Dearly Departed of 2025

[robkelk]

RIP Richard Chamberlain. March 29.


RIP Bruce Glover, best known for playing Mr. Wint in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever and being the father of Crispin Glover. March 12, no cause of death was given.


RIP Denis Arndt, character actor. March 25.

[robkelk]

RIP Val Kilmer

[robkelk]

RIP Betty Webb, age 101, on March 31.

No, you probably haven't heard of her. She worked at Bletchley Park... and, as far as I know, she was the last survivor from that codebreaking project to work on both German and Japanese intercepts.

[robkelk]

RIP merengue singer Rubby Pérez, in the Jet Set club disaster.

[robkelk]

RIP Clem Burke, Hall-of-Fame inductee drummer of Blondie

[Bob Schroeck]

Game show host Wink Martindale, age 91

[Bob Schroeck]

Michelle Trachtenberg, age 39. Cause uncertain at this time, but she had recently received a liver transplant and may have been suffering complications.

Her family has requested there be no autopsy, and because there was no suspicion of foul play their request was honored.

According to today's New York Times, the New York medical examiner's office has determined that she passed away from complications of diabetes.

[Dartz]

Pope Francis has decided death would be prefereable to meeting JD Vance

[robkelk]

RIP Noreen Young, lead puppeteer of Under the Umbrella Tree and founding artistic director of the Puppets Up! festival.

[robkelk]

RIP Gene Hackman

And the story on this one is starting to get weird...  Hackman appears to have been dead for a day or so before he was found, but his wife had been dead long enough for decay to set in and for her hands to start to mummify.

Today's paper said it was more than that. According to the pathologist, Hackman's pacemaker stopped sending signals on 2/17, nine days before his body was found. Tests for carbon monoxide poisoning also came up negative.

A formal announcement on the causes of death has been made by the Santa Fe sheriff. Betsy Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome on February 11 or 12. Hackman died from hypertensive atherosclerosis cardiovascular disease, with Alzheimer's as a contributing factor, on on or about February 18. The sheriff's office is still investigating a few "puzzling holes" in the case -- in particular if Hackman contacted anyone after his wife died. He also appeared to have not eaten for a while before his death, although he wasn't dehydrated.

AP: Autopsy confirms Gene Hackman died from heart disease, notes his Alzheimer's and prolonged fasting

Actor tested negative for hantavirus, which likely killed his wife, Betsy Arakawa

[robkelk]

RIP Andy Bey, one of the greatest jazz singers to come out of Newark



Non-embedded

[Norgarth]

Priscilla Pointer, actress, at age 100 (roles in Carrie, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dallas, among others)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscilla_Pointer

[Bob Schroeck]

Ruth Buzzi, age 88

[robkelk]

RIP Jill Sobule

She was a two-hit wonder; one for the song "Supermodel" in Clueless, the other for the 1995 song "I Kissed a Girl" (which Rolling Stone says was "the first openly gay song to break the Top 20 of Billboard's Modern Rock chart", and is not the same as the 2008 Katy Perry song).

---

RIP Joe Louis Walker.

Aretha Franklin called him "The Bluesman". Herbie Hancock called him "the Chick Corea of Blues". He's in the Blues Hall of Fame.

[aku]

RIP Margot Friedländer Holocaust Survivor, Age 103.

[Mamorien]

Peter Morwood, husband and collaborator of Diane Duane.

[robkelk]

The sun won't come out tomorrow.

RIP Charles Strouse, Broadway composer and lyricist.

[Kilroy]

Cheers actor George Wendt has died at the age of 76.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-...236222950/


Kilroy

[robkelk]

RIP John Young, co-founder of Cryptome. He died at age 89 on March 28.

For folks who haven't heard of Cryptome, it's the sensitive-information archive site where Julian Assange learned how to set up a sensitive-information archive site.

Jon Callas, a co-founder of PGP Corporation, told The Register that Young was a complex character, and while the site did carry a lot of material about cryptography, its main purpose was to serve as a repository of all data that he thought citizens needed to know, regardless of what the government thought.

"I think he was absolutely a product of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, with cultural arguments over government secrets and what's really going on in the world, in social things like civil rights and other protests. He grew up in a world of MKUltra, the CIA, Watergate, and Vietnam," Callas told us.

[RMH999]

Peter David, Comic Book Writer Famed writer on the Incredible Hulk, Aquaman and many others

[Norgarth]

Rick Derringer (guitarist, singer, songwriter)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/arts/...loopy.html

[robkelk]

RIP Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kenyan novelist and playwright who was repeatedly shortlisted for major international awards

[Norgarth]

Chinese-American actor, Peter Kwong, best know as Rain, one of the Three Storms in Big Trouble in Little China
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar...China.html

[RMH999]

Loretta Swit - Major "Hot Lips" Houlihan of MASH, TV & Film star, Animal rights activist passes at 87.

[robkelk]

RIP Jonathan Joss, voice actor most famous for his work on King of the Hill, "after an incident"