Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOHill2]

Rue McClanahan Dies: 'Golden Girls' Star Was 76

Rue McClanahan, one of the last remaining 'Golden Girls,' has died after suffering a stroke, PEOPLE reports. She was 76 years old.

"She passed away at 1 a.m. this morning. She had a massive stroke," her manager, Barbara Lawrence, said.

McClanahan "had her family with her. She went in peace," Lawrence added.

The actress was best known for her role as the saucy Blanche Deveraux on 'Girls.'

McClanahan had a stroke in late 2009, when she was recovering from heart bypass surgery. In 1997, she underwent treatment for breast cancer.

Her 'Golden' co-stars Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur passed away in July of 2008 and April of 2009 respectively.

While Blanche may be what McClanahan is most recognized for, she also co-starred with Arthur before in the hit show 'Maude.'

Rue also made appearances on 'All in the Family,' 'Mama's Family,' 'The Love Boat,' and more recently, 'Law & Order.' Her film work includes 'Starship Troopers,' and 'The Fighting Temptations.'

Married six times, McClanahan is survived by her last husband, Morrow Wilson. She also had one son with first husband, Tom Bish, named Mark.

She was also wed and divorced to Norman Hartweg, Peter DeMaio, Gus Fisher and Tom Keel.

Born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Oklahoma on Feb. 21, 1934, she graduated with a degree from the University of Tulsa with a degree in theater arts and German. Rue then moved to New York to pursue a career in acting. She made a name for herself on the Broadway stage in the late 1950s before hitting it big on the small screen.

She starred on stage opposite Dustin Hoffman in 'Jimmie Shine' and won an Obie for 'Who's Happy Now,' before taking a part on the soap opera 'Another World.' McClanahan's character became so notorious that the soap extended what was intended as a short-term role became a year-long story line from 1970 to 1971.

After 'World,' McClanahan was cast in 'Maude,' in 1972, playing the shy best friend to Bea Arthur's titular character -- very different from the sassy and sexy Deveraux she would later play on 'Girls,' from 1985 to 1992. Rue was nominated for four Emmys as best actress in a comedy for playing Blanche. She took home one trophy in 1987.

Of her greatest role, she told the Cape Cod Times in 2007: "People always ask me if I'm like Blanche. Well, Blanche was an oversexed, self-involved, man-crazy, vain Southern belle from Atlanta -- and I'm not from Atlanta.

Also in 2007, the star wrote a book called 'My First Five Husbands ... and the Ones Who Got Away,' which Library Journal described as "like a night out with the 'Golden Girls.'"

Aside from her acting, she was also an avid animal rights activist, who worked directly with PETA and was named an honorary director of the group.

Before her death, she became the object of a Facebook group, which hoped to persuade NBC to pick McClanahan as a host of 'SNL,' much like the successful movement that ended with Betty White's first 'Saturday Night Live' gig.

 

[KindaKinky]

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Out of those three, Betty's the last Golden Girl standing.

 

[Denae]

TV's 'People Are Funny' host Art Linkletter dies

Somehow we let this lovely man slip by

May 27, 2010

LOS ANGELES — Art Linkletter, who encouraged both kids and grown-ups to say the "darndest things" during his decades as a genial but gently mischievous television personality, has died at age 97.

The host of "People Are Funny" and "House Party" of the 1950s and '60s died Wednesday at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles.

"He lived a long, full, pure life, and the Lord had need for him," said his son-in-law, Art Hershey, the husband of Sharon Linkletter.

Linkletter had been ill "in the last few weeks time, but bear in mind he was 97 years old. He wasn't eating well, and the aging process took him," Hershey said.

Linkletter hadn't been diagnosed with any life-threatening disease, he said.

Linkletter was known on TV for his funny interviews with children and ordinary folks. He also collected their comments in a number of best-selling books.

"Because of Art Linkletter, adults found themselves enjoying children," said Bill Cosby, whose style interviewing kids on his own show in the late '90s was often compared to Linkletter's.

"An amazing fellow, a terrific broadcast talent, a brilliant businessman. An all-around good guy," CNN's Larry King added about his longtime friend and frequent guest.

Asked what made Linkletter so appealing to audiences, King said, "He had an unusual voice, a twang to his voice that was immediately recognizable. And he looked like your favorite uncle."

"Art Linkletter's House Party," one of television's longest-running variety shows, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS-TV from 1952 to 1969.

"On `House Party' I would talk to you and bring out the fact that you had been letting your boss beat you at golf over a period of months as part of your campaign to get a raise," Linkletter wrote.

"All the while, without your knowledge, your boss would be sitting a few feet away listening, and at the appropriate moment, I would bring you together," he wrote. "Now, that's funny, because the laugh arises out of a real situation."

Linkletter's programs — like many of today's reality TV shows — often relied on ordinary people sharing too much information on national television.

But his shows were far gentler than today's often mean-spirited productions. His guests experienced, at most, mild embarrassment instead of utter humiliation. When Linkletter elicited an all-too-revealing remark from a guest, he did it with devilish charm, not malice.

Though "House Party" had many features, the best known was the daily interviews with schoolchildren.

Linkletter collected quotes from children into "Kids Say The Darndest Things," and it sold in the millions. The book "70 Years of Best Sellers 1895-1965" ranked "Kids Say the Darndest Things" as the 15th top seller among nonfiction books in that period.

The prime time "People Are Funny," which began on radio in 1942 and ran on TV from 1954 to 1961, emphasized slapstick humor and audience participation — things like throwing a pie in the face of a contestant who couldn't tell his Social Security number in five seconds, or asking him to go out and cash a check written on the side of a watermelon.

The down-to-earth charm of Linkletter's broadcast persona seemed to be mirrored by his private life with his wife of more than a half-century, Lois. They had five children, whom he wrote about in his books and called the "Links."

But in 1969, his 20-year-old daughter Diane jumped to her death from her sixth-floor Hollywood apartment. He blamed her death on LSD use, but toxicology tests found no LSD in her body after she died.

Still, the tragedy prompted Linkletter to become a crusader against drugs.

A son, Robert, died in a car accident in 1980. Another son, Jack Linkletter, was 70 when he died of lymphoma in 2007.

Art Linkletter got his first taste of broadcasting with a part-time job while attending San Diego State College in the early 1930s. He graduated in 1934.

"I was studying to be an English professor," Linkletter once said. "But as they say, life is what happens to you while you're making other plans."

