- Title: A look at the stars who passed away in 2017
- Date: 28th November 2017
- Summary: SHANGHAI, CHINA (FILE - MARCH 3, 2015) (REUTERS) ****WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** PRINCE WILLIAM WALKING ON RED CARPET AND SHAKING HANDS WITH PADDINGTON BEAR FIGURE PRINCE WILLIAM POSING WITH PADDINGTON BEAR FIGURE BERLIN, GERMANY (FILE - FEBRUARY 5, 2016) (REUTERS) ACTOR MICHAEL NYQVIST SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS AT PREMIERE OF 'COLONIA DIGNIDADA' PREMIERE NEW YORK CITY
- Embargoed: 12th December 2017 15:05
- Keywords: Adam West TV Martin Landau film John Hurt Hugh Hefner Bill Paxton music actress Chester Bennington Jeanne Moreau Chuck Berry musician Sam Shepard death Chris Cornell actor Glen Campbell Tom Petty Roger Moore Barbara Sinatra deaths
- Location: VARIOUS
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- Country: Various
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA00N79JQIQ5
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The showbiz world lost a number of big names in 2017 from film, TV, music and elsewhere.
One of the biggest stars to pass away was veteran rocker Tom Petty, best known for hits such as "Free Fallin'" and "American Girl," who died in October after he was found unconscious and in cardiac arrest, his manager said. He was 66.
The music world also lost Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell in May who died of hanging by suicide, the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office said.
Cornell, 52, was found dead in his Detroit hotel bathroom after playing a concert in the city with his grunge band. Cornell's publicist Brian Bumbery said that the singer's death was "sudden and unexpected."
Detroit police spokesman Dan Donakowski said that officers were called to Cornell's hotel around midnight by a friend of the musician and found Cornell "laying in his bathroom, unresponsive and he had passed away."
Cornell's funeral was attended by Hollywood performers including Brad Pitt and Josh Brolin.
Chester Bennington, the lead singer of Linkin Park, was found dead in July at his southern California home in an apparent suicide a week before his alt-rock band was due to embark on a North American tour.
"He was found hanging in his bedroom. No note was found," coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said. Winter added that there was an open bottle of alcohol in the bedroom but no drugs had been found.
British actor Roger Moore, who won international fame playing secret agent James Bond, died in May aged 89.
His 12 years as James Bond, the British agent with a voracious appetite for danger and sex, made Moore a millionaire and a heartthrob the world over.
Moore's big breakthrough as an actor came in 1962, when he won the part of "The Saint" in a popular television series of the same name. In this role, he honed his image of the urbane Englishman with a stream of damsels to rescue from distress.
In 1973 came the coveted part of James Bond, writer Ian Fleming's action man spy 007, who held cinemagoers across the world in thrall. The Bond films were said to have earned Moore 14 million pounds ($22 million).
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who helped usher in the 1960s sexual revolution with his groundbreaking men's magazine and built a business empire around his libertine lifestyle, died on September 27 at the age of 91.
Hefner, once called the "prophet of pop hedonism" by Time magazine, peacefully passed away at his home from natural causes, Playboy Enterprises said in a statement.
U.S. country singer Glen Campbell died on August 8 at the age of 81. The singer, famous for hits like "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Wichita Lineman," had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for several years. His publicist said he died in Nashville at an Alzheimer's facility, surrounded by his family.
Campbell began his career as a well-regarded recording session guitarist in Los Angeles before becoming a fixture on the U.S. music charts, radio and television in the 1960s and '70s. He won six Grammy Awards and had nine No. 1 songs in a career of more than 50 years.
Actor and Pulitzer-winning playwright Sam Shepard died in July from complications related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Shepard, 73, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his play "Buried Child," died at home in Kentucky, surrounded by his family, spokesman Chris Boneau said in a statement to Reuters.
Jeanne Moreau, the quintessential French actress whose mother was an English cabaret club dancer, died at 89 in July. Moreau, a petite chain-smoker, worked with most of the world's top directors of the first few decades after World War Two, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard and Wim Wenders among them.
Barbara Sinatra, the fourth wife of singer Frank Sinatra, also died in July at the age of 90. John Thoresen, director of the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center in Rancho Mirage, California, said in a statement that Sinatra died of natural causes, surrounded by her family and friends at her home in the desert city.
Born Barbara Blakely, she was a former model and Las Vegas showgirl who married the famed singer and actor in 1976. She had been married to Frank Sinatra for 22 years when he died of a heart attack in 1998.
Martin Landau, a talented and prolific character actor who achieved TV stardom in "Mission: Impossible" and won an Oscar for his portrayal of a washed-up Bela Lugosi in the sweetly bizarre 1994 film "Ed Wood," died at age 89 in July.
Landau died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles from unexpected complications during a short hospitalization for an undisclosed illness said his publicist Dick Guttman.
George A. Romero, creator of the zombie film genre with "Night of the Living Dead" and a series of sequels that left a lasting impact on horror movies, died of lung cancer in a Toronto hospital in July. He was 77.
Romeo wrote and directed the 1968 classic, in which the dead come back to life and eat the flesh of the living, and five sequels including the 1978 box office hit "Dawn of the Dead."
Michael Bond, the creator of children's literary character Paddington Bear, died in June aged 91 following a short illness.
