Musician Leon Redbone, who caught Bob Dylan’s attention in the Seventies and was an early musical guest on Saturday Night Live, has died at the age of 69.
An announcement on his website says he died early in the morning on Thursday, 30 May – and whimsically claims that Redbone was 127 at the time of his death.
Born in August 1949 in Cyprus, Redbone first stepped into the limelight in the Seventies, after Bob Dylan praised his work in an interview with Rolling Stone.
Dylan had been so impressed with Redbone’s work that he told the magazine he would sign him on as his first client, should he ever start his own music label.
“Leon interests me,” he told the publication. “I’ve heard he’s anywhere from 25 to 60, I’ve been this close [he held his hands a foot and a half from each other] and I can’t tell. But you gotta see him. He does old Jimmie Rodgers, then turns around and does a Robert Johnson.”
1/41 Dean Ford
Ford, whose real name was Thomas McAleese, was the frontman of guitar-pop group Marmalade. The band the first Scottish group to top the UK singles chart, with their cover of the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in December 1968. Ford died in Los Angeles on 31 December 2018, at the age of 72 from complications relating to Parkinson’s disease.
Getty
2/41 Pegi Young
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Getty
3/41 Daryl Dragon
The singer and pianist achieved fame as half of the musical duo Captain & Tennille, best known for their 1975 hit “Love Will Keep Us Together”. Dragon died on 2 January, from kidney failure in Prescott, Arizona, aged 76.
Getty Images
4/41 Darius Perkins
The actor was best known for playing the original Scott Robinson on Neighbours when the show launched in 1985 on Australia’s Channel Seven. Perkins died from cancer on 2 January, aged 54
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5/41 Bob Einstein
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HBO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
6/41 Carol Channing
The raspy-voiced, saucer-eyed, wide-smiling actor played lead roles in the original Broadway musical productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly!, while delivering an Oscar-nominated performance in the 1967 film version of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. Channing died on 15 January of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage, California at the age of 97.
Getty
7/41 Mary Oliver
Oliver, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, wrote rapturous odes to nature and animal life that brought her critical acclaim and popular affection, writing more than 15 poetry and essay collections. She died on 17 January, aged 83, in Hobe Sound, Florida.
Getty
8/41 Windsor Davies
The actor was best known for his role as Battery Sergeant-Major Williams in the TV series It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, which ran from 1974 to 1981. He died on 17 January, aged 88, four months after the death of his wife, Eluned.
Getty
9/41 Jonas Mekas
The Lithuanian-born filmmaker, who escaped a Nazi labour camp and became a refugee, rose to acclaim in New York and went on to work with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Janis Joplin and Andy Warhol. He died on 23 January, aged 96, in New York City.
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10/41 Diana Athill
The writer, novelist and editor worked with authors including Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, Jean Rhys and VS Naipaul. She died at a hospice in London on 23 January, aged 101, following a short illness.
Getty
11/41 Michel Legrand
During a career spanning more than 50 years, the French musician wrote the scores for over 200 films and TV series, as well as original songs. In 1968, he won his first Oscar for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair film. He died in Paris on 26 January at the age of 86.
Getty
12/41 James Ingram
The singer and songwriter, who was nominated for 14 Grammys in his lifetime, was well known for his hits including “Baby, Come to Me,” his duet sung with Patti Austin and “Yah Mo B There,” a duet sung with Michael McDonald, which won him a Grammy. Ingram died on 29 January, aged 66, from brain cancer, at his home in Los Angeles.
Getty
13/41 Dick Miller
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Warner Bros
14/41 Jeremy Hardy
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Rex
15/41 Clive Swift
Known to many as the long-suffering Richard Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances, the actor’s first professional acting job was at Nottingham Playhouse, in the UK premiere of JB Priestley’s take the Fool Away, in 1959. He died on Friday, 1 February after a short illness, aged 82.
Rex
16/41 Julie Adams
The actor starred in the 1954 horror classic Creature From the Black Lagoon, playing Kay Lawrence, the girlfriend of hero ichthyologist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson) and the target of the Creature’s obsessions. She died 3 February in Los Angeles, aged 92.