He held a series of radio and promotion jobs in California and Texas, experimenting with audience participation and remote broadcasts, before forming his own production company in the 1940s and striking it big with "People Are Funny" and "House Party."

Linkletter was born Arthur Gordon Kelly on July 17, 1912, in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. His unwed mother put him up for adoption when he was a baby; when he was about 7, he and his adoptive parents moved to the U.S., eventually settling in San Diego.

He recalled his preacher-father forced him to take odd jobs to help the family. So Linkletter left and became a hobo, hopping trains across the West, working where he could. He recalled later that he felt the religious faith instilled by his father had been a great gift.

After leaving daily broadcasting in 1969, Linkletter continued to write, lecture and appear in television commercials.

Among his other books, were "Old Age is Not for Sissies," "How To Be a Supersalesman," "Confessions of a Happy Man," "Hobo on the Way to Heaven" and his autobiography, '`I Didn't Do It Alone."

A recording Linkletter made with his daughter Diane not long before she died, "We Love You, Call Collect," was issued after her death and won a Grammy award for best spoken word recording.

"Life is not fair ... not easy," Linkletter said in a 1990 interview by The Associated Press. "Outside, peer pressure can wreak havoc with the nicest families. So that's the part that's a gamble.

"But I'm an optimist. Even though I've had tragedies in my life, and I've seen a lot of difficult things, I still am an optimist," he said.

Linkletter had extensive business interests. He headed a company involved in real estate development and management and operation of cattle ranches in Montana, New Mexico and California. He held interests in oil and gas wells, owned livestock in Australia and was involved in a solar energy firm.

"In a couple of months Art Linkletter would have been 98 years old, a full life of fun and goodness, an orphan who made it to the top," reflected Phyllis Diller. "What a guy."

He is survived by his wife, Lois, whom he married in 1935, and daughters Dawn Griffin and Sharon Linkletter, as well as seven grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

The family said no services were planned at this time.

 

[Beco]

"Wizard of Westwood" John Wooden dies

John Wooden dies at 99; coach won 10 national basketball titles at UCLA
Known as the 'Wizard of Westwood,' Wooden's accomplishments with the Bruins during his 27-season tenure made him one of the greatest coaches in sports history. He also created the 'Pyramid of Success' motivational program.

John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach who became an icon of American sports while guiding the Bruins to an unprecedented 10 national championships in the 1960s and '70s and remained in the spotlight during retirement with his "Pyramid of Success" motivational program, has died. He was 99.

Though his fame extended beyond the sports world, it was Wooden's achievements during 27 seasons at UCLA that put him in the company of such legendary coaches as the Green Bay Packers' Vince Lombardi and Notre Dame's Knute Rockne.

Wooden's string of championships began with back-to-back victories in 1964 and '65. Starting in 1967, his team ran off seven consecutive NCAA titles -- going 38 tournament games without a loss -- a feat unmatched before or since in men's college basketball.

The Bruins won with such dominant big players as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. They also won with teams -- such as Wooden's last squad in 1974-75 -- that had no marquee stars.

That team defeated Kentucky, 92-85, in the national championship game to give Wooden his 10th and final title. Mike Krzyzewski of Duke won his fourth national title this spring, matching the total won by the late Adolph Rupp of Kentucky.

In 40 years of coaching high school and college, Wooden had only one losing season -- his first. He finished with 885 wins and 203 losses, and his UCLA teams still hold an NCAA record for winning 88 consecutive games from 1971 through 1974.

The man known as the "Wizard of Westwood" -- a nickname he despised -- built his dynasty on simple precepts. He insisted that his squad be meticulously prepared and in top physical condition. He demanded crisp fundamentals and teamwork. He wanted his players to be smart, both on the court and in their lives away from the game.

 

[Denae]

John Wooden dies at 99; coach won 10 national basketball titles at UCLA
Known as the 'Wizard of Westwood,' Wooden's accomplishments with the Bruins during his 27-season tenure made him one of the greatest coaches in sports history. He also created the 'Pyramid of Success' motivational program.

John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach who became an icon of American sports while guiding the Bruins to an unprecedented 10 national championships in the 1960s and '70s and remained in the spotlight during retirement with his "Pyramid of Success" motivational program, has died. He was 99.

Though his fame extended beyond the sports world, it was Wooden's achievements during 27 seasons at UCLA that put him in the company of such legendary coaches as the Green Bay Packers' Vince Lombardi and Notre Dame's Knute Rockne.

Wooden's string of championships began with back-to-back victories in 1964 and '65. Starting in 1967, his team ran off seven consecutive NCAA titles -- going 38 tournament games without a loss -- a feat unmatched before or since in men's college basketball.

The Bruins won with such dominant big players as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. They also won with teams -- such as Wooden's last squad in 1974-75 -- that had no marquee stars.

That team defeated Kentucky, 92-85, in the national championship game to give Wooden his 10th and final title. Mike Krzyzewski of Duke won his fourth national title this spring, matching the total won by the late Adolph Rupp of Kentucky.

In 40 years of coaching high school and college, Wooden had only one losing season -- his first. He finished with 885 wins and 203 losses, and his UCLA teams still hold an NCAA record for winning 88 consecutive games from 1971 through 1974.

The man known as the "Wizard of Westwood" -- a nickname he despised -- built his dynasty on simple precepts. He insisted that his squad be meticulously prepared and in top physical condition. He demanded crisp fundamentals and teamwork. He wanted his players to be smart, both on the court and in their lives away from the game.

A true gentleman

 

[JennyOHill2]

Ali Ollie Woodson, Singer in Temptations, Dies at 58

The cause was cancer, said Billy Wilson, president of the Motown Alumni Association. He said Mr. Woodson’s wife, Juanita, told him about the death.

Mr. Woodson was not an original member of the group, which had several lineup changes since it started in the 1960s. But he played an integral part in keeping the Temptations from becoming just a nostalgia act.

By the early 1980s, the Temptations were no longer posting hit after hit as they had in the 1960s and ’70s with songs like “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” “My Girl,” and “I Wish It Would Rain.”

The group had lost original members, and Mr. Woodson was brought in to replace Dennis Edwards, whose voice had defined the group in the 1970s.

Mr. Woodson helped the Temptations notch the R&B hits “Treat Her Like a Lady,” which he wrote; “Sail Away”; and “Lady Soul.”

In a review of a concert featuring the Temptations and the Four Tops in 1985, Stephen Holden described Mr. Woodson in The New York Times as “a charismatic young pop-funk singer with a husky, agile voice that breaks into unexpected falsetto riffs.”

