Bill Paxton (1955 - 2017)

James Cameron wrote:The night before his heart surgery, which was ironically on Valentine’s Day, we had what was to be our last conversation. He was upbeat, even joking about being scared, saying “I feel like Hudson.” We both had a laugh riffing on “It’s game over man!”

All of Bill’s characters were aspects of Bill the man: his humor, his decency, his rebellious spirit, his strong moral principle, his sense of the outrageous. Throw them all in a blender and you get Bill. But what you can’t see in his on-screen personas is his dedication to his family and friends, his careful tending of relationships, often manifested in hand-written letters that were always incredibly kind and thoughtful - so refreshing in this age of digital laziness. He was a lover and collector of art, broadly read, easy to talk to, always interesting and interested, always questing after some new story to tell. He was loyal, decent, kind and so damn funny.