Sketchbook: Remembering the celebrities we lost in 2017

FROM music to movies, we mourned pioneers and performance icons in 2017.

We lost everyone from Batman (Adam West) to Bond (Roger Moore) to Rocket J. Squirrel (June Foray).

We lost comedy legends who had worked close to Rat Pack icons (Jerry Lewis and Don Rickles).

We lost guitarists who gave us everything from “Johnny B. Goode” (Chuck Berry) to “Rhinestone Cowboy” (Glen Campbell) to “Coca-Cola Cowboy” (Mel Tillis), and from the “Midnight Rider” (Gregg Allman) to “You Shook Me All Night Long” (AC/DC’s Malcolm Young).

We lost writers who depicted gritty American characters (Sam Shepard, Jimmy Breslin) and weavers of sports narrative (Frank Deford, Dick Enberg).

Welostactivists(DickGregory, Edith Windsor), philanthropists (Dina Merrill) and so very many well-known actors that two had famously shared the same series (“The Dick Van Dyke Show’s” Mary Tyler Moore and Rose Marie).

Even “Night of the Living Dead” filmmaker George Romero died in 2017.

In memoriam, as a way to say “thanks,” accompanying this are 10 sketches of the following celebrities: June Fornay; Fats Domino; Don Rickles; Tom Petty; Mary Tyler Moore; Dick Gregory; Sam Shepard; Adam West; Chris Cornell, and Robert Osborne. — WP-Bloomberg

— Denis Villeneuve, director

“I committed myself and I’m someone that doesn’t step back. I remember I committed to do ‘Enemy’, they came with ‘Prisoners’ I said, ‘I need to do Enemy first’, and I had to break to bend the schedule.

“I did the same with ‘Arrival’ and ‘Blade Runner’.

“I did Blade Runner, one of my conditions was that I would have time to do ‘Arrival’ first.

“Once I commit, I commit. When Legendary offered me to do ‘Dune’, on a silver plate? Which was like my dream project that I’m dreaming to do for 30 years?

“I said yes right away. I want to honour that. It doesn’t mean the movie will happen, maybe in six months the movie will — and Bond is an old fantasy of mine, but I can’t be in two places at the same time.”

The 50-year-old director says he could look to getting involved with the movies after the next one, which is due to hit cinemas in November 2019, but by that time ‘Spectre’ star Craig may not still be Bond. — BANG Showbiz

(Clockwise from top left) Tom Petty, lead singer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; Adam West, who died in June, played Batman; Singer and songwriter Chris Cornell; Playwright and actor Sam Shepard; Robert Osborne, host of the cable channel Turner...