- Title: Showbiz deaths in 2023: Lisa Marie Presley, Tina Turner, Harry Belafonte
- Date: 7th December 2023
- Summary: WREATH OF FLOWERS AND PHOTO OF BELAFONTE ON HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD
- Embargoed: 21st December 2023 02:01
- Keywords: Alan Arkin Burt Bacarach Gina Lollobrigida Glenda Jackson Gordon Lightfoot Harry Belafonte Jeff Beck Julian Sands Lance Reddick Lisa Marie Presley Mary Quant Moonbin Raquel Welch Ray Stevenson Rita Lee Robert Blake Rolf Harris Tina Turner Tom Sizemore Valentin Yudashkin celebrity deaths 2023
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- Country: Various
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts/Culture/Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA00P943224072023RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS FOOTAGE THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3 AND MONOCHROME
EDITORS, PLEASE SEE EDIT 9433 SHOWBIZ-YEARENDER/2023-DEATHS-PART2 FOR OTHER CELEBRITY DEATHS IN 2023
The world said goodbye to the following celebrities in 2023:
Lisa Marie Presley
Singer Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of the "King of Rock 'n' Roll," Elvis Presley, died at the age of 54. She suffered a cardiac arrest in her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas.
She had attended the Golden Globes awards show in Beverly Hills a few days before her death, where actor Austin Butler won the best actor award for portraying her father in the film "Elvis."
Butler paid tribute to Lisa Marie Presley and her mother during his acceptance speech.
Presley is survived by her mother, Priscilla Presley and three daughters.
Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck, the influential, genre-bending English guitarist who rose to fame with The Yardbirds before later embarking on a solo career, died at the age of 78.
He passed away peacefully after suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, his family said.
Beck was a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee - in 1992 for his work with The Yardbirds and as a solo performer in 2009.
In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Beck as the fifth greatest guitarist of all time, one spot ahead of blues icon B.B. King.
Gina Lollobrigida
Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, a sultry Mediterranean diva who came to represent Italy's vibrant rebirth after World War Two, died aged 95.
After a humble upbringing, Lollobrigida played opposite Hollywood stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Rock Hudson, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Frank Sinatra, becoming one of the most recognizable cinema icons of the 1950s and 60s.
She later became a photographer and sculptor.
Last year, she failed in a bid to win a seat for a leftist political party in the Italian parliament.
Raquel Welch
Actress Raquel Welch, who helped reshape the traditional image of the Hollywood sex symbol in an era when the movie industry was still overtly defining an idealized version of sensuality for mass consumption, died at age 82 after a brief illness.
Welch first grabbed the public's attention with her role in the 1966 sci-fi adventure "Fantastic Voyage". Her success in that film was followed by an iconic appearance later the same year in the prehistoric fantasy drama "One Million Years B.C." depicting cavemen and women coexisting with dinosaurs.
Golden Globe winning Welch's portrayal of strong, wilful characters was credited with helping break down stereotypes at a time when the sexual revolution and changing attitudes toward gender roles converged to empower women on screen, even if their looks remained objectified.
Burt Bacharach
Composer Burt Bacharach, whose hits such as "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" and "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" provided a mellow alternative soundtrack to rock 'n' roll in the 1960s and 1970s, died aged 94.
He passed away from natural causes at his home.
His songs, many written in a 16-year collaboration with lyricist Hal David, were neither rock nor strictly pop.
They filled American radio and were featured in major movies, making them as frequently heard in the 1960s and early 1970s as works by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.
Lance Reddick
Actor Lance Reddick, best known for his commanding presence as a no-nonsense police chief on the acclaimed television drama "The Wire" and for his supporting work in the "John Wick" action-film series, died suddenly, aged 60.
His death came just days before the planned release of the fourth installment in the "John Wick" franchise.
Tom Sizemore
Actor Tom Sizemore, known as much for his struggles with drug addiction and run-ins with the law as for his tough-guy roles in such films as "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down," died aged 61 after suffering a brain aneurysm.
Sizemore got his first break when director Oliver Stone cast him in a bit role as Vet #1 in the 1989 anti-war film "Born on the Fourth of July".
He played hard-boiled detectives in Stone's 1994 mass murder drama "Natural Born Killers," the 1995 noir mystery "Devil in a Blue Dress" and 1995 cyberpunk thriller "Strange Days" and was also known for "Wyatt Earp" and "Heat".
