5.) Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Written and directed by Hughes, he said that he based the character of Cameron on himself, and based Ferris on what he always wished he could be. But it was Ferris' jealous, cynical sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey) that perhaps provided some of the biggest laughs.

4.) The Breakfast Club
Written and directed by Hughes, this is the quintessential Brat Pack film.

Hughes made a cameo, playing Anthony Michael Hall's father.

3.) Pretty in Pink
This movie always confused me as child, because '80s style guides implied that redheads should always avoid wearing pink, and instead, stick to green. But who doesn't love Duckie?

2.) Weird Science
While the whole computer geeks creating their own model magical dream girlfriend plays into male fantasies, there's something about the themes of Weird Science—underdogs coming out on top with the help of supernatural powers—that hold universal appeal.

1.) Sixteen Candles
John Hughes' directorial debut still stands as an absolute classic, and as such, warranted two clips.

I couldn't help but add this one, because while I was only about 5 years old when I first saw it, somehow, a quarter of a century later, the behavior of these two drunk chicks still rings true.

Even though Oxman was calling from UCLA Medical Center—where Jackson was brought, and where his family members are convening—he would not confirm his death, which is bizarre. But bizarre has become synonymous with Jackson's life over the last two decades.

Most interestingly, though, Oxman says that Jackson was in fine physical condition, but that he had a very serious problem with prescription medication, and that the people that were surrounding him were enablers. Oxman went on to say, "If you think the case with Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it's nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson's life."

Because America is both a melting pot and a fairly young country, our shared culture is pop culture; we are influenced, informed, and ultimately reflected by television, movies, music, books, etc. And Bea Arthur's work on both stage and screen was defined by much more than her deep voice and deadpan delivery. It played an important part in our social change.

1.) Maude
The Tony and Emmy-winning actress worked in show business for most of her adult life, but it wasn't until she was 50 that she really made it big — in what she refers to as her "middle-aged Cinderella story" — starring in Maude (a spin-off of All in the Family) that ran from 1972 - 1978. In the title role of Maude Findlay, Arthur played an outspoken liberal feminist and civil rights activist, and the show was far ahead of its time, addressing topics of menopause, alcoholism, plastic surgery, and most notably, abortion.

During the first season, in a two-part episode titled "Maude's Dilemma," 47-year-old Maude discovers that she's pregnant. She and her husband and her adult daughter (Adrienne Barbeau) weigh her options, and ultimately, Maude terminates the pregnancy — a first for network TV. Although abortion was legalized in New York, where Maude was set, the episodes were broadcast in November 1972, two months before Roe v. Wade was decided. Two CBS affiliates refused to broadcast the program. Here's a clip:

Although Arthur enjoyed the role she played, she didn't enjoy another—that of a champion of the women's movement—thrust upon her, saying in a 2001 interview, "They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me."

Later in life, however, Arthur adopted some of the language of feminism when discussing the breakup of her second marriage, which she blamed on her dedication to her career. "I don't think I ever truly believed in marriage anyway. I guess marriage means that you're a woman and not a . . . person."

She elaborates on that — and the social importance of Maude — here, in this interview for The Archive of American Television.

2.) Sex and the Single Senior
Playing Dorothy Zbornak in the hit sitcom Golden Girls (which ran from 1985 - 1992), Arthur, and her costars Rue McClanahan, Estelle Getty, and Betty White, achieved on prime time TV what seemed to be the impossible: Showcasing post-menopausal women as trendy, funny, and sexual. Way before Sex and the City was lauded for its portrayal of strong female friendships and the discussion of shopping-bag swinger lifestyles over brunch in NYC, Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose talked about their very active sex lives over plates of cheesecake in Miami. In this clip, the girls go out to buy condoms to prepare for a romantic cruise they're about to embark on with their boyfriends:

All four actresses on the show won Emmys for their roles, making it the first time since All in the Family that a sitcom had an entirely award-winning cast. (You can read an oral history of Golden Girls here.)

Of her role on the show, Arthur said, "It's very nice to have women realize that women our age can be attractive and well groomed and wear fabulous clothes and earrings, and have a sex life." Interestingly, when GG first premiered, Dorothy was about the age of Kim Cattrall in the SATC movie.

3.) Breaking the Mold
Having reached the crest of her career in middle age, and being 5'9, with a baritone voice, Arthur was not exactly the ingenue. With her trademark, cutting one-liners, Arthur was way too salty for the sugar-and-spice female stereotype. Instead of fighting the aging process cosmetically, she used it to get a laugh and earn a buck, as seen in this Golden Girls clip.

