Deaths (Obituaries)

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      in Movies

      Ira von Fürstenberg, Jet-Setting Princess and Actress, Dies at 83

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      With her aristocratic lineage, high-profile husbands and famous friends, she embodied a chic life of luxury as an international social figure.Ira von Fürstenberg, who came as close as one can get to having it all as an Italian-born princess descended from Charlemagne, an heiress to the Fiat fortune, a Vogue model, a big-screen ingénue and a globe-trotting bon vivant, died on Feb. 19 at her home in Rome. She was 83.Her son, Hubertus von Hohenlohe, said she died after breaking ribs and perforating her lungs in a domestic accident.Blending the gilded privilege of the old-world European aristocracy with the élan of the midcentury film and fashion peerage, Ms. von Fürstenberg seemingly defined the term “jet setter,” bouncing between homes in Rome, London, Paris and Madrid and on Lake Geneva.“My only real home is on airplanes,” she said. “I spend so much time going from country to country that my children suspect that I’m really a flight attendant.”She shared a surname with the renowned fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg, who married the princess’s fashion designer brother, Egon, in 1969. “When I first met Egon, she was the famous sister,” Diane told Women’s Wear Daily last month. “She had gotten married in Venice and was a movie star.”Ms. von Fürstenberg in Monte Carlo in 2007. Descended from Charlemagne and the founder of Fiat, she lived a lavish life, including as an actress, model, artist and fashion executive.Hubertus von HohenloheWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Paolo Taviani, Half of a Famed Italian Filmmaking Duo, Dies at 92

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      He and his brother Vittorio made films, including “Padre Padrone,” that mixed neorealism with a lyrical, almost magical sense of storytelling.Paolo Taviani, who with his brother Vittorio made some of Italy’s most acclaimed films of the last half century — including “Padre Padrone,” which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1977 — died on Feb. 29 in Rome. He was 92.His son, Ermanno Taviani, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was pulmonary edema.The Taviani brothers emerged in the late 1950s as part of a generation of Italian filmmakers — including Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Gillo Pontecorvo — who were inspired by the country’s Neorealist movement but determined to push beyond it. (Vittorio Taviani died in 2018.)Though the brothers came from an urbane, intellectual family — their father was a lawyer, their mother a teacher — their work celebrated traditional life in the Italian countryside, where they were raised. “Padre Padrone,” for example, tells the story of a boy’s struggle between the demands of his overbearing father, who wants him to be a farmer, and his own dreams of becoming a linguist.The Taviani brothers’ “Padre Padrone” won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1977.Radiotelevisione Italiana, via Everett CollectionThey injected their films with a sense of spectacle that set them apart from the austerity of Neorealist predecessors like their idol, Roberto Rossellini, who in turn championed their work and, as the president of the Cannes jury in 1977, helped ensure that “Padre Padrone” won the festival’s coveted Palme D’or prize. It was a surprise victory in a field that included another Italian film, “A Special Day.”“Rossellini allowed us to understand our own experiences, to truly comprehend what we had lived,” Paolo Taviani told The International Herald Tribune in 1993. “To comprehend it in a way which would have been impossible had we not seen his films. And we felt that if film had this sort of power, we wanted to master film.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      David Bordwell, Scholar Who Demystified Filmmaking, Dies at 76

