Actors We Sadly Lost In 2016

After joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in England the '70s, Alan Rickman broke out on the big screen in 1988, at the relatively advanced age of 41—but what a breakthrough role it was. Playing the evil Hans Gruber in Die Hard set in motion a career of playing some of Hollywood's most iconic screen villains, such as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd, and Professor Severus Snape in all eight Harry Potter movies. When the movies were gearing up for production, Rickman wasn't even sure he wanted the Potter role, as it appeared that Snape was a garden variety villain. Only a few Potter books had been published when the first movie entered production, but author J.K. Rowling met with Rickman and told him his character's endgame long before the rest of the world found out. (Spoiler alert: he's a double agent who's working for the good guys all along.) Rickman died at age 69 after a quiet battle with pancreatic cancer.

Many actors start out in TV and then head on to the movies—and, if they're lucky, maybe they win an Oscar. Patty Duke did it in the other way around. She started acting professionally as a child, and at age 16 became the youngest-ever Academy Award winner at the time for her role as young Helen Keller in 1962's The Miracle Worker. A year later, she started working on the TV comedy The Patty Duke Show in dual roles as "identical cousins": one American, one British. Duke continued to work in movies, TV, and on the stage for the rest of her life; she was also the mother of actor Sean Astin (of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Goonies), and became one of the first celebrities to openly advocate for mental health issues after she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1982. Duke died at age 69 of sepsis after suffering a ruptured intestine.

Yelchin was just beginning to emerge as a major talent, earning critical praise for his work in Green Room, Charlie Bartlett, Fright Night, and as Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek movie franchise. Unlike Walter Koening, who originated the role on the Star Trek TV series, Yelchin really was Russian, born in that country shortly before moving to the U.S. with his parents, figure skaters who defected to escape both religious and political persecution. Yelchin was just 27 years old at the time of his passing, the victim of a bizarre car accident that occurred after he stepped out of his Jeep and the vehicle rolled down his driveway, fatally pinning him against a brick pillar.

You probably wouldn't have recognized Baker on the street, but you definitely know his work: He was the man inside R2-D2 in six Star Wars movies. Baker began his entertainment career in 1950 as a part of a vaudeville troupe with the now not-so-PC name "Burton Lester's Midgets." (Baker was 3'8," and he often referred to his "height difficulties.") Before Star Wars , Baker also performed as a circus clown, in ice shows, and as part of a two-man comedy act. His partner: Jack Purvis, who played the Chief Jawa in the original Star Wars. Baker initially turned down the role of R2-D2 because he didn't "want to be stuck in a robot." The 81-year-old actor passed away at his home in Preston, England, after a long illness.

The Coen Brothers are among Hollywood's most versatile directors, adept with comedy, drama, Western, and thrillers. Their constants are the actors they use, and they've used Polito a lot—he appeared in the Coens' Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, and The Man Who Wasn't There. A consummate "hey, it's that guy!" character actor, Polito appeared in more than 100 movies and TV shows over the course of a three-decades-long career, including a regular role as Detective Steve Crosetti on NBC's acclaimed 1990s drama series Homicide: Life on the Street. Polito, 65, died from problems relating to multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer he was diagnosed with in 2008.

Vaughn thrived for decades in a genre of TV that's more or less disappeared: action shows. In the 1960s, he was pretty much the American television version of James Bond, portraying the dashing Napoleon Solo on the rollicking spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. For his next big TV gig, Vaughn played the complicated military official General Hunt Stockwell on The A-Team. His segue into TV was preceded by memorable roles in classic action movies, such as The Magnificent Seven and Bullitt. Nevertheless, his acting chops in The Young Philadelphians earned him an Oscar nomination in 1960 for best supporting actor. Vaughn was also among the first actors to ever speak out about political views — he worked with several anti-Vietnam War organizations. Then in 1970, Vaughn went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in communications from USC; his thesis was on the history of blacklisting in show business. Dr. Vaughn loved to work, and kept at it until nearly the end as a fixture on British television. From 2004 to 2012, he starred as a card hustler on the series Hustler, and then had a stint on the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. Vaughn was 83.

