Rest In Peace, Martin Landau and Thomas E. Sanders

[calliopes_pen]

Martin Landau has passed away at the age of 89, after “suffering complications during a brief hospitalization.” May he rest in peace.

I remember him mostly for how great he was as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood (1994). He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor the role. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen the original Mission: Impossible series, or Space: 1999. He was in an episode of Columbo where he played twins—I’ve seen that episode once, a while back on Me-TV. After going through IMDB, I also learned that he was the voice of Mac Gargan/The Scorpion, in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

I spotted North By Northwest via Comcast On Demand’s Turner Classic Movies section (can’t get the channel, but I can get the On Demand version of it) just the other day, and wondered if I should give it a watch. So now I will. I may also track down Strange Shadows In An Empty Room (1976) and The Fall of the House of Usher (1979), since he plays Roderick Usher.

Thomas E. Sanders has passed away, at the age of 63, after a battle with cancer. May he rest in peace. He was the production designer for Crimson Peak (2015), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). For Star Trek fans, he did production design for Star Trek Beyond. I’ll be watching Crimson Peak again this evening.

(And apparently, linking to Deadline is considered spam. Therefore, it cannot accept the crosspost with that link. So on the LJ side, the only link is the Star Trek.com article.)

Comments

[spikewriter]

Absolutely, watch North By Northwest. Marvelous film, top-notch acting from a number of folks, including Leo G. Carroll. Landau's turn as Leonard is great, a thug, who never descends into simple thuggishness. It is one of Hitchcock's best. He's also in Cleopatra, btw, playing Richard Burton's sidekick (not sure what else to call Rufio because that's the role it fills).

I met Landau once at a Space: 1999 convention back in the late 70's, shortly after the show had gone out of production. He was delightful, very gregarious, and when someone asked about his daughters when he was at our table at the banquet, he whipped out his wallet without hesitation and played the proud papa, showing off pictures of his girls. So, yes, the first time I saw Juliet Landau, it was in a picture in her dad's wallet.

Sanders is a loss. Beautiful design sense and it's sad that we won't have more of his talent. "Oh, that he had one more song to sing..."