Above, a promo photo of American actor James Gandolfini, who starred for six seasons on the HBO mafia drama The Sopranos, a television show that thanks to his performances and some very good writing is considered by many to be the best ever aired. We don’t know about best. Best is hard to quantify and has to do with taste. Perhaps it’s fairer to say that The Sopranos opened new realms of possibility in television and through its success helped lead to many of the great shows on the air today. Gandolfini died in Rome yesterday of an apparent heart attack.

American actress Carole Lombard, née Alice Jane Peters, was known for her screwball comedies, which is why we love her going against type in this smoldering white on black image. Lombard is one of many Hollywood actresses whose time was cut tragically short. She was killed in January 1942 at age thirty-three when a plane in which she was a passenger crashed into Double Up Peak on Potosi Mountain outside Las Vegas.

Above, a shot of French actress Silvia Solar, aka Geneviève Couzain, who appeared in the films Night of the Howling Beast, The Wicked Caresses of Satan, Death and Diamonds, and other cult classics, from 1957 to 1992. This shot dates from 1963. Solar died today last year, aged 71. 

Above is a lovely image of American actress Jean Seberg, who streaked across the cinematic firmament at the end of the 1950s in movies like Lilith and Breathless, but once famous quickly learned that freedom of association was a right that was guaranteed only if one didn’t actually exercise it. When her political support for civil rights groups became known to federal authorities, they made her a target of the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO, which was a covert, illegal spying program aimed at American citizens whose political activities were deemed a threat to the status quo. The FBI harassed and discredited Seberg, and surveilled her both in the U.S. and abroad, all while hiding its involvement, and that of high ranking government officials, including U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. Seberg ended her turbulent life by committing suicide in Paris in August 1979, and her family as well as numerous fans blamed the FBI and U.S. government for pushing her over the edge. The above image was made many years before, in 1963. 

Sad news just off the wire—unique, prolific, and influential French illustrator Jean Giraud has died aged 73 after a long battle with cancer. Giraud broke onto the art scene in 1965, won his first awards by 1973, and by 1975 had adopted the pseudonym Moebius and developed into a graphic arts master. He worked in the comics medium quite a bit as both a writer and artist, and in addition to nine Marvel/Epic graphic novels, and work on longrunning Marvel characters like the Silver Surfer, was also a regular in the pages of the seminal French sci-fi magazine Métal Hurlant—known in the U.S. as Heavy Metal. Aside from all that, he also worked extensively in motion picture production design, and his efforts helped shape films such as Alien, Willow, Tron and The Fifth Element. It’s been a rough week for the art world—Ralph McQuarrie died less than a week ago. We’ve gathered up a few Giraud/Moebius pieces below so those who don’t know this master can get a sense of his singular style. 

Sci-fi artist Ralph McQuarrie died yesterday due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. McQuarrie’s concepts for Darth Vader, R2-D2, C-3PO and other characters indelibly shaped the Star Wars franchise, and, closer to Earth, he was also a go-to paperback cover artist during the 1980s. Below is one of our favorite McQuarrie pieces, the cover of Alan Dean Foster’s excellent Star Wars sequel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. McQuarrie was eighty-two. 

Above, French actress François Dorléac, who was the older sister of Catherine Deneuve. Dorléac appeared in sixteen films in the 1960s, but died at age twenty-five when she lost control of a car she was driving and crashed near Nice, France. She was alive immediately after the accident, but trapped in the wreckage, burned to death. That was June 1967. This photo showing her on the famous stairs at Montmartre in Paris dates from 1965. 

Above is a photo of American heavyweight boxing champ Joe Frazier between rounds of an early 1970s sparring session, and at right is a 1971 shot of Frazier having a training run along with his dog. Frazier won the heavyweight title by defeating WBA champ Jimmy Ellis in 1970. Little known fact about Frazier: in 1967 when then-champ Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces during the Vietnam War, the WBA held a tournament for Ali’s vacated belt. Frazier refused to take part in that tournament though he quite possibly could have won. Whether he refused to fight as a gesture of solidarity with Ali, or only with his anti-war stance, we don't know.

Anyway, Ellis had won that tournament, and in their 1970 bout Frazier pounded him mercilessly, knocking him down for the first two times in his career. Frazier held the belt through several title defenses until 1973, when he faced a colossal figure named George Foreman in Kingston, Jamaica. Foreman destroyed the tough, gritty Frazier, knocking him down six times in two rounds to win the title by TKO. It was a devastating beating, and the imagery of knockdowns number two and four are indelible. Still though, during an era that included several rare boxing talents, Frazier showed that he more than belonged. Another little known fact, at least to casual boxing fans: Frazier was a singer as well as a fighter, releasing several singles during the 1970s, including “If You Go, Stay Gone” and the very good “Try It Again.” Frazier died yesterday in Philadelphia, U.S.A.

Above, Italian actress Rosanna Schiaffino, who was known as “the Italian Hedy Lamarr” and appeared in the notable films Piece of the Sky and La sfida, seen here in three pages from the Spanish magazine Triunfo, 1963 and 1964. Schiaffino died today in 2009.