He added that he put his playful stamp on several Temptations’ standards as well as more recent material “with his tricky punctuation, sassy humor and inventive acrobatics.”

Ollie Creggett was born Oct. 12, 1951 in Detroit.

He sang with the Temptations from 1984 to 1986, and then again from 1988 until 1996, when he began performing as a solo artist.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Country music star, sausage king Jimmy Dean dies at 81

When the Country Music Association announced in February that Jimmy Dean would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year, Dean joked, "I thought I was already in there."

"Seriously, it brought a huge grin to my face," he said in a news release. "I am honored."

Dean already had been inducted into the Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

That's not to mention his 2009 induction into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

Indeed, Dean, who died Sunday evening at his home in Henrico County, Va., at age 81, may be better known by some today as "the sausage king" of TV commercial fame than a hit-making country music star and one-time TV show host who helped bring country music into the mainstream in the 1960s.

The Texas-born entertainer and businessman, who began his recording career in the 1950s, scored a No. 1 hit on both the country and pop singles charts in 1961 with his spoken-narrative song about a coal miner - "a giant of a man" - who saves fellow workers from "a would-be grave" after their mine collapses.

"Big Bad John," which Dean said he wrote in an hour and a half on a flight from New York to Tennessee, earned a Grammy Award for best country and western recording.

The 1960s were the down-home entertainer's heyday.

He went on to record hits including "Dear Ivan," "Little Black Book," "P.T. 109" (inspired by the Naval vessel commanded by John F. Kennedy during World War II) and "The First Thing Ev'ry Morning (And the Last Thing Ev'ry Night)."

From 1963 to '66, he hosted "The Jimmy Dean Show," an hourlong TV musical variety show that ran on ABC and featured singers including Roger Miller, George Jones and Buck Owens. The show also regularly featured Dean's humorous banter with a "dog" named Rowlf, the first of Jim Henson's Muppets to attract national attention.

Along with headlining in Las Vegas and performing in venues such as Carnegie Hall and the London Palladium, Dean played fur trapper Josh Clements on Fess Parker's "Daniel Boone" series in the late '60s and had the supporting role of a reclusive billionaire in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever."

He launched the Jimmy Dean Meat Co. in the late '60s, after previously buying a hog farm in his native Texas.

"Everything was fine and dandy until hog prices dropped out," he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 2004. "One morning I was having breakfast at a little old diner in Plainview - sausages and eggs - and reached up and plucked a piece of gristle out of my teeth."

It was then, he said, he became determined to produce a quality sausage.

"It was not something I just put my name on," he said. "It was my money and my sausage and my work - and those commercials that they think are so funny."

After selling his meat company to what later became known as the Sara Lee Corp. in 1984, he remained as chairman of the board and TV spokesman. After he was dropped as spokesman in 2003, Dean reportedly stopped eating the products that bear his name and changed his license plates that read SSG KING.

Born on a farm near Plainview, Texas, on Aug. 10, 1928, Dean and his brother Don were raised by their mother after their father left when Dean was still a child. They were so poor, he once said, he wore shirts his mother made out of sugar sacks.

Poverty, Dean told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "was the greatest motivating factor in my life."

He began singing early on, and his mother taught him to play his first chord on the piano when he was 10. He later taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and accordion.

Dropping out of high school at 16, he joined the Merchant Marine and later served in the Air Force. While stationed at a base in Washington, D.C., Dean and three other airmen formed a country music quartet that played local honkytonks.

After his discharge in 1948, Dean formed the Texas Wildcats. He began developing a following with a show on an Arlington, Va., radio station and had his first country top 10 hit, "Bumming Around," in 1953.

Dean and the Texas Wildcats moved to local television in 1955, and from 1957 to 1959 he hosted the first version of "The Jimmy Dean Show," a half-hour daily variety series on CBS.

"Thirty Years of Sausage, Fifty Years of Ham: Jimmy Dean's Own Story," a 2004 autobiography, was co-written with his second wife, Donna Meade Dean, a singer and songwriter he married in 1991.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children from his first marriage, Garry Dean, Connie Dean Taylor and Robert Dean; and two granddaughters.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Garry Shider, Parliament-Funkadelic Guitarist, Dead at 56

When George Clinton's twin-engine funk machine Parliament-Funkadelic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, 15 members were named. Besides Clinton himself, none was more responsible for P-Funk's exuberant music than Garry Shider, the band's long-running guitarist, musical director and -- dressed only in a diaper -- lead superfreak. Shider died Wednesday at age 56 due to complications from brain and lung cancer, according to Newark, N.J.'s Star-Ledger.

Shider, who first found music in church, met Clinton in the New Jersey barbershop where the P-Funk universe was hatched. After a brief stint in Canada, where he cofounded a group called United Soul (US), Shider returned to the Garden State and joined Clinton's entourage full-time.

Over the years he co-wrote several P-Funk songs, had featured roles on such classics as 'Cosmic Slop' and 'One Nation Under a Groove' and collaborated on side projects by P-Funk colleagues including Bootsy Collins and Eddie Hazel.

But Shider was best known as Diaper Man, the fearless entertainer who always took the stage in a cloth diaper. In the wild costume party that broke out every night at P-Funk shows, Shider was always front and center, representing the eternal child for the Mothership Connection.

Shider is survived by his wife Linda.

 

[Batch]

Jose Saramaga

Nobel Prize-Winning Writer Saramago Dead at 87
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 18, 2010


LISBON, Portugal (AP) -- Jose Saramago, who became the first Portuguese-language winner of the Nobel Literature prize although his popularity at home was dampened by his unflinching support for Communism, blunt manner and sometimes difficult prose style, died Friday.

Saramago, 87, died at his home in Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands, of multi-organ failure after a long illness, the Jose Saramago Foundation said.

''The writer died in the company of his family, saying goodbye in a serene and placid way,'' the foundation said.

Saramago was an outspoken man who antagonized many, and moved to the Canary Islands after a public spat with the Portuguese government in 1992.

His 1998 Nobel accolade was nonetheless widely cheered in his homeland after decades of the award eluding writers of a language used by some 170 million people around the world.

''People used to say about me, 'He's good but he's a Communist.' Now they say, 'He's a Communist but he's good,''' he said in a 1998 interview with The Associated Press.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said Saramago was ''one of our great cultural figures and his disappearance has left our culture poorer.''

