• St. Claire Bourne (1943-2007) - Filmmaker who directed the documentary John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk and was the unit manager for When We Were Kings. He also appears as himself in the doc How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It), which is about Melvin Van Peebles. His most familiar work, though, is likely Making 'Do the Right Thing', which can be found on Criterion's DVD release of the Spike Lee film. He died after an operation to remove a brain tumor December 15, in New York. (Daily News via The Reeler)
• John Clark (? - 2007) - Art director for Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, Secret Ceremony, The Railway Children, Performance and Sidney Lumet's The Offence. He died December 12 in London. (IMDb)
• Philippe Clay (1927-2007) - French singer and actor who appears in Bell, Book and Candle, Jean Delannoy's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Anthony Quinn/Gina Lollobrigida one), Jean Renoir's French Cancan and Roger Planchon's Lautrec, in which he portrayed the painter Auguste Renoir. He died of cardiac arrest December 13, in Paris. (Find a Grave)
• Freddie Fields (1923-2007) - "Superagent" and talent manager who co-founded Creative Management Associates, the precursor to International Creative Management (ICM). He also produced Glory, American Gigolo, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Victory, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Millennium and Crimes of the Heart. He died of lung cancer December 11, in Beverly Hills. (Variety)
• Jillian Kesner (1950-2007) - Actress and karate expert who starred in Beverly Hills Vamp, Raw Force (aka Kung Fu Cannibals), Firecracker (aka Naked Fist) and Student Body, which is familiar to fans of Errol Morris' documentary The Thin Blue Line, in which it is featured. She later became a production coordinator and associate producer. She died of a staph infection December 5. (Voy.com)
• Tom Miller (1922-2007) - Unit publicist for Shaft, Alex in Wonderland, The Cotton Club, The Last Dragon, Blow Out, The Happy Hooker, Easy Money and Paul Newman's Harry & Son and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. He died of an embolism following surgery December 6, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Tuscaloosa News)

With Ike Turner dying yesterday, most of the obituaries felt obliged to lead with the wife-beater stuff and then sort of follow up with the 'helped invent rock n' roll' part.' Some papers are also making a lot of hay over the fact that Tina Turner released a statement last night that more or less pissed on Ike's grave, saying that, yeah, she heard he was dead and she has nothing to say about it. In other words, the guy was fated to go down like a monster. He probably realized that more than anyone in his final years. And who knows, maybe he deserves the scorn he's receiving in death as well as what he got in life -- I know almost nothing about his personal history except what I saw in What's Love Got to Do With It? but that's the whole point. Did one performance actually change the tide of public opinion against a musical pioneer?

Laurence Fishburne's performance in the film garnered an Oscar nod, and deservedly so -- he paints a portrait of a very scary guy with practically no formal education and no way to control his erratic and violent impulses. In particular, the cake scene in the restaurant -- Eat that cake, Anna Mae! -- is now considered one of the classic scenes of the 90s. It's the kind of out-there scene with dynamic, gut-wrenching acting that sticks with you for years after you've seen it. But what if it didn't happen that way? What's Love Got to Do With It? admittedly fictionalized a large number of things, and I can't imagine Tina Turner was so concerned about giving Ike the benefit of the doubt when it came down to the details of their fights. Again, I'm approaching this as a curious devil's advocate -- maybe Ike deserved it all.