Posts Tagged ‘celebrity deaths’

TV actor Robert Culp,who was best known as a secret agent in the 1960s hit “I Spy” alongside Bill Cosby, died on Wednesday after he fall at his home, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Actor Robert Culp, best known for his role as an international tennis star and globe-trotting secret agent in the hit 1960s television series “I Spy,” died Wednesday morning after a fall at his Hollywood home, authorities said.

The 79-year-old actor was rushed to Queen of Angels hospital shortly after 11 a.m. after hitting his head while taking a walk outside his home in the 1800 block of El Cerrito Place, said LAPD Lt. Bob Binder. He was found by a jogger who called 911, and paramedics, patrol officers and detectives responded to the scene.

He was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later. A preliminary investigation found “that his death is accidental and there appears to be no sign of foul play,” Binder said. An autopsy by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office is pending.

That is one of our favorite lines in any movie. More specifically it’s mentioned by the usually serious actor Peter Graves in the 1980 movie “Airplane.”

That crazy movie is full of great quotes ranging from Leslie Nelson’s “Don’t call me Shirley” to the jive talk of June Cleaver.

Sadly, the captain of that crazy Airplane, Peter Graves, has passed away.  The stoic actor and voice-over talent was known for his many roles on television including the original “Mission: Impossible” and the more modern A&E series “Biography.”

Peter Graves, the cool spymaster of television’s “Mission: Impossible” and the dignified host of the “Biography” series, who successfully spoofed his own gravitas in the “Airplane!” movie farces, died on Sunday. He was 83.

He died of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., said Fred Barman, his business manager.

It was a testament to Mr. Graves’s earnest, unhammy ability to make fun of himself that after decades of playing square he-men and straitlaced authority figures, he was perhaps best known to younger audiences for a deadpan line in “Airplane!” (“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”) and one from a memorable Geico car insurance commercial (“I was one lucky woman”).  (…continue reading…)

Sad news from Hollywood this morning as 80′s teen idol Corey Haim was reported dead of an overdose of drugs by the LAPD. The actor has had trouble with drugs in the past but this is the headline we expected in the early 90′s and not when the guy was closing in on the age of 40.

Corey Haim shot to fame in the 80s when he co-starred in a number of films, including “The Lost Boys,” with the other Corey, Corey Feldman.

The actor, who has struggled with drug addiction, was pronounced dead at Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank.

Police were called to the hospital just before 4 a.m. to investigate his death.

Police sources told CBS Haim’s death appeared accidental. Haim has been in and out of rehab and starred in a reality show with Feldman in 2007 called “The Two Coreys.”

He talked about his struggle with drugs – specificially prescription drugs.

“I started on the downers which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck. But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day – the doctors could not believe I was taking that much,” he told a reporter in 2007. (….continue reading….)

It may be a few days until the official New Year’s but we have started early.  We like to think of it as keeping in practice for the big event.  That’s why we rolled a keg of PBR into the living roon and ran a tap alongside the couch. Practice, practice, practice….

Fake or not, singing German girl falling off chair = Always funny [Foundry Music]

Geeky: I’m On A Mac Music Video [Tasty Booze]

Movies: The Bear Jew Made Nazi Propaganda [Film Drunk]

Celebrities: The Ten Most Surprising Deaths of 2009 [Gunaxin]

Movies: The 10 Most Underrated Movies of 2009 [Moviefone]

Sports: The 25 Greatest MMA Knockouts of 2009: [CagePotato]

Society: What Your New Year’s Eve Booze Says About You [Guyism]

Literature: Resolving to be a bigger asshole in 2010? Win a signed copy of Assholeology and learn how [The Bachelor Guy]

Celebrities: Kim Kardashian gets paid $10,000 PER TWEET! Being a corporate whore is looking better and better [Heavy.com]

Society: The 25 Funniest Moments In Vandalism History [Manofest]

Celebrities: Top 10 Celebrity Photobombs [Banned in Hollywood]

You will probably not recognize the name Dan O’Bannon but for those sci-fi geeks out there you will instantly know him as the writer of the classic movie Alien.

Throughout the years, O’Bannon had worked with such greats like George Lucas and John Carpenter. His attempts to create a cinematic version of the Dune novels, which failed, led O’Bannon to team up with Ronald Shusett to write and create a world of parasitic pests in Alien which led to multiple sequels.

Besides the epic Alien, O’Bannon also wrote such movies as Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, The Return of the Living Dead [writer & director, Invaders from Mars, Total Recall, and Screamers.

[Via NY Times] “I love gore films and I grew up with ’50s monster movies,” Mr. O’Bannon told the journal Cinefantastique in 1979, speaking of the film’s origins. “The idea for the monster in ‘Alien’ originally came from a stomach ache I had.”

In 1985 Mr. O’Bannon wrote and directed “The Return of the Living Dead,” part homage to the George Romero zombie film “Night of the Living dead” and part genre spoof. In 1990 he teamed with Mr. Shusett again, among others, to write “Total Recall,” a violent, futuristic tale set partly on Earth and partly on Mars and based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone.