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    Unhappy Hollywood Obituaries

    Hymie the Robot on 'Get Smart,' Dies at 85...

    Dick Gautier, Hymie the Robot on 'Get Smart,' Dies at 85
    1/14/2017 - The actor started out as a stand-up comic and received a Tony nomination for playing the Elvis-like singer in the original production of 'Bye, Bye Birdie.'
    Dick Gautier, who starred on Broadway in the original production of Bye, Bye Birdie and then famously played Hymie the Robot on the sitcom Get Smart, has died. He was 85. Gautier died Friday night at an assisted living facility in Arcadia, Calif., after a long illness, his daughter Denise told The Hollywood Reporter. Gautier, who started his career as a stand-up comic, received a Tony nomination for playing Conrad Birdie, the character based on Elvis Presley, in the memorable, original 1960 production of Bye, Bye Birdie, starring Dick Van Dyke. The handsome actor appeared as Hymie on just six episodes of Get Smart over four seasons, yet he was one of the spy spoof's most popular characters.

    Hymie, who was incredibly strong and had a supercomputer for a brain and wires and components in a compartment in his chest, originally was built for the evil organization KAOS but came over to CONTROL (the good guys) because Max (Don Adams) was the first one to treat him like a real person. "When I met with the powers that be, I told them that when I was a kid in Canada I saw a man in a storefront window acting like a manikin to drum up business," he said in 2013. "If you could make him smile, you’d get $10. So, I tried, but not by acting crazy — I merely imitated his movements. I didn’t win the $10, but I got the part of Hymie, which was a little better." Eventually, Max picked Hymie to be his best man for his wedding with Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), and Gautier returned as the robot for a 1989 Get Smart TV movie.


    Dick Gautier (right) with Don Adams on 'Get Smart.'

    In 1975, Gautier starred as Robin Hood on the short-lived ABC series When Things Were Rotten, co-created by Mel Brooks, who, of course, had launched Get Smart as well. Gautier was a veteran stand-up performer and working at The Blue Angel nightclub in New York as an opener for headliner and singer Margaret Whiting when he was spotted by Bye, Bye Birdie director Gower Champion and Charles Strouse, who did the music for the production. "They asked me to read for this thing," he recalled in a 2014 interview with Kliph Nesteroff. "I was a little put off because I didn't like rock and roll. Not at that point. I said, 'I don't think it's for me. I like Jerome Kern and George Gershwin.' "They said, 'Will you at least come in and audition?' I went in and they said, 'Would you sing an Elvis song?' I said, 'I don't know any Elvis songs.' So they just played some blues and I ad-libbed and I guess they liked it. Couple months later they called.

    Gautier told his agent, "'It's not for me. I feel very inhibited and very intimidated by this whole Elvis thing because it's not me.' He said, 'It's a satire.' Then I went, 'Ohhhhh.' When he said that, then I got it. Suddenly it was OK. I got the part, got a Tony nomination, and my career was in a whole different place. I didn't work nightclubs anymore." Jesse Pearson played Conrad in the 1963 movie version. Gautier was born on Oct. 30, 1931, in Culver City, and his father, a French-Canadian, worked as a grip at MGM. He spent some time growing up in Montreal and sang and did a comedy act with a band that wound up on a local TV show in L.A.

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    Quote Originally Posted by waltky View Post
    Hymie the Robot on 'Get Smart,' Dies at 85...

    Dick Gautier, Hymie the Robot on 'Get Smart,' Dies at 85
    1/14/2017 - The actor started out as a stand-up comic and received a Tony nomination for playing the Elvis-like singer in the original production of 'Bye, Bye Birdie.'
    Get Smart was my favorite show growing up. Hymie, you will be missed.
    "For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'." John Greenleaf Whittier

    "Our minds control our bodies. Our bodies control our enemies. Our enemies control jack shit by the time we're done with them." Stick

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    I watched Get Smart growing up, and remember Gautier as Hymie, but mostly I remember him from When Things Were Rotten - Mel Brooks' early take on the Robin Hood story, sixteen years before Robin Hood: Men in Tights. I remember that show as being hysterically funny, but - as sometimes happens - I watched a couple of episodes many years later, and...meh, not so much. Anyway, Gautier was a multi-talented entertainer. RIP.
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    Unhappy

    Miguel Ferrer passes at 61...

