Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

CBGB Founder Hilly Kristal Dies at 75

August 29, 2007
By Cristian Salazar

Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died. He was 75.

Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction from its home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital after a battle with lung cancer, his son Mark Dana Kristal said Wednesday.

Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith, Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the infamous venue that opened in 1973.

"He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and saw it go around the world," said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the Patti Smith Group. "Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt."

While the club's glory days were long past when it shut down, its name transcended the venue and become synonymous with the three-chord trash of punk and its influence on generations of musicians worldwide.

The club also became a brand name for a line of clothing and accessories, even guitar straps; its store, CBGB Fashions, was moved a few blocks away from the original club, but remained open.

"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal told The Associated Press last October.

Kristal started the club in 1973 with the hope of making it a mecca of country, bluegrass and blues — called CBGB & OMFUG, for "Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandisers" — but found few bands to book. It instead became the epicenter of the mid-1970s punk movement.

"There was never gourmet food, and there was never country bluegrass," his son said Wednesday.

Besides the Ramones and the Talking Heads, many of the other sonically defiant bands that found frenzied crowds at CBGB during those years became legendary — including Smith, Blondie and Television.

Smith said at the venue's last show that Kristal "was our champion and in those days, there were very few."

Throughout the years, CBGB had rented its space from the building's owner, the Bowery Residents' Committee, an agency that houses homeless people.

In the early 2000s, a feud broke out when the committee went to court to collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club, then later successfully sought to evict it. By the time it closed, CBGB had become part museum and part barroom.

At the club's boarded-up storefront Wednesday morning, fans left a dozen candles, two bunches of flowers and a foam rubber baseball bat — an apparent tribute to the Ramones' classic "Beat on the Brat." A spray-painted message read: "RIP Hilly, we'll miss you, thank you."

Other survivors include his wife, Karen, and daughter, Lisa.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Megachurch Leader D. James Kennedy Dies

Sep 5, 4:21 PM (ET)

MIAMI (AP) - The Rev. D. James Kennedy, a pioneering Christian broadcaster and megachurch pastor whose fiercely conservative worldview helped fuel the rise of the religious right in American politics, died Wednesday. He was 76.

Kennedy died at his home in Fort Lauderdale from complications of a heart attack he suffered on Dec. 28, according to Kristin Cole, a spokeswoman for Kennedy's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. He had not been seen publicly since the heart attack, and his retirement was announced Aug. 26.

Kennedy's voice and face were known to millions through radio and television broadcasts, urging Christians to evangelize in their daily lives, while condemning homosexuality and abortion as assaults on the traditional family. His also preached on the major policy issues of the day, rejecting evolution and global warming.

Kennedy was influential in the founding of the religious right, but did so more often from behind the scenes, as attention focused on his allies, the Revs. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Kennedy was a founding board member of the Moral Majority, which Falwell formed in 1979. In 1996, Kennedy created Coral Ridge's political arm, called the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, to mobilize conservative Christians against gay marriage, pornography and what he called "judicial tyranny," among other issues.

Kennedy also founded the Center for Christian Statesmanship, which organized Capitol Hill Bible studies and other events that attracted top government officials. He encouraged them "to embrace God's providential purpose for this nation."

"The Bible says, 'Be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth,'" Kennedy said in a 1996 interview with The Los Angeles Times. "God should be in every sphere of life: economics, business, education, government, art and science."

In 1959, the pastor started his congregation with about 45 members, eventually expanding into a megachurch that claims 10,000 members today.

In the 1960s, when many conservative Christians were still debating how much to engage the broader culture, Kennedy jumped in and created Evangelism Explosion International, which trained Christians to share their beliefs with others.

"That simple goal is now widely adopted in evangelical churches and widely accepted, but at the time he started it, it wasn't," said Frank Wright, president and chief executive officer of the National Religious Broadcasters association.

At the time of his death, Kennedy's influence was beginning to wane, as his congregation aged and new evangelical leaders emerged. Coral Ridge shuttered its Center for Reclaiming America earlier this year.

Still, Kennedy was the author of more than 50 books and founded two schools - Knox Theological Seminary and Westminster Academy, a K-12 Christian school near his church.

Coral Ridge Ministries, his radio and TV outreach arm, claimed a weekly audience of 3.5 million people for all its broadcasts. Kennedy's TV show, "The Coral Ridge Hour," has been airing reruns on more than 400 stations and is broadcast to more than 150 countries on the Armed Forces Network, his ministry says. Last year, the National Religious Broadcasters group inducted him into its hall of fame.

"He was one of the early visionaries who saw that you could use electronic media to extend the four walls of the church to reach a broader audience," Wright said.

Dennis James Kennedy was born Nov. 3, 1930, in Augusta, Ga., and his family moved in 1936 to Chicago and in 1945 to Tampa. Kennedy's father was a traveling salesman whom he described as "long suffering," and his mother was an alcoholic. They were not churchgoers.

Kennedy dropped out of college to become an Arthur Murray dance instructor, but eventually returned to earn multiple degrees, including a doctorate from New York University. He met his future wife, the former Anne Lewis, while teaching dance.

Besides his wife of 51 years, the pastor is survived by a daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy. Both were by his bedside when he died.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Luciano Pavarotti Has Died, Says Manager

ROME (Sept. 6) - Luciano Pavarotti, whose vibrant high C's and ebullient showmanship made him one of the world's most beloved tenors, has died, his manager told The Associated Press. He was 71.

His manager, Terri Robson, told the AP in an e-mail statement that Pavarotti died at his home in Modena, Italy, at 5 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) Thursday. Pavarotti had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and underwent further treatment in August.

"The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness," the statement said.

For serious fans, the unforced beauty and thrilling urgency of Pavarotti's voice made him the ideal interpreter of the Italian lyric repertory, especially in the 1960s and '70s when he first achieved stardom. For millions more, his charismatic performances of standards like "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's "Turandot" came to represent what opera is all about.

In fact, "Nessun Dorma" was Pavarotti's last performance, sung at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, in February 2006. His last full-scale concert was in Taipei in December 2005.

It was the second monumental loss in the opera world in recent months. American soprano Beverly Sills, whose widespread popularity mirrored Pavarotti's, died July 2 at her home in New York. She was 78 and suffered from cancer.

Pavarotti was instantly recognizable from his charcoal black beard and tuxedo-busting girth. He radiated an intangible magic that helped him win hearts in a way Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras - his partners in the "Three Tenors" concerts - never quite could.

The tenor, who seemed equally at ease singing with soprano Joan Sutherland as with the Spice Girls, scoffed at accusations that he was sacrificing his art in favor of commercialism.

In his heyday, he was known as the "King of the High C's" for the ease with which he tossed off difficult top notes. In fact it was his ability to hit nine glorious high C's in quick succession that first turned him into an international superstar singing Tonio's aria "Ah! Mes amis," in Donizetti's "La Fille du Regiment" at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1972.

In the 1990s, Pavarotti's teaming with Domingo and Carreras became a music business phenomenon and spawned copycats such as the Three Irish Tenors.

Pavarotti starred in a film called "Yes, Giorgio" (though its failure scuttled his hopes for a Hollywood career) and appeared in a filmed version of "Rigoletto." He wrote an autobiography, "I, Luciano Pavarotti," and made more than 90 recordings.

From Beijing to Buenos Aires, people immediately recognized his incandescent smile and lumbering bulk, clutching a white handkerchief as he sang arias and Neapolitan folk songs, pop numbers and Christmas carols for hundreds of thousands in outdoor concerts.

His name seemed to show up as much in gossip columns as serious music reviews, particularly after he split with Adua Veroni, his wife of 35 years and mother of their three daughters, and then took up with his 26-year-old secretary in 1996.

In late 2003, he married Nicoletta Mantovani in a lavish, star-studded ceremony. Pavarotti said their daughter Alice, nearly a year old at the time of the wedding, was the main reason he and Mantovani finally wed after years together.

In the latter part of his career, some music critics cited what they saw as an increasing tendency toward the vulgar and the commercial.

He came under fire for canceling performances or pandering to the lowest common denominator in his choice of programs, or for the Three Tenors tours and their millions of dollars in fees.

He was criticized for lip-synching at a concert in Modena, Italy, his hometown. An artist accused him of copying her works from a how-to-draw book and selling the paintings.

The son of a baker who was an amateur singer, Pavarotti was born Oct. 12, 1935, in Modena. He had a meager upbringing, though he said it was rich with happiness.

"Our family had very little, but I couldn't imagine one could have any more," Pavarotti said.

