The Academy Awards' annual In Memoriam montage forgot to include several significant stars who died this past year, including Riverdale's Luke Perry. The yearly tradition highlights notable deaths in the film and television community with a clip reel, usually run somewhere in the middle of the 3-hour broadcast. Several celebrities who passed away in 2019 include Monty Python co-founder Terry Jones, Dwayne Johnson's father Rocky "Soul Man" Johnson, and, recently, basketball legend Kobe Bryant.
There were quite a few unexpected deaths in Hollywood this year, but none more so than Kobe. The Los Angeles Lakers superstar tragically died in a helicopter crash in January; he was 41 years old. Perry, who was 52, was hospitalized after suffering a stroke and died less than a week later. And, a week before the Oscars, Kirk Douglas passed away, but he was 103-years old - more than twice Bryant's age.
DigitalSpy noted the multitude of viewers who took to social media, after the Oscars aired the annual In Memoriam tribute, to vent their frustration at the Academy for forgetting to mention celebrities like Luke Perry and Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce. However, they weren't the only names left off the tribute. Jan-Michael Vincent, Tim Conway, Michael J. Pollard, and Sid Haig were all curiously absent from the moving montage.
Boyce, who was only 20-years old when he died, was best known for Disney Channel's Jessie and the Descendants franchise, but also starred alongside Adam Sandler in the Grown Ups films. Perry and Conway were generally known for television roles; both appeared in several films as well. Perry even made a cameo in Once Upon a Time ...In Hollywood, which was up for awards in several Oscar categories. Jan-Michael Vincent starred in Going Home, and his performance was nominated for a Golden Globe. As for Haig, he had a long, successful career as an icon of horror cinema. His most memorable performance was in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, where he played the sadistic Captain Spaulding. However, the most embarrassing omission of the evening is Pollard, especially considering he was nominated for an Oscar in 1968.
This isn't the first time the Oscars have taken heat for memorial montage omissions. Previous In Memoriam segments have forgotten several well-known names, including actress Carol Channing and Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz. Even Gremlins director Joe Dante took to Twitter in 2019 to express his disappointment at the omission of actor Dick Miller from the Academy's In Memoriam reel. While it may be impossible for the Academy to acknowledge every single death over the course of a year, it would be nice if they put a little further consideration into assembling the memorial montage for future Oscar broadcasts.
Source: DigitalSpy