So how do we talk about Brittany Murphy now?

In the final years of her too-short life (which ended with cardiac arrest late Sunday) Murphy was all saucer eyes and nervous energy, a toothy grin on the arm of one shady movie industry boyfriend after another. After multiple called-off engagements, she settled on Simon Monjack, the screenwriter husband and accused con man now raising eyebrows for trying to block her autopsy. Celebrity publications charted her weight fluctuations, speculated about eating disorders and drug use, and documented red carpet disasters and plastic surgery slip-ups.

There was a time, though, when Brittany Murphy's headlines were all about her promise—and until the bitter end, she fought to get back into the lead actress fold that had once seemed a given. After conquering regional acting circuits, Murphy and her mother threw themselves at the feet of Burbank's pilot season free-for-all, and the little girl from Edison, New Jersey scored one role after another, from the short-lived Drexel's Class to Blossom to Melrose Place and her breakout role in Clueless, where Murphy proved herself a talented comedian. The nervous energy was charming; the saucer eyes sweetly endearing.

But it took four years for her to deliver a successful cinematic follow up with small roles in darkly comedic Drop Dead Gorgeous and critical darling Girl, Interrupted, where Murphy demonstrated dramatic range playing an eating disordered incest victim.

One part of that character became prophetic: Shortly after Girl, Interrupted Brittany underwent a transformation from roly-poly brunette to a whippet-thin leading lady with the requisite blonde hair, heart-throb boyfriend (Just Married co-star Ashton Kutcher), and rumors about drug use and eating disorders. She steamrolled through a series of moderately successful (if generally forgettable) comedies, including Uptown Girls, in which Roger Ebert pinpointed Murphy's "divine ineptitude" (in the manner of "Lucille Ball") as the otherwise light movie's strongest suit.

It was a fine career, but it didn't sit right, and Murphy again changed tracks with roles in 8 Mile and Sin City—and a Maxim-approved "troublemaker" makeover—but her agent suddenly dropped her at what should have been a career turning point. Murphy was described as "hot and cold" and "difficult." She became a voicing staple (with leading vocal roles in Fox's King of the Hill and penguin movie Happy Feet) even as she fought for screen time in acting roles she eventually lost due to "creative differences" and being "problematic on set."

So how are Brittany's sometime detractors memorializing her now?

The Guardian's obit opens with potential unrealized:

It has become something of a Hollywood formality that any young woman actor fresh on the scene is pencilled in to play Janis Joplin sooner or later. Brittany Murphy, who has died aged 32 from cardiac arrest, was one of many performers over the years who were attached to some Joplin biopic or another.

In this case, it was Piece of My Heart, for which Murphy auditioned successfully in 1999, but which was never made.

E's Joal Ryan remembers a "rare," "erratic" career defined by what it was not: easy.

She was different. ... Different can mean "extremely difficult," as in the Murphy of a 2008 New York Post item. (According to the paper, Murphy required a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich-diagonally cut, no crusts-on the hour, every hour on the set of the just-released, if barely, thriller Across the Hall.)

Or it can mean "erratic" (per a 2004 MSNBC report on Murphy's behavior at a press junket for Uptown Girls), and "barely there" (per The Wrap on Murphy's behavior during the recently completed shoot for another thriller, Something Wicked.) ...

Or it can mean unique. As in uniquely talented.

CNN takes the euphemistic route:

Brittany Murphy, the bubbly, free-spirited actress who appeared in such films as Clueless and 8 Mile, died Sunday, apparently of natural causes...

The Atlantic's Alyssa Rosenberg remembers Clueless as a bittersweet high point:

The girls of my generation may have grown beyond their fleeting desire for knee-highs, and overalls are nowhere to be found in my wardrobe. But in a sense, Murphy never grew beyond her performance as Tai. To watch her in Clueless is to see her at her most joyful and at her funniest. ... Onscreen or off, she never quite surpassed the role that launched her career: the endearing and genuine newcomer...

But Brittany's most memorable postmortems will likely be of the tabloid variety: grisly details from the scene of her death, "sources" who come forward to say they saw it coming, speculation about "self-destruction," "enablers," and the price of fame. And so Brittany Murphy, it seems, will die as she lived: ambivalently, a public figure that no one ever quite figured out how to pin down.