An actor will be beloved forever if they're lucky enough to star in one cult hit TV show — the kind with critical praise and devoted fans if perpetually low ratings. Glass starred in two of such shows of all time: the 1975-1982 sitcom Barney Miller and the 2002 sci fi classic Firefly. On Barney Miller, which was set almost entirely in a grimy New York police precinct, Glass was a scene-stealer as the cool Sgt. Harris, a cop whose heart isn't quite in it — he's much more focused over the seven years of the series with becoming a bestselling crime novelist, as well as looking cool and acting sophisticated. For the show's final season, Glass earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy. After working steadily with guest appearances on TV shows in the '80s and '90s, Glass returned to TV as Shepherd Book on Joss Whedon's short-lived space western Firefly. As a religious leader with a mysterious past, Glass returned to the role for the series' sequel film Serenity. Glass passed away at age 71.

Whitton was more of a stage actress than a film one, appearing in plays both on and off-Broadway throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s. But what film roles she did were very big. She played one of the all-time great screen villains: Rachel Phelps, showgirl-turned-owner of the Cleveland Indians in Major League. (The character's plans to move the team to Florida are thwarted when the Indians miraculously reach the playoffs — much like they did for real in 2016.) Contrary to her character in the Major League films, Whitton truly loved baseball off-screen. She was a longtime New York Yankees season-ticket holder. Whitton was 67.

Thicke is probably most fondly remembered for playing the sweet but bumbling psychiatrist dad Jason Seaver on the long-running '80s sitcom Growing Pains. He also had a recurring role on How I Met Your Mother, but Thicke had already enjoyed a long, varied career before he started acting. In addition to being the head writer for the cult comedy Fernwood 2 Night in the '70s, Thicke hosted his own extremely popular talk show in his native Canada, The Alan Thicke Show. That led to the American syndicated late-night talk show Thicke of the Night, which went head-to-head with Johnny Carson's unstoppable The Tonight Show. It was canceled in less than a year, but in 1985, Thicke moved on to star in the network's Growing Pains. He was all over '80s TV, as he was the co-songwriter for a number of classic shows, including The Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes (which he also sang). On the personal side, Thicke was once married to soft rock singer Gloria Loring and was the father of three sons, including pop star Robin Thicke. Alan Thicke was 69.

Harris was a comedian and a gigging actor who turned up in '90s and 2000s movies and TV shows like Poetic Justice and Everybody Hates Chris, but he turned out his most famous work in the world of hip hop. Harris gave voice to characters in that now-lost, but oh-so-'90s artform of the rap album skit. Harris can be heard on the comedy interludes of albums by Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and other West Coast rap classics. Harris was friends with Snoop Dogg for years and appeared in several of Snoop's videos. He plays a nightclub host in the 1994 video for "Doggy Dogg World," and Snoop's grumpy bad in the comic intro to "Gin and Juice." That's him under a ton of makeup who delivers the line, "Snoop Doggy Dogg. Needs to get a jobby-job!" Harris was 54.

In an absolutely heartbreaking turn of events, Carrie Fisher's mother, Debbie Reynolds, died just one day later. Reynolds became famous in the 1950s, when she was considered "America's sweetheart" as half of a Hollywood dream couple with singer Eddie Fisher. More than just a pretty face, Fisher had the acting, singing, and dancing chops to take her far, and she starred in the classic 1952 Gene Kelly movie musical Singin' in the Rain. As a young woman, the blond, perky, all-American Reynolds played good girls in squeaky clean movies, such as Bundle of Joy, The Singing Nun, and Tammy and the Bachelor; Reynolds had a No. 1 hit with the latter's theme song.

In 1965, she earned a best actress nomination at the Academy Awards for playing Titanic survivor and early 20th-century socialite Molly Brown in the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. (She didn't win, but was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars in 2016 in recognition of her community service work.) Reynolds was also a tabloid fixture for a time in the late '50s and early '60s, when Eddie Fisher left her for actress Elizabeth Taylor ... who also happened to be one of Reynolds' closest friends. A well-established icon of American cinema, Reynolds enjoyed a nice comeback in the late '90s. In 1996, she played Albert Brook's overbearing mother in Mother, and also had major roles in In & Out, on Will & Grace, and starred in the made-for-TV Those Old Broads alongside Elizabeth Taylor. The movie was written by Reynolds' daughter, Carrie Fisher. Reynolds was 84.