Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

Former Phillies Coach John Vukovich Dies

http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/27511/5m/wfmzimg.dayport.com/img/3-8JohnVukovich1.jpg

PHILADELPHIA - John Vukovich, the longest-serving coach in Philadelphia Phillies history and a member of their only World Series championship team, died Thursday. He was 59.

Vukovich, who had been suffering from complications caused by an inoperable brain tumor, died in a Philadelphia-area hospital, the team said in a statement.

A first-round draft choice by Philadelphia in 1966, Vukovich, who served short stints as manager with Philadelphia and the Chicago Cubs, spent the last 19 years with the Phillies.

From 1988-2004 he was a Phillies coach, and at the end of the 1988 season was interim manager for nine games.

During the 2001 season he was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that was surgically removed and treated with radiation therapy.

He returned to the field that season as third base coach. After the 2004 season, he accepted a position in the front office as a special assistant to general manager Ed Wade. Vukovich also was Philadelphia's spring training coordinator until 2004 and an assistant last season under new GM Pat Gillick.

Late last year, Vukovich experienced persistent headaches and other symptoms. He was hospitalized in mid-January, although his family and close friends kept his condition guarded at his request. It was the first time he missed spring training in nearly four decades.

"Since the day he signed with us in 1966, Vuk devoted himself to baseball and the Phillies," said team president Dave Montgomery. "Today we lost our good friend and a special member of our Phillies family."

A utility infielder, Vukovich was a career .161 hitter in 10 big league seasons. He played 49 games in 1980, when the Phillies won their only World Series title. He had two stints with Philadelphia (1970-71, 1976-81), and also played for Milwaukee and Cincinnati, where he won a World Series title in 1975 with the Reds.

He retired in 1981 and went straight into coaching with the Chicago Cubs. Vukovich was an interim manager for the Cubs in 1986 and rejoined the Phillies organization in 1988. He went 5-4 as their interim manager.

"I watched him grow up in baseball, give every ounce of himself to reach his goal in the major leagues and stay there," said Phillies senior adviser Dallas Green, who was the manager of the Phillies 1980 World Series championship team. "I respected him for his baseball knowledge, dedication to the game and the Phillies, his loyalty to his managers and organizations, his honesty and his work ethic. He was one of the best baseball men I've ever been around."

No one coached the Phillies for as many years as Vukovich. He won the inaugural Dallas Green Special Achievement award in 2004 for setting a Phillies record by coaching 17 seasons.

"He liked having an effect on players," said Boston manager Terry Francona, who had Vukovich on his staff during his four years as Phillies manager. "It's confusing, just hard to understand sometimes. I catch myself today starting to enjoy the game and remind myself maybe I shouldn't be."

Former Phillies pitcher and current Boston Red Sox Curt Schilling said Vukovich played an important role in his life and career.

"John was an incredibly integral part of my life, my career and a very, very close friend of mine," Schilling said. "Life was very simple for him because the answer to every problem was just keep pushing."

The Phillies will wear a black patch bearing Vukovich's nickname, "Vuk," for the upcoming season.

 

[Agent99]

1950's musicals star Betty Hutton dies

By BOB THOMAS,

LOS ANGELES -


Betty Hutton, the actress and singer who brought a brassy vitality to Hollywood musicals such as "Annie Get Your Gun," has died in Palm Springs, Calif., at age 86.

The death was confirmed Monday by a friend of Hutton who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, citing Hutton's wishes that her death be announced at a specified time by the executor of her estate, Carl Bruno. The friend refused to provide further details including the time and cause of death.

"I can neither confirm or deny" the report, Bruno told The Associated Press from Palm Springs. "I'll be happy to talk about it tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon."

Hutton was at the top of the heap when she walked out of her Paramount contract in 1952, reportedly in a dispute over her demand that her then-husband direct her films. She made only one movie after that but had a TV series for a year and worked occasionally on the stage and in nightclubs.

Unlike other actresses who have been called "blonde bombshells," Hutton had a screen personality that had more to do with energy and humor than sex.

Time magazine wrote in 1950: "Betty Hutton, who is not remarkably pretty, by movie standards, nor a remarkably good singer or dancer, has a vividly unique personality in a town that tends to reduce beauty and talent to mass-produced patterns. Watching her in action has some of the fascination of waiting for a wildly sputtering fuse to touch off an alarmingly large firecracker."

It said she had "a bellicose zeal and a tomboyish winsomeness that suggested a cross between one of the Furies and Little Orphan Annie."

Hutton could be brash behind the camera, too, telling The Associated Press in 1954: "When I'm working with jerks with no talent, I raise hell until I get what I want."

Several of her films were biopics: "Incendiary Blonde," about actress and nightclub queen Texas Guinan; "Perils of Pauline," about silent-screen serial heroine Pearl White; and "Somebody Loves Me," about singer Blossom Seeley.

"Annie Get Your Gun" (1950) was the Irving Berlin musical biography of Annie Oakley, with Hutton playing the part Ethel Merman had made famous on Broadway. Hutton got the movie role part when Judy Garland dropped out of the production.

Another notable film was "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," the 1944 Preston Sturges satire that rattled the censors with the story of a young woman who gets pregnant after a spur-of-the-moment marriage and can't quite remember who the father is.

Sturges called Hutton "a full-fledged actress with every talent the noun implies. She plays in musicals because the public, which can do practically nothing well, is willing to concede its entertainers only one talent."

She returned the compliment, saying in a 1971 interview that "I am not a great singer and I am not a great dancer but I am a great actress, and nobody ever let me act except Preston Sturges. He believed in me."

She recalled years later how she got through one challenging scene — five minutes of rapid-fire dialogue — perfectly on the first try. "Preston was delighted, and he asked how I could do it. I said I memorized it like a song, learning the lines rhythmically."

In 1954, she announced to a Las Vegas nightclub audience: "This is my last show and I'm retiring from show business."

She backtracked the following year, saying, "I was wrong and I admit it." She said her mother told her, "God gave you a gift and it's not right to hide it from people."

But her only movie after 1952 was "Spring Reunion" in 1957.

In 1959-60, she starred in the TV series "The Betty Hutton Show" (also called "Goldie"), about a brash manicurist who suddenly inherits the estate of a wealthy customer and becomes guardian to his three children.

But her personal life was rocky at times, including four failed marriages, financial problems and difficulties between her and her three daughters. In a 1980 AP interview, Hutton said she had kicked a 20-year addiction to pills. "Uppers, downers, inners, outers, I took everything I could get my hands on," she said.

