Celebrity Deaths Marked In 2009

Every year, we lose several famous people. Some are expected due to illness and advanced age, but others are snatched from us to leave a gaping hole. They live on in our memories and we send our support to those close to them who have to deal with their own individual loss of loved ones.

Patrick McGoohan (1928-January 13, 2009) wrote and directed many episodes of the original cult classic The Prisoner, he had a memorable role as Edward Longshanks in Mel Gibson's Braveheart.

Ricardo Montalban (1920-January 14, 2009) will be forever remembered for his role of Mr Rourke on television's Fantasy Island, but Montalban had a lengthy film career from the 1940s. He was the infamous Khan from the Star Trek series in the 1960s and reprised the role for 1982's Star Trek ll: The Wraith Of Khan. Montalban had been comfined to a wheelchair since 1993, paralyzed from the waist down following lengthy surgery to repair spinal injuries that plagued the actor after a fall while filming Across the Wide Missouri in 1951.

James Whitmore (1921-February 6, 2009) will probably be best remembered by younger folks as the old con Brooks Hatlen who ran the library in the critically acclaimed movie The Shawshank Redemption, but Whitmore had an extensive theatre background, with many television appearances including everything from The Twilight Zone to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He was also nominated for an Oscar for his one man portrayal of President Harry S. Truman in 1975.

Ron Silver (1946-March 15, 2009) seemed to be everywhere on television, first appearing for 2 years as the downstairs neighbor of Valerie Harper on Rhoda from 1976-78, followed by numerous television and film roles including The West Wing, and Veronica's Closet.

Natasha Richardson (1963-March 18, 2009) died following a skiing accident with her family. Natasha Richardson was a member of the famous Redgrave family and had been an actress since the mid-1980s, protraying Mary Shelley, and Patty Hearst, up to 2008's Wild Child. She was married to actor Liam Neeson.

Bea Arthur (1922-April 25, 2009) was probably best known for 2 major television roles: Maude from 1972-78, and The Golden Girls (1985-92), winning Emmys for both series.

Dom DeLuise (1933-May 4, 2009) one of my personal favorite actors started out working with Burt Reynolds in several films in the 1970s after appearing with Dean Martin on Martin's television show. DeLuise also lent his voice to many animated films and was a regular contributer to movies by Mel Brooks.

David Carradine (1936-June 3, 2009) first rose to fame as Kwai Chang Caine, in the 1970s acclaimed series Kung Fu, which was supposed to be a vehicle for Bruce Lee, but Carradine made it his own. Carradine made over 100 movies and appeared in several television shows, including reprising his role of Caine in the 1990s. Most recently he was in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill series, as Bill. Carradine was also the son of noted character actor John Carradine (1906-1988).

Farrah Fawcett (1947-June 25, 2009) received massive popularity for her role as private investigator Jill Munroe in the 1970s television series Charlie's Angels, becoming a cultural icon for beauty at the time. She received acclaim for later dramatic roles such as an abused wife in The Burning Bed. She died from cancer after a lengthy battle.

Michael Jackson (1959-June 25, 2009) was the self-proclaimed "King of Pop" and one of the most successful musical artists of all time. The first half of his life was showered with acclaim from his multi-million selling albums, but later life was marred by near-bankruptcy, plastic surgery disasters and rumors of the sexual abuse of children. Jackson death was surprising, but details would follow outlining massive drug usage which possibly played had a part in his death from cardiac arrest.

Karl Malden (1912-July 1, 2009) had a remarkable career in film and television, appearing with such greats as Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (receiving an Oscar for that movie) and On The Waterfront (nominated for another Oscar) in the 1950s, as well as 1970's Patton, and on television for The Streets Of San Francisco with a youthful Michael Douglas. Maldon was nominated 4 times for Emmys for his role of Mike Stone. Maldon was also married to Mona Greenberg for 70 years, notable not only inside Hollywood circles, but also in the world at large.

Patrick Swayze (1952-September 14, 2009) had his breakthrough role with 1987's Dirty Dancing opposite Jennifer Grey, but he had been making movies for several years prior to that massively successful hit movie, including Red Dawn (which is currently being re-done, with newcomer Chris Hemsworth taking Swayze's role) and The Outsiders. Following Dirty Dancing, he also appeared in another famous role opposite Demi Moore in Ghost. Most recently, Swayze was on the television series The Beast. Swayze passed away following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Al Martino (1927-October 13, 2009) was perhaps been remembered as singer Johnny Fontane in the movie The Godfather, but Martino also was a great singer in his own right, with several hits from the 1950s including many successful albums.

