In Memoriam (for those in TV or FILM)

[Deathstroke]

Comic book and TV/movie writer Martin Pasko has passed away.

[Deathstroke]

Trading Spaces designer Frank Bielec has passed away.

[caj]

So sad to hear about Frank Bielec. I loved him on Trading Spaces. One of my favorites.

Actor Fred Willard, who played so many roles including Amy's dad on Everybody Loves Raymond, has passed.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...was-86-1129655

[AndrewCrossett]

Fred Willard was probably in more of my favorite comedy films than any other actor. Just recently saw him in Wall-E, where he was the only human actor ever to appear in live action in a Pixar film.

[Joker]

Fred Willard was so great. Just endlessly entertaining. Always one of the best parts of any Christopher Guest movie.

[Cyke]

Not to speak ill of the dead, and really I feel like he'd appreciate this joke, but there's one I found online:

"Fred Willard was so beloved that he got caught masturbating in public and the universal response was SO? LET HIM."

RIP, man. By all accounts he was either the funniest man in the room or the one who laughed the loudest in the audience. A legend through and through.

[Deathstroke]

Little Fires Everywhere director/producer Lynn Shelton has passed away.

[caj]

Phyllis George, who was crowned Miss America in 1971 and later became the first female co-anchor on The NFL Today, has died at 70.

“I knew more about sports than some people gave me credit for when I started,” she told PEOPLE in 1976. "I’m from Texas, and down there you follow the Texas Longhorns and the Dallas Cowboys or you don’t belong. So, when I pick up the morning paper, the sports pages come first and the fashion pages come last."

She was such a gorgeous woman and I loved to watch her on sports shows. She was great.

https://people.com/tv/phyllis-george-dead-at-70/

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Logan Williams, who played young Barry Allen on the CW's The Flash has died suddenly. He was 16.

His cause of death has not been released. So sad.

https://people.com/tv/the-flash-acto...ms-dies-at-16/

We now know the cause of death of THE FLASH'S Logan Williams. It was an overdose of the opioid fentanyl.

Here's the interview his mother did with the New York Post:
https://nypost.com/2020/05/15/the-fl...to-be-in-vain/

Mom of ‘The Flash’ star Logan Williams: His death ‘is not going to be in vain’

When “The Flash” actor Logan Williams died suddenly April 2 at 16, he was mourned by many who never knew his cause of death.

Now, in an exclusive interview with The Post, his mother, Marlyse Williams, reveals that preliminary toxicology results show Logan died of a fentanyl overdose, following a three-year battle with addiction.

After years of dealing with her son’s devastating secret, Marlyse says she’s now determined to bring awareness to the opioid epidemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 67,367 people died of opioid overdoses in 2018, the most recent stats released. And the mortality rate among teens continues to rise.

“His death is not going to be in vain,” she says of her blue-eyed son, who would have turned 17 on April 9. “He’s going to help a lot of people down the road.”

Marlyse, a sales rep for a dental company, says when Logan was about 9, they were stopped in a Vancouver mall by a female casting agent in town from LA. “She said he could easily become an actor,” Marlyse recalls. “That resonated with Logan and a few days later he kept saying, ‘I think I could be an actor.’ I tried to really talk him out of it and say it’s so competitive. It means you have to learn lines and be on time and such. And he said, ‘I know I can! I can do it!’ ”

Marlyse was skeptical. “I thought this little obsession would end soon and he’ll move onto something else, like kids often do,” she says.

But she secured a Vancouver-based agent for him, who sent him on his first audition for a TV movie. Logan landed the gig.

“We were completely shocked because it was all new to us and didn’t know what to expect,” Marlyse says. Between ages 10 and 12, he auditioned for hundreds of parts. Over the next few years, he juggled school work with roles in the Hallmark series “When Calls the Heart.” the ABC sci-fi series “The Whispers” and the longtime CW hit “Supernatural.”

His most notable role, though, was playing Barry Allen in the first two seasons of “The Flash.”

His co-star, Grant Gustin, who played the adult title character to Logan’s young version of Barry, called the news of Logan’s death “devastating” in an Instagram post read by more than a million people.

“He really, really enjoyed the acting,” his mom says. “I know there’s a stigma of child stars, but he was not a star. He was up and coming.”