She credited a Rhode Island priest, the Rev. Peter Maguire, with befriending her and turning her life around. She converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1986, she earned a liberal arts degree from Salve Regina College, in Newport, R.I., commenting that she liked college because "the kids studying there accepted me as one of them."

"Practically all the stars are in trouble," she recalled telling the priests she met in Rhode Island. "You happen to see me talking honestly to you. It's a nightmare out there! It hurts what we do in our private lives."

When Maguire died in 1996, she said, "It was just so painful to me, I couldn't handle it. My kids all live in California, so I decided to come back here."

Coming out of her shell somewhat in recent years, she gave occasional performances and interviews, including an appearance in 2000 on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel.

But she told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview that she didn't like to see herself in her old movies.

"It isn't the movie I'm looking at. Professionally, my career was great," she said. "But never was the scene offstage great for me."

She was born Betty June Thornburg in Battle Creek, Mich., on Feb. 26, 1921, but she never knew her father. She began her career at age 5 singing with her sister, Marion, in their mother's speakeasy.

"When I mentioned that I wanted to be a star, my mother thought I was nuts," Hutton recalled. "I thought if I became a star and got us out of poverty, she would quit drinking. I didn't know (alcoholism) was a disease; nobody did. There was no A.A. then."

Her first real show business success was as a singer in Vincent Lopez's band. It was he who gave her the name Hutton. (Her sister eventually adopted the surname Hutton, too, and was a vocalist for Glenn Miller.)

Her mugging and wild gestures, tackling the microphone got her dubbed "America's No. 1 jitterbug." ("As a matter of fact, I couldn't jitterbug," she said.)

Then came a Broadway revue, "Two for the Show," and the stage version of "Panama Hattie" before getting her start in Hollywood. She became a protegee of Buddy De Sylva, famed songwriter then working for Paramount.

Her marriages to manufacturer Ted Briskin, dance director Charles O'Curran, recording company executive Alan Livingston and jazzman Pete Candoli ended in divorce.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

Former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn dead at 80

By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer
March 15, 2007

Former baseball commissioner A.B. "Happy" Chandler, left in hat, sits with then commissioner Bowie Kuhn, front, at Three Rivers Stadium during Game 5 of the World Series between Pittsburgh Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles in this Oct. 14,
Bowie Kuhn was baseball's bespectacled Ivy League lawyer and looked the part every day of the tumultuous 15 years he ruled as commissioner.

Prim and proper with wire-rim glasses, he stood ramrod straight -- all 6-foot-5 of him. Detractors called him a "stuffed shirt" and "pompous," labels that amused him.

Despite his regal bearing, he was as ornery as the owners and players he feuded with over a span that became the second-longest tenure among nine commissioners.

Kuhn, who oversaw the sport's transformation to a business of free agents with multimillion-dollar contracts, died Thursday at St. Luke's Hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., following a short bout with pneumonia that led to respiratory failure, spokesman Bob Wirz said. Kuhn, who was 80, had been hospitalized for several weeks.

"He led our game through a great deal of change and controversy," commissioner Bud Selig said. "Yet, Bowie laid the groundwork for the success we enjoy today."


Kuhn loved baseball long before he moved into its main office on Park Avenue, having worked as a manual scoreboard operator at Washington's Griffith Stadium.

When Kuhn took over from William Eckert on Feb. 4, 1969, baseball just had completed its final season as a tradition-bound 20-team sport, one with no playoffs, a reserve clause and an average salary of about $19,000.

Kuhn battled the rise of the NFL and a combative players' union that besieged him with lawsuits, grievances and work stoppages. Yet it was also a time of record attendance and revenue and a huge expansion of the sport's television presence.

"He wore the mantle really well. He liked being commissioner," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "He never seemed to compromise on what he felt he needed to do."

Along with Kuhn's bumpy reign came a string of controversial decisions.

When Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth's career record in 1974, Kuhn was not in the stands. And he banned Mays and Mantle -- Hall of Famers both -- from associating with their former teams because of liaisons with gambling casinos.

By the time Peter Ueberroth succeeded Kuhn on Oct. 1, 1984, the major leagues had 26 teams in four divisions, a designated hitter in the American League, the first night World Series games, color-splashed uniforms, free agency and an average salary of nearly $330,000.

"I want it to be remembered that I was commissioner during a time of tremendous growth in the popularity of the game," Kuhn said, "and that it was a time in which no one could question the integrity of the game."

It was also a time of memorable confrontations. Kuhn did battle with the likes of Finley, Steinbrenner, Ted Turner and Ray Kroc. Finley once called Kuhn "the village idiot."


He also tangled with former star players like Mays, Mantle and Curt Flood, and union head Marvin Miller.

His downfall came after he presided over a 50-day strike that split the 1981 season in half.

"Bowie was a good guy, and I admired him. Even though we had our disagreements, I never lost my respect for his integrity," Steinbrenner said through spokesman Howard Rubenstein.

"You've got to develop a sense of humor," Kuhn once said during an interview. "You have to be able to stand back and laugh. That's invaluable, or you're apt to go slightly balmy."

Born in Takoma Park, Md., on Oct. 28, 1926, Kuhn grew up in Washington, D.C., as a fan of the original Washington Senators -- yet he allowed the expansion Senators to leave after the 1971 season and become the Texas Rangers. He graduated from Princeton in 1947 and received his law degree in 1950 from Virginia.

After school, he joined the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which represented the National League. In 1966, he represented the Milwaukee Braves in their legal battle with the city over a move to Atlanta and gained the respect of the league's owners.

He eventually lost that respect through repeated confrontations with many of those owners, who kept him from getting involved in negotiations during the 1981 strike.

"I think it's easy to be critical, but I know what it's like," said Fay Vincent, who was commissioner from 1989-92. "It's a very difficult group to work for. It's important to remember he was making decisions in a very different time, in a difficult environment."

Kuhn suspended Steinbrenner in 1974 for two years -- later shortened to 15 months -- for his guilty plea regarding illegal campaign contributions to President Nixon's re-election campaign. He then suspended Turner, the Braves owner, in 1976 for tampering with the contract of Gary Matthews.

In 1976, he voided the attempt by Finley's Oakland Athletics to sell Vida Blue, Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers for a combined price of $3.5 million, saying the deals weren't in the best interests of baseball.

He fined Kroc, the San Diego Padres owner, $100,000 in 1979 for saying he wanted to sign Joe Morgan of the Reds and Graig Nettles of the Yankees.

During Kuhn's years as commissioner, attendance in the major leagues grew from 23 million in 1968 to 44.6 million in 1982. In 1983, baseball signed a $1.2 billion television contract that would earn each team $7 million a year for six seasons, then an astonishing sum.