As a boy, Pavarotti showed more interest in soccer than his studies, but he also was fond of listening to his father's recordings of tenor greats like Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, Jussi Bjoerling and Giuseppe Di Stefano, his favorite.

Among his close childhood friends was Mirella Freni, who would eventually become a soprano and an opera great herself. The two studied singing together and years later ended up making records and concerts together, according to Elvio Giudici, an Italian opera critic.

In his teens, Pavarotti joined his father, also a tenor, in the church choir and local opera chorus. He was influenced by the American movie actor-singer Mario Lanza.

"In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate him in the mirror," Pavarotti said.

Singing was still nothing more than a passion while Pavarotti trained to become a teacher and began working in a school.

But at 20, he traveled with his chorus to an international music competition in Wales. The Modena group won first place, and Pavarotti began to dedicate himself to singing.

With the encouragement of his then fiancee, Adua Veroni, he started lessons, selling insurance to pay for them. He studied with Arrigo Pola and later Ettore Campogalliani.

In 1961, Pavarotti won a local voice competition and with it a debut as Rodolfo in Puccini's "La Boheme."

He followed with a series of successes in small opera houses throughout Europe before his 1963 debut at Covent Garden in London, where he stood in for Di Stefano as Rodolfo.

Having impressed conductor Richard Bonynge, Pavarotti was given a role opposite Bonynge's wife, soprano Joan Sutherland, in a Miami production of "Lucia di Lamermoor." They subsequently signed him for a 14-week tour of Australia.

It was the recognition Pavarotti needed to launch his career. He also credited Sutherland with teaching him how to breathe correctly.

In the following years, Pavarotti made a series of major debuts, appearing at La Scala in Milan in 1965, San Francisco in 1967 and New York's Metropolitan Opera House in 1968. Other early venues included Vienna, Paris and Chicago.

Throughout his career, Pavarotti struggled with a much-publicized weight problem. His love of food caused him to balloon to a reported high of 396 pounds (180 kilograms) in 1978.

"Maybe this time I'll really do it and keep it up," he said during one of his constant attempts at dieting.

Pavarotti, who had been trained as a lyric tenor, began taking on heavier dramatic tenor roles, such as Manrico in Verdi's "Trovatore" and the title role in "Otello."

Pavarotti often drew comparisons with Domingo, his most notable contemporary. Aficionados judged Domingo the more complete and consistent musician, but he never captured the public imagination like Pavarotti.

Though there appeared to be professional jealousy between the great singers, Pavarotti claimed he preferred to judge himself only against his earlier performances.

In the mid-1970s, Pavarotti became a true media star. He appeared in television commercials and began appearing in hugely lucrative mega-concerts outdoors and in stadiums around the world. Soon came joint concerts with pop stars. A concert in New York's Central Park in 1993 drew 500,000 fans.

Pavarotti's recording of "Volare" went platinum in 1988.

In 1990, he appeared with Domingo and Carreras in a concert at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome for the end of soccer's World Cup. The concert was a huge success, and the record known as "The Three Tenors" was a best-seller and was nominated for two Grammy awards. The video sold over 750,000 copies.

The three-tenor extravaganza became a mini-industry. With a follow-up album recorded at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 1994, the three have outsold every other performer of classical music. A 1996 tour earned each tenor an estimated US$10 million.

Pavarotti liked to mingle with pop stars in his series of charity concerts, "Pavarotti & Friends," held annually in Modena. He performed with artists as varied as Ricky Martin, James Brown and the Spice Girls.

The performances raised some eyebrows but he always shrugged off the criticism.

It was not just his annual extravaganza that saw Pavarotti involved in humanitarian work.

During the 1992-95 Bosnia war, he collected humanitarian aid along with U2 lead singer Bono, and after the war he financed and established the Pavarotti Music Center in the southern city of Mostar to offer Bosnia's artists the opportunity to develop their skills.

He performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as an earthquake in December 1988 that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia.

Pavarotti was also dogged by accusations of tax evasion, and in 2000 he agreed to pay nearly roughly US$12 million to the Italian state after he had unsuccessfully claimed that the tax haven of Monte Carlo rather than Italy was his official residence.

He had been accused in 1996 of filing false tax returns for 1989-91.

Pavarotti always denied wrongdoing, saying he paid taxes wherever he performed. But, upon agreeing to the settlement, he said: "I cannot live being thought not a good person."

Pavarotti was preparing to leave New York in July 2006 to resume a farewell tour when doctors discovered a malignant pancreatic mass, his manager Terri Robson said at the time. He underwent surgery in a New York hospital, and all his remaining 2006 concerts were canceled.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of the disease, though doctors said the surgery offered improved hopes for survival.

"I was a fortunate and happy man," Pavarotti told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published about a month after the surgery. "After that, this blow arrived."

"And now I am paying the penalty for this fortune and happiness," he told the newspaper.

Fans were still waiting for a public appearance a year after his surgery. In the summer of 2007, Pavarotti taught a group of selected students and worked on a recording of sacred songs, a work expected to be released in early 2008, according to his manager. He mostly divided his time between his home town, Modena, and his villa in the Adriatic seaside resort of Pesaro.

Robson said that up until a few weeks before his death, he spent several hours each day teaching his students at his summer villa in Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast.

Faced with speculation that the tenor was near death, Mantovani, his second wife, told Italian newspaper La Stampa in July 2007: "He's fighting like a lion and he has never lost his heart."

Pavarotti had three daughters with his first wife, Lorenza, Cristina and Giuliana; and one, Alice, with his second wife.

At his side when he died were his wife, Nicoletta; his four daughters; his sister, Gabriela; his nephews and close relatives and friends, Robson said.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Miyoshi Umeki, Tony Nominee and Oscar Winner, Dies at 78

06 Sep 2007

http://www.playbill.com/images/photos/miyoshiumekihead200-n8iku8b5.jpg

Miyoshi Umeki, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in the original Flower Drum Song, and who won a supporting actress Oscar for the film "Sayonara" in 1958, thus becoming the first Asian to win a performance Academy Award, died Aug. 28 in Licking, MO, Variety reported. She was 78.

In addition to starring as Mei-Li in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song, the diminutive Ms. Umeki, who boasted a pixieish haircut and a wide smile, also appeared in the film version, winning a Golden Globe nomination. Her involvement in the stage show landed her on the cover of Time magazine in 1958.

On television, she became known for playing Mrs. Livingston in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," the Bill Bixby comedy about a single parent. She won another Golden Globe nomination for her work there.

Her other film and television credits include "The Horizontal Lieutenant," "A Girl Named Tamiko" and "Cry For Happy," "Mister Ed" and "The Donna Reed Show."

Miyoshi Umeki was born May 8, 1929, in Hokkaido, Japan, where she performed for U.S. troops as a singer during the postwar occupation, singing in Japanese and English, according to Variety. By the time she moved to the U.S. in 1955, she was already famous in Japan as Nancy Umeki. She continued her recording career on Mercury records for some years after arriving in America.

She is survived by her son and two grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Steve Ryan, Character Actor of Stage and Television, Dies at 55

http://www.fremontcentretheatre.com/natcastpixs/SteveRyan.jpg

06 Sep 2007

Steve Ryan, a tall, masculine character actor who carved out a steady career in theatre and television playing a variety of authority figures, died Sept. 3 in Duarte, CA, after a long illness. He was 55.

Due to his commanding bearing, strong nose and square jaw, Mr. Ryan was often cast as policemen, detectives and other men in positions of power. He was Secretary of Defense Hutchinson in NBC's "The West Wing," Sargeant Adams in "CSI," Lt. Lane in "NYPD Blue," Officer Mike Healey in "Oz" and Det. Nate Grossman in "Crime Story." He also played J. Walter Weatherman on "Arrested Development."

Perhaps his most famous Broadway appearance was in the 1992 Jerry Zaks-directed revival of Guys and Dolls, in which he swept on stage in a Dick Tracy-yellow trenchcoat as Lt. Brannigan, foe of all Runyonesque gamblers. His other Broadway credits included the original I'm Not Rappaport, On the Waterfront and the 1999 revival of The Iceman Cometh, in which he understudied the roles of Chuck Morello, Piet Wetjoen and Rocky Pioggi.

Off-Broadway, he appeared in Minor Demons, The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Delacorte, Israel Horowitz's Unexpected Tenderness and Approximating Mother. The Manhattan native began his career acting at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory, Hartford Stage and the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival.

