Michael D Ford obit

Oscar-winning British set decorator Michael Ford dies aged 90

He was not on the list.


Michael Ford, the two-time Oscar-winning set decorator whose credits included Titanic, several James Bond films and Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back has died at the age of 90.


Ford began his career in the early 1970s, working as an assistant art director on several UK features including Up The Front and The Alf Garnett Saga. He also held the same position on TV series The New Avengers.

In 1980, he took up the position of set decorator on sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, which shot at the UK’s Elstree Studios. From there, he worked on a variety of high-profile features throughout the 80s and 90s.

He received his first Oscar nomination in 1981 for his work in the art department on The Empire Strikes Back, before winning his debut Oscar the following year for Raiders Of The Lost Ark. He was again nominated in the art department of Star Wars sequel Return Of The Jedi in 1984, before winning his second Oscar in 1998 for his and art director Peter Lamont’s work on Titanic. Ford’s final credit was adventure sci-fi Wing Commander in 1999.

Reacting to the news of Ford’s passing, Lamont said: “So sorry to hear about the death of my friend and colleague Michael Ford, known affectionately as the ‘Flower Arranger’. [He] collaborated with me on seven productions (Consuming Passions, The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill, The Taking of Beverley Hills, Golden Eye, Titanic and finally Wing Commander) from Mexico to Morocco, LA to Luxenberg and the UK.

“He was a very talented set decorator and artist. I never ever saw him blow a fuse at work, [he was] a true gentleman and we will all miss him.”

Peter Walpole, chairman of The British Film Designers Guild, added: “Sad news to hear the passing on Michael Ford. As a production buyer and then an aspiring set decorator, I looked up to Michael with respect and awe. I concur with Peter, he was a true gentlemen. He will be sadly missed.”

Cornelia Frances obit

Actor Cornelia Frances dead at 77

THE son of Australian actor Cornelia Frances has shared a final photo of the Home and Away and The Weakest Link star.

 She was not on the list.

MUCH-loved Australian actor Cornelia Frances has lost her battle with cancer.

The 77-year-old star of Home and Away is understood to have had son Lawrence by her side when she died in Sydney yesterday.

Frances was a veteran of Australian acting, having played Morag Bellingham on long running Seven soap Home and Away.

“Cornie was an incredibly loved and valued member of our cast over many, many years,”

Frances’ son Lawrence shared a touching photograph of his mother’s final days.

“A very personal photo of my mum during one of her resting moments, she is so peaceful, soft and serene. I truly love this woman,” he wrote on Instagram overnight.

Home and Away actor Ray Meagher, who played her on screen brother, Alf, said. “We had a moment of silence for her on set this morning and she’ll be sadly missed by both cast and crew.”

She also hosted Seven game show The Weakest Link.

Her other credits include Sons and Daughters, Prisoner, Young Doctors and Kingswood Country.

Channel 7 also paid tribute to the actor.

“Cornelia Frances was a unique person,” a Seven spokeswoman said. “Her on screen presence inspired a generation of actors. This gift was coupled with an ability to bring a sense of dignity and presence into each room she entered. Her energy and character will be missed.”

Frances was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2017 before being told it had spread to her hip.

The actor spoke to The Sunday Telegraph from her Royal North Shore Hospital bed in January.

“I swear I have had a hex placed on me for the past 12 months,” she said.

“I discovered I had bladder cancer. This then spread to my hip bone which fractured, and then I almost died from loss of blood due to an ulcer in my throat. Despite all this, I am still here, as the old song goes.”

Frances found out she had cancer when going for a general check-up and, ironically, she received the cancer news at Royal North Shore Hospital, which was used as the set for the fictional Albert Memorial Hospital in Young Doctors.

“I was told that I did indeed have cancer and it had metastasised to my pelvic bone. I just froze as I heard that word, and thought: Oh please God, I know I haven’t been a practising Catholic for many years but I am still a believer, help me,” she said in January.

Frances also joked about her time in hospital last year

“I had only just come out of surgery, and dealing with a fractured hip, which hurt like hell, when this nurse came to my bed and said: ‘Get up and walk’! I thought: This is worse than Sister Scott,” Frances said with a hearty laugh, in reference to the character from the 1970s soapie Young Doctors.

“She wasn’t joking either. But I soon adopted my ‘Morag stance’ and politely put her in her place.

“It turned out she hadn’t checked my charts and was unaware I had just had surgery. Now, Sister Scott would never made such a careless mistake.”

At the time, Frances spoke of her hoped to return to acting as Ray “Alf” Meagher’s evil sister Morag.