It was clear by now that baseball was transforming itself from a sport to a business, with revenue rising from $163 million in 1975 to $624 million in 1984.

"You can't be commissioner for 14 years and not change, for better or for worse. I hope I've changed for the better," he said. "I'm more philosophical about our problems. Initially, I used to become more upset. Now, I take problems for granted as being part of the office."

While business boomed on his watch, players wanted their cut.

Flood sued to gain free agency, but lost his U.S. Supreme Court case in 1972. In 1975, the union finally ended the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams forever, winning an arbitration case filed on behalf of Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith. Baseball hasn't been the same since.

"He was in a difficult, untenable position in that whole period," said Miller, who remembered Kuhn for his humor. "My own guess is that if he had had his druthers, he would have moved to modify the whole reserve system sometime before the Messersmith case arose."

On the field, Kuhn injected himself into Aaron's chase for Ruth's home-run record by ordering Braves manager Eddie Mathews to play Aaron in 1974's season-opening series at Cincinnati. Aaron entered with 713 homers, one shy of Ruth's mark.

A year later, Finley led a group that attempted to oust Kuhn as his first term ended.

"That was an ambush," Kuhn said. "I was blindsided. I didn't see it coming, and I wasn't prepared."

But with the support of Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, Kuhn managed to gain re-election.

By 1982, a year after the strike -- baseball's fifth work stoppage under Kuhn -- owners were ready for change. At a Nov. 1 meeting at a Chicago airport hotel, AL owners voted 11-3 to give Kuhn another term, but the NL vote was 7-5, short of the 75 percent needed.

In 1988, he formed the law firm Myerson & Kuhn with Harvey Myerson, but two years later it filed for bankruptcy. He sold his house in Ridgewood, N.J., and moved to Ponte Vedra Beach, where his home was shielded from bankruptcy proceedings.

He is survived by wife, Luisa Kuhn; son Stephen Kuhn; daughter Alix Bower; and stepsons Paul Degener and George Degener.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Former Football, Pro Wrestling Great Ernie 'Big Cat' Ladd Dead at 68

GRAMBLING, La. — Ernie "Big Cat" Ladd, who played on championship professional football teams before finding more lucrative success in pro wrestling, has died. He was 68.

Ladd played in the America Football League and is a member of the World Wrestling Federation Hall of Fame. He died March 11th after a long bout with cancer.

"It's a personal loss not just to our family, but to the whole community," said Eddie Robinson Jr., whose ailing father coached Ladd at Grambling State. "I was fortunate enough to be in high school when he was here, so my football heroes growing up were people like Ernie Ladd."

Ladd, who was almost 6-foot-10 and weighed over 300 pounds, was the 15th player taken in the 1961 AFL draft and played for the San Diego Chargers, Houston Oilers and Kansas City Chiefs.

Born Nov. 28, 1938, in Rayville, La., but raised in Orange, Texas, he had battled cancer — first in his colon, then later in his stomach and bones — since 2004.

"The doctor told me I had three-to-six months to live," Ladd said in 2005, then at the midway point in his nearly four-year battle with cancer. "I told him Dr. Jesus has the verdict on me."

While playing football, Ladd began making appearances at wrestling events at first as a special referee and later as a wrestler. Knee problems, and what at the time ended up being a more lucrative career as a wrestler, ended his football career.

"In what other sport can you pick up a $14 pair of boots, $0.59 socks — spend maybe a total of $50 — and convert it into $100,000 a year, if you are sharp and train?" Ladd asked. "My intention was to go back to football, but pro wrestling was so good to me."

Ladd was a defensive stalwart on Grambling's first Southwestern Athletic Conference championship football squad. He then helped San Diego win the 1963 AFL championship.

When Ladd completed his eight-year pro career, he had played in 112 consecutive AFL games. He played for the Chiefs when they reached the Super Bowl in 1967 and '70.

As big as he was, Ladd was known for his quickness, something that inspired his lifelong nickname.

Ladd's bad-guy story lines, not to mention signature moves that included the "guillotine drop" and a boot to the face, made him star in the WWF.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

"New Avengers" Star Hunt Dies at 65

http://www.funky-beetroot.com/graphics/bwgraphics/mainphotos/gareth_hunt.jpg

LONDON (AP) - British actor Gareth Hunt, best known as secret agent Mike Gambit on 1970s spy series "The New Avengers," died early March 14th, his agent said. He was 65.

Hunt, who died at his home south of London, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago and had fought the disease "privately and bravely," said the agent, Alexandra McLean-Williams.

The London-born Hunt joined the merchant navy at 15 and spent six years at sea before studying acting and later appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He first gained attention playing footman Frederick Norton in the long-running TV series "Upstairs, Downstairs."

But he is best remembered for "The New Avengers," a sequel to 1960s spy series "The Avengers."

In the sequel, Patrick Macnee reprised his role as John Steed, while Hunt played Gambit and was joined by Joanna Lumley as Purdey, the series' glamorous martial arts expert. It ran for only 26 episodes.

"We started off as friends in 'The New Avengers' and remained that way for more than 30 years," Lumley said.

"We shared so much laughter - we were constantly in hysterics making 'The Avengers.' Gambit and Purdey were quite often sent out to do bits and pieces together so we would have scenes where we were driving or fighting people, and we had such enormous fun," she said.

In later years, Hunt appeared on British shows including "EastEnders,""Doctors" and "New Tricks."

He is survived by his wife, Amanda, and three sons.

 

[linuxgeek]

Computing pioneer John Backus dies

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/03/20/obit.backus.ap/index.html

March 20, 2007

(AP) -- John Backus, whose development of the Fortran programming language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with computers and paved the way for modern software, has died. He was 82.

Backus died Saturday in Ashland, Oregon, according to IBM Corp., where he spent his career.

Prior to Fortran, computers had to be meticulously "hand-coded" -- programmed in the raw strings of digits that triggered actions inside the machine.

Fortran was a "high-level" programming language because it abstracted that work -- it let programmers enter commands in a more intuitive system, which the computer would translate into machine code on its own.

The breakthrough earned Backus the 1977 Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery, one of the industry's highest accolades. The citation praised Backus' "profound, influential, and lasting contributions."

Backus also won a National Medal of Science in 1975 and got the 1993 Charles Stark Draper Prize, the top honor from the National Academy of Engineering.

"Much of my work has come from being lazy," Backus told Think, the IBM employee magazine, in 1979. "I didn't like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701 (an early computer), writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs."

John Warner Backus was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1924. His father was a chemist who became a stockbroker. Backus had what he would later describe as a "checkered educational career" in prep school and the University of Virginia, which he left after six months. After being drafted into the Army, Backus studied medicine but dropped it when he found radio engineering more compelling.

