Schurz High School, which lost in the 1949 city championship game at Soldier Field) before he attended Wright Junior College.

While posing for students in an art class, Glover was asked by a fellow model if he would put on a gorilla suit for an act she was in. It turns out she was a stripper and “needed a guy strong enough to wear a 100-pound ape suit and toss her around for 15 minutes,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘Well, that sounds like a very dignified thing to do,’ and I did it.

“I went down to the [Lincoln Park] zoo and studied Bushman, the famous gorilla, which the guy who owned the act told me to do. Bushman gave me my first acting lesson. He said, ‘Think my thoughts and do my moves.’”

He went to Tampa, Florida, with the variety show act, which lasted six weeks, then got drafted into the U.S. Army; he served from 1953-55 and was stationed in Korea.

Afterward, Glover got the part of Kilroy in a local production of Williams’ Camino Real — he said he had never seen a play before — did summer stock in Wisconsin and in 1957 earned a degree in speech from Northwestern, where he advised Warren Beatty to leave college to go to New York to get on with acting.

Glover moved to New York as well, and after his first two stints on Broadway, he understudied for Robert Preston in 1966’s The Lion in Winter.

Meanwhile, he was showing up on such TV shows as Car 54, Where Are You?, Route 66, Perry Mason, My Favorite Martian, The Rat Patrol, Mod Squad and Gunsmoke and in such films as Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).

Casting director Billy Gordon, who had gotten him his gig in Bless the Beasts and Children when his career was in trouble, pushed for him to portray Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever. (Paul Williams had originally screen-tested for the role opposite Smith.)

Glover told Hamilton that since Wint was gay, he should demonstrate “a kind of sexual pleasure” when 007 pulls the assassin’s coattails between his legs and attaches a bomb to them from behind. That’s where the “Wooooo” came from.

In 2007, he was directed by Crispin in the film It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine, and they acted together in Influence (2015).

His résumé also included the movies C.C. & Company (1970), Black Gunn (1972) and Ghost World (2001) and guest spots on Barney Miller, Hart to Hart, The Facts of Life, T.J. Hooker and Murder, She Wrote, among many other shows.

His wife of 56 years, Betty, a ballet dancer who performed in Oklahoma! on Broadway, died in 2016.

In his Van Gogh’s Ear interview, Glover noted that he had been close to death “many times, and even the death process is kind of a learning process.”

“I remember I had a motorcycle accident … I ran into a cow that had ran out on the side of the road. A big steer with horns coming right at my face. And I knew I was going to die, but I noticed that his mouth was slopping his tongue out. And I laughed. So even at that moment when I knew I was probably going to die, I found it funny.

“I had another moment where I was going to be struck in the face by a rattlesnake while I was climbing a cliff in Utah. And as it was striking at me, I still noticed how beautiful it was.

“So live it til the end and laugh when you can.”

GLOVER, Bruce (Bruce Herbert Glover)

Born: 5/2/1932, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 3/12/2025, U.S.A.

 

Bruce Glover’s westerns – actor:

Dundee and the Culhane (TV) – 1967

The Big Valley (TV) – 1968 (Bodkin)

The Over the Hill Gang – 1969 (Deputy Dolby)

The Guns of Will Sonnett (TV) – 1969, 1972 (Billy, Sandy Blake)

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1969 (Enoch Brandt, Titus Wylie)

Bonanza (TV) – 1970 (Scooter)

Scandalous John – 1971 (Sludge)

Yuma – 1971 (Sam King)

Bearcats (TV) – 1971 (Schiller)

One Little Indian – 1973 (Schrader)

This Was the West That Was (TV) – 1974 (Sam Ralston)

Ghost Town – 1988 (dealer)

 

RIP Denis Arndt

 

OSF veteran and Tony-nominated actor Denis Arndt dies at Ashland home

Ashland News

By Jim Flint

March 28, 2025

 

Arndt, 85, spent 15 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

By Jim Flint for Ashland.news

Denis Arndt, a distinguished stage and screen actor whose decades-long career spanned Shakespearean classics, Broadway triumphs, Hollywood roles, and 15 seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, died unexpectedly on March 25, 2025, at his home in Ashland. He was 85.

The death was confirmed by his wife of 45 years, Magee Downey.  No cause was reported. He had suffered and recovered from a stroke in 2019.

He made his OSF debut in 1976 in the title character in “King Lear,” reprising the role in 1985. He also played title roles in “Titus Andronicus,” “Brand,” “The Father,” and “Coriolanus”; Kurt in “The Dance of Death,” Burgoyne in “The Devil’s Disciple,” James Tyrone Jr. in “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” Jamie Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” Jack Rover in “Wild Oats,” Iago in “Othello,” Archie Rice in “The Entertainer,” Dr. James Z. Appel, Richard J. Daley, General Earle Wheeler and Ensemble in “The Great Society,”  and many others.

He made his last appearance on the OSF stage in 2014 as Prospero in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

Arndt was perhaps best known for his gripping performance as Alex Priest in Simon Stephens’s two-character play, “Heisenberg,” which debuted at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2015 before transferring to Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in 2016. His portrayal of an emotionally guarded Irish butcher navigating an unexpected romance opposite a much younger character played by Mary-Louise Parker earned him a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Play in 2017.

Arndt was likely the only guy to make his Broadway debut at 77 that season. He was interviewed by Alexis Soloski for the New York Times just prior to the opening to celebrate the fact.

He met the writer at an oyster bar in Grand Central Terminal, sporting a Jerry Garcia swirling print tie. He told her he normally dressed up only for “openings and bat mitzvahs,” but was determined to make an occasion of the interview. And why not?

“There’s not a hell of a lot of time left,” he told Soloski, downing an oyster. “There just isn’t. Actuarially, most guys my age are dead.”

Born on Nov. 23, 1939, Arndt led an eventful early life before entering the world of professional acting.

He grew up near Seattle and was drawn to the theater as an adolescent at the prompting of a charismatic drama teacher.

He served as a helicopter pilot in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, earning both a Purple Heart and a Commendation Medal. Following his military service, he flew helicopters in Alaska before earning a degree at the University of Washington, using the G.I. Bill. It was there that his passion for theater took flight. While managing an apartment house, he became friendly with a director and drifted back into the theater.

He was a founding member of Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and helped shape the Pacific Northwest’s theater landscape.

Beyond the stage, he cultivated a substantial presence on screen. His film credits included “Basic Instinct” (1992), “How to Make an American Quilt” (1995), and “Metro” (1997), while his television work spanned guest and recurring roles on “L.A. Law,” “Picket Fences,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Good Fight,” and “Supernatural,” among others.

