Gone but Not Forgotten

We've been remiss of lately marking the passing of showbiz greats and with Oscar night fast approaching and with it another "in memoriam" people we've lost are suddenly in mind. (This time of year is always a major challenge to keep up with given the mania of awards season.) Here are five stars, four of whom became famous right around the same time as each other, that passed away in December.

Let this small remembrance make amends for our lateness in paying tribute...

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Robert Forster (1941-2019)

Photographed by © Hama Sanders

As you have undoubtedly heard by now the Oscar-nominated Robert Forster (of Jackie Brown fame) passed away last Friday of brain cancer at 78 years of age. This news came as quite a shock to us here at TFE, which is part of why we haven't mentioned it...

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Diahann Carroll (1935 -2019)

Another legend has left us. Diahann Carroll has passed away at 84 years of age. She was a major pioneer for black actresses in Hollywood, emerging just as things were beginning to happen (a little bit) for actors of color in Hollywood. She made her debut in the historic Carmen Jones (1954) starring Dorothy Dandridge, who then became the first black woman nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. Then in 1962 Diahann Carroll achieved a "first" herself, becoming the first black woman to win a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical with No Strings. By 1968 she was also a TV star headlining a sitcom for three seasons when black stars didn't do that (1968's Julia) and winning a Golden Globe in the role.

More after the jump including lots of gorgeous photos...

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Valerie Harper (1939-2019)

by Nathaniel R

Emmy & Golden Globe winner Valerie Harper, who rose to considerable fame as Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off Rhoda, passed away yesterday after a long battle with brain cancer which doctors thought would end her life years ago. And it wasn't her first such battle either. She'd survived lung cancer in 2009, returning triumphantly to showbiz with a smashing performance as Tallulah Bankhead in the play "Looped" in 2010. Though The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda were before our time as showbiz conoisseurs we did catch her in Looped on Broadway and were thrilled to see her justly Tony-nominated for what was surely a taxing but also a bewitching performance...

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Let Them All Link

• Salon The Marvelous Mrs Maisel's Emmy campaign disrupts Los Angeles with 1959-era prices 
• The Atlantic's "friendship files" talks to three thirtysomething women who all cosplay Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow 
• Slate comparing the starpower of 2019's Little Women to the starpower (back in the day) of the 1994 cast - Saoirse vs Winona and more. Really fun article but the part on Sarandon and Dern is a major misread of the mid-90s. Sarandon was at the very peak of her fame in 1994, headlining a sleeper blockbuster (The Client) and building yet more momentum to win her inevitable Oscar win the following year. She should have bested Dern (who we loooove, don't get us wrong).

 After the jump The Godfather, Faye Dunaway's trouble, Steven Soderbergh's secret movie, Mulan trouble, Kristin Chenoweth's breakout and more...

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