Backus finally found his calling in math, and he pursued a master's degree at Columbia University in New York. Shortly before graduating, Backus toured the IBM offices in midtown Manhattan and came across the company's Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, an early computer stuffed with 13,000 vacuum tubes.

Backus met one of the machine's inventors, Rex Seeber -- who "gave me a little homemade test and hired me on the spot," Backus recalled in 1979.

Backus' early work at IBM included computing lunar positions on the balky, bulky computers that were state of the art in the 1950s. But he tired of hand-coding the hardware, and in 1954 he got his bosses to let him assemble a team that could design an easier system.

The result, Fortran, short for Formula Translation, reduced the number of programming statements necessary to operate a machine by a factor of 20.

It showed skeptics that machines could run just as efficiently without hand-coding. A wide range of programming languages and software approaches proliferated, although Fortran also evolved over the years and remains in use.

Backus remained with IBM until his retirement in 1991. Among his other important contributions was a method for describing the particular grammar of computer languages. The system is known as Backus-Naur Form.

 

[Faneros]

E Street Band co-founder dies

E Street Band co-founder dies
Bill Chinnock, 59, had Lyme disease
YARMOUTH, Maine (AP) - Bill Chinnock, a musician and founding member of what became Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died Wednesday, police said. He was 59.

Chinnock, a blues and roots rock stylist, had Lyme disease, and police said they were called to his East Main Street home by his live-in caregiver.

Lt. Dean Perry would not comment on the cause of death but said ''it is not of a suspicious nature.''

Chinnock's manager, Paul Pappas, told WCSH-TV that the guitarist, keyboardist, singer and songwriter committed suicide.

A Newark, N.J., native, Chinnock was a key figure in the Asbury Park, N.J., music scene that propelled Springsteen to stardom.

Chinnock moved to Maine in the 1970s. He made 13 albums and in 1987 won an Emmy for his song ''Somewhere in the Night.''

A duet he later recorded with Roberta Flack was used for the soap opera ''Guiding Light.''

His albums include ''Blues,'' ''Badlands,'' ''Alive at the Loft,'' ''Dime Store Heroes,'' ''Livin' in the Promised Land'' and ''Out on the Borderline.''

In addition to performing at venues in Maine and around the country, Chinnock wrote music for films and television.

 

[Imhotep]

Cpl. Howard V. Ramsey, Last US WW1 Combat vet dies

9 March 2007

Portland Oregon. (AP) - The echo of a 21-gun salute and bugler playing Taps seemingly marked the end of an era as a state and national treasure was laid to rest in Portland, Ore., March 2. Retired Army Cpl. Howard V. Ramsey, Oregon's last living World War I veteran and the last known U.S. combat veteran of WWI, died in his sleep Feb. 22 at an assisted living center in southeast Portland. He was honored in a memorial service attended by nearly 200 people at Lincoln Memorial Park exactly one month before reaching his 109th birthday.

"This is a very historic occasion; we lay to rest today our nation's oldest combat veteran," said Pastor Stu Weber, who officiated over Ramsey's memorial service. In an Associated Press report, Jim Benson of the Veterans Administration said there are now only seven WWI veterans on record with the VA, although it is possible there are unknown veterans who may still exist. Of the seven known WWI veterans still living, none were shipped overseas, making Ramsey the last known combat veteran of "The Great War."

Ramsey inherited the title two weeks before his passing, when Massachusetts veteran Antonio Pierro passed away on Feb. 8. Ramsey's lifetime spanned three centuries and 19 presidents. He was born in Rico, Colo., on April 2, 1898, when the U.S. flag had just 45 stars and President McKinley was preparing to declare war with Spain. Too young to be drafted, Ramsey tried to voluntarily enlist but was told he was too skinny by Army standards. After gorging on bananas and water to successfully meet weight standards, he was placed in the Army's transportation corps. Ramsey sailed to France in September 1918 to join General John "BlackJack" Pershing's American Expeditionary Force. Ramsey drove cars, trucks and motorcycles for the Army and trained other soldiers how to drive.

He was often selected to drive officers to special engagements, one officer "gigging" him for having a dirty truck despite the constant rain and mud in France. He also drove ambulances, transported troops to the frontlines and delivered water to troops on the battlefields. Ramsey once recalled his service in WWI saying, "We were under fire a lot at the front, and we really caught hell one time. I lost friends over there." After the armistice, Ramsey spent several months recovering the remains of American Soldiers who had been hastily buried in the trenches and transported them to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, the largest American cemetery in Europe. "You'd better believe it was pretty awful work," Ramsey told Oregonian reporter Rick Bella in 2005.

"It was tough, but you became hardened to it." Nearly 90 years later, Ramsey was still haunted by regret for not breaking the rules and keeping a diary that fell from the pocket of one deceased American Soldier. Ramsey told family and friends, "I wanted to keep that diary so badly to send it to his mother, but it was against the rules to keep anything from off the bodies."

Veterans of many generations and wars, and military representatives attended Ramsey's memorial service to pay their respects, including Brig. Gen. Raymond C. Byrne Jr., commander of the Oregon Army National Guard's 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, and Jim Willis, state director of Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs. "If we are going to end an era, I can think of no better way than to do it with a person who is a model representation of the kinds of Soldiers who served this country in WWI, and someone who would be an example to any combat Soldier serving up to, and including those who serve in Afghanistan and Iraq today. All (veterans) would be justifiably proud to have known Corporal Howard Ramsey," said Willis. Retired Army Col. Don Holden, whose father was Ramsey's classmate at Washington High School, shared fond memories of Ramsey's sense of humor. He said farewell to his old friend by reading the epic WWI poem "Flander's Field," which Ramsey could recite from memory well into his late 90s.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

`Amityville' Director Rosenberg Dies

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Stuart Rosenberg, a prolific director of series television and theatrical films who partnered with Paul Newman on the widely popular prison drama "Cool Hand Luke" and several other movies, has died at 79.

Rosenberg, who also directed "The Amityville Horror," died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in Beverly Hills, according to his son, Benjamin.

Rosenberg's first film was "Cool Hand Luke," the 1967 drama starring Newman as an inmate on a chain gang who becomes an unlikely hero.

"He was as good as anybody I ever worked with," Newman said in a statement.

"Cool Hand Luke" was nominated for four Academy Awards, with George Kennedy taking home a statute for best supporting actor. The film also spawned the famous line delivered by Strother Martin as a guard captain: "What we've got here is failure to communicate."