She carried the same attitude later on in her career, as well, as seen in the TV Land show Back to the Grind in 2007. (Clip below.)

4.) Gay Icon
In addition to her work as an animal rights activist, Arthur involved herself in AIDS awareness, speaking at many events. (She once said, "Of course I have gay friends — doesn't everybody?" and when lesbian rumors surfaced, she responded, "I think it is because of the voice, but who cares?") Episodes of Golden Girls and Maude both addressed the subject of homosexuality, but this '70s performance, featuring Arthur singing about drugs with her friend Rock Hudson, stands out the most.

5.) Ribald and Refined
While a lot of the humor on Golden Girls was assuredly bawdy, Arthur pushed the envelope for a joke in real life, too. We leave you with her dramatic reading from Pamela Anderson's novel Star Struck, regarding anal sex.

Cheers To 'Maude' Bea Arthur [NPR]
Here's Looking At You, Bea Arthur [USA Today]
Beatrice Arthur: A Towering Comedic Talent From Another Era [LA Times]
'Golden Girls': A 20th Anniversary Oral History [EW]

Earlier: Bea Arthur: Golden Bitch
Bea Arthur Does Carrie Bradshaw In Old Lady Version Of Sex And The City

The psychobilly pioneers — led by Interior (nee Erick Lee Purkhiser) and his wife, sneering guitarist Poison Ivy — formed in the mid-'70s, making their reputations with their kinky, corrosive live acts generally culminating in a writhing, half-naked, high-heel-rocking Interior destroying something or other with his bare hands, teeth, head — whatever was closest to the offending object, usually. (The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has enshrined a kick drum he once impaled with his skull.) The Cramps broke in New York, eventually staging perhaps their most infamous performance in 1978 at Napa's California State Mental Hospital before finally moving to Los Angeles in the early '80s.

Video from their delightful hospital visit is featured below, and Spout notes also that the late singer is featured among the voice talent behind Los Campeones de la Lucha Libre, an animated comedy screening tonight at the Egyptian and pitting Mexican wrestlers against apocalyptic barbarians against monsters. An ideal wake, to be sure. RIP.

• Lux Interior dies at 60 [LAT]

Montalbán's career spanned decades. He was Mexican-born, and was discovered working in Mexican movies by MGM, who signed him to appear in musicals in the '40s. Here he is in 1947's Fiesta, dancing alongside the recently departed Cyd Charisse.

Here he is dancing a Tango with Jane Powell in 1950's Two Weeks with Love.

In the late '70s, he was the spokesperson for the Chrysler Cordoba, where his rolling "r"s helped tap into consumers' subconscious need for Corinthian leather in their American cruisers—nothing less.

He'll be best known as Fantasy Island's Mr. Roarke, playing that wish-granting tropical locale's proprietor/Tattoo-keeper with just the right amount of swarthy Latin mystery.

Montalbán reprised his 1967 Star Trek role of intergalactic tyrant Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where he rocked a voluptuous he-bosom so impressive, its authenticity is disputed to this day.

Finally, we can't overlook his work in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, playing the nefarious tycoon Vincent Ludwig. Only Montalbán could deliver lines like, "Tell me, Mr. Papshmir, in all the world, who is the most effective assassin?" with such chillingly stone-faced effectiveness.

• Ricardo Montalban dies at 88 [LAT]
• 'Fantasy Island' star Ricardo Montalban dies at 88 [AP]

McGoohan suffered from an undisclosed "short illness," according to his son-in-law; his last major screen role came in 1996's A Time to Kill. The year before that he played Edward Longshanks in Braveheart, winning the love of his people by disemboweling the mutinous Scot William Wallace. He reprised his famous Prisoner stint as Number Six in a 2000 episode of The Simpsons as well, invoking his nameless character's one-season quest to outfox the mysterious "Number Two" and escape the mysterious Village. You finally made it out, Patrick. RIP.

• Patrick McGoohan: 'The Prisoner' actor dies aged 80 [Guardian]

"He knew he was going to die," a friend told the LAT, "and he wanted his two young sons to have the money for their future."

It's a sad farewell to a local entrepreneurial visionary, and we're hopeful that Book Soup will pass on to loving and capable hands, and not some faceless corporate monolith who would deprive us of the kinds of Blanche and Rose Live! delights that made the store such a regular fixture in our To Do listings.

