Carl Macek died yesterday. He was Fifty-nine.

While never a household name, Carl had a huge influence on my life in the mid-1980s, thanks to his role in bringing anime to the United States through his studio, "Harmony Gold." Anime had already been here, of course: Speed Racer, Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets, and a few others had already stuck their toes in the pool, but they'd all been sanitized and dumbed down quite a bit in translation and editing, based on the presupposition that cartoons are *only* for little kids.

Peter Graves was found dead in his home in California today. He was 83.

Born Peter Aurness in Minnesota, he was best known for his work as Jim Phelps on the long-running, and deservedly legendary spy series, “Mission: Impossible,” Graves was a long-time genre actor, with numerous appearances in SF shows and movies running the gamut from good to unbelievably awful.

Edward Woodward died last night, a fine old man and always a strong presence in film and TV. The last time I saw him was in "Crusade" ten years ago, when he played an elderly Technomage, and guest-starred alongside his son, the amazing Peter Woodward, who was on the cast of the show. To be honest, it was probably their weakest episode, but that wasn't Edward's fault, and seeing the easy back and forth between father and son was kind of wonderful, even if it was stunt casting.

Mladen George Keulovich, better known as "Karl Malden" was a perennial character actor from Chicago. He died today. He was 97.