“I would dearly love to go back to Summer Bay but haven’t heard anything as yet,” she said.

Frances is survived by her son, Lawrence.

Filmography

Film

Year     Title            Role            Type

1960    Peeping Tom     Girl in sports car leaving studio            Feature film

1961    The Queen's Guards            Officer's girlfriend            Feature film (uncredited role)

1969            Goodbye, Mr. Chips            The 'Dyke'  Feature film

1974            Essington                    TV film

1975    Last Rites                 TV film

1975    The Box      Dr. Sheila M. Winter  Feature film

1976            Murcheson Creek                    TV film

1976    I Can't Seem to Talk About It            Woman            Film short

1977    All at Sea      Miss Swallow            TV film

1979    A Wild Ass of a Man            Sibella Wolfenden            TV film

1981    Post Synchronisation                        Film short

1982            Runaway Island            Agatha McLeod            TV film

1983            Outbreak of Hostilities            Miriam            TV film

1987    Future Past      Mother            TV film

1988    The Man from Snowy River II            Mrs. Darcy   Feature film

1989            Minnamurra (aka Outback or Wrangler)            Caroline Richards            Feature film

1991    Pirates Island   Captain Blackheart            TV film[22]

2002    Cash Out                  Film short

2003    Ned            Tina            Feature film

Television

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1970            Dynasty            Georgina Clausen            Season 1, episodes 2 & 10 (guest role)

1971–1972            Catwalk            Cornelia Heyson            Season 1 (main role, 13 episodes)

1973    Boney            Stella Borredale            Season 2, episode 3 (guest role)

1973    Serpent in the Rainbow              Miniseries

1973    Ryan            Amelia            Season 1, episode 16 (guest role)

1974            Matlock Police            Catherine Upton            Season 4, episode 4 (guest role)

1974            Homicide            Veronica Coates            Season 11, episode 5 (guest role)

1974    Division 4          Angela Ward   Season 6, episode 12

1974    Silent Number            Ivy            Season 1, episode 15 (guest role)

1974    Behind the Legend                   Season 2, episode 10 (guest role)

1974    Division 4          Sandra Fleming            Season 7, episode 1 (guest role)

1974    This Love Affair            Unknown role TV series (1 episode)

1975            Matlock Police            Barbara Anderson            Season 5, episode 15 (guest role)

1975            Homicide        Julie Kurnow            Season 12, episode 27 (guest role)

1975    Two-Way Mirror            Liz Hardy   TV pilot

1976            Homicide        Nancy Lofthouse            Season 13, episode 5 (guest role)

1976    King's Men                 Season 1, episode 3 (guest role)

1976    The Lost Islands            Elizabeth Quinn            Season 1 (main role, 17 episodes)

1976–1979            The Young Doctors            Grace Scott            Seasons 1–4 (main role, 589 episodes)

1978    The Outsiders            Mrs. Foster  Season 1, episode 11 (guest role)

1978    Tickled Pink     Joan Jefferson            Season 1, episode 1

1979    Cop Shop    Anne Carter  Season 2, episodes 13 & 14 (guest role)

1979    Cop Shop    Ruth Coleman            Season 2, episodes 81 & 82 (guest role)

1979            Skyways         Susan Winters            Unknown season (guest role, 1 episode)

Unknown            Skyways         Wendy Kirk            Unknown season (guest role, 1 episode)

1980            Prisoner           Carmel Saunders            Season 2 (recurring role, 4 episodes)

1980    Secret Valley               Season 1, episode 23 (guest role)

1980–1982            Kingswood Country            Dr. Hemingway            Seasons 2–4 (recurring role, 3 episodes)

1981            Outbreak of Love                    TV miniseries, 1 episode

1981            Punishment     Cathy Wells    TV series, 1 episode

1981    Bellamy            Aretha            Season 1, episode 18 (guest role)

1981    Cop Shop    Louise Doyle   Season 4, episodes 85 & 86 (guest role)

1982–1986            Sons and Daughters            Barbara Armstrong/Hamilton            Seasons 1–5 (main role, 523 episodes)

1984            Runaway Island            Agatha McLeod            Season 1, episodes 1 & 2 (guest role)

1987    Jackal and Hide            Madame Zentha            TV pilot

1988–1989,

1993,

2001–2009,

2011–2013,

2016–2017            Home and Away            Morag Bellingham            Seasons 1–2 (recurring role)

Season 2 (main role)[a]

Seasons 6, 14–22, 24–26, 29–30 (recurring role)

