Omnibus obituary thread, January 30, 2017

In addition to Sir John Hurt, several other people worth mentioning died in the past several days.

First off are a couple of people better known for TV, but who did movies before their iconic TV roles. Mike Connors, who played Mannix on TV but had small roles in John Wayne's Island in the Sky and Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments, as well as a bigger role as the father of the Joey Heatherton character in the potboiler Where Love Has Gone, died at the age of 91 last Thursday. On the same day, Barbara Hale, best known for playing Perry Mason's secretary Della Street, died aged 94. As for her movies, I'd mention The Window.

More movie related, there was 89-year-old Emmanuelle Riva, whose career in French cinema spanned over 50 years, from Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, mon amour to an Oscar-nominated performance in Amour at the age of 85.

Finally, one should mention Richard Portman, who died at the age of 82. He was a sound mixer, who won an oscar for The Deer Hunter and was nominated several other times. Sound mixers are one of those roles that never get the credit they deserve, since everybody recalls the actors and to an only slightly lesser extent the directors.