He is survived by his wife and two daughters.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Oscar-winner Jane Wyman dead at 93

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Jane Wyman, the Oscar-winning actress and former wife of Ronald Reagan, has died at he age of 93, officials said Monday.

Wyman, who won a best actress Academy Award for her portrayal of a deaf rape victim in "Johnny Belinda" before later appearing in the hit television soap "Falcon Crest," died at her Palm Springs home, according to William Martin with Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City.

No further information was immediately available.

Although Wyman became familiar to millions during the 1980s as the scheming Angela Channing in "Falcon Crest," her heyday had come decades earlier with roles in a string of hit films during Hollywood's golden age.

A contract actress with Warner Brothers studio in the 1930s, Wyman's big break came in 1939 with her first lead role in "Torchy Plays With Dynamite."

She garnered critical acclaim for her performance in 1945's film noir classic "The Lost Weekend," before winning an Oscar nomination the following year for her role in the "The Yearling."

Although she missed out on an Academy Award to Olivia de Havilland, Wyman did not have long to wait before getting her hands on the famous golden statuette, scooping the prize in 1948 for "Johnny Belinda."

It was the first time that the prestigious acting award had been given for a role that did not require a single spoken word of dialogue.

Fittingly, Wyman kept her acceptance speech short and sweet.

"I won this by keeping my mouth shut, and that's what I'm going to do now," she said after collecting the prize.

The win paved the way for roles in several big-budget projects, and she went on to earn two more Oscar nods during her career for 1951's "The Blue Veil" and 1954's "The Magnificent Obsession" opposite Rock Hudson.

Wyman was married four times to three men, with her longest relationship her eight-year union with former president Reagan between 1940 and 1948, which followed a one-year marriage to Myron Futterman in 1937.

Wyman and Reagan had three children, Maureen, who died in 2001, aged 60, Michael, who was adopted in 1945, and Christine who was stillborn in 1947.

After her marriage to Reagan ended, Wyman married bandleader Frederick Karger in 1952, divorcing him three years later.

The couple remarried in 1961 but divorced for a second time in 1965. Wyman never remarried

 

[apexpark]

06 Sep 2007

http://www.playbill.com/images/photos/miyoshiumekihead200-n8iku8b5.jpg

Miyoshi Umeki, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her work in the original Flower Drum Song, and who won a supporting actress Oscar for the film "Sayonara" in 1958, thus becoming the first Asian to win a performance Academy Award, died Aug. 28 in Licking, MO, Variety reported. She was 78.

In addition to starring as Mei-Li in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song, the diminutive Ms. Umeki, who boasted a pixieish haircut and a wide smile, also appeared in the film version, winning a Golden Globe nomination. Her involvement in the stage show landed her on the cover of Time magazine in 1958.

On television, she became known for playing Mrs. Livingston in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," the Bill Bixby comedy about a single parent. She won another Golden Globe nomination for her work there.

Her other film and television credits include "The Horizontal Lieutenant," "A Girl Named Tamiko" and "Cry For Happy," "Mister Ed" and "The Donna Reed Show."

Miyoshi Umeki was born May 8, 1929, in Hokkaido, Japan, where she performed for U.S. troops as a singer during the postwar occupation, singing in Japanese and English, according to Variety. By the time she moved to the U.S. in 1955, she was already famous in Japan as Nancy Umeki. She continued her recording career on Mercury records for some years after arriving in America.

She is survived by her son and two grandchildren.

oh my! I was just watching her on youtube the other day. she was fabulous.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

`Match Game' Panelist Brett Somers Dies

Sep 17, 2:49 PM (ET)

WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) - Actress and comedian Brett Somers, who amused game show fans with her quips on the "Match Game" in the 1970s, has died, her son said. She was 83.

Somers died Saturday at her home in Westport of stomach and colon cancer, Adam Klugman said Monday.

Hosted by Gene Rayburn, "Match Game" was the top game show during much of the 1970s. Contestants would try to match answers to nonsense questions with a panel of celebrities; much of the humor came from the racy quips and putdowns.

Shows from the 1973-79 run, featuring regulars like Somers, Richard Dawson and Charles Nelson Reilly, are still seen on cable TV's GSN (formerly Game Show Network.)

Somers married actor Jack Klugman, the future star of the television shows "Quincy" and "The Odd Couple," in 1953. The two separated in 1974, but never divorced.

They made many television appearances as a couple. Somers appeared on several episodes of "The Odd Couple," playing the ex-wife of Klugman's character.

In the summer of 2003, she appeared in a one-woman cabaret show, "An Evening with Brett Somers," which she wrote and co-produced. She continued to perform after being diagnosed with cancer.

She was born Audrey Johnston in New Brunswick, Canada, and grew up in Portland, Maine. She ran away from home at age 17 and headed for New York City, where she settled in Greenwich Village. She changed her first name to Brett after the lead female character in the Ernest Hemingway novel "The Sun Also Rises." Somers was her mother's maiden name.

Her son said she was caustic, irreverent and a self-declared bohemian.

"She maintained her independence till the end, and her irreverence," Adam Klugman said. "She died very much at peace."

In addition to Adam Klugman, Somers is survived by another son, David, and a daughter, Leslie.

 

[phrodeau]

(from the Pavarotti obit)
It was the second monumental loss in the opera world in recent months. American soprano Beverly Sills, whose widespread popularity mirrored Pavarotti's, died July 2 at her home in New York. She was 78 and suffered from cancer.

They've forgotten about Jerry Hadley.

Jerry Hadley (June 16, 1952 – July 18, 2007) was an American operatic tenor, who was a protegé of famous soprano Dame Joan Sutherland and her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenufa (2004 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording), Susannah (1995 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording, and Candide (1992 Grammy Award for Best Classical Album).

 

[coinín]

Author Robert Jordan Dies

Author Robert Jordan Dies
By BRUCE SMITH

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Author Robert Jordan, whose "Wheel of Time" series of fantasy novels sold millions of copies, died Sunday of a rare blood disease. He was 58.

Jordan, whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Jr., was born and lived in this southern city most of his life. He died at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston of complications from primary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy, his personal assistant, Maria Simons, said Monday. The blood disease caused the walls of Rigney's heart to thicken.

He wrote a trilogy of historical novels set in Charleston under the pen name Reagan O'Neal in the early 1980s. Then he turned his attention to fantasy and the first volume in his Wheel of Time epic, "The Eye of the World," was published in 1990 under the name Robert Jordan.

Jordan's books tells of Rand al'Thor, who is destined to become the champion who will battle ultimate evil in a mythical land.

Book 11, "Knife of Dreams," came out in 2005; there was also a prequel, "New Spring: The Novel," in 2004. The other titles in the series include "The Great Hunt," "Lord of Chaos" and "The Path of Daggers." Jordan was working on a 12th volume at the time of his death, Simons said.

"The younger devotees of the series, who seem to be legion, have a habit of dutifully rereading the complete gospel before each addition. ... (Jordan) creates a universe simple enough to master and then challenges the characters to do the same in meticulously choreographed battles against chaos and dissolution."

In a 2004 online chat on the USA Today Web site, Jordan said he hoped to finish the main "Wheel" series in two more books. "It's not an absolute promise, but I'm very much hoping for it and I think I can do it," he wrote.

Most of the books made The New York Times list of best sellers.

In an interview with The Associated Press in 2003, Jordan discussed having a best seller. The first time it happens "you go out in the middle of the floor and you do a little dance. Then you go someplace booze is being served and buy a drink for everybody in the house.

"You have to have talent to some extent — I certainly hope I have talent — but you have to have luck as well," Jordan said. "Once you get that first shot, that will get you noticed for the rest of your books and that will give the rest of your books a better chance."

He said in the interview that his Southern background came through in his work, even though it is set in a fantasy world.

"What I write is certainly not set in South Carolina, but I have had a number of reviewers comment on the fact that I write with a distinctly Southern voice," he said.

"It goes beyond more than simply where the story is set. I believe it is something we take in in the air and the water. It's a matter of word choices — of the rhythms of sentences and the rhythm of speech in particular."

A graduate of The Citadel, South Carolina's state military college, Rigney worked as a nuclear engineer at the old Charleston Naval Shipyard before taking up writing full time in 1977. He served two tours of duty with the Army in Vietnam. He was decorated several times, including winning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze Star.

He is survived by his wife, Harriet McDougal Rigney.

