Obits »

• David Watkin (1925-2008) - Oscar-winning cinematographer of Out of Africa. He also shot the Beatles movie Help! and the John Lennon film How I Won the War, both directed by Richard Lester, for whom he also worked on Robin and Marian, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. He also was the cinematographer for Catch-22, Chariots of Fire, Moonstruck, Memphis Belle, This Boy's Life, Yentl, Return to Oz, White Nights and the opening sequence of Goldfinger. He shot Sidney Lumet's Gloria, Critical Care and Night Falls on Manhattan and Zeffirelli's Hamlet, Jane Eyre, Tea With Mussolini and Endless Love. He died February 19 in Sussex Mews, Brighton, England. (Telegraph)

• Barry Barclay (1944-2008) - Maori filmmaker who directed Sam Neill in 1975's Ashes, which was based on the work of T.S. Eliot. He also directed Ngati and wrote and directed The Feathers of Peace. He died after suffering a stroke February 17, in Omapere, New Zealand. (Variety)
• Natalya Bessmertnova (1941-2008) - Legendary Russian dancer who was a member of the Bolshoi Ballet. She can be seen in the Soviet ballet films The Secret of Success (aka Bolshoi Ballet '67), Giselle, Ivan the Terrible and Spartakus, as well as other in other video-captured performances of Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet. She died of kidney failure February 19, in Moscow. (UPI)

Last night, as per every year at the Oscars, they take a brief break from all the self-congratulatory back-patting to acknowledge the deaths in the movie industry over the preceding year. As several of our readers (and Scott Weinberg, who was going ballastic on IM about it) noted, Brad Renfro, who died of a drug overdose on January 15 of this year, was mysteriously excluded. The troubled actor, best known for his work in The Client, Apt Pupil, and Bully, had been known to have a drug problem for years, and had a drunk driving and heroin-possession arrest in May 2006, but was supposedly "working hard on his sobriety" at the time of his death.

The In Memorium was supposed to be for everyone who died between February 1, 2007 and January 31, 2008. Heath Ledger, who died a week after Renfro, was included in the montage. No word from the Academy that I've seen yet on why Renfro wasn't included -- an honest oversight? A deliberate sweeping-under-the-red-carpet because heroin was involved? What do you think about Renfro being shut out of Oscar's "In Memorium"?

• Steve Gerber (1947-2008) - Comic book writer who created Howard the Duck, a Marvel title which producer George Lucas adapted into an infamous 1986 movie. He also created the character Man-Thing, who received his own movie in 2005. He died of complications from pulmonary fibrosis February 10. (Comic Book Resources)
• Phyllis Barnhart (1922-2008) - Cel painter for the animated film The Secret of NIMH. She died February 6 in Salt Lake City. (IMDb)

• Freddie Bell (1931-2008) - Singer for Frankie Bell and the Bellboys. He and his band appear in Rock Around the Clock, Rumble on the Docks and Get Yourself a College Girl. He died of complications from cancer February 10, in Las Vegas. (AP)
• Robert DoQui (1934-2008) - Actor who played "Sgt. Warren Reed" in all three RoboCop films. He also co-starred in Coffy and Robert Altman's Nashville, Short Cuts and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson. He died February 9 in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• David Groh (1941-2008) - Actor best known for his TV work, especially his starring role on the sitcom Rhoda, who appears in the movies The Stoned Age, Most Wanted, Blowback and Get Shorty. He died of kidney cancer February 12, in Los Angeles. (Variety)

He directed more than 80 films and worked almost his whole life at the famous Toho Studios. Now Kon Ichikawa has succumbed to pneumonia at age 92, according to a spokesperson from Toho, and reported by the Associated Press. Ichikawa first came to notice in the late 1950s and early 1960s art house movement, alongside Bergman, Godard, Kurosawa and other masters. The anti-war films The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959) and the strange drama about an avenging cross-dresser An Actor's Revenge (1963) are considered among the world's great classics.

His documentary Tokyo Olympiad (1965) beautifully captured the physical aesthetics of the games, rather than the competitive factor. More recently, his film Dora-heita (2000) showed a sprightly youthfulness, telling a story co-written back in 1969 with Akira Kurosawa about a commissioner appointed to a dangerous red light district who cleverly plays both ends against the middle. Ichikawa was born in Uji-Yamada, Japan, on Nov. 20, 1915, the son of a kimono merchant. He was sickly as a child and spent a great deal of time drawing and watching movies. He has cited Disney cartoons as one of his primary influences. Later, he attended a technical school, and started working as an animator and an assistant director on live action films. Ichikawa was celebrated at film festivals all over the world, though on one occasion, he called himself a company man, simply making the films he was assigned.

