Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition
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@ganymede Me too. We were friends. I wanna hear the Blaze stories. He was unashamed.
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Dean Stockwell, RIP
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@jennkryst Oh, that one bums me out. Dean Stockwell is the kind of actor who's not in a lot of things I've seen, but was a show-stealer in everything I've seen him in. He made Stephen King's author-insert dialogue sound human in the Langoliers.
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@jennkryst Sad. I remember watching Quantum Leap as a little kid, and when I watched BSG later on in life. "It's AL!"
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FUCK! I loved Dean Stockwell.... he was in so much of my life... Yeah, sure, Quantum Leap but like... he was in The Dunwich Horror (BOTH of them). The Twilight Zone (all THREE runs). Alfred Hitchcock Presents. DUNE. Yeah. Motherfucking DUNE. To Live and Die in LA, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Murder She Wrote. McHale's Navy! BSG.
BTW, he voiced Duke Nukem in Captain Planet, too. This man had roles in so many shows. He was not given nearly enough credit for all the appearances he made all over the place. All the movies he was in. This one hurts.
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@too-old-for-this said in Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition:
FUCK! I loved Dean Stockwell.... he was in so much of my life...
Do you think these folks know they made a difference? I don't mean the A-listers who have tangible evidence that they had an impact, a fan base, etc... but the characters actors, the key elements in somewhat niche but beloved shows - do they know their work meant something significant to others?
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@arkandel I think many do, at least genre actors, because of conventions where they get literally showered with love by fans. The ones who aren't in sci-fi/fantasy/comic/horror stuff though? Not sure as they usually don't get invited to those things.
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Bart the bear, who likely has more movie and tv credits than most human actors. 21, peacefully in his sleep.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/25/us/bart-the-bear-dies/index.html
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I'm really, really not okay with this one. I can't even begin to describe what he did for American theatre.
I really regret never having the opportunity to meet him back when I was still in the industry.
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@roz Would you like to talk about his contributions to someone who doesn't know theater, so would be duly impressed by all of it?
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"Sondheim's accolades include nine Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Laurence Olivier Award, and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. He also has a theatre named for him on both Broadway and the West End in London."
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Sondheim? But he's not... googles Oh. 91. Guess he is. Well, not a life tragically cut short. He left his mark on humanity.
ETA: Agony
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@greenflashlight said in Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition:
@roz Would you like to talk about his contributions to someone who doesn't know theater, so would be duly impressed by all of it?
For folks who aren't particularly into theatre, probably his most well-known work would be West Side Story, which he wrote the lyrics for (which came out when he was all of twenty-seven). He also wrote the lyrics to Gypsy. But the bulk of his work he was both composer and lyricist, and was heavily involved in the full development of the shows, from conception to creation. Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd probably got a bit more well-known after having blockbuster films made for them, although I personally don't think either of them quite lived up to the originals. Other shows of his that I love include Company, Pacific Overtures, A Little Night Music, Follies, Sunday in the Park with George (his Pulitzer win), Passion, and Assassins.
He's known for being an intensely intelligent and thoughtful writer, and his music quite complex and often tricky to perform, but so intensely rewarding. It marked a certain departure in style for Broadway melodies, and there is kind of an infamous moment where Jerry Herman won the Tony Award for Best Score for La Cage Aux Folles, beating Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, and in his Tony speech he said, “This award forever shatters a myth about the musical theatre. There’s been a rumour around for a couple of years that the simple, hummable show tune was no longer welcome on Broadway. Well, it’s alive and well at the Palace." It was kind of a contentious sentiment, although in truth I don't think he meant any ill by it, but it is kind of indicative of the stylistic shift Sondheim's work represented. His work is always complex. Even when it's simple to the ear, it's almost always deceptively so. His work is always cerebral and challenging, but deeply, deeply emotional and character-driven. And dizzyingly clever. Most theatre fans will be able to name their favorite Sondheim rhymes.
