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People You Thought Were Dead

Clive Swift, famous for Keeping Up Appearances, died last week. I'd thought he died ages ago but perhaps was thinking of Geoffrey Hughes who was also in it and died a few years back.

)One day someone'll say 'Oooh, Scargy's died!' and someone will reply 'Thought she died years ago!')
A friend hosted a tea party with her Royal Doulton set a couple of days after we saw the obit. We toasted to poor Richard.
 
Not that it's kept me awake at night, but I've been long convinced that Jan Michael Vincent died in the late 80s. ...
As I tend to do, I then Googled the details. Turns out he's 73, and very much alive.

I wondered about that too - beyond Airwolf, he didn't really do much, then faded away.
He's a bit of a sad case. He had to have one leg amputated. :(

Vincent died on 10 February.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47502183
 
I'm really confused because I heard John McCririck died the other day. And yet I would swear blind that he left us some time ago. Not years, but a few months ago maybe, and there was all the coverage about it then. And it's not like he wasn't one of a kind. Who on earth could I confuse him with? Is it just me? My brain must be atrophying.

Maybe I got confused with the time he was ejected from Channel 4 racing. But that was ages ago, 2012.

going to lie down in a dark room for a while.
 
Clive Swift, famous for Keeping Up Appearances, died last week. I'd thought he died ages ago but perhaps was thinking of Geoffrey Hughes who was also in it and died a few years back.

(One day someone'll say 'Oooh, Scargy's died!' and someone will reply 'Thought she died years ago!')

When you go, there'll be a month of international mourning, with much wailing and gashing of teeth!
 
When you go, there'll be a month of international mourning, with much wailing and gashing of teeth!

:rollingw:

Dunno, I was chatting at work recently and someone mentioned the Lottery. I said I'd just disappear if I won it, and one day someone'd say 'Remember that fat woman who had all the cats? What happened to her?'

Everyone fell about laughing, and rightly so.

I heard on t'wireless yesterday that the great Bertolt Brecht was so unconcerned about the disposal of his remains that he hoped his gravestone would be available for dogs to pee on. I'm all for that.
 
:rollingw:

Dunno, I was chatting at work recently and someone mentioned the Lottery. I said I'd just disappear if I won it, and one day someone'd say 'Remember that fat woman who had all the cats? What happened to her?'

Everyone fell about laughing, and rightly so.

I heard on t'wireless yesterday that the great Bertolt Brecht was so unconcerned about the disposal of his remains that he hoped his gravestone would be available for dogs to pee on. I'm all for that.
Talk about raining on your parade...
 
Dunno if I've mentioned this before, but I thought Paul Carrack (that guy from Squeeze) is dead. Died of a heart attack - I even remember it being discussed right here on this board.

This came to mind again some months ago when I was trying to remember what year he'd died, so I looked him up, only to discover that he's alive. The really weird thing is that I remember the article about his death had a picture of him, which was the first time I ever knew what he looked like. Definitely the same guy.... I wouldn't have mistaken that hat!
 
I thought that was why he wasn't in Men In Black III.

Torn was in MIB III, but not as Zed. He appeared in a cameo role as an alien at Zed's funeral / memorial service.

The most widely cited explanation for Torn's absence from MIB III was that his personal problems at the time of the film's production* made him a risky person to cast in such a prominent role. Some sources go further to claim there'd have been trouble (e.g., lawsuits) if the Zed character had been re-cast with a different actor. As a result, the Zed character was eliminated from the script during one of the many re-writes repeatedly done during the project, making all those concerns and issues disappear.

* This was the time period during which he was arrested for breaking into a bank while drunk and carrying a firearm, claiming he'd thought it was his own house.
 
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The most widely cited explanation for Torn's absence from MIB III was that his personal problems at the time of the film's production* made him a risky person to cast in such a prominent role.

I will now take the opportunity to shoehorn an anecdote into this thread on the grounds of similar evidence:

The late great Rik Mayall was signed up to play Peeves the poltergeist in a Harry Potter fillum. He went along, learned lines, started filming, but the other actors couldn't stop giggling around him. He tried delivering his lines with his back to the cast or with their backs to him, and suggested shouting his lines from behind a wall, but nothing worked and he had to be dropped.

I bet he was egging them on. That'd be just like him. There's a clip of him forgetting his lines on Black Adder and being prompted, and flashing the V as the prompter walks off-set like a schoolboy.

Wish we were saying 'Remember when we thought Rik had died?'
 
In a discussion this evening, the subject of Clive James came up. I knew I'd not heard reports of his death, yet knowing he was seriously ill some years ago, I was not too sure that he was still alive. Looking him up just moments ago, he's still with us at 79. I hope I've not jinxed him now as I always enjoyed his writing and his New Years Eve television specials, memorable for the keyboard playing by the wonderfully flamboyant Margarita Pracatan.
 
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In a discussion this evening, the subject of Clive James came up. I knew I'd not heard reports of his death, yet knowing he was seriously ill some years ago, I was not too sure that he was still alive. Looking his up just moments ago, he's still with us at 79. I hope I've not jinxed him now as I always enjoyed his writing and his New Years Eve television specials, memorable for the keyboard playing by the wonderfully flamboyant Margarita Pracatan.

I heard an interview with him last year, and he was genuinely embarrassed that he wasn't dead yet (!). He does have a terminal illness, it's just taking a very long time to do him in.
 
I thought that James Burke had died years ago but he popped up recently on a Sky at Night special on the moon landings.
He's all over t'wireless on about it, him and his badly-fitting upper denture.
 
In a discussion this evening, the subject of Clive James came up. I knew I'd not heard reports of his death, yet knowing he was seriously ill some years ago, I was not too sure that he was still alive. Looking him up just moments ago, he's still with us at 79. I hope I've not jinxed him now as I always enjoyed his writing and his New Years Eve television specials, memorable for the keyboard playing by the wonderfully flamboyant Margarita Pracatan.
I have resolutely avoided Googling him. THAT is why he is still alive.
 
I read in the RIP thread yesterday that Andrea Camilleri died this week, but I was certain he had died years ago and I thought I remembered feeling really sorry as I love the Montelbano books
 
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