Michael Clarke Duncan, 1957-2012
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Michael Clarke Duncan passed away yesterday morning from complications from a heart attack he suffered back in July that he hadn’t recovered from. He was 54. Known for his size and his commanding voice, the towering 6′ 5″ actor was in countless movies, playing incredibly tough guys, people in authority, and often a combination of the two. His signature role was in the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Green Mile, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination, although nerds know him best as Kingpin in Daredevil, Attar in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake, Manute in Sin City, Balrog in the Chun Li movie, and a wide array of cartoon and videogame voice roles. Obviously, it would be ridiculous to pretend all of those were great movies, but Duncan was never the problem in them. By all accounts he was a good guy and he’ll be missed.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.