Dead people — 5/25/2025

A once-weekly roundup,
usually on Sundays

         
Being old, death gets my attention, so I read the obituaries. This is a collection of recent obits for people whose work touched my life, because I want to say thanks, or maybe give ’em a final fuck you.

There’ll be a roundup like this occasionally, until I’m on the list myself.
   

Judith Hope Blau
painted bagels

Marie Brooks
forgotten person

Susan Brownmiller
author, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape

Victoria Brownworth
journalist, Philadelphia Daily News

Mara Corday
actress, The Giant Claw

Peter David
writer, The Incredible Hulk

Leslie Dilley
art director, Star Wars

Leslie Epstein
author, King of the Jews

Colton Ford
actor, Gang Bang Café

Kathleen Hughes
actress, It Came From Outer Space

Guy Klucevsek
accordion player

Franco Merli
actor, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

name withheld, 12
2nd Amendment

Jayant Narlikar
astrophysicist, Hoyle–Narlikar theory of gravity

Marcel Ophuls
film director, The Sorrow and the Pity

Michael Roemer
film director, Nothing But a Man

Sebastião Salgado
photographer

George Wendt
actor, Cheers

Billy Williams
cinematographer, Gandhi

Last week’s dead people

5/25/2025

itsdougholland.com
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6 responses to “Dead people — 5/25/2025”

  1. granville Avatar
    granville

    Oh Marcel Ophuls! “Hotel Terminus” was one of the first documentaries I can remember seeing. His long rambling films were almost unique and his impish needling of “shy” Nazis was wonderful.

    Reply
    1. Doug Holland Avatar
      Doug Holland

      The Sorrow and the Pity is the only Ophuls film I’ve seen, and I respect it but already knew Nazis were bad so it wasn’t particularly enlightening for me. Hotel Terminus is supposed to be his best work, so I added it to my list upon hearing of the Ophuls’ exit. “impish needling of ‘shy’ Nazis” sounds like fun — it’s a light comedy then?

      Reply
      1. Claude Reigns Avatar
        Claude Reigns

        Marcel was good, but his father Max was the genius, just an incredible director who freed the camera from the tripod to express outrageous emotions

        Reply
        1. Doug Holland Avatar
          Doug Holland

          I wasn’t even aware there were two of them. Le Plaisir sounds promising, if the subtitles will come through…

          Reply
      2. granville Avatar
        granville

        It is, and you feel bad because of it! Orphuls was a great entertainer. A major theme is that the French post-war government was keen to get on with it and so were many of the people, which was great if you were a collaborator or part of the occupying force. In a lot of cases you could just pretend to be a member of the Resistance and nobody would ask too many questions. You could even really be a member of the Resistance, and betray the Resistance, or be a commandant of a town, or someone beating a 5 year old child for information about hidden Jews and psh ya know it was a tough time for everyone!

        Reply
        1. Doug Holland Avatar
          Doug Holland

          Now you got me really looking forward to four hours of giggles and big gut-bustin’ guffaws!

          “Keen to get on with it…” That was Merrick Garland’s motto, too, wasn’t it?

          Reply

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