Born Nov. 16, 1922 in the town of Azinhaga near Lisbon, Saramago was raised in the capital. From a poor family, he never finished university but continued to study part-time while supporting himself as a metalworker.

His first novel published in 1947 -- ''Terra do Pecado,'' or ''Country of Sin'' -- was a tale of peasants in moral crisis. It sold badly but won Saramago enough recognition to allow him jump from the welder's shop to a job on a literary magazine.

But for the next 18 years Saramago published only a few travel and poetry books while he worked as a journalist.

''I suppose I came to the conclusion I had nothing worth telling,'' he said of that period.

He returned to fiction only after the four-decade dictatorship created by Antonio Salazar was toppled by a military uprising in 1974.

International critical acclaim came late in his life, starting with his 1982 historical fantasy ''Memorial do Convento,'' published in English in 1988 as ''Baltasar and Blimunda.''

The story is set during the Inquisition and explores the battle between individuals and organized religion, picking up Saramago's recurring theme of the loner struggling against authority.

The story recalled a heated clash Saramago had with Portuguese under-secretary of state for culture Antonio Sousa Lara a few years earlier and which prompted Saramago's move to the Spanish islands off northwest Africa.

Sousa Lara withdrew the writer's name from Portugal's nominees for the European Literature Prize. Lara said Saramago's 1991 novel ''O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo'' (''The Gospel according to Jesus Christ'') -- in which Christ lives with Mary Magdalene and tries to back out of his crucifixion -- offended Portuguese religious convictions and divided the heavily Roman Catholic country.

Saramago was outraged and accused the government of censorship.

Saramago often found himself going against the tide of popular opinion. Portugal's membership of the European Union is overwhelmingly appreciated in his homeland, a country of 10.6 million people which despite EU development aid is still western Europe's poorest country.

Saramago, however, disagreed.

''First of all I'm Portuguese, then Iberian, and then, if I feel like it, I'm European,'' he once told the AP.

From the 1980s Saramago was one of Portugal's best-selling contemporary writers and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages.

But he never courted the kind of fame offered by literary prizes and his bluntness could sometimes offend.

''I am skeptical, reserved, I don't gush, I don't go around smiling, hugging people and trying to make friends,'' he once said.

In 1998 he said his book ''Blindness'' was about ''a blindness of rationality.'' In that book, which was made into a 2008 movie starring Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore, the population of an unnamed city is struck by a mysterious blindness which is never explained. Society's fragilities come to the fore as a general breakdown of infrastructures ensues.

''We're rational beings but we don't behave rationally. If we did, there'd be no starvation in the world,'' he said.

Such compassion and anxiety about the skewing of priorities in modern society is evident in all his works and also gives a clue to his enduring sympathy toward the Communist Party.

He was frequently compared with Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his writing is often described as realism tinged with Latin-American mysticism, particularly for his technique of confronting historical personages with fictional characters.

Portuguese critic Torcato Sepulveda said Saramago successfully ''sought to reconcile the rationalism of his materialistic world view with the richness of his baroque style.''

Others disagreed, saying Saramago was too intellectual and that his storytelling pace often slowed to a dreary plod, or that his sparing use of punctuation and speech marks confused the reader.

Saramago had a remedy: ''I tell them to read my books out loud and then they'll pick up the rhythm, because this is 'written orality.' It is the written version of the way people tell stories to each other,'' he said.

Historical and literary mischief were Saramago's trademarks.

In ''The History of the Siege of Lisbon,'' from 1989, a Lisbon proofreader mischievously inserts the word ''not'' into a text on the 12th century capture of the Portuguese capital from the Moors, thereby fictionally altering the course of European history with a stroke of his pen.

In his 1986 book, ''The Stone Raft,'' the Iberian peninsula snaps off from the rest of the European continent and floats off into the North Atlantic -- apparently in a metaphorical search for identity away from the standardizing nature of the EU.

He left a wife, Spanish journalist Pilar del Rio, and a daughter from his first marriage.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Larry Jon Wilson, Singer-Songwriter and Guitarist, Dead at 69

Singer-songwriter Larry Jon Wilson died on Monday, June 21 from a stroke, according to the Tennessean. The 69-year-old passed away while visiting his family in Roanoke, Va.

While he had modest commercial success, Wilson was widely respected by his peers and fans. In the '70s, Wilson made four albums, including his 1975 debut, 'New Beginnings.' His most recent release was a self-titled LP issued by Drag City Records in 2009.

"The South will never be the same," Jerry DeCicca, who co-produced Wilson's last album, told the Tennessean. "He never stopped giving himself to his art."

Born and raised in Georgia, Wilson entered music later than other musicians. At age 30, the self-taught guitar player started writing songs in a 24-hour stretch that included the celebration of his birthday, the mourning of his father's passing, discovering his then-wife was pregnant and receiving a Martin guitar.

Wilson was known to play smaller venues such as Nashville's Bluebird Café and Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Ga. His distinct guitar-playing style garnered him praise even though he never made it to the mainstream, something he did not regret.

"Some people have used the 'outlaw' tag effectively for a career move, but I don't think 'career move' has ever entered my thinking," Wilson once said. "When I was in Nashville, we did the streets an awful long time, and we weren't exactly holding prayer meetings. I loved my drinking days. I stopped in the 1980s, but they were good. I'm not ashamed of any of it."

Although he left the music industry in 1980, he started playing shows later in the decade when he was encouraged to attend the Frank Brown International Songwriter's festival in Perdido Key, Fla., which sparked his desire to play more shows.

Wilson came back in 2008 with 'Larry Jon Wilson,' which gave his old fans new material to enjoy. The album also exposed Wilson a younger audience abroad, allowing him to tour the UK.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Former Red Wing Willie Huber dead at 52

http://rangers.nhl.com/v2/photos/AllTimeRoster/headshots/8448025.jpg

It was Willie Huber's size that stood out: At 6-feet-5, he towered over teammates and opponents long before big, tall players began to populate the NHL with regularity.

Huber began his NHL career in 1978 with the Red Wings, who had made him the ninth overall pick in 1978, and went on to play for the New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks and Philadelphia Flyers before retiring in 1989.

He died in Hamilton, Ontario, of a suspected heart attack. He was 52.

“He was as big as there was back in his days,” said Wings assistant general manager Jim Nill, a contemporary of Huber's. “He was kind of the start of the big players that could play. He was huge. He had good skills but probably never met expectations as a first-round pick, never really lived up to it.”