His shows for which he was both composer and lyricist (so ignoring West Side Story and Gypsy) rarely recouped (made back their original investment and proceeded to turn a profit) in their original Broadway productions, but they were almost always artistically and critically successful. I think they all made him personally successful, because they would all continue to have lives on the road and in licensing, but it's pretty remarkable the number of productions he continued to see put up on Broadway when his shows so rarely turned a profit. (Apparently only three, of all of his shows' original Broadway runs.) He would never have the commercial appeal of someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I would say that the quality, importance, and impact of his work far outstripped ALW.
We do have the benefit of a large number of Sondheim productions that were professionally filmed with their original casts:
- Into the Woods
- Sunday in the Park with George
- Sweeney Todd (not QUITE the full original cast, but close!)
- Putting it Together (a revue of his work)
- Pacific Overtures (this one is FREE on YouTube)
- Company (2006 Revival) (I'd list an official streaming service for this one, but I can't find anywhere hosting it right now, so I give you another free YouTube link. Raul Esparza's Bobby devastated me me in this production.)
For me, I grew up with musicals and always loved them, but I feel like discovering Sondheim as a freshman in high school marked a distinct shift for me. A new chapter in how I understood and appreciated the artform.
If you watch the newly-released tick, tick...BOOM! on Netflix, which is an adaptation of Jonathan Larson's (of RENT fame) musical and a bit of a biopic, you'll see how intensely and reverently he and his generation of theatrical professionals viewed Sondheim; one of the numbers in the show is an absolute love letter to a particular number in Sunday in the Park with George, and Sondheim's support of Larson's work was undoubtedly integral to him continuing to soldier through rejection to finally find posthumous success in RENT. For those in the industry, or those who love theatre, Sondheim was bar none the most important composer of the second half of the 20th Century.
@TNP is right: Sondheim was 91, and lived a long and full life with a huge catalogue of art we are blessed to have. But I think more than any writer, filmmaker, or artist in any and all artforms, his impact on my life was by far the greatest.
...sorry i wrote a lot.
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@roz Well said.
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@tnp And he was still writing. He'd been working on a show that had a reading as recently as September that he was hoping to have ready for next season. I wonder what will happen to it.
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Raul Esparza's Bobby in that version of Company is quite possibly my all time favorite Sondheim rendition of any song and that's REALLY saying something because Sondheim is my favorite theater composer. Favorite. (My favorite accolade about Lin-Manuel Miranda is that he can be as complex as Sondheim.)
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There's a movie called "Camp", (another much loved movie and Anna Kendrick's first feature film) in which a bunch of theater kids go to a summer camp and are theater kids. But they do a LOT of Sondheim during that movie. Like...a LOT. And one of the best bits is Anna Kendrick taking over "Ladies Who Lunch" (also from Company!) because the lead is puking her guts up while trying to carry on.
The news of his death has me devastated, too.
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@reimesu said in Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition:
- Raul Esparza's Bobby in that version of Company is quite possibly my all time favorite Sondheim rendition of any song and that's REALLY saying something because Sondheim is my favorite theater composer. Favorite. (My favorite accolade about Lin-Manuel Miranda is that he can be as complex as Sondheim.)
I got to see that production live twice, and one of my favorite details was seeing how Raul (one of my absolute favorite stage performers, bar none) would come down center during "Marry Me A Little" -- but stop just shy of the spotlight he'd step into during "Being Alive" at the end of the next act. I was in college, so still in the habit of stagedooring, and I remember telling him how I noticed it, and he was really pleased that someone had. He was a revelation in that role, and I nearly threw a book at my television when he lost the Tony.
I think you're spot-on that you can really see the line of influence from Sondheim to Miranda, absolutely. There will never be another Sondheim, but we'll get to have the art of those he influenced and inspired forever.
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@roz said in Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition:
...sorry i wrote a lot.
Shush with your apologies. I specifically asked.
I see why the article you linked says he had very few peers.
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@roz said in Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition:
For those in the industry, or those who love theatre, Sondheim was bar none the most important composer of the second half of the 20th Century.
When I was dating my partner, I often remarked with friends how she liked Andrew Lloyd Webber and KISS, whereas I liked Sondheim and Led Zeppelin. I was reminded of this because, over the years, we have grown to love the differences and each other.
Sondheim was brilliant and beautiful, and the thing I love most about his music is that it is complex and wonderfully atonal.