Rosenberg was nominated for a Directors' Guild Award for the film, but lost to Mike Nichols, who made "The Graduate" the same year.

After "Cool Hand Luke," Rosenberg directed Jack Lemmon and French actress Catherine Deneuve in "The April Fools." He worked with Newman again on "WUSA,""Pocket Money," and "The Drowning Pool."

Rosenberg also directed Robert Redford in the 1980 prison film "Brubaker" and Mickey Rourke in 1984's "The Pope of Greenwich Village.""Amityville Horror" in 1979 was probably his most financially successful film; it has inspired seven sequels to date.

His last film was "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" in 1991.

Rosenberg had started out by directing episodes of television series in the 1950s, starting with "Decoy," which starred Beverly Garland as a New York City policewoman.

He collected more than 300 TV directing credits for such dramatic series' as "The Untouchables,""Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone," and won an Emmy Award in 1963 for an episode of "The Defenders."

Rosenberg is survived by his wife, Margot, and son Benjamin, an assistant editor who worked with his father on many of his later films.

 

[phrodeau]

Letterman Regular "Bud Melman" Dies
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1601608,00.html
http://www.fadetoblack.com/interviews/larrybudmelman/5.gif

Thursday, Mar. 22, 2007 By AP/LARRY MCSHANE
(NEW YORK) — Calvert DeForest, the white-haired, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late night television shows, has died after a long illness. The Brooklyn-born DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, Letterman's "Late Show" announced Wednesday.

He made dozens of appearances on Letterman's shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on "I Got You, Babe," doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

"Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself — a genuine, modest and nice man," Letterman said in a statement. "To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him."

The gnomish DeForest was working as a file clerk at a drug rehabilitation center when show producers, who had seen him in a New York University student's film, came calling.

He was the first face to greet viewers when Letterman's NBC show debuted on Feb. 1, 1982, offering a parody of the prologue to the Boris Karloff film "Frankenstein."

"It was the greatest thing that had happened in my life," he once said of his first Letterman appearance.

DeForest, given the nom de tube of Melman, became a program regular. The collaboration continued when the talk show host launched "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS in 1993, though DeForest had to use his real name because of a dispute with NBC over "intellectual property."

Cue cards were often DeForest's television kryptonite, and his character inevitably appeared in an ill-fitting black suit behind thick black-rimmed glasses.

DeForest often drew laughs by his bizarre juxtaposition as a "Late Show" correspondent at events such as the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway or the anniversary Woodstock concert that year.

His last appearance on "Late Show," celebrating his 81st birthday, came in 2002.

DeForest also appeared in an assortment of other television shows and films, including "Nothing Lasts Forever" with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.

At his request, there will be no funeral service for DeForest, who left no survivors.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

R&B Singer Luther Ingram Dies at 69

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Luther Ingram, the R&B singer and songwriter best known for the hit "If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right)," has died. He was 69.

Ingram died March 19th at a Belleville, Ill., hospital of heart failure, friend and journalist Bernie Hayes said Tuesday. He had suffered for years from diabetes, kidney disease and partial blindness, his wife, Jacqui Ingram, said.

Ingram performed with Ike Turner at clubs in East St. Louis, roomed with Jimi Hendrix in New York and was the opening act for Isaac Hayes. He recorded through the 1980s and performed in concert until the mid-1990s, when his health began declining.

"His instrument was his voice; his heart and head were his inspiration," said Hayes, a St. Louis journalist, disc jockey and author of "The Death of Black Radio."

Ingram was born Nov. 30, 1937, in Jackson, Tenn. He started writing music and singing as a boy in a group with his siblings after his family moved to Alton, Ill., in 1947.

He had a five-year association with Memphis, Tenn.-based Stax Records during the height of its success. In 1971, Ingram and songwriter-performer Sir Mack Rice co-wrote "Respect Yourself" for the Staple Singers, which turned into Stax's biggest hit.

Ingram recorded "If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right)," in 1972 on Koko Records, which Stax distributed. The song was No. 1 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart and was later a hit for Barbara Mandrell.

His other popular songs include "Ain't That Loving You (For More Reasons Than One),""I'll Be Your Shelter" and "You Never Miss Your Water."

"He was a soft-spoken, quiet person that I think relished peace," said Deanie Parker, who spent her career at Stax and Soulsville. "He was a very intense singer; he took it very seriously. When he was rehearsing, he'd go over it and over it and seek perfection."

 

[Ladyhawke]

Highlander's Bill Panzer Dies

Bill Panzer, producer of everything that has ever been a part of the Highlander universe, has died at the age of 62.

He perished in what can only be described as a freak accident. In a statement released on Highlander-Community.com by Highlander Worldwide president Carmel Mcphereson it’s explained this way: “Bill died in the typically theatrical way that I would have expected of him. He had decided to go ice skating - at 62! He was a man who lived by his own rules and where in the rule book did it say that 62 year olds shouldn't ice skate. Unfortunately he fell- heavily - and hit his head. Whilst he seemed to recover, the damage had been done and the result was a brain haemorrhage from which he failed to recover.”

For Highlander fans, Bill Panzer’s name is instantly recognizable. Along with his partner Peter Davis, he’s the man responsible for where the series has gone over the years. In a way, he’s been kind of like Highlander’s version of Rick Berman. Though often the source of fan outrage and irritation over the choices he made for the franchise, there’s no denying his impact on the face of not only Highlander but pop culture.

Panzer’s sudden death has been confirmed by both his partner David Abramowitz and Highlander star Adrian Paul. Adrian has posted a tribute to Bill Panzer on his official site. Here’s some of what he had to say about his long time boss: “I know there were times that you questioned your position in Hollywood; questioned whether you were big enough, good enough or successful enough. Perhaps inside, like many of us, you didn’t believe that you had achieved everything that you dreamed of. But believe me, you touched millions. You were able to create something that made a ripple in the frequency of life and touched people’s hearts and souls. For that we all thank you.

However, the thing I regret the most is that in all that time, in all the moments we spent together, in all the places we visited - Vancouver, Paris, Vilnius, London, Bucharest, Los Angeles Bordeaux, Cannes and Daytona - I never truly thanked you for allowing me into the Highlander universe and for giving me the opportunity to play Duncan MacLeod. So, from the bottom of my heart Bill, thank you. Thank You. Thank You.”

Panzer’s final film, Highlander: The Source has just finished filming and is due out some time later this year, but below is a video reminder of what was unquestionably Bill Panzer’s best work.

 

[sweet soft kiss]

I hope heaven gives him a Major Award

Film director Bob Clark, best known for the holiday classic "A Christmas Story," was killed with his son Wednesday in a head-on crash with a vehicle that a drunken driver steered into the wrong lane, police and the filmmaker's assistant said.