• Eva Dahlbeck (1920-2008) - Swedish actress who starred in Ingmar Bergman's Secrets of Women, A Lesson in Love, Dreams, Smiles of a Summer Night, Brink of Life and All These Women. She also co-starred in Agnès Varda's Les Créatures, appears in George Seaton's The Counterfeit Traitor and wrote the screenplay to Arne Mattson's Woman of Darkness. She died of Alzheimer's disease February 8, in Sweden. (Washington Post)

• John Alvin (1948-2008) - Movie poster artist. See my full post here.
• Carlos Aured (1937-2008) - Spanish director of horror films, including 1973's Curse of the Devil, Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll and Horror Rises from the Tomb. He also wrote John Hough's Triumphs of a Man Called Horse, which starred Richard Harris, was an assistant director on The Werewolf Versus Vampire Women and a line producer on Leviatán, which starred Alice Cooper, and produced 1987's Alien Predators. He died of a heart attack February 3, in Denia, Spain. (Fangoria)
• Earl L. Butz (1909-2008) - Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Nixon and Ford. He appears as himself in the documentaries King Corn and Killer at Large. He died February 2 in West Lafayette, Indiana. (NY Times)
• Augusta Dabney (1918-2008) - Actress who appears in Plaza Suite, Running on Empty, the original The Heartbreak Kid, Ron Howard's The Paper and That Night!, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA awards for Best Foreign Actress. She died February 2 in Dobbs Ferry, New York. (Variety)

As the son of an illustrator, I grew up appreciating movie poster artists more than probably do most movie geeks. And John Alvin, who passed away last Wednesday, was one of the artists I idolized. Alvin is considered one of the most important poster artists of the past 35 years, and it's no wonder. From E.T. to Gremlins to Blade Runner to The Goonies* to numerous Disney films, his art is as recognizable and iconic as poster design gets. The Smithsonian even named one of his works, for Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise, one of the best posters of the 20th century.

His name may not be as familiar as that of Drew Struzan, another well-known movie poster designer whose work is quite similar. And it isn't that strange to (as I did often in my youth) confuse the work of the two illustrators, both of whom attended the same school as my father, Pasadena's Art Center College of Design, and both of whom worked for many of the same clients and for many of the same films. But there's no doubting that Alvin, who got his start with the poster for Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles and worked on many of Brooks' film campaigns from then on, was a distinctly innovative artist.

In addition to designing original posters for more than 135 films, Alvin produced art for many special edition and anniversary releases, as well as collector's art for popular movies such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. There's probably a good chance that, if you're a real movie geek, you have something of his hanging up in your room or home. I think the closest thing for me is a Blade Runner t-shirt on which his poster art appears. And, of course, I can see a bunch of his talent clearly when looking over at my DVD collection*.

For a good list of his work, check out the filmography on his Wikipedia page, and for a fairly comprehensive look at images of his posters, check out this fan site.

*I just realized that the poster for The Goonies that I'm most familiar with, and which is on my DVD, is the one by Drew Struzan. Oops.

It's a good thing that Steven Spielberg's Jaws is a film that gets watched over and over again by generation after generation, because that means Roy Scheider has now become immortal. Sad news, movie fans: Roy Scheider, star of Jaws, Klute, The French Connection, All That Jazz, Blue Thunder, 2010, Marathon Man, and a whole bunch more, passed away earlier today at the age of 75.

According to The New York Times, "Mr. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma for several years, and died of complications from a staph infection, his wife, Brenda Seimer, said."

Born in New Jersey in 1932, Mr. Scheider made his big screen debut in 1964's The Curse of the Living Corpse. From those inauspicious beginnings he became one of Hollywood's most unlikely leading men. Although his later career was peppered with lots of low-end product, the actor left behind a lot of excellent work*. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award (The French Connection and All That Jazz), but to millions of movie-lovers he'll always be remembered as the uncomfortable, no-nonsense, oddly lovable Police Chief Martin Brody, the island cop who hated the water.

* I'm sure you have your favorite Scheider moments, but here are a few (relatively) lesser-known titles that you might enjoy checking out: The Seven-Ups (1973), Sorcerer (1977), Still of the Night (1982), 52 Pick-Up (1986), and Naked Lunch (1991). One of the actor's last quality jobs was providing the narration for The Shark Is Still Working, a Jaws documentary that he endorsed quite happily. Fans will definitely want to check that one out.

