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Producers of the 73rd annual Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony honored almost all of the expected people who died this past year. Who was not featured during the emotional In Memoriam segment Sunday night on CBS? Prominent performers and character actors such as Frank Bonner, Sean Connery, Michael Constantine, Abby Dalton, James Hampton, Bruce Kirby, Norman Lloyd, Helen Reddy and Jane Withers were not part of the 49 people included.

While over 100 celebrated television people died since last year’s event in mid-September of 2020, the segment generally only makes room for less than 50. Among those featured Sunday night: TV Academy Hall of Fame members actor Ed Asner, production designer Roy Christopher, actress Cloris Leachman, writer/producer William Link and actress Cicely Tyson. Current nominee Michael K. Williams (“Lovecraft Country”) and “Saturday Night Live” veteran Norm Macdonald sadly passed away this month as well.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2021: In Memoriam Gallery

The 49 people featured...

Producers of this Sunday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony have some difficult decisions to make about who to honor during the emotional In Memoriam segment. Cedric the Entertainer will host the 2021 Emmys for CBS at 8:00 p.m. Et; 5:00 p.m. Pt. A total of 34 presenters have been announced so far.

Our list below includes almost 100 people who made a strong contribution to television and have died since mid-September of 2020. Only about 40-45 of these people will probably be in the video segment. Certain to be featured will be TV Academy Hall of Fame members actor Ed Asner, production designer Roy Christopher, actress Cloris Leachman, writer/producer William Link and actress Cicely Tyson. Current nominee Michael K. Williams (“Lovecraft Country”) sadly passed away this month as well.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2021: In Memoriam Gallery

Ed Asner (actor)

Dana Baratta (writer/producer)

Anne Beatts (writer)

Ned Beatty (actor)

William Blinn (writer)

Frank Bonner (actor)

Perry Botkin,...

Irma Kalish, a prolific comedy writer who blazed trails for women in television with a career that stretched from radio to 1980s sitcoms, died Monday in Woodland Hills due to complications from pneumonia. She was 96.

Kalish worked on a wide range of series, from “My Favorite Martian” and “Gilligan’s Island” to “All in the Family,” “Maude” and “The Bob Newhart Show.” She was also an active member of the Writers Guild of America West and had a long tenure as a board member and as vice president. She spent 20 years on the board of the Motion Picture and Television Fund and she was an early president of Women in Film.

Kalish was a partner in life and work with her husband, Austin “Rocky” Kalish, for seven decades until his death in 2016 at age 95. The two got their start together in radio as writers for “The Martin & Lewis Show” starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Irma Kalish, one of television’s first female producers whose writing and producing credits with her husband and writing partner include the Norman Lear series Maude, All in the Family and Good Times as well as My Favorite Martian, My Three Sons, Gilligan’s Island, I Dream of Jeannie, The Bob Newhart Show and Too Close for Comfort, died September 3 in Woodland Hills, CA due to complications from pneumonia. She was 96.

The news was confirmed Monday by a family spokesperson.

Kalish, born Irma May Ginsberg in New York City, was also a vice president and longtime board member of the WGA West, receiving the writers guild’s Valentine Davies Award and Morgan Cox Award. She also was one of the first presidents of Women In Film, and the recipient of that organization’s Founders Award. Kalish also spent 27 years on the board of the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

As a writing duo,...

Irma Kalish, the pioneering sitcom writer and producer who teamed with her late husband, Austin “Rocky” Kalish, on hundreds of television episodes, including emotional installments of All in the Family and Maude, has died. She was 96.

Kalish died Friday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, her family announced.

The couple had written for such shows as My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun and F Troop but achieved a breakthrough in 1965 when they were hired by producer Ed Hartmann to write for My Three Sons and then for another CBS comedy, Family Affair, for which ...

Irma Kalish, the pioneering sitcom writer and producer who teamed with her late husband, Austin “Rocky” Kalish, on hundreds of television episodes, including emotional installments of All in the Family and Maude, has died. She was 96.

Kalish died Friday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, her family announced.

The couple had written for such shows as My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun and F Troop but achieved a breakthrough in 1965 when they were hired by producer Ed Hartmann to write for My Three Sons and then for another CBS comedy, Family Affair, for which ...