Arndt’s career took him to regional theaters across the country, from the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He performed at The Public Theater in New York, where he played Northumberland in “Richard II.”

In retirement, he enjoyed time with family, working on his property, and sailing.

He is survived by his wife, their three adult children, four adult children from a previous marriage, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In accordance with his wishes, no services will be held.

ARNDT, Denis (Denis Leroy Arndt)

Born: 11/23/1939, Issaquah, Oregon, U.S.A.

Died: 3/25/2025, Ashland, Oregon, U.S.A.

 

Denis Arndt’s westerns – actor:

Kansas – 1998 (Billy)

Bandidas – 2006 (Ashe)

RIP Ángel Del Pozo

 

Actor Ángel del Pozo, one of the faces of the so-called 'Spaghetti Western', dies at the age of 90

He participated on the big screen in films such as 'Margarita se llama mi amor', directed by Tito Fernández; 'Vuelve San Valentín', by Fernando Palacios; 'The Fourth Window', by Julio Coll

El Confidencial

By Europa Press

3/29/2025

The actor Ángel del Pozo, one of the faces of the film genre known as 'Spaghetti Western', has died this Saturday at the age of 90, as reported by the Telecinco program 'Fiesta'. Throughout his career he participated in more than sixty titles, of which more than a dozen belong to the western genre. From the 1990s to 2008 he was also executive producer and public relations at Gestevisión Telecinco, the current Mediaset España communication group. From 1960 she participated on the big screen in films such as 'Margarita se llama mi amor', directed by Tito Fernández; 'Vuelve San Valentín', by Fernando Palacios; 'The Fourth Window', by Julio Coll; or in the Spanish-Italian co-production, 'Cara a cara', among other films. He also worked as a film director with feature films such as 'La promesa', where he directed Carmen Sevilla and Antonio Ferrandis; or 'El alijo', starring Juan Luis Galiardo. In 2020, the Almería Western Film Festival (AWFF) recognized him with the 'Tabernas de cine' award.

del POZO, Ángel (Ángel del Pozo Merino)

Born: 7/14/1934, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Died: 3/29/2025, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

 

Ángel Del Pozo’s westerns – actor:

Welcome Padre Murray – 1962 (John/Juan)

The Colt is My Law- 1965 (George Benson) [as Anthony Clark]

A Place Called Glory – 1965 (Josh)

The Big Gundown -1966 (Chet/Shemp Miller)

Fort Yuma Gold – 1966 (Captain Lefevre)

Face to Face – 1967 (Maximilian de Winton)

Wrath of God – 1968 (David)

El Condor – 1969 (lieutenant)

The Price of Power – 1969 (lawyer)

Catlow – 1971 (Captain Francisco Vargas)

In the Dust of the Sun – 1971 (priest)

Pancho Villa – 1971 (Lieutenant Eager)

Chino – 1973

The Man Called Noon – 1973 (Ben Janish)

Spanish Western – 2014 [himself]

RIP Takashi Inagaki

 

Actor Takashi Inagaki dies of pneumonia at the age of 87 He is in charge of many dubbing roles such as the role of Palpatine, the supreme chairman of "Star Wars"

Yahoo Japan

3/272025

 

Takashi Inagaki passed away.

 Actor Takashi Inagaki died of pneumonia at 4:30 p.m. on the 12th at a hospital in Machida City, Tokyo. He was 87 years old. The theater company Mingei, to which he belongs, made the announcement on his official website on the 27th.

"Takashi Inagaki, real name, an actor from the Mingei Theater Company, passed away at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 12, 2025 at a hospital in Machida City, Tokyo, at the age of 87." "The funeral was held on Friday, March 21 at a family funeral, and the chief mourner was her daughter, Kayako Akahori. For inquiries, please contact the theater company Mingei. I would like to respectfully inform you here."

According to the troupe, "There are no plans to hold a farewell party."

Mr. Inagaki was born in Gunma Prefecture on May 11, 1937. After graduating from Gunma Prefectural Shibukawa High School, he went to the Actor's Theater Training School (8th class), became a research student at the Mingei Theater Company in '59, and became a member of the theater company in '64. The first stage was "The Cage" in 60.

The main stage performances are Lapchenko in Arbuzov's "The Irkutsk Story", Happy in Miller's "Death of a Salesman", Lautrec in Juro Miyoshi's "The Man on Fire", Dussel in Anne Frank's "Anne Frank's Diary", Hitler in Brecht's "Schbeik in World War II", Gorky's "The Abyss" actors, Tomoyoshi Murayama's "Doomsday Hour" by Yamada Uemon, Steinbeck's original "The Grapes of Wrath" narrator, Okamoto Kyodo's "Haiku Master" by Michidori and Junji Kinoshita's "Master" by the pianist. In high school, he studied piano with Noboru Toyomasu and showed his skills in the play "The Master" (91, 97, 2004).

Recent stage performances include Kinji Obata's "Kobe Kita Hotel" by Keishiro Oga (09.10), Kinji Obata's "Doron Doron - Yotsuya Kaidan" by Kikugoro Onoe (10-13), Yoji Sakate's "The Return" by Yoshimitsu Kirimoto (11), David Berry's "The Whale of August" by Joshua (13.14), and Brendan Behan's "Hitojichi" Monçoir (15). The final stage is "Paper Moon" by Itsuki Sato, Ryo Yanai (18). He has also appeared in many Nikkatsu films such as "Life Like a Weed," "The Sixty-Third Regiment of Fools," "Kill Those Who Get in the Way," "The Girl in the Glass," and "The City Without a Map."

He has also appeared in many external voices (dubbing), including foreign dramas such as "ER Emergency Room", "White House", "Lost", the movie "007" series, "Titanic", "Armageddon", "Spider-Man", and "Hitchcock". In recent years, the "Kingdom Hearts" video game has been released, including the "Hunger Games" series (President Coriolanus Snow), the "Star Wars" series (Palpatine), "007: Skyfall" (Kinkade), "Planet of the Apes: Genesis" (Jon Landon), "The Hobbit: The Kingdom of the Dragon" (Berlin), and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (Henrik Vanger). In the series, he voiced Yen Sid.

INAGAKI, Takashi (Inagaki Takashi)

Born: 5/11/1937, Gunma Prefecture, Japan

Died: 3/12/2025, Machida City, Tokyo, Japan

 

Takashi Inagaki’s western – voice actor:

Westworld (TV) 2016  [Japanese voice of Anthony Hopkins]

RIP Clive Revill

 

Clive Revill, Voice of the Emperor in ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ Dies at 94

Recruited to be an actor by Laurence Olivier, he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, earned two Tony nominations and appeared in a pair of Billy Wilder films.  

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

March 25, 2025

 

Clive Revill, the New Zealand native who after being recruited to be an actor by Laurence Olivier starred on Broadway, appeared in two films for Billy Wilder and provided the original voice of the evil Emperor Palpatine in The Empire Strikes Back, has died. He was 94.

Revill died March 11 at a care facility in Sherman Oaks after a battle with dementia, his daughter, Kate Revill, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The extremely versatile Revill played cops in Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), starring Olivier, and Jack Smight’s Kaleidoscope (1966), starring Warren Beatty; not one but two characters (a Scotsman and an Arab) in Joseph Losey’s Modesty Blaise (1966); and a physicist investigating strange goings-on at a haunted mansion in John Hough’s The Legend of Hell House (1973), starring Roddy McDowall.

A veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Revill also appeared seven times on Broadway and received Tony nominations for his turns in two musicals: as the Bar-des-Inquiets proprietor Bob-Le-Hotu in 1961’s Irma la Douce and as Fagin in 1963’s Oliver!

For Wilder, he portrayed a man representing a Russian ballerina in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) — his character is led to believe that Holmes (Robert Stephens) and Dr. Watson (Colin Blakely) are gay — and the besieged hotel manager Carlo in Avanti! (1972), which earned him a Golden Globe nom.

For Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back (1980), director Irvin Kershner called upon Revill — the two had worked together on the 1966 film A Fine Madness — to record a couple of menacing lines in a Wilshire Boulevard studio in Los Angeles.

They would be used in the pivotal scene in which Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) communicates with the emperor (as a holographic projection).

Revill’s voice would be replaced on the 2004 DVD release of the film by Ian McDiarmid’s, who went on to play the character in Return of the Jedi (1983) and the franchise’s three prequels — but he had his fans nonetheless.

“They come up to me, and I tell them to get close and shut their eyes,” he said in a 2015 interview. “Then I say [in the emperor’s haunting voice], ‘There is a great disturbance in the Force.’ People turn white, and one nearly fainted!”

One of two sons, Clive Selsby Revill was born on April 18, 1930, in Wellington, New Zealand. His mother, Eleanor, was a homemaker and an opera singer, and his father, Malet, was a carpenter.

A great fan of Shakespeare, Revill was working as an actuary in a bank when he met Olivier and his wife, actress Vivien Leigh, who were on a tour of New Zealand. Olivier told him to come to his Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol to study acting, and Revill raised the money to make the trip to England in 1950.

He struggled away from home. “I had my doubts at one point when I thought, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t do this. I can’t find it within myself,’” Revill recalled in a 2017 interview. “I had a marvelous talk with a woman who was in charge of movement in school and she took me aside and said, ‘You’ve got to go back to within yourself and find the truth within yourself, and if you can find that truth, never, never, never lose it because it’s more than a ring on a finger. It’s the absolute, innermost line within your life and your spirit.’”

Revill regained his confidence and in 1952 made his Broadway debut in Mr. Pickwick, based on Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers. He then joined the RSC and in 1964 starred in a bathtub as Jean-Paul Marat alongside Patrick Magee as the Marquis de Sade in a production of Marat/Sade.

Revill returned to Broadway in 1967 to star as Sheridan Whiteside in the musical Sherry!, in 1971 to star as Max Beerbohm in The Incomparable Max, in 1975 to play Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes and in 1981 to star as Clare Quilty in Edward Albee’s adaptation of Lolita.

He could play all manner of ethnicities, and his big-screen body of work included The Double Man (1967), Fathom (1967), The Assassination Bureau (1969), A Severed Head (1970), The Black Windmill (1974), One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975), Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) and The Queen of Spain (2016).

Revill portrayed an Irishman in 1978 on Peter Falk’s last episode of the original Columbo series and showed up on everything from Maude, Hart to Hart, Dynasty, Remington Steele, Murder, She Wrote and Babylon 5 to Magnum, P.I., Newhart, MacGyver, Dear John, The Fall Guy and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In addition to Emperor Palpatine, he played other Star Wars characters in video games and was Alfred the butler on Batman: The Animated Series in 1992.

Survivors also include his granddaughter, Kayla.

REVILL, Clive (Clive Selsby Revill)

Born: 4/18/1930, Wellington, New Zealand

Died: 3 2025,

 

Clive Revill’s westerns – actor, singer:

Young Daniel Boone (TV) – 1977 (Teague)

Centennial (TV) – 1979 (Finlay Perkin)

Zorro the Gay Blade – 1981 (Garcia)

Pocahontas 2: Journey to the New World – 1998 [singer]

RIP Maria Gustafson

 

A beloved actress and presenter, unforgettable in a mythical TVE program, dies

Maria hit hit on TV in the 70s

El Nacional

By Dario Porras

March 25, 2025

 

Sad news that has just been known: the death of one of the components of one of the most mythical programs in the history of television in Spain. It was the decade of the 70s when a program, arising from the mind of Chicho Ibáñez Serrador, made the whole country stand in front of the televisions watching how different couples answered questions, how they participated in tests and how they took home some prize from the auction. We are talking, obviously, about One, two, three... answer again. A program that in its beginnings had Kiko Ledgard as its presenter. And a program that from the beginning had, among one of its house brands, a cast of hostesses with giant glasses.

Let's stay with the hostesses. Among the many girls who took part, many of them later earned a living as actresses. There was, for example, Victoria Abril, Kim Manning, Sílvia Marsó, Lydia Bosch, Isabel Serrano, Nina and so many others. And there was also a young Swedish woman, who, curiously, the stage name that Chicho Ibáñez Serrador made her give was different from hers. We are talking about Maria Gustafsson, renamed 'Britt', since it was strange, she said, for the viewer, that the Swedish stewardess had a name as Spanish as Maria. A Swedish stewardess-actress who has now passed away, unfortunately.

