Director David R. Ellis has died, reports Deadline, on the cusp of production for his next film, the live-action anime adaptation, Kite. The actor, turned stuntman, turned second unit whiz, turned feature director, who made his directorial debut with 1996's Homeward Bound 2, before finding his niche with crowd-pleasing genre fare from Final Destination 2 to Snakes on a Plane and last year's Shark Night 3D, was 60 years old at the time of his death.
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Michael Clarke Duncan, best known for his Academy Award-nominated turn as the prison inmate John Coffey in The Green Mile, died Monday weeks after suffering a heart attack on July 13. Duncan had been hospitalized since the attack, with fiancee Omarosa Manigault confirming his passing in a statement today.
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Decades after making a name for herself as reporter and film critic at the New York Herald Tribune, New York Magazine, and the Today show, trailblazing journalist Judith Crist died Tuesday in Manhattan, confirms the New York Times. Crist additionally wrote for TV Guide, Saturday Review, Gourmet and Ladies’ Home Journal during her career, which included a longtime stint as professor of journalism at Columbia and a cameo in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. After the jump, watch an interview with Crist filmed in May, on her 90th birthday, in which the spry critic took a look back at her fruitful career.
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Acclaimed, Pulitzer-honored science fiction/fantasy author Ray Bradbury has died at the age of 91 in Los Angeles, following one of the most fruitful creative writing careers of the 20th century. The man behind such genre classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes leaves behind a stunning legacy spanning works adapted for television, film, and the stage.
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Radio and TV host/personality/entrepreneur Dick Clark has died at the age of 82, reports the AP. The "American Bandstand"/"New Year's Rockin' Eve" fixture had suffered a heart attack following an outpatient procedure in Santa Monica. Over the course of his six-decade career Clark also produced awards shows including the American Music Awards (which he founded), the Emmy Awards, and the Golden Globes; he even dabbled in film, writing and starring in the 1968 crime drama Killers Three.
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Davy Jones, once named by Yahoo as the number 1 teen idol of all time, passed away at the age of 66 after suffering a heart attack. As a member of the Beatles-inspired musical group The Monkees, created for their eponymous television show in 1966, Jones rose to fame alongside bandmates Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz, and Michael Nesmith and subsequently embarked on a successful solo musical career of his own; let's remember Jones with a look back at The Monkees, Jones' acting career, and the group's 1968 psychedelic cult film, Head.
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Despite having acted in only a handful of movies before her death on Saturday at the age of 48, Whitney Houston left a lasting legacy with the few film projects she did release during her reign as arguably the best-known female pop singer of her generation. 1995's Waiting to Exhale earned her a NAACP Image Award nomination, and 1996's The Preacher's Wife won her the award (and made her the highest-earning African American actress in Hollywood at the time); this year's Sparkle was set to be Houston's comeback after a well-documented and public period of substance abuse and personal decline. But no film is as indelibly linked to Houston's legacy as her debut in 1992's The Bodyguard, and the record-breaking soundtrack it spawned.
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Stage and film veteran Ben Gazzara, whose career spanned five decades and included a stint directing television, has died at age 81 in New York. According to The New York Times, Gazzara succumbed to pancreatic cancer today in Manhattan, where he lived. Let's bid a fond farewell to the Emmy-winning, Golden Globes-nominated Gazzara by remembering some of his most indelible work.
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He had divisive opinions and a rare mind, but the late, great Christopher Hitchens also, from time to time, deviated from politics, culture, and history to examine other important issues including film, filmmakers, and -- importantly! -- how to make tea. Pour one out for Hitch today -- the proper way, no dunking -- with his wise words from last year.
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With his latest film, the well-received four and a half-hour opus The Mysteries of Lisbon, still in theaters stateside, Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz has passed away in Paris following a lung infection. The director, who had made over 100 films in his nearly five-decade career, was 70.
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Film producer and studio executive Laura Ziskin passed away Sunday after a public battle with cancer, having established a distinguished career as one of Hollywood's most prominent female producers. Her notable credits include Pretty Woman (1990), Hero (1992), To Die For (1995), As Good as It Gets (1997), as well as all three of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films and the upcoming reboot The Amazing Spider-Man. Ziskin was 61.
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