Peter Ustinov

Peter Ustinov (click for larger version)

The Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe winning Sir Peter Ustinov (82) is best known as pompous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in the film versions of Agatha Christie’s Death On the Nile and Evil Under the Sun. He’s also known for turns in upscale sword-and-sandal epics Spartacus and Quo Vadis, the latter being Ustinov’s opportunity to provide us with a definitive Nero. He excelled, in other words, at playing characters imminently full of themselves but just this side of ridiculous. Ustinov’s portly frame was a plus, yet his mellifluous voice carried most of the load; he sounded like an ideal blend of James Mason, Lawrence Olivier, and George Sanders. A master of dialects and accents, and fluent in almost a dozen languages, Ustinov was a motion picture wonder at times, never more so than in 1961 when he wrote, directed, produced, and acted in the stunning naval drama Billy Budd (one of the great underseen, under-appreciated films of modern cinema). —D.P.

Frank Thomas

From 1934 to 1978, Thomas (92) worked at the same company doing the same thing everyday. Since his office was at Walt Disney Studios, that’s not such a bad thing. Indeed, film scholars agree that his long, hard labor was a very good thing, as Thomas was a member of an elite squad of Disney animators known as “the nine old men.” He worked on such iconic animated pictures as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Pinocchio, later displaying a knack for crafting some unique characters and moments (the Queen of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland, Captain Hook from Peter Pan). That spaghetti dinner scene in Lady and the Tramp was also his idea. —D.P.

Walt Gorney achieved screen immortality in Friday the 13th as “Crazy Ralph,” the old hermit who warns those kids to stay out of the woods. “You’re all doomed!” he intones, only to be laughed at by those pot-smoking teens. Crazy Ralph was killed off in Friday the 13th Part 2, but every subsequent rural slasher film would include a similar character. Meanwhile, Gorney lived to the ripe old age of 92 because he didn’t go into the woods! —J.R.T.

Noble Willingham

Along with numerous appearances on “Rockford,” “The Waltons,” “Murder She Wrote,” “Home Improvement,” and several other series, Willingham (72) found plenty of work on the big screen (Paper Moon, Good Morning Vietnam, City Slickers, The Hudsucker Proxy) portraying sheriff’s deputies, congressmen, oil men, car salesmen, and military types. His characters often exhibited a right-wing, menacing, good-ol’ boy demeanor, but occasionally the actor could effortlessly manifest the quiet decency of an American Joe from the heartland (if such a being exists). In short, he seemed less like an actor and more like a fairly interesting “real” person who just wandered onto the set. Such is the magic of Hollywood. —D.P.

The characters he played were always named Salvatore, Vinnie, Fat Tony, or Dominick—their last names ending with a vowel, of course. He had a face that looked like a basset hound wearing a medium pizza for a Halloween mask, thus providing, atop his rotund frame, a clueless visage that might be amusing were it not so damn intimidating. Viterelli (66) was that Hollywood casting creation known as the “mobster meatball,” and as Robert de Niro’s enforcer “Jelly” in Analyze This, he practically defined the dimwitted wiseguy. It was almost as though Joe were bringing past experience to his roles; after all, his former occupation is listed as “New York businessman,” and he died in Las Vegas of “complications after surgery.” There’s no sense in reading too much into that, though. —D.P.

	Joe Viterelli (click for larger version)

Spalding Gray

Many a person wanted to kill himself while enduring a Spalding Gray monologue—especially when somebody had the bad taste to put in one of his videos like Swimming to Cambodia or Monster in a Box before letting everybody get really stoned first. His final stage show ended with him celebrating life by jumping around to Chumbawamba, which was certainly so embarrassing that no one was surprised when Gray (62) killed himself by jumping into the East River of Manhattan. Still, Gray had a nice film career going as a George Plimpton type who gave vague class to bad indie films—and How High, too. He also had small parts in respectable films such as The Killing Fields. Let’s also not forget his early X-rated work in The Farmer’s Daughter and Little Orphan Dusty. You can also supposedly spot him in Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. —J.R.T.