    'NCIS: Los Angeles' star Miguel Ferrer dies at 61
    Jan 19,`17 -- Miguel Ferrer, who brought stern authority to his featured role on CBS' hit "NCIS: Los Angeles" and, before that, to NBC crime drama "Crossing Jordan," has died. CBS said Ferrer died Thursday of cancer at his Los Angeles home. He was 61.
    He had played assistant director Owen Granger on "NCIS: Los Angeles" since 2012. Before that, he played the chief medical examiner and gruff-but-supportive boss to series star Jill Hennessy for the six seasons of "Crossing Jordan." A native of Santa Monica, California, Ferrer was the son of Academy Award-winning actor Jose Ferrer and singer-actress Rosemary Clooney, and a cousin of George Clooney, who issued a statement Thursday afternoon. "Today, history will mark giant changes in our world," Clooney said, "and lost to most will be that on the same day Miguel Ferrer lost his battle to throat cancer. But not lost to his family. Miguel made the world brighter and funnier and his passing is felt so deeply in our family that events of the day ... pale in comparison. We love you Miguel. We always will."

    In his own statement, "NCIS: Los Angeles" showrunner R. Scott Gemmill called Ferrer "a man of tremendous talent who had a powerful dramatic presence onscreen, a wicked sense of humor and a huge heart. Ferrer began his career in the early 1980s with guest shots on many TV series. In 1990 he scored a signature role as FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield on David Lynch's smash series "Twin Peaks." He reprised that character for the 1992 movie "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me." He will encore yet again as Agent Rosenfield for Showtime's "Twin Peaks" revival airing this spring.

    Along with TV, Ferrer appeared in more than 40 movies, including "RoboCop," where he played the villainous Bob Morton, designer of the title character, "Iron Man 3 ," where he portrayed the vice president, and "Traffic." Voiceover credits include "Superman: The Animated Series," ''Robot Chicken" and "American Dad!" Before becoming an actor, he was a successful studio musician who played drums in a variety of bands, and toured with his mother and Bing Crosby. Survivors include his wife Lori and sons Lukas and Rafi.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

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    Unhappy

    Mary Tyler Moore passes at 80...

    US actress Mary Tyler Moore dies aged 80
    Wed, 25 Jan 2017 - The Oscar nominated actress, who rose to fame in 1960s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show, has died.
    Emmy award-winning US actress Mary Tyler Moore has died aged 80, her publicist says. She was best known for her television roles in the 1960s sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show and the eponymous The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s. She was also nominated for a best actress Oscar in 1980 for the film Ordinary People. Mara Buxbaum said in a statement she died in the company of friends and her husband, Dr S. Robert Levine.

    'Changed television'

    Born in Brooklyn, New York, Moore moved to Los Angeles when she was eight years old and started her career in show business as a dancer aged 17. Her first appearance was in a Hotpoint advert in the 1950s, dressed as an elf. But her parts grew in size during that decade, before she landed the role of wife Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1961. In 2012, Van Dyke said working with the "beautiful, bright and talented," Moore was "an effortless piece of cake." Later, she starred as TV producer Mary Richards in her self-titled sitcom. Running for seven seasons from 1970 to 1977, it was named by Time Magazine as one of 17 shows that "changed television". Moore emerged onscreen at a time when women in leading roles were traditional housewife characters. But with her modern trousers and Jackie Kennedy-style hair, and playing a single woman, living on her own and chasing a career, she challenged that stereotype in front of millions of viewers.

    Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker created and produced the show and a number of spin-offs, as well as other hits programmes, including Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere and Remington Steele. TV host Oprah Winfrey described Moore as one of her early inspirations, saying she watched her show every week as a child. "I wanted to be Mary," she said. "I wanted to live where Mary lived." Moore swapped comedy for drama in Ordinary People, playing an affluent, bitter mother who loses her son in an accident. As well as an Oscar nod, the role earned her a Golden Globe. Robert Redford, who directed the film, paid tribute to her, saying "energy, spirit and talent created a new bright spot in the television landscape".

    Co-star Timothy Hutton said in a statement: "She was a truly amazing person, a great friend, and an inspiration to all." Moore, who was married three times, endured great personal tragedy. She grew up with an alcoholic mother and suffered from alcohol problems herself - both women were treated at the Betty Ford Center. Her younger sister died of a drug overdose aged just 21 and she lost her brother to cancer at 47. In her book, After All, Moore described how she tried to help her terminally-ill brother commit suicide with drug-laced ice cream, but the attempt failed. Her only child, Richie, born during her first marriage to Richard Meeker, also struggled with drug abuse, and accidentally shot himself dead aged 24. Moore was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the 1970s and later became the international chair of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, testifying before US Congress to promote stem-cell research. She also campaigned for animal rights.

    'True great'

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    Unhappy

    Moore and Mannix in the same week...

    Mike Connors, ‘Mannix’ Star, Dies at 91
    January 26, 2017 - Mike Connors, best known for playing detective Joe Mannix on 1960s and ’70s show “Mannix,” died Thursday in Tarzana, Calif. He was 91.
    He had been diagnosed a week ago with leukemia, according to his son-in-law Mike Condon. “Mannix” ran for eight seasons from 1968 to 1975 and was the last series from Desilu Productions. Connors won a Golden Globe for his performance as a tough, athletic investigator, who in quintessential detective show style, insisted on doing things his own way and often got beat up in the process. He drove an impressive series of muscle cars including a Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Camaro.

    Desilu president Lucille Ball convinced CBS not to cancel the show despite initial poor ratings, and it caught on after being retooled into a somewhat more conventional detective series. Mannix’s secretary, played by Gail Fisher, was one of few African-American actresses on TV at the time. “Here’s Lucy” produced a crossover episode in 1971 with Connors and Ball, called “Lucy and Mannix Are Held Hostage.”


    As recently as 2007, he made a guest appearance on “Two and a Half Men.” His other TV appearances included “Murder, She Wrote,” “Love Boat,” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.” The handsome square-jawed actor also appeared in early ’60s TV series “Tightrope!” and “Today’s F.B.I.” in the early ’80s. He later played Colonel Hack Peters in Herman Wouk miniseries “War and Remembrance.”

    Born Kreker J. Ohanian in Fresno, Calif., Connors was of Armenian descent. He played basketball at UCLA where he was nicknamed “Touch,” and was credited in his first few films as Touch Connors. In the 1950s, Connors appeared in the John Wayne film “Island in the Sky” and in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.” Connors is survived by his wife Mary Lou, daughter Dena, and granddaughter Cooper.

    https://www.yahoo.com/tv/mike-connor...023000828.html

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    Mannix came on the air when I was thirteen, and was one of my great favorites.

    I see on IMDB that Connors made an appearance as Joe Mannix on a 1993 episode of a show called Diagnosis: Murder. I'll have to try to find that. I like it when an older character comes back for an encore; I wish they'd do more of that, while the actors are still around.

    RIP, 'Touch'. You were one of the great t.v. tough guys, and a fine actor.
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    Unhappy

    All the greats are dying off...