Funeral arrangements had not been finalized on Monday, Simons said.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actress Alice Ghostley Dies at 81

Sep 22, 7:52 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Alice Ghostley, the Tony Award-winning actress best known on television for playing Esmeralda on "Bewitched" and Bernice on "Designing Women," has died. She was 81.

Ghostley died Friday at her home in Studio City after a long battle with colon cancer and a series of strokes, longtime friend Jim Pinkston said.

Ghostley made her Broadway debut in "Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1952." She received critical acclaim for singing "The Boston Beguine," which became her signature song.

Miles Kreuger, president of the Los Angeles-based Institute of the American Musical, said part of Ghostley's charm was that she was not glamorous.

"She was rather plain and had a splendid singing voice, and the combination of the well-trained, splendid singing voice and this kind of dowdy homemaker character was so incongruous and so charming," Kreuger said.

In the 1960s, Ghostley received a Tony nomination for various characterizations in the Broadway comedy "The Beauty Part" and eventually won for best featured actress in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window."

From 1969 to 1972, she played the good witch and ditzy housekeeper Esmeralda on TV's "Bewitched." She played Bernice Clifton on "Designing Women" from 1987 to 1993, for which she earned an Emmy nomination in 1992.

Ghostley's film credits include "To Kill a Mockingbird,""The Graduate,""Gator" and "Grease."

She was born on Aug. 14, 1926, in Eve, Mo., where her father worked as a telegraph operator. She grew up in Henryetta, Okla.

After graduating from high school, Ghostley attended the University of Oklahoma but dropped out and moved to New York with her sister to pursue theater.

"The best job I had then was as a theater usher," she said in a 1990 Boston Globe interview. "I saw the plays for free. What I saw before me was a visualization of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be."

She was well aware of the types of roles she should pursue.

"I knew I didn't look like an ingenue," she told The Globe. "My nose was too long. I had crooked teeth. I wasn't blond. I knew I looked like a character actress.

"But I also knew I'd find a way," she added.

Ghostley, whose actor husband, Felice Orlandi, died in 2003, is survived by her sister, Gladys.

 

[phrodeau]

Mime Legend Marcel Marceau Dies at 84

PARIS (AP) — Marcel Marceau, the master of mime who transformed silence into poetry with lithe gestures and pliant facial expressions that spoke to generations of young and old, has died. He was 84.

Wearing white face paint, soft shoes and a battered hat topped with a red flower, Marceau breathed new life into an art that dates to ancient Greece. He played out the human comedy through his alter-ego Bip without ever uttering a word.

Offstage, he was famously chatty. "Never get a mime talking. He won't stop," he once said.

A French Jew, Marceau escaped deportation to a Nazi death camp during World War II, unlike his father who died in Auschwitz. Marceau worked with the French Resistance to protect Jewish children, and later used the memories of his own life to feed his art.

He gave life to a wide spectrum of characters, from a peevish waiter to a lion tamer to an old woman knitting, and to the best-known Bip.

His biggest inspiration was Charlie Chaplin. In turn, Marceau inspired countless young performers — Michael Jackson borrowed his famous "moonwalk" from a Marceau sketch, "Walking Against the Wind."

Marceau's former assistant Emmanuel Vacca said on French radio that the peformer died Saturday in Paris, but gave no details.

In one of Marceau's most poignant and philosophical acts, "Youth, Maturity, Old Age, Death," Marceau wordlessly showed the passing of an entire life in just minutes.

He took his art to stages across the world, performing in Asia, Europe and the United States, his "second country," where he first performed in 1955 and returned every two years. He performed for Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Tireless, Marceau took his art to Cuba for the first time in September 2005.

"France loses one of its most eminent ambassadors," President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement. Prime Minister Francois Fillon praised Marceau as "the master" with the rare gift of "being able to communicate with each and everyone beyond the barriers of language."

The son of a butcher, the mime was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, France. His father Charles, a baritone with a love of song, introduced his son to the world of music and theater at an early age. The boy was captivated by the silent film stars of the era: Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx brothers.

When the Nazis marched into eastern France, he fled with family members to the southwest and changed his last name to Marceau to hide his Jewish origins.

With his brother Alain, Marceau became active in the French Resistance, altering children's identity cards by changing birth dates to trick the Nazis into thinking they were too young to be deported. Because he spoke English, he was recruited to be a liaison officer with Gen. George S. Patton's army.

His father was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.

"Yes, I cried for him," Marceau said. But he said he also thought of the others killed.

"Among those kids was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug," he told reporters in 2000. "That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another."

Some of Marceau's later work reflected the somber experiences. Even the character Bip, who chased butterflies in his debut, took on the grand themes of humanity.

Marcel's life as a performer began with the liberation of Paris from the Nazis. He enrolled in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art, studying with the renowned mime Etienne Decroux.

On a tiny stage at the Theatre de Poche, a smoke-filled Left Bank cabaret, he sought to perfect the style of mime that would become his trademark.

The on-stage persona Bip was born in 1947, a sad-faced double whose eyes lit up with childlike wonder as he discovered the world. Bip was a direct descendant of the 19th century harlequin, but his clownish gestures, Marceau said, were inspired in part by Chaplin and Keaton.

Marceau likened his character to a modern-day Don Quixote, "alone in a fragile world filled with injustice and beauty."

Dressed in a white sailor suit, a top hat — a red rose perched on top — Bip covered the gamut of human experience, and emotion. He went to war and ran a matrimonial service.

In one famous sketch, "Public Garden," Marceau played all the characters in a park, from little boys playing ball to old women with knitting needles.

In 1949, Marceau's newly formed mime troupe was the only one of its kind in Europe. But it was only after a hugely successful tour across the United States in the mid-1950s that Marceau received the acclaim that would make him an international star.

Single-handedly, Marceau revived the art of mime, which dates to antiquity and continued until the 19th century through the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or improvised theater.

"I have a feeling that I did for mime what (Andres) Segovia did for the guitar, what (Pablo) Casals did for the cello," he once told The Associated Press in an interview. Marceau started his own company, then in 1978 the International School of Mime-Drama.

Marceau also made film appearances. The most famous was Mel Brooks' 1976 film "Silent Movie" — he had the only speaking line, "Non!"

As he aged, Marceau kept performing, never losing the agility that made him famous.

A perforated ulcer nearly killed Marceau in the Soviet Union in December 1985. He was rushed home to Paris in critical condition, but bounced back to the stage five months later.

On top of his Legion of Honor and his countless honorary degrees, he was invited to be a United Nations goodwill ambassador for a 2002 conference on aging.

"If you stop at all when you are 70 or 80, you cannot go on," he told the AP in 2003. "You have to keep working."

Marceau was married three times and had four children. Funeral arrangements were not immediately known.

By ANGELA DOLAND

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Award winning artist Ken Danby dies

http://www.thestar.com/images/assets/277752_3.JPG
At the Crease

Canadian painter Ken Danby, renowned for his portraits of athletes and realistic panoramic landscapes, died Sunday at the age of 67. Danby collapsed while on a canoe trip on North Tea Lake in Algonquin Park with his wife Gillian Danby and close friends.

The canoe party summoned for help and an air ambulance arrived and lowered two paramedics to the remote location, but they were unable to revive him. With help from rescue teams from Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the artist’s body was flown to North Bay General Hospital, Ontario Provincial Police said Monday.

Greg McKee, manager of the Danby Studio in Guelph, Ont., said it is unknown why Danby collapsed, but an autopsy has been scheduled. No foul play was suspected.

“He has been a huge influence on Canadian art and on Canadian artists who look to his images for inspiration,” McKee said in an interview. “He was always exploring. He was always interested ... He lived art.”

Best known for his paintings of sports figures, the painter received much recognition for his famous 1972 painting At the Crease, featuring a masked hockey goaltender on-guard at the net. Danby also painted Wayne Gretzky’s retirement portrait The Great Farewell in 1999.

Born in Sault Ste Marie, Ont., on March 6, 1940, Danby knew from an early age he wanted to be a painter.

“I’ve been engrossed with creating art since I was 10 year’s old — since I first decided that I would be an artist. I’ve been obsessed by it in the years since, as I’ve worked at it full time, and as the adage applies — the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know,” Danby said in Paul Duval’s book Ken Danby: The New Decade.

In 1958, Danby enrolled at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, although he left before graduating, finding employment in various jobs while continuing to paint. In 1964, Gallery Moos in Toronto hosted his first one-man show which was a sell-out.

Danby started his career as an abstract painter but eventually turned to painting posed photograph-like images, mainly of rural Ontario. He was known to find inspiration in the surroundings of his country home outside of Guelph, Ont., where he lived with his wife on the property of an old stone mill and horse stables.