Rest in peace, Mr. Scheider. I'm about to go grab my Jaws DVD.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

• Jimmy James (1916-2008) - British flier and POW during World War II who helped to inspire The Great Escape. He died January 18 in Shrewsbury, England. (Edmunds Inside Line)

• Louisa Horton (1924-2008) - Actress who co-starred in All My Sons with Burt Lancaster and Edward G. Robinson. She also appears in Communion with Christopher Walken and Swashbuckler with Robert Shaw, and she was the former wife of director George Roy Hill. She died January 25 in Englewood, New Jersey. (AP)
• Roc Kirby (c.1918-2008) - Founder of Village Roadshow, which began as a single drive-in theater and eventually expanded to include a film production company, Village Roadshow Pictures (The Matrix; I Am Legend), a film studio, a home video distributor and a theme park operation. He died after an illness January 25, in Victoria, Australia. (Variety)
• Barry Morse (1918-2008) - British actor best known for playing "Lt. Philip Gerard" on the TV series The Fugitive. He also appears in the films The Changeling, Kings of the Sun, Asylum and George Cukor's Justine. He died February 2. (Toronto Star)
• Ronnie Fox Rogers (? -2008) - Camera operator who worked on Superman, McVicar and The Bride. He was also the cinematographer for The Adding Machine. He died of complications from a lung infection January 30, in West Sussex, England. (IMDb)

• Russell Lloyd (1916-2008) - Oscar-nominated editor of John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King. He edited 11 of Huston's films in total, including Moby Dick, The MacKintosh Man, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Unforgiven and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison. He also edited Tinto Brass' Caligula, Anthony Page's The Lady Vanishes, Peter Sellers' final film, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu and Julien Duvivier's 1948 adaptation of Anna Karenina, on which he was also a second-unit director. He co-directed the 1949 melodrama The Last Days of Dolwyn, which starred Richard Burton, and was a location director for the 1950 Disney adaptation of Treasure Island. He died January 21 in Cranleigh, England. (Independent)

• Christopher Allport (1947-2008) - Character actor who starred in the 1979 slasher flick Savage Weekend. He also appears in To Live and Die in L.A., the '86 Invaders from Mars remake and the horror film Jack Frost and its direct-to-video sequel Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowmen. He died in an avalanche January 25, in Wrightwood, California. (Star-Telegram.com)
• Christian Brando (aka Gary Brown) (1958-2008) - Actor and son of Marlon Brando. He appears in the Barbara Streisand movie Yentl and the Peter Sellers movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! He died from pneumonia January 26, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• Heath Ledger (1979-2008) - Oscar-nominated actor who starred in Brokeback Mountain, Cassanova, The Brothers Grimm, 10 Things I Hate About You, Monster's Ball, The Order, A Knight's Tale, Ned Kelly, I'm Not There and The Four Feathers. He will be seen this summer as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Read Monika's original breaking news post and my update and also check out the Cinematical tribute to Ledger here.
• Reverend Lynn Lemon (1911-2008) - Minister who played a minister in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space and Denis Sanders' Invasion of the Bee Girls. He also appears as himself in the documentary The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr. He died of a heart attack January 15, in Bedford, Texas. (Fangoria)
• Gina Louise (1971-2008) - Hair stylist who worked on Playing Mona Lisa, which starred Alicia Witt and Harvey Fierstein, and Around the Fire, starring Tara Reid and Devon Sawa. She died January 1. (Entertainment Insiders)

It is heartbreaking enough when we lose a great actor like Heath Ledger. When the news comes through as chaotically as it did yesterday, though, it heightens the tragedy. We all heard speculation, rumors and inconclusive reports about Ledger's death Tuesday, and while some of it was true, most of it was not. On the morning after, things don't feel any more concrete, but we at Cinematical would like to keep you updated on what is confirmed and what is still not definitively known. Also, we'd like to share the statements made by family and friends, all of whom are in our hearts today.

The only bit of information that could really be corroborated last evening was the time of Ledger's death and that he was discovered in his bedroom (in his apartment, not Mary Kate Olsen's) by his massage therapist. Anything else you heard, whether it had to do with scattered pills or type of pills, may have been exaggerated. And until a medical examiner issues a certain cause-of-death statement, we can't even be sure if any pills were involved in the incident. So far this morning, we have learned that an autopsy performed on Ledger has been ruled inconclusive. The medical examiner's office also told reporters that the investigation into the death will take about ten days.