Huber had just finished his fourth season with the Wings in 1981-82 when Jimmy Devellano took over as general manager.

“I inherited Willie Huber,” Devellano said. “He played on my first Red Wings team, in '82-83, and that summer, I traded him to New York with Mike Blaisdell and Mark Osborne for Ron Duguay, Eddie Mio and Eddie Johnstone.

“Willie was somebody who should have become a better player -- big, strong guy with real ability, but not dedicated to conditioning at all. That was the reason why I moved him. I didn't think he would pay a strong enough price to become a better player, which I felt he was capable of doing. But he was a big man, a big man.”

Huber, who was born in Germany, tallied 68 goals and 140 assists for 208 points during his five seasons with the Wings. He was an All-Star in 1983.

According to the Hamilton (Ont.) Spectator, Huber is survived by his wife, Dawn, son Zachary, 19, and stepdaughter Brittany, 19.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Probert dead after collapsing in boat

DETROIT – Bob Probert, the beloved enforcer for the Red Wings in the late 1980s through the mid-90s, died Monday afternoon after collapsing on a boat in Lake St. Clair.

Essex County Media Relations Officer Shawna Coulter confirmed early Monday evening that the Lakeshore office of the Ontario Provincial Police received a distress call at 2:55 p.m. EDT of a person needing medical transport. Probert, 45, was taken to shore near the Edgewater Shoreline and wisked by ambulance to Windsor Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Coulter said.

A southern part of the Canadian province of Ontario and Michigan are separated by Lake St. Clair, which at its southern end spills into the Detroit River that divides Windsor from Detroit.

Remembered for his long-reach and ferocious attitude in the crease area, Probert was one tough competitor, the likes not seen in the NHL since. He played 16 NHL seasons, including nine with the Red Wings, the team that made the Windsor native a third-round draft pick in 1983. He was an All-Star in 1988 retired in 2002 with 3,300 penalty minutes.

“Bob was a part of our very first NHL draft class that also included Steve Yzerman, Joe Kocur, Petr Klima and Stu Grimson," Red Wings owners Mike and Marian Ilitch said in a statement. "Bob was always there for his teammates and was one of the toughest men to ever play in the NHL. He also was one of the kindest, most colorful, and beloved players Detroit has ever known.

"We are very saddened by his passing and our thoughts and prayers go out to Bob’s family.”

Probert finished his Wings’ career with 114 goals, 259 points and 2,090 penalty minutes, which came out to be just shy of five-minutes in penalties – or one fighting major – per game.

He had well over 240 NHL fights, including such epics with players like Troy Crowder, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Craig Coxe and Craig Berube.

"We have lost one of the toughest players, best power forwards and all-around great guys who ever wore the Winged Wheel," said Kocur, who played beside Probert in Detroit from 1984-90 . "My favorite memory of Bob would be sitting down before a game, going over the opposing lineup and picking and choosing who would go first and if the goalie would be safe or not. It was great to be able to go out on the ice knowing that he had my back and I had his.

"He was like the brother I never had. My prayers go out to his family.”

Probert is the third Red Wings’ alumnus to die in the last month. Former coach Bobby Kromm died June 9 after a long battle with colon cancer, and former defenseman Willie Huber died June 28 from an apparent heart attack.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Manute Bol, N.B.A. Player and Activist, Dies at 47

Manute Bol, a towering Dinka tribesman who left southern Sudan to become one of the best shot blockers in the history of American basketball, then returned to his homeland to try to heal the wounds of a long, bloody civil war, died at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, according to Sally Jones, a spokeswoman for the hospital. He was 47 and lived in Olathe, Kan.

After his N.B.A. career, Bol worked as an advisory board member of the Sudan Sunrise foundation.

The cause was severe kidney trouble and complications of a rare skin disorder known as Stevens-Johnson syndrome, said Tom Prichard, who runs Sudan Sunrise, a foundation that is building a school near Bol’s birthplace in Turalei. Bol had been hospitalized since late May when he fell ill during a layover on a trip home from Sudan, Mr. Prichard said.

Though he wore size 16 ½ sneakers and had a pair of the spindliest legs ever to protrude from a pair of nylon shorts, Bol, at 7 feet 6 inches, was an athletic marvel. He arrived in the National Basketball Association in 1985 and promptly set a rookie record by blocking an average of five shots per game — a total of 397 for the season. He is 14th on the N.B.A.’s career list with 2,086.

Fans flocked to see him and roundly urged him to shoot whenever he touched the ball. Despite being able to reach above the 10-foot rims flat-footed, Bol was not a scorer. He averaged fewer than 4 points a game in every season he played.

It was his defensive prowess, swatting shots away from the basket and discouraging opponents from trying to drive the ball past him, that kept Bol in the league for 10 seasons. The Washington Bullets drafted him three years after he immigrated to the United States in 1982, and he eventually played for three other teams: the Golden State Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Miami Heat.

For most of his career, Bol held the distinction of being the tallest player ever to compete in the N.B.A. But in 1993, the Bullets drafted Gheorghe Muresan, a Romanian who at 7-7 was a few centimeters taller than Bol. The Bullets brought Bol back to Washington to help teach Muresan how to play the professional game, but it took Muresan four seasons to compile as many blocks as Bol had as a rookie.

Bol eventually came to terms with the fascination Americans had with his height. When he was a young man in Sudan, he told The New York Times in a 1985 interview, his size was not so remarkable.

“My mother was 6 feet 10, my father 6 feet 8 and my sister is 6 feet 8,” he said. “And my great-grandfather was even taller — 7 feet 10.”

As a boy, Bol had tended his family’s cattle. According to a tale he was often asked to repeat in interviews, he once killed a lion with a spear while he was working as a cowherd.

In a 2001 interview with The Times in Khartoum, Bol said he dreamed of going back to Turalei and his roots. “I would have a big, big farm,” he said. “Then we have no worries about money. If you have the cows, you have the money.”

Bol returned to Sudan regularly during his playing days, and once he retired, he became more politically active there. He went there late last year to check on the school construction. Then he stayed to campaign for a candidate in the region’s presidential election, which was held in late April, said Mr. Prichard, who traveled there with Bol in November. During his extended visit, Bol became ill and was briefly hospitalized in Nairobi, Kenya, Mr. Prichard said.

“He really felt that his country needed him,” Mr. Prichard said. “He really died for his country. He wanted to do everything he could to see southern Sudan make it through this election in the best possible way.”

