RIP David Carradine

Kwai Chang Caine's long journey is finally at an end. Bill has met his maker. And the fellow from the Yellow Pages ads is now gone far away.

David Carradine, the seventy-something star of "Kung Fu," Kill Bill and lots more besides, was found hanged in a hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand earlier today. A local newspaper asserts that he committed suicide but, as of now, I don't believe there's any official word one way or the other. (Carradine's agent has since claimed he believes the actor died of natural causes.)

He was filming a new movie, Stretch, at the time of his death.

This is sad news, folks. Carradine could play just about anything, with an impish sense of humor and a gravity in those eyes of a life fully lived. He'll be missed.

RIP, Mr. Carradine, and God bless you.

Patrick McGoohan, RIP

Actor, producer, writer and director Patrick McGoohan passed away in Los Angeles today at the age of 80.

Best known as "Number Six" in THE PRISONER, a 17-episode series he created as a kind-of continuation of DANGER MAN (there has been some controversy over this, btw), McGoohan also starred in, wrote and directed a number of Columbo TV movies (winning two Emmys in the process); he also starred in the Disney production of "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" and Mel Gibson's epic "Braveheart." He was also in David Cronenberg's SCANNERS, for you genre fans.

I remember watching The Prisoner with disbelief and absolute confusion at the age of 11 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. It was in reruns on a local station at an odd hour, and the surreal show blew my circuits. McGoohan's Number Six was a model of privacy, self-control and integrity unlike nearly anything else in the rather dissolute '70s. (I know, it was broadcast in the '60s but I didn't discover it until much later.) McGoohan was one of those actors who is always watchable, always fascinating.

Very sad, but McGoohan created much that we value even today. (A remake of The Prisoner is currently underway on AMC with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen.)

Rest in peace, Mr. McGoohan, and thank you.

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Majel Barrett Roddenberry, RIP

Nurse Christine Chapel, Lwaxana Troi and Number One have taken their last ride on the Starship Enterprise. Majel Barrett Roddenberry passed away in Bel Air, CA, on December 18th following a struggle with leukemia. She was 76.

Regarded as the "first lady of Star Trek," not only for her long marriage to creator Gene Roddenberry but also for her role in the original series and its subsequent movies (not to mention her semi-regular role as "Lwaxana Troi" on Star Trek: the Next Generation"), as well as lending her vocal talents as the computer voice on all four spinoff series and multiple computer and video games.

Though best known as Nurse (later Doctor) Chapel, where her storyline revolved around a frustrated romantic interest in Mr. Spock, she was originally hired to be the Enterprise's first officer--which was later rejected by the studio as unrealistic. She was retained in the cast (one of the few actors to achieve that distinction) when a second pilot was shot with William Shatner as the new lead.

She is the only actor who can claim to have been part of every incarnation of Star Trek.

Her last role, as the voice of the U.S.S. Enterprise's computer, will be in Star Trek (2009), in theaters next spring.