h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Omar Sharif
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33483877

He was 83 He must have been about 12 when he made Lawrence of Arabia!

I remember watching him in LofA and thinking that he was unutterably gorgeous. and then more recently I saw him in Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran (or whatever it's called in english) and I was reminded just how good an actor he was.

He really was good.

His appearance in the 2004 film "Hidalgo", based on an historic horse race in the mideast, with one of Buffalo Bill's wild west show riders competing is the first Omar Sharif credit that comes to my mind.

A wonderful actor.

And lets not forget his performance in Top Secret(1984).

http://youtu.be/61AWnIZrT5g

Aubrey Morris
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33564505

One of those actors who seemed to show up everywhere but was never exactly a star. Mr Deltoid was one of the creepiest characters he ever played, and he played a lot of... strange individuals.

Jon the Postman
http://www.contactmusic.com/news/jon-the-postman-dead_4846769

Probably not known too much outside of Manchester, or to anyone who wasn't a serious punk fan, he was a legend of the Manchester music scene in the late 70s. I saw him only once, after The Fall, on the day I missed seeing Joy Division by two hours http://www.joydiv.org/c280779.htm

Cilla
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33751060

Probably known quite a lot outside Liverpool, and to just about anyone really. Leastways anyone in Britain.

When Anyone Who Had a Heart and You're My World came out I can remember thinking how fantastic and distinctive her voice was, despite being only eight or nine at the time. And when she got her television series a few years later it was required viewing at our house. A midweek variety show of the kind you'd normally find on a Saturday night (a la Billy Cotton Band Show, Val Doonican, Rolf Harris, Black and White Minstrels) or a Sunday night (Sunday Night at the London Palladium). What a treat. Does British TV do variety shows at *any* time of the week any more?

George Cole
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33803144

Arthur Daley is without doubt one of the iconic British television comedy characters. Who's to say how he'd have turned out if a different actor had played the role, but George Cole was a perfect fit. Just as he was for his other, rather more overlooked character - Flash Harry from the St Trinian's films.

For once, ITV had it over the BBC - Arthur was far more believable than Del Boy, who sometimes came across as a bit of a grotesque by comparison, and didn't have the same gravitas

I loved Flash Harry and I always think there was a bit of him in Arthur Daley. A loveable rogue.
I, too, hadn't realised how old he was.

This part of my journal is getting a pretty good workout these days. Unfortunately.

Frank Gifford
http://www.wsj.com/articles/frank-gifford-broadcaster-and-football-great-dies-at-84-1439148149?mod=rss_US_News

I'll be honest - I know very little about Frank Gifford, but one thing I do know is that he was married to a woman called Kathy Lee, and she was co-host, with Regis Philbin, of a mid-morning chat show on American television called Live with Regis and Kathy Lee which I first saw long before I moved here, when I used to come and visit a very good friend (from America) who I met in London.

Despite it being daytime television, which is almost universally naff there was something about it that grabbed me, and when I came to live here with the former Mrs Gosho (and before I got my work permit), I'd watch it every morning

David Nobbs
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33843336

Ah, this one makes me particularly sad. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (along with The Good Life) is one of my two favourite sitcoms from the 1970s, and one of my favourites of all time. I was captivated by Reggie because he wasn't prepared to put up with being a cog in the machinery of commerce. Of course, it helped immensely that he was played by Leonard Rossiter.

I bought all three of the books. They're quite different in some respects, especially the relationship between Uncle Jimmy and Reggie's daughter, Linda, and between Reggie and Elizabeth. Much more... adult It wasn't until long after I'd left London and come here to Austin that I found out I used to drive past the building used for the outside shots of Sunshine Desserts at least twice a weekhttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bN9se-ul_aE/SPAHFjy63HI/AAAAAAAABSU/vtv4I5dHwV8/s1600/sunshine+desserts.jpg

It was in East Acton, not far from Wormwood Scrubs (in fact just off the DuCane Road, often mentioned in Steptoe and Son). It was demolished recently but images of it are still on Google Streetview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD2Avws8JIw

Last year I watched both series of A Bit of a Do. Reginald Perrin it ain't. A lot of it is quite difficult to watch. He also wrote for David Frost in the 1960s, and was one of the regular writers on The Two Ronnies in the 1970s (along with all of Monty Python).

He was one of the very few famous people I've followed on Twitter and not unfollowed after a short time. I can count those on one hand (if I was a polydactyl ).

And one particularly poignant one for us.

Trillian
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33841383

David Nobbs was a most fantastic writer. I read the Reggie Perrin books and they brought the characters to life so much more than the TV series (which was one of the best things to grace our screens. Ever).

I've read others of his, including Going Gently about a very old lady facing the end of her life. It reduced me, in the end, to a blubbering snotty gibbering wreck. On a plane back from Korea.

A completely underrated writer.

Stephen Lewis
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-33914037

Best known as Blakey and Smiler, obviously, but I reckon most people won't know that he was part of Joan Littlewood's company and wrote Sparrows Can't Sing. Until they read that BBC story.

He also had a cameo, as Blakey but driving a coach, in The Grimleys

Joy Beverley
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34114836

There's a bit of Lettice o' Coincidence here. I've recently been watching old episodes of Two of a Kind - One of Morecambe and Wise's old ITV shows from the 1960s when Sid and Dick were writing for them and they were still in black and white. Every programme begins with the caption 'Bernard Delfont presents'

Any road up. Although they're only 30 minutes long there are two musical acts in each show - a trad jazz band (Kenny Ball, Chris Barber, the Clyde Valley Stompers and the like), and (usually) the Beverley Sisters (also sometimes Susan Maughan).

It's interesting to see how, although Eric was every bit as funny and as clever with his ad libs as he we know him to be from their BBC shows, the material they had to work with written by Sid and Dick was so far below what Eddie Braben provided for them. You can tell that they're hamstrung by it.

This isn't the 'glasses and short fat hairy legs' series that I remember watching though - that became their trademark later in the run. It's series 1 from 1962.

Brian Sewell
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34304203

We shan't see diction like that again in our lifetime, or ever

Frank Tyson
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/sep/27/frank-tyson

Before my time, but one of those names you hear of and think 'I wish I'd been born earlier so I could have seen them in action'. My dad reckoned he saw Jack Hobbs play

RIP Gilligan

http://www.today.com/popculture/gilligan-star-bob-denver-dies-age-70-2D80554940

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