Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

Brittany Murphy, best known for her roles in Clueless and 8 Mile, died this morning at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.  She was 32.

Image Courtesy of the Insider.com

Details are still sketchy, but at this point the official word is that Murphy died of cardiac arrest.  And, really, it’s not unheard of for a young woman to have a heart attack; I know a 17-year-old woman who had a heart attack a few months ago.  But when a person dies of  heart troubles so young, the unspoken implication is that drugs are involved (as was the case with my 17-year-old acquaintance).  Nobody is saying that about Murphy at this point.  I haven’t exactly been following her career closely (though 8 Mile is one of my favorite movies), so I can’t be sure about that.

Murphy herself has denied any drug use.  This is from an article in Entertainment Weekly:

Murphy had been plagued by tabloid rumors of drug abuse in recent years. After appearing as a speed addict in the 2002 film Spun, Murphy was dogged by speculation that her extreme weight loss was due to a cocaine dependency. She denied the rumors in Jane Magazine in 2005. “No, just for the record I have never tried it in my entire life, I’ve never even seen it, and I don’t leave the house too much, except to go to work.”

Still, she has been interviewed recently and sounded excited, happy, and looking forward to the future.  She married in 2007, and was quoted just a few weeks ago as saying she’d like to have a child.  “As far as having a New Year’s resolution, I’d love to have a child next year,” she said at the time. “But that’s kind of a large one!”

Here is an article from EW, profiling Murphy’s 10 Best Film Roles.  We just watched Clueless the other night; it’s one of my daughters’ favorites.  She was great, and critically acclaimed, in her role in 8 Mile, too.  She was also an accomplished musician, and I just found out she played Luanne in “King of the Hill!”  What a multi-talented person!

Image Courtesy of AceShowbiz.com

I’ll try to keep updated if any more news comes out.  Right now our condolences go to her husband, her mother, and all of her family and friends.  Rest in peace, Brittany.

It’s real this time.  The brave 57-year-old actor who has been suffering from pancreatic cancer for two years, passed away this evening in Los Angeles, surrounded by his wife and family.  Rumors have followed him, often announcing his death prematurely, since his cancer was diagnosed 20 months ago, but Swayze continued to work, even while he was in rigorous traditional and alternative treatments for his disease.

I wondered if we were in his last days…and I know this will sound weird, but it’s because I saw a picture of him in a supermarket tabloid the other day.  The tabloids are the only ones that will tell us things like that–they did the same thing with Paul Newman just before his death–and they were right.  I admired so much the way Swayze was always realistic about his disease, but it didn’t let it stop him from doing whatever he could handle, including filming an entire season of a new TV show in which he was the Star (A&E’s The Beast).

I’m really sad to see him go; he was such an important figure for people who grew up in the 80’s.  He was Darry, everyone’s older brother, and he was Johnny Castle, the dancing rebel from Dirty Dancing.  He was the one whose fingers entwined with Demi Moore’s in the most erotic pottery session ever.   Perhaps most iconically, he was the one who announced “It’s my way, or the highway.”

For the people who knew him and loved him, he was, of course, so much more than that.  He was married to his wife, Lisa, for 34 years, and she was by his side through the ups and downs of his acting career, his rehab for alcoholism, and his good and bad days of cancer treatment.  She was by his side this evening as he left this life for the next.

Go with God, Patrick. Thank you for the good years.  Our prayers are with Lisa and all your friends and family.