Getty Basketball player Kobe Bryant and wife Vanessa at the official after party for the 2004 World Music Awards.
The Oscars 2020 In Memoriam Tribute remembered the lives and work of the notable celebrities who passed away in the last year.
The In Memoriam sobered the celebration with a montage of the recently deceased, that included the most significant deaths of the year. People clapped and cried and the photos flipped onto and then off the screen again, as one death was replaced by another.
Some of these passings were unexpected and deeply sad while others were the culmination of a long, successful life. Between the tragic death of Kobe Bryant that took the lives of several other people and family members and the final days of Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas, the Oscars In Memoriam Tribute touched on all the important contributions made by celebrities who died this year.
Billie Eilish Performs In Memoriam for Kobe Bryant
Billie Eilish performed “Yesterday” during the In Memoriam segment of the Oscars. She said she’s “honored to be performing during the In Memoriam segment for the oscars tonight covering a song I’ve always loved. Watch with us,” Eilish wrote on her Story.
Eilish’s Oscar performance comes two weeks after she and her older brother Finneas took home five golden gramophone statues each at the 2020 Grammys.
The Deceased
David Picker, Barry Malkinm, Richard Williams, Anna Karina, Leonard Goldberg, Peter Mayhew, Sylvia Myles, Bibi Andersson, Alvin Sargent, Anna Udvardy, Sidney J. Sheinberg, Kenneth Walker, Seymor Cassel, John Singleton and many others.
Kobe Bryant Died In A Helicopter Crash
REMEMBERING KOBE: Kobe Bryant accepts Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2018: “As basketball players, we’re really supposed to shut up and dribble. But I’m glad we do a little bit more than that.” t.co/8buNukyqiD
Kobe Bryant, the late Lakers basketball player received a special tribute during the “In Memoriam” segment. Bryant won an Oscar in 2018 for “Dear Basketball,” receiving Best Animated Short Film. Bryant had a deep connection with Los Angeles and the Film Academy and his tribute was one of the many touching memorials.
Bryant died in a helicopter crash with his daughter Gianna and three members of a college baseball coach’s family. Christina Mauser, a girls’ basketball coach and wife of Tijuana Dogs vocalist Matt Mauser, died in the crash, along with an Orange County mother and daughter. The helicopter was headed to a girls’ basketball game that Gianna and two of her teammates were set to play in at a sports academy owned by Kobe Bryant.
At Super Bowl 54, the National Football League has planned a tribute to Bryant and his legacy. From fellow sports stars to celebrities to organizations, the tributes to the Black Mamba keep pouring in.
The 2020 Super Bowl got underway at 6:30 p.m. EST at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida, and contained several tributes to Bryant before the game even got underway, and there are many more planned. Let’s take a look at the tributes that have already been announced and the ones that viewers can expect to see during the big game.
Kirk Douglas Died At 103 Years Old
Kirk Douglas died February 5, 2020 at 103 years old.
Kirk Douglas was an actor best known for his starring role in Spartacus, as well as dozens of other movies. People reported he suffered a stroke in 1996. He wrote about his recovery after the life-changing event in his best selling memoir, My Stroke of Luck.
Douglas’ daughter-in-law Catherine Zeta-Jones, 50, shared a tribute to the late Spartacus star, with whom she shared an incredibly close relationship since marrying his son Michael Douglas, 75, in 2000.
The Academy Award-winning actress shared with her 3.2 million follows on Instagram: “To my darling Kirk, I shall love you for the rest of my life. I miss you already. Sleep tight…”
Zeta-Jones, who shares two children with Michael, twins Carys and Dylan, regularly posted tributes to her father-in-law. In November, she shared a throwback video of him with actress Lana Turner from the film The Bad and the Beautiful, for which he was nominated for an Oscar in 1953. She wrote, “I love you Pappy!”
In a statement obtained by People, his son Michael Douglas said, “It is with tremendous sadness that my brothers and I announce that Kirk Douglas left us today at the age of 103. To the world, he was a legend, an actor from the golden age of movies who lived well into his golden years, a humanitarian whose commitment to justice and the causes he believed in set a standard for all of us to aspire to.”
READ NEXT: Read more about the Oscars