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1-10 of 10
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Nelsan Ellis was an award-winning American film and television actor and playwright, perhaps best known as Lafayette Reynolds on HBO's True Blood (2008).
Nelsan was born on November 30, 1977, in Harvey, Illinois, the son of Jackie Ellis and Tommie Lee Thompson. Following his parents' divorce, Ellis and his mother moved to Alabama. He moved back to Illinois as a teenager, and graduated from Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois, in 1997. Ellis attended Juilliard and, while there, wrote a semi-autobiographical play titled Ugly that was performed at the school and later won the Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award. Ellis won a 2008 Satellite Award from the International Press Academy for best supporting actor in a television series for his role as Lafayette Reynolds in HBO's True Blood. Ellis won the "Brink of Fame: Actor" award at the 2009 NewNowNext Awards.
Tragically, Ellis died at the age of 39 on July 8, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, after complications from heart failure. His family released a statement on July 10, saying that Nelsan had been trying to quit alcohol in the days before his death, and suggesting that he suffered from alcohol withdrawal syndrome, leading to his heart failure.- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Soundtrack
Elsa Martinelli was born in the central Tuscan city of Grosseto into a struggling family, one of eight siblings. She had to earn her keep from the age of twelve, delivering groceries in Rome. Looking older than her years suggested, she then did some part-time work as a barmaid. Aged sixteen and ambitious, she moved on to modeling and was soon promoted by well known designers, and, in particular, by a New York magazine editor who suggested a move to the Big Apple. While employed with the Eileen Ford Agency, she was spotted on a Life magazine cover by none other than Kirk Douglas (or by Douglas' wife, according to another version of the story) who, incidentally, happened to own a fashion company. In any case, Elsa soon found herself in Hollywood to co-star opposite Douglas in The Indian Fighter (1955) (despite some as yet unresolved problems with her command of English). Her sojourn in tinseltown was short-lived, however, and the contract she had signed with Douglas was quietly annulled -- and thus she famously spurned an opportunity to appear in the lucrative blockbuster Spartacus (1960). There were to be no further American pictures at this time. Instead, she returned to Italy, married Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito, joined the glitterati, attended lavish parties and created an image for herself which rivaled those of Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. She counted Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas among her close friends.
Taken under the wing of Carlo Ponti, Elsa was able to eventually make a success of her screen career not merely because of her exotic good looks, but by deliberately varying the type of parts she took on and thereby avoid typecasting. Those included the titular Stowaway Girl (1957) who bewitches an embittered steamboat captain played by Trevor Howard. In stark contrast, she was also Carmilla, possessed by her vampiric ancestor Millarca in the unsatisfactorily filmed Blood and Roses (1960), an 'arthouse' horror movie, though artlessly directed by Roger Vadim, based on Sheridan Le Fanu's Gothic novella. Encumbered by excessive bathos, neither scary nor original, the only saving grace of the picture was derived from Claude Renoir's evocative camera work.
In Hatari! (1962) -- which might aptly be described as a good-looking travelogue -- Elsa co-starred as a freelance wildlife photographer on a Tanganyika game farm, torn between affections for baby elephants and 'bring-'em-back-alive' trapper John Wayne. With character development sorely lacking, the animals, the scenery (and two exquisitely ornamental ladies -- the other being Michèle Girardon) pretty much stole the show. Likewise, in her next outing, the wartime comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962), Elsa was the romantic (mostly decorative) interest of Charlton Heston's army guy smuggled into Nazi-occupied Rome in 1944 to extract and send back secret military information via carrier pigeon. For the remainder of the '60s, Elsa appeared in a number of international co-productions which included a segment in The Oldest Profession (1967) as a Roman Emperor's wife discovered in a brothel; and as a gangster's daughter helping a bumbling American treasury agent in Rome (played by Dustin Hoffman in his first starring role) to recover Madigan's Millions (1968).
In 1968, Elsa married Paris Match photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo. Having already invested some of her earnings from film work into Roman and Parisian real estate, Elsa began to diversify into designing avant garde furniture with apparently mixed success. By the 1980s, she was active as an interior designer in Rome while still making sporadic screen appearances, primarily in TV series. Described by the newspaper La Repubblica as "an icon of style and elegance", Elsa Martinelli died on July 8, 2017 in Rome at the age of 82.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
David Flaherty was born on 25 August 1948 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for SCTV Channel (1983), Maniac Mansion (1990) and The 1989 Gemini Awards (1989). He was married to Jayne Eastwood. He died on 8 July 2017 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Lori Tritel was born on 8 January 1956 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2002), The Boxtrolls (2014) and Command & Conquer: Renegade (2002). She died on 8 July 2017.
- Randy Schell was born on 2 August 1952 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for Blindspot (2015), Life in Pieces (2015) and Judge Alex (2005). He was married to Donna Clary Schell. He died on 8 July 2017 in Houston, Texas, USA.
- Rick Neilan was an actor, known for Special Section (1975), Les brigades du Tigre (1974) and Cinéma 16 (1975). He was married to Nancy M. Neilan, Luciane Auclaire and Priscilla Standish. He died on 8 July 2017 in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Seiji Yokoyama was born on 17 March 1935 in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a composer, known for Chouriki Sentai Ohranger (1995), Chogattai majutsu robot Ginguiser (1977) and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV (1982). He died on 8 July 2017 in Sera, Hiroshima, Japan.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Writer
Hans Roosipuu was born on 2 April 1931 in Torma vald, Estonia. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Rada vabaks! (1981), Lumest lumeni (1984) and Tavaline hooaeg (1974). He died on 8 July 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia.- Richard Findlay was born on 5 November 1943 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Brothers Karamazov (1964), The Revenue Men (1967) and The Flight of the Heron (1968). He died on 8 July 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
- Editor
- Writer
Brigitte Kirsche was born on 31 March 1923 in Stettin, Pomerania, Germany. She was an editor and writer, known for Trial by Fire (1998), Eintausend Milliarden (1974) and Der Prozeß - Eine Darstellung des Majdanek-Verfahrens in Düsseldorf (1984). She died on 8 July 2017.