In the early 1980’s, Danby painted a series of watercolours of Canadian athletes at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. When asked to identify his favourite painting, the artist notoriously responded “my next one.”

Many of Danby’s paintings are held in the collections of galleries worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York,The Art Institute of Chicago, the Bradford City Art Gallery in England, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.

Throughout his career, Danby served on both the board of the Canada Council for the Arts and and the National Gallery of Canada and was a member of the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada.

The artist is survived by his wife, three sons, a stepdaughter and a stepson.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Bond's Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell, Dies

Sep 30, 11:03 AM (ET)

LONDON (AP) - Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond movies, has died, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday. She was 80.

The Canadian-born actress starred alongside Sean Connery in the first James Bond movie, "Dr. No," in 1962 as the secretary to M, the head of the secret service.

She died Saturday night at Fremantle Hospital near her home in Perth, Australia, the BBC cited a hospital official as saying.

Bond star Roger Moore said she was suffering from cancer.

"It's rather a shock," Moore, who had known her since they were students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1944, told BBC radio.

"She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with," he said.

Born Lois Hooker in Ontario, Canada, in 1927, she began her acting on radio before moving to Britain with the Entertainment Corps of the Canadian army at the age of 15, the BBC said.

In the late 1940s, she moved to Hollywood and won a Golden Globe for her part in the Shirley Temple comedy "That Hagen Girl."

After working in Italy, she returned to Britain in the mid-1950s.

In addition to her 14 appearances as Miss Moneypenny, she also acted in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" and worked on TV shows including "The Saint,""The Baron, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)," and "The Persuaders!," the BBC said.

She was 58 when she appeared in her final Bond film, 1985's "A View To A Kill." She was replaced by 26-year-old Caroline Bliss for "The Living Daylights."

Her last film was a 2001 thriller called "The Fourth Angel," alongside Jeremy Irons.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Tony-Winning Actor George Grizzard Dies

Oct 3, 1:53 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Broadway and screen actor George Grizzard, who won acclaim, and a Tony Award, for performing in Edward Albee's dramas, has died. He was 79.

Grizzard died Monday at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center of complications from lung cancer, said his agent, Clifford Stevens.

Grizzard's film roles included a bullying U.S. senator in "Advise and Consent" in 1962 and an oilman in "Comes a Horseman" in 1978. On television, Grizzard made regular appearances on "Law & Order" and won a best supporting actor Emmy for the 1980 TV movie "The Oldest Living Graduate," which starred Henry Fonda. His TV credits stretch back to the '50s, when he appeared in various anthology series such as "Playhouse 90."

But he considered himself primarily a stage actor.

He had made his Broadway debut in 1955 as Paul Newman's brother and fellow convict in "The Desperate Hours." He was nominated for Tonys for "The Disenchanged" in 1959 and "Big Fish, Little Fish" in 1961.

Among his other credits were Neil Simon's 1976 "California Suite," a 1975 revival of "The Royal Family" and the 2001 drama "Judgment at Nuremberg."

With Albee, Grizzard appeared in the original 1962 production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and won a Tony more than 30 years later in 1996 for his performance in a revival of a 1967 play, "A Delicate Balance."

"It's wonderful to get a pat on the back every now and then," said Grizzard when he won.

In Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Delicate Balance," a wealthy suburban couple have their home invaded by two frightened friends, who never say what they are afraid of. Grizzard played the husband, Tobias, in the revival.

"Grizzard, as Tobias, personifies the ineffectual peacemaker, a man with a good heart who learns that even charity is not enough," The Associated Press drama critic Michael Kuchwara wrote in his review.

"Grizzard rises to the play's shattering climax, in which his idea of friendship is shattered."

In a 1996 AP interview, Grizzard said he drew on his own fears as an actor to play the role. "Fear is a universal motivator. ... I think the only time I really get mean or angry or contentious is when I'm frightened."

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," a searing portrait of marital strife, caused a sensation when it opened in 1962. Grizzard played Nick, the young husband who, along with his wife, is victimized by the older warring couple, George and Martha. (George Segal played Nick in Mike Nichols' acclaimed 1966 film version.)

During rehearsals, Grizzard didn't realize the play was going to be such a big hit, he recalled in 1996.

"Then it was like wildfire - the reaction from people and the crowds clamoring to get in. It was startling. 'Virginia Woolf' was such a brilliant play on so many levels. It made people's minds go wild."

Grizzard stayed with "Virginia Woolf" for only three months, leaving to play Hamlet in the inaugural production of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 1963. He also played other career-stretching roles there over the years, in such plays as "Henry V,""The Three Sisters,""Volpone" and "Saint Joan."

Grizzard was born in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., but grew up largely in Washington. He attended the University of North Carolina and worked at an ad agency before getting involved in the theater, appearing at the Arena Stage in Washington.

He is survived by his partner, William Tynan.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Von Trapp Child Dies At 91

Man Depicted As Kurt In 'Sound Of Music'

POSTED: 6:40 pm CDT October 13, 2007

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Werner von Trapp, stepson of Maria von Trapp, has died at his Vermont home. He was 91.

The cause of his death was not revealed.

"The Sound of Music" was based loosely on a 1949 book written by Maria von Trapp that tells the story of an Austrian woman who married a widower with seven children and teaches them music. She died in 1987. ' Werner von Trapp sang tenor with his family's choir, The Trapp Family Singers, who won great acclaim throughout Europe after their debut in 1935.

In 1938, the von Trapp family escaped from Nazi-occupied Austria. After they arrived in New York, the family became popular with concert audiences. They eventually settled in Vermont.

Werner von Trapp is survived by his wife of 58 years, Erika, and six children. He is also survived by three sisters and one brother.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Comedian Joey Bishop, last of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, dead at 89

Oct. 18, 2007 10:38 AM

LOS ANGELES - Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, has died at 89.

He was the group's last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.

Bishop died Wednesday night of multiple causes at his home in Newport Beach, publicist and longtime friend Warren Cowan said Thursday.

The Rat Pack became a show business sensation in the early 1960s, appearing at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in shows that combined music and comedy in a seemingly chaotic manner.

Reviewers often claimed that Bishop played a minor role, but Sinatra knew otherwise. He termed the comedian “the Hub of the Big Wheel,” with Bishop coming up with some of the best one-liners and beginning many jokes with his favorite phrase, “Son of a gun!”

The quintet lived it up whenever members were free of their own commitments. They appeared together in such films as Ocean's Eleven and Sergeants 3, and proudly gave honorary membership to a certain fun-loving politician from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, at whose inauguration gala Bishop served as master of ceremonies.

The Rat Pack faded after Kennedy's assassination, but the late 1990s brought a renaissance, with the group depicted in an HBO movie and portrayed by imitators in Las Vegas and elsewhere. The movie Ocean's Eleven was even remade in 2003 with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the lead roles.

Bishop defended his fellow performers' rowdy reputations in a 1998 interview.

“Are we remembered as being drunk and chasing broads?” he asked. “I never saw Frank, Dean, Sammy or Peter drunk during performances. That was only a gag. And do you believe these guys had to chase broads? They had to chase em away.”

Away from the Rat Pack, Bishop starred in two TV series, both called The Joey Bishop Show.

The first, an NBC sitcom, got off to a rocky start in 1961. Critical and audience response was generally negative, and the second season brought a change in format. The third season brought a change in network, with the show moving to ABC, but nothing seemed to help and it was canceled in 1965.

In the first series, Bishop played a TV talk show host.

Then, he really became a TV talk show host. His program was started by ABC in 1967 as a challenge to Johnny Carson's immensely popular The Tonight Show.

Like Carson, Bishop sat behind a desk and bantered with a sidekick, TV newcomer Regis Philbin. But despite an impressive guest list and outrageous stunts, Bishop couldn't dent Carson's ratings, and The Joey Bishop Show was canceled after two seasons.

Bishop then became a familiar guest figure in TV variety shows and as sub for vacationing talk show hosts, filling in for Carson 205 times.

He also played character roles in such movies as The Naked and the Dead (“I played both roles”), Onion-head, Johnny Cool, Texas Across the River, Who's Minding the Mint, Valley of the Dolls and The Delta Force.

His comedic schooling came from vaudeville, burlesque and nightclubs.

Skipping his last high school semester in Philadelphia, he formed a music and comedy act with two other boys, and they played clubs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. They called themselves the Bishop Brothers, borrowing the name from their driver, Glenn Bishop.

