Each year the Oscars’ In Memoriam section acts as a tribute to the film world’s great and good who have sadly passed away. From 007 to the king of comedy, these were the standouts of the 2018 tribute film, which was accompanied by a performance by Eddie Vedder of the late Tom Petty’s Room at the Top.
Roger Moore
Moore died in May, aged 89, and is fondly remembered for his string of James Bond films including Live and Let Die and The Spy Who Loved Me, as well the TV hits The Saint and The Persuaders.
•Peter Bradshaw on Roger Moore: a modest, self-deprecating James Bond who brought some serious aplomb
Jonathan Demme
Demme emerged from the independent scene with films such as Melvin and Howard and Something Wild, before striking Oscar gold with the terrifying thriller The Silence of the Lambs – it won five awards, including best director for Demme.
•Jonathan Demme: ‘A storyteller of bold and muscular force’
Sridevi
One of Bollywood’s biggest female stars, Sridevi died unexpectedly aged 54 after drowning in a bath. With more than 300 film credits (despite a 15 year break after her marriage), she had legions of adoring fans.
•Sridevi Kapoor: Bollywood star who was India’s lover, friend and mum
George Romero
Romero was the horror legend who reinvented the genre in 1968 with the independent zombie classic Night of the Living Dead – which spawned a string of sequels.
•George A Romero: the zombie master whose ideas infected American cinema
Harry Dean Stanton
The eternal supporting actor, with a hangdog visage, Stanton was a regular feature lower down the cast list in films across the decades, until his big breakthrough in the 1979 hit Alien. His first and only leading role was a masterpiece: Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas in 1984.
•Harry Dean Stanton: gentleness, sensitivity, gallantry and painful masculinity
Jerry Lewis
In an extraordinary career, Lewis went from dopey physical comedy to innovative directorial brilliance to an astounding performance in The King of Comedy – as well as one of cinema’s most notorious embarrassments: The Day the Clown Cried.
•Martin Scorsese on Jerry Lewis: ‘It was like watching a virtuoso pianist at the keyboard’
•Peter Bradshaw on Jerry Lewis: a knockabout clown with a dark and melancholy inner life
Jeanne Moreau
The mercurial French star of Jules et Jim was arguably the face of the Nouvelle Vague, working with everyone from Truffaut and Malle to Orson Welles. She died in July aged 89.
•Jeanne Moreau: the intelligent, complex star who lit up the French New Wave
Martin Landau
Greatness came late for Landau: he won an Oscar in 1995 for playing Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood – the high point of a long hard struggle for acceptance as an actor, which only materialised in the mid-80s after a promising start went nowhere.
•Peter Bradshaw: a great actor who grew into his gravitas