Richardson was born into showbiz royalty. The daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, her aunt Lynn and sister Joely are also acclaimed performers.

A London native, Richardson later moved to the U.S. to escape, she said, some of the "baggage" that came with being a member of the Redgrave theatrical dynasty in Britain .

Richardson is perhaps best known for her ferocious turn as Sally Bowles in the Roundabout Theater Company's dark production of Cabaret that ran on Broadway in 1999. She won a slew of awards and acclaim, including a Tony, but megastardom didn't exactly follow. On film, Richardson had memorable turns in The Parent Trap remake opposite a young Lindsay Lohan, in Nell, and in James Ivory's The White Countess. She continued to do stage work as well, appearing most recently in New York as Blanche in A Street Car Named Desire on Broadway, again with the Roundabout.

She met husband Liam Neeson while performing opposite him in a 1993 Broadway revival of Anna Christie, a "sizzling and electric... performance that made her a star in the United States."

In addition to Neeson, Richardson leaves behind her two sons, Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12.

A few clips of Richardson at work:

The Parent Trap, 1998

Cabaret, 1999 (audio only)

Discussing the work of playwright Eugene O'Neill with Neeson

The Tony-award winning stage and film performer was taken off life support by her family this afternoon, the New York Post reported. Friends and family had gathered at Lenox Hill Hospital, where she had been taken following a skiing accident two days ago near Montreal.

Other media outlets, including CNN and the Daily News, cited a family statement reporting Richardson's death.

Richardson, a member of the Redgrave theatrical dynasty, is married to film star Liam Neeson. In addition to Neeson, she is survived by sons Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12. The family statement said the sons were "shocked and devastated by the loss."

At Richardson's bedside over the past day were her mother Vanessa Redgrave, aunt Lynn Redgrave, sister Joely Richardson and ex-husband Robert Fox. Among those paying their respects have been actress Meryl Streep, author Joan Didion and actress Lauren Bacall.

For a look at Richardson's life and career, see Richard Lawson's Natasha Richardson, 1963-2009: In Memoriam.

Richardson's eventually-fatal accident came Monday. While taking a beginner's skiing lesson at Mont Tremblant in Quebec, north of Montreal, Richardson fell in what was later described as a patch of snow. She had not been wearing a helmet, but initially shook off the fall, according to news reports. About an hour later, Richardson complained of a severe headache and was taken to a Montreal hospital.

According to the Daily News, "Experts said she exhibited the classic symptoms of a epidural hematoma, or bleeding between the brain and the skull."

Pollack was an even more prolific producer, sharing credits on nearly four dozen titles including last year's Best Picture nominee Michael Clayton — in which he also acted opposite George Clooney. His other acting credits include Husbands and Wives, Eyes Wide Shut, and most recently, Made of Honor. Pollack was a partner of the late Anthony Minghella in Mirage Productions, which pushed virtually all of the directors' respective projects over the last 10 years as well as the upcoming Kate Winslet film The Reader; it remains to be seen what will happen with Mirage's first-look deal with The Weinstein Company and other projects in development.

• Sydney Pollack, 73; Oscar-winning director and producer [LAT]

"When I was being Ali G and Borat I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing," he said.

"It is like saying goodbye to a loved one. It is hard, and the problem with success, although it's fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat movie is one less person I 'get' with Borat again, so it's a kind of self-defeating form, really.

"It's upsetting, but the success has been great and better than anything I could have dreamed of."

Indeed, it's sad to face the reality of a world in which we'll never again see the wide-eyed Kazakh journalist proudly present a Southern etiquette coach with a fresh bag of his own feces at a dinner party or nearly asphyxiate under the crushing weight of an obese compatriot's fetid hindquarters. Still, we have the considerable promise of Bruno to look forward to, as well as a new round of lawsuits filed by homophobic Baptist ministers who never thought that the seemingly innocent hot oil, full-body "anointing" they were talked into giving the Austrian TV fashionista would play out so erotically when presented on a multiplex screen.

• Sacha Baron Cohen: Killing off Borat [Telegraph]