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People You Thought Were Dead

Krepostnoi said:
Bit of a coincidence that I should read this today...
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Lou Reed was on my mind yesterday after he was mentioned in a Guardian feature on Michael Imperioli.
Reed's death hadn't escaped my notice; he'd picked up hepatitis when injecting heroin years before.

One of those artists who probably expected to die in harness as @Stormkhan says and wouldn't have cared, being young, but then cleaned up and went on to greatness; only for the habit to kill them after all.
 
Erinaceus said:
I only really remember him doing Harold Wilson, so once he died the work probably dried up.
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Thatcher killed his act. Yarwood couldn't do her. It'd require full drag which wasn't acceptable back then.
Yarwood is still with us. There's a photo going round of him with actor Richard O'Sullivan.
 
escargot said:
Thatcher killed his act. Yarwood couldn't do her. It'd require full drag which wasn't acceptable back then.
Yarwood is still with us. There's a photo going round of him with actor Richard O'Sullivan.
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Mike Yarwood is another one that my mate John knew, who, according to John, drank like a fish. I'm just amazed that any of that era of entertainers are still alive, to hear John talk.
 
catseye said:
Mike Yarwood is another one that my mate John knew, who, according to John, drank like a fish. I'm just amazed that any of that era of entertainers are still alive, to hear John talk.
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Yup, Yarwood has said in interviews that he was already a heavy drinker when Thatch and other female politicians came to the fore.
After that his drinking became much worse and he found it hard to make a living.
 
It's also a factor in that 'popular' humour changes and has fashions.
The catchphrase-heavy domestic sitcom lost traction, as did the 'utterly hilarious' impersonators such as Yarwood and Phil Cool. The trouble with most impersonator humour is that it is 'set' in time, i.e. it quickly becomes dated.
I loved Spitting Image, and I've even got one VHS tape of the show. It was scathing, clever ... but the politicians and public figures it mocked are long gone from public attention.
The comedy circuit of the 70's-80's are of their time. I was a big fan of Jasper Carrott - even got two of his vynil albums - but his humour is dated. Thus, the comdedians who have fallen out of fashion are easy to think of as dead.
 
Some humour is utterly timeless though.
Laurel and Hardy for one.
Watch any of their 'shorts' from the 1930s & 40s. Okay, so some of the references are 'of their time' but the construction of the dialogue and structure of the jokes, and the 'slapstick' (extremely well rehearsed and well timed) all stands up remarkably well.
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Stormkhan said:
It's also a factor in that 'popular' humour changes and has fashions.
The catchphrase-heavy domestic sitcom lost traction, as did the 'utterly hilarious' impersonators such as Yarwood and Phil Cool. The trouble with most impersonator humour is that it is 'set' in time, i.e. it quickly becomes dated.
I loved Spitting Image, and I've even got one VHS tape of the show. It was scathing, clever ... but the politicians and public figures it mocked are long gone from public attention.
The comedy circuit of the 70's-80's are of their time. I was a big fan of Jasper Carrott - even got two of his vynil albums - but his humour is dated. Thus, the comdedians who have fallen out of fashion are easy to think of as dead.
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John (who used to have a stand up comedy act) constantly bemoans the current crop of what he still calls 'alternative' comedians. To him, observational and satirical humour isn't funny, he's still stuck in the era of gags about women's breasts and the uselessness of various football teams. To me, his humour is sexist, classist and dated but he can't quite grasp that all these things move on, modify and change.
 
catseye said:
gags about women's breasts and the uselessness of various football teams.
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Sounds good. Shame he isn't still gigging. I'd go and see him.
Chubby Brown regularly sells out his gigs with that sort of act.
It isn't for some people though.
 
Trevp666 said:
Some humour is utterly timeless though.
Laurel and Hardy for one.
Watch any of their 'shorts' from the 1930s & 40s. Okay, so some of the references are 'of their time' but the construction of the dialogue and structure of the jokes, and the 'slapstick' (extremely well rehearsed and well timed) all stands up remarkably well.
View attachment 68637
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Never heard of them.

Seriously, though - I remember when Stan Laurel died. My mother swore she read his obituary many years earlier.
 
escargot said:
Oliver Hardy died eight years before Stan Laurel did, perhaps your mother was thinking of him and misremembered?
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I think not, although she did often confuse actors with one another like Brian Keith
keith_brian.jpg

and Brian Dennehy
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Yes, they look somewhat alike, but she would insist they were the same person even when told they were not.
 
ChasFink said:
I think not, although she did often confuse actors with one another like Brian Keith
View attachment 68650
and Brian Dennehy
View attachment 68651

Yes, they look somewhat alike, but she would insist they were the same person even when told they were not.
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Brian Keith was an interesting guy, who plays a role in the darker side of Hollywood history. Aside from taking his own life, he was also the step son of Peg Entwistle, the actress whose name lives on, not so much for her acting roles, but more so for having ended her life by jumping from the Hollywood sign in 1932.
Brian Keith also starred in 'Family Affair', the t.v show about a widower raising his children, one played by Anissa Jones, who led a tragic life after the show and herself met an early death due to drug abuse.
 