Clark, 67, and son Ariel Hanrath-Clark, 22, were killed in the accident in Pacific Palisades, said Lyne Leavy, Clark's personal assistant.

The two men were in an Infiniti that collided head-on with a GMC Yukon around 2:30 a.m. PDT, said Lt. Paul Vernon, a police spokesman. The driver of the other car was under the influence of alcohol and was driving without a license, Vernon said.

The driver, Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, of Los Angeles, remained hospitalized and will be booked for investigation of gross vehicular manslaughter after being treated, Vernon said. A female passenger in his car also was taken to the hospital with minor injuries and released, police said.

In Clark's most famous film, all 9-year-old Ralphie Parker wants for Christmas is an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle.

His mother, teacher and Santa Claus all warn: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

A school bully named Scut Farkus, a leg lamp, a freezing flagpole mishap and some four-letter defiance helped the movie become a seasonal fixture with "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street."

Scott Schwartz, who played Flick in "A Christmas Story" and kept in touch with Clark, called Clark one of the "nicest, sweetest guys that you'd ever want to come in contact with."

"It's a tragic day for all of us who knew and loved Bob Clark," Schwartz said. "Bob was a fun-loving, jelly-roll kind of guy who will be sorely missed."

The director of The Christmas Story House in Cleveland, which was used for several exterior shots in the film, said Clark had been planning to visit in August.

"We were all very excited about meeting him," said executive director Steve Siedlecki. "It's very sad to think that that will never happen."

The house started a condolence book for Clark's family that fans who visit the house can sign, he said. Renovated to look like Ralphie's movie home, the house opened in November and has welcomed about 30,000 visitors.

Clark specialized in horror movies and thrillers early in his career, directing such 1970s flicks as "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Murder by Decree," "Breaking Point" and "Black Christmas," which was remade last year.

His breakout success came with 1981's sex farce "Porky's," a coming-of-age romp that he followed two years later with "Porky's II: The Next Day."

In 1983, "A Christmas Story" marked a career high for Clark. Darrin McGavin, Melinda Dillon and Peter Billingsley starred in the adaptation of Jean Shepard's childhood memoir of a boy in the 1940s.

The film was a modest theatrical success, but critics loved it.

In 1994, Clark directed a forgettable sequel, "It Runs in the Family," featuring Charles Grodin, Mary Steenburgen and Kieran Culkin in a continuation of Shepard's memoirs.

In recent years, Clark made family comedies that were savaged by critics, including "Karate Dog," "Baby Geniuses" and its sequel, "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2."

Among Clark's other movies were Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton's "Rhinestone," Timothy Hutton's "Turk 182!", and Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd's "Loose Cannons."

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

 

[sweet soft kiss]

A legend gone.

Robinson's life went well beyond football


Football fans and historians will remember the 408 wins, 19 conference championships, and the fact that Robinson molded Doug Williams into a barrier-breaking Super Bowl champion quarterback.

However, a death of a human being is a time to take the full measure of a man, and when sizing up the life of Eddie Robinson, one quickly realizes that the person far outstrips the larger-than-life football accomplishments.


The significance of Robinson's life is not found in a comparison with the other great coaches in football history, nor is it found in any kind of attempt to see how Grambling stacks up against the Alabamas, Penn States and Florida States of the college football cosmos. No, the meaning of this man's eighty-eight years is found in the circumstances that gave birth to a program and the man who built it from nothing.

Contemporary college football is such a gigantic industry these days that it's hard (maybe even impossible) for young fans to truly appreciate what Eddie Robinson faced back in 1941, at the school tucked into a remote area of north central Louisiana.

Eddie Robinson, by necessity, had to do much more work in the first days of his Grambling career than Joe Paterno ever performed in Happy Valley. He had to confront a situation far more desperate than anything Bobby Bowden faced at Florida State in the mid-1970s. His teams weren't collections of prospects (though Robinson's excellence would nevertheless lead several of Grambling's top men to the professional ranks); they were groups of young men who simultaneously needed and craved a steady, guiding hand in days before (and during, and after) the Civil Rights era.


Robinson, you see, had to line the fields himself when he started out at Grambling. Robinson himself had to feed his team during the portion of his Grambling career when restaurants in the Deep South didn't admit African Americans. Robinson literally had to be the program, all by himself, when he began to build a powerhouse from the soil of a small town where the football stadium seated just 13,000 people.

The famous author and intellect Oscar Wilde said that "It's the mark of an educated mind to be deeply moved by statistics." And yes, Eddie Robinson's football stats ought to deeply move any football fan when one considers the humble beginnings of a 57-year coaching career that began a few months before Pearl Harbor.

But as moving as the statistics and achievements in fact are, it's the man who must be remembered far more than the 408 wins he forged on the gridiron. What kind of a person did Eddie Robinson have to become to accomplish all that he did, in a humble town removed from the bright lights and big budgets of college football's media-industrial complex? What kind of a man did Eddie Robinson have to become in order to establish himself as a teacher, mentor, friend and guide to thousands of young men who entered Grambling's schoolhouse gate over nearly six decades?

It's cause for a prolonged and awe-filled silence, to be quite honest.

But one must write some words to put this memorable and significant American life into perspective, and so if one must try to sum up Eddie Robinson, the man's own words should suffice. Want to know why Eddie Robinson became what he became against the backdrop of countless hardships, barriers and limitations?

"The real record I have set for over 50 years is the fact that I have had one job and one wife," Robinson said.

And one amazing life.

 

[KindaKinky]

I was wondering how soon the Bob Clark Obit would show up here. Of course the drunk driver got away with only minor injuries…

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Paralyzed Stingley dies at 55

http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Rolen/Rolen_Images/Rolen.Bio.02.gif

The Associated Press
CHICAGO -- Darryl Stingley, paralyzed after a vicious hit during an NFL exhibition game nearly 30 years ago, died April 6th. He was 55.

Stingley was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after he was found unresponsive in his Chicago home, according to Tony Brucci , an investigator with the Cook County medical examiner's office.

The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was accidental, with the contributing factors of bronchial pneumonia, quadriplegia, spinal cord injury and coronary atherosclerosis, the medical examiner's office said.

Stingley, a star receiver with the New England Patriots, was left a quadriplegic after he collided with Oakland's Jack Tatum while trying to catch a pass in an exhibition game on Aug. 12, 1978.

It broke Stingley's neck, and he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Stingley regained limited movement in his right arm and operated his electric wheelchair on his own.