One of Britt's functions in the program, where, by the way, she was one of the few hostesses who was from the beginning to the end of that first stage in the 70s, before the arrival of the 80s and Mayra Gómez-Kemp, was to draw balls from the lucky drum, which decided who would compete in the coming weeks. In her native Sweden she had participated in amateur plays, but it was when she decided to move to Spain that she was able to develop her artistic career at a professional level. Precisely, one of the films in which she participated was 'La residencia', by Chicho Ibáñez Serrador himself, who was so happy with it that he later offered her to play a stewardess. As an actress, she participated in films such as 'The Last Mrs. Anderson', 'Long-Play', 'You Won't Wish for the Neighbor on the Fifth', 'The Boy and the Colt', 'Blood in the Ring', 'Through the Roof, the Stars', 'A Rope, a Colt' or 'Chronicles of a Town'.

She was currently living in Stockholm, although she traveled from time to time to Spain when there was a commemorative event of the program that launched her to fame. Rest in peace.

GUSTAFSON, Maria (Britt Monica Maria Gustafsson)

Born: 8/31/1946, Boden Sweden

Died: 3/23/2025, Aseda, Stockholm, Sweden

 

Maria Gustafson’s western – actress:

Cemetery Without Crosses – 1968 (saloon girl)

RIP Pilar Del Rey

 

Pilar Del Rey, Actress in ‘Giant,’ Dies at 95

She portrayed Sal Mineo’s mom in the Oscar best picture nominee directed by George Stevens.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

February 28, 2025

 

Pilar Del Rey, the character actress perhaps best remembered for her turn in Giant as the Mexican woman who has a seriously ill newborn who grows up to be the doomed World War II soldier played by Sal Mineo, has died. She was 95.

Del Rey died Sunday in Los Angeles of natural causes, her family announced.

Over four decades, Del Rey appeared in such other films as The Ring (1952), starring Rita Moreno; And Now Miguel (1953), starring Michael Ansara and Pat Cardi; The Siege at Red River (1954), starring Van Johnson and Joanne Dru; and Black Horse Canyon (1954), starring Mari Blanchard and Race Gentry.

In George Stevens’ epic Giant (1956), Del Rey portrays Mrs. Obregón, whose baby, Angel, is cared for thanks to Elizabeth Taylor’s compassionate Leslie Benedict. Leslie’s husband, Bick (Rock Hudson), doesn’t think the family doctor should tend to “those people.” (Mrs. Obregón’s husband, played by Victor Millan, is the Benedicts’ driver.)

Born on May 26, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas, Del Rey was 11 when she and her parents left for Hollywood, where she would attend Hollywood High School.

She made her onscreen debut in Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949) and played Latino characters in such films as The Kid From Texas (1950) and The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952) and on episodes of The Adventures of Kit Carson and Have Gun — Will Travel.

Her TV credits also included stops on Hopalong Cassidy, Sea Hunt, Fireside Theater, Daniel Boone, Family Affair, My Three Sons, The Wild Wild West, Police Story, Mannix, Barnaby Jones, Hart to Hart, Simon & Simon and many other shows.

Her final onscreen appearance came in The Forbidden Dance (1990).

Del Rey, who joined SAG in 1949 and AFTRA in 1955, was honored in 1995 at the inaugural AFTRA/SAG Latino/Hispanic Heritage Celebration, where actor Ricardo Montalbán recognized her contributions to the entertainment industry.

Survivors include three nephews that she raised as her children. Said nephew David Bouzas: “Pilar will forever be remembered for her generosity and love. She truly was our Auntie Mame.”

DEL REY, Pilar (Pilar Bougas)

Born: 5/26/1929, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.A.

Died: 2/23/2025, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Pilar Del Rey’s westerns – actress:

The Kid from Texas – 1950 (Marguarita)

Mark of the Renegade – 1951 (señorita)

The Adventures of Kit Carson (TV) – 1951, 1952 (Carlotta Mesconti, Christina Gonzales, waitress, servant)

Hopalong Cassidy (TV) – 1953 (Marella, Artaro’s woman)

Black Horse Canyon – 1954 (Juanita)

Border River -1954 (girl)

Jubilee Trail – 1954 (Carmelita Velasco)

The Siege at Red River – 1954 (Lukoa)

Stories of the Century (TV) – 1955 (Tonia)

Giant – 1956 (Mrs. Obregón)

Have Gun – Will Travel (TV) – 1959 (Maria)

26 Men (TV) – 1959 (Lucita)

Shotgun Slade (TV) – 1961 (Lucia)

Daniel Boone (TV) – 1968 (Moranta)

The Wild Wild West (TV) – 1969 (Mexican matron)

The High Chaparral (TV) – 1970 (Mrs. Martinez)

How the West Was Won (TV) – 1979 (Esperanza)

RIP Gianfranco Barra

 

Farewell to Gianfranco Barra, character actor for great directors: he was 84 years old 

His career was launched in 1968 by the film 'Il medico della mutua' by Luigi Zampa with Alberto Sordi

adnkronos

March 23, 2025

 

Actor Gianfranco Barra has died. Character actor appreciated for his versatility, capable of passing through the most varied roles, both comic and dramatic, he was 84 years old. Barra, who worked for the greatest directors of the Italian film and television scene, died today at his home in Rome, where he was born on April 5, 1940. The announcement of his death was made by his family to Adnkronos.

A graduate of the 'Silvio D'Amico' Academy of Dramatic Arts, a long-time theatre actor, Barra made his debut on the big screen in 1968 in the film 'Il medico della mutua' by Luigi Zampa, where he played Dr. Sandolini, one of the perfidious colleagues of Dr. Guido Tersilli (Alberto Sordi), a young and ambitious recent graduate. He then starred in dramas such as 'Detainee awaiting judgment' (1971) by Nanni Loy and in brilliant comedies such as 'What happened between my father and your mother?' (1972) by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon, set and shot in Italy, with an almost all-Italian cast.

He worked with Steno, by whom he was particularly appreciated, in 'Il trapianto' (1969), 'La polizia grazie' (1972), 'La poliziotta' (1974), 'Il padrone e l'operaio' (1975), 'Doppio delitto' (1977), 'Fico d'india' (1980) and 'Banana Joe' (1982), alongside Bud Spencer. Barra also distinguished himself in 'Il sindacalista' (1972) by Luciano Salce, 'Mordi e fuggi' (1973) by Dino Risi and 'Pane e cioccolata' (1973) by Franco Brusati.

Supporting Ugo Tognazzi and Paolo Villaggio in 'La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone' (1975) by Pupi Avati, Gianfranco Barra then joined Monica Vitti and Adriano Celentano in 'L'altra metà del cielo' (1976) by Franco Rossi, and starred in the film 'I nuovi mostri' (1977), directed by Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi and Ettore Scola, appearing in the episode 'Con i saluti degli amici', and later in 'Gian Burrasca' (1982) by Pier Francesco Pingitore.