Joseph Abraham Gottlieb would eventually adopt Joey Bishop as his stage name.

When his partners got drafted, Bishop went to work as a single, playing his first solo date in Cleveland at the well-named El Dumpo.

During these early years he developed his style: laid-back drollery, with surprise throwaway lines.

After 3½ years in the Army, Bishop resumed his career in 1945. Within five years he was earning $1,000 a week at New York's Latin Quarter. Sinatra saw him there one night and hired him as opening act.

While most members of the Sinatra entourage treated the great man gingerly, Bishop had no inhibitions. He would tell audiences that the group's leader hadn't ignored him: “He spoke to me backstage; he told me Get out of the way.' ”

When Sinatra almost drowned filming a movie scene in Hawaii, Bishop wired him: “I thought you could walk on water.”

Born in New York's borough of the Bronx, Bishop was the youngest of five children of two immigrants from Eastern Europe.

When he was 3 months old the family moved to South Philadelphia, where he attended public schools. He recalled being an indifferent student, once remarking, “In kindergarten, I flunked sand pile.”

In 1941 Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga and, despite the rigors of a show business career, the marriage survived until her death in 1999.

Bishop, who had one son, Larry, spent his retirement years on the upscale Lido Isle in Southern California's Newport Bay.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actress Deborah Kerr dies at 86

19 October 2007

Deborah Kerr, the cultivated Scottish rose beloved in such 1950s blockbusters as “From Here to Eternity,” “The King and I” and “An Affair to Remember,” died Tuesday in Suffolk, England. She was 86 and for many years had battled Parkinson’s disease with the dignified grace and quiet wit she brought to her many roles.

One of the most-cited performers never to win a competitive Oscar, Kerr (pronounced “car") was nominated six times before belatedly receiving an honorary statuette in 1994. In a trembling voice at what would be her last public appearance, she said to the assembled, “Thank you for giving me a happy life.”

Though the alabaster-skinned redhead was honored that evening for her “impeccable grace and beauty,” the secret of Kerr’s singular appeal was her devil-may-care peccability. She played ladies who didn’t mind if their tramp showed.

Whether it was as the nun struggling to repress her desire in “Black Narcissus” (1946), the married woman who relished an adulterous roll in the surf with Burt Lancaster in “From Here to Eternity” (1953), the teacher’s wife who beds a student who may be homosexual in “Tea and Sympathy” (1956) or the kept woman drawn to kept man Cary Grant in “An Affair to Remember” (1957), Kerr projected propriety and sexuality.

Her flute-like voice was also unique. She made music out of ordinary dialogue.

Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer, daughter of a Scottish Naval officer who served in World War I, was born in Helensburgh, Scotland, in 1921.

When she was 5 the family moved to Bristol, England, where the famously shy girl studied dance at her aunt’s academy. Her training there may account for her dancer’s way of sailing through space. Through her aunt’s connections, she got work with the Oxford Repertory Company and made her film debut, supporting Wendy Hiller, in “Major Barbara” (1940).

Demonstrating her versatility and range, Kerr played three different roles in Michael Powell’s “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” (1943), which, along with her extraordinary performance as the nun in Powell’s “Black Narcissus,” got the attention of Hollywood.

Not along after marrying former R.A.F. squadron leader Anthony Bartley (in 1945), Kerr was imported to MGM Studios where mogul Louis B. Mayer molded her in the Jeanette MacDonald/Greer Garson form of great lady. “Deborah Kerr/Rhymes With Star” was the promotion given to the demure actress appearing opposite brazen Ava Gardner in “The Hucksters” (1947). They were the genteel girl and the brassy babe vying for Clark Gable’s attention.

She was decorative and unmemorable in prestige pictures such as “King Solomon’s Mines” (1950) and “Quo Vadis?” (1951). It was only after replacing Joan Crawford as the sex-starved army wife in “From Here to Eternity” (1953) that Kerr made an American film equal to her British work. Her ability to project the contradictory aspects of character helped her to create a new screen archetype, the very proper adulteress.

However varied her Hollywood roles, Kerr delivered performances of greater nuance and depth in the European-made films “The End of the Affair” (1955) - again, as a conscience-stricken adulteress - and “Bonjour, Tristesse” (1958), as a fashion designer provoked by her lover’s daughter.

Despite these more adventurous roles, the image of Kerr as prude persisted. The story goes that on the set of “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” (1957) - starring the actress as a nun and Robert Mitchum as a lusty soldier stranded on an island - Mitchum worried that he might offend Her Primness. When Kerr tore into director John Huston after a sequence shot in the water, the actor was so shocked that he nearly drowned laughing.

In 1959, Kerr and Bartley, who had two daughters, divorced. The following year she married author Peter Viertel whose novel “White Hunter, Black Heart” was a thinly-veiled portrait of Huston.

No other actress - not Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day or Elizabeth Taylor - enjoyed more popular success in the second half of the 1950s than Kerr. In “An Affair to Remember,” an improbably effective romance that is the basis of “Sleepless in Seattle,” she convinced the world that the Empire State Building was the closest place New York had to heaven. In “The King and I” she whistled a happy tune and the world whistled along.

It still does.

Kerr is survived by Viertel, her husband of 47 years, two daughters and three grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Teresa Brewer, 76; 1950s pop singer

October 19, 2007

Teresa Brewer, a singer who found fame as a novelty vocalist in 1950 with the chart-topping "Music! Music! Music!" but reinvented herself as a jazz stylist who performed with some of the genre's biggest names, has died. She was 76.

Brewer died of a neuromuscular disease Wednesday at her home in New Rochelle, N.Y., said Bill Munroe, a family spokesman.

Ed Sullivan introduced her as "the little girl with the big voice" when she was a regular on his television show, and the petite 100-pounder sang her way through the 1950s with a string of successful recordings that included another No. 1 hit, the sentimental ballad "Till I Waltz Again With You," which reportedly sold more than 1 million copies.

With rock 'n' roll changing the pop landscape -- and four daughters to raise -- Brewer pulled back from performing in the 1960s to focus on her family.

"One time she said her children were her biggest hits," Munroe told The Times on Thursday. "She was very down-to-earth, not pretentious at all, very charming and quick-witted."

After marrying her second husband -- jazz producer Bob Thiele -- she segued into jazz in the 1970s and became known for recording with such legends as Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie.

At her best, Brewer could "swing with a loose and easy fervor, aided greatly by the distinguished company" she kept, Richard S. Ginell wrote of her jazz performances in the All Music Internet database.

She was born Theresa Breuer on May 7, 1931, in Toledo, Ohio, the eldest of five children of a glass inspector for the Libby Owens Co. and his homemaker wife.

At 2, Brewer made her public debut singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" on a children's radio program in Toledo. She was paid in cupcakes and cookies from the show's sponsor.

Three years later, she won a competition that led to appearances on the popular radio talent show "Major Bowes Amateur Hour." She spent the next seven years touring with a Bowes' troupe.

When she was 12, her parents insisted that she return to Toledo to concentrate on school, but as a high school junior, Brewer dropped out. She headed to New York City and performed in several talent shows that led to her first recording contract.

By then, she had slightly altered the spelling of her first and last names because "it was easier to read in marquee lights," according to a 1980 Toledo magazine story.

She soon was married and recording such 1950s hits as "Jilted," "Ricochet" and the blues ballad "Pledging My Love." She once estimated that she had made 300 records by the mid-1960s.

For decades, she also regularly performed in Las Vegas and on the national nightclub circuit.

Cast in the 1953 film "Those Redheads From Seattle," Brewer dyed her blond hair but turned down Paramount's offer of a long-term contract, according to the biography on her website. She wanted to remain on the East Coast with her family and build a part-time singing career from there.

In 1972, Brewer was divorced from Bill Monahan and married Thiele, who produced some of her early hits. He also wrote Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," which Brewer recorded. Thiele died in 1996.

Brewer continued performing and recording into the early 1990s.

The high-pitched voice that could easily go from a squeak to a roar became smoother with age, and critics noted that Brewer embraced jazz with the same vocal exuberance she had displayed in the 1950s.

"I always liked her because she had laughter and the sound of rippling water in her voice," said Jim Dawson, an author of pop music books. "Listening to Teresa Brewer, you couldn't be sad for long."

Brewer is survived by four daughters, Kathleen, Susan, Megan and Michelle; a brother, Henry; four grandsons; and five great-grandchildren.