Joseph Wiseman (1918-October 19, 2009) was the very first Bond villan, appearing as the infamous Dr. No in 1962, opposite Sean Connery as James Bond. Other films included The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Viva Zapata! opposite Marlon Brando. He also played against Sir Laurence Olivier in The Betsy in 1978.

Richard Todd (1919-December 3, 2009) was primarily an actor on the English stage and film. His film career stretched from 1949's The Hasty Heart to 1983's House of the Long Shadows. He was also a captain during the D-Day landings. He also appeared in the classic D-Day film The Longest Day.

Gene Barry (1919-December 9, 2009) was an actor on television, stage and screen. His film career was from 1952 up to 2005 when he had a cameo in Steven Spielberg's 2005 War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. Barry had been in the original classic War of The Worlds in 1953 as Dr. Clayton Forrester. Barry also had several successful television series, with a recurring role in the Eve Arden series, Our Miss Brooks. It was after this series that he was cast as the lead character in Bat Masterson. Barry would appear in two more television series, The Name of the Game, and Burke's Law; winning the 1965 best actor Golden Globe for Burke's Law. The series returned to television in 1993-94 with Barry again as the title character of Burke.

Jennifer Jones (1919-December 17, 2009) was an Oscar winner for her 1943 role in The Song of Bernadette. Jones was also nominated 4 more times for an academy award. Her career spanned from 1939 up til her final movie, 1974's The Towering Inferno where she danced with Fred Astaire, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.

Brittany Murphy (1977-December 20, 2009) was a youthful actress, best known for movies such as 1995's Clueless with Alicia Silverstone and Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. For more on Murphy, see The Shocking Death Of Brittany Murphy.

Charlie Sheen Arrested For Allegedly Threatening Wife

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. Every time we think Charlie Sheen has cleaned up his act, and climbed out of the media low-light, he seems to find some way to pull us back in.

Sheen, who is experiencing career success with his hit television series Two And A Half Men, seems to back in the spotlight after being arrested by Aspen police on charges of "suspicion of menacing, second-degree assault and criminal mischief." 911 received a call from a woman identifying herself as Sheen's wife Brooke, saying that Sheen was threatening her with a knife described as a switchblade. This was at about 8:30am Christmas morning. Not a merry christmas in the ol' Sheen house.

After posting an $8,500 bond, Sheen reportedly hightailed it back to Los Angeles, while his wife Brooke Meuller Sheen remained in Aspen with the couples' 9-month old twin boys. Sheen will be due in court February 8th, 2010.

Avatar Breaks Batman's Record For Top Opening Week Box Office

The hit movie Avatar throttled the caped crusader's record in the boffo box office department, taking in an estimated $278 million in the film's opening week, as compared to the $253 million The Dark Knight garnered back in July 2008. The James Cameron-helmed sci-fi epic also took in an additional $75 million during it's 2nd weekend.

The Robert Downey Jr-Jude Law-Rachel McAdams flick Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and It's Complicated (with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin) all had good results from ticket sales.

Sherlock Holmes took in $24.9 million on it's Christmas Day opening, for a weekend total of $65 million, so it was in 2nd place overall. Another movie that has been getting a fair amount of buzz is Up in the Air, with George Clooney putting in a solid performance as a corporate downsizer, that earned almost $12 million for 5th spot overall.

Avatar is expected to hit the one billion mark in ticket sales in short order, making it easily the big movie of the year as far as money-making movies goes. As far as quality, Avatar is also a 3-D visual feast, and is expected to be a massive hit all over the world.

Tyra Banks To End Her Talk Show In The Spring

I guess all good things come to an end. Apparently Tyra Banks has decided to kill off her talk show this spring, taking a cue from Oprah Winfrey. Banks, who has been hosting The Tyra Banks Show since September 2005, when the show replaced the discontinued Ricki Lake Show.

