2010 – You Can’t Take It With You…

Oscar ™ rolls around again this Feb and it’s with macabre excitement I await the new montage of death, ‘In memoriam’.

Sure it’s kinda’ sick – but I fear I’m not alone in this odd fascination. You know how it unfolds; the strings endlessly crescendo as a solemn celebrity (hopefully not Jack Black) introduces us to a nicely cut piece that tugs at the heart and memory of people recently past who stamped an experience on us all through the medium of cinema. Although one really has to be of a certain stature in the Hollywood ranks to deserve a place in this hallowed segment, but who’s to decide such a prestigious final send-off on global television?

We’ve decided to do our own list that may have crossover with the Academy’s decisions – however we feel the most interesting of our deceased cinematic brothers and sisters are the far lesser known.

We’ll be adding more deceased luminaries leading up to all the Oscar malarkey on February 27 – feel free to share a few of your own!

# 1
Mario Monicelli (1915 – 2010)

With over 100 films as a writer and over 60 as a director, Mario’s credits have earned him five Oscar nominations and he’s launched the careers of such luminaries as Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman. His films La Grande Guerra and L’armata Brancaleone are regarded as classics of Italian cinema, amongst many others.
Tired of getting old and sick, Mario jumped from the fifth floor of his hospital window landing near the main entrance below, he was 95.

# 2
William W. Norton (1925 – 2010)

The man who penned Big Bad Mama, Brannigan, Sam Whiskey, White Lightning and Gator stopped typing and became a convicted gunrunner (selling automatic weapons to Catholics in Northern Ireland) being sentenced to two years in a French prison. Upon release and realising there was still a US warrant out for his previous charges, Norton fled to Nicaragua and was granted asylum. Although whilst there he also managed to shoot and kill someone who tried to rob his house. Disillusioned with the Communist regime in Cuba after moving there in the 90s, he soon fled to Mexico and was promptly smuggled back into the US by his family where he dodged the FBI, but still penned a tale of his adventures, Exiled in America later filmed as a play. Now THAT’S a guy who lived on the edge.

# 3
Takeshi Shudo (1949 – 2010)

The creator of Pokemon and regular scribe for Studio Ghibli died on October 29 after suffering a brain hemorrhage in the smoking area of a local Japanese railway station.

He was 61.

#4
Irvin Kershner (1923 – 2010)

Having appeared in Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and directing the renegade Thunderball remake film (with a 53-year-old Sean Connery reprising the role of Bond) Never Say Never Again, Kershner’s true stamp on any boy born between 1943 and 1974 was The Empire Strikes Back (or episode whatever…) in 1980. Without that film… Hell, too many things to mention would simply not exist. Plus he looked a little like Ming the Merciless…

#5
Ingrid Pitt (1937 – 2010)

Born Ingoushka Petrov, this woman survived the Nazi concentration camps only to marry an American soldier and move to California. After numerous waitressing jobs she had a minor role in Doctor Zhivago and after an equally small but affecting role in Where Eagles Dare soon became one of the most popular ‘Scream Queens’ of all time via The Hammer House of Horror and Amicus franchises including The Vampire Lovers and The Wicker Man. She even narrated a Cradle of Filth album in the late ‘90s in character as her most famous on screen persona, ‘Countess Dracula’. As well as being a columnist for various horror and fantasy magazines in her later life, it’s of note she was also WWII military aircraft nut, who’d have thought? Ingrid died tragically after collapsing two days following her 73^rd birthday.

#6
George Hickenlooper (1963 – 2010)

One of the most important filmmakers of the late 20^th / early 21^st century, Hickenlooper launched the career of Billy Bob Thornton via directing the short, Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade. But it would be at only 27 years-of-age that the documentary ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse’ detailing Francis Ford Coppolla’s trials and tribulations on that infamous little war flick that the world realized there was a new talent in town. With 20 films and documentaries in just over 20 years, Hickenlooper was a shining light of work ethic and dedication to story and character, both fictitious and actual. His accidental death of painkillers and alcohol at a mere 47 years-of-age is one of the lesser-told tragedies to modern cinema. Numerous awards lie in his wake… but no Oscar nominations to speak of (idiots!)

#7
Olga C. Nardone (1921 – 2010)

At just a meter in height, Olga was one of the smallest and last surviving munchkins from The Wizard of Oz and died of natural causes at the age of 89.

Suffice to say she didn’t do anything else in the cinematic field whatsoever.

#8
Gus Mercurio (1928 – 2010)

A former US marine, professional boxer and chiropractor (!?), gravel-voiced Gus visited Australia during the ’56 Olympics and simply decided to stay. A jack of all trades, Gus came to the attention of Crawford Productions and found himself cast in Homicide, Division 4 and Matlock Police before conquoring a few feature roles in such diverse productions as Turkey Shoot, Harlequin, Man from Snowy River and both Blue Lagoon films.

But many of us fondly remember him from the ‘I gotta lousy sore throat’ Butter Menthol TV commercials. A true character, he’ll be sadly missed.
Oh, his son dances a bit too…