WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Sam Neill, a smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose career moved from art film to blockbuster as he dodged velociraptors in “Jurassic Park” to playing Holly Hunter’s husband in “The Piano,” has died. He was 78.

In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.

His death was “sudden and unexpected,” the statement said, adding that he “remained cancer free” when he died. A cause of death wasn’t specified.

“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” his family wrote.

Actor came to world’s notice with ‘Dead Calm’ and ‘My Brilliant Career’

Neill was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, a list that includes Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy “Sweet Revenge” to chopping off Hunter’s finger in “The Piano” to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror “Event Horizon.”

In “Omen III: The Final Conflict,” he played Damien the Antichrist and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in “The Tudors.”

The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film “My Brilliant Career,” which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s “Dead Calm,” a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.

Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty” and — again for Schepisi — in “A Cry in the Dark,” a film about the sensationalized aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback. He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.”

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A dozen states, led by California, are suing to block Paramount from buying Warner Bros. Discovery in a Hollywood mega-merger that would unite some of the nation’s largest movie studios, television newsrooms, and other entertainment properties.

“The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement announcing the suit, which was filed in federal court in California’s Northern District.

The deal would give a wealthy family that has taken pains to show its allegiance to President Trump the effective ownership of the companies’ competing movie studios, streamers (Paramount+ and HBO Max), sports programming (CBS Sports and Turner Sports) and news divisions (CBS News and CNN) as well as a suite of cable channels, such as Comedy Central, VH1, MTV, TNT, TBS, HGTV and Discovery, among others.

The president has repeatedly praised Larry and David Ellison, the digital titan and his son who are the controlling owners of Paramount. And he has publicly urged the sale of Warner’s CNN to new owners.

“We’re trying to have CNN go in a normal path,” Trump told CNN anchor Jake Tapper yesterday at the end of an interview about the late Sen. Lindsey Graham.

In his statement Monday, Bonta said, “With this lawsuit, California and our sister states are fighting for free and fair markets, not rigged markets. America has no kings in government or our economy.”

Paramount is inviting in sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as major investors who will forego voting rights. The financing proposal also envisions that the company will take on $80 billion in new debt. That will assuredly trigger major cuts throughout the combined company. Warner dramatically reduced its own debt after slashing budgets, but is still tens of billions of dollars in the red, which helped set the stage for Paramount’s unsolicited bid.

Bonta sees “red flags”

In late June, Bonta told MS NOW’s Jacob Sobroff that the deal presented “red flags in the air everywhere.” The acquisition is valued at approximately $111 billion, including debt and major (though nonvoting) investment stakes from Saudi and other sovereign wealth funds. Bonta has armed his office for potentially costly legal battles by hiring a new batch of lawyers, including some who left the U.S. Justice Department after Trump took office a second time. He also secured new funds from the state legislature specifically for antitrust enforcement.

Yo-Yo Ma closed his eyes as he drew a bow slowly across his cello, playing the first notes of the Catalan lullaby “The Song of the Birds.” But this venue wasn’t like any vaulted concert hall he had toured globally.

At Maywood’s Riverfront Park, Ma was accompanied by the vroom of nearby traffic, cascade of a yucca rainstick and burbling hum of a water synth. An oblivious biker pushed past the world-renowned classical musician. The music flowed on.

Ma’s pop-up show in Southeast Los Angeles was part of his ongoing efforts to highlight people’s relationship to nature through music. He is among a new wave of artists who have been hosting shows along the L.A. River, a waterway with a complex history.

The river once terrorized Angelenos; its unconstrained flow was prone to flooding until most of its 51 miles were lined with concrete starting in the 1940s. While it’s been neglected, trashed and often forgotten over time, myriad governmental and nonprofit groups have been working for years to restore habitat, add park space and establish recreational elements (sometimes in conflict over the vision). And recently, creatives and activists, who dream of transforming it into a hospitable greenway, have been hosting arts events.

“Awareness around the river itself is changing,” said Maria Meija, executive director of L.A. River Arts, one of the organizations bringing attention to its history and cultural significance through public programming. She sees the serpentine stretch of the river as a natural highway that connects Angelenos from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach. “We believe that if the river is properly activated as a green and cultural landscape, then Angelenos will fundamentally also get to experience Los Angeles in a different way.”

The River Solstice Festival was a family affair, with guests lounging on picnic blankets, watching puppet and opera performances and participating in birdwatching.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

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Visions of those possibilities were realized on the summer solstice in mid-June at L.A. River Arts’ inaugural River Solstice Festival at an Elysian Valley park abutting a soft-bottomed area of the river known as the Glendale Narrows.

Children and parents applauded the performances by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater and opera singer San Cha at Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park in what’s otherwise known as Frogtown. Attendees also gathered for guided bird-watching along the bike path by the water. Four-year-old Juni Wahab was entranced by the sight of the swallows and cormorants swooping low overhead and the rushing twists of water.

“It’s going so fast,” Wahab said, wiggling and pointing as her aunt held on tightly for safety. “There are so many waves.”

A quick stroll upstream, a group of DJs unaffiliated with the family-friendly festival hosted a day party aimed at Gen Z and millennial attendees, perched on one of the channel’s outcrops. Roughly a dozen people at the if-you-know-you-know event grooved and shuffled to EDM music while kayak enthusiasts paddled by and locals fished for carp.