Bol is survived by 10 children, including four with his second wife, Ajok, of Olathe, Kan., his nephew Mayom Majok said.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Bob Sheppard, Yankee Stadium's 'Voice of God,' Dies at 99

Bob Sheppard, the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium for more than six decades, died at his home in Baldwin, N.Y. Sunday. Sheppard, dubbed the "Voice of God" by legendary Yankees outfielder Reggie Jackson, was 99.

Sheppard began announcing Yankee games in 1951, Mickey Mantle's rookie year, and he did so until 2007, when a series of health problems prevented him from continuing his duties.

His unique style and cadence on the microphone, along with his presence at more than 4,500 major league games, made him as much a fixture at Yankee Stadium as the familiar facade or Monument Park.

Sheppard's career highlights include Don Larsen's perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, Roger Maris' 61st home run in 1961, Reggie Jackson's three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series and the Giants-Colts overtime NFL Championship Game in 1958.

"Most men go to work, but I go to a game," Sheppard said of his career. "How many men would love to do that?"

Derek Jeter has helped Sheppard remain a presence at Yankee Stadium, even with Sheppard retired and the team moved into an upgraded version of the Stadium. Jeter requested a recording of Sheppard's voice in 2006 when the announcer missed the team's first homestand that year so that he could always be introduced by Sheppard.

The Yankees shortstop still comes to the plate to the intonations of Sheppard: "The shortsop ... number two ... Derek Jeter ... number two."

In addition to his duties as P.A. announcer at Yankee Stadium, Sheppard was also the announcer for the New York Giants. He began working for the Giants in 1956, and stayed with the team even after it moved from Yankee Stadium to the Meadowlands. Sheppard left the Giants after the 2006 season.

Before he began his career with the Yankees, Sheppard served in the Navy during World War II and was a speech teacher. He also served as a P.A. announcer at St. John's University, which he graduated from in 1932 after playing quarterback for the football team, first base for the baseball team and be elected senior class president.

Newsday, which first reported the news of his death, said Sheppard was surrounded by family and his final moments were peaceful.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Son of NYC Mobster Mickey Spillane Falls to Death

NEW YORK (July 10) - The son of murdered Irish mobster Mickey Spillane tumbled out the window of his sixth-floor apartment in a fatal fall Saturday, police and his uncle said.

Robert "Bobby" Spillane, an actor who had roles on television's "Rescue Me" and "Law & Order," fell from his Midtown Manhattan apartment in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood near Times Square where his father, not to be confused with the pulp fiction writer of the same name, had run rackets back in the 1960s and 1970s.

No criminality was suspected in Bobby Spillane's death.

Jim McManus, Spillane's uncle and a longtime neighborhood power broker, called Spillane's death a "terribly sad accident."

"He was the nicest kid in the world," said McManus, who is a district leader of the McManus Midtown Democratic Association, a political club. "He helped everyone."

Spillane, with one arm in a sling, had leaned on the screen of an open window to call out to his brother, Michael, who was on a street below, McManus said. The screen collapsed and Bobby Spillane fell, McManus said the brother told him.

"The screen gave out," McManus said. "He only had one arm and he went out with the screen."

The New York Police Department could not confirm that Spillane fell through a window after a screen collapsed. Officers and medics responded to a call on Eighth Avenue in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood about 7:45 a.m. Spillane was pronounced dead at the scene.

Spillane's father, who was revered as the "gentleman gangster," was gunned down in 1977 by the rival "Westies," the Hell's Kitchen Irish mob.

In an article about his funeral published in The New York Times, Spillane was described by a detective as "a very strong enforcer, a handsome, black-haired tough guy out of the movies."

He was often asked, even by law enforcement, if he had any relation to the crime writer of the same name.

Bobby Spillane never moved far from his family's roots in the old neighborhood near the Broadway theater district.

A few years back, Spillane drew on the lore from his father's time to write an Off-Broadway play called "All Dolled Up" about a cross-dressing gangster in the 1960s.

 

[kotori]

...Reggie Jackson's three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series...

I was at that game. My first and only World Series game. Memory of a life-time.

 

[JennyOHill2]

http://tonysports.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/george-steinbrenner01.jpg

 

[JennyOHill2]

Former Manager Ralph Houk Dies at 90

BOSTON (AP) -- Ralph Houk, who guided the powerhouse New York Yankees of the early 1960s to two World Series championships during his 20 years as a big league manager, died Wednesday. He was 90.

Houk also skippered the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox in a managerial career that spanned three decades.

Red Sox spokesman Dick Bresciani said Houk's grandson, Scott Slaboden, told the team Houk died at his home in Winter Haven, Fla. Slaboden, who lives in the Boston area, wrote in an e-mail to the team that Houk "died peacefully of natural causes after having a brief illness."

Before reaching the big leagues with the Yankees in 1947, Houk served in the Army in World War II and rose to the rank of major -- a moniker that stuck even when he returned to baseball.

Houk spent parts of eight seasons as a backup catcher for New York, appearing in just 91 games. Former Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek, who played for Houk in the minors and majors with New York, said Houk learned a lot about handling a pitching staff from working with Hall of Famer catchers Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey in the bullpen.

"He had the Yankees' spirit, the Yankees' winning attitude," Kubek told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "He had all the qualities that make a special manager."

Houk managed 3,157 games and won 1,619 with a winning percentage of .514. He followed Casey Stengel as Yankees manager in 1961 and was George Steinbrenner's first manager for New York in 1973. He resigned after one year working for the Boss and moved on to Detroit.

Houk managed the Tigers from 1974-78. His final stint in the dugout came with Boston from 1981-84.

"People forget that before he was a manager, he was a war hero and he was a catcher for a lot of years," Tigers radio analyst Jim Price said. "He was a great guy, I knew him very well, and everyone that played for him loved him."

It's been a tough couple of weeks for the Yankees organization, which has lost three notable figures from its storied history in the last 10 days. Longtime public address announcer Bob Sheppard died on July 11 and iconic owner Steinbrenner passed away two days later.

Houk's best seasons as a manager were his first three in New York. He took over the Yankees in 1961 and behind Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris the team won 109 games and a World Series championship.

The Yankees repeated as champions in 1962 and won the AL pennant in 1963, but were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Houk managed a handful of Hall of Famers in New York, but Kubek said he was an integral part of the team's success.

"Sometimes when you have good players, you can mess it up and he didn't do that," he said. "He didn't overmanage. He was probably, more than a strategist, a handler of men."

