After a few weeks of posting increasingly geeky items on MamaPop about Dollhouse and Battlestar Galactica and whatnot, I was set to restore my standing in non-nerdity with a post about Madonna's ridiculously expensive track suit or something. But then Andy Hallett died. And my last dream of a Broadway musical revival version of Angel died along with it.
Hallett, who played the karaoke-singing demon Lorne on the WB series Angel, died last Sunday of heart failure, apparently after a five-year struggle with heart disease. According to the infallible word of Wikipedia, his heart troubles stemmed from an infected tooth that led to a case of cardiomyopathy. He died at the ridiculously young age of 33. No one should die at 33.
Born in Cape Cod, Hallett came to Los Angeles to pursue a singing and performance career, and was discovered by Joss Whedon singing in a Universal City blues revue.
Angel ranks as one of my favourite shows, despite its myriad dips in quality and its occasionally preposterous storylines. Hallett's character - a demon with a karaoke bar, a gorgeous voice and a wardrobe of gold-lamé suits - was probably one of Whedon's cleverest inventions. Hallett brought a humanity and wit to the show that the other characters - even the human ones - could never match. The world is poorer without him.














