• Henry Alper (c.1917-2006) - Talent agent and manager who worked with Jerry Lewis, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Gogi Grant and composers John Williams, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith and Henry Mancini. He died of cancer November 22, in Cathedral City, California.
• Seth Arnett (c.1969-2006) - Stunt man who worked on The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, The Rocketeer, Ladder 51, Deep Impact and Basic Instinct. He also appeared as an actor in Alive. He died November 25, in Westlake Village, California.
• George Brenholtz (c.1930-2006) - Former executive film producer for the U.S. Naval Media Center. His work includes a documentary on the Challenger disaster called The Salvage of the Challenger, a widely viewed training film called Trial By Fire: A Carrier Fights for Life and a monthly film series on the life of President Johnson, which are now archived at the Johnson Library in Austin. He died from injuries sustained after a car accident November 20, in Virginia.
• Phyllis Cerf (1911 or 1916-2006) - Writer, actress and socialite who appeared in Winds of the Wasteland. She died of complications from a fall November 24, in New York.
• Jan Hartman (c.1940-2006) - Playwright and screenwriter, mostly for television, who co-wrote the story for Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor. He died November 9, in Wareside, Hertfordshire, England.
• Beverly Hecht (c.1925-2006) - Hollywood agent, and cousin of screenwriter Ben Hecht, who represented Sammy Davis, Jr., Janet Leigh, Cicely Tyson, Drew Barrymore, Brad Garrett and Debra Winger. She died of cardiac arrest November 19, in Los Angeles.

• Robert Altman (1925-2006) - Read my post on the great director of M*A*S*H and The Player.
• John Blackburn (1913/14-2006) - Songwriter ("Moonlight in Vermont") and author who wrote the novel of Nothing But the Night. He died November 15.
• Orin Borsten (1912-2006) - Screenwriter of Angel Baby who also worked as a publicist for Porky's, Texas Across the River, The War Wagon and Topaz. He died of natural causes November 18, in Studio City, California.
• James Bostwick (1916-2006) - Film producer for General Motors. He died November 22, in Royal Oak, Michigan.
• Dave Cockrum (1943-2006) - Comic book artist who co-created the characters Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler, who appear in the X-Men films. He died of complications from diabetes on November 26.
• Betty Comden (1915-2006) - Oscar-nominated writer and lyricist of musicals, including Singin' in the Rain, On the Town, The Band Wagon It's Always Fair Weather and Auntie Mame, with partner Adolph Green. She also appeared in the film Slaves of New York. She passed away, from heart failure, November 23, in New York City. Check out Jette's tribute to Comden in her Vintage Image of the Day column.
• William Diehl (1924-2006) - Author who wrote the novels that were adapted into Sharky's Machine and Primal Fear. He also appeared in Sharky's Machine and Baby of the Family. He died of an aortal aneurysm November 24, in Atlanta.
• Colin Forbes (1923-2006) - Author whose same-titled novel was adapted into Avalance Express. He died of a heart attack August 23, in London.
• Phyllis Fraser (1911-2006) - Actress who appeared in Little Men, Winds of the Wasteland and Lucky Devils. She died of complications from a fall on November 24, in New York City.

We lost a giant this week when we lost Robert Altman, who was surely one of the greatest of all American film directors. In choosing seven representative works, I'm going to skip over M*A*S*H (1970) and Nashville (1975), given that everyone knows them. They're both fine films, but I've just never really been drawn to them. (I've also opted, painfully, to leave out the well-known classics The Player and Gosford Park.) Rather, I like his maverick works, the ones that people seemed to ignore or misunderstand. That's how I see Altman, anyhow -- always punching away at the envelope.

1. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
This revisionist Western is unquestionably Altman's masterpiece. Warren Beatty plays an entrepreneur in the Old West who tries to organize and build a brothel, but finds he can't do it without the help of a whorehouse madam (Julie Christie). It sounds like a silly, modern-day romantic comedy about the clashing of two opposing personalities, but Altman does it correctly, getting to the root of these psychologically flawed characters and using the chilly, grungy atmosphere as part of the plan. The climactic shootout is the textbook definitions of "anti-climactic," with Beatty's character stumbling around in the snow.

When Robert Altman died Monday night he left behind a good deal of pre-production work on what was to be his next film, a fictionalized remake of the 1997 documentary Hands on a Hard Body. Scheduled to begin shooting next year, the new film has a screenplay, co-written by Stephen Harrigan, and a distributor, Picturehouse, but now is without a director.

Those familiar with the story presented in Hands on a Hard Body -- twenty-four contestants try to win a new truck in a contest that has each attempting to be the last to remain holding onto said vehicle -- should be in agreement that it would have been perfectly dramatized by Altman. And possibly by nobody else. Picturehouse head Bob Berney is now debating whether to go ahead with the production with a new director at the helm or to let the project die with the late, great filmmaker, knowing that it just won't be as good without him.

The first idea that comes to mind for the substitution option is to have Paul Thomas Anderson take over. He is nearing completion on his latest, the oil-tycoon-family drama, There Will Be Blood, so he may be able to fit this into his schedule, and also he recently worked alongside Altman on A Prairie Home Companion, so he is likely the most qualified to continue the project relatively close to Altman's vision. A second choice, and less appealing one, would be to have Richard Linklater have a shot, since he seems to have no new film in the works, he has done a fair job of handling the multiple-character, multiple-storyline style, he just adapted a non-fiction book as a fictional narrative, and he should feel at home working with the Texas-set film. A final idea would be to have S.R. Bindler, who directed the original doc and has since moved into shooting fiction films, redo his own film.

