Carmel Dagan Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Martin Mull, the comic musician and actor who started with 1970s TV series “Fernwood 2 Night” and went on to appear as Colonel Mustard in “Clue” and on “Arrested Development” and “Roseanne,” died Thursday. He was 80. His daughter Maggie announced his death on Instagram, writing “I am heartbroken to share that my father passed away at home on June 27th, after a valiant fight against a long illness.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer English actress Glynis Johns, who played the daffy suffragette mother Mrs. Banks in the classic film “Mary Poppins,” died Thursday at an assisted living home in Los Angeles, her manager confirmed to The Washington Post. She was 100.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Marty Krofft, who with his brother Sid produced memorable kids shows “H.R. Pufnstuf” and “Land of the Lost” — as well as the 2009 feature based on the latter — has died.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Burt Young, who played Paulie in six of the “Rocky” films starring Sylvester Stallone, drawing an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for his performance in the 1976 original, has died, his daughter Anne Morea Steingieser confirmed to the New York Times. He was 83.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Piper Laurie, who blossomed as an actress only after extricating herself from the studio system and went on to rack up three Oscar nominations, has died. She was 91.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Michael Gambon, the Irish-English actor best known for his role as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the “Harry Potter” movies, has died, Variety has confirmed. He was 82.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer David McCallum, who starred as Illya Kuryakin alongside Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo in the 1960s hit spy drama “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and had a supporting role as pathologist Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard on the top-rated series “NCIS” decades later, died Monday of natural causes in New York City. He was 90.

Carmel Dagan Director William Friedkin, best known for his Oscar-winning “The French Connection” and blockbuster “The Exorcist,” died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 87.His death was confirmed by Chapman University dean Stephen Galloway, a friend of Friedkin’s wife Sherry Lansing.

Carmel Dagan Screenwriter Bo Goldman, who won Oscars for his scripts to “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Melvin and Howard” and was among a select group of film scribes including Robert Towne and William Goldman considered to be among that generation’s best, died Tuesday in Helendale, Calif., his son-in-law, director Todd Field, confirmed to the New York Times. He was 90.Goldman was also Oscar nominated for 1993’s “Scent of a Woman.”The 1976 Oscar he shared with Lawrence Hauben for co-adapting Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was a particularly impressive achievement considering that “Cuckoo’s Nest” represented only Goldman’s second screenplay and the first to be produced.

Carmel Dagan Tony Bennett, the master pop vocalist who climaxed a professional career spanning eight decades with a No. 1 album at age 85, died on Friday morning in New York City. He was 96.Bennett, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, but had continued to perform and record.His peer Frank Sinatra called him the greatest popular singer in the world. His recordings – most of them made for Columbia Records, which signed him in 1950 – were characterized by ebullience, immense warmth, vocal clarity and emotional openness. A gifted and technically accomplished interpreter of the Great American Songbook, he may be best known for his signature 1962 hit “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

Carmel Dagan Jim Brown, the NFL titan who appeared in “The Dirty Dozen,” a number of Blaxploitation films and Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday,” The Running Man,” Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks” and Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” to name a few films, died Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 87.His wife Monique posted the news of his death on Instagram, saying, “He passed peacefully last night at our L.A. home.”In nine extraordinary seasons as a fullback with the Cleveland Browns, Brown set an array of NFL records. In 2002 the Sporting News named him the greatest professional football player ever. That phenomenal athleticism and a charismatic personality made him bankable as the first African American action star.

Carmel Dagan Actor Robert Blake, a man with a long and complex legacy, has died, according to the Associated Press. The former child actor was best known for his Emmy-winning role as the cockatoo-owning undercover cop in the popular 1970s TV series “Baretta” and, more infamously, for his trial following the 2001 murder of his wife. He was 89.As reported by the AP, Blake died from heart disease on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. These two aspects of Blake’s legacy were inseparable in some ways, and the personal turmoil that made the latter at least circumstantially plausible (the case against Blake hinged on motive — he may have wanted to be free of his rocky marriage) fueled his acting.

Carmel Dagan Chaim Topol, who became professionally known solely by his last name in a career that included starring in “Fiddler on the Roof” on stage and screen and co-starring in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only” and the sci-fi film “Flash Gordon,” died Thursday in Tel Aviv after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 87 years old.Topol’s death was confirmed by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, who described him as a “gifted actor who conquered many stages in Israel and overseas, filled the cinema screens with his presence and especially entered deep into our hearts.” Topol began his long association with the starring role of Tevye the milkman in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1967, appearing in the West End production, which ran for 2,030 performances. He starred in Norman Jewison’s 1971 film version, which carried a budget estimated at $9 million and garnered a domestic gross of $80 million. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, including best picture and best actor for Topol. It won for cinematography, sound and music.

Carmel Dagan Stella Stevens, who starred with Elvis Presley in “Girls! Girls! Girls!” and with Jerry Lewis in “The Nutty Professor” as well as in disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure,” died Friday in Los Angeles. A rep said she died of a long-term illness. She was 84.“Girls! Girls! Girls!” (1962) was one of the more generic Elvis films— there wasn’t all that much for Stevens to do — but Variety was keen on her performance in 1963’s “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” starring Glenn Ford and Shirley Jones in the story of a widower who’s romantically interested in one woman while his son wants him to marry another: “Stella Stevens comes on like gangbusters in her enactment of a brainy but inhibited doll from Montana. It’s a sizzling comedy performance of a kook.”

Carmel Dagan Raquel Welch, the actor who became an icon and sex symbol thanks to films like “One Million Years B.C.” and “Three Musketeers,” has died, her manager confirmed to Variety. She was 82.She came onto the movie scene in 1966 with the sci-fi film “Fantastic Voyage” and the prehistoric adventure “One Million Years B.C.,” the latter of which established Welch as a sex symbol. The actor went on to appear in the controversial adaptation of Gore Vidal’s “Myra Beckrinridge,” “Kansas City Bomber” and Richard Lester’s delightful romps “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and “The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge” (1974). She was one of the first women to play the lead role — not the romantic interest — in a Western, 1971 revenge tale “Hannie Caulder” — an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” (2003), according to the director.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Louise Fletcher, who won the best actress Oscar for her indelible performance as Nurse Ratched in Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” died Friday at her home in France, according to a rep. She was 88. The classic film, based on Ken Kesey’s novel and exploring the repressive tendency of authority through the story of the patients and staff of a psych ward, won five Oscars in 1976, including best picture and best actor for Jack Nicholson. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was the first film in more than four decades to sweep the major categories of best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. It was nominated for an additional four Oscars and was also a substantial box office hit.

Carmel Dagan Staff Writer Henry Silva, an actor with a striking look who often played villains and had credits in hundreds of films including “Ocean’s Eleven” and “The Manchurian Candidate,” died of natural causes Wednesday at the Motion Picture Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif., his son Scott confirmed. He was 94. One of Silva’s most memorable roles came in John Frankenheimer’s classic thriller “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962), in which he played Chunjin, the Korean houseboy for Laurence Harvey’s Raymond Shaw — and an agent for the Communists — who engages in a thrilling, well-choreographed martial arts battle with Frank Sinatra’s Major Bennett Marco in Shaw’s New York apartment.

By Carmel Dagan

By Carmel Dagan

By Carmel Dagan