In 2024, we've experienced the loss of several luminaries in the world of entertainment. These beloved figures—actors, comedians, musicians, singers, and coaches—have touched our lives with their talent, passion, and dedication. They've left an indelible mark on our hearts and shaped the world of entertainment in ways that will continue to inspire and influence generations to come.
Among the incredible actors who bid farewell this year, we mourn the loss of a true chameleon who effortlessly.
In 1949, aged 5, Guzik began his career when he entered the Theater School in Sao Paulo, he joined a group led by Julius Gouvea and Tatiana Belinky, and joined the cast of Peter Pan with Clovis Garcia, staying connected to groups that specialized in amateur theatre productions. From 1964-66 he attended the School of Dramatic Art. In 1967, his professional acting debut in The Process, which is based on the novel by Kafka, assembled core 2 of the Arena Theatre, under the direction of Leonardo Lopes. Before the end of the season, his career on stage, moved to the audience which provided critical expertise. [citation needed]
In 1971, Guzik began writing theatre reviews, later working for Ultima Hora (1974–78) and Istoe (1978–81). In 1982, he earned a Master's degree in Theatre from the School of Communications and Arts, University of São Paulo, defending his dissertation, TBC: Chronicle of a Dream. He worked as a professor of theater at EAD (1968–78) and at the ECA/USP (1969–80). Guzik later ran a version of The Spark of Abdon Milanez. He also serves as a professor in the Macunaíma Theatre School (1978–79). He participated in the program, Metropolis, from TV Culture. In 1995, Guzik wrote the novel, A Hazard of Life, which was nominated for the Jabuti Award. [citation needed]
Death
On June 26, 2010, Guzik died, aged 66, while battling cancer, from multiple organ failure.
Adoor Pankajam was born to Adoor Paarappurathu Kunjuraman Pillai and Kunjoonjamma in 1925 and was the second child of 8 children. Her sister Adoor Bhavani also became famous later through plays and movies.
She could only study till 4th standard due to financial difficulties. But still she continued her music studies under Panthalam Krishnapillai Bhagavathar till the age of 11. By this time, she has done musical kacheri in most of the temples around her village.
At 12, she started acting in Kannur Kerala Kalanilayam troupe against the will of her parents. She acted in their play Madhumadhurayam in over 300 stages. Her next play was Rakthabhandham by a theater in Chengannoor. In this play, she did a comic role which was widely accepted.
She met Devarajan Potti, the owner of Kollam Bharatha Kalachandrika while she was working with this troupe and later got married to him. Potti later started another troupe called Parthasarathy Theaters and during her tenure with this troupe, she got invitation to act in movies.
She has a son named Ajayan, who is a cinema/TV serial actor.
Career
She started her acting career with the stage play Madhu Madhuryam by Kalanilayam Theaters. Her first movie was Premalekhanam produced by Pappa Soman. But her first movie which got released was Vishappinte Vila directed by Boban Kunchacko. Her last movie was the Dileep starrer Kunjikoonan. She has acted in over 400 films during her career.
In 1976 she and her sister Adoor Bhavani started a Theater troupe called Adoor Jaya Theaters. But later the sisters got split up and Bhavani left the Theater. Pankajam went on with the theater with her husband Devarajan Potti and she kept the Theater active for over 18 years.
Benny Powell was an African American jazz trombonist. He played both standard (tenor) trombone and bass trombone.
(March 1, 1930 – June 26, 2010)
Born Benjamin Gordon Powell Jr in New Orleans, Louisiana, he first played professionally at age 14, and at 18 began playing with Lionel Hampton. In 1951 he left Hampton's band and began playing with Count Basie, in whose orchestra he would remain until 1963. Powell takes the trombone solo in the bridge of Basie's 1955 recording of "April in Paris".
