Award Contenders

   Per the Associated Press:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Actress Patricia Neal, who won an Oscar in 1964 for Hud and later fought back from crippling strokes, has died at age 84.

Neal had lung cancer and died at her home in Edgarton, Mass., on Martha’s Vineyard, Sunday morning, said longtime friend Bud Albers of Knoxville, Tenn.

The Kentucky-born Neal, famous for her husky voice, was already a Tony-winning stage actress when she made her film debut in 1949. Among her movies were The Fountainhead and A Face in the Crowd.

The year after winning the Academy Award, she suffered a series of strokes and had to relearn to walk and talk. But she returned to the screen and earned another Oscar nomination and three Emmy nominations.

Albers said her family let him know of her death. A stroke and brain injury rehabilitation center is named for her in Knoxville.

   Following yesterday’s tragic news of Gary Coleman, we now have lost another acting legend in Dennis Hopper.  The two time Academy Award nominee (for writing: Easy Rider, for acting: Hoosiers) passed away at his home in Venice, California due to complications with prostate cancer.  He was 74 years old.

   Hopper became a screen legend as Billy, in his counter culture film Easy Rider, opposite Peter Fonda in 1969.  But before that he starred in classics such as Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, The Sons of Katie Elder, Cool Hand Luke and Hang ‘em High.  Beyond Rider, he starred in True Grit, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Hoosiers, Speed, and Waterworld.

   I think I will most remember him for Easy Rider, though I loved him most as Shooter in Hoosiers.  What was your favorite Dennis Hopper role?

   The legendary jazz singing actress has passed away at age 92.  Nikki Finke at deadline.com had the following announcement:

She died tonight at a hospital in Manhattan. She was 92. The modern-day world knew her best as a singer. But Lena Horne was the first black performer signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio — in 1942 she appeared in Panama Hattie for MGM where she languished in mostly musicals, her film career thwarted by the color of her skin. She started in the chorus at The Cotton Club, graduated to Broadway and then the movies. Her last film was 1978′s The Wiz. She came back to Broadway to win a Tony Award for her 1981 one-woman show: “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music”. But she gained her status as a living legend primarily as a recording artist and nightclub singer.

   I will remember her mostly for her performance of the song “Stormy Weather” in the same named film (released on my birthday in 1943).  And, of course, for her Cosby Show episode when she sang to Cliff on his birthday.