 

[Faneros]

'B.C.' cartoonist Johnny Hart dies at 76

'B.C.' cartoonist Johnny Hart dies at 76 By MARY ESCH, Associated Press Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. - Cartoonist Johnny Hart, whose award-winning "B.C." comic strip appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide, died Saturday while working at his home in Endicott. He was 76.

"He had a stroke," Hart's wife, Bobby, said Sunday. "He died at his storyboard."

"B.C.," populated by prehistoric cavemen and dinosaurs, was launched in 1958 and eventually appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers with an audience of 100 million, according to Creators Syndicate Inc., which distributes it.

"He was generally regarded as one of the best cartoonists we've ever had," Hart's friend Mell Lazarus, creator of the "Momma" and "Miss Peach" comic strips, said from his California home. "He was totally original. 'B.C' broke ground and led the way for a number of imitators, none of which ever came close."

After he graduated from Union-Endicott High School, Hart met Brant Parker, a young cartoonist who became a prime influence and co-creator with Hart of the "Wizard of Id" comic strip.

Hart enlisted in the Air Force and began producing cartoons for Pacific Stars and Stripes. He sold his first freelance cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post after his discharge from the military in 1954.

Later in his career, some of Hart's cartoons had religious themes, a reflection of his own Christian faith. That sometimes led to controversy.

A strip published on Easter Sunday in 2001 drew protests from Jewish groups and led several newspapers to drop the strip. The cartoon depicted a menorah transforming into a cross, with accompanying text quoting some of Jesus Christ's dying words. Critics said it implied that Christianity supersedes Judaism.

Hart said he intended the strip as a tribute to both faiths.

"He had such an emphasis on kindness, generosity, and patience," said Richard Newcombe, founder and president of Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles.

Newcombe said Hart was the first cartoonist to sign on when the syndicate was created 20 years ago. "Traditionally, comic strips were owned by syndicates," Newcombe said. "We were different because we allowed cartoonists to own their own work. It was because of Johnny's commitment to this idea that made us a success."

Besides his wife, Hart is survived by two daughters, Patti and Perri. He was a native of Endicott, about 135 miles northwest of New York City, and drew his comic strip at a studio in his home there until the day he died.

Funeral arrangements had not been announced.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Ex-Kiss Guitarist Mark St. John Dies

Reuters
NEW YORK (April 7) - Former Kiss guitarist Mark St. John died April 5th from an apparent brain hemorrhage. He was 51.

Born Mark Norton in Hollywood, St. John was Kiss' third official guitarist, having replaced Vinnie Vincent -- the substitute for Ace Frehley -- in 1984.

By this point, Kiss had done away with its trademark makeup and costumes, but the group was enjoying a career renaissance. The lone Kiss album on which St. John appeared, "Animalize," re-established the group as one of the world's top arena metal bands. The album spawned the popular MTV video, "Heaven's on Fire" (the only Kiss video to feature St. John).

St. John's flashy playing reflected the era's Van Halen-influenced rock guitarists, but it certainly helped spark the material on "Animalize," which many fans consider one of Kiss' strongest non-makeup releases. However, right around the time Kiss was to launch a worldwide tour in support of the album, St. John was diagnosed with a form of arthritis called Reiter's Syndrome, which caused his hands and arms to swell, and prevented him from playing guitar.

Guitarist Bruce Kulick filled in (St. John did manage to play one full show with the group, and portions of a few others) and eventually replaced St. John as Kiss' permanent guitarist.

His medical condition improved after leaving Kiss, and St. John launched a pop/metal outfit, White Tiger, with ex-Black Sabbath singer David Donato. St. John briefly teamed up with original Kiss drummer Peter Criss in a group that didn't release any recordings, and appeared as a guest speaker at Kiss conventions. In 2001, he released an all-instrumental album, "Magic Bullet Theory."

"I wish to express my sympathy to Mark St. John's family and friends," Kulick said in a statement. "Though Mark was the guitarist I replaced, I respected his talent and contribution to Kiss. May he rest in peace."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Soap Star Edward Mallory Dead at 76

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/ap/thumbnails//Obit_Mallory.sff_WXS101_20070406162425.jpg

CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) - Edward Mallory, who portrayed angst-ridden Dr. Bill Horton on the NBC daytime drama "Days of Our Lives" for 14 years, has died following a long illness, family members said. He was 76.

Mallory had been ill for several years with a combination of ailments that she declined to identify, his widow, Suzanne, said.

Mallory, of Salisbury, Pa., appeared on the soap opera from 1966 to 1980. He played an underdog surgeon who pined for and eventually married his brother's wife after years of keeping secret that he had fathered her son.

In 2002, Mallory told the Frostburg State University alumni magazine that he loved Shakespeare but jumped at the chance to work in television and movies, including the 1962 feature films "Diamond Head" and "The Bird Man of Alcatraz."

"When luck strikes, you have to be ready to grab the opportunity," Mallory said.

He also directed several daytime serials and wrote, directed and produced documentaries for The History Channel and A&E.

Mallory, who was born in Cumberland, joined the Frostburg State faculty as artist-in-residence in 2004. There, he taught writing, acting and directing, and oversaw student-made documentary films.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actor Roscoe Lee Browne Dies in LA at 81

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/july64/images/bios_roscoe.jpg

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Actor Roscoe Lee Browne, whose rich voice and dignified bearing brought him an Emmy Award and a Tony nomination, has died. He was 81.

Browne died early Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a long battle with cancer, said Alan Nierob, a spokesman for the family.

Browne's career included classic theater to TV cartoons. He also was a poet and a former world-class athlete.

His deep, cultured voice was heard narrating the 1995 hit movie "Babe." On screen, his character often was smart, cynical and well-educated, whether a congressman, a judge or a butler.

Born to a Baptist minister in Woodbury, N.J., Browne graduated from historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he later returned to teach comparative literature and French. He also was a track star, winning the 880-yard run in the 1952 Millrose Games.

Browne was selling wine for an import company when he decided to become a full-time actor in 1956 and had roles that year in the inaugural season of the New York Shakespeare Festival in a production of "Julius Caesar."

In 1961, he starred in an English-language version of Jean Genet's play "The Blacks."

Two years later, he was The Narrator in a Broadway production of "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," a play by Edward Albee from a novella by Carson McCullers. In a front page article on the advances made by blacks in the theater, the New York Times noted that Browne's understudy was white.

He won an Obie Award in 1965 for his role as a rebellious slave in the off-Broadway "Benito Cereno."

In movies, he was a spy in the 1969 Alfred Hitchcock feature "Topaz" and a camp cook in 1972's "The Cowboys," which starred John Wayne.

