Celebrities You Didn't Know Had Died

[The Mighty Ducks]

(From Cracked.com)

TAYLOR NEGRON

HOW - Liver Cancer

You've seen him in countless movies and TV shows. Likely half of his IMDB page hits are people who thought "what the shit was that guy in?!" Taylor Negron was that guy. And he was very good at it. One of his earliest roles was in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, when he famously delivered Jeff Spicoli's pizza mid-class.



He played other service industry employees in his young career: a mailman in Better Off Dead, a gas station attendant in One Crazy Summer. He was never a star, but the guy stayed busy.



Negron also was an accomplished comedian and playwright. He started working the LA club circuit while he was still in high school. Among the people reading this, he's probably most well known for being the bad guy in the "kinda decent when you're 15, but terrible when you grow up" Bruce Willis vehicle The Last Boy Scout.



Numerous cameos in Seinfeld, Friends, and uh ... The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas ensured that his Wikipedia page would be in a steady rotation for curious viewers.

[The Mighty Ducks]

RICHARD BONEHILL

HOW - Unknown



The advantage of a fictional universe in which most of the population is either wearing a mask or in heavy monster makeup is that you can use the same actors over and over again. The downside for the performers is that's a pretty hard way to get famous. For instance, not even Star Wars fans know the name Richard Bonehill, despite being probably the busiest actor in the entire trilogy.



Bonehill was basically the Swiss army knife in George Lucas' pocket. Whatever character was needed for a scene, he had the guy for the job. Need an extra Stormtrooper? "Richard! Get in here!" Down one TIE fighter pilot? "Bonehill! Stage three!"

Other roles he assumed in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi were as a rebel fighter, a Tauntaun handler, and, most famously, as Lando Calrissian's co-pilot Nien Nunb. A travelling spaceship's rearview mirror never revealed a more debonair/bewildering sight than the Millennium Falcon approaching from behind:



He wasn't just limited to one franchise, either. He was basically the guy to call if you needed some sword work in your film. A skilled fencer and bladesman, Bonehill instructed actors how best to not murder themselves in films such as Rob Roy, Highlander, and Flash Gordon. But now you know he was the man in the Ree-Yees costume, and his legacy is secure behind that triad-of-dicks mask.

[The Mighty Ducks]

HARRIS WITTELS

HOW - Drug Overdose



Harris Wittels was one young, beloved comedy writer and performer, who packed a huge body of work into a short life. At once a frequent podcast guest, stand-up comedian, TV writer/producer, and even a drummer in a comics-led band, he helped lead a kind of alternative brand of comedy with the likes of Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, and Louis C.K., whom he also toured with.

He coined the term "humblebrag," which is a boast clothed in a self-critical disguise ("I'm so clumsy, I accidentally spilled coffee in my Lamborghini! #klutz"), which became so popular it led to a book on the subject, and an enormously popular Twitter feed.

But Wittels' crowning achievement would have to be Parks And Recreation. While he had writing and producing success on shows such as Eastbound & Down, when he began writing (and later producing) Parks after the first season, the show hit its stride. He would become executive producer by season four.

Wittels excelled at self-deprecation. Whether it was shitting on his own B-list material on Comedy Bang! Bang! or documenting his struggles with addiction, he never failed to poke fun at his own humanity.

[The Mighty Ducks]

JACK ELY

HOW - Natural Causes



If you think it's hard to understand what Kurt Cobain or Bob Dylan were saying in most of their songs, take an ear gander at Jack Ely. As a result of being thrust into singing a song at the last minute in order to achieve a "live feel," the impromptu vocalist reared his head back and screamed the 1963 hit "Louie Louie."



The record-buying public wasn't the only group that had trouble with the hard-to-discern lyrics. Rumors began to swirl that some of the words were of a pornographic nature, especially if one slowed the record down. Even the FBI stepped in to investigate.



It turns out, the song is merely about a sailor who misses his gal back home. The titular "Louie" is a bartender that has to hear about the poor guy's problems. The FBI either realized this fact or just plain didn't care in the end, as they came to the conclusion that the lyrics were "unintelligible at any speed."

