Category Archives: Obituaries

Stan Winston, 1946 – 2008

Stan Winston.

Not a name that pops out at you.

Not until you take some time to read some of the tributes that came out last week after his death, like this one at Ain’t It Cool News.

4 Oscars:

  • 1987 — Aliens, Best Effects, Visual Effects
  • 1992 — Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Best effects, Visual Effects
  • 1992 — Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Best Makeup
  • 1994 — Jurassic Park, Best Effects, Visual Effects

6 additional nominations:

  • 1982 — Heartbeeps, Best Makeup
  • 1988 — Predator, Best Effects, Visual Effects
  • 1991 — Edward Scissorhands, Best Makeup
  • 1993 — Batman Returns, Best Makeup
  • 1998 — The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Best Effects, Visual Effects
  • 2002 — Artificial Intelligence: AI, Best Effects, Visual Effects

His last work was Iron Man, which I have already raved about the effects work.

A fitting final masterpiece to a visual artist’s life…

Harvey Korman, 1927-2008

Growing up, I watched a lot of TV.  I had a steady diet of The Flintstones and The Carol Burnett Show, thanks to TBS.  This is how I was introduced to the comedic genius of Harvey Korman.  As The Great Gazoo on The Flintstones, I simply knew him as a little green alien that had a wonderful way of calling Fred “Dum-Dum.”  The droll way he let it roll off the tongue was masterful.  Then I saw him on the Carol Burnett Show.  It was there that he formed a real-life Mutt & Jeff team with Tim Conway.  Much like Hardy and Abbott, Korman was the straight man to Conway’s Laurel and Costello.

As I got older, I saw Korman in Blazing Saddles and it was as if I was watching The Great Gazoo onscreen, with a little more villainy thrown in; I also enjoyed him in Radioland Murders.  Sadly, there were not many on-screen performances from him over the past 20-25 years.

Hopefully he is on a cloud somewhere, hovering above the voice of Fred Flintstone, still calling him “Dum-Dum” while waiting for his buddy, Tim…

Sydney Pollack, 1934-2008

In movies, there is always an actor or director that we have a love/hate relationship with.  You know the type: they make a movie you love, then they take a subject you love and destroy it in the movie.

Such has been my experience with Sydney Pollack.

My first memory of seeing one of his movies was Absence of Malice (Paul Newman, Sally Field) during Christmas of 1981.  I was 11 and bored with the movie — the adults were so-so about it.  The following year gave us Tootsie, which was very enjoyable.  It was the first time that I noticed a director in front of the camera, something he would do off and on in movies.

For someone reviewing movies, it is sad to say that I have not seen the following films:

  • Out of Africa
  • The Electric Horseman
  • Three Days of the Condor
  • The Way We Were

One movie I wish I could add to that list, but instead use it to symbolize why I disliked Pollack as a director and producer is The Firm.  I had read the book and looked forward to the movie for 6 months.  Due to location issues, Pollack rewrote the second half of the book, creating a story I never knew.  It ruined my birthday movie that year, and I was gunshy about his movies after that.

Thankfully the last movie I saw that he directed was Sabrina in 1995.  A light movie remake featuring Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear, it restored my enjoyment of his movies.

Interestingly enough, the last two things I saw involving Sydney Pollack were onscreen: an ATT ad asking us to silence our phones and a rich father on Made of Honor.

Love him or hate him, we will all miss his work in film, on and off the screen…

Heath Ledger, 1979-2008

Actors are tortured souls.

The past 100 years of American cinema are littered with stories of actors and actresses who burned brightly for a brief time and then were tragically gone from our midst.  In my life, I have seen many such tales: Bruce Lee, Jon Erik-Hexum, John Belushi, River Phoenix, Chris Farley, and Brandon Lee.  While three involved famous, on-set accidents, the others were at their own hands.  With each case, families, fans, and entertainment history suffered great losses.

Like many others, I first saw Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You.  Originally intended to help Joseph Gordon-Levitt to break into movies during the peak of his Third Rock popularity, this movie ended up launching two careers: Julia Stiles and Ledger.  Over the next couple of years, I enjoyed watching Ledger in The Patriot and A Knight’s Tale.  It was A Knight’s Tale that showed me the range he had and how he looked like he was having pure fun on the set, similar to 10 Things.  The Four Feathers was not a good movie, but he made it better; you could tell that he would make better movies one day.  I chose not to see Brokeback Mountain; regardless of the “novelty” of two men in an affair, I was simply not interested in the story.   Then Ledger seemed to disappear from my radar of movies.

Batman brought him right back.  Upon hearing the news of his casting as the Joker, I was excited.  You could see elements of the character in A Knight’s Tale and 10 Things during the times of fun.  As promotional materials started appearing, I was even more excited — Ledger was invoking the Joker of “The Killing Joke” and getting rave reviews based on promotional pics only.

That is what makes his passing all that more tragic.  It doesn’t matter how he died — nothing can be done to change that.   Like Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee are linked to their last film roles, Ledger will now be always linked to Batman first.

Like all of the Joker’s jokes, this one is sadly on us and no one is laughing…

Suzanne Pleshette, 1937-2008

Men may go after the “traditional” trophy-wife looking woman, but they are always interested in those that show a little backbone.

Disney and Bob Newhart are responsible for introducing me to Suzanne Pleshette.  Wait, that’s not exactly correct — My parents insisted on watching two things early in my life that introduced me to her.  Blackbeard’s Ghost was a fun Disney movie with Dean Jones and Peter Ustinov that my mom loved.  In this movie, Pleshette played the woman fought over by Jones and the villain.  At the same time, TBS aired nightly reruns of The Bob Newhart Show, which my parents always had on.  Here, Pleshette’s Emily advanced how women were played as wives in sitcoms, actually laying groundwork for Roseanne and company in later years.  The common thread for the two roles is that she never backed down from a challenge and refused to wait on the sidelines to be rescued.  At some point, I have to watch The Birds — for several reasons.

Here’s to a funny lady that I was lucky enough to grow up watching — Hopefully, she and Blackbeard’s Ghost are out having fun…