The show has met with some success, receiving two daytime Emmy awards, both for "Outstanding Talk Show (informative)" in 2008 and again last August. The show has been airing on The CW, a joint-venture network owned by the CBS Corporation and Warner Bros that was set up primarily to appeal to women between the ages of 18-34. America's Next Top Model, a show that Banks hosts and created, remains in place at least until the end of the 2010 season. Another series that Banks has had a hand in is True Beauty, that she co-produces along with Ashton Kutcher.

The Tyra Banks Show, although attraching a strong following of younger female viewers, failed to garner the ratings or audiences of more broadly followed talk shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show or The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Banks also plans on producing more films through Bankable, her production company.

The Shocking Death Of Brittany Murphy

Like everyone else, I was extremely surprised about hearing of the recent death of actress Brittany Murphy at age 32 on December 20th, 2009. She was one of those delightfully cute young actresses that came to your attention periodically, usually starring in romantic-comedies or dramas. But she seemed to have something, that spark you see in a person on film that makes you remember their name as well as their face.

She had a fairly long acting career, appearing on that old Candice Bergen series Murphy Brown way back in 1991 as one of the kid sisters of Frank (Joe Regalbuto), and the ancient, even in 1991, Rose Marie as Frank's mother. She went on to appear in several television programs, for 4 episodes of Blossom, a couple of Party of Five episodes, and so on. She finally hit it big, being cast as the character Tai, the friend of Alicia Silverstone's Cher in the smash hit movie Clueless in 1995.

After that, Murphy was on the fast track to stardom, appearing in film after film and occasionally doing guest appearances on television shows. She was the voice of Luanne Platter on the animated series King of the Hill from 1997 until this year, with well over 200 credits for the show.

By 2002, Murphy had made several notable movies, including 1999's Girl, Interrupted, with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, and had just completed acclaimed 8 Mile with rap star Eminem. She was nominated and won that year's Young Hollywood Award for the "Standout Performance by a Young Actor - Female" and her star was continuing to rise.

In 2003, she appeared with then current boyfriend Ashton Kutcher in Just Married, quickly followed by Little Black Book the next year. Then the cult and mainstream hit Sin City where she played Shellie, the waitress at the bar where all the divergent stories in the movie converged. Her most recent movie, just released weeks prior to her death, the thriller Across the Hall, about a young man named Terry (Mike Vogel) who finds out that his fiancee (Murphy) has checked into a hotel room with another man and he plans on killing her lover.

Murphy had also been seen this past October on television as the lead in MegaFault as Doctor Amy Lane. the Sci-Fi-action movie had to do with a fissure appearing in the earth's crust that could be seen from orbit. She also had 3 more films completed, Abandoned, with Dean Cain (of Lois and Clark fame), Mimi Rogers and Peter Bogdanovich. Two films are due out in 2010 with Brittany Murphy, Something Wicked and The Expendables, starring and directed by Sylvester Stallone, but Murphy's scenes were rumored to have been cut from the film.

She was scheduled to start filming Shrinking Charlotte in January 2010 and was rumored to begin production of Poor Things later in the year with Rosario Dawson (Bones) and Olympia Dukakis.

The cause of Murphy's death has yet to be determined, so the speculation is rampant. It was initially stated to have been caused by cardiac arrest.

Meredith Baxter From Family Ties Reveals She's Gay

Actress Meredith Baxter, 62, best known as Michael J. Fox's mom, Elyse Keaton, on the long-running sitcom Family Ties, has announced that she is gay. A bit of a surprise. Baxter, who has been married 3 times and has 5 children (including Michael J. Fox - I'm kidding about that part), has been with her girlfriend for about 4 years now. Apparently she was aware of the fact that she was a lesbian for about the last seven years and now has decided to let the world know.

On NBC's Today, she stated "I got involved with someone I never expected to get involved with, and it was that kind of awakening. I never fought it because it was like, 'Oh, I understand why I had the issues I had early in life.' I had a great deal of difficulty connecting with men in relationships."

Baxter has been in several TV shows over the years, including Family Ties which ran from 1982 until 1989 where she played the mother of four with Michael Gross as her husband, Steven Keaton playing against Fox's right-wing character, their son Alex P. Keaton. She was also in Bridget Loves Bernie in 1972-1973, with future husband David Birney. Following that, she appeared on the hit Family from 1976-1980 as elder daughter Nancy Lawrence Maitland. Countless guest shots and TV movies up to the current day, she was even in Family Guy this past year (voicing her Elyse Keaton character from Family Ties).