[The Mighty Ducks]

ELLEN ALBERTINI DOW

HOW - Lived to 101 years old



Any aspiring actors out there bummed that you haven't landed a film role yet? Well, Ellen Albertini Dow didn't get her first role until she was freaking 72 years old, after spending decades teaching theater and dance. She pursued acting as a retirement project ... then proceeded to work for another three goddamned decades. If you don't know her from the "Rapper's Delight" scene in The Wedding Singer.

---

Also, you saw her as the foul-mouthed granny in Wedding Crashers.

She was also in a bunch of movies that didn't have "Wedding" in the title, but you get the idea.

[The Mighty Ducks]

DUSTY RHODES

HOW - Stomach Cancer



Virgil Runnels was just a man who wore polka-dot wrestling shorts, utilized a vicious "Bionic Elbow" finishing move, and garnered numerous championships in both the NWA and WWF wrestling leagues. Wrestling fans know him better as Dusty Rhodes, "The American Dream." Rhodes was not a sculpted model of physique like Hulk Hogan, but what he lacked in any muscle tone whatsoever, he made up for with charisma.

Rhodes was up for anything, be it barbed wire or cage matches, or free-for-all Battle Royals, he brought his exuberance and facial blood to every gathering. Rhodes observed that in some of these brutal encounters, he would have to "feel around and see if my nose is still on my face, look up in the morning, and see if my ears are still on my head."



Rhodes went on to be enshrined in the Hall Of Fame in several wrestling leagues, and even had two of his sons follow in his footsteps, albeit in slightly better physical shape.

[The Mighty Ducks]

JAMES HORNER

HOW - Plane Crash



James Horner was an absolute movie music giant: Aliens, Field Of Dreams, Glory, Apollo 13, Braveheart, freaking Titanic ... he's the guy who created those big, emotional scores that made you want to start bawling before you even knew what the movie was about. Nominated for 10 Oscars, which seems a little on the slim side, his scores each had a singular theme that burrowed its way inside your brain. In all, he composed the music for over 150 films.

Oh, and Horner also had a hand in crafting the adventures you grew up with, including An American Tail, Willow, and Jumanji.

Horner learned the piano at age 5, was doing the scores for low-budget movies right after he got out of college, and a few years after that, he was scoring Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. Probably three-fourths of the Earth's population has heard at least one Horner tune in their lives and, unless they paid close attention to the credits, the vast majority of them never knew his name.

[The Mighty Ducks]

SATORU IWATA

HOW - Cancer



Satoru Iwata was one of the first corporate titans of gaming who actually grew up as a gamer. He grew up playing Pong and became president of Nintendo at the tender age of 42. He had some big shoes to fill, too -- the guy he succeeded (Hiroshi Yamauchi) had sat in that chair for 53 years and was the one who, back in the '80s, had the weird idea that Nintendo should try making video games for a change.

Iwata guided Nintendo through the GameCube, Wii, and DS years, and never came off like a "suit." Maybe that's because he wasn't -- he was a programmer by trade and, right out of college, worked on games like Earthbound and Kirby, and an early prototype of what would become Super Smash Bros. He often took to YouTube to address fans in a series of awkward and adorable videos.

Honestly, if we'd previously been forced to create a mental picture of how Nintendo's president looks and acts, it would pretty much be exactly that -- Luigi hat and all.

[The Mighty Ducks]

GEORGE COE

HOW - Long Illness



If you're an Archer fan and thought that Sterling's heroin-addicted butler Woodhouse was performed by some comedian doing an old man voice, think again. That was the voice of George Coe, who acted for half a century and was one of the original, if sporadic, cast members of Saturday Night Live. After five decades in the biz, he got what was almost certainly his best part.

Poor Woodhouse. The character was actually recast in season five (voiced by Tom Kane) and will continue to be a big part of the show. Some fans presumably never knew anything changed, so the next time you catch an episode, take a moment to appreciate a Hollywood veteran who was doing cool stuff right up to the end.

[xx - Camp Cannon]

i think everyone heard about nintendo guy

[Ferocity]

Woodhouse being dead is sad. Archer is great.

