"The Time Tunnel" Actor & Singer James Darren 1936-2024 Memorial Video

James William Ercolani (June 8, 1936 – September 2, 2024), known by his stage name James Darren, was an American television and film actor, television director, and singer. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he had notable starring and supporting roles in films including the youth and beach-culture film Gidget (1959) and its sequels.

He also appeared in The Gene Krupa Story (1959), All the Young Men (1960), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Diamond Head (1962). As a teen pop singer, he sang hit singles including "Goodbye Cruel World" in 1961. 

He later became more active in television, starring as Dr. Anthony Newman in the science fiction series The Time Tunnel (1966–1967). He had the regular role of Officer James Corrigan in the police drama T. J. Hooker (1982–1986) and performed as Vic Fontaine, a recurring role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1998–1999).

On September 2, 2024, James Darren died from heart failure in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 88. In the weeks before his death, Darren was experiencing issues relating to the function of his aortic valve. His doctors judged his condition too fragile to undergo surgery and repair it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Darren

"Pajama Game" Actress & Singer Janis Paige 1922-2024 Memorial Video

Janis Paige (born Donna Mae Tjaden; September 16, 1922 – June 2, 2024) was an American actress and singer. With a career spanning nearly 60 years, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Paige began singing in local amateur shows at the age of five. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles, where she became a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II, as well as posing as a pin-up model.

This led to a film contract with Warner Bros., although she later left the studio to pursue live theatre work, appearing in a number of Broadway shows. She continued to alternate between film and theatre work for much of her career. Beginning in the mid-1950s, she also made numerous television appearances, as well as starring in her own sitcom It's Always Jan.

Janis Paige turned 100 on September 16, 2022, and died at her Los Angeles home on June 2, 2024, at the age of 101.

"King of the B's" Filmmaker Roger Corman 1926-2024 Memorial Video

Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema," "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood," and "The King of Cult," he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film

Among the countless features directed by Corman, a great deal were low-budget films that later attracted a cult following, such as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Intruder (1962), and X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963); House of Usher (1960) became the first of eight films directed by Corman that were adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1964, Corman became the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque française, as well as in the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. He was the co-founder of New World Pictures, the founder of New Concorde and was a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers."

Corman was also famous for handling the U.S. distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Federico Fellini (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), François Truffaut (France) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan). He mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron, and was highly influential in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He also helped to launch the careers of actors like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, and William Shatner.

Corman occasionally acted in films by directors who started with him, including The Godfather Part II (1974), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Apollo 13 (1995), and The Manchurian Candidate (2004). A documentary about Corman's life and career titled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, directed by Alex Stapleton, premiered at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals in 2011. The film's TV rights were picked up by A&E IndieFilms after a well-received screening at Sundance.

Roger Corman was married to Julie Halloran from 1970 until his death. They had four children. Corman died at his home in Santa Monica, California, on May 9, 2024, at age 98.

"Starsky & Hutch" Actor David Soul 1943-2024 Memorial Video

David Soul (born David Richard Solberg; August 28, 1943 – January 4, 2024) was an American and British actor and singer. With a career spanning five decades, he rose to prominence for portraying Detective Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in the American television series Starsky & Hutch from 1975 to 1979. His other notable roles included Joshua Bolt on Here Come the Brides from 1968 to 1970 and as the lead actor in the 1979 American TV movie Salem's Lot. Soul also had moderate success as a film actor when he portrayed Officer John Davis in Magnum Force in 1973.

During his career he also found success as a singer, achieving a number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Don't Give Up on Us," which also peaked at number one in the UK and Canada. Soul achieved a further four top 10 entries and an additional number one single on the UK Singles Chart with "Silver Lady." In the 1990s he moved to the United Kingdom and found renewed success on the West End stage. He also made cameo appearances in British TV shows, including Little Britain, Holby City, and Lewis.

Soul was a three-pack-a-day cigarette smoker for fifty years. Although he had stopped smoking ten years prior to his death, he was seriously affected by COPD and had also had a lung removed due to cancer. Soul died in a London hospital, surrounded by his family, on January 4, 2024, at the age of 80.

-- Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Soul

"Mary Poppins" Actress Glynis Johns 1923-2024 Memorial Video - Extended Cut

Glynis Margaret Payne Johns (October 5, 1923 – January 4, 2024) was a British actress. In a career spanning seven decades on stage and screen, Johns appeared in more than 60 films and 30 plays. She received various accolades throughout her career, including a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award (The Sundowners), a Golden Globe Award (The Chapman Report), and a Laurence Olivier Award. She was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood and classical years of British cinema.

Johns was born in Pretoria, South Africa, the daughter of Welsh actor Mervyn Johns. She appeared on stage from a young age and was typecast as a stage dancer from early adolescence, making her screen debut in South Riding (1938). She rose to prominence in the 1940s following her role as Anna in the war drama film 49th Parallel (1941), for which she won a National Board of Review Award for Best Acting, and starring roles in Miranda (1948) and Third Time Lucky (1949). Following No Highway in the Sky (1951), a joint British-American production, Johns took on increasingly more roles in the United States and elsewhere. She made her television and Broadway debuts in 1952 and took on starring roles in such films as The Sword and the Rose (1953), The Weak and the Wicked (1954), Mad About Men (1954), The Court Jester (1955), The Sundowners (1960), The Cabinet of Caligari (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), and Under Milk Wood (1972). On television, she starred in her own sitcom Glynis (1963).

Renowned for the breathy quality of her husky voice, Johns sang songs written specifically for her both on screen and stage, most notably "Sister Suffragette," written by the Sherman Brothers for Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), in which she played Winifred Banks and for which she received a Laurel Award, and "Send In the Clowns," composed by Stephen Sondheim for Broadway's A Little Night Music (1973), in which she originated the role of Desiree Armfeldt and for which she received a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.

Johns was predeceased by all four of her husbands. The first to die was her third husband, Cecil Henderson, in 1978, followed by her fourth husband, Elliott Arnold, in 1980, her first husband, Anthony Forwood, in 1988, and her second husband, David Foster, in 2010. Her son, Gareth Forwood, died in 2007 from a heart attack during cancer treatment.

With the death of Olivia de Havilland in 2020, Johns became the oldest living Academy Award nominee in any acting category. In 2021, with the death of Betty White, she became the oldest living Disney Legend.

Johns retired to the US, where she later resided at the Belmont Village Hollywood Heights, a senior living community, located near the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California.

Johns died in Los Angeles at an assisted living home, on January 4, 2024, at age 100 from natural causes.

-- Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glynis_Johns