With the eighties, Barra was one of the most used actors by the Vanzina brothers: appearing in 'Eccezzziunale... veramente' (1982), 'Christmas Holidays' (1983), 'La partita' (1988) and above all 'Sapore di mare' (1982): in the latter film he is Antonio Pinardi, the father of siblings Paolo (Angelo Cannavacciuolo) and Marina (Marina Suma) who came to Forte dei Marmi for the first time with their parents. Barra was also present in 'Sapore di mare 2 - Un anno dopo' (1983) by Bruno Cortini (1983). He was again directed by Carlo Vanzina in 'Il pranzo della domenica' (2003) and 'Le barzellette' (2004) and also in the TV miniseries 'Anni '50' (1998).

In Barra's filmography, which includes 117 titles, characterizations in dramatic films stand out, such as 'The Rubber Wall' (1991) by Marco Risi, who also chose him for the comedy 'In the Black Continent' (1992). Other films in which he has acted as a character actor include 'Roaring Throats' (1992) by Pier Francesco Pingitore, 'Only You - Love at First Sight' (1994) by Norman Jewison, 'Italian Miracle' (1994) by Enrico Oldoini, 'Dirty Laundry' (1999) by Mario Monicelli, 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (1999) by Anthony Minghella (1999).

Since the nineties, Barra's career has also included many fictions for Rai and Mediaset such as 'Giovanni Falcone' (1993), 'The Baron' (1995), 'Positano' (1996), 'Blessed by the Lord' (2004), 'Honor and Respect' (2006), 'The Countess of Castiglione' (2006), 'Warm Blood' (2011). In recent years he has also appeared in commercials. In 2017 Gianfranco Barra was awarded at the Formia Film Festival for the short film 'New Year New Life', which he wrote, directed and starred in, for which he also received a special mention and a lifetime achievement award. In the short film, now in old age, thinking back to his artistic past, the actor goes through a lacerating conflict: 'celebrate the successes of the past or relive them as an experience of reaching maturity?'.

BARRA, Gianfranco

Born: 4/5/1940, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Died: 3/23/2025, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Gianfranco Barra’s western – actor:

Jesse and Lester, Two Brothers in a Place Called Trinity - 1972

RIP Jack Lilley

 

'Little House on the Prairie' actor Jack Lilley dead at 91

Jack Lilley's son, Clint, called his father 'one of a kind' in a heartfelt tribute shared with Fox News Digital

Fox News

By Stephanie Giang-Paunon

March 21, 2025

 

Jack Lilley, best known for his roles on "Little House on the Prairie," has died. He was 91.

His son, Clint Lilley, exclusively confirmed to Fox News Digital that his father had died "peacefully in his sleep," at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement home in Calabasas, California on Wednesday, March 19.

"He was one of a kind," Clint said as he shared how proud he was to be a part of three generations in Hollywood.

"We got a glimpse of the old Hollywood … because he came out of that … and seen the transition. He’s seen so much change in the industry and we were kind of raised around it as little kids. We got to see when it was done back in the day, compared to now."

Clint remembered working on the "Little House on the Prairie" production as a child and continued to share what his father taught him in the industry.

"He taught us, we had to work for it and nothing was going to be handed to you, you have to go get it … he made sure [of] that … I'm thankful for that, because he wanted to make sure that we were grounded," Clint laughed as he reflected on special memories of the Old Hollywood actor.

"He wanted to make sure that [we know] … it's a privilege, it’s a blessing to be in the industry … I'm forever grateful for that."

Clint told Fox News Digital that Jack was surrounded by loved ones at the time of his passing.

Jack appeared as a stagecoach driver in "Little House on the Prairie" and was often seen transporting the characters in between towns on a horse-drawn carriage.

The Hollywood actor worked on the popular 1970s television series and was featured in several made-for-television movies in the "Little House" franchise, including "Little House: Look Back to Yesterday" in 1983 and "The Last Farewell" and "Bless All the Dear Children," both of which aired in 1984.

Jack’s son shared that his father was close with "Little House on the Prairie" producer, Kent McCray, and fellow actor Victor French.

"He's one of those guys who never forgot where he came from," Clint added. "He came from dirt poor; they moved in 1933. He was born in Santa Clarita … grew up in North Hollywood."

"He helped a lot of people in this industry … he could make things happen. He was that guy, and he was always willing to help. Always willing to help out and come up with a solution … make it work, make it happen … that's a gift."

Jack concluded his heartfelt tribute, "He's a really good father, no doubt about it."

The "Little House on the Prairie" family is also mourning the loss of the series alum.

Melissa Gilbert took to Instagram to share a special message to her former co-star.

"The little house family has lost one of our own. Jack Lilley has passed away," Gilbert posted on social media.

"He also happened to be one of my favorite people on the planet. He taught me how to ride a horse when I was just a wee little thing. He was so patient with me," she added in her lengthy tribute.

Aside from being Victor French’s photo double, he was featured prominently in many different roles on Little House. You can also see his absolute brilliance in the film Blazing Saddles."

Gilbert posted a photo of Jack in a cowboy hat to accompany her social media tribute.

"Our first read though was at Paramount Studios, where we had shot Little House the first four years. It was also on Halloween, which is Michael Landon’s birthday. That day, I also found out we would be shooting at Big Sky Ranch, where we had shot little house."

She continued to describe how her first day on set was "surreal."

"Then I walked to the set itself and before I could even focus I heard a familiar voice holler, ‘Hey Halfpint, you old rat-a--!!!’ It was Jack. He was our wrangler for that pilot and by his side was Denny Allen, who had been our wrangler on Little House."

Gilbert added, "In that instant, I knew I was home. Jack always felt like home to me. He lived quite a life. I am so lucky that he was my friend… Oh Jack....sweet prince...may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Love always, Your Halfpint."

After "Little House on the Prairie," Jack went on to become an actor and stuntman for several other films throughout his career, including "Sudden Impact," "Young Guns," "Planet of the Apes" and "The Legend of Zorro."

LILLEY, Jack (Jack E. Lilley)

Born: 8/15/1933, Santa Clarita, California, U.S.A.

Died: 3/19/2025, Calabasas, California, U.S.A.