[The Mighty Ducks]

OLIVER SACKS

HOW - Cancer



Oliver Sacks could have just lived his life as the kickass neurologist that he was and been fine. He earned degrees at Oxford University and then migrated to a hospital in the Bronx, where he experimented with a drug called L-dopa, intended to treat patients who were victims of a worldwide pandemic of sleeping sickness.

The medication worked, and the patients miraculously awoke, though obviously compromised. You may recall this as a similar story to the Oscar-nominated film Awakenings, which starred Robert De Niro as a patient going through the same kind of illness and treatment. That's because Sacks also wrote the book that the movie was based on.



He actually made a pretty good secondary living writing books related to the cases the he had once handled. None would reach the success of Awakenings, but what could top the story of a whole group of people coming back to life after decades stuck in a mental deep freeze?

[The Mighty Ducks]

ALAN PURWIN

HOW - Plane Crash



Since the days of Airwolf, helicopter operator Alan Purwin has been the go-to guy when you want some incredible helicopter shots in your movie. His work has been in everything from Transformers to The Italian Job, in which he basically made the entirety of downtown Los Angeles his helicopter-y bitch. Here's a scene in which the Purwin-led chopper is weaving through a major metropolis pursuing a Mini Cooper, a description that is precisely half-badass.

Alan Purwin didn't just help create a sky battlefield for Optimus Prime's circle jerks. He also helped people. He created a company called Helinet Aviation Services in 1987. That company would go on to be responsible for some of the most harrowing overhead footage of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. Using its unique position (the air), the company would radio the Coast Guard and other authorities as to where rescue efforts were needed.

Purwin also used his unique position (in the air) to provide services for people who needed them quickly. Knowing that the Los Angeles area is a jumbled web of despair when it comes to getting around, he joined the board of directors at a children's hospital. Using his status and the fact that "hey, I have these helicopters," he made a huge difference in getting sick children the care and organ transplants they needed desperately. The transports he provided for the kids were often at little to no charge. And say what you will about Michael Bay, but the man clearly was affected by doing so much work in cinema with Alan Purwin. Bay even made a loving kind of mixtape in his honor after his death, featuring some of the best footage the beautiful pilot had ever shot.

[The Mighty Ducks]

JACKIE COLLINS

HOW - Breast Cancer



They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but you could pretty much judge Jackie Collins' books by title alone. Her bibliography includes The Bitch, The Stud, Lethal Seduction, Confessions Of A Wild Child, and Poor Little Bitch Girl. Her novels were actually banned in some markets in the 1960s for being too explicit, but audiences clearly disagreed -- her publisher boasts more than 500 million copies of her books in print in 40 countries.

A high school dropout who moved to Hollywood as a teenager, Collins claimed to have had an affair with Marlon Brando when she was 15 and he was 29. However, if that really happened or if it's just a product of an erotic fiction author's imagination is anyone's guess.

[The Mighty Ducks]

KEN TAYLOR

HOW - Colon Cancer



If you've caught the film Argo, you were entranced at both Ben Affleck's ability to skim over history and the tense, tricky rescue of six Americans who became trapped in Iran in 1979. The movie did little to tell the story of one Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador who probably had more to do with their lives continuing than the CIA themselves.

When the U.S. embassy was swarmed by a gaggle of disgruntled Iranians, most people inside were taken hostage, except six people who ended up being taken in by Taylor at his personal residence in Iran. For three months. He then secured plane tickets for the Americans and even arranged for them to receive Canadian passports. So, when the film came out and made Canada look like Scottie Pippen to the CIA's Michael Jordan, Taylor got pissed -- or, at least, as pissed as a Canadian can get. He said:

"We took the six in without being asked, so it starts there ... and the fact that we got them out with some help from the CIA, then that's where the story loses itself. I think Jimmy Carter has it about right: It was 90 percent Canada, 10 percent the CIA."

The final shot fired across the bow was when Ken Taylor said that the movie's lead, agent Tony Mendez (portrayed by Affleck), was only in Iran for a day and a half.

Dammmnnnnnnn. At least most American folks understood what Taylor did at the time. Minnesota natives sent thank-you messages to Canadian state officials, and people in Detroit adorned billboards that sat on the Canadian border with maple leaves and thank yous.