• Bettye Ackerman (1928-2006) - Actress who appeared in Ted and Venus, Rascal and the straight-to-DVD sequel Prehysteria! 2. She died of Alzheimer's disease November 1, in Columbia, South Carolina.
• Timothea Beckerman (1951-2006) - New Orleans-based R&B singer who appeared in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law. She died of complications from hepatitis C November 14, in New York.
• Ruth Brown (1928-2006) - R&B singer who played "Motormouth Maybelle" in John Waters' Hairspray and also appeared in Under the Rainbow, True Identity and the recent documentary Lightning in a Bottle. She had just recorded music for John Sayles' next film, Honeydripper, and was set to play a part in the film, as well. Tragically, she became ill and could not show up to the Alabama film set. She had surgery last month, but suffered a heart attack and a stroke afterward, keeping her on life support from October 29 until her passing on November 18. She died in Las Vegas.
• Daryl Duke (1929-2006) - Director of Tai-Pan, The Silent Partner and Payday (1975). He died of pulmonary fibrosis October 21, in West Vancouver, British Columbia.
• Francis Girod (1944-2006) - French filmmaker (pictured) who made La Banquière (The Woman Banker), Le Bon Plaisir and The Elegant Criminal. He died Sunday morning of a heart attack, in Bordeaux, France.

Gary Graver, an ambitious young cinematographer who cold-called Orson Welles one day in 1970 and began a long working collaboration between the two, has passed away from cancer at age 68, according to the LA Times. Graver worked on many of Welles' vanity projects from his frozen peas era, including the documentaries F for Fake, Filming Othello and It's All True, as well as the unfinished project The Other Side of the Wind, which to my knowledge is nothing more than a lot of incoherent rambling between John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich and Orson's Yoko, Oja Kodar. In between conspiring with Welles on these experimental films, Graver briefly made some headway towards a mainstream career as a Hollywood cinematographer. He became the lenser on a number of down and dirty films like Deathsport, Grand Theft Auto, The Attic, and a remake of Stagecoach with country stars Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings.

Graver also amassed a portfolio of directorial credits so long that the law of probability suggests some of them are actually good films. In the lean years, he also helmed titles like Oral Majority 9 and Double Penetration 5 under the nom de guerre Robert McCallum. By all accounts, Graver seems to have known his way around a camera and demonstrated enough natural talent to catch the eye of many cinema veterans. And through it all, his devotion to Welles never wavered. In his later years, Graver reportedly kept with him a portfolio of film clips he called "The Unseen Welles" and was negotiating with Showtime to prepare The Other Side of the Wind for a screening on that network.

You can read more about Graver's life and work on his personal website, which is today carrying news of his death.

• Edward L. Alperson (1925-2006) - Composer of Mohawk and I Mobster and an associate producer on Invaders from Mars (1986) and Fort Algiers. He passed away October 31, in Encino, California.
• Claudia Bobsin (c.1944-2006) - German costume designer who worked on The Downfall, The Experiment, The Glass Cell and Bandits. She died of cancer October 23, in Munich.
• Ed Bradley (1941-2006) - Correspondent for TV's 60 Minutes; according to the IMDb, he appeared in Russkies. He died of leukemia Thursday, in New York City.
• Diana Coupland (1932-2006) - British comedic actress who appeared in The Millionairess, The Family Way, Charlie Bubbles, Another Life and a ton of television series. She also provided the singing voice of Lana Turner in Betrayed and of Ursula Andress in Dr. No. She died after heart surgery Friday, in Coventry, England.

• Tina Aumont (1946-2006) - -Franco-American actress (pictured) who appeared in Torso, Lifespan, Texas Across the River and Fellini's Casanova. Her parents were actors Jean-Pierre Aumont (Day for Night) and Maria Montez (Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). She died of a pulmonary embolism October 28, in France.
• Stanley Brossett (c.1937-2006) -- Unit publicist who started at MGM (where he was uncredited) before working independently. His credits include Beverly Hills Cop, The Cannonball Run, The Prince of Tides, K-19: The Widowmaker and Because of Winn-Dixie. He was awarded a lifetime achievement award in 2000 by the Publicist's Guild. He died of complications relating to multiple myeloma on October 24, in Santa Monica, California.
• Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (1908-2006) - Co-author, with brother Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr., of the autobiographical book Cheaper by the Dozen and its sequel Belles on Their Toes, both of which were made into movies in the early '50s. Cheaper was remade a few years ago but loosely, and its sequel Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is not based on Belles. She died Saturday, in Fresno, California.
• William Franklyn (1926-2006) -- British actor who appeared in Cul-de-sac, The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Splitting Heirs. He died after a long battle with prostate cancer.
• Florence Healey French (c.1924-2006) -- Actress who appeared in Wait Until Spring, Bandini. She died Saturday, in Denver.
• James Glennon (1942-2006) -- Emmy-winning cinematographer of the HBO series Deadwood. He was Alexander Payne's DP for three films (ending with About Schmidt) and also shot Flight of the Navigator, El Norte, Good Boy! and he was a location DP on Return of the Jedi, a camera operator on Ordinary People and an assistant cameraman on The Conversation. He was the son of cinematographer Bert Glennon (Stagecoach). He died of cancer October 19, in Los Angeles.