Born in New Orleans, Powell is, perhaps, best known for his 12-year tenure (1951-63) with Count Basie, and for his eight-bar contribution to the Count's all-time hit, “April in Paris.” But more than that, Powell, in his all-too-rare solos with the Basie band, displayed a blues-laced, story-telling approach to improvisation. Check out, for instance, his masterfully balanced two-chorus statement on “Blues Backstage” from 1954, or his fleet trip through “In a Mellotone,” recorded in a live performance five years later.
After leaving Basie, Powell embarked upon a rich, diverse musical career. A versatile and accomplished player, he has worked extensively on Broadway, television, on recordings, as well as leader.
During the 1960s and '70s, Powell graced the trombone sections of Duke Pearson's fine New York big band and the renowned Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. (His four-chorus solo on Jones'”Fingers” is a master class in modern jazz trombone improvisation.) He also began-and continues-to make his name as a leader in his own right, a respected teacher, and a dedicated activist in the cause of jazz.
After a decade in Hollywood, where he worked on The Merv Griffin Show, Powell returned to New York in the early 1980s and connected with two visionary instrumentalist-composers, the late clarinetist John Carter and pianist Randy Weston, with whom he still performs.
Although an unsuccessful kidney transplant in 1990 left him to undergo thrice weekly dialysis treatments until a second match was successfully transplanted in 1996, Powell never let it keep him from working-and even touring-with the likes of Weston, Benny Carter and Jimmy Heath.
He died in a Manhattan hospital at the age of 80, following back surgery.
Allyn Malcolm Ferguson Jr. was an American composer, best known for the themes for 1970s television programs Barney Miller and Charlie's Angels, which he co-wrote with Jack Elliott. In its obituary, Variety called him "among the most prolific composers of TV-movie scores in the past 40 years".[1]
(October 18, 1924 – June 23, 2010)
Ferguson was born in San Jose, California on October 18, 1924. He started playing the trumpet when he was four years old and began playing piano at seven.[2] After graduating from San Jose State University, he traveled to Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger and at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland.[2] He established the Chamber Jazz Sextet in the 1950s, combining classical and jazz influences. The group produced "Pictures at an Exhibition: Framed in Jazz" in 1963, a big band-style production of the Modest Mussorgskypiano suite.[1]
Ferguson died of natural causes at age 85 on June 23, 2010, at his home in Westlake Village, California. He was survived by his wife, Joline, as well as by three children and six grandchildren.[1]
José Sergio Vega Cuamea , better known by his stage name"El Shaka",[2] was a Mexicanbanda singer. He was born in Hornos, Sonora, located near Ciudad Obregón in Mexico.[3] On 26 June 2010, he was killed by gunfire in the Mexican state of Sinaloa after a car chase.[2][4][5][6][7] The assailants pursued Sergio Vega for a distance, shooting at him and his passenger Montiel Sergio Ávila 30 times.[4] He was killed and Ávila was seriously injured.[8] Vega had recently increased his security because of other celebrity deaths like Sergio Gómez.[2][9]
Vega, eighth of thirteen children emigrated to the United States in the late 1980s.[10] In 1989, while living in Phoenix, Arizona, he and his brothers formed a group called Los Hermanos Vega,[10] which signed with Joey Records and had several hits such as "Corazón de Oropel" and "El Rayo de Sinaloa".[3][10]
In 1994, after five years with the group and following a falling out with his brothers,[3] Vega decided to leave, forming another group called Los Reyos del Norte,[3][10] and signing with Digital Universal. This group had hits such as "Las Parcelas de Mendoza", "El Dólar Doblado", "El Ayudante", "Olor a Hierba", "Eres mi Estrella", and "Ayúdame a Vivir". After three years under this name Vega decided, for publicity reasons, to change the name of his group to Sergio Vega y Sus Shakas Del Norte, which it has remained to the present day.[update] Two of his most recent album releases included Me Gusta Estar Contigo (2004),[10][11] and Cuando El Sol Salga Al Reves (2007)[11] and his latest album El Jefe De Plazas (2008) with hits like "Disculpe Usted" and "Que Se Mueran Los Feos".
