A veritable deluge! First off, Roger Corman died at the age of 98. He was a giant of 1960s and 70s B movie cinema, as a director and producer. The title of his memoir says it all: How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime. He was an essential mentor to Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, and Peter Bogdanovich. Here's Corman in the Criterion Closet (I've watched about 50 of these):
Next up, Jeannie Epper died at the age of 83. She was a giant in the business of Hollywood stunts, a real pro and mentor to many young women. I was crazy for the documentary Double Dare about her mentoring Zoë Bell when Bell was up for the job of Uma Thurman's stunt double on the Kill Bill movies. Epper is best known as Lynda Carter's stunt double for Wonder Woman. Epper had a sardonic comment about being a woman in the business (I paraphrase): "The guys fall off a building and they're wearing a jacket and jeans and they're padded within an inch of their lives. I fall off a building and I'm basically wearing a bathing suit."
Here's a 1979 Dan Rather profile of Epper:
And last but certainly not least, Ilon Specht, who died at the age of 81. You might not know her name but you probably know her work. She was working at an advertising agency in 1971 when she wrote the copy for a Preference by L'Oreal ad. The words "because I'm worth it" were seismic at the time.
Specht was one of the people featured in my favorite New Yorker article of all time, "True Colors" by Malcolm Gladwell, published in their March 14, 1999 issue. If you're a subscriber you have access to the archive and you definitely should read this article, it's genius and such a fun read.
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