Obituary

CHICAGO – He will surely be most-remembered for the trenchcoat-wearing eccentric detective “Columbo” but Peter Falk was a successful and underrated actor outside of the role that defined him. The great Falk passed away today at the age of 83 and the worlds of film and television will miss him greatly.

CHICAGO – The entire film industry mourns the passing of one of its best directors, Sidney Lumet, who has left us at the age of 86.

LOS ANGELES – Elizabeth Taylor, one of the great icons of Hollywood, and known as much for her marriages, personal life and activism as her screen performances, died this morning at the age of 79, as announced by her publicist in Los Angeles.

CHICAGO – On the stadium set of “Breaking Away,” during the 1978 filming of the climatic bike race sequence, an extra ran up to director Peter Yates and handed him a cold beer. The filmmaker raised it high, and lustily took a drink.

CHICAGO – If you love movies, you love Blake Edwards. The iconic comic director, best known for teaming with Peter Sellers in a series of wacky Pink Panther adventures, also directed such classics as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “The Great Race” “10” and “Victor Victoria.” Blake Edwards died Wednesday at age 88.

CHICAGO – One of the funniest lines Leslie Nielsen ever uttered wasn’t in one of his spoofs. In his role as doomed Captain Harrison in ‘The Poseidon Adventure,’ Nielsen is facing the huge wave that will eventually capsize the boat, and as an stern aside says, “by the way, Happy New Year.” A star, comically inadvertent, was born. Leslie Nielsen died yesterday at the age of 84.

CHICAGO – James MacArthur, a stage and screen actor best known for playing the booking agent Danno in the 1960s version of the TV show “Hawaii Five-0,” died on October 28th, 2010, of natural causes. He was 72. HollywoodChicago.com interviewed MacArthur last March at the Hollywood Celebrities and Memorabilia Show.

CHICAGO – In the 1980s, you couldn’t swing a burnt-out remote without coming upon either a Stephen J. Cannell created series or an episode that he’d personally written. The amazingly prolific and populist television icon – best known for “The Rockford Files” and “The A-Team” – passed away last week at the age of 69.

CHICAGO – Tony Curtis was the Prince of Hollywood, he was the original Fantastic Mr. Fox. He took his pretty boy good looks and carved a career that included the classic films “Some Like it Hot,” “Sweet Smell of Success” and “The Defiant Ones.” Tony Curtis died at his Las Vegas home yesterday at the age of 85.

CHICAGO – Rue McClanahan, the vivacious Southern Belle from “The Golden Girls,” died this morning at age 76.