This year, we've lost actors who flitted between movies and television over the course of their
careers, while some made their biggest impact on Broadway.
What they all have in common is a dedication to their craft and a fanbase that will miss
them dearly.
You might remember him as Murray Futterman from the '80s classic Gremlins, but the man
behind the paranoid WWII vet was prolific screen actor Dick Miller.
The Bronx-born actor made quite the name for himself in the boxing ring while serving in
the U.S. Navy, but his career path swerved when he met legendary B-movie producer Roger
Corman in the 1950s.
He starred in a number of Corman's movies, but Miller's biggest role came towards the
end of the decade, when he starred as murderous busboy Walter Paisley in 1959's A Bucket of
Blood.
After Variety announced Miller's death in January, Joe Dante, who directed Miller in
Gremlins among other films, tweeted a tribute to Miller.
The director wrote,
Steven Levy, known professionally as Steve Bean, sadly succumbed to a rare form of nose
cancer in January 2019.
The comedian and actor went into great detail about his shock 2016 diagnosis in an essay
titled "My Year Without a Nose," published by Mel magazine in 2018, revealing that he'd
been given a year to live after undergoing surgery to remove his nose.
Levy managed to fight on for a while, passing away towards the end of January.
He was 58.
According to Variety, the Massachusetts-native got his start on the stand-up scene, becoming
a household name in Boston.
He later moved to Los Angeles and started writing for the Tim Conway Show and ABC's
Dot Comedy, which gave him a foot in the door.
He scored minor parts in shows like Quantum Leap and Murder, She Wrote, carving out a
career as a dependable television actor.
He worked right up until his diagnosis.
Levy is survived by his wife, Caroline Carrigan, and his son, Jacob Randall Levy.
Sci-fi fans will no doubt recognize him as guest-star-turned-regular Jacob Carter from
Stargate SG-1, but Carmen Argenziano played a variety of roles throughout a long career
in the business.
He got his start in the early '70s and eventually settled into a career as a character actor
in the decades that followed, becoming a regular on our TV screens.
Argenziano's agency Event Horizon Talent announced his passing at the age of 75 on Facebook,
where they called the veteran actor a "consummate gentleman."
The post made special mention of Argenziano's work on Stargate SG-1, saying the actor had
"relished" being on the show for seven years.
Many will remember him as overly optimistic stuntman Super Dave Osborne, but by the time
of his passing, writer and actor Bob Einstein had become known for his role as Marty Funkhouser
on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
"My nephew, who was an all star pitcher.
He's up there now in a cast!
Why did you have to fight him for the pickle?"
Einstein passed away in January at the age of 76, not long after being diagnosed with
cancer.
Shortly after the news broke, Curb Your Enthusiasm star and co-creator Larry David released a
statement, saying,
Einstein emerged as one of the funniest writers in Tinseltown during the early 1970s.
He won his first Emmy for his early work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and picked
up his second win for Dick Van Dyke's mid-70s vehicle, Van Dyke and Company.
He didn't have a whole bunch of feature-length appearances to his name, his most notable
film role came in 2007 when he popped up as Agent Caldwell in Ocean's 13, but Einstein's
pinpoint comic timing and unique, gravelly voice made him a regular on American television.
Countless actors have played the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, but the Albert Finney-led Scrooge,
a 1970 version of A Christmas Carol, became one of the most endearing, and is still beamed
into households across the UK every December.
Younger film fans will probably recognize him from Erin Brockovich and the James Bond
film Skyfall.
By the time he appeared in the critically-acclaimed spy flick, Finney had already fought kidney
cancer and won.
He was diagnosed in 2007, but was given the all-clear following some intense chemotherapy.
While he was a popular actor and a critical darling, Finney shunned the limelight.
He turned down a knighthood from the queen and received five Oscar nominations, four
of which were for Best Actor, but never showed up to the ceremony once.
Speaking to the Manchester Evening News in 2012, Finney said simply, "It seems silly
to go over there and beg for an award."
Skyfall, released in 2012, proved to be Finney's final film role, but the actor remained with
us until February when he passed away at the age of 82 after what his family called a "short
illness."
It seemed as though Carol Channing was going to go on forever, but the smiley star of enduring
Broadway musical Hello Dolly! sadly died in January 2019.
She was 97 years old.
The Seattle-born actress won a Tony for her career-defining portrayal of matchmaker Dolly
Levi in the long-running production, which paid tribute to her after learning of her
death.
The current Hello Dolly! touring company said in a statement:
She lost out to Marilyn Monroe when Hollywood adapted her first theatrical hit, Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes, for the big screen in the '50s, but that didn't stop Channing from trying
to crack the whole moving picture thing.
The following decade, she succeeded.
The actress won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award after a memorable performance
in 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Julie Adams was one of Universal's leading ladies during the 1950s, starring in the classic
1954 monster picture Creature from the Black Lagoon.
According to THR, the studio once declared her legs, quote,
and even insured them to the tune of $125,000, a staggering amount for
the day.
