It all started with the death of Rik Mayall. One of her favourite films growing up was "Drop Dead Fred" and more recently he was amazing in "Man Down" but it was the film that she watched constantly from a baby to a child and beyond. There were more than a few tears when he died. Greg Davies said at the start of season 2 that he lost 2 Dad's in the same year, his real one and Rik Mayall.
Then Bowie and her words were "The Goblin King is dead." Again "Labyrinth" another firm favourite in our household and then she liked his music as well, "Rebel Rebel" being to song I played to death when both my girls were younger, but that film is incredible, Bowie was excellent and the use of Brian Froud characters was inspired.
Now Alan Rickman....Severus Snape is dead...Anouska was in floods of tears. We had just finished watching all 8 Harry Potter films over Christmas and the man was an amazing actor, turning Snape from light to dark constantly, always having you guessing if he was good or evil and the eventual reveal was heartbreaking, what a superb performance that just gets better with time.
He stole "Die Hard" with a truly villainous bad guy (possibly my second favourite bad guy after Rutger Hauer in "Blade Runner") and upstaged Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood" and then there are the more well received dramatic performances that we all know and love. They had a chat with Juliet Stevenson, his co-star from "Truly, Madly, Deeply" and a very good friend of his, on Radio 4 last night. She spoke about how he always felt like her older brother and their shared history as they were both with the RSC at the same time and then was asked, "You saw him recently?" and she choked slightly and whispered, "Yesterday, I saw him yesterday."
My children have never had to deal with the deaths of heroes until the last couple of years and my youngest is struggling with losing 3, and with 2 in such close succession, it has rocked her world. She lives for films and music and everything related to both of those are the most important things in her life. I understand that as I have my musical heroes and given my favourite genre of music, a number of my heroes have died and as we have just passed the 30th anniversary of the death of Phil Lynott, I remember the day he died and how I felt and it still cuts a little bit all these years later.
It felt wrong not to pay some kind of tribute to Alan Rickman, he was part of a generation of English actors that are superb, they bridge theatre, film and television effortlessly and shine like diamonds in whatever they portray with life and energy and a passion.
It is nice to see the unbidden tributes that people offer, like the floral tributes at Kings Cross at platform 9 3/4, maybe that is the right way to mark his passing, a heartfelt salute to one of the heroes of childhood and that is a lovely thought, that he will grow up in the minds of the children that watched him and they will pass this on to their children in the same way that my children know my childhood heroes, albeit some for all the wrong reasons. At least my children are allowed to have their memories with genuine affection for the laughter, the thrills and good times and now the sadness, just the way it should be.
It is nice to see the unbidden tributes that people offer, like the floral tributes at Kings Cross at platform 9 3/4, maybe that is the right way to mark his passing, a heartfelt salute to one of the heroes of childhood and that is a lovely thought, that he will grow up in the minds of the children that watched him and they will pass this on to their children in the same way that my children know my childhood heroes, albeit some for all the wrong reasons. At least my children are allowed to have their memories with genuine affection for the laughter, the thrills and good times and now the sadness, just the way it should be.
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