(490 episodes)

1995    The Ferals            Teacher           Season 2, episode 7 (guest role)

1995    G.P.            Lindy            Season 7, episode 35 (guest role)

1997–1998            Magic Mountain            Tortoise (voice)          

2003    Always Greener            Janet Frewley            Season 2, episodes 21 & 22 (guest role)

2003    Pizza            Welfare            Season 3, episode 1 (guest role)

2008    Milly, Molly   Aunt Maude (voice)            Seasons 1–2 (main role)

Self-appearances (television)

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1977; 1978            Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks            Panellist           TV series (6 episodes)

1979    Peter Couchman's Melbourne            Herself            TV series (1 episode)

1984    The 26th Annual TV Week Logie Awards            Audience member – Best Lead Actress in TV Drama 'Sons and Daughters'            TV special

1987    Have a Go       Guest Judge   TV series, 3 episodes

1992    New Faces   Guest judge    TV series (1 episode)

1994; 2003            Good Morning Australia            Guest            TV series (2 episodes)

1994; 1995            At Home   Guest            TV series (2 episodes)

1995    What's Cooking?            Celebrity guest  TV series (1 episode)

1995    Sale of the Century            Guest – Young Doctors Contestant            TV series (1 episode)

1997; 2000            Beauty and the Beast            Panellist           TV series (4 episodes)

2001–02            The Weakest Link            Host            TV series

2002    The Best of Aussie Dramas            Herself            TV special

2003    Burke's Backyard            Celebrity gardener            TV series (1 episode)

2003    Today            Guest            TV series (1 episode)

2005; 2007            Dancing with the Stars            Audience member            TV series (2 episodes)

2006    Good as Gold            Herself            TV series (1 episode)

2007    Where Are They Now?   Guest – Herself with 'The Young Doctors' cast: Chris King, Tim Page, Alan Dale, Judy McBurney, Karen Pini & Rebecca Gilling            TV series, 1 episode

2010; 2011            Today Tonight Herself            TV series, 1 episode

2011    Today Tonight Herself with "Sons and Daughters' cast: Tom Richards, Rowena Wallace, Antonia Murphy, Sarah Kemp, Stephen Comey, Ally Fowler, Alyce Platt & Noel Hodda  TV series, 1 episode

2011    Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation            Guest            TV series (1 episode)

2014            Weekend Today            Guest            TV series (1 episode)

2015    The Daily Edition            Guest            TV series (1 episode)

2016    The Morning Show            Guest            TV series (1 episode)

Stage

source"[23]

 

Year     Title            Role            Location

1967    Julius Caesar             Western Australian tour

1967    Henry IV                    The Playhouse Theatre

1975    The Political Bordello; or, How Waiters Got the Vote                Bondi Pavilion

1975    No Man’s Land (double bill with Crossfire)                     Nimrod Theatre Company

1977    The Visit                 Bondi Pavilion

1986    Agnes of God Mother Miriam New Moon Theatre Company

1987    A Lie of the Mind            Lorraine          Belvoir St Theatre

1990    How the Other Half Loves               Footbridge Theatre, Sydney

1992    The Heiress Lavinia Penniman            Marian Street Theatre

1994            Steaming                      Theatre Royal, Sydney

1995            Caravan                     

1998    Diving for Pearls            Marj            Ensemble Theatre

2005    Love Letters              Parade Theatre

2010            Calendar Girls Chair of Yorkshire Women's Institute            Lyric Theatre, Theatre Royal, Sydney, Comedy Theatre, Melbourne

Russell Nype obit

Two-Time Tony-Winning Actor Russell Nype Dies at 98 

The actor may best be remembered for his show-stopping duet with Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam.

He was not on the list.

Russell Nype, who won Tony Awards sharing the stage with Ethel Merman and Elaine Stritch, died May 27 in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 98, according to the New York Times.

Russell Nype, June Helmers, Danny Lockin, and Georgia Engel in Hello, Dolly!

Born Russell Harold Nype April 26, 1920, in Zion, Illinois, Nype attended Lake Forest College before serving in the Army during World War II. He later moved to New York, working as a ballroom dance instructor and singing in downtown nightclubs before making his Broadway debut in 1945 in the original musical Regina.

The actor also appeared in the short-lived musical Great to Be Alive! before being cast in the role of Kenneth Gibson in the 1950 Irving Berlin hit Call Me Madam, which starred Ethel Merman as fictional U.S. ambassador Mrs. Sally Adams. It was Nype's duet with Merman on “You're Just in Love” that stopped the show nightly. For his performance, Nype received a Theatre World Award as well as his first Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

Nype followed that Tony-winning turn with a role in the comedy Wake Up, Darling, which played five performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1956, and a 1957 revival of Carousel that cast him as Enoch Snow.