 

[linuxgeek]

Robert Goulet

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21552081/

http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/ap/72f78fd9-25ae-433c-b7dc-7ca15ba9858a.vsmall.jpg

Robert Goulet dies at age 73
Singer was at a Los Angeles hospital awaiting a lung transplant
30-Oct-2007

LOS ANGELES - Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in “Camelot” launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73.

The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.

He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.

Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

“Just watch my vocal cords,” she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with “Camelot,” the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.

Goulet played Sir Lancelot, the arrogant French knight who falls in love with Guenevere.

He became a hit with American TV viewers with appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and other programs. Sullivan labeled him the “American baritone from Canada,” where he had already been a popular star in the 1950s, hosting his own TV show called “General Electric’s Showtime.”

The Los Angeles Times wrote in 1963 that Goulet “is popping up in specials so often these days that you almost feel he has a weekly show. The handsome lad is about the hottest item in show business since his Broadway debut.”

Goulet won a Grammy Award in 1962 as best new artist and made the singles chart in 1964 with “My Love Forgive Me.”

“When I’m using a microphone or doing recordings I try to concentrate on the emotional content of the song and to forget about the voice itself,” he told The New York Times in 1962.

“Sometimes I think that if you sing with a big voice, the people in the audience don’t listen to the words, as they should,” he told the paper. “They just listen to the sound.”

While he returned to Broadway only infrequently after “Camelot,” he did win a Tony award in 1968 for best actor in a musical for his role in “The Happy Time.” His other Broadway appearances were in “Moon Over Buffalo” in 1995 and “La Cage aux Folles” in 2005, plus a “Camelot” revival in 1993 in which he played King Arthur.

His stage credits elsewhere include productions of “Carousel,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “The Pajama Game,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” and “South Pacific.”

Goulet also got some film work, performing in movies ranging from the animated “Gay Purr-ee” (1962) to “Underground” (1970) to “The Naked Gun 2½” (1991). He played a lounge singer in Louis Malle’s acclaimed 1980 film “Atlantic City.”

He returned to Broadway in 2005 as one half of a gay couple in “La Cage aux Folles,” and Associated Press theater critic Michael Kuchwara praised Goulet for his “affable, self-deprecating charm.”

Goulet had no problems poking fun at his own fame, appearing recently in an Emerald nuts commercial in which he “messes” with the stuff of dozing office workers, and lending his name to Goulet’s SnoozeBars. Goulet also has been sent up by Will Ferrell on “Saturday Night Live.”

“You have to have humor and be able to laugh at yourself,” Goulet said in a biography on his Web site.

The only son of French-Canadian parents, Goulet was born in Lawrence, Mass. After his father died, his mother moved the family to Canada when the future star was about 13.

He received vocal training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto but decided opera wasn’t for him. He made his first professional appearance at age 16 with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. His early success on Canadian television preceded his breakthrough on Broadway.

When his onetime costar Julie Andrews received a Kennedy Center Honors award in 2001, Goulet was among those joining in singing in her honor.

In his last performance Sept. 20 in Syracuse, N.Y., the crooner was backed by a 15-piece orchestra as he performed the one-man show “A Man and his Music.”

Although Goulet headlined frequently on the Las Vegas Strip, one period stood out, evidenced by a photograph that hung on his office wall. It was the mid-1970s, and he had just finished a two-week run at the Desert Inn when he was asked to fill in at the Frontier, across the street.

Overnight, the marquees of two of the Strip’s hottest resorts read the same: “Robert Goulet.”

“I played there many, many years and have wonderful memories of the place,” Goulet told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

His first two marriages ended in divorce. He had a daughter with his first wife, Louise Longmore, and two sons with his second wife, Carol Lawrence, the actress and singer who played Maria in the original Broadway production of “West Side Story.”

After their breakup, she portrayed him unflatteringly in a book. “There’s a fine line between love and hate,” he responded in a New York Times interview. “She went on every talk show interview and cut me to shreds, and I’ve never done anything like that, and I won’t.”

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Country Star Porter Wagoner, 80, Dies

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Porter Wagoner, the rhinestone-clad Grand Ole Opry star who helped launch the career of Dolly Parton by hiring her as his duet partner, died Sunday. He was 80.

Wagoner, who had survived an abdominal aneurysm in 2006, was hospitalized again in October 2007 and his publicist disclosed he had lung cancer. He died at 8:25 p.m. CDT in a Nashville hospice, a spokeswoman for the Grand Ole Opry said.

"The Grand Ole Opry family is deeply saddened by the news of the passing of our dear friend, Porter Wagoner," said Pete Fisher, vice president and general manager of the Opry. "His passion for the Opry and all of country music was truly immeasurable. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family at this difficult time."

His illness came after a comeback that saw him recording again and gaining new fans even as he reached his 80s.

In May 2007 he celebrated his 50th year in the Opry. After years without a recording contract, he also signed with ANTI- records, an eclectic Los Angeles label best known for alt-rock acts like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Neko Case.

The CD "Wagonmaster," produced with Marty Stuart, was released in June 2007 and earned Wagoner some of the best reviews of his career. Over the summer, he also was the opening act for the influential rock duo White Stripes at a sold-out show at New York's Madison Square Garden.

"I was thinking while on stage last night, 'This is the biggest, most well-known arena in the country, and here I am performing at it,'" he told The Associated Press at the time.

The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957. "It's the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997.

His showmanship, rhinestone suits and pompadoured hair made him famous, with his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville, and it set a pattern for many others.

"Some shows are mechanical, but ours was not polished and slick," he said in 1982.

Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident,""A Satisfied Mind,""Company's Comin',""Skid Row Joe,""Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."

In 2002, Wagoner was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

To many music fans, though, he was best known as the man who boosted Parton's career. He had hired the 21-year-old singer as his duet partner in 1967, when she was just beginning to gain notice through songs such as "Dumb Blonde."

They were the Country Music Association's duo of the year in 1970 and 1971, recording hit duets including "The Last Thing on My Mind."

Parton's solo country records, such as her autobiographical "Coat of Many Colors," also began climbing the charts in the early 1970s. She wrote the pop standard "I Will Always Love You" in 1973 after Wagoner suggested she shift from story songs to focus on love songs.

The two quit singing duets in 1974 and she went on to wide stardom with pop hits and movies such as "9 to 5," whose theme song was also a hit for her. Wagoner sued her for $3 million in assets, but they settled out of court in 1980. He said later they were always friendly, "but it's a fact that when you're involved with attorneys and companies that have them on retainer, it makes a different story."

At a charity roast for Wagoner in 1995, she explained the breakup this way: "We split over creative differences. I was creative, and Porter was different."

He said in a 1982 Associated Press interview that his show "was a training ground for her; she learned a great deal and I exposed her to very important people and the country music fans."

She was present at the ceremony in May 2007 honoring Wagoner on his silver anniversary with the Opry. At the time, he called Parton "one of my best friends today." She also visited him in the hospital as he battled cancer.

Wagoner was born in West Plains, Mo., and became known as "The Thin Man From West Plains" because of his lanky frame. He recalled that he spent hours as a child pretending to be an Opry performer, using a tree stump as a stage.

He started in radio, then became a regular on the "Ozark Jubilee," one of the first televised national country music shows. On the Opry since 1957, he joined Roy Acuff and other onetime idols.

At one point his wardrobe included more than 60 handmade rhinestone suits.

"Rhinestone suits are just beautiful under the lights," he said. "They've become a big part of my career. I get more compliments on my outfits than any other entertainer - except for Liberace."

After his New York show in 2007, tears came to his eyes as he recalled the reaction.

"The young people I met backstage, some of them were 20 years old. They wanted to get my autograph and tell me they really liked me. If only they knew how that made me feel, like a new breath of fresh air. To have new fans now is a tremendous thing."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Chef Tell' Erhardt Dies at 63

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Friedman Paul Erhardt, a German-born cook known as "Chef Tell" who was one of America's pioneering television chefs, has died. He was 63.

Erhardt died of heart failure on Friday at his home in Upper Black Eddy, about 25 miles east of Allentown, his family said.

Erhardt's jolly personality, thick German accent and wit made him a fixture on television shows such as "Regis and Kathie Lee" and comedy skits on "Saturday Night Live." He was also said to be the inspiration for the Swedish chef on "The Muppet Show."

"Tell was able to incorporate humor and the entertainment factor into his cooking," Victoria Lang, who regularly produced Erhardt's segments for "Regis and Kathie Lee," told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Born in Stuttgart, the son of a newspaper owner, Erhardt earned the nickname "Tell" after playing William Tell in a school play. He trained in restaurants and hotels throughout Europe.