In February 2019, her son, TV editor Mitchell Danton, informed the Hollywood trade that
Adams had passed away in Los Angeles.
She was 92.
Adams was way more than just the object of a lagoon-creature's affections.
She starred opposite legends Elvis Presley, and John Wayne, and made several forays into
television over the course of a long career.
And when we say long, we mean long, she made her first appearance in 1949 and her last,
in a short titled "The Lucky Southern Star," in 2018.
Guillermo del Toro, whose Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water was something of a spiritual
successor to Creature from the Black Lagoon, was among the famous mourners.
She was probably best-known for her engagement to Office Space star Ron Livingston at one
stage, the pair having met on the set of 2000's Beat.
But Lisa Sheridan managed to hold her own in the industry after they split in 2003.
She made appearances in CSI: Miami and Without a Trace the following year, and in 2005 joined
the cast of Invasion, starring in the ABC mystery series for two seasons.
She would go on to land various supporting parts in a number of TV shows, but Invasion
turned out to be an early peak in a career cut short.
In February 2019, Sheridan's manager, Mitch Clem, confirmed to People that the actress
had passed away at the age of 44.
Sitcom veteran Katherine Helmond died in February 2019 of complications from Alzheimer's disease.
She was 89 years old.
Her talent agency confirmed that Helmond, whose film career started in the mid-1950s
with biblical epic Wine of Morning, passed away at home in Los Angeles.
Said former Who's the Boss Costar Judith Light,
Many will remember Helmond from Soap, a controversial parody of the conventional soap opera.
She starred as naïve socialite Jessica Tate from 1977 until 1981, when the ABC show stopped
airing.
Helmond reunited with ABC in 1984 when she agreed to play Mona Robinson in Who's the
Boss?, the role that she would ultimately become best-known for.
The two-time Golden Globe winner was on Who's the Boss? for eight years, appearing in almost
200 episodes in that time.
Helmond remained a sitcom stalwart in the years that followed, popping up in Everybody
Loves Raymond sporadically for the better part of a decade.
But she was more than a TV star.
She was a regular Terry Gilliam collaborator, appearing in three of the Monty Python vet's
movies: she portrayed Mrs. Ogre in cult classic Time Bandits, the surgery-loving mother in
Brazil, and she even had a role in drug-fueled tour de force Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,
playing the hotel clerk.
Jan-Michael Vincent, Vincent was best-known for '80s TV series Airwolf, passed away in
February 2019.
The Denver native portrayed cello-playing helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the
show, a slight diversion from the tough guys and rebels he was used to playing.
Away from the camera, Vincent had his troubles with the law.
He pleaded guilty to drunk driving in 1997 after breaking his own neck in a collision,
though he avoided jail.
He wasn't so lucky in 2000, when he was sentenced to 60 days behind bars for assaulting his
girlfriend.
The actor reportedly struggled with alcoholism and clearly had some demons, but Vincent still
had friends in Hollywood when he passed away.
In a tweet, Vincent's Big Wednesday co-star Gary Busey remembered his old friend:
He became a teen heartthrob playing Dylan McKay on decade-defining '90s drama Beverly
Hills, 90210 and he'd experienced a recent resurgence on the CW's Riverdale.
But the continuing career of Luke Perry was sadly cut short in March 2019.
The actor was rushed to the hospital after suffering what his rep described as a "massive
stroke" at his California home.
He remained under observation for a further five days before passing away with his family
by his bedside.
He was 52 years old.
Perry's Riverdale colleagues took the news hard, but star Cole Sprouse was determined
to remember the good times.
He explained to James Corden in March, 2019:
"Luke was one of those guys, I think, that would much rather have us laughing and telling
stories about his life than lamenting it, but he was a good man."
If you're a horror fan, chances are you'll recognize character actor Joseph Pilato, who
passed away in March 2019 at the age of 70.
Pilato starred in a number of genre films in the early stages of his career, which began
in 1978 when zombie movie master George A. Romero gave him a minor role in Dawn of the
Dead.
He would go on to work with Romero in 1981's Knightriders, he played the disgruntled fairground
worker in the bizarre biker-gang caper, and again in 1985's Day of the Dead, which marked
Pilato's most famous film appearance.
The Pittsburgh actor played mentally unstable antagonist Captain Rhodes in the grisly sequel,
turning in a memorable performance despite being the character's polar opposite in real
life.
Pilato explained during a 2010 interview with the Horror Channel:
His name will forever be associated with Romero's cult zombie franchise, but what you probably
don't know about Pilato is that he almost appeared in one of the most influential movies
of the 1990s; he was cast as a Dean Martin look alike in Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp
Fiction, though unfortunately for him his scene wound up getting cut from the final
film.
Sadly, this is only a portion of the actors who've passed away in 2019 so far.
Here's a look at some of the other stars who enhanced our lives before leaving us too soon.
Paul Koslo
Kaye Ballard
Louisa Moritz
Kristoff St. John
Jed Allan
Denise DuBarry Hay
Mitzi Hoag
Bibi Andersson
Seymour Cassel
Richard Erdman
Isaac Kappy