Houk moved into the front office after the series loss to the Dodgers, serving as Yankees general manager in 1964 and '65. He returned to managing the Yankees in 1966 and held the job until 1973, but he only had four more winning seasons and never finished better than second place.

The Lawrence, Kan., native had only one winning season with the Tigers, his last in 1978.

"Ralph was a great baseball man who handled his players well and they played hard for him," Tigers Hall of Famer Al Kaline said in a statement released by the team. "He was well respected and a fun guy to be around. I enjoyed playing for him during my last year."

Longtime Braves manager Bobby Cox played for Houk with the Yankees in 1968-69.

"Great guy. Great guy," Cox said Wednesday night after Atlanta lost to San Diego in 12 innings. "Sorry to hear that. I love Ralph. He was just outstanding."

Houk came out of retirement at the age of 61 to become Red Sox manager. He had three winning seasons before retiring for good in 1984, leaving behind the core of a team that would reach the World Series in 1986.

"He was a great players' manager, a real good guy and a tough son of a gun," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. "I got to know him after his managing days, and he's a great credit to the Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers organizations."

But he'll most be remembered as a Yankee.

"He was just a wonderful guy, loyal to his players," Kubek said. "The Major was just a great person."

Houk is survived by his daughter, Donna Houk Slaboden, his son Robert Houk and four grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

 

[phrodeau]

Veteran journalist Daniel Schorr dies at 93

LOS ANGELES | Fri Jul 23, 2010 2:08pm EDT
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran journalist Daniel Schorr, whose career ranged from reporting on the building of the Berlin Wall to the Watergate scandal, died on Friday at the age of 93, National Public Radio said.

Schorr, who spent the past 25 years as a senior news analyst at NPR, died peacefully on Friday morning at a Washington hospital, surrounded by his family, after what NPR described in a statement as a short illness.

Schorr, who once described himself as a "living history book," started his career as a foreign correspondent in 1946. He later joined Edward R. Murrow's legendary radio and TV team at CBS, helped to create CNN in 1979, and then joined NPR becoming a senior news analyst in 1985.

His award-winning career included landing the first U.S. interview with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957, covering the Sputnik space program, and reporting in the 1970s on secret CIA assassinations.

He counted his inclusion on the so-called enemies list drawn up by President Richard Nixon's White House during the Watergate scandal as his greatest achievement.

Schorr worked for NPR until a few days before his death. His last "Week In Review" commentary was aired on July 10.

NPR's Scott Simon, the host of "Weekend Edition", described Schorr as a "fierce journalist, and a tender friend and father."

"What other person was personally acquainted with both Richard Nixon and Frank Zappa? Dan was around for both the Russian Revolution and the Digital Revolution," Simon said in a statement.

"Nobody else in broadcast journalism -- or perhaps any field -- had as much experience and wisdom. I am just glad that, after being known for so many years as a tough and uncompromising journalist, NPR listeners also got to know the Dan Schorr that was playful, funny and kind. In a business that's known for burning out people, Dan Schorr shined for nearly a century," he added.

Schorr won three Emmys for his political reporting in the 1970s, and later a lifetime achievement Peabody award.

He was born in the Bronx in 1916, the son of Belorussian immigrants. He got his first scoop at age 12, when he saw the body of a woman who had jumped or fallen from the roof of his apartment building. He called the police and the Bronx Home News, which paid him $5 for the information.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, editing by Dan Whitcomb)
© Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters Editorial Editions:

 

[JennyOHill2]

'Entourage' Actor Maury Chaykin Dies at Age 61

Canadian actor Maury Chaykin died early Tuesday morning--the day of his birthday, the Associated Press reports. His manager, Paul Hemrend, said the longtime character actor died at a Toronto hospital with family surrounding him.

Mark McKinney, a producer on Chyakin's most recent HBO Canada series, said the actor died following kidney problems.

"He was one of our greatest actors," said McKinney. "Maury's an actor of unparalleled gifts, you cannot learn what he had in spades - you could study for 1,000 years. He had an incredible gift, an instant quickness."

Quite possibly Chaykin's most notable role was his over-the-top Harvey Weinstein parody on HBO's 'Entourage.' He also had memorable roles in many films including 'Dances With Wolves,' 'A Life Less Ordinary,' 'Mystery, Alaska,' 'My Cousin Vinny' and 'The Mask of Zorro.'

In 1994, the actor won a Genie, the Canadian equivalent to an Oscar, for his role in the Canadian film 'Whale Music. He also won two Geminis, Canadian equivalents to Emmys, for guest spots on Canadian TV Series 'La Femme Nikita' and 'At the Hotel' in 1998 and 2006, respectively.

Chaykin is survived by his wife, actress Susanna, and daughter, Rose.

 

[HB1965]

Canadian actor Maury Chaykin died early Tuesday morning--the day of his birthday, the Associated Press reports. His manager, Paul Hemrend, said the longtime character actor died at a Toronto hospital with family surrounding him.

Mark McKinney, a producer on Chyakin's most recent HBO Canada series, said the actor died following kidney problems.

"He was one of our greatest actors," said McKinney. "Maury's an actor of unparalleled gifts, you cannot learn what he had in spades - you could study for 1,000 years. He had an incredible gift, an instant quickness."

Quite possibly Chaykin's most notable role was his over-the-top Harvey Weinstein parody on HBO's 'Entourage.' He also had memorable roles in many films including 'Dances With Wolves,' 'A Life Less Ordinary,' 'Mystery, Alaska,' 'My Cousin Vinny' and 'The Mask of Zorro.'

In 1994, the actor won a Genie, the Canadian equivalent to an Oscar, for his role in the Canadian film 'Whale Music. He also won two Geminis, Canadian equivalents to Emmys, for guest spots on Canadian TV Series 'La Femme Nikita' and 'At the Hotel' in 1998 and 2006, respectively.

Chaykin is survived by his wife, actress Susanna, and daughter, Rose.

Awesome actor. I loved the character he played in "Mystery Alaska"

 

[JennyOHill2]

Jack Tatum Dies of Heart Attack

Jack Tatum, a three-time Pro Bowler with the Oakland Raiders and a star at Ohio State, died Tuesday of a heart attack. Tatum was 61.

Few athletes were ever known for one play like Tatum.