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      Roger Ebert called him “our best writer on the cinema.” His scholarship focused on how movies work.David Bordwell, a film studies scholar whose immersive, accessible writing transcended the corridors of academia and illuminated the mechanics of moviemaking to a generation of cinephiles and filmmakers, died on Feb. 29 at his home in Madison, Wis. He was 76.The cause was interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, said his wife, Kristin Thompson, a prominent film scholar who frequently collaborated with him.Dr. Bordwell taught at the University of Wisconsin for 30 years and wrote or co-wrote more than 20 books, including “Film Art: An Introduction” (1979), a textbook written with his wife that is widely used in film studies programs. After retiring in 2004, he and Dr. Thompson analyzed movies on his blog at davidbordwell.net and in videos for the Criterion Channel.Hailed as “our best writer on the cinema” by Roger Ebert, Dr. Bordwell’s film analysis avoided ivory tower theories on the social and political undertones of movies in favor of clear, frame-by-frame examinations of scene structure, shot angles and other elements of filmmaking.In a blog post about “The Social Network,” David Fincher’s 2010 film about the founding of Facebook, he analyzed the facial expressions of Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield) during a scene when Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) blindsides him.Dr. Bordwell used a single frame that he cropped into several images.In the first image, only Eduardo’s eyes are visible. “Certainly they give us information — about the direction the person is looking, about a certain state of alertness,” Dr. Bordwell wrote. “The lids aren’t lifted to suggest surprise or fear, but I think you’d agree that no specific emotion seems to emerge from the eyes alone.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Steve Lawrence, Who Sang His Listeners Down Memory Lane, Dies at 88

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      With his wife, Eydie Gorme, and sometimes on his own, he kept pop standards in vogue long past their prime. He also acted on television and on Broadway.Steve Lawrence, the mellow baritone nightclub, television and recording star who with his wife and partner, the soprano Eydie Gorme, kept pop standards in vogue long past their prime and took America on musical walks down memory lane for a half-century, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88.The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, said Susan DuBow, a spokeswoman for the family. He had been diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s in 2019.Billed as “Steve and Eydie” at Carnegie Hall concerts, on television and at glitzy hotels in Las Vegas, the remarkably durable couple remained steadfast to their pop style as rock ’n’ roll took America by storm in the 1950s and ’60s. Long after the millennium, they were still rendering songs like “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “Just in Time” and “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” for audiences that seemed to grow old with them.Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Gorme recording in the 1960s. As Steve and Eydie, they performed at Carnegie Hall, on television and in Las Vegas.via Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesMr. Lawrence, a cantor’s son from Brooklyn, and Ms. Gorme, a Bronx-born daughter of Sephardic Jewish immigrants, met professionally in 1953 as regular singers on “The Steve Allen Show” a late-night show on NBC’s New York station that would go national the next year as “Tonight.” Their romance might have been the plot of an MGM musical of the ’40s, with spats, breakups, reconciliations and plenty of songs.When they finally decided to get married, Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Gorme faced a roadblock, as they recalled in a dressing-room interview with The New York Times at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas in 1992.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Buddy Duress, Who Came Off the Streets to Find Stardom, Dies at 38

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      He was a homeless heroin dealer when the Safdie brothers put him in their movies, and the critics raved. But the recklessness that gave his acting authenticity thwarted his career.Buddy Duress, a small-time heroin dealer living on the streets of the Upper West Side who became a sensation in the New York film scene as an actor and muse for the movies “Heaven Knows What” and “Good Time,” which launched the careers of the filmmakers Josh and Benny Safdie, died in November at his home in Astoria, Queens. He was 38.The death, which was disclosed only in late February, was from cardiac arrest caused by a “drug cocktail” including heroin, his brother, Christopher Stathis, said.Mr. Stathis said their mother, Jo-Anne Stathis, was seriously ill in November, so he withheld news of the death, hoping to inform her himself at an appropriate time. By early December, he said, he had told her and several other people, but nobody in Mr. Duress’s circle made an announcement. Mr. Duress had been out of the public eye and in jail frequently in recent years.At the height of his career, in the mid-2010s, directors made trips to Rikers Island to visit and audition Mr. Duress. He acted alongside Michael Cera and Robert Pattinson, and critics said he stole scenes. At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, he strolled down the red carpet of the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the main theater, to a standing ovation, then shoved his face in front of a French TV camera shouting, “What’s up, Queens?”He was ungovernable and thrill-seeking, traits that, on the set, gave his performances authenticity but that also led him to squander opportunities. Each time, though, he said he would finally change: He was ready to dedicate himself to acting.Mr. Duress around the time of the filming of “Heaven Knows What.” The movie, portraying life on the streets of New York, sparked his friendship with the filmmaker Josh Safdie.Eléonore HendricksWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Janice Burgess, Nickelodeon Executive and ‘Backyardigans’ Creator, Dies at 72

