Stuff: RIP: Alan Gordon, William Gibson & Richard Stiles

There’s lots of pop culture news. You need to know it, but it can be taken in very small doses. Enjoy.

Alan Gordon was the songwriter who helped bring you “Happy Together,” as well as “She’s My Girl” and “Celebrate,” along with Garry Bonner. Gordon died of cancer November 22nd at the age of 64. Source: Variety.

In honor of Gordon’s passing, here’s a Needcoffee send-off courtesy of The Leningrad Cowboys.

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Rome fans who still bemoan the death of their show…is a movie on the way? Bruno Heller says he wants it to happen. There’s eleven Emmys backing up the idea. What would you do if you could make the series keep going? Jesus. No, I’m not using the name in vain, that’s it. There’s your storyline. The rise of Jesus, which was originally supposed to be Season 5. “I discovered halfway through writing the second season the show was going to end,” Heller said. “The second was going to end with death of Brutus. Third and fourth season would be set in Egypt. Fifth was going to be the rise of the messiah in Palestine. But because we got the heads-up that the second season would be it, I telescoped the third and fourth season into the second one, which accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end.” Just like the end of any general history class, right? Towards the end you’re just sprinting and you leave out lots of cool bits. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire is not, in fact, the Dante’s Peak to Ridley Scott and Monopoly‘s Volcano. It’s a pilot that is coming for HBO about the origins of Atlantic City, and Steve Buscemi is now in talks to star. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

Normally, you don’t need to know about the remake of Fame, but the cast list is sharp: Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally and Bebe Neuwirth are on staff at the school–and Debbie Allen’s playing the principal. So they do get some points for having good taste in actors. Source: Hollywood Reporter.

William Gibson–the playwright who brought you The Miracle Worker and not the sci-fi author–has died at age 94. His most recent Broadway play was Golda’s Balcony, starring Needcoffee fave Tovah Feldshuh. Source: Variety.

Richard Stiles, set designer for Wheel of Fortune (along with other shows like The Red Skelton Show) died of pneumonia on November 24th. He was 74. Source: Variety.

So I tried to find an example of the set, and this is the most normal Wheel of Fortune video I could find. Honest. But it does show off the set. And it’s everything I remember.

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