Sizemore's career was largely overshadowed by personal upheavals stemming from his acknowledged long-time bouts with substance abuse, which landed him in and out of jail and drug rehabilitation treatment, and a relationship with onetime Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss.
Julian Sands
Actor Julian Sands, best known for his role in the Oscar-celebrated film "A Room with a View," was confirmed dead five months after he went missing while out for a hike in snow-covered mountains of Southern California. He was 65.
Mostly skeletal human remains discovered by hikers in the vicinity where Sands had vanished, were positively identified by the San Bernardino County coroner as belonging to the actor.
Sands, an avid outdoorsman and mountaineer, had gone hiking alone in the Baldy Bowl area of the San Gabriel Mountains, about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Los Angeles.
Born in Britain as the third of five boys, Sands began his career with supporting roles in films like "Oxford Blues" and "The Killing Fields" playing a young war correspondent in Cambodia.
Sands moved to California in the 1980s after the success of "A Room with a View," an Edwardian-period romance in which he was cast as the leading man opposite Helena Bonham Carter.
Robert Blake
Robert Blake, a child actor from the Depression-era "Our Gang" comedies who won adult stardom playing an undercover cop on the 1970s television series "Baretta" died aged 89.
Blake, who also won acclaim for his role as a psychopathic killer in the 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," died at his home in Los Angeles, surrounded by family members.
Born in New Jersey as Michael James Gubitosi, Blake got his start in showbusiness as a youngster when he and two siblings joined his parents' song-and-dance vaudeville act, known as "The Three Little Hillbillies," before the family moved to California.
In 2002, Blake was charged with fatally shooting his spouse, Bonnie Lee Bakley, to gain custody of their young daughter, after trying to solicit others to kill his wife of less than a year.
He was acquitted at the end of a three-month trial.
A wrongful death lawsuit subsequently filed against Blake by her estate led to a civil court judgment that the actor was responsible for her slaying.
Blake contended his wife was a victim of her own checkered past, gunned down by an unknown assailant.
Mary Quant
Fashion designer Mary Quant, often credited with popularising the miniskirt that helped define Britain's "Swinging Sixties" era, died aged 93.
Quant helped pioneer bold new styles during the 1960s - a decade in which fashion, music and art subculture challenged and forever changed Britain's post-war national identity.
Her influence on fashion reached its height with the arrival of the miniskirt, whose above-the-knee hemline - often rising far above the knee - became a symbol of the rebellious youth culture and sexual liberation of a new generation.
Moonbin
South Korean singer Moonbin, a member of K-pop boy band Astro, died at the age of 25.
Mooonbin was a child actor before making his debut as a member of Astro in 2016.
He was found dead at his home in the Gangnam district of Seoul with suicide as the suspected cause of death.
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte, a singer, songwriter and groundbreaking actor who started his entertainment career belting "Day O" in his 1950s hit song "Banana Boat" before turning to political activism, died at the age of 96 of congestive heart failure.
Belafonte was born in New York City's borough of Manhattan but spent his early childhood in his family's native Jamaica.
Handsome and suave, he came to be known as the "King of Calypso" early in his career.
He was the first Black person allowed to perform in many plush nightspots and also had racial breakthroughs in movies at a time when segregation prevailed in much of the United States.
As a Black leading man who explored racial themes in 1950s movies, Belafonte would later move on to working with his friend Martin Luther King Jr. during the U.S. civil rights movement in the early 1960s.
He became the driving force behind the celebrity-studded, famine-fighting hit song "We Are the World" in the 1980s.
Gordon Lightfoot
Canadian musician Gordon Lightfoot, the prolific singer-songwriter known for such folk-pop hits as "If You Could Read My Mind" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," died of natural causes at the age of 84.
Known for his evocative lyrics and melodic compositions, Lightfoot received five Grammy nominations over the years and won 17 Juno awards, Canada's equivalent music honor.
Lightfoot achieved the height of his popularity in the 1970s, with songs from albums such as "Sundown," "Summertime Dream" and "Dream Street Rose" that built on his guitar-driven folk roots to produce more rock and pop-oriented songs.
He retained a loyal following in Canada and the United States through extensive concert touring.
Valentin Yudashkin
Valentin Yudashkin, a Russian fashion designer known not only for flamboyant evening gowns but also for redesigning Russia's military uniforms, died from kidney cancer, aged 59.