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      Ms. Burgess oversaw the production of “Blue’s Clues” and drew on her own childhood for “The Backyardigans,” in which five cartoon animals imagine their yard as a place of otherworldly adventure.Janice Burgess, a longtime Nickelodeon television executive who sought to promote children’s curiosity and sense of play for decades, overseeing popular shows like “Blue’s Clues” and “Little Bill” and creating her own musical children’s show, “The Backyardigans,” died on Saturday in hospice care in Manhattan. She was 72.Her death was confirmed by Brown Johnson, a longtime friend and the creator of Nick Jr., who said the cause was breast cancer.In “The Backyardigans,” five cartoon animals — Tyrone, Tasha, Pablo, Austin and Uniqua — imagine their backyard as a place of adventure, traversing deserts, oceans, jungles, rivers and outer space while dancing and singing to music.With the series, Ms. Burgess hoped to help children use their imaginations to have fun. In 2004, Ms. Burgess said in an interview with The New York Times that the idea for the show stemmed from memories of playing in her own childhood backyard in Pittsburgh.“I really remember it as a wonderful, happy, safe place,” she said. “You could have these great adventures just romping around. From there, you could go anywhere or do anything.”Ms. Burgess drew on her own experience playing in her childhood backyard in Pittsburgh to create “The Backyardigans.” “I really remember it as a wonderful, happy, safe place,” she said.Nick Jr.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Edward Bond, Playwright Who Clashed With Royal Censors, Dies at 89

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      His brazen first play, “Saved,” though it drew outrage, led to the end of more than 200 years of state control over the theater.No modern British dramatist polarized his countrymen as much as Edward Bond, who died on Sunday at age 89.To some, he was an unholy terror, relentless in his doctrinaire socialism and disconcertingly fond of violent theatrical effects. To others, he was almost a secular saint, a writer of unflinching integrity in a world of compromise and so sensitive to human frustration that he invariably peopled his plays with characters suffering, often graphically, from extreme forms of oppression and exploitation.But both parties would agree that his first important play, “Saved,” precipitated the end of theatrical censorship in Britain.In 1965, the Royal Court Theater submitted “Saved,” a graphic portrait of mostly young and sometimes violent no-hopers adrift in London’s lower depths, to the Lord Chamberlain, who had held absolute power over British drama since 1737. The response by a functionary was widely thought of as absurdly anachronistic: A scene in which hooligans stone to death a baby in a pram could not be publicly staged.Mr. Bond refused to alter a line, and the Royal Court supported him by temporarily becoming a private club, and thus, as the law then stood, no longer needing the Lord Chamberlain’s sanction.This was a tactic that had been used in London before, notably for Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” in 1956 and Arthur Miller’s “View from a Bridge” in 1958, both of which hinted at the then-taboo subject of homosexuality.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Mark Dodson, Voice of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Gremlins’ Characters, Dies at 64

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      He voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt in “Return of the Jedi,” as well as Mogwai in both “Gremlins” films.Mark Dodson, who voiced strange puppet creatures in “Star Wars,” including Salacious B. Crumb, the cackling monkey-lizard pet of Jabba the Hutt, and “Gremlins” films, died on Saturday. He was 64.His death was confirmed in statements on social media by his agent, Peter DeLorme, and the Evansville Horror Con, the Indiana fan convention where he had been scheduled to appear over the weekend. No cause of death was given.Mr. Dodson’s voice acting career began in 1983 on “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” when he voiced Salacious B. Crumb, the court jester of Jabba the Hutt that was known for its maniacal laugh, as well as some of the furry forest creatures known as Ewoks.In a 2020 interview with “Screaming Soup!,” Mr. Dodson explained how he had gotten the Crumb role by accident.He was auditioning for Adm. Ackbar, a leader during the Clone Wars, but was so nervous that he asked for a break to compose himself, he said. He was then overheard using a deranged voice that the casting director thought was perfect for Crumb.That led Mr. Dodson to voice several of the Mogwai in “Gremlins,” the 1984 comedy-horror film about a young man who accidentally unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town on Christmas Eve.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More