Bill Cobbs, the convincing character actor who had pivotal turns in such films as The Hudsucker Proxy, Sunshine State and Night at the Museum, has died. He was 90. Cobbs died Tuesday night at his home in Riverside, his publicist, Chuck I. Jones, told TMZ. A native of Cleveland who excelled at comedy as well as drama, Cobbs portrayed Whitney
Obituaries
If being a Hollywood star consists of having either major box office clout or a few Oscar nominations (and, preferably, at least one win), the great Donald Sutherland never had any of those. Then why, since his death last Thursday at age 88, has he been celebrated the world over as one of the true
Betty Anne Rees, who portrayed tough women who weren’t very nice in The Unholy Rollers and Sugar Hill, two 1970s offerings from the B-movie factory American International Pictures, has died. She was 81. Rees died Monday at her home in Hemet, California, after a series of falls and a possible stroke, her niece, Kathleen Loucks,
Martin Starger, who shepherded Roots, Happy Days and Rich Man, Poor Man as the first president of ABC Entertainment before producing such films as Robert Altman’s Nashville and Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask, has died. He was 92. Starger died Friday at his home in Los Angeles, his niece, New York-based casting director Ilene Starger, announced. “He
Richard M. Sherman, the Oscar-winning songwriter who partnered with his late brother to craft tunes for such Disney classics as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book, died Saturday. He was 95. Sherman, who also co-wrote “It’s a Small World (After All)” — considered the most performed song ever — as well
Ben Stiller, James Woods, John Ales and more Hollywood notables have taken to social media to pay tribute to Dabney Coleman, who died at 92. The legendary comic actor known for his roles in 9 to 5, Tootsie and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, died Thursday at his Santa Monica home, his daughter, singer Quincy Coleman, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Mark Damon, who starred in the Vincent Price horror classic House of Usher and spaghetti Westerns before revolutionizing the foreign sales and distribution film business and producing features including 9 1/2 Weeks, Monster and Lone Survivor, has died. He was 91. Damon died Sunday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his daughter, Alexis Damon Ribaut, told
Roger Corman, the fabled “King of the B’s” producer and director who churned out low-budget genre films with breakneck speed and provided career boosts to young, untested talents like Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd and James Cameron, has died. He was 98. The filmmaker,
Bernard Hill, known to audiences at Titanic‘s Captain Edward Smith in James Cameron’s 1997 film and King Théoden in the Lord of the Rings, has died. He was 79. Hill died in the early hours of Sunday morning, a statement from his family said. No cause was given. His fiancée Alison and his son Gabriel
Ray Chan, the art director and production designer for Marvel Studios who contributed to Guardians of the Galaxy, three Avengers movies, the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine and more, has died. He was 56. Chan died Tuesday near his home in Wales, his family announced. No cause of death was divulged. “Ray truly was one of
Ron Thompson, the unheralded actor who starred on Broadway for Charles Gordone in the Pulitzer Prize-winning No Place to Be Somebody and played father and son musicians for Ralph Bakshi in the animated cult classic American Pop, has died. He was 83. Filmmaker Joe Black told The Hollywood Reporter that he found Thompson in his
David Barrington Holt, who established and ran the first Creature Shop on the West Coast for The Jim Henson Company during his two-plus decades with the firm, has died. He was 78. Holt died March 13 of complications from cancer at his home in Los Angeles, his son, Chris Holt, announced. Holt started out with
Tim McGovern, a visual effects veteran who earned an Oscar for his work on 1990’s Total Recall, died Saturday. He was 68. His wife, Reena NeGandhi, posted the news on Facebook. “Today is the saddest day of my life,” she wrote. “My Husband Tim McGovern, an Oscar winner for the VFX in 1990’s for Total Recall
Ileen Maisel, who served as a studio executive at Paramount, Lorimar and New Line Cinema and as a producer on films including Onegin, Ripley’s Game and The Golden Compass, has died. She was 68. Maisel died Feb. 16 in London, her home for the past 34 years, her sister, Hollywood publicist Cheryl Maisel, announced. Maisel
Michael Culver, the veteran British actor who portrayed the doomed Captain Needa in The Empire Strikes Back and a bigoted police inspector in David Lean’s A Passage to India, has died. He was 85. Culver died Feb. 27, according to Alliance Agents, which represented him for the past decade. No other details were immediately available.