For despite three Pro Bowl appearances, a win on a Super Bowl team in Oakland and a degree of secondary fame as the Raider off whom the ball bounced to Franco Harris for the "Immacualte Reception,'' Tatum is always defined by a single hit: The one in a 1978 exhibition game that left Darryl Stingley a quadriplegic for life.

It not only changed the lives of the two men involved, it changed the NFL -- it can be argued that the league's emphasis on safety that continues today began because of that play.

Even before that, Tatum was known for his vicious hits on a Raiders team, run by Al Davis and coached by John Madden, that thrived on its fearsome image. A first-round pick by Oakland from Ohio State, the 18th overall, in 1971, Tatum was known as "The Assassin.'' "I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault,'' he once said.

That statement haunted him after that play on Aug. 12, 1978, when Tatum hit Stingley in the back just as he caught the ball over the middle in that meaningless game at the Oakland Coliseum. Stingley lay motionless on the field and never regained use of either his arms or legs, dying in 2007 at age 55 of heart disease and pneumonia caused by his quadraplegic state.

Jack Tatum Stingley never blamed Tatum and there was no penalty on the play for what at the time was a clean hit -- it most likely would not be today. And Tatum never modified his style, which endures on NFL highlight reels in a hit Tatum made on Vikings receiver Sammy White in a 32-14 win by the Raiders in Super Bowl XI.

The Stingley play also overshadows Tatum's role in the "Immaculate Reception'' and is the one with which his name is most often associated. Even today, NFL officials recall it when they talk about penalties on safeties for hitting receivers over the middle, and the late Gene Upshaw, longtime head of the players union and Tatum's teammate in Oakland, worked with Stingley to help increase benefits for injured former players.

Tatum and Stingley never communicated much after that although both Madden and Upshaw were close to Stingley, who worked for the Patriots until his death.

Tatum was a three-time first-team All-Big Ten player for Woody Hayes' Buckeyes from 1968-70 and twice earned All-America honors.

"We have lost one of our greatest Buckeyes," current Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel said in a statement. "When you think of Ohio State defense, the first name that comes to mind is Jack Tatum. His loss touches every era of Ohio State players and fans."

Tatum had been in ill-health for some time.

After retiring from the NFL, Tatum battled with diabetes, a disease that wound up forcing the amputation of all five toes on his left foot, then later his right leg.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

Morrie Yohai, 90, the Man Behind Cheez Doodles, Is Dead

The millions of snackers who can’t stop munching Cheez Doodles, those air-puffed tubes of cheddar-flavored corn meal, owe all that pleasure to Morrie Yohai — although he insisted on spreading the credit.

Mr. Yohai, who always said it was “we” who “developed” rather than invented the snack — sharing the acclaim with colleagues at the factory he owned in the Bronx — died on July 27 at his home in Kings Point, N.Y., at the age of 90, his son, Robbie, said.

“Is this Mr. Cheez Doodles?” a cashier once asked Mr. Yohai’s wife, Phyllis, when he accompanied her to a local supermarket. Mrs. Yohai liked to let everyone know of her husband’s contribution to between-meal crunchies, according to a 2005 Newsday profile. Their sumptuous home overlooking Long Island Sound was “the house that Cheez Doodles bought,” she liked to say.

Mr. Yohai (pronounced yo-high) was the president of Old London Foods, the company founded by his father in the early 1920s and then called King Kone, which first produced ice cream cones and later popcorn, cheese crackers and Melba Toast.

“They were looking for a new salty snack and became aware of a machine that processed corn meal under high pressure into a long tube shape,” Robbie Yohai said on Monday. “They also discovered that if they used a high-speed blade, similar to a propeller, they could cut three-inch-long tubes, which then could be flavored with orange cheddar cheese and seasonings.” Then baked, not fried.

Although Mr. Yohai insisted on the “we” credit for the recipe, he did say that he came up with the product name. First marketed in the late 1950s, Cheez Doodles soon became so popular that by 1965, Old London Foods was bought by Borden, and Mr. Yohai became vice president of Borden’s snack food division, which among other products made Drake’s Cakes and Cracker Jack.

One of his duties, he said, was sitting around a table with other executives and choosing which tiny toys would be stuffed into Cracker Jack boxes.

Morrie Robert Yohai was born in Harlem on March 4, 1920, one of four children of Robert and Mary Habib Yohai, Jewish immigrants from Turkey. The family later moved to the Bronx.

Mr. Yohai graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 and began working for Grumman Aircraft on Long Island. After enlisting in the Navy during World War II in 1942, he transferred to the Marines and saw action in the South Pacific.

He married Phyllis Marcus in 1947. Besides his wife and son, he is survived by a daughter, Babs Yohai; two sisters, Bea Forrest and Lorraine Pinto; and a granddaughter.

Design credit notwithstanding, Mr. Yohai took pride in the popularity of Cheez Doodles. At his home, he kept a photograph of Julia Child digging into a bag.

In 2004, he, his wife and children visited a museum in Napa Valley, Calif., where an artist, Sandy Skoglund, had mounted a life-size installation showing several people at a cocktail party — all covered in Cheez Doodles.

“My mother told everyone in the entire museum that he invented them,” Robbie Yohai said.

 

[Douchemoron]

Wow, this is unbelievable. I was just thinking I should start some kind of obituary thread, and there is one already here.

Nice work, folks.

And RIP to everyone that ends up here.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Mitch Miller, Performer and Influential Label Executive, Dead at 99

Mitch Miller, who helped shape the budding pop music genre of the 1950s and '60s, died due to complications from an unknown illness the New York Times confirms. He was 99.

Born in 1911, Miller's career ran the gamut of the music industry. Not only was he a singer and performer who had a widely popular NBC show called 'Sing Along With Mitch' from 1961-66, he was an A&R man and producer who worked with such luminary vocalists as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day and Dinah Shore. Miller was an outspoken critic of the budding rock 'n' roll movement -- he even passed on signing Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly -- and worked to keep alive the long-standing crooning tradition. In 2000, Miller earned a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to modern music.

Although younger generations might not be as familiar with his 'Sing Along' series, it can hear his handiwork every year: Miller spearheaded the Christmas classic, 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,' then sung by a pre-teen Jimmy Boyd. While some critics couldn't look past Miller's love for the more novelty aspects of commercial pop music, he himself was skilled at the oboe and released albums on Columbia Records as Mitch Miller and His Orchestra. In the mid-1950s, he briefly had a string of hits, including a cover version of marching score from 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' and a version of the children's rhyme, 'This Old Man.'

He's survived by two brothers, his two daughters and son.