In the next installment of Amy Poehler's winning online interview series "Smart Girls at the Party," Poehler gets positively giddy interviewing an idol: Irma Kalish, who became the first woman to be made producer (and eventually executive producer) of a television series with her work on Good Times. She was also the head writer of 227, executive producer of The Facts of Life, and a writer on dozens of other now-classic comedies that were appointment viewing in the Poehler household, including All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, I Dream of Jeannie, The Love Boat, and Maude. Vulture has your first look at the interview, which includes this exchange about Poehler's favorite comedy, All in the Family: "Were the actors nice?" "The actors were nice ... " "You hesitated — who was your favorite?" "Norman Lear was my favorite." Don't forget to stay for the dance party.

In the next installment of Amy Poehler's winning online interview series "Smart Girls at the Party," Poehler gets positively giddy interviewing an idol: Irma Kalish, who became the first woman to be made producer (and eventually executive producer) of a television series with her work on Good Times. She was also the head writer of 227, executive producer of The Facts of Life, and a writer on dozens of other now-classic comedies that were appointment viewing in the Poehler household, including All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, I Dream of Jeannie, The Love Boat, and Maude. Vulture has your first look at the interview, which includes this exchange about Poehler's favorite comedy, All in the Family: "Were the actors nice?" "The actors were nice ... " "You hesitated — who was your favorite?" "Norman Lear was my favorite." Don't forget to stay for the dance party.

In TheWrap, writer and television producer Irma Kalish writes about Billie Dove’s last years at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, inland from Malibu. The article is a great read. Billie Dove, though not the "Queen of Silent Movies" as claimed in Kalish’s piece, was a popular star in the 1920s. Not one of her fifty or so movies could be called a classic, but Dove did appear in a number of well-regarded and/or box-office friendly vehicles. Among her films of that era were All the Brothers Were Valiant (1922), with Lon Chaney; The Black Pirate (1926), [...]...

By Irma Kalish

“Aside from a brief cameo in Diamond Head (1962), Billie Dove never returned to the movies. She spent her retirement years in Rancho Mirage before moving into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California where she died of pneumonia in 1997, aged 94.”

If you were to research actress Billie Dove on Google, you would read the above concluding information, and perhaps never know that there was a story behind those words, and that I, as a then Board Member of the Fund, was part of the story.

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The WGA West has confirmed the final list of candidates for its election of board members and officers. The two first-time contenders vying to succeed Daniel Petrie Jr. for a two-year term as president of the guild are Ted Elliott and Patric Verrone. David N. Weiss will challenge incumbent Carl Gottlieb for vp. Irma Kalish and Elias Davis are the candidates for the secretary-treasurer post currently held by Verrone.

Two first-time presidential candidates will compete for the top elected spot in the fall election of the WGA West, a contest that also will determine vp, secretary-treasurer and eight board seats, the union announced Thursday. The office of president will pit current secretary-treasurer Patric Verrone against board member Ted Elliott. Verrone is running on an as-yet-unnamed slate that includes vp candidate David Weiss and Elias Davis for secretary-treasurer. Elliott said he is not politically aligned with any of the other officer candidates, who include Carl Gottlieb for vp and Irma Kalish for secretary-treasurer.

Victoria Riskin has been re-elected to a second two-year term as president of the WGA West, defeating newcomer Eric Hughes. Also re-elected was WGA East president Herb Sargent. And while the guild decided not to publicly release the results of the voting -- a break from recent WGA election protocol -- it was revealed in the "members only" section of the WGA Web site that Riskin received 846 votes, while Hughes received 425. A total of 7,600 ballots were sent out, with 1,378 returned. Also re-elected to the WGA West leadership were vp Charles Holland (905 votes) and secretary-treasurer Patric Verrone (693 votes). Elected to the WGA West board of directors were Elias Davis (691 votes), Irma Kalish (664 votes), Peter Lefcourt (663 votes), Melissa Rosenberg (519 votes), Tim O'Donnell (466 votes) and incumbents Robert King (672 votes), Don M. Mankiewicz (500 votes) and J.F. Lawton (483 votes).