 

Jack Lilley’s westerns – actor, stuntman,

Gun for a Coward – 1956 (cowhand)

Drango – 1957 (townsman)

Fury at Sundown – 1957 (townsman)

The Hard Man – 1957 (townsman)

Cheyenne (TV) 1957-1962 (barfly, soldier, townsman)

Have Gun – Will Travel (TV) – 1957-1960 (townsman)

The Oklahoman – 1957 (townsman)

Wagon Train (TV) – 1957 (wagon train member)

Zorro (TV) 1957-1961 (tavern patron, lancer, bandito)

Ride a Crooked Trail – 1958 (Teeler gang member)

Cimarron City (TV) – 1959 (bandit)

Last Train from Gun Hill – 1959 (townsman)

The Deputy (TV) – 1959 (guard)

Bat Masterson (TV) – 1959 (ranch hand, trial spectator)

Lawman (TV) – 1959 (barfly)

Mackenzie’s Raiders (TV) – 1959 (Indian)

Maverick (TV) - 1959-1962 (bandit, Indian, townsman)

Rawhide (TV) - 1959-1962 (vaquero, cowhand, townsman)

The Rebel (TV) – 1959 (Indian, townsman)

Bronco (TV) 1960-1961 (townsman, cowhand)

Death Valley Days – 1960 (TV) (bandit, townsman)

Johnny Ringo (TV) – 1960 (townsman)

Overland Train (TV) – 1960 (Indian, townsman)

Riverboat (TV) – 1960 (townsman)

Sugarfoot (TV) – 1960 (barfly)

The Tall Man (TV) – 1960 (barfly)

Wanted: Dead or Alive (TV) – 1960 (townsman)

One-Eyed Jacks – 1961 [stunts]

Posse from Hell – 1961 (townsman)

Bonanza (TV) – 1961-1972 (juror, brawler, barfly)

Frontier Circus (TV) – 1961 (Indian)

Gunsmoke (TV) – 1961-1974 (special deputy, brawler, townsman) [stunts]

Lonely are the Brave – 1962 (prisoner)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – 1962 (townsman)

Stoney Burke (TV) – 1962 (cowboy)

The Virginian (TV) – 1962-1966 (barfly, Conway henchman, Colter ranch hand)

Gunfight at Comanche Creek – 1963 (barfly)

Bullet for a Badman – 1964 (townsman)

Black Spurs – 1965 (townsman)

Cat Ballou – 1965 (brawler)

The Hallelujah Trail – 1965 [stunts]

The Rounders – 1965 [stunts]

The Big Valley (TV) – 1965-1967 (townsman, settler)

Branded (TV) – 1965 (townsman)

A Man Called Shenandoah (TV) – 1965 (townsman)

The Wild Wild West (TV) – 1965-1968 (murdered stage driver, clock mover on train, driver)

Johnny Reno – 1966 (townsman)

Nevada Smith – 1966 (gang member)

The Rare Breed – 1966 (townsman)

The Ballad of Josei – 1967 (cowhand)

40 Guns to Apache Pass – 1967 (Mr. Carter)

Hostile Guns – 1967 (cowhand)

Rough Night in Jericho – 1967 (henchman)

Waterhole #3 – 1967 (trooper)

Cimarron Strip (TV) – 1967 (townsman)

The High Chaparral (TV) – 1967-1969 (ranch hand, bartender, guard)

Arizona Bushwackers – 1968 (townsman)

Support Your Local Sheriff – 1969 (Danby family member)

Scandalous John – 1971 [stunts]

Alias Smith and Jones (TV) – 1971 (Bannerman Agent)

Kung Fu (TV) – 1972 [overseer]

Cotter – 1973 (rodeo cowboy)

Blazing Saddles – 1974 [overseer, stunts]

Little House on the Prairie (TV) – 1974-1983 (stage driver, wagon driver) [stunt coordinator]

The Mountain Men – 1980 [stunts]

Father Murphy (TV) – 1981 1983 (stage driver, gambler, driver) [stunt coordinator]

Little House: Look Back to Yesterday (TV) – 1983 (townsman)

Little House: The Last Farewell (TV) – 1984 (stagecoach driver) [stunts]

Little House: Bless All the Dear Children (TV) – 1984 (stagecoach driver)

Three Amigos – 1986 [stunts]

The Alamo: Thirteen Days of Glory – 1987 [stunts]

Young Guns – 1988 [head wrangler]

Bonanza: The Next Generation (TV) – 1988 (Jory)

Once Upon a Texas Train – (TV) – 1988 [stunts]

Young Guns II – 1990 [head wrangler]

City Clickers – 1991 [livestock coordinator]

The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (TV) – 1991 (Jack Lilley)

The Last Outlaw (TV) – 1993 [head wrangler]

Bad Girls – 1994 [head wrangler]

City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold – 1994 [boss wrangler]

Gambler V: Playing for Keeps (TV) – 1994 (Frisco) [key wrangler]

Dead Man’s Walk (TV) – 1996 [head wrangler]

Rough Riders (TV) – 1997 (stagecoach guard) [head wrangler]

Everything That Rises (TV) – 1998 [head wrangler]

The Magnificent Seven (TV) – 1998 (stagecoach driver)

The Ransom of Red Chief (TV) – 1998 [boss wrangler, stunts]

Durango Kids – 1999 [boss wrangler, stunts]

Horse Sense – 1999 [animal wrangler]

Comanche – 2000 [horse trainer]

Texas Rangers – 2001 [stunts]

The Last Cowboy (TV) – 2003 (Fuller) [boss wrangler]

The Legend of Zorro – 2005 [head of animal department]

Desolation Canyon (TV) – 2006 [boss wrangler, stunts]

Shiloh Falls – 2007 [head wrangler]

Avenging Angel (TV) – 2007 [wrangler]

Big Money Rustlas – 2010 [wrangler]

Black Knuckle and Deputy Maltese – 2018 [boss wrangler]

No Name and Dynamite Davenport – 2022 (Jack)

RIP Wings Hauser

 

R.I.P. Wings Hauser: prolific character actor has passed away at 77

Prolific character actor Wings Hauser, who has over 110 screen acting credits to his name, has passed away at age 77

JoBlo

By Cody Hamman

March 20, 2025

 

We have some sad news to share today, as the official Wings Hauser page on social media has revealed that the prolific character actor passed away over the weekend at the age of 77. As the post reads, “Movie icon Wings Hauser took flight in the arms of his film & music partner, Cali Lili Hauser at their studio this weekend.“

Known for having one of the coolest names in cinema history, Wings Hauser was actually born Gerald Dwight Hauser on December 12, 1947. “Wings” was part of a stage name (Wings Livinryte) he used for a 1975 folk music album called Your Love Keeps Me Off the Streets, and he was credited as Wings Livinryte when he appeared on an episode of the TV series Cannon that same year. After that, he moved on to calling himself Wings Hauser.