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17/41 Albert Finney
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Getty
18/41 Peter Tork
Born in 1942 in Washington DC, Tork became part of The Monkees with Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones in the mid-sixties, when the group was formed as America’s Beatles counterpart. All four were selected from more than 400 applicants to play in the associated TV series The Monkees, which aired between 1966 and 1968.
GETTY IMAGES
19/41 Mark Hollis
As the frontman of the band Talk Talk, Hollis was largely responsible for the band’s shift towards a more experimental approach in the mid-1980s, pioneering what became known as post-rock, with hit singles including “Life’s What You Make It” (1985) and “Living in Another World” (1986).
20/41 Andy Anderson
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Alex Pym/Facebook
21/41 Lisa Sheridan
Having attended the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh, Sheridan went on to star in a string of film and TV credits of the next two decades, including Invasion and Halt and Catch Fire. She died aged 44, at her home in New Orleans.
Getty Images
22/41 Janice Freeman
Freeman appeared on season 13 of the TV singing competition The Voice, making a strong impression early on with her cover of ‘Radioactive’ by Imagine Dragons, performed during the blind auditions. She had an extreme case of pneumonia and had a blood clot that travelled to her heart. She died in hospital on 2 March.
Getty Images for COTA
23/41 Keith Flint
Flint quickly became one of the figureheads of British electronic music during the Nineties as a singer in the band The Prodigy. He died, aged 49, on 4 March.
EPA
24/41 Luke Perry
Perry rose to fame as teen heartthrob Dylan McKay in ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’, and most recently played Fred Andrews in The CW’s ‘Riverdale’. He died on 4 March after suffering a ‘massive stroke’, his representative said in a statement.
AFP/Getty Images
25/41 Jed Allan
Allan was best known for his role as Rush Sanders, the father of Ian Ziering’s Steve Sanders, on Beverly Hills, 90210; Don Craig on Days of Our Lives; and CC Capwell on Santa Barbara. He died on Saturday, 9 March, aged 84.
Rex Features
26/41 Hal Blaine
As part of the Wrecking Crew, an elite group of session players, Blaine played drums on some of the most iconic songs of the 1960s and 1970s, including The Beach Boys’s “Good Vibrations”, the Ronettes’s ”Be My Baby”, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson”. He died on 11 March, aged 90.
Getty
27/41 Pat Laffan
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PA
28/41 Mike Thalassitis
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29/41 Dick Dale
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Getty
30/41 Bernie Tormé
Guitarist Bernie Tormé rose to fame in the seventies before joining Ozzy Osbourne on tour in 1982, following the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads in a plane crash that same year. The Dublin-born musician died on 17 March, 2019 at the age of 66.
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31/41 Andre Williams
R&B singer and songwriter Andre Williams co-wrote “Shake a Tail Feather” among many other hits, signing first with Fortune Records then with Motown. The Alabama native, who relocated to Detroit as a young man, died on 17 March, aged 82.
YouTube
32/41 Scott Walker
The American British singer-songwriter and producer who rose to fame with The Walker Brothers during the Sixties and was once referred to as “pop’s own Salinger”, died on 22 March, aged 76. He was one of the most prolific artists of his generation, despite shunning the spotlight following his brief years as a teen idol, and released a string of critically acclaimed albums as well as writing a number of film scores, and producing albums for other artists including Pulp.
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33/41 Agnès Varda
French New Wave filmmaker Agnès Varda died on 29 March, aged 90. She was best known for the films “Cléo from 5 to 7” and “Vagabond” and was widely regarded to be one of the most influential experimental and feminist filmmakers of all time.
AFP/Getty
34/41 Tania Mallet
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United Artists
35/41 Boon Gould (right)
One of the founding members of Level 42, Boon Gould, died on 1 March, aged 64. He was a guitarist and saxophone player.
Rex Features
36/41 Freddie Starr
Comedian Starr was the star of several eponymous TV shows during the 1990s such as Freddie Starr, The Freddie Starr Show and An Audience with Freddie Starr. Starr was the subject of one of the most famous tabloid headlines in the history of the British press, splashed on the front page of The Sun in 1986: “Freddie Starr ate my hamster.”
Starr was found dead in his home in Costa Del Sol on 9 May 2019.
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37/41 Peggy Lipton
Twin Peaks star Peggy Lipton died of cancer, aged 72 on 11 May.
