Nicholas Brendon Dies At 54

Actor Nicholas Brendon at the Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, October 2, 2010. Photo by Luigi Novi.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my favorite television show in the late 1990s. It has been reported by a third actor from the show has passed away. The first was Michelle Trachtenberg and the second was Andy Hallett from the Angel spin-off. Now it has been reported that actor Nicholas Brendon has died.

He reportedly died in his sleep at age 54. He played Xander Harris on the show.

According to Canyon News:

HOLLYWOOD—It was announced on Friday, March 21, that Nicholas Brendon, the star of the hit Warner Bros. series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” died at the age of 54. It was reported that Brendon died of natural causes in his sleep.

The actor appeared on all 7 seasons of the series that ran from 1997 to 2003 alongside Sarah Michelle Gellar, Allyson Hanigan, Charisma Carpenter and Anthony Stewart Head.

Brendon had experienced a series of legal trouble in recent years. In 2017, he was arrested for domestic violence against his girlfriend. In August 2021, he was arrested for allegedly obtaining prescription drugs by fraud in Indiana after he was driving erratically. He provided authorities with California ID that had the name Kelton Schultz, TMZ reported.

To read more, go here.

Zombies and Osama bin Laden

I managed to see a couple of movies today from 2012.  They could not be any more different.

The first was Cabin In The Woods.  This movie is a horror-comedy spoofing the slasher and zombie movies that are so much in vogue these days.

Cabin in the Woods was directed and co-written by Drew Goddard and co-written and produced by Joss Whedon (of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and Angel fame).

It had some good laughs in the typical Whedon way.  My grade: B+.

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The second movie is one that is under consideration for the Academy Awards (in fact, we saw it on an award screener DVD).  It is Zero Dark Thirty.

It is the story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden by the Central Intelligence Agency and his ultimate execution in Pakistan.  Thank goodness it didn't have Barack Obama parading around with bin Laden's corpse a la Weekend At Bernie's.

Zero Dark Thirty was typically Hollywoodized, but it was entertaining.  My grade: A.

Andy Hallett, Lorne From "Angel", Dies

Above, David Boreanaz and Andy Hallett.

Andy Hallett, Lorne From "Angel", Dies

I generally don't watch television these days except for news programs. But during the past 15 years, the only two shows I made a point to watch were Buffy The Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel.

Sad news has been announced. Actor/musician Andy Hallett, who played Lorne, the green-skinned night-clubbing demon on Angel passed away Sunday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 33.

Apparently, Hallett suffered from heart problems the past several years.

Hallett's character, Lorne, assisted the detective agency run by vampire Angel (David Boreanaz) whose mission was to root out demonic and other supernatural threats to the world. The Lorne character added much levity to the show.

Hallett appeared in about 70 episodes of Angel. The show ran from 1999 to 2004 and was produced by Joss Whedon.