Ed Mintz, the founder of the motion picture industry’s tried-and-true audience polling service CinemaScore, died February 6. He was 83. Known for its mathematical “Coca-Cola” algorithm developed by Mintz, CinemaScore has been prized by studios and exhibitors since its inception in the early 1980s as a domestic box office barometer for movies when it comes
Isabelle Thomas, British documentary filmmaker and the wife of Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon producer Bradley Thomas, was found dead at a Los Angeles hotel this week, medical records show. Thomas was 39. Isabelle Thomas died by suicide and was discovered with “multiple traumatic injuries” at a local hotel, according to online records from the Los Angeles County
Mark Gustafson, the stop-motion specialist who won an Oscar this year for his work on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, died Thursday. He was 64. Del Toro announced the news Friday on social media, posting: “I admired Mark Gustafson, even before I met him. A pillar of stop motion animation — a true artist. A compassionate,
Longtime Deadline reporter Dave Robb has passed away at age 74. Considered the dean of the Hollywood labor beat, Robb was recently diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the brain stem. This diagnosis came last month. Robb experienced what was initially diagnosed as a small stroke. He and wife Kelly learned in follow-up visits that it
D. Barry Reardon, former longtime Warner Bros. President of Sales and Distribution, has died at 92. The exec known as “The Dean of Distribution” among industry peers and filmmakers passed May 27 in Vero Beach, FL. Reardon was the head of theatrical distribution at Warner Bros from 1978-99, and was known for breaking the mold
The death of MGM distribution chief Erik Lomis on Wednesday has shocked many around Hollywood. More than just being a sage to filmmakers and executives about the motion picture business, Lomis was known for his generosity fundraising with the Will Rogers Institute, cultivating others’ careers, and even being a mentor to many in their personal
Anne-Marie Ross (née Boysen), whose career in international film distribution at Lionsgate and Pantelion spanned more than two decades, died September 9 after a near-two-year battle with advanced-stage cancer caused by a rare gene mutation. She was 49. Ross began her career at Lionsgate in 2001, reporting to Nick Meyer, now the President of Film
Roger Horchow, a Cincinnati-born entrepreneur who parlayed a luxury mail-order fortune into a Tony Award-winning streak as a producer on Broadway, died Saturday in Dallas of cancer. He was 91. The founder in 1971 of he Horchow Collection luxury mail-order catalog, Horchow sold the company to Neiman Marcus in 1988, and by 1992 had won
Deadline has learned that Jack Gordon, veteran MGM International Distribution President, passed away on Sunday, Feb. 16 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90. Gordon, born in Brooklyn, New York on March 13, 1929, was the son of Oscar winning American composer and lyricist, Mack Gordon, who had won Best Original Song for
Phyllis Newman, known for her Tony Award-winning role as the bath towel-clad Martha Vail in the musical Subways Are for Sleeping, has died. The star of stage and screen was 86. The news was announced by her son Adam Green, a theater critic for Vogue, via Twitter. “My sister @amanda_green and I had to say
Having brain-screamed at yet another driver blowing through a stop sign at 30 miles per hour in my quiet, child-filled residential neighborhood, I got to wondering: Whatever happened to Garp? Released 37 years ago, on in the summer of 1982, George Roy Hill’s film version of John Irving’s novel The World According to Garp seemed to
The Broadway League said Wednesday that the the Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of its New York theaters for one minute Wednesday night at 7:45 PM ET to commemorate the life of Harold Prince, the Broadway icon who died today at age 91. Prince was a former chairman of the board of
Broadway lost a true icon today, and the theater community is paying tribute to the man who produced and/or directed all-time classics ranging from Damn Yankees, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof to Cabaret, Evita and The Phantom of the Opera. Harold “Hal” Prince, who died today at 91, was the king of Main Stem musicals,