Selby I recall from The Good Life (The Good Neighbors, in the US), as a rag and bone man who helps the Goods with an iron wood-burning stove, and a kitten, and also in episodes of Callan; and, later, New Tricks, as a loan shark.  Also caught him in the first episode of Mulberry; but, that show was so depressing I didn't want to see another.

I never saw any of the episodes with Dodo; just descriptions in episode listings in Dr Who references.  I didn't catch most of Trial of a Time Lord, during Baker's days, nor much beyond the Dalek episodes of McCoy; so, I missed Selby there.

I've seen half a dozen movies with him in it, curiously a 50/50 split between French and Italian movies, but Le Samourai is my favorite. Haven't seen the one you mention, as I'm not a fan of the war genre, The Battle of Algiers, for example, is an interesting movie, but it doesn't grab me.

R. I. P. Bill Fries, aka C. W. McCall.  Clearly best known for his 1975 novelty country song Convoy.  We'll catch ya on the flip-side, Rubber Duck. 

RIP to Pepper Martin who passed away at 85 on March 18.  

I suspect that many will instantly recognize him as the bully who got his just desserts in Superman II, but he had a lengthy and successful career in wrestling as well.

I was surprised to learn that he also dated Noel Neill at one point.  Kind of strange that he'd later be putting the moves on Margot Kidder on film.

Sadly, he isn't well known, as a wrestler, since most of that footage is either long gone or sitting, unused, in the WWE Vault.  He started out in Hamilton, Ontario, where he lived, after training in a gym to try out for the Hamilton Tigers football team.  The gym was owned by a wrestler and had produced several wrestlers, in its time.  He broke in and worked the Detroit territory, before moving to Tennessee, then Indianapolis, for promoter Jim Barnett, during the promotions real heyday.  From there it was Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas, where he was stabbed, by a fan.  After recupperating at home, in Canada, he went to work in San Francisco, where he made a bit of a name for himself.  That led to meeting Woody Strode, who introduced him to Lee Marvin and John Ford.  He worked Los Angeles for a bit, but was best known in Portland as one of the top draws, in feuds with Pat Patterson and Moondog Lonnie Mayne.  He did commentary in both San Francisco and LA, which further helped him, in Hollywood.

He appeared in several tv shows (usually as a hood), including Mission:  Impossible, the Rockford Files, I Dream of Jeanie, Bonanza, Mannix, The Mod Squad and the rookies, to name a few.  At the movies, he appeared in things like Cahill, US Marshall, The Wrecking Crew, Walking Tall, The Longest Yard, and some Superman thing.  He is all over the cop shows of the 70s and was a regular in the short-lived City of Angels, starring a post-MASH Wayne Rogers.

A couple we missed, earlier in the week:

Singer Bobby Rydell (Wild One), passed away on April 5...



A pop singer of great popularity, during the period between Elvis and the Beatles. He also appeared in film version of Bye, Bye Birdie. The high school, in the musical and film Grease was named Rydell High, after Bobbie.

Here he is on the Perry Como Show, singing "Volare"...



Also passing away was actor Nehemiah Persoff, at age 102.



Persoff was born in what was then Palestine, to Jewish parents. His family emigrated to America, where he lived in Brooklyn and the Bronx. He served in an acting company, in the US Army, during WW2, entertaining soldiers. After the war, he pursued a theater career and joined the Actor's Studio, where his classmates included Kim Hunter, Martin Balsam, Chloris Leachman, James Whitmore and Julie Harris. He was the taxi driver in On The Waterfront, the gangster Little Caesar, in Some Like It Hot, and Barbara Streisand's father, in Yentl.

He had numerous tv roles, including a deposed dictator, on Gilligan's Island, an episode of Columbo ("Now You See Him..."), episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Heart of Gold")and The Twilight Zone ("Judgement Night"), The Wild Wild West, and Battlestar Galactica (leader of the Eastern Empire, in "Experiment in Terra.") He had three appearances on Barney Miller (two as a Hasidic Jew, in the episodes "Riot" and "Middle Age," and a different character in "The Ghost.")

He retired from acting in 1999 and took up painting, during his retirement. His wife of 70 years, Thia Persov, had been a nurse, with the Palmach, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War aka The War of Independence. She passed away in 2021.

Persoff was a tremendous character actor, who became noted for playing both heavies and sympathetic characters and played several rabbis, in various things.

British thriller writer Jack Higgins (real name Henry Patterson) has died at the age of 92. Higgins best known book is The Eagle Has Landed about a Nazi plot to kidnap Winston Churchill, which was made into a film in 1976 starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Jenny Agutter, and Robert Duvall.