Hauser made his screen debut with an uncredited appearance in the 1967 film First to Fight. After that, he spent several years focusing on his music career rather than acting – and for a time in the 1970s, he was homeless, living in a vacant garage with his infant daughter Bright. The release of Your Love Keeps Me Off the Streets, along with the Cannon episode that enabled him to join the Screen Actors Guild, helped him afford more stable housing for himself and his daughter.

From 1975 to 2019, he worked steadily in film and television, racking up credits on more than 110 different projects. Those credits include episodes of Baretta, Emergency!; Magnum, P.I.; The Fall Guy, Hunter, Hardcastle and McCormick, Airwolf, The A-Team, Freddy’s Nightmares, China Beach, Lightning Force, The Young Riders, Roseanne; Walker, Texas Ranger; Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, JAG; Murder, She Wrote; Beverly Hills, 90210; Arli$$, CSI: Miami, House, Monk, Cold Case, Bones, The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, The Young and the Restless, Hawaii Five-O, Castle, and more, as well as the films Rubber, The Insider, Original Gangstas, Tales from the Hood, Watchers III, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time, Frame Up, Frame Up II: The Cover-Up, Bump in the Night, Bedroom Eyes II, A Soldier’s Story, Perry Mason: The Case of the Scandalous Scoundrel, Mutant, 3:15: The Moment of Truth, Who’ll Stop the Rain, The Carpenter, Nightmare at Noon, The Wind, Tough Guys Don’t Dance, Pale Blood; Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling; Out of Sight, Out of Mind, and more. He was in a lot of action movies and thrillers, with titles like The Killers Edge, Skins, Living to Die, Coldfire, Street Asylum, Marked for Murder, Reason to Die, L.A. Bounty, The Siege of Firebase Gloria, Dead Man Walking, No Safe Haven, Hostage, Dark Horse, Command 5, Deadly Force, and Hear No Evil.

Hauser may be best remembered for his performance as the homicidal pimp Ramrod in the 1982 film Vice Squad. He also sang that film’s theme song, “Neon Slime.” In addition to starring in the films Skins, The Art of Dying, Living to Die, and Coldfire, he also directed them. He co-wrote the screenplays for Skins and No Safe Haven, contributed to the script for Beastmaster 2, and came up with the story for the 1983 movie Uncommon Valor, which he didn’t appear in, but was credited as an associate producer on.

Wings Hauser was the father of daughter Bright with his first wife, Jane Boltinhouse. He had a son, actor Cole Hauser, with his second wife, Cass Warner Sperling. At the time of his death, he was married to Cali Lili Hauser.

Our heartfelt condolences go out to Wings Hauser’s family, friends, and fans.

HAUSER, Wings (Gerald Dwight Hauser)

Born: 12/12/1947, Hollywood, California, U.S.A.

Died: 3/15/2025, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

 

Wings Hauser’s westerns – actor:

The Young Riders (TV) – 1992 (Randle)

Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 1994 (Wayland Hampton)

Avenging Angel (TV) – 2007 (Colonel Cusack)

RIP David Steven Cohen

 

‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ head writer David Steven Cohen dies at 58 

David Steven Cohen, head writer of Courage the Cowardly Dog, has died at 58 following a battle with cancer.

The Express Tribune

March 18, 2025

 

David Steven Cohen, the head writer of Courage the Cowardly Dog, has passed away at the age of 58, according to reports from animation historian Jerry Beck.

Beck shared on Facebook that Cohen’s cause of death was cancer.

Cohen played a pivotal role in shaping the eerie and surreal storytelling that made Courage the Cowardly Dog a beloved yet unsettling children’s animated series on Cartoon Network. While John R. Dilworth created the show, Cohen joined the writing team in season 1 and later became head writer, penning many of the most memorable episodes in seasons 2, 3, and 4. His final contribution was the penultimate episode before the series concluded in 2002.

Some of Cohen’s most iconic episodes include "Klub Katz," "1000 Years of Courage," "Forbidden Hat of Gold," and "The Sand Whale Strikes." His work contributed to the show's signature blend of horror, dark comedy, and heartfelt storytelling, demonstrating that kids enjoy fear-driven narratives.

Beyond Courage, Cohen also wrote for Balto, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, and Phil of the Future, showcasing his versatility in animation and children’s television.

Fans and industry professionals are mourning his passing, remembering his profound impact on animation.

Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.

COHEN, David Steven

Born: 8/5/1968, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.

Died: 3/17/2025, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.

 

David Steven Cohen’s western – writer:

Balto - 1995

RIP Maria Grazia Spina

 

Farewell to the Venetian actress Grazia Maria Spina: a life of arts, marked by beauty

Cinema, TV, theater: a brilliant and intense career, in which gossip also had space. She passed away at the age of 89

Messaggero

March 13, 2025

 

I am a Venetian actress. It is perhaps to my city that I owe my profession: the Theatre. The knowledge of Venetian has helped me a lot to interpret the works of what is certainly our greatest playwright: Carlo Goldoni. I was still attending the Art School at the Academy of Venice, when the director of the University Theatre of Ca' Foscari, Giovanni Poli, wanted me in a role in "Le donne gelose" by Carlo Goldoni and in Rosetta in "Con l'amore non si scherza" by Alfred de Musset. Certainly, at the time, I was more interested in the world of painters; my teachers: Saetti and Cesetti”.

This is how Grazia Maria Spina wrote about herself, about her career, her artistic experiences, the meaning of a path. One of the most beautiful and well-known actresses of a distant Italy, from the economic boom, has died. Goldonian actress of the highest level, she was 89 years old. Her golden period goes from the end of the fifties to the early eighties. A brilliant and intense career, in which gossip also had space: a relationship with the director Pasquale Campanile party, an unveiling service in October 1970 for Playmen magazine. In 1997 she received the honor of Commendatore.

She had set up her own website, years ago, in which she tells her story. "I used to go to the house of the great abstract painter Mario De Luigi, because I went to school with his daughter Caterina, still my great friend and talented art historian. In their house I met the painter Tancredi, who was innocent as a child and then under contract to the collector Peggy Guggenheim. Along the Zattere I saw De Pisis, Guidi, Carena and Vedova walking in the sun. If I hadn't, almost for fun, started acting, I would have tried to follow their path and paint. But by then the great passion for cinema had broken out. I participated in 33 films, not all of them beautiful, but certainly decent. In particular, one is dear to me and every now and then they broadcast it on TV: "Totò Against the Black Pirate". Probably, if it hadn't been for Totò, I would probably hardly not be remembered; but Totò was there. And he has a clear, affectionate, admiring memory of him”.

