NO, I AM A GONER
2024 may remain a slow slog of the year, but it’s still claimed some legends, and now we’ve got the booming timbre of James Earl Jones to narrate the necrology. From a leading Shakespearean actor of the 50s (in the face of an environment where opportunities for black actors were sparse) to an Oscar nomination as a troubled boxer in The Great White Hope to Darth Vader and Mufasa to narrating Poe for The Simpsons, he elevated anything he was in and left us all belting out a mighty NOOOOOOOOO.
If Mufasa met his death with a sneering “long live the King”, Maggie Smith was so esteemed that she was a rare entertainment figure to be eulogised by the King. As with Jones, she cut her teeth in acclaimed theatre work and was a collaborator and friendly rival to Olivier. She won the Triple Crown of acting in a CV that encompassed The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, California Suite, Death on the Nile, Murder by Death, and countless other classics, and enjoyed continued relevancy in the twilight of her career such as old-world matriarch Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey.
Plenty of gut punches to the childhood this September: David Graham earned leagues of fans through his voice work on Thunderbirds (such as butler Aloysius Parker and aquanaut Gordon Tracy), the Daleks, and Grandpa Pig on Peppa Pig. Peter Renaday voiced Splinter, rat mentor to our pizza-munching heroes, on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Abe Lincoln in Disney World’s Hall of Presidents, Animaniacs, and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Brian Trueman wrote many episodes of Danger Mouse on top of contributing to Count Duckula, Wallace & Gromit, and Thomas the Tank Engine. For older audiences Kenneth Cope was the ghost sleuth Hopkirk in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and the scheming Jed Stone in Corrie (and had been floated as a deadpool possibility over a decade with advanced COPD), and another cobbles figure we lost was Geoffrey Hinsliff, who played the turbulent cabbie Don Brennan.
The world of music saw the Reaper want Jackson brother Tito Jackson back, bossa nova-er Sérgio Mendes become Menos que Nada, and no miracles promised for Simple Minds/Midge Ure drummer Kenny Hyslop. Jazz saxophonist Benny Golson was the penultimate survivor of the “A Grand Day in Harlem” photo (leaving just Sonny Rollins), Caterina Valente could sing in 13 different languages and was one of the earliest surviving charting acts on either side of the pond, while James Darren went from teen idol heartbreak (for instance, singing about joining the circus after his girl left him in “Goodbye Cruel World”) to a respected acting career in T. J. Hooker and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Sport notables were Liverpool captain Ron Yeats, golfer Brian Huggett, and snooker player-turned-popular commentator Clive Everton. Tony Soper increased enthusiasm for birdwatching as an amiable wildlife presenter on programmes such as Animal Magic. A beastly figure of a lesser type was paedo swimming coach Dick Caine and a widow of another beast was Rolf Harris’s widow Alwen Hughes.
Political deaths were headlined by another fecker, the ex-Peruvian dictator and eternal coffin tease Alberto Fujimori. His hardliner message was so popular at one point that he won the 1990 presidential election in an upset and easily defeated defeated action hero Javier Pérez de Cuellar in the 1995 election, but spent most of this millennium in a jail cell for corruption and human rights abuses. Ones with a little more reason for mourning: Commonwealth Secretary-General Shridath Ramphal fought apartheid, ex Washington state governor Daniel J. Evans bolstered environmental protections in his state, and Marjorie Flora Fraser livened up the House of Lords for decades.
Little has changed in the race to the top, with Octopus of Odstock still dangling a point behind Banana.