Stars will live on through work

Four giants of the silver screen, a comic virtuoso who fit comfortably into film, a director/actor with an uncommon ability to locate the public pulse, a singer-actress of singular distinction, Fred Astaire's sexiest dance partner and a bevy of fine character actors, writers and producers lead a somber list of movie world figures who died in 2008.

Paul Newman and Charlton Heston were two of the last great 20th-century movie stars, men who captured filmgoers' imagination first within the studio system, then as independents who chose the characters they would play and the films they would help endure.

Where Marlon Brando and James Dean defined the sullen, defiant American male, Newman made him an impudent and (mostly) likable maverick.

Heston, stalwart and heroic in bearing, won a corner in costume epics and historical figures before scaling it back in later years in "character" parts.

As stars, both were icons, as big as could be. But not far behind was the versatile Richard Widmark, equally adept at sympathy or villainy. And though his most concentrated impact was on the British stage, Paul Scofield gave a handful of some of the most accomplished performances in movie history, most notably in "A Man for All Seasons."

Comedian George Carlin, filmmaker Sydney Pollack, actress-chanteuse-cabaret star Eartha Kitt, dancer-actress Cyd Charisse and the eternal All-American Boy, actor Van Johnson, also will be missed, as will actor Roy Scheider, actress Suzanne Pleshette and, not least, a gifted star much too young to have departed, Heath Ledger.

As long as there are movies, their work is immortal.

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.