The 1958 musical comedy Goldilocks, which starred Elaine Stritch and Don Ameche, brought Nype his second Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

Nype was also seen on Broadway in a 1963 revival of Brigadoon, the original farce Once for the Asking (also in 1963), a replacement Cornelius Hackl in the original staging of Hello, Dolly! (when Merman joined the cast in the title role), and the six-performance run of the 1967 comedy The Girl in the Freudian Slip (featuring a young Bernadette Peters among its cast).

Nype's final Broadway outing was as a replacement in the 1980 Tony-winning revival of Morning’s at Seven.

On the silver screen Nype appeared in Love Story (1970), Can't Stop the Music (1980), Balboa (1983), and The Stuff (1985), while his TV credits included Frontiers of Faith, Look up and Live, Dorothy, Fantasy Island, One Day at a Time, Who's the Boss?, and Murder, She Wrote, among others. He also was seen in TV stagings of One Touch of Venus and Kiss Me, Kate.

In 1953 Nype married Diantha Lawrence, who passed away in 2015. He is survived by his son Russell, his stepson Richard Mander, and his stepdaughter Melanie Mander as well as two grandchildren.

 

Filmography

Film

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1970    Love Story    Dean Thompson       

1980    Can't Stop the Music            Richard Montgomery    

1983    Balboa            Senator Highsmith        

1985    The Stuff            Richards

Don Peterson obit

Pioneering NASA Astronaut Don Peterson Dies at 84

He was not on the list.

Col. Don Peterson spent 24 years in the Air Force, became a NASA astronaut during the Apollo era and participated in the first spacewalk of the 30-year Space Shuttle program.

But after his death Sunday at the age of 84, his family will remember him more for his honesty and gentleness than for his stellar career.

"Don would tell you his greatest joy was caring for and spending time with his wife and family," his obituary reads. "Saying 'I love you' came easy and often from him ... He told his grandchildren, 'holding them in his rocking chair was better than floating in space.' His unconditional love for all of them will be treasured always."

Peterson was the second astronaut to die over the weekend, both in Texas. The first was Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, who died Saturday at the age of 86.

Harding Lemay obit

 

HARDING LEMAY Obituary

He was not on the list.

Harding "Pete" Lemay, born March 16, 1922, died peacefully on May 26, 2018 at 96 years of age. The many friends and colleagues from his long and storied life mourn his passing. We knew him as a gentle and loving man of remarkable accomplishment and humanity. And we knew him as a great romantic. Our hearts go out to his beloved widow, Gloria Gardner. Playwright, teacher, memoirist, editor, and an early pioneer of television soap operas, he is said to have single- handedly written almost every episode of Another World from 1971-79 as head writer. He won a Daytime Emmy for that show and another for Guiding Light. Born into rural poverty, as the fifth of thirteen children near his mother's St. Regis Mohawk Indian reservation in North Bangor, New York, he escaped his parents' alcoholism and his father's suicide by running away to New York City at age 17, finding early refuge at the famous Brace Memorial Newsboys' Home. After Army service in World War II took him to France and Germany at the end of the war, he entered the Neighborhood Playhouse on the GI Bill to become an actor. By the mid-fifties, he was deeply ensconced in the world of books and publishing, He was co-host with Virgilia Peterson of a WNYC radio program Books in Profile leading to working at Alfred A. Knopf in 1958 as Publicity Director. He became Vice President and editor working with Elizabeth Bowen, John Updike, John Cheever. His ground-breaking memoir, Inside, Looking Out, Harper's Magazine Press (1971) was dubbed "an American classic" by Newsweek and "a literary event" by Saturday Review. It was nominated for a national book award for biography. A second memoir, Eight Years In Another World (Atheneum) was published in 1981. His deepest passion was for playwriting. He entered New Dramatists, the NYC playwrights laboratory, in 1963 along with John Guare and Lanford Wilson, where he became a long-serving board member. His 13 plays were first presented in readings and workshops at New Dramatists and featured his longtime friend and collaborator Marian Seldes. A devoted teacher, he taught literature and drama for many years at Hunter College and The New School for Social Research. As part of the Pen American Prison Writing Program, he read dozens of plays a year by incarcerated men and women. His first marriage, to actress Priscilla Amidon, ended in divorce. His second wife, Dorothy Shaw, died in 1994. He is survived by his wife of 20 years, Gloria Gardner of New York City; his son, Stephen Lemay and daughter, Susan Pain, and son-in-law, Kevin Pain; and three grandchildren.