Death
On June 26, 2010, Vega was murdered while on his way to perform at a village festival concert in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Gunmen travelling in a truck drove alongside his red Cadillac and opened fire on the vehicle. They then reportedly fired shots at Vega's head and chest from close range. [12]
At the time of his death, rumours had been circulating online that he had already been killed.[12] Just hours before he was shot Vega was interviewed for an article on entertainment website La Oreja, in which he confirmed he was still alive. "It's happened to me for years now, someone tells a radio station or a newspaper I've been killed, or suffered an accident," Vega told the website. "And then I have to call my dear mom, who has heart trouble, to reassure her," he explained. [12]
Vega was a singer of narcocorridos — ballads that celebrate the lives of drug dealers.[12][13] Musicians who play this kind of music in Mexico are known to sometimes become the targets of rival gangs.[12][13] At least seven of these musicians have been killed over the past three years in Mexico.[12]
Viveka Babajee was born in Mauritius. She is the youngest of four sisters. Her mother is a Maharashtrian, who was born in Hyderabad.
Career
Viveka Babajee appeared in some Bollywood movies like Yeh Kaisi Mohabbat (2002). She was a popular model in Mumbai.
Death
She was found hanging from the ceiling fan in her apartment on June 25, 2010 at her Bandra residence in Mumbai. Police reports say that Babajee committed suicide due to depression. Unconfirmed reports said that she got depressed when she broke up with her boyfriend.
Plater was born in Jarrow-on-Tyne, England, although his family moved to Hull in 1938.[2] Jarrow was much publicised as a severely economically depressed area before the Second World War (Plater joked that his family left Jarrow just after the Great Depression to catch Hull just before the Blitz). He trained as an architect at King's College, Newcastle (later the University of Newcastle), but only practised in the profession briefly, at a junior level.[3] He later stated that it was shortly after he was forced to fend off a herd of pigs from eating his tapemeasure while he was surveying a field that he left to pursue full-time writing. Plater stayed in the north of England for many years after he became prominent as a writer and lived in Hull.[3]
He also contributed to the BBC series Dalziel and Pascoe, and adapted Chris Mullin's novel A Very British Coup (1988) for television. He was the driving force [3] behind the TV version of Flambards, which under his influence was claimed to be slanted well to the political left of K. M. Peyton's original books. Jazz is a recurring motif through much of Plater's work, often referenced explicitly as well as underpinning his story structures.[4]
He was a supporter of Hull City AFC. His play Confessions of a City supporter on his lifelong relationship with the club was staged during the first ever run of performances at the new home of the Hull Truck Theatre Company.[5]
In an interview with Richard Whiteley, Plater claimed he had never intended to write sensational plot-driven sagas with outlandish characters and that he had never intended to make the sort of "rubbish programmes featuring high speed car crashes of which there are too many of television". Plater said that he had always tried to make his characters normal people, whose normal lives are interrupted when the outside worlds comes into their lives.
Plater claimed his two best known characters, Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne in the Beiderbecke series, were based on himself. Trevor represented his personal interests, jazz, football and snooker (the parallel of a Geordie in Yorkshire also fitted) while Jill represented his political beliefs such as conservationism, environmentalism and socialism. The couple were based on his earlier characters of Neville Keaton and Judy Threadgold in Get Lost! (1981).
Personal life and honours
Plater was married to Shirley Johnston (1958-85), with whom he had two sons and a daughter,[6] and later Shirley Rubinstein (from 1986) gaining three stepsons; [2] they had three grandchildren living in Yorkshire, and six in Newcastle, as well as various others scattered around the UK, 16 in all.
Alberto Guzik was a Brazilian actor, director, teacher, theater critic, and writer from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He wrote for the newspapers Ultima Hora and the Jornal da Tarde. 