He made his first appearance on a local Philadelphia TV show "Dialing for Dollars" in 1974. That was followed by a 90-second cooking spot on a nationally syndicated show, which blossomed into appearances on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," specials for QVC and a PBS program, "In the Kitchen With Chef Tell."

"He was the first of the great showman chefs," former Inquirer restaurant critic Elaine Tait said. "Up until his era, chefs stayed in the kitchen."

He was also known on the Philadelphia dining scene as the owner of several restaurants in the 1970s and 80s and as a culinary educator, cookbook author, and spokesman for major cookware and food product lines.

For the last 2 1/2 years, Erhardt taught at the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College.

A diabetic, Erhardt just completed a new book about cooking for diabetics based on his own experience of working himself off insulin naturally by changing his recipes.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Mary Lillian Ellison, 84, the Fabulous Moolah, Is Dead

Mary Lillian Ellison, whose flying drop kicks, flying head scissors and hair-pulling “flying mare” body slams brought her renown as the professional wrestler the Fabulous Moolah, died in Lexington, S.C., near her home in Columbia. She was 84.

She died at a hospital after shoulder replacement surgery and might have had a heart attack or a blood clot, said her daughter, Maryetta Austin.

For more than half a century, as a wrestler, promoter and trainer, the Fabulous Moolah was a leading figure on the women’s circuit. She held versions of the women’s wrestling championship for all but short intervals from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. World Wrestling Entertainment brought her back at age 76. Clad in a sequined jacket over a green leotard, she pinned her opponent, Ivory, in a match at Cleveland and was again proclaimed the champion.

The Fabulous Moolah enjoyed the mayhem, but she especially coveted the money.

When she started in pro wrestling in the early 1950s, the promoter Jack Pfeffer decided a name change was in order. As she told it in “The Fabulous Moolah: First Goddess of the Squared Circle” (Regan Books, 2002), written with Larry Platt, Pfeffer told her “the name Lillian Ellison wouldn’t do. Not flashy enough.”

He asked her why she was wrestling, and, as she recalled: “Annoyed, I blurted out: ‘For the money. I want to wrestle for the moolah.’”

First, she apprenticed as a valet for Nature Boy Buddy Rogers; she was billed as Slave Girl Moolah and clad in a leopard-skin outfit. Soon, she was wrestling as the Fabulous Moolah, and she won the championship belt in 1956. On July 1, 1972, when the New York State Athletic Commission lifted a ban on women’s wrestling, she was the featured attraction at Madison Square Garden.

Mary Lillian Ellison was born in the country town of Tookiedoo, S.C., near Columbia, the 13th child and only daughter in her family. When she was 10, her father took her to pro wrestling matches in Columbia and she was inspired to become a wrestler by watching Mildred Burke, the reigning women’s champion.

The Fabulous Moolah was only 5 feet 4 inches and 118 pounds when she began wrestling as a professional, and her physique did not seem particularly imposing. But her maneuvers wowed the crowds.

“Flying drop kick is when you jump flat-footed from the floor up as high as the person you’re looking at and kick them in the face or in the chest, wherever you want to kick them, and then you fall to the floor,” she told National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program in 2005.

“And then the flying head scissors is where you jump up, put both legs around their head and throw them forward as you come down. And a flying mare is when you get a girl by the hair of the head and pull her over your shoulder, then slam her to the mat as hard you can. And I love doing that.”

Her jet-black haired dyed strawberry blonde, Ellison remained active in World Wrestling Entertainment into her last years, writing commercials for it. She was profiled in the 2004 Ruth Leitman documentary “Lipstick & Dynamite,” a history of women’s pro wrestling.

In addition to her daughter, of Conway, S.C., she is survived by six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Her five marriages ended in divorce. She lived for many years with Katie Glass, a former midget wrestler known as Diamond Lil, who joined with her in training wrestlers.

The Fabulous Moolah said she never minded the booing inspired by her roughhouse antics.

“I loved when they got mad at me,” she told The State newspaper of Columbia in 2005. “They called me all kinds of names. I said: ‘Call me anything you want. You don’t write my check.’”

 

[JennyOmanHill]

George Osmond

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — George Osmond, father of Donny and Marie Osmond and patriarch to the family's singing group, The Osmond Brothers, died Tuesday. He was 90.

Family spokesman Kevin Sasaki said Osmond died at his home in Provo, Utah. Because he had not been ill, he likely died from natural causes incident to his age, Sasaki said.

The death was first reported on the "Entertainment Tonight" Web site and confirmed by The Associated Press through a spokeswoman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which Osmond was a member.

George Osmond married his wife, Olive, on Dec. 1, 1944. She died in 2004. The couple were the parents of nine children, many of whom became singing stars. Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay Osmond first became famous as The Osmond Brothers, a barbershop quartet singing at Disneyland and on "The Andy Williams Show."

Donny Osmond joined the group at age 6 and later hosted "The Donny and Marie Show" with his sister. The youngest son, Jimmy Osmond, is also a performer.

George Osmond also had 55 grandchildren and 48 great-grandchildren.

A World War II veteran, Osmond also served missions for the Mormon church in Hawaii and the United Kingdom. In his professional life, he worked in real estate, insurance sales and was once the postmaster for the city of Ogden. He gave up his work to manage the singing careers of his children.

Together, Osmond and his wife formed the Osmond Foundation, which later became the Children's Miracle Network, a nonprofit organization that raises funds for children's hospitals.

 

[phrodeau]

Norman Mailer dies aged 84

By Toni Clarke

BOSTON (Reuters) - Norman Mailer, the pugnacious two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who was a dominating presence on the U.S. literary scene for more than half a century, died on Saturday of kidney failure, his family said. He was 84.

Known for his biting prose, penchant for controversy and as an antagonist of the feminist movement, Mailer had struggled with his health for months, undergoing lung surgery in October and spending five days in a Boston hospital in September.

"With great sorrow, the family of Norman Mailer announces his passing on November 10, at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City," the statement said.

In more than 40 books and a torrent of essays, Mailer provoked and enraged readers with his strident views on U.S. political life and the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

Mailer's first book, "The Naked and the Dead," is considered one of the finest novels about World War Two and made him a celebrity at age 25 when published in 1948.

"From one end of his life to the other he sat in solemn thought and left so much to read, so many pages with ideas that come at you like sparks spitting from a fire," said columnist and author Jimmy Breslin.

In 1969, Mailer waded into politics with a run for New York mayor, with Breslin running for city council president.

"He argued brilliantly for the absolute necessity of the minds of whites and blacks growing by being in the same city school classrooms," said Breslin.

Mailer's works were often filled with violence, sexual obsession and views that angered feminists. He later reconsidered many of his old positions but never surrendered his right to speak his mind.

"I found him to be extremely kind and gentle," best-selling novelist Luanne Rice, a friend of Mailer, told Reuters in an interview. "The Norman Mailer that I knew was very different from the angry, contentious man that was famous."

Rice, now 52, was just starting out as a writer when she met Mailer in the late-1980s. He invited her to join him for a drink, they talked, and over the years she said he became a mentor and father figure to the budding writer.

FEUDED WITH FELLOW AUTHORS

Detractors considered him an intellectual bully and he feuded with fellow authors such as Truman Capote, William Styron, Tom Wolfe and Norman Podhoretz.

Feminists like Germaine Greer and Kate Millett considered him the quintessential male chauvinist pig.

Some of the feuds even turned physical for the former college boxer, who stabbed one of his six wives at a party and also decked writer Gore Vidal.

"He always had this great voice, even when he was on crutches and canes, he still had that great voice that would get everyone excited," said Dr. Thomas Staley, director of The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which houses the complete Norman Mailer archives.

"I knew him in the last five or six years of his life, when he had mellowed, and he was quite charming," Staley said.

Mailer lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and had an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. In Provincetown, he was known as a generous public figure in his later years who loved to play poker and often held games at his Provincetown home.

He is survived by his wife Norris Church Mailer, and nine children, the family said. His son Stephen was at his side when he died at 4:30 a.m. (0930 GMT). They planned a private service and interment to be announced next week, and a memorial service in New York in coming months.

"He was a towering figure who wrote some of the best journalism in the English language, especially in the '60s and '70s," said Peter Manso, a Mailer biographer.

(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen in Washington, Chris Michaud in New York and Sue Harrison in Provincetown; Editing by Jason Szep and Vicki Allen)