"Some critics complained that I spoke too well to be believable" in the cook's role, Browne told The Washington Post in 1972. "When a critic makes that remark, I think, if I had said, 'Yassuh, boss' to John Wayne, then the critic would have taken a shine to me."

On television, he had several memorable guest roles. He was a snobbish black lawyer trapped in an elevator with bigot Archie Bunker in an episode of the 1970s TV comedy "All in the Family" and the butler Saunders in the comedy "Soap." He won an Emmy in 1986 for a guest role as Professor Foster on "The Cosby Show."

In 1992, Browne returned to Broadway in "Two Trains Running," one of August Wilson's acclaimed series of plays on the black experience. It won the Tony for best play and brought Browne a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor.

The New York Times said he portrayed "the wry perspective of one who believes that human folly knows few bounds and certainly no racial bounds. The performance is wise and slyly life-affirming."

Browne also wrote poetry and included some of it along with works by masters such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William Butler Yeats in "Behind the Broken Words," a poetry anthology stage piece that he and Anthony Zerbe performed annually for three decades.

 

[Faneros]

Barry Nelson, the Original Bond, Dead at 89

LOS ANGELES (April 14) - Barry Nelson, an MGM contract player during the 1940s who later had a prolific theater career and was the first actor to play James Bond on screen, has died. He was 89.

Nelson died on April 7 while traveling in Bucks County, Pa., his wife, Nansi Nelson, said Friday. The cause of death was not immediately known, she said.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1941, Nelson was signed to MGM after being spotted by a talent scout. He appeared in a number of films for the studio in 1942, including "Shadow of the Thin Man," "Johnny Eager" and "Dr. Kildare's Victory." He also landed the leading role in "A Yank on the Burma Road," playing a cab driver who decides to lead a convoy of trucks for the Chinese government.

Nelson entered the Army during World War II and went on the road with other actors performing the wartime play "Winged Victory," which was later made into a movie starring Red Buttons , George Reeves and Nelson.

After the war, Nelson starred in a string of movies, including "Undercover Maisie," "Time to Kill" and "Tenth Avenue Angel."

He is the answer to the trivia question: Who was the first actor to play James Bond? Before Sean Connery was tapped to play the British agent on the big screen in 1962's "Dr. No," Nelson played Bond in a one-hour TV adaptation of "Casino Royale" in 1954.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84

NEW YORK (AP) - Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died April 11th. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.

Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.

His mother had succeeded in killing herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people in the city.

"The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Tiny Bubbles' Crooner Don Ho Dies

HONOLULU (April 14) -- Legendary crooner Don Ho, who entertained tourists for decades wearing raspberry-tinted sunglasses and singing the catchy signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," has died. He was 76.

He died Saturday morning of heart failure, publicist Donna Jung said.

Ho had suffered with heart problems for the past several years, and had a pacemaker installed last fall. In 2005, he underwent an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart in Thailand.

Ho entertained Hollywood's biggest stars and thousands of tourists for four decades. For many, no trip to Hawaii was complete without seeing his Waikiki show -- a mix of songs, jokes, double entendres, Hawaii history and audience participation.

Shows usually started and ended with the same song, "Tiny Bubbles." Ho mostly hummed the song's swaying melody as the audience enthusiastically took over the familiar lyrics: "Tiny bubbles/in the wine/make me happy/make me feel fine."

"I hate that song," he often joked to the crowd. He said he performed it twice because "people my age can't remember if we did it or not."

The son of bar owners, Ho broke into the Waikiki entertainment scene in the early 1960s and, except for short periods, never left. Few artists are more associated with one place.

"Hawaii is my partner," Ho told The Associated Press in 2004.

Donald Tai Loy Ho, who was Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and German, was born Aug. 13, 1930, in Honolulu and grew up in the then-rural countryside of Kaneohe.

In high school, he was a star football player and worked for a brief time in a pineapple cannery. After graduating in 1949, he attended Springfield College in Massachusetts on an athletic scholarship. He grew homesick, returned to the islands and ended up graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1953 with a degree in sociology.

Inspired by the U.S. military planes flying in and out of Hawaii during World War II, Ho joined the Air Force. As the Korean War wound down, he piloted transport planes between Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu and Tokyo.

When he returned home and took over his parents' struggling neighborhood bar, Honey's, he put together a band and started performing at his father's request.

"I had no intention of being an entertainer," Ho said. "I just played songs I liked from the radio, and pretty soon that place was jammed. Every weekend there would be lines down the street."

Honey's became a happening place on Oahu, with other Hawaiian musicians stopping in for jam sessions. Ho began to play at various spots at Hawaii, and soon, he was packing places such as the Coconut Grove in Hollywood and the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas.

Stars such as Lucille Ball, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra were known to be in the audience for Ho's shows.

Ho also became a television star, and hosted the "The Don Ho Show" on ABC from 1976-77. One of Ho's most memorable TV appearances was a 1972 cameo on an episode of "The Brady Bunch."

"I've had too much fun all these years," he said in the 2004 interview. "I feel real guilty about it."

Besides "Tiny Bubbles," his other well-known songs include "I'll Remember You," "With All My Love," and the "Hawaiian Wedding Song."

In the final years of his life, Ho's heart problems couldn't keep him away from the stage. He was back performing at the Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel on a limited schedule less than two months after his heart procedure in Thailand. His final performance was Thursday, Jung said.

 

[phrodeau]

It's sad and ironic that if you had done a news search on "Don Ho" yesterday, you would have gotten very different results.

 

[linuxgeek]

VT shooting victims

http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=6382007

A list of some of the victims of the shootings at Virginia Tech:

-- Lauren McCain, 20, of Hampton
-- Nicole White, in her 20s, of Smithfield
-- Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass.
-- Christopher James Bishop, 35
-- Ryan Clark, 22, of Martinez, Ga
-- Jocelyn Couture-Nowak, a French instructor
-- Daniel Perez Cueva, 21 of Peru
-- Kevin Granata, age unknown
-- Caitlin Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y.
-- Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, of Bellefonte, Pa.
-- Rachael Hill, 18, of Glen Allen, Va.
-- Emily Jane Hilscher, a 19-year-old freshman from Woodville
-- Jarrett L. Lane, 22, of Narrows, Va.
-- Matthew J. La Porte, 20, a freshman from Dumont, N.J.
-- Liviu Librescu, 76
-- G.V. Loganathan, 51
-- Daniel O'Neil, 22, of Rhode Island
-- Juan Ramon Ortiz, a 26-year-old graduate student in engineering from Bayamon, Puerto Rico
-- Mary Karen Read, 19, of Annandale, Va
-- Reema J. Samaha, 18, a freshman from Centreville, Va.