Top 10 Saddest Losses to Cinema in 2006: Actors That Passed Away This Year

The heartbreaking thing about compiling a list like this is knowing that it might get added to in the days to come, as the year dies out.

2006 saw the loss of some of cinema's most important artists, performers and writers. We honor their legacy as we remember their contributions to a medium they had only so much time to improve, and we look to a future still shaped by their hands. Here, in chronological order, are ten deaths filmgoers will mourn most.

Shelley Winters

The word 'uncompromising' came up in the obituaries. So did 'gutsy'. Winters didn't have the looks of a glamour girl and didn't have the aspiration to be one, either, cutting her own path. She leaves behind over a hundred films, with two Oscar wins and two further nominations, including, of course, "The Poseidon Adventure".

Don Knotts

Somewhere along the line Knotts' name-and, of course, face-became synonymous with a more innocent, even hokey, age of the screen both big and small; this was capitalized upon to ironic effect in "Pleasantville". Though more known for television work, Knotts leaves behind a solid clutch of beloved classic family movies for the young and the young at heart.

Gordon Parks

Not the most famous name, but his most famous film will certainly strike a chord: "Shaft", a project so synonymous with blaxploitation as to be inseparable. The trend has since settled down, of course, but "Shaft"'s place in cinema history hasn't gone anywhere. Along with Melvin Van Peebles, he founded a movement that would redefine the African-American voice at the movies.

Maureen Stapleton

Four Oscar nods (with one win) and a legendary career not only on the screen but the stage, Stapleton was not a fly-by-night star but a woman devoted to lifelong craft. She will be best remembered by film fans for "Reds".

Richard Fleischer

In directing "20,000 Leagues under the Sea", "Fantastic Voyage" and "Soylent Green" he showed us fantastic visions of past, present and future. He was also a chairman of Fleischer Studios, responsible for such noted bits of animation history as "Betty Boop" and "Superman".

Bruno Kirby

Always the best friend, never the star, Kirby was a skilled character actor most noted for "The Godfather, Part II", "When Harry Met Sally" (paired with Carrie Fisher) and "City Slickers", which gave him a good monologue and a chance to shine. Kirby was not a big name, but the outpouring of respectful tributes at his passing was proof that a solid character performance means just as much to the movies as flashy stars. Kirby helped us to appreciate his craft-not his own craft specifically, but the craft of all supporting actors.

Glenn Ford

Best known to modern moviegoers as Jonathan Kent in Richard Donner's 1978 "Superman", Ford was also the star of the notable high school melodrama "Blackboard Jungle" and had an extensive career in Westerns. "The Western is a man's world and I love it," he once said. It loved him back. His death was symbolic of the dimming light of a certain morality in movies we can no longer quite reach.

Basil Poledouris

His stirring theme for "RoboCop" (to say nothing of the bewildering array of diegetic music he provided for that same film's numerous in-universe TV ads) and his otherworldly take on fantasy music for "Conan the Barbarian" are alone enough to ensure this composer's place in history. But there was a place for simpler beauty among 1980s bombast in this Greek musician's long career. A favorite composer of John Milius, Poledouris always had a fresh take on classical film score, now lost with his death.

Jack Palance

If the first image to pass through your head here was of Palance doing one-armed push-ups at the Oscars, at least it's a fitting one. Palance was never one to slow down or take things too easy, and the former boxer and war hero was kicking ass, taking names and crapping bigger than Billy Crystal for over fifty years. "Most of the stuff I do is garbage," he said, but certainly not all. A notable character who played notable characters.

Robert Altman

The inspiration for this list and the likely closing slide at the Oscar tribute to those who have passed, Altman left a legacy of films that carried with them an intelligence and humanity, not to mention a style, uniquely his. His final film, "A Prairie Home Companion", was a meditation on death; perhaps he knew this time was coming. The outpouring of love from the actors who had the pleasure to work with him is proof of the man's impact on the cinema scene. Movies are a poorer place without Robert Altman.

The deaths of those who made movies happen is a sobering thing. But as long as we have their films to watch, they will never quite die. Not for those who love film.