Oh man. Lost another great actress

[Ruth Harris]

Mira Furlan is dead.

I have always been a big B5 fan, and she was stellar as Delenn in that show. Her costars and all who knew her or worked with her are apparently devastated by this. She died of complications from West Nile virus.

Not a good start to this year. Seems like we will be losing even more great talent.

Ruth

 

[Ford]

Yeah. I was a big fan of the show, and found out along the way that Claudia Christian (Ivanova) is my birthday twin. We were both born on the same day.

A few years back I got to chat with Claudia over Skype for about 45 minutes, and we've traded some emails back and forth. She was good friends with Furlan, and wrote a very touching tribute on her page.

 

[blastula]

Aw. I recently started watching B5. Just learned Furlan played Rousseau too. Hated that character, but Delenn is cool.

 

[marc]

She was great in B5, so sorry to hear of her passing.

I met Patricia Tallman (Lyta Alexander) at a convention and got her book. Some interesting behind-the-scenes info in there, and was surprised she was also a stunt woman working on Star Trek TNG.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Older, but not old enough to die. Very sad. The B5 cast has been particularly 'cursed'. Richard Biggs being the most tragic.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Older, but not old enough to die. Very sad. The B5 cast has been particularly 'cursed'. Richard Biggs being the most tragic.

It's really hard to say which is 'most tragic'. Biggs and O'Hare both were pretty sad.

I was very sad to hear of Mira's passing. I just watched the B5 reunion a few months ago (live) and she seemed reasonably well then. She was only 65.

The bottom image here is one of my favorite pictures ever taken of the cast.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/66/47/c5/6647c5f753ff534914cd6e9a91b4350f--babylon--superwholock.jpg

Of the 12 cast members shown here, half of them are already gone.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Older, but not old enough to die. Very sad. The B5 cast has been particularly 'cursed'. Richard Biggs being the most tragic.

It's really hard to say which is 'most tragic'. Biggs and O'Hare both were pretty sad.

Yeah... O'Hare as well. That'd be a rat race between the two of them. O'Hare suffered a long time with his mental health illness.

Of the 12 cast members shown here, half of them are already gone.

Half died from differing forms of self-destructive behavior, the other half had terminal medical conditions or illnesses.

 

[blastula]

PSA that B5 was just released today on HBO Max. It's a remastered version back to 4:3. I read that they did actually film it all in widescreen, but 4:3 actually comes out better because of CGI issues. I had been watching a widescreen version, and this does look better to me.

Oh, I saw a shoutout to atheists in an episode today. Ep. 1-5 they had a religious festival, where every world showcases their dominant religion, but Sinclair decided to (show how superstitious Earth still is and) trot out a person each for the dozens of religions represented on the station. Atheist guy was first one he introduced, which I saw as surprisingly forward for being the early 90s.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

PSA that B5 was just released today on HBO Max. It's a remastered version back to 4:3. I read that they did actually film it all in widescreen, but 4:3 actually comes out better because of CGI issues. I had been watching a widescreen version, and this does look better to me.

Articles on the remaster seem... non-descriptive. I didn't even know Warner Bros was actually doing this. Glad to see it is on HBO Max, which I get with my Gig AT&T line for nothing extra. Get to see Furlan in what could have easily been a terribly performed role.