• Glenn Goldman, owner of Book Soup, dies at 58 [LAT]

Neither the cause of death nor any other details are available, though we imagine Anonymous and other Scientology critics will drop in with their own suspicions by the time you finish reading this sentence. Jett was long rumored to be autistic, a condition that went untreated while his parents instead claimed he suffered from Kawasaki syndrome — a children's illness characterized by fever, rash, swollen lymph nodes, and potentially leading to heart disease. Developing...

UPDATE (1:21 p.m.): Reuters reports that Jett suffered a seizure at the family's vacation home. Travolta attorney Michael Ossi confirmed the details, adding that attempts were made to revive him, but he died at the scene.

[Photo: SplashNewsOnline via TMZ]

• John Travolta's Son Dies [TMZ]

In between, we lost a shark hunter, an ape-fighting guerrilla, a pinup icon, a dirty word demystifier, a Hedy Lamarr (that's HEDLEY), a Ghost World convenience store clerk, a dysdinotopia visionary, a Tootsie director, a King of Comedy, a set of legs that just kept on going, a Shady Pines escapee, a fork-tongued fashion cop, the Voice of God himself, a Dolemite-waiter, and Paul Newman. Paul Fucking Newman, people. He's gone.

We've compiled an In Memoriam montage for you, sensitively set to Kenny Loggins's electrifying Top Gun soundtrack smash, "Highway to the Danger Zone." Here's hoping they're all performing acrobatic maneuvers through the gates of Heaven, with G-d as their wingman.

Bettie Page
Don LaFontaine
Cyd Charisse
Anthony Minghella
Rudy Ray Moore
Van Johnson
Isaac Hayes
Sam Bottoms
Mr Blackwell
Brad Renfro
Bernie Mac
Harvey Korman
Michael Crichton
Estelle Getty
Sydney Pollack
Roy Scheider
Charlton Heston
George Carlin
Heath Ledger
Paul Newman

(And a very special, "oops we left her out of the montage" mention to Eartha Kitt.)

First, and perhaps most notably, Kitt lent her delicious purr to its most inevitable use when she took over the role of Catwoman on Batman in the 1960s. Here's a clip of the actress at full seductive powers; as Batman confides to Robin, "She may be evil, but she is attractive."

As her Catwoman stint proved, when Kitt was bad, she was never better. Thus, her song finding heavy rotation in Defamer HQ today is not "Santa Baby" but the wickedly entertaining "I Want to Be Evil." Rest in peace, Eartha; today, we'll scratch and hiss in your honor.

• 'Santa Baby' Singer Eartha Kitt Dies [People]

That's probably another record of some sort for a wide release's quickest disappearance from the multiplex, where Delgo in fact plunged to a truly stunning $19 per-screen average (yes, nineteen) on Monday, inching back up to $21 per screen by Wednesday. Today, our search for show times anywhere in the United States was futile, and distributor-for-hire Freestyle Releasing has wiped it clean from its Web site. Nevertheless, Delgo posters are still in stock at Amazon, should your living room be wanting for just the right souvenir of history-making box-office failure.

• 'Delgo' [Box Office Mojo]

Bottoms's film debut in The Last Picture Show occurred after director Peter Bogdanovich observed the 15-year-old knocking around the set with his big brother Tim; "Mr. Bogdanovich gave him the role of Billy, the retarded boy who sweeps the streets of his dusty Texas town," sensitively reports today's NYT, though Billy was more mute than retarded, but why split hairs?

Bottoms later joined Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales before taking off to the Phillipines for what would become his best-known role, as surfing champion-turned-burnout 'Nam infantryman Lance Johnson in Apocalypse Now. Mostly television, B-movies and indies occupied the next three decades, with his final performance coming in last year's Bruce Lee mockumentary Finishing the Game. He was married to Laura Bickford, the producer of Traffic, Fur and Che; they worked together on the 2005 family dramedy Winter Passing.

Condolences, all. As his indelible Picture Show character said at that film's funeral for Ben the Lion, *silence*.

• Sam Bottoms, Film and TV Actor, Dies at 53 [NYT]

A tipster notes that the series' final episode of its 16-show run shoots this week. The show, an Americanization of the BBC hit The Worst Week of my Life, had benefited from a Two and a Half Men lead-in on Monday nights, with CBS ordering three additional episodes almost a month ago. It had been on a steep decline through the end of November, shedding almost 30% percent of its audience before rebounding last week for its best showing yet with 10.6 million viewers. That is some lump of coal, CBS.