Lord Lucan said:
Brian Keith was an interesting guy, who plays a role in the darker side of Hollywood history. Aside from taking his own life, he was also the step son of Peg Entwistle, the actress whose name lives on, not so much for her acting roles, but more so for having ended her life by jumping from the Hollywood sign in 1932.
Brian Keith also starred in 'Family Affair', the t.v show about a widower raising his children, one played by Anissa Jones, who led a tragic life after the show and herself met an early death due to drug abuse.
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Not to be pedantic, but...

Keith's character was a bachelor, and the kids were his late brother's. A very successful engineer, he was well off - being able to afford to hire a gentleman's gentleman (played by the delightful Sebastian Cabot) - but always had a down to earth character I admired.
 
Stormkhan said:
It's also a factor in that 'popular' humour changes and has fashions.
The catchphrase-heavy domestic sitcom lost traction, as did the 'utterly hilarious' impersonators such as Yarwood and Phil Cool. The trouble with most impersonator humour is that it is 'set' in time, i.e. it quickly becomes dated.
I loved Spitting Image, and I've even got one VHS tape of the show. It was scathing, clever ... but the politicians and public figures it mocked are long gone from public attention.
The comedy circuit of the 70's-80's are of their time. I was a big fan of Jasper Carrott - even got two of his vynil albums - but his humour is dated. Thus, the comdedians who have fallen out of fashion are easy to think of as dead.
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Spitting Image? Was thinking about that earlier.

Of course long forgot, they really should have done something more timeless.
 
But, like Dead Ringers, HIGNY, Drop the Dead Donkey et al., they all 'hit the mark' by being right up-to-date. That's their appeal to a contemporary audience.
In fairness corruption, idiocy in government, sporting catastrophes - they could all be timeless. But that satire isn't cutting edge.
 
I thought that the magician Ali Bongo had died years ago and today, while half asleep, I'd heard that he'd been deposed in a coup in Gabon! I thought I must have dream it, but no, it was real, albeit a different Ali Bongo...

(And according to the Guardian's obit, the original Ali Bongo was the basis for Jonathan Creek, which I didn't know.)

Gabon military officers declare coup after Ali Bongo wins disputed election​

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-military-takeover-gabonese-election-disputed
 
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cycleboy2 said:
I thought that the magician Ali Bongo had died years ago and today, while half asleep, I'd heard that he'd been deposed in a coup in Gabon! I thought I must have dream it, but no, it was real, albeit a different Ali Bongo...

(And according to the Guardian's obit, the original Ali Bongo was the basis for Jonathan Creek, which I didn't know.)

Gabon military officers declare coup after Ali Bongo wins disputed election​

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-military-takeover-gabonese-election-disputed
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Never mind whether Ali Bongo is dead or being deposed in a coup, what about those of us who still think Victoria Wood was married to him rather than to The Great Soprendo? :thought:
 
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cycleboy2 said:
I thought that the magician Ali Bongo had died years ago and today, while half asleep, I'd heard that he'd been deposed in a coup in Gabon! I thought I must have dream it, but no, it was real, albeit a different Ali Bongo...

(And according to the Guardian's obit, the original Ali Bongo was the basis for Jonathan Creek, which I didn't know.)

Gabon military officers declare coup after Ali Bongo wins disputed election​

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-military-takeover-gabonese-election-disputed
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What a great entertainer Ali Bongo was.
Used to love his show in his "Shriek of Araby" persona and his magic catchphrase "hocus pocus fishbone chokus" .
 
He'll always be remembered as a chequered character and a Nixon stooge to many, but I wonder what his machinations really did for the good of the free folks of the world. I really do. I know very little about that arena of historical politics, yet it fascinates me. I'm tied in to the Vietnam war in some weird way. Sure wasn't I born just as it was winding down. Never been there. Yet there's this strong link to my psyche for some reason. Hm.
 
The one thing of Kissinger that strikes me is his inhumanity.
While he might've been doing things for the greater good (as he saw it), he had absolutely no regard for the people affected by his policies.
I think he had the attitude of doing things for society and not those in society.
 
skinny said:
He'll always be remembered as a chequered character and a Nixon stooge to many, but I wonder what his machinations really did for the good of the free folks of the world. I really do. I know very little about that arena of historical politics, yet it fascinates me. I'm tied in to the Vietnam war in some weird way. Sure wasn't I born just as it was winding down. Never been there. Yet there's this strong link to my psyche for some reason. Hm.
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Understood skinny.
 
catseye said:
I've just read that Nick Cave was at the coronation. This surprised me no end, because I was convinced he was dead and had been for some time, through suicide. In fact, I thought he died after Red Right Hand.
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I saw NC & TBS at a festival in Denmark in the late 90s and I can say with certainty that he definitely looked and sounded dead. Blixa had to sing most of Red Right Hand.
 
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