First appearing in the 1958 story "A Bear called Paddington", the character was named after the London railway station where he was found, having arrived from "deepest, darkest Peru" according to Bond's famous description. Bond's publisher Harper Collins said he was enjoyed by generations of children, with more than 35 million books sold.
Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, best known for a leading role in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Swedish film series, died in Sweden on June 27 after a year-long battle with lung cancer, his representative said. He was 56.
Nyqvist "passed away quietly surrounded by family" in Stockholm, his spokeswoman said in a statement that called him "one of Sweden's most respected and accomplished actors."
Adam West, who earned a place in American pop culture history with his campy portrayal of the title character in the classic 1960s TV series "Batman," died at age 88 in June. West died after a short struggle with leukemia, his representative told Variety.
Movie director Jonathan Demme, best known for "The Silence of the Lambs" died at the age of 73 in April. Demme, who also directed the Oscar winning film "Philadelphia," was suffering from esophageal cancer, publicist Annalee Paulo said in a statement. New York-born Demme won the directing Oscar for the 1991 thriller "The Silence of the Lambs", which also won Oscars for best picture and for its stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster.
Iconic rock and roll musician Chuck Berry was laid to rest in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri after dying on March 18. Berry duck-walked his way into the pantheon of rock 'n' roll pioneers as one of its most influential guitarists and lyricists, creating raucous anthems that defined the genre's sound and heartbeat.
Joni Sledge, who along with her siblings formed the group Sister Sledge and recorded the enduring hit "We Are Family," died aged 60 in March. The Philadelphia-born Joni Sledge, along with her sisters Debbie, Kim and Kathy, formed the group Sister Sledge in 1971. Aside from "We Are Family," which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became an international hit, the group also was known for "He's the Greatest Dancer," "Lost in the Music" and a cover of the Motown classic "My Guy."
Jazz and R&B singer Al Jarreau, whose hits included "We're in This Love Together" and "Moonlighting", died in February in Los Angeles at age 76. Jarreau was considered one of jazz's greatest vocalists, with a mastery of scat singing and vocal percussion.
Veteran British actor John Hurt, Oscar-nominated for his star turn in "The Elephant Man" and his supporting role in "Midnight Express", died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in January. He was 77.
Hurt, who had starred in more than 200 films and television series over a career spanning six decades, revealed in 2015 that he was suffering from the early stages of pancreatic cancer and that he was receiving treatment.
Hurt, a native of Derbyshire in England, garnered his first Academy Award nomination for his supporting role as Max, an inmate who befriends the imprisoned drug smuggler Billy inside a Turkish jail in the gripping 1978 drama "Midnight Express".
He earned greater acclaim, and an Oscar nomination as best lead actor, for his memorable portrayal of John Merrick, a grossly disfigured Victorian-era man struggling to project his humanity while enduring the indignities of life as a side-show freak.
Emmy-winning actress Mary Tyler Moore, who brightened American television screens as the perky suburban housewife on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and then as a fledgling feminist on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," also died in January at the age of 80.
Moore, who won seven Emmy Awards for her television work, died in the company of friends and her husband, Dr. S. Robert Levine.
Veteran Bollywood actor Om Puri Puri, 66, who successfully straddled movie careers in Bollywood and the West, died of a cardiac arrest in January. Puri cut his teeth in the 1980s with alternative art cinema that found a niche audience in India, playing several memorable characters which depicted the angst of the times.
American actor Bill Paxton, who rose to stardom with roles in Hollywood blockbusters such as "Aliens" and "Titanic," died at age 61 after complications from surgery in February. Paxton, who appeared in dozens of films over some four decades, had recently starred in the HBO television series, "Big Love," about a polygamous Mormon family, and acted alongside Tom Cruise in the film, "Edge of Tomorrow."
Don Rickles, the master insult comic who created laughs with ridicule and sarcasm in a decades-long career that earned him the facetious nickname "Mr. Warmth," died in April at his Los Angeles home from kidney failure. He was 90.
The New York-born Rickles had an intense, often-ad libbed, rapid-fire delivery and a wide, impish grin. He delighted nightclub audiences, Hollywood royalty and politicians by hurling invective at them, all in good fun.
Jerry Lewis, the high prince of low-brow comedy on stage and in movies as well as a fund-raising powerhouse with his annual Labor Day telethon, died in August of "natural causes" at the age of 91, his family said.
Lewis rose to fame as a goofy foil to suave partner Dean Martin and was a comic icon in France. He had a movie revival in 1983, winning acclaim as an arrogant talk show host kidnapped by an obsessed fan in "The King of Comedy." He scored another late-career triumph with his 1995 Broadway debut in a revival of "Damn Yankees".
Prodigy, one half of New York rapper duo Mobb Deep, died in June days after being hospitalized for complications related to sickle cell anemia. He was 42. Prodigy, born Albert Johnson, was admitted to a Las Vegas hospital after a Mobb Deep performance in the city, his publicist Roberta Magrini told Reuters in a statement. The rapper had suffered from sickle cell anemia, a hereditary blood disorder, since birth.
The death of Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie, a music superstar beloved for songs about culture, small towns and hockey, triggered an outpouring of tributes and grief across Canada in October. Downie, 53, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2015, died surrounded by his family, according to a family statement.
Comedian Dick Gregory, who took an active role in the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, died at age 84 in August.
British socialite and TV personality Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, known as an 'It girl' in the 90s for her party lifestyle and god-daughter of Prince Charles, died at the age of 45 in February. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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