There were significant losses in other areas of culture, such as film, fashion, and literature.
In 2021 the voices of Rafaella Carrà, Franco Battiato or Vicente Fernández, and there were significant losses in other areas of culture, such as cinema -Jean Paul Belmondo or Verónica Forqué-, design -Elsa Peretti-, architecture -Richard Rogers- or literature – Almudena Grandes-.
A long list of farewells in which the farewell in July to the great Raffaella Carrà, a singer who marked an entire era in Italy, Spain and Latin America, with hits such as “Fiesta”, “In love everything is beginning” or “Explode my heart”, for her explosive style and for a sympathy that she cultivated especially from her facet of presenter of television programs.
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Just two months before, another of the great names of Italian music had left, one of the composers who blurred the barrier between high and low culture, Franco Battiato. He had been retired from the public scene for years and left as a legacy thirty studio albums such as “La voce del padrone” and songs that became hymns such as “Voglio vederti danzare” or “Cetro di gravità permanent”.
The legend of the rancheras, Vicente Fernandez, left a feeling of emptiness in Mexican music, for which he was considered one of the great idols and whose death has put the final touch on the golden age of the rancheras, to which he contributed with great reinterpretations of songs such as “El Rey ”, Or with songs like“ Volver, Volver ”.
The “Godfather of Salsa”, the Dominican Johnny pacheco, key to forging this music in the neighborhoods of New York in the sixties, when he founded the band “Fania All Stars”. From Celia Cruz to Ray Barreto, among two hundred other renowned artists were part of this label, which helped shape the Latin music of the time.
In March a reggae pioneer died, Neville Livingston, better known as “Bunny Wailer” and one of the original members of the band “The Wailers” with Bob Marley.
And in August the dandy of The Rolling Stones left, Charlie Watts, one of the great drummers in history, the most reserved member of a band of excessive personalities and the “rock” of the Stones, as Paul McCartney called him.
Who
But it’s not just music that has lost big names. In the cinema, the death of the Spanish actress Veronica Forqué He shocked his fellow professionals and Spanish society as a whole. One of the eternal smiles of Spanish cinema was leaving with four Goya Awards and emblematic films such as “Kika” or “La vida alegre”.
Also departed Jean Paul Belmondo, the everlasting smile of French cinema. The actor starred from signature films of the “nouvelle vague” with Jean-Luc Godard or Louis Malle to adventure and action films such as “The man from the river” or “Borsalino”.
Colombian Jaime Osorio, creator of the HBO Max series ‘Thousand tusks’, dies
The filmmaker Bertrand tavernier He left behind, in addition to thirty films, among which titles such as “Captain Conan” or “Life and nothing else” stand out for their international fame, his criticisms as an expert cinephile, who outlined history with his films marked by social commitment from France.
Christopher Plummer, protagonist in “Smiles and tears” with the actress Julie Andrews, also died in 2021 after almost a lifetime working in front of the cameras, becoming the oldest actor to win an Oscar for his role in “Begginers” (2010) at the age of 82.
The Cuban film director Juan Carlos Tabio, co-author of films like “Guantanamera” or “Fresa y Chocolate”, left us 41 documentaries and fiction tapes, in addition to having been one of the banners in the history of Cuban cinema.
Known for her participation in “Harry Potter” or her role in the series “Peaky Blinders”, the British actress Helen McCrory passed away this year, as did Nathalie Delon, y Paul Ritter, actor in series such as “Chernobyl” or films such as “Quantum of Solace”, by James Bond, a saga in which Yaphet Kotto, the first black villain of the film series and another of the farewells of this 2021, also participated.
Literature
The writer’s pen Anne Rice, one of the queens of gothic horror and author of the novel “Interview with the vampire” and the series of books “Vampiric Chronicles” was extinguished this 2021, like that of the American Noah Gordon, internationally known author for his novel “The doctor”, also transferred to the cinema.
Desmond Tutu, a symbol of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, dies
And in Spain he died Almudena Grandes, author of great works such as “Malena es nombre de tango”, “Los aires Difficult” or “Las Ages de Lulú”. One of the Spanish narrators with the greatest international projection, as well as one of the literary voices most committed to feminism.
The Cervantes Awards 2019 and 2020, Joan Margarit and Francisco Brines, were other farewells to the literary world.
Fashion
The one with fashion was losing Elsa Peretti, former model and Italian jewelry designer, as well as one of the visible faces of Tiffany & Co., a firm for which she worked since the mid-1970s and with which she drew up new codes in jewelry design.
Fashion has also mourned the loss of the designer Alber Elbaz, which marked the industry with its cocktail-style minidresses. Virgil Abloh, creative director of Louis Vuitton and his own firm, Off White, was also leaving after becoming one of the most acclaimed designers of recent years.
2021, a tough year for the world of culture, is now reaching its last days with the death of two other great names: the British architect Richard Rogers, responsible for such emblematic buildings as the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, and the American writer and journalist Joan Didion, representative of “New journalism” and owner of a sharp, critical and feminist look. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