    Actor John Hurt, star of 'The Elephant Man', dead at 77


    January 27, 2017- Veteran British actor Sir John Hurt, Oscar-nominated for his star turn in "The Elephant Man" and his supporting role in "Midnight Express", has died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, a representative said on Saturday. He was 77.
    Hurt, who had starred in more than 200 films and television series over a career spanning six decades, revealed in 2015 that he was suffering from the early stages of pancreatic cancer and that he was receiving treatment. His death was confirmed to Reuters via email by Charles McDonald, a British-based representative for the actor's Los Angeles talent manager, John Crosby. The BBC, citing the actor's agent, also reported that Hurt had died. Further details of the circumstances of his death were not immediately available.


    British actor John Hurt holds the Gold Giraldillo Award as a tribute to his career during the Sevilla European film festival in the Andalusian capital of Seville


    Hurt said at the time of his cancer diagnosis that he intended to continue working. He most recently starred in the Sundance TV crime series "The Last Panthers" and in the Oscar-nominated film "Jackie", playing a priest who consoled the newly widowed wife of slain U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Hurt, a native of Derbyshire in England, garnered his first Academy Award nomination for his supporting role as Max, an inmate who befriends the imprisoned drug smuggler Billy inside a Turkish jail in the gripping 1978 drama "Midnight Express". He earned greater acclaim, and an Oscar nomination as best lead actor, for his memorable portrayal of John Merrick, a grossly disfigured Victorian-era man struggling to project his humanity while enduring the indignities of life as a side-show freak. With his face obscured behind the character's deformity, Hurt's performance rested largely on the expression of the actor's signature raspy voice.


    His roles in both "The Elephant Man" and "Midnight Express" won him Britain's top film award, the BAFTA. He was bestowed an honorary BAFTA in 2012 for his outstanding contribution to cinema.

    Hurt also played a key role in the original 1979 sci-fi thriller "Alien". His character, Kane, became the first member of a space merchant vessel crew to fall victim to a fearsome life form, encountered on a distant moon, when a deadly parasitic creature burst from his chest. Other notable credits include supporting parts as a village doctor in Greece whose daughter falls in love with an Italian military officer during World War Two in the 2001 film "Captain Corelli's Mandolin", and as the eccentric wand-maker Mr. Ollivander in the "Harry Potter" movie franchise.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/british-a...98.html?ref=gs
    See also:


    Barbara Hale, ‘Perry Mason’ Actress, Dies at 94

    January 27, 2017 |
    Barbara Hale, who played secretary Della Street in the “Perry Mason” television series and movies, died Thursday. She was 94.


    According to a Facebook post by her son William Katt, Hale passed away at her home on Sherman Oaks, Calif. “Lost my beautiful wonderful mom Barbara Hale yesterday afternoon,” Katt, star of the television series “The Greatest American Hero,” wrote Friday. “She left peacefully at her home in Sherman Oaks Ca surrounded by close family and dear friends. We’ve all been so lucky to have her for so long. She was gracious and kind and silly and always fun to be with. A wonderful actress and smart business woman she was most of all a treasure as a friend and mother! We’re all a little lost without her but we have extraordinary stories and memories to take with us for the rest of our lives.


    Hale played Della Street, assistant to Raymond Burr’s titular lawyer, in nine seasons of the series and 30 television movies. She spent her early career under contract with RKO, and went on to star in “Higher and Higher” with Frank Sinatra, “Lady Luck” with Robert Young and Frank Morgan, “The Window,” “Jolson Sings Again,” “Lorna Doone,” and “The Far Horizons” with Charlton Heston.



    “Perry Mason” aired on CBS from 1957 to 1966 and starred Burr as a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney. The show was one of the first hour-long series in television history. Hale won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1959 for playing Street, and reprised the character when “Perry Mason” was revived in the 1980s as a series of television movies by NBC.