Dominic Tsoi drove from Orange County to spin at the open decks hosted by the DJ collective Helipad Society. “This event really resonated with me, because it mixes two things that I really love, music and being a part of nature,” said Tsoi, adding the commute was worth it. An indoors club setting can feel stifling, but outdoors is where Tsoi feels free.

DJs have been putting on pop-up events like this one at the L.A. River and sharing videos of their sets on TikTok.

(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)

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Just up the sloped bank, Antonio Solano and Erick Torres were sweeping outside their tent, where they live under the Glendale Freeway. Torres started noticing events at the river increase over the last three years.

“It gets people together,” said Torres, who’s been living above the river for over a decade. The music is a source of pleasure even as Torres and Solano stay vigilant to avoid city encampment sweeps. “It’s good, we enjoy it.”

Social media has driven interest in these DIY events as artists playing ambient music against a backdrop of verdant green have gone viral on TikTok.

“The attention has expanded to people who otherwise wouldn’t have given the L.A. River a second thought,” said Noah Klein, a lifelong Angeleno who has hosted popular river jams over the last two years through his Living Earth public art series.

Erika Apelgren wears a flower crown that she made at the River Solstice Festival.

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

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People don’t need approval to host these impromptu gatherings, said Dash Stolarz, director of public affairs at the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority. The park agency oversees commercial use of the L.A. River recreation zones in Elysian Valley and the Sepulveda Basin, another section of soft-bottomed riverbed.

In her 25 years on the job, this was the first time Stolarz had heard of people using the riverfront for mini concerts. She was excited by the ingenuity of artists; as long as people aren’t charging for events, they don’t need permission.

“It’s exactly how we envisioned people enjoying the river,” Stolarz said. “We want people to use the river like a park.”

Though unlike a regular park, the L.A. River is primarily treated as a flood control channel, so park rangers carefully monitor for rain when the recreation zones open for leisure, like kayaking, during the summer.

While appreciating the L.A. River can be a good thing, social media algorithms can flatten the context around the waterway, particularly when it comes to demographic changes in nearby neighborhoods.

“The City of L.A.’s greatest skill is the erasure of its own history, and the L.A. River kind of feels like the perfect encapsulation of this,” Klein said.

Once home to mostly working-class Latino families, neighborhoods along the river in northeast L.A. have seen home prices surge for years. To preserve the history of these neighborhoods, Clockshop, an arts organization, has been collecting interviews with locals as part of a multimedia oral history project since 2023. The project includes everything from videos of an Indigenous musician performing a song about water in the Tongva language to brothers worrying about the future of their family’s 60-year-old pickle business in the face of gentrification.

Jon Christensen, director of the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies at UCLA, said river revitalization can be part of a “green gentrification cycle” as new development pushes out old communities. Like the chicken-and-egg paradox, it’s hard to tell which comes first: the amenities surrounding the L.A. River or the more affluent people seeking them.

Yo-Yo Ma, who hosts a podcast called “Our Common Nature,” chats with attendees at his intimate river concert. Human connection to the natural world is among his passions.

(Halline Overby for InsightLA)

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Christensen hopes artists engaging with the river spurs conversation for more equitable green investments that benefit communities and the environment. “When people are more connected to nature, they want to support nature more,” Christensen said of his studies on how people connect to the outdoors. “It’s really kind of a virtuous cycle there.”

Cindy Donis, a water organizer with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, said artwork can also raise awareness around inequities. While there are aspirations to turn the river into a greenbelt, nightmarish pollution incidents have still haunted Southeast L.A. communities.

Ma’s performance was nearly canceled in May due to 25,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled into the L.A. River after a pipeline rupture in Boyle Heights. Weeks later, the Lineage warehouse fire sent even more debris and pollution downstream. Donis said multiple people reached out with complaints of a foul smell emanating from the river. Miles away, some at the River Solstice Festival wore masks due to poor air quality caused by the fire.

Charles Kelley with his daughter Zirah Kelley pose along the L.A. River bike path near the River Solstice Festival.

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

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Earlier this year, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice held an exhibition at Art Space Huntington Park called “We Are Water” to uplift local Indigenous artists. “Art really allows and embraces healing,” Donis said. “It’s another tool that allows us to process these feelings and get closer to the solutions as a community.”

The L.A. River inspired Arturo Gonzalez to found his arts education nonprofit that focuses on gang intervention among young people in East L.A. As Ma performed in the park, Gonzalez stood in the river basin, spray-painting in neon-pink blockbuster letters the name of his organization, East Side of the River, onto pillars under Slauson Avenue.

As a teenager in the early 2000s, Gonzalez was involved in gangs that would tag the gray walls of the L.A. River, but his passion for graffiti and Chicano art eventually led him out of those circles.

“The river was a safe place to paint, where you could sit and spend the day learning colors, composition,” he said of illicit tagging as a teenager, which eventually led to his public art work. “There’s a thin line between vandalism and art.”

Arturo Gonzalez spray-paints the name of his organization, East Side of the River, which focuses on gang intervention.

(Halline Overby for InsightLA)

This time, Gonzalez arrived with permission from the county and painted on a detachable fabric in case the mural needs to be removed.

“The opportunity to get into the river and paint again was like a dream,” he said. He seeks the input of local residents in his planned projects so they can participate in beautifying their neighborhoods. “We call it wall medicine for the community.”