In the cinema she was also in “Rugantino” with Adriano Celentano. On television she was a regular presence of what today we would call fiction, and which were then scripted. She won the audition in Milan for the production of "The Lady of the Camellias" (role of Micia) by A. Dumas, then added this medium to theater and cinema. On TV she is remembered in "The Adventures of Nicola Nickleby" by C. Dickens (scripted), "The late Mattia Pascal" by Pirandello (scripted), "Life with Father and Mother" with Paolo Stoppa and Rina Morelli (script), "David Copperfield" by C. Dickens with Giancarlo Giannini (script), "Whoever You Are", "The Return of Casanova" by Schnitzler, "The Woman of Flowers", many comedies, but also "Sanremo 1965" with Mike Bongiorno, "Biblioteca di Studio Uno", "Dizionarietto musicale".

In the theater she has worked alongside the greatest: Renzo Ricci, Salvo Randone, Memo Benassi, Alberto Lionello, Lina Volonghi, Vittorio Gassman, Giancarlo Sbragia, Aroldo Tieri, Alberto Lupo, Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli, Lilla Brignone, Eva Magni, Diana Torrieri, Lia Zoppelli, Valeria Valeri.

Vittorio Gassman was looking for a young actress to replace Anna Maria Ferrero in Trieste, in Anouilh's "Ornifile". “That very comedy I made my debut at La Fenice in Venice. It would seem like a fairy tale, and perhaps it was the most beautiful fairy tale of my life. In twenty months, I had made an acrobatic leap: from the small cold and uncomfortable theaters to the large theater where prose was rarely hosted, mainly the house of music. It would seem like a fantasy of my mind and instead there are many witnesses: my Venetians, my parents, my brothers and the gratifying theater critics... I returned to La Fenice in 1968 with Goldoni's "One of the Last Evenings of Carnovale"; and with two shows by the Teatro Stabile di Genova, directed by Luigi Squarzina, with which I then toured the whole world, they had been so successful: Paris, London, Vienna, Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg)”.

Starting in 1991 she stopped acting: in her life, as in a circle, art had returned: she had become an appreciated painter, because "No one escapes their destiny", as she commented with a smile. She had exhibited in Rome and Cortona (where she had moved), developing works with collage and mixed media. A life of arts, marked by beauty.

SPINA, Maria Grazia (Maria Grazia Spinazzi)

Born: 6/3/1936, Venice, Veneto, Italy

Died: 3/13/2025, Padua, Veneto, Italy

 

Maria Grazia Spina’s western – actress:

Samson and the Slave Queen – 1963 (Isabella de Alazon)

RIP Pierluigi Sangalli

 

Farewell to Pier Luigi Sangalli, the father of Geppo and Popeye

A protagonist of the world of comics in Italy has died at the age of 86: he also signed on Felix, Topo Gigio and Superboy. The funeral on Saturday in Villasanta.

il Cittadino

3/14/2025

 

A life for pencils, which began at school, when he portrayed his classmates. Then he never stopped and became one of the protagonists of Italian comics. The world of comics that has to say goodbye to Pier Luigi Sangalli, father of Popeye and many other characters who have studded the imagination of generations of Italians: he passed away on Thursday 13 March, at the age of 86.

Raised in Villasanta, the municipality where he still lived, he was born in Monza in November 1938. As the Brianza-based Fossati Foundation, which manages the Wow space in Milan (Museum of Comics), recalls, around 1954 he had begun to make caricatures of friends and teachers, on the desks that would have guaranteed him a diploma as a commercial expert. But that was not his path, at least the one he dreamed of: and in fact immediately after the certificate, in 1958, he began to collaborate with the magazine Soldino of the Il Ponte editions founded by Renato Bianconi and began to draw characters such as Blick and Block, Devy Crock, Pignatta, Giannina Calamity and the famous Geppo, for which he also wrote the screenplays: he is the little devil such by misfortune, because he falls from heaven unconscious at the revolt of Satan, whose attempts at "devilry" turn into good deeds. Geppo then became a title in its own right in 1960, with Alberico Motta, and thus were born the snake Salvatore, Beelzebub, the cat Caligula "and characters for complementary stories such as Zurlino, Marinetto, Superboy, Merlotto, prof. Rotella, Al Gallina, Baciccia, Trachea and Dormy West", writes the Foundation chaired by Luigi Bona.

Farewell to Pierluigi Sangalli: the funeral on Saturday in Villasanta

In 1963 the adventure of the production of Popeye's stories began, which would end only in 1998, in which Pier Luigi Sangalli was an essential illustrator: another Bianconi editorial acronym, Gem, i.e. Grafica editoriale Metro, sent them to the newsstands: there the Villasante also designed all the covers. Among the other characters who passed through his pencils, Provolino, Felix, Pinocchio, Chico and Saruzzo. Between 1993 and 1997 he also produced the stories of Topo Gigio for FPM Editore.

"The world of Italian comics loses a great author – wrote the My Comics news page – who contributed copiously to marking a golden age (he was active from the 50s to the 90s of the last century): Felix, Trottolino, Nonna Abelarda, Mago Merlotto and many others mourn his death from their fantastic world". The funeral will be celebrated on Saturday 15 March at 3.30 pm in the parish church of Sant'Anastasia in Villasanta.

"Pier Luigi Sangalli is part, without the slightest doubt, of the Great History of Italian Comics - wrote Antonio Marangi on the online head Sbam! who in 2021 had edited the volume The Best of Popeye for Salani (372 pages, paperback, Nuvole Salani, 16.90 euros) -. With his stories, his tens of thousands of plates, the hundreds of covers for as many comic books that invaded Italian newsstands for decades, he colored the childhood of entire generations, including Geppo, Popeye and many other characters. So far the artist. But today, on the sad day of his death, we want to think back to him, to Pier Luigi, a kind and helpful person, a mine of anecdotes and stories, a man with a perennial enthusiasm in his eyes in talking about his characters, in exchanging jokes with lifelong colleagues, the late Alberico Motta and our dearest Sandro Dossi".

SANGALLI, Pieruluigi

Born: 11/5/1938, Monza, Lombardy, Italy

Died: 3/13/2025, Italy

 

Pierluigi Sangalli’s westerns- comic book artist:

Devy Crock – 1958

Dormy West – 196?