Michael Clarke Duncan, 1957-2012

Actor Michael Clarke Duncan passed away on Monday, September 5th. He was 54, and died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a statement from his publicist, Joy Fehily. He had suffered a heart attack in July and did not recover.

Duncan had always aspired to be an actor, and his dreams were made into a reality. He appeared in numerous films, including The Green Mile, Sin City, and Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, among many others.

Growing up on Chicago's South Side, he harbored dreams of becoming an actor.

"Of course, people told me, 'Mikey, you will never be an actor. You don't have the look. You're ugly,'" he recalled in a 2003 Chicago Sun-Times interview.

But Duncan made his dreams a reality, and portrayed unforgettable characters that will live on.

David Kelly, 1929-2012

David Kelly with young Freddie Highmore in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

A bit of sad news: Irish character actor David Kelly passed away in his native Dublin on February 12th, 2012. He was 82.

Kelly is perhaps best known for his performance as Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Kelly is survived by his wife, actress Laurie Morton, and their two children.

Michael Gough, 1917-2011

Legendary actor and frequent Tim Burton collaborator Michael Gough died on Thursday, March 17th. He was 94.

Michael Gough had an extensive career with roles in over 150 films. He began acting in the 1940s and became a staple of the British Hammer horror films in the 1950s and 1960s (which Burton is quite fond of).

Gough is perhaps best known as playing Alfred Pennyworth in Burton's Batman in 1989 and Batman Returns in 1992. He played the same character in the Joel Schumacher sequels, such as the Burton-produced Batman Forever (1995). Gough continued to work with Burton in other films, playing Notary Hardenbrook in Sleepy Hollow (1999) and supplying the voice of Elder Gutneckt in Corpse Bride (2005). Gough came out of retirement to provide his voice to the Dodo Bird in Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), his final performance.

Pat Hingle, 1924-2009

Pat Hingle, who played the role of Commissioner Gordon in 1989's Batman died on Saturday night in his home in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. He was 84, and had been battling leukaemia for two years.

Hingle, an actor for decades, was also in Batman Returns, and the two Joel Schumacher sequels in the franchise. Hingle and Michael Gough were the only two actors to have reprised their roles in the four movies.

Stan Winston, 1946-2008

Special visual effects and make-up visionary Stan Winston died on Sunday in his home in Malibu, California, surrounded by his family.

Winston had been suffering a seven-year-long struggle with multiple myeloma. He was 62.

Winston had a tremendously successful life and influential impact on the film industry, in a career that spanned roughly four decades. He brought to life some of the most iconic movie monsters and creatures, most notably for those featured in Jurassic Park, Aliens, and Terminator 2. He also collaborated with Tim Burton, on Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, and Big Fish. Burton spoke very highly of Winston.

Richard Corliss of Time Magazine wrote about Winston. In the recent article, he included some comments on his collaborations with Mr. Burton, and thus offering a sense of Stan Winston's work as a whole:

"Yet he wasn't out simply to scare the audience; he wanted to create complex, often sympathetic figures— to enlighten us about the dark side. "I don't do special effects," he once said. "I do characters." His Edward Scissorhands character, elaborated on from director Tim Burton's sketches, puts the poignancy right in that white, sweet, baleful, soulful face. The Penguin, played by Danny DeVito in Burton's Batman Returns, is an ugly, beaky thing that no kid could mistake for having happy feet; yet beneath his comic rage there's an abandoned child's ache, palpable and, thanks to Winston, visible."

You can read the rest of the article here.


Stan Winston may have passed on too soon, but his impact on the film industry will certainly not fade away any time in the near future. Winston reportedly always had a vibrant enthusiasm for his work. That artistic passion certainly shows in his iconic, unforgettable creations.

Rest in peace, Stan.

A couple of Mr. Winston's familiar creations:

Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Danny DeVito as The Penguin in Batman Returns (1992)

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008

Movie legend Charlton Heston passed away on Saturday, April 5th, 2008. He was 84. Lydia, his wife of 64 years, was by his side.

The Oscar-winning actor, president of the National Rifle Association, and Civil Rights activist was one of the last remnants of the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood. He starred in such monumental classics as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Touch of Evil, and the original Planet of the Apes, among many other films.

One of his last onscreen appearances was in Tim Burton's 2001 version of the science-fiction adventure Planet of the Apes. In the film, Heston appears in an unbilled, surprise cameo as a dying old chimpanzee, speaking to his violent son, the villainous Thade, played by Tim Roth.

On the DVD audio commentary track of the film, Burton recalls how exciting it was, working with this screen legend and hearing his booming voice in person.

Here's an excerpt of a review of Burton's film by Armond White of the New York Press from 2001. The review has a consideration portion focusing on Heston's brief appearance. You can read the full article, which also comments on the visual style, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter's performances, and likens the movie to social satire, in this link:



Charlton Heston reveals the discreet charm of the Hollywood conservative in Tim Burton’s reimagined Planet of the Apes. In the 1968 original Heston starred as an American astronaut who discovers a future evolutionary reversal–a society ruled by apes, with humans as the captive species. Now, in an unbilled cameo, Heston plays one of the apes passing a legacy of violence and vengeance to his son Thade (a snarling, snorting Tim Roth). Once again evolution has played tricks on mankind by reasserting the atavistic animal within. And Heston displays this with rousing, hilarious aplomb. You might recall Laurence Olivier’s deathbed scene in Brideshead Revisited but Heston’s from-the-mountaintop voice ("Damn them all to hell!") is irresistible. It echoes through one’s movie memories–parodying aristocratic hubris and Heston himself.

Bequeathing an ancient relic–a gun–to a pre-Neanderthal is an irony surely not lost on NRA zealot Heston who, earlier this year, appeared as a dangerous, rifle-toting nut case in the Warren Beatty comedy Town & Country. When one of Burton’s primates sees a gun and asks, "Who would invent such a thing?" the obvious answer to the question resonates as Heston’s private joke–a punchline that hunts down liberal alarmists in their tracks. Fully cognizant of the misuse of firearms, Heston’s gag doesn’t deny the risks that guns entail. (The sense of the scene recalls that Simpsons joke when Homer, told he can only purchase a gun after an eight-day security check, whines, "But I’m angry now!") Heston’s scene reflects the gun control debate with imaginative complexity–as such sophisticated moralists Sam Peckinpah and John Boorman once were able to do. He goes pop–without isolating the issue or taking it past ambivalence to partisan oversimplification. In fact, Heston’s character curses "the power of invention, the power of technology... Against this our [physical] strength means nothing." It’s a startlingly humane plea coming from a dying simian patriarch who was a nearly pacifist ruler hiding the secret of weaponry. Knowing the catastrophe of humans’ unchecked aggression, Heston warns, "No creature is as dangerous...as violent." This twist is richer than any right- or left-wing rhetoric.

RIP, Maila Nurmi

Maila Nurmi, better known as Vampira, died on January 10th, 2008. Born on December 21st, 1921, she lived to be 86 years old.

Nurmi's legacy is perhaps best known to fans of Tim Burton as being portrayed by Lisa Marie in Burton's 1994 film Ed Wood. As seen in the bio-pic on the B-movie director's life, Nurmi was a late-night host of classic and campy horror films on television. She appeared in Wood's most famous film, Plan 9 From Outer Space, in 1959.

After having lived a life of poverty (and a failed legal case against Elvira), Nurmi died of natural causes, peacefully in her bed.