Dearly Departed of 2024

[Bob Schroeck]

William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton in some of the very first episodes of Doctor Who, has passed away.

[aku]

Scriviner

[aku]

William Anders - Apollo 8 - Earthrise Photo. Discussion

[aku]

Lynn Conway - The Queen of VLSI - And one of the earliest open transgender persons.
See https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/...tiveT.html for her story.

[robkelk]

RIP Dr. Ed Stone, former director of JPL and Voyager project scientist

[robkelk]

RIP Érik Canuel, director of (among other movies) Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

[robkelk]

RIP Willie Mays

I know we don't usually mentions pro sports players, but they wrote a song about Willie...

[robkelk]

RIP Donald Sutherland

His list of roles on Wikipedia takes a quarter-hour to read.

[robkelk]

RIP Bruce Bastian, co-founder of WordPerfect.

[Bob Schroeck]

Shelley Duvall, age 75

[RMH999]

Richard Simmons Fitness Guru



Dr. Ruth Westheimer sex therapist and talk show host

[robkelk]

RIP Shannen Doherty, of 90210 and Charmed fame.

Age 53. Cancer.

[robkelk]

Nobody's picking up the phone.

RIP Bob Newhart

[DHBirr]

Some of my earliest memories include playing my parents' vinyl of The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, over and over, until I had it memorized practically word for word. Ye gods, I loved love that record.

"You hear what Nutty George did last night? The dollar across the Potomac ... they didn't tell you about that? Had us up 'til three in the morning looking for the damn' thing."

Back in 2008, Wiregeek posted a song on The Game... that I suggested might give Doug a high-speed, possibly FTL, flight power that could bring a number of others flying in formation with him. Then Bob our host noted that something about the song (and a few others he'd heard lately) made him feel they'd fit into the Sailor Moon step. I responded to that with a paraphrase of one of Newhart's lines from a Strikes Back! monologue about a low-budget airline: "Good afternoon, ladies and cats, and welcome aboard the Colonel Douglas Q. Sangnoir Airline and Stormdoor Company, with service to the latest youma incursion...."

[Labster]

Yeah, Bob Newhart hits me harder than most of these here, because I think of myself as something of an amateur comedian, and Newhart is... was such a master of the craft.  You can keep picking apart his phrasing, his cadence, his word choices, and his little changes of facial expression, and there is so much there.  So much to learn from.  Effortless and natural seeming jokes, but the product of so much practice.

"You hear what Nutty George did last night? The dollar across the Potomac ... they didn't tell you about that? Had us up 'til three in the morning looking for the damn' thing."

Gosh, if Tomo Takino ever needs to summon a heroic spirit for a grail war, I know who she's getting.

[robkelk]

RIP Abdul 'Duke' Fakir, last surviving member of the Motown group Four Tops

[Dartz]

After 62 years inside, Betty gets back door parole

[Bob Schroeck]

Rachael Lillis, voice of Pokemon's Misty and Utena Tenjou, age 46

[Bob Schroeck]

Actress Gena Rowlands, age 94

[robkelk]

RIP Wally Amos, creator of Famous Amos

[Bob Schroeck]

Former Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, age 98

[Bob Schroeck]

Phil Donahue, age 88

[GethN7]

Atsuko Tanaka, whom you all would know as the Major from the Japanese dub of Ghost In the Shell and many other shows where she lent her iconic voice, has left us, she will be missed:

https://animecorner.me/voice-actress-ats...ssed-away/

[Jenova_Silverstar]

Roger Cook, Long time landscape contractor for the PBS show "This Old House" https://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh-cast-cr...roger-cook

[robkelk]

RIP Dr Helen Fisher, Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute, who pioneered research into how the brain and endocrine systems create love and passion. Age 79, cancer.

https://helenfisher.com/