But eventually so much auditioning became “way too stressful,” and he took a break. It was around that time, at 13, that Marlyse discovered he was using marijuana, and from there he escalated to other drugs, though she doesn’t know for sure when he started using fentanyl. However, as his addiction progressed, he “was in complete denial because he was so ashamed,” she says.

Over the next three years, she tried to help him with his growing problem. That included remortgaging her home to send him to an expensive treatment center in the US and, just last summer, sending him to a British Columbia facility for one month. Since then, he was living in a group home.

“I did everything humanly possible — everything a mother could do,” she says. “I did everything but handcuff him to me to try to keep him safe.”

And the effect on her, as a parent? “It basically sucks all the energy out.” Still, she kept his addiction “under wraps” from most people, including those in the entertainment industry.

“Logan was always hoping to get back into acting, music or whatever future he wanted,” she says, adding that he went on several auditions last fall. “We didn’t want people to know because of the judgment, because of the embarrassment, because of the criticism. We wanted it to go away.”

Marlyse last saw her son March 30. They cooked his favorite meal: filet mignon with truffled garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli, and shared an “amazing” evening eating, playing rummy and talking.

“He said to me, ‘Mom, I’m gonna get clean. I’m going to get better. And I want my new life to start.’ I just know the last thing we said to each other was, ‘I love you,’ ” she says.

Four days later — on April 3 — she was in a funeral home, identifying his body.

“Seeing him like that was as gut-wrenching as hearing that he died. It was horrific. Horrific. He was cold,” she says. “But I have to say I feel like he was restless and he needed me to tell him it’s OK to let go and that the pain is over and he doesn’t have to hurt anymore.”

That night she went outside to walk their dog, Chico.

“There was the brightest moon shining down on me and I swear that was Logan’s spirit, letting me know he had transitioned. I really felt his energy, that he had transitioned. I just hope he’s at peace,” she says through tears. “He was in so much pain and he was so ashamed.”

On Mother’s Day, she was greeted by a knock on the door: Four friends of Logan’s all brought her flowers. “I asked them, ‘I hope you bought your mom flowers,’ she says. And they said, ‘We brought you the expensive ones and our moms the cheap ones, because Logan had such good taste and loved you.’ “

All four of them, she added, had “fresh” tattoos that read “RIP Logan.”

Earlier this week she was also reminded of Logan when singer Melissa Etheridge announced the death of her 21-year-old son, Beckett, due to an opioid overdose. “My heart breaks for her because I know the initial devastation of knowing your beautiful boy is gone. Unfortunately, I can relate,” she says. “We are in this horrible club. A club you don’t want to be a member of.”

Marlyse says she wants to “create a legacy out of this tragedy” of Logan’s death, even if she can only “create awareness or help one or five or 100 people to somehow heal and get help.”

Until then, she has a constant reminder of that unfortunate role: She keeps her son’s ashes in a handcrafted stone urn, surrounded by photos of him, on a table in her living room.

“Every night I put a candle by the window. I just want Logan to know that he’s always welcome to come back home,” she says. “Sounds so silly, but when he was alive I’d always leave the light on [for] if he’d come home. I leave the light on so he knows I’m here for him.”

[Deathstroke]

Ken Osmond, forever known as Eddie Haskell on Leave It To Beaver has passed away.

[Deathstroke]

Twilight actor Gregory Tyree Boyce has passed away.

[caj]

Ken Osmond, forever known as Eddie Haskell on Leave It To Beaver has passed away.

Sad to read this. Ken Osmond was great as Eddie Haskell - played him to perfection. A truly memorable character from that age of television.

[Deathstroke]

Actor John Mahon has died. He's a character actor who's been in tons of stuff including a brief role in The Exorcist, a role on The X-Files and many more. My favorite was likely that brief role he had at the start of the movie Armageddon where he wanted to name the asteroid after his wife, the "vicious life-sucking bitch of a wife from which there is no escape." Article Link.

[Deathstroke]

Movie publicist Charles Lippincott, the man responsible for bringing the original Star Wars movie to Comic-Con among his many works, has passed away.

[Deathstroke]

Actor Richard Herd, who had a hugely prolific career both in and out of genre movies and TV, has passed away.

Seriously, this guy did a lot. He's best known for his appearances in Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Voyager. But he was also in V and V: The Final Battle. He appeared in All The President's Men and Chinatown. He was also in Seinfeld. Check out the article link for even more of his work.

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