Julius Harris

Last year’s “Dead Folks” issue cited how the late dictator Idi Amin claimed that it was God’s will when Godfrey Cambridge died while playing him in the 1976 TV movie Victory at Entebbe. The joke was on Idi, though, since Cambridge was replaced by Julius Harris (71), who’d live long enough to read Amin’s obituary. Sadly, though, this amazing character actor passed away this year, leaving behind one of the best ’70s legacies of all time. Harris’ bulk provided menace and humor in classic blaxploitation films ranging from Shaft’s Big Score! to Superfly to Trouble Man—and that was only 1972. That set him up to take on James Bond in the blaxploitation-themed Live and Let Die. After that, his work in films like Friday Foster would be mixed with big-budget productions including Looking for Mr. Goodbar and the remake of King Kong. —J.R.T.

Carrie Snodgress

Carrie Snodgress became an overnight star when she appeared in the title role of 1970′s Diary of a Mad Housewife. The film bombed, despite her Oscar nomination, and her follow-up, Rabbit, Run, was another disappointing adaptation. Snodgress (57) had disappeared by 1972, and the gossip columns were asking “whatever happened to?” by 1976. The answer was that she’d run off to live with Neil Young and was raising their son Zeke, born with cerebral palsy. She returned to the screen in 1978 in Brian DePalma’s The Fury, which coincided with her having to endure coverage of record producer Jack Nitzsche’s trial for assaulting her. Fortunately, the worst details were too sordid to make the papers. After that, Snodgress worked steadily in both indie and major productions, right up to her death from heart and liver failure. —J.R.T.

Ingrid Thulin

	Ingrid Thulin (click for larger version)

Liv Ullman is better known, but Swedish actress Ingrid Thulin almost vaulted to international stardom in the wake of her films with Ingmar Bergman. Her stint with the famed director included 1957′s Wild Strawberries and 1972′s Cries and Whispers. Unfortunately, her bid to win over Hollywood stalled after Angela Lansbury had to dub her voice in the 1962 Glenn Ford film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This was still schlock cinema’s gain, since Thulin (77) would later contribute a stunning performance as the madame of a Nazi whorehouse in the fabulously trashy 1976 classic Salon Kitty. Thulin remained one of Europe’s most respected stage actresses after retiring from the screen in 1988. —J.R.T.

Christopher Reeve

In an ironic twist, actor Christopher Reeve (52) went from playing the definitive Superman to living as a quadriplegic after a horseback riding accident nine years ago. Though admitting that suicide was his first thought, Reeve eventually became a champion for paralysis victims, and was determined to one day walk again. He was a willing guinea pig for new medical treatments and eventually was able to partially leave the respirator he had been on after electrodes embedded in his lungs allowed the actor to breathe on his own for an hour or so each day. Reeve said those precious minutes were a highlight in his later years, as he cherished being able to turn off the machine and listen to the sound of his own breath again. Neither Reeve nor his wife lost their senses of humor, however. His wife appeared on Howard Stern’s television show to plug the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation one evening, and smiled through Stern’s cruel jokes that she should have just let Reeve die. Reeve passed away following a heart attack. —Ed Reynolds

Drew’s no longer the only Barrymore to escape the family curse. Her father, John—son of acting legend John Barrymore—could claim to have lived for about five more decades than anyone could have ever expected. This notorious Hollywood casualty began his career as a total embarrassment to the Barrymore dynasty, giving horrific performances on stage and screen. He disappeared for a few years, changed his billing from “John Barrymore, Jr.” to John Drew Barrymore (72), and made several bad foreign productions during the ’60s. He was especially suited for historical roles, thanks to his love of long hair and hatred of shaving. There were plenty of drug busts, and the guy ended up living in the woods. Some would call him a dropout, but he was pretty much just homeless and crazy. He was an absentee father, naturally, and his daughter wisely didn’t have much to do with him. A wheelchair-bound Barrymore ended up being provided with a court guardian in 2003. He was certainly very handsome, though. —J.R.T.

Theo Van Gogh

He was a direct descendant of Vincent Van Gogh’s brother, but Theo Van Gogh (47) had made his own fame as a daring filmmaker in his native Netherlands. Sadly, a Dutch television showing of his short film Submission—about the mistreatment of women in Islamic culture—led to Van Gogh’s murder in the streets of Amsterdam. In a typically European display of bravery, the 2005 Rotterdam Film Festival planned to honor Van Gogh by showing Submission as part of a debate on free speech, but then showed submission by canceling the screening after more threats of Muslim violence. —J.R.T.