or actress or director, but obviously wasn't?

i hate to be morose, but I swear for the longest time i thought Wallace Shawn was dead.

i could've sworn i saw something that flashed his works "Clueless", "Princess Bride", "Toy Story", etc. and i was really bummed because i liked him a lot. this was before i knew these boards or i would've known for sure, but i didn't check it out and just thought he was dead.

then, he popped up in something and i actually thought it was just released post-humously. now, i saw him in the trailer for "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl". i assume now, he isn't dead

that ever happen to you, you thought someone was dead, that wasn't?

I can't imagine how you got that impression.

I'm usually the opposite. I think an actor is alive and then I'm surprised that he/she died YEARS ago.

Heck, I just found out Brion James (of Blade Runner fame) is dead. He died like, 10 years ago...

http://www.abevigoda.com/

i actually thought Wallace Shawn was dead until i clicked this thread...

it's inconceivable...

glad i'm not the only one.

I remember years ago, I was flipping through channels when a friend called. So I muted the TV and was talking to my friend for a while. Then I looked up, and on the silent TV screen was a still picture of Bob Hoskins and the words "Passed Away" underneath his picture. I told my friend the news that I just saw on TV - Bob Hoskins had passed away.

It took a few days for me to figure out that it was a commercial for a movie of his that the particular channel was showing later that week that's titled Passed Away.

D'oh!

I thought Elvis was dead for years.

This site called "Dead or Alive?" can help you keep track of celebrity mortal coils

You, Mabuse, most people on the internet...

Shocked to find out Cyd Charisse just died. I didn't see any press on this and I must admit that I actually thought she died years ago.

I did not know this! I always notice him in movies. Grant it, I always knew him as, "that guy from Blade Runner" (and maybe Tango and Cash). But he definately had a noticable presence.

Goes to show that you can live forever if you get your face on the movie screen.

Michael Jeter died in 2003. This was another one that I didn't know about for a long time. Then I just looked on IMDB one day, and was like, 'whoa, he's dead'.

Like Brion James, you could always pick him out as soon as you see him. Like Brion James, he was always 'that guy from so-and-so' (usually Northern Exposure). Like Brion James, he was also in Tango and Cash!

I was just watching a seinfeld rerun. It was the one where George's car is being used by prostitutes to turn tricks in...I checked on imdb for the hooker's name because she was pretty hot, and she died in 2001

well, why did people think Wallace Shawn was dead?

A couple from the 60's and early 70's that seemed like they were all over the place back then, all of a sudden seemed to disappear: Rod Taylor and Michael Sarrazin.
Both are alive and well, but do very little work nowadays. I'd like to see them do something big, as they were both darn good actors.
Maybe Quentin Tatantino can utilize them is some way. He seems to be good at revitalizing faded careers(John Travolta, Robert Forster, Pam Grier).

Sorry, but this reminds me of Michael Scott's chair-model-who-got-away.

I was shocked to learn that Tackelberry from the Police Academy movies had died way back in 2000. Granted, he wasn't in much other than those, but still sad to know he's gone. He was always my favorite character.

Oh, and Abe Vigoda routinely jokes about this on Conan O'Brien. I think there was a bit on him on Family Guy along with Steve Guttenberg.

I can explain it for DVDTalkers. Years ago, a review for Princess Bride on another site erroneously referred to Shawn as "the late Wallace Shawn". Since then, it's been a running joke to always refer to him that way. No doubt you saw one of those posts in passing and assumed it to be true.

For years I thought Alex Rocco (Moe Green from The Godfather) was dead, I don't know why.

And I just the other day learned that Leo Burmester died last year. His most famous role was probably Catfish in The Abyss. He was the big guy who threw one of the best punches in movie history at Michael Biehn.

I think a lot of people thought Wallace Shawn died when his father, William Shawn died back in 1992.

It gets funny when it's locale-specific. After My So-Called Life ended, there was a big rumour in Ireland that Jared Leto was dead. I know people who still believed it until recently.

I know this is weird but I heard an interesting theory for why some people are thought to be dead by large numbers like in the case of Abe Vigoda.

It has to do with a Multiverse. Yes, a Multiverse . It may not be not just some DC Comic book writer's crutch if you believe some scientists out there. Anyway, the idea goes that in fact the person DID die in his or her particular parallel universe and somehow that news or info crossed over to our universe, but only certain people got that knowledge.

I know many will laugh or outright scoff at this but so what. I think it sounds fascinating.

I had heard on the radio that Rick Moranis got hit with a train... but apparently he's alive and well.

Dody Goodman just died. I thought she had already passed on.