By Adam Hetrick | Playbill Stage and screen actor Ethel Ayler, an original cast member of August Wilson’s Fences, who was perhaps best-known for her recurring role as Carrie Hanks on The Cosby Show died November 18 at the age of 88. Ayler began her professional career...
Jordan Simon | Shadow and Act In an interview with Bevy Smith on her SiriusXM show Bevelations, Tyler Perry confirmed that his character of Madea would be making her final appearance very soon. Perry says the character will make her final appearance in Tyler Perry’s A...
By Laura Collins-Hughes | The New York Times Ntozake Shange, a spoken-word artist who morphed into a playwright with her canonical play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” died on Saturday in Bowie, Md. She was 70. Her death was...
Mike Barnes | The Hollywood Reporter Roger Robinson, the veteran character actor who won a Tony Award, starred in such films as Brother to Brother and had recurring roles on Kojak and How to Get Away With Murder, has died. He was 78. Robinson died Wednesday in...
Rafa Burgos | El País Al Matthews, a US actor, singer and former Marine who served in the Vietnam War, was found dead on Sunday in his house in Orihuela Costa, in the Spanish Mediterranean province of Alicante. He was 75 years old. A neighbor called the emergency...
By Chris Morris | Variety “Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin, the eruptive singer who reigned atop the pop and R&B charts in the late ’60s and early ’70s with a succession of albums and singles of unparalleled power and emotional depth, has died, according to the...
by Bruce Haring | Deadline Hollywood Matt “Guitar” Murphy, best known as one of the stalwarts of the Blues Brothers Band and a renowned sideman with Howlin’ Wolf, Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters, James Cotton and many others, has died. He was 88 and his death was confirmed...
By Peter Warren | AVN LOS ANGELES—Adult legend and AVN Hall of Famer Johnnie Keyes, best known for his role opposite Marilyn Chambers in the iconic 1972 Mitchell Brothers film Behind the Green Door, died Sunday in Seattle, Washington, from complications following a...
by Denise Petski | Deadline Hollywood DuShon Monique Brown, known for her role as Connie, Assistant to Chief Boden, on NBC’s Chicago Fire, died Friday. The Cook County medical examiner’s office tells The Chicago Tribune that Brown died shortly after noon at St. James...
by Bruce Haring | Deadline Hollywood Director Idrissa Ouedraogo of Burkina Faso, a giant of African cinema, died Sunday. He was 64, according to his country’s national filmmakers guild. The cause of death was not revealed. The prolific Ouedraogo was best known for...
By Ariana Brockington | Variety Actor Reg E. Cathey, who played Freddy on “House of Cards” and appeared in “The Wire,” has died. He was 59 and had reportedly been battling cancer. Known for his distinctive baritone voice, Reginald Eugene Cathey began acting in 1984 in...
by Denise Petski | Deadline Hollywood UPDATED with CBS statement: Della Reese, the iconic jazz, gospel and pop singer who later moved into television and film, and starred as Tess on Touched By An Angel, has died. She was 86. Her former Touched By An Angel co-star...
By Rob Frehse | CNN Earle Hyman, a longtime stage and TV actor who was best known for playing Bill Cosby’s father on “The Cosby Show,” died Friday. Hyman was 91. He died at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, according to Jordan...
By Richard Natale | Variety Emmy Award-winning actor Robert Guillaume, best known as the title character in the TV sitcom “Benson,” died Tuesday. He was 89. His wife Donna Brown Guillaume told the Associated Press he died at their Los Angeles home of complications of...
By Associated Press Bernie Casey, a professional football player turned poet, painter and actor known for parts in films such as “Revenge of the Nerds” and “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” has died. He was 78. Casey died Tuesday ( September 19,...
by Dino-Ray Ramos | Deadline Hollywood Celebrated stand-up comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory died today in Washington at the age of 84. The trailblazing figure was hospitalized earlier this month from a yet-to-be-announced medical condition. His official...
Ryan Parker | The Hollywood Reporter The stuntwoman who died Monday on the set of Deadpool 2 has been identified as SJ Harris, the Coroner’s Service of British Columbia told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 40. Harris was killed during a motorcycle stunt gone...
MORSE, SR., DONALD “DONL” LEE, Funeral Services for Donald “Donl” Lee Morse, Sr., 59, formerly of Altamonte Springs who passed away on Friday, May 1, 2009 will be held at 12PM Saturday, May 16, 2009 at Head Quarters Ministries, Inc., 1130...
Mike Barnes | The Hollywood Reporter Actor Ji-Tu Cumbuka, who appeared on Roots and in such films as Bound for Glory, Brewster’s Millions and Harlem Nights, has died. He was 77. Cumbuka died Tuesday in Atlanta after a long illness, his niece, Amber Holifield, reported...
by Ross A. Lincoln | Deadline Hollywood Ron Glass, veteran film and television actor best known for his Emmy-nominated role as Detective Ron Harris on the classic ABC sitcom Barney Miller and for playing Shepherd Book on the cult favorite Fox sci-fi series Firefly and...
by Ross A. Lincoln | Deadline Hollywood Funk, soul and R&B singer Sharon Jones, lead singer of the revivalist funk band Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, has died following a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 60. Nominated for a Grammy in 2014 , the next...
from PBS Newshour | Thirteen It is with extremely heavy hearts that we must share that our dear friend and beloved colleague Gwen Ifill passed away this afternoon following several months of cancer treatment. She was surrounded by loving family and many friends whom...
Variety | Variety Staff Actor Tommy Ford, a regular on the Fox comedy “Martin” and UPN sitcom “The Parkers,” was taken off life support an Atlanta hospital Wednesday afternoon. Ford was on life support after an aneurysm ruptured in his abdomen. He was 52. Ford’s rep...
Shadow and Act | Tambay Obenson “‘School Daze’ was one of the highlights of my life because it was the first chance I had to act on screen. I would have been happy if that had been it, because I proved that I could do it.” – Bill Nunn. And thankfully, that wasn’t it,...
by Greg Evans | Deadline Hollywood Kyle Jean-Baptiste, a 21-year-old New York actor who made his Broadway starring debut July 23 in Les Miserables as the youngest — and Broadway’s first African-American =- Jean Valjean died August 21 night in a home accident, falling...
Christopher Morris | Variety.com Singer-guitarist B.B. King, the “King of the Blues” who helped define his genre’s electrified postwar sound and became the music’s best-known international ambassador, has died. He was 89. His attorney said he died Thursday in Las...
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — Actor Alton “Ben” Powers, known for his role in the 1970s CBS television series “Good Times,” has died at age 64. Powers died April 6 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, according to the Auclair Funeral Home, which is...
Robert (Bobby) Johnson, a tap dancer in vaudeville and on the musical-comedy stage, died of a cardiac arrest Sunday while on his way to St. Vincent’s Hospital for dialysis treatment. He lived in Manhattan and would have been 61 years old on Jan. 21. At his...
