Richard Roundtree, the great African-American actor who hit a goldmine in 1971 by giving everyone else the Shaft, has sadly lost a brief but severe battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 81:
"I don't think of myself as a star. I didn't set out to become a star, I set out to become a singer. I would have sung no matter what. The star part is just something that they made up in Hollywood in 1930."--Linda Ronstadt