People we say goodbye to in 2022

Her official Facebook page confirmed the news, noting: “Dame Olivia Newton-John (73) passed away peacefully at her Ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends. We ask that everyone please respect the family’s privacy during this very difficult time.”

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Newton-John was one of the most popular recording artists of the 1970s and 1980s. She was also a notably nimble artist – moving from early country music hits like “Let Me Be There” to mainstream pop hits like “Have You Never Been Mellow” to sexier, edgier fare like “Make a Move on Me.”

She was also one of the first artists to have significant success in video. She won a Grammy for music video of the year for her 1982 collection “Olivia Physical.” She was only the second artist to win a Grammy for video, following Michael Nesmith for “Michael Nesmith in Elephant Parts.”

Newton-John amassed five No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “Physical,” which was only the second song in Hot 100 history (following Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life”) to log 10 weeks at No. 1.

She had back-to-back No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200: If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974) and Have You Never Been Mellow (1975). She also starred with John Travolta in the blockbuster Grease, which was the top-grossing film of 1978. The film soundtrack spent 12 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and wound up with a Grammy nomination for album of the year.

The actor Louise Fletcher, who has died aged 88, won the best actress Oscar in 1976 for her chilling and controlled performance in the film version of Ken Kesey’s countercultural novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

As Nurse Ratched, who instils fear into the patients in a mental institution without ever raising her voice, she was calmly terrifying. The part had shades of the panto villain about it, but Fletcher permitted vital glimpses into the human control-freak beneath this worthy exterior, notably in her standoffs with Jack Nicholson as the rebellious anti-hero McMurphy.

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Fletcher saw Nurse Ratched as a symbol of where the US had gone astray during the Richard Nixon years. “She was convinced that she had her world in order, and that for it to work properly it had to be in that order. The minute McMurphy arrived, things began to fall apart for her. And she couldn’t have that. She had enough power that her conviction could have consequences – and that’s where I felt we were in the world at the time, too. The film was all about who has the power and how they use it, and how absolute power absolutely corrupts.”

Born Anthony Robert McMillan in the prosperous Glaswegian suburb of Rutherglen, Coltrane was educated at Glenalmond College, an independent boarding school whose corporal punishment he described as “legalised violence”, before going to the Glasgow School of Art. He had second thoughts about his ability as a painter, and switched to live performance, acting in radical theatre companies (including a troupe from San Quentin State prison) and doing standup, taking the pseudonym Coltrane as homage to celebrated jazz musician John Coltrane.

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[Coltrane] found himself at the top of the list for the casting of Hogwarts’ school caretaker Rubeus Hagrid in the film adaptation of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series – a role he is said to have only taken on after his children urged him to.

The first in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was released in 2001, and gained Coltrane a new audience of younger fans, and helped re-energise his career, particularly on British TV.