Yudashkin, whose often theatrical designs have been exhibited in museums in France and the United States, first made his mark by dressing Raisa Gorbacheva, the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in the late 1980s.
In the 1990s, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, he became a Russian icon, styling national Olympic and soccer teams before, in 2008, redesigning 85 parade uniforms for all the branches of Russia's armed forces, together with Igor Chapurin.
Yudashkin said he had been influenced by his early years working in theatres to produce costumes from cheap materials.
Rita Lee
Renowned Brazilian rock singer and songwriter Rita Lee, an icon of the Tropicalia artistic movement, died at 75 following a two-year battle with lung cancer.
Born Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho, Lee was central to Brazil's politically charged Tropicalia movement, which emerged in defiance of a military dictatorship starting in 1964, and her work at the time was often censored.
With more than 20 albums recorded and 55 million records sold, her songs touched on issues related to feminism and sex in an era when such issues were taboo.
Ray Stevenson
Irish actor Ray Stevenson, known for his work on projects such as the ''Thor'' films, movie ''The Three Musketeers'' and TV show ''Rome", died aged 58. No cause of death was given at the time.
Stevenson began his career in the 1990s on the small screen British television shows ''Band of Gold'' and ''Peak Practice.''
His film debut came in 1998's ''The Theory of Flight'' with Helena Bonham Carter.
He was reportedly working on action film ''Cassino in Ischia'' when he died.
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, a mainstay of family entertainment in Britain and Australia for more than 50 years before his career collapsed into disgrace with his conviction for indecently assaulting young girls, died aged 93.
An artist and musician who first earned fame in the 1950s with the top 10 hit novelty song “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport”, Harris went on to present prime-time TV shows mostly aimed at children.
He performed with the Beatles, painted Queen Elizabeth's portrait and presented himself as the affable inventor of the novelty musical instrument, the wobble board.
But as his star faded, the veteran entertainer became one of the highest-profile celebrities to be embroiled in a massive British police investigation which followed revelations that the late BBC TV host Jimmy Savile had been a prolific child abuser.
In 2014, Harris was found guilty of 12 counts of assaulting four girls, some as young as seven or eight, between 1968 and 1986 and jailed for nearly six years, although one conviction was later overturned on appeal.
He faced further charges in 2017 but the jury was unable to reach verdicts and he was released from jail that year.
Harris denied all the charges.
Tina Turner
Tina Turner, the American-born singer who left a hardscrabble farming community and abusive relationship to become one of the top recording artists of all time, died after a long illness.
She was 83.
Turner began her career in the 1950s during the early years of rock 'n' roll and evolved into an MTV phenomenon.
With her taste for musical experimentation and bluntly worded ballads, Turner gelled perfectly with a 1980s pop landscape in which music fans valued electronically produced sounds and scorned hippie-era idealism.
The superstar was forthcoming about the abuse she suffered from her former husband during their marital and musical partnership in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sometimes nicknamed the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll," Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s. In that decade she landed a dozen songs in the Top 40, including "Typical Male," "The Best," "Private Dancer" and "Better Be Good to Me."
Her 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro drew 180,000 people, which remains one of the largest concert audiences for any single performer.
Glenda Jackson
Actor Glenda Jackson, a two-time Oscar winner who won acclaim for playing an English queen but later served as a socialist politician in the British parliament for 23 years, died after a brief illness. She was 87.
Jackson won an Academy Award in 1971 for lead actress in "Women in Love."
Her second Oscar came three years later for "A Touch of Class".
After more than three decades on stage and film, Jackson quit acting and took her no-nonsense, straight-talking style into politics, winning a seat at the age of 55 in parliament representing the left-of-centre Labour Party in a constituency in north London.
She was later appointed junior minister responsible for transport in London.
Jackson returned to acting in 2015 and the following year won critical acclaim for playing King Lear on stage. In 2018, she played 92-year-old A in Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women" on Broadway, a performance that won her a Tony Award.
Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin, a versatile and prolific American actor who thrived in both comic and dramatic roles and won an Oscar for playing a heroin-using grandfather in the 2006 film "Little Miss Sunshine," died at 89 from heart problems.
Arkin appeared in scores of films, was nominated for an Academy Award four times and won a Tony Award in 1963 for his first major stage role in Carl Reiner's "Enter Laughing".
His first major movie role also earned him an Oscar nomination - best actor for playing a Soviet sailor in the 1966 Cold War comedy "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!"
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