    Hale was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Among her later film roles were “Airport” and “Big Wednesday.” Born in DeKalb, Illinois in 1922, Hale was the second child of Willa and Luther Hale. Her father was a landscape gardener. Her late husband, Bill Williams, starred in the western series “The Adventures of Kit Carson” and died in 1992. She is survived by her son William Katt, daughters Johanna Katt and Juanita King, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.


    http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/barb...et-1201971817/

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    Question

    Uncle Ferd says his mother was Hazel, Shirley Booth, with an E onna end...

    Tributes to Deadwood actor Powers Boothe following his death aged 68
    Monday 15th May, 2017 - Stars have been paying tribute to veteran Hollywood character actor Powers Boothe who has died aged 68.
    He was best known for playing villains in the hit television show Deadwood, and in successful films such as Tombstone, Sin City and The Avengers. Boothe's publicist said he died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles on Sunday. Beau Bridges tweeted the news and called him "a dear friend, great actor, devoted father and husband".


    Powers Boothe, pictured in August 2014 at the LA premiere of Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, has died aged 68

    The actor won an Emmy award in 1980 for playing cult leader Jim Jones in the TV movie Guyana Tragedy: The Story Of Jim Jones. He also had memorable roles playing the ruthless saloon owner Cy Tolliver in Deadwood, the gunman Curly Bill Brocius in Tombstone and the corrupt senator in Sin City.

    Actor James Woods tweeted: " Just sad, shocking and unexpected news. We had dinner with @GarySinise and friends weeks ago. Nicest man. #RIP" A private service for Boothe will be held in Texas where he was from.

    http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...-35715086.html

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    The Saint goes to Heaven...

    Roger Moore, star of 7 James Bond films, dies at 89
    May 23,`17 -- Roger Moore, the suavely insouciant star of seven James Bond films, has died in Switzerland. He was 89.
    The British actor died Tuesday after a short battle with cancer, according to a family statement posted on Moore's official Twitter account. "We know our own love and admiration will be magnified many times over, across the world, by people who knew him for his films, his television shows and his passionate work for UNICEF, which he considered to be his greatest achievement," the statement said.

    Moore's relaxed style and sense of whimsy, which relied heavily on the arched eyebrow, seemed a commentary on the essential ridiculousness of the Bond films, in which the handsome British secret agent was as adept at mixing martinis, bedding beautiful women and ordering gourmet meals as he was at disposing of super-villains trying to take over the world. "To me, the Bond situations are so ridiculous, so outrageous," he once said. "I mean, this man is supposed to be a spy and yet, everybody knows he's a spy. Every bartender in the world offers him martinis that are shaken, not stirred. What kind of serious spy is recognized everywhere he goes? It's outrageous. So you have to treat the humor outrageously as well."


    Veteran British actor Roger Moore, poses for a portrait, in the Studio City section of Los Angeles. Roger Moore's family said Tuesday May 23, 2017 that the former James Bond star has died after a short battle with cancer

    While he never eclipsed Sean Connery in the public's eye as the definitive James Bond, Moore did play the role of secret agent 007 in just as many films as Connery did, and he managed to do so while "finding a joke in every situation," according to film critic Rex Reed. The actor, who came to the role in 1973 after Connery tired of it, had already enjoyed a long career in films and television, albeit with mixed success. He was remembered warmly by fans of the popular U.S. 1950s-60s TV series "Maverick" as Beauregarde Maverick, the English cousin of the Wild West's Maverick brothers, Bret and Bart. He also starred in the 1959 U.S. series "The Alaskans."

    In England, he had a long-running TV hit with "The Saint," playing Simon Templar, the enigmatic action hero who helps put wealthy crooks in jail while absconding with their fortunes. By the time the series, which also aired in the United States, ended in 1969, his partnership with its producers had made him a wealthy man. Such success followed a Time magazine review of one of his earliest films, 1956's "Diane," in which his performance opposite Lana Turner was dismissed as that of "a lump of English roast beef." In the 1970s, film critic Vincent Canby would dismiss Moore's acting abilities as having "reduced all human emotions to a series of variations on one gesture, the raising of the right eyebrow."

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