Johnson passed away due to natural causes today in New York; he was 92. His breakthrough came 65 years ago as Spencer Tracy's fighter-pilot protege in the World War II fantasy A Guy Named Joe, shortly after which he had half his head ripped off in an auto accident. The miracles of medicine and Hollywood prevailed: His scalp was reattached, Joe blew up and Johnson spent the next two decades as a matinee idol in hits including 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, The Caine Mutiny, Brigadoon and The Last Time I Saw Paris.

He later suffered a miserably ugly divorce, eventually settling into theater and TV with the occasional Straight-to-Flopz&™ masterpiece — Killer Crocodile, Taxi Killer, 3 Days to Kill — thrown in toward the end of his film career in the '80s. Johnson made a decent living as a painter as well, according to the AP, selling canvases for up to $10,000; he spent the last years of his life in a New York-area nursing home, where he died this morning, ever one of the good ones.

• Actor Van Johnson, '40s heartthrob, dies at 92 [AP]

Page never regained consciousness after the attack, which followed three weeks of hospitalization with pneumonia. Eulogists remember her today as an impoverished straight-A high school student, an tempestuous BDSM revolutionary, a pioneering Playboy centerfold, an anti-porn crusade target, the subject of a "cult-like revival" whose personal Web site reportedly drew 588 million visits since 2003 and a rehabbed evangelical recluse who would happily exchange a signature and maybe a personal anecdote or two for your pledge to never photograph her. "I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she said in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."

Oh, we've got lots of pictures. We all remember plenty, conceivably requiring an outbreak today of what may be history's first-ever NSFW obituaries. She'd likely be proud.

• 1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies in LA at 85 [AP]

"Law enforcement sources tell us Dakota Culkin was walking on the west side of Los Angeles Tuesday when she stepped off a curb and was struck by a car," reports TMZ. "The 29-year-old Culkin was taken to the UCLA Medical Center where she died of her injuries yesterday afternoon." Dakota was the elder of two Culkin-clan daughters, adds The Huffington Post. We send our condolences to Macaulay, Rory and the rest of their family, and urge Clint Howard to stay indoors until this whole trend blows over.

[Photo: HuffPo]

• Macaulay's Sister Dies [TMZ]

"While the world knew him as a great story teller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us — and entertained us all while doing so — his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes. He did this with a wry sense of humor that those who were privileged to know him personally will never forget.

Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand.

He will be profoundly missed by those whose lives he touched, but he leaves behind the greatest gifts of a thirst for knowledge, the desire to understand, and the wisdom to use our minds to better our world.

Michael's family respectfully asks for privacy during this difficult time.

A private funeral service is expected, but no further details will be released to the public."

• "Jurassic Park" Author Michael Crichton Dead at 66 [momlogic]

• Estelle Reiner, 94, Comedy Matriarch, Is Dead [NYT]

Believe us, Mr. Blackwell, we can relate — as can so many of our peers and colleagues in print and online who, for better or worse, trade on his influence every day. After the jump, we mourn his passing with our own top 10 of Mr. Blackwell's withering witticisms from nearly 50 years on the scene. Rest in peace, (un)kind sir.

10. Jane Fonda (1967) — "Stretch pants on angel food cake."

9. Howard Stern (1995, the first year a man topped the list) — "Let's face it. Howard's 'Miss America' drag looks like Godzilla impersonating Gypsy Rose Lee."

8. Elke Sommer (1973) — "Do-it-yourself kit with the wrong instructions!"

7. Martha Stewart (1999)— "She dresses like the centerfold for The Farmer's Almanac."

6. Melanie Griffith (2003) — "Melanie defines 'fatal fashion folly,' a Botox'd cockatoo in a painting by Dali!"

5. Brigitte Bardot (1962) — "A buxom milkmaid reminiscent of a cow wearing a girdle, and both have the same amount of acting talent."

4. Madonna (1997) — "Let's be blunt, yesterday's Evita is today's Velveeta."

3. Ann-Margret (1966) — "Marlon Brando in a g-string."

2. Carol Channing (1966) — "Finger paints, chicken feathers, and glue thrown into an electric fan."

1. Elizabeth Taylor (1967) — "Looks like two small boys fighting under a mink blanket."

Honorable Mention: Lest you think the man had a pincushion for a heart, it's also worth recalling the note that concluded his 2007 Top 10: "For those of you who were expecting to see Britney's name adorn the 2007 list, I felt that it was inappropriate at this time to make comment, when her personal life is in such upheaval. I hope 2008 is a better year for her." Aw! Oh well.

• 'Mr. Blackwell,' 86, compiled 'worst dressed' celebrity lists [LAT]

• Richard Blackwell [Wikipedia]