 

Positions held

Another World

 

Story consultant (1995–1997)

Head writer (1971–1979; 1988)

As the World Turns

 

Story consultant

The Doctors

 

Head writer (1981–1982)

Guiding Light

 

Consultant (1995)

Writer (1980-1981)

Lovers and Friends/For Richer, For Poorer

 

Co-creator

Head writer (1977)

One Life to Live

 

Story consultant (1998–1999)

Awards and nominations

Daytime Emmy Awards

 

Wins

 

(1975; Best Writing; Another World)

(1981; Best Writing; Guiding Light)

Nominations

 

(1977 & 1996; Best Writing; Another World)

Alan Bean obit

Astronaut and Moonwalker Alan Bean, a Former Navy Pilot, Dies at 86

He was not on the list.

Former Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, who was the fourth man to walk on the moon and later turned to painting to chronicle the moon landings on canvas, has died. He was 86.

Bean was the lunar module pilot for the second moon landing mission in November 1969. He spent 31 hours on the moon during two moonwalks, deploying surface experiments with commander Charles Conrad and collecting 75 pounds (34 kilograms) of rocks and lunar soil for study back on Earth, according to a statement from NASA and Bean's family that announced his death.

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Bean died Saturday in Houston, Texas, following a short illness, the statement said.

"As all great explorers are, Alan was a boundary pusher," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that credited Bean with being part of 11 world records in the areas of space and aeronautics. "We will remember him fondly as the great explorer who reached out to embrace the universe."

With Bean's passing, only four of 12 Apollo moonwalkers are still alive — Buzz Aldrin, Dave Scott, Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt.

Schmitt, the lunar module pilot for Apollo 17, was one of many astronauts who mourned Bean's death and paid tribute Saturday to his accomplishments that blazed trails for future space exploration.

"His enthusiasm about space and art never waned. Alan Bean is one of the great renaissance men of his generation — engineer, fighter pilot, astronaut and artist," Schmitt said in a statement, adding that the wide array of lunar samples Bean helped collect from the moon was "a scientific gift that keeps on giving today and in the future."

In 1998 NASA oral history, Bean recalled his excitement at preparing to fly to the moon.

"When you're getting ready to go to the moon, every day's like Christmas and your birthday rolled into one. I mean, can you think of anything better?" Bean said.

After Apollo, Bean commanded the second crewed flight to the United States' first space station, Skylab, in 1973. On that mission, he orbited the Earth for 59 days and traveled 24.4 million miles, setting a world record at the time.

Born March 15, 1932, in Wheeler, Texas, Bean received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas in 1955. He attended the Navy Test Pilot School and was one of 14 trainees selected by NASA for its third group of astronauts in October 1963.

"I'd always wanted to be a pilot, ever since I could remember," Bean said in the 1998 NASA oral history. "I think a lot of it just had to do with it looked exciting. It looked like brave people did that. I wanted to be brave, even though I wasn't brave at the time. I thought maybe I could learn to be, so that appealed to me."

Bean retired from NASA in 1981 and devoted much of his time to creating an artistic record of space exploration.

His Apollo-themed paintings feature canvases textured with lunar boot prints and embedded with small pieces of his moon dust-stained mission patches.

"Alan Bean was the most extraordinary person I ever met," astronaut Mike Massimino, who flew on two space shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope, said in a statement. "He was a one-of-a-kind combination of technical achievement as an astronaut and artistic achievement as a painter."

Many fellow space explorers posted tributes to Bean on Twitter.

Retired U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly said the world had not only lost "a spaceflight pioneer ... but also an exceptional artist that brought his experience back to Earth to share with the world." Kelly added: "Fair winds and following seas, Captain."

U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg called Bean a kind, gracious and humble man and a true role model.

"As a girl who grew up with passions for spaceflight and art, Alan Bean was my hero," she wrote. "I feel fortunate to have met him."

Retired astronaut Clayton Anderson tweeted "#RIP Alan Bean. Thank you for letting me stand upon your shoulders."

Bean's wife of 40 years, Leslie Bean, said in a statement that Bean died peacefully at Houston Methodist Memorial Hospital surrounded by those who loved him.

"Alan was the strongest and kindest man I ever knew," she said. "He was the love of my life and I miss him dearly."

He is survived by his wife, a sister and two children from a prior marriage, a daughter Amy Sue and son, Clay.