38/41 Doris Day
Doris Day became Hollywood’s biggest female star by the early 1960s starring in Calamity Jane, Pillow Talk and Caprice to name a few. Day died on 15 May after a serious bout of pneumonia.
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39/41 Andrew Hall
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Photo by ITV/REX
40/41 Carmine Cardini
Carmine Cardini, who was most famous for playing two different roles in the Godfather franchise, died on 28 May, 2019 at Cedars Sinai Hospital, aged 85. He played Carmine Rosato in The Godfather Part II (1974) before returning to the franchise in 1990 as Albert Volpe in The Godfather Part III.
Paramount Pictures
41/41 Leon Redbone
Leon Redbone died on 30 May, 2019, aged 69. The singer-songwriter, who was noticed by Bob Dylan in the Seventies and was an early guest on Saturday Night Live, released more than 15 albums over the course of four decades.
Photo by Chris Capstick/REX
1/41 Dean Ford
Ford, whose real name was Thomas McAleese, was the frontman of guitar-pop group Marmalade. The band the first Scottish group to top the UK singles chart, with their cover of the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da in December 1968. Ford died in Los Angeles on 31 December 2018, at the age of 72 from complications relating to Parkinson’s disease.
Getty
2/41 Pegi Young
A singer, songwriter, environmentalist, educator and philanthropist, she was also married to Neil Young for 36 years. She died of cancer on 1 January, aged 66, in Mountain View, California.
Getty
3/41 Daryl Dragon
The singer and pianist achieved fame as half of the musical duo Captain & Tennille, best known for their 1975 hit “Love Will Keep Us Together”. Dragon died on 2 January, from kidney failure in Prescott, Arizona, aged 76.
Getty Images
4/41 Darius Perkins
The actor was best known for playing the original Scott Robinson on Neighbours when the show launched in 1985 on Australia’s Channel Seven. Perkins died from cancer on 2 January, aged 54
Ten
5/41 Bob Einstein
The Emmy-winning writer appeared in US comedy shows Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development, becoming known for his deadpan delivery. He died on 2 January, shortly after being diagnosed with leukemia, aged 76.
HBO/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
6/41 Carol Channing
The raspy-voiced, saucer-eyed, wide-smiling actor played lead roles in the original Broadway musical productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Hello, Dolly!, while delivering an Oscar-nominated performance in the 1967 film version of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. Channing died on 15 January of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage, California at the age of 97.
Getty
7/41 Mary Oliver
Oliver, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, wrote rapturous odes to nature and animal life that brought her critical acclaim and popular affection, writing more than 15 poetry and essay collections. She died on 17 January, aged 83, in Hobe Sound, Florida.
Getty
8/41 Windsor Davies
The actor was best known for his role as Battery Sergeant-Major Williams in the TV series It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, which ran from 1974 to 1981. He died on 17 January, aged 88, four months after the death of his wife, Eluned.
Getty
9/41 Jonas Mekas
The Lithuanian-born filmmaker, who escaped a Nazi labour camp and became a refugee, rose to acclaim in New York and went on to work with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Janis Joplin and Andy Warhol. He died on 23 January, aged 96, in New York City.
Chuck Close
10/41 Diana Athill
The writer, novelist and editor worked with authors including Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, Jean Rhys and VS Naipaul. She died at a hospice in London on 23 January, aged 101, following a short illness.
Getty
11/41 Michel Legrand
During a career spanning more than 50 years, the French musician wrote the scores for over 200 films and TV series, as well as original songs. In 1968, he won his first Oscar for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair film. He died in Paris on 26 January at the age of 86.
Getty
12/41 James Ingram
The singer and songwriter, who was nominated for 14 Grammys in his lifetime, was well known for his hits including “Baby, Come to Me,” his duet sung with Patti Austin and “Yah Mo B There,” a duet sung with Michael McDonald, which won him a Grammy. Ingram died on 29 January, aged 66, from brain cancer, at his home in Los Angeles.
Getty
13/41 Dick Miller
The actor enjoyed a career spanning more than 60 years, featuring hundreds of screen appearances, including Gremlins (1984) and The Terminator (1984). The actor died 30 January, aged 90, in Toluca Lake, California.
Warner Bros
14/41 Jeremy Hardy
The comedian gained recognition on the comedy circuit in the 1980s and was a regular on BBC Radio 4 panel shows, including The News Quiz and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. He died of cancer on 1 February, aged 57.
Rex
15/41 Clive Swift
Known to many as the long-suffering Richard Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances, the actor’s first professional acting job was at Nottingham Playhouse, in the UK premiere of JB Priestley’s take the Fool Away, in 1959. He died on Friday, 1 February after a short illness, aged 82.
Rex
16/41 Julie Adams
The actor starred in the 1954 horror classic Creature From the Black Lagoon, playing Kay Lawrence, the girlfriend of hero ichthyologist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson) and the target of the Creature’s obsessions. She died 3 February in Los Angeles, aged 92.
Rex
17/41 Albert Finney
The actor was one of Britain’s premiere Shakespearean actors and was nominated for five Oscars across almost four decades – for Tom Jones (1963), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Dresser (1983), Under the Volcano (1984) and Erin Brockovich (2000). He died aged 82, following a short illness.
Getty
18/41 Peter Tork
Born in 1942 in Washington DC, Tork became part of The Monkees with Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones in the mid-sixties, when the group was formed as America’s Beatles counterpart. All four were selected from more than 400 applicants to play in the associated TV series The Monkees, which aired between 1966 and 1968.
GETTY IMAGES
19/41 Mark Hollis
As the frontman of the band Talk Talk, Hollis was largely responsible for the band’s shift towards a more experimental approach in the mid-1980s, pioneering what became known as post-rock, with hit singles including “Life’s What You Make It” (1985) and “Living in Another World” (1986).
20/41 Andy Anderson
Musician Andy Anderson, former drummer for The Cure and Iggy Pop, died aged 68 from terminal cancer, after a long and successful career as a session musician
Alex Pym/Facebook
21/41 Lisa Sheridan
Having attended the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh, Sheridan went on to star in a string of film and TV credits of the next two decades, including Invasion and Halt and Catch Fire. She died aged 44, at her home in New Orleans.
Getty Images
22/41 Janice Freeman
Freeman appeared on season 13 of the TV singing competition The Voice, making a strong impression early on with her cover of ‘Radioactive’ by Imagine Dragons, performed during the blind auditions. She had an extreme case of pneumonia and had a blood clot that travelled to her heart. She died in hospital on 2 March.
Getty Images for COTA
23/41 Keith Flint
Flint quickly became one of the figureheads of British electronic music during the Nineties as a singer in the band The Prodigy. He died, aged 49, on 4 March.
EPA
24/41 Luke Perry
Perry rose to fame as teen heartthrob Dylan McKay in ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’, and most recently played Fred Andrews in The CW’s ‘Riverdale’. He died on 4 March after suffering a ‘massive stroke’, his representative said in a statement.
AFP/Getty Images
25/41 Jed Allan
Allan was best known for his role as Rush Sanders, the father of Ian Ziering’s Steve Sanders, on Beverly Hills, 90210; Don Craig on Days of Our Lives; and CC Capwell on Santa Barbara. He died on Saturday, 9 March, aged 84.
Rex Features
26/41 Hal Blaine
As part of the Wrecking Crew, an elite group of session players, Blaine played drums on some of the most iconic songs of the 1960s and 1970s, including The Beach Boys’s “Good Vibrations”, the Ronettes’s ”Be My Baby”, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs Robinson”. He died on 11 March, aged 90.
Getty
27/41 Pat Laffan
The Irish-born actor had roles in almost 40 films and 30 television shows, including in BBC’s Eastenders, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, and RTE’s The Clinic. He died on Friday, 15 March, aged 79
PA
28/41 Mike Thalassitis
Mike Thalassitis was a semi-professional footballer before finding fame on the third season of Love Island. He died aged 26.
Rex Features
29/41 Dick Dale
Dale is credited with pioneering the surf music style, by drawing on his Middle-Eastern heritage and experimenting with reverberation. He is best known for his hit “Misirlou”, used in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. He died on Saturday, 16 March, aged 81.
Getty
30/41 Bernie Tormé
Guitarist Bernie Tormé rose to fame in the seventies before joining Ozzy Osbourne on tour in 1982, following the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads in a plane crash that same year. The Dublin-born musician died on 17 March, 2019 at the age of 66.
YouTube
31/41 Andre Williams
R&B singer and songwriter Andre Williams co-wrote “Shake a Tail Feather” among many other hits, signing first with Fortune Records then with Motown. The Alabama native, who relocated to Detroit as a young man, died on 17 March, aged 82.
YouTube
32/41 Scott Walker
The American British singer-songwriter and producer who rose to fame with The Walker Brothers during the Sixties and was once referred to as “pop’s own Salinger”, died on 22 March, aged 76. He was one of the most prolific artists of his generation, despite shunning the spotlight following his brief years as a teen idol, and released a string of critically acclaimed albums as well as writing a number of film scores, and producing albums for other artists including Pulp.
Rex
33/41 Agnès Varda
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AFP/Getty
34/41 Tania Mallet
Model and Bond girl Tania Mallet died on 30 March, aged 77. She earned her only credited acting role opposite Sean Connery in 1964 film Goldfinger, playing Tilly Masterson.
United Artists
35/41 Boon Gould (right)
One of the founding members of Level 42, Boon Gould, died on 1 March, aged 64. He was a guitarist and saxophone player.
Rex Features
36/41 Freddie Starr
Comedian Starr was the star of several eponymous TV shows during the 1990s such as Freddie Starr, The Freddie Starr Show and An Audience with Freddie Starr. Starr was the subject of one of the most famous tabloid headlines in the history of the British press, splashed on the front page of The Sun in 1986: “Freddie Starr ate my hamster.”
Starr was found dead in his home in Costa Del Sol on 9 May 2019.
Rex
37/41 Peggy Lipton
Twin Peaks star Peggy Lipton died of cancer, aged 72 on 11 May.
38/41 Doris Day
Doris Day became Hollywood’s biggest female star by the early 1960s starring in Calamity Jane, Pillow Talk and Caprice to name a few. Day died on 15 May after a serious bout of pneumonia.
Rex
39/41 Andrew Hall
Andrew Hall died on 20 May, 2019 after a short illness, according to his management group. The actor was best known for playing Russell Parkinson in the BBC show Butterflies and Marc Selby in Coronation Street. He had also recently appeared as The Gentleman in Syfy’s Blood Drive.
Photo by ITV/REX
40/41 Carmine Cardini
Carmine Cardini, who was most famous for playing two different roles in the Godfather franchise, died on 28 May, 2019 at Cedars Sinai Hospital, aged 85. He played Carmine Rosato in The Godfather Part II (1974) before returning to the franchise in 1990 as Albert Volpe in The Godfather Part III.
Paramount Pictures
41/41 Leon Redbone
Leon Redbone died on 30 May, 2019, aged 69. The singer-songwriter, who was noticed by Bob Dylan in the Seventies and was an early guest on Saturday Night Live, released more than 15 albums over the course of four decades.
Photo by Chris Capstick/REX
Redbone made his Saturday Night Live debut in 1976, and ended up appearing twice as a musical guest during the show’s first season.
Having already played at various folk festivals, Redbone also made a name for himself in the world of talk shows, becoming a recurring guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Carson.
The musician went on to voice Leon the Snowman in the 2003 film Elf, and dueted with Zooey Deschanel to sing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” on the movie’s soundtrack.
Over four decades, Redbone released more than 15 albums. He was the subject of a 2018 documentary titled “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”, after one of his most popular songs.
Redbone had announced his retirement in 2015. His official death announcement, written with a touch of his trademark humour, reads: “It is with heavy hearts we announce that early this morning, May 30th, 2019, Leon Redbone crossed the delta for that beautiful shore at the age of 127.
“He departed our world with his guitar, his trusty companion Rover, and a simple tip of his hat. He’s interested to see what Blind Blake, Emmett, and Jelly Roll have been up to in his absence, and has plans for a rousing sing-along number with Sári Barabás.
“An eternity of pouring through texts in the Library of Ashurbanipal will be a welcome repose, perhaps followed by a shot or two of whiskey with Lee Morse, and some long overdue discussions with his favorite Uncle, Suppiluliuma I of the Hittites.
“To his fans, friends, and loving family who have already been missing him so in this realm he says, ‘Oh behave yourselves. Thank you…. and good evening everybody.’”
