Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

Brad Renfro, Former Child Movie Actor, Dies at 25

Published: January 16, 2008

Brad Renfro, the former child star who played a witness to a mob lawyer’s suicide in the 1994 legal thriller “The Client” and a suburban youth tutored in evil by an elderly Nazi war criminal in the 1998 film “Apt Pupil,” was found dead Tuesday morning in his Los Angeles home. He was 25.

Mr. Renfro’s girlfriend discovered his body, and the Los Angeles Police Department did not suspect foul play, The Los Angeles Times reported.

In recent years, Mr. Renfro was known as much for his legal troubles as for his acting career. He was charged with marijuana and cocaine possession in 1998, avoiding jail because of a plea bargain, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Renfro was an admitted heroin and methadone user who was photographed being arrested by Los Angeles police officers during a Christmas 2005 sweep of that city’s Skid Row. He was sentenced to three years’ probation for attempted possession of heroin and entered a drug rehabilitation program.

His career was short, but busy and varied. He was plucked from obscurity to play a frightened but resilient witness opposite Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in “The Client,” an adaptation of a John Grisham best seller.

In a 1994 profile of Mr. Renfro in The New York Times, Joel Schumacher, director of “The Client,” said he was looking for “a tough and savvy survivor, a kid with an authentic Southern accent, a kid from a trailer park, like the character in the movie.”

He found Mr. Renfro, then all of 10, through the Knoxville Police Department. He had a reputation as a troublemaker and had recently played a drug dealer in a school production of an antidrug play. The film’s casting director, Mali Finn, said she intended to let Mr. Renfro audition for 10 to 15 minutes, but ended up letting the tape run for an hour. Mr. Schumacher told The Times that when he viewed the tape, “I was struck by the maturity and sadness of his eyes,” adding: “I couldn’t believe a 10-year-old that good-looking and smart who had a difficult life could actually act on the screen. It was too good to believe.”

Over the next decade Mr. Renfro carved out a niche playing inarticulate, vulnerable, alienated youths in everything from glossy Hollywood blockbusters to hardscrabble independent dramas. His acting was naturalistic and emotionally transparent; he played humiliation and frustration with disarming and sometimes upsetting frankness.

As Todd Bowden, the title character of “Apt Pupil,” a Stephen King adaptation by the filmmaker Bryan Singer, Mr. Renfro answered the spidery malevolence of his co-star Ian McKellen with a roiling, implosive blankness. Janet Maslin wrote in The Times that Mr. Renfro “put a diabolically wholesome face on Todd’s budding viciousness.”

In the 2001 Larry Clark drama “Bully,” about bored, amoral teenagers drawn into a murder conspiracy, Mr. Renfro was affecting as Marty Puccio, a sexually confused surfer seeking revenge against the title character (Nick Stahl), his peer group’s abusive alpha-male leader.

In the profile published before “The Client,” opened, the 12-year-old actor was asked how appearing in the film would change his life. “I’ll always be Brad Renfro, born on July 25, 1982,” he said. “Nothing’s going to change that. It won’t be any different.”

 

[sweet soft kiss]

Johnnie Podres Dodger Great Dies

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. -- Johnny Podres, who pitched the Brooklyn Dodgers to their only World Series title in 1955, died Sunday at the age of 75.

A spokesman for Glens Falls Hospital confirmed Podres' death but said he didn't know any details.

The left-hander was picked for four All-Star games and was the first Most Valuable Player in World Series history. He became a hero to every baseball fan in Brooklyn when the Dodgers ended decades of frustration by beating the Yankees to win the World Series.

It was the first time a team had won a best-of-seven World Series after losing the first two games, and it was Brooklyn's only World Series victory. The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season.

The Dodgers lost the first two games of at Yankee Stadium, then the Dodgers won the third 8-3 at Ebbets Field. Podres, going the distance on his 23rd birthday, scattered seven hits.

In the climactic seventh game, at Yankee Stadium, Podres shut out New York 2-0 on eight hits, relying on his fastball and a deceptive changeup.

As the story goes, Podres told his teammates to get him just one run and the Dodgers would win Game 7. They got him two, and the franchise celebrated its first and only championship while playing in Brooklyn.

Years later, Podres was uncertain he made such a brash statement.

"I don't know if I said it or not. That's what they said I said," a grinning Podres recalled in 2005. "Probably young and dumb -- something like that would haunt you your whole life. ... You put on a big league uniform, you've got to think you're pretty good."

Tommy Byrne, the losing pitcher in that game, died Dec. 20.

Podres' career spanned 15 years with the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, the Detroit Tigers and San Diego Padres. He retired in 1969 at age 36 with a lifetime record of 148-116.

Podres also served as a pitching coach when he was older, helping develop Frank Viola when he was with the Minnesota Twins and Curt Schilling when he was on the Philadelphia Phillies staff.

This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Carl N. Karcher, 90, Founder of Carl’s Jr. Hamburger Chain, Is Dead

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Carl N. Karcher, who parlayed a $325 investment in a hot dog cart into one of the largest hamburger chains in the western United States, died Friday. He was 90.

Mr. Karcher, the founder of the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain, had Parkinson’s disease and was being treated for pneumonia when he died at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, said Beth Mansfield, a spokeswoman for CKE Restaurants.

Mr. Karcher, a deeply religious father of 12, was famous in the fast-food industry for his rags-to-riches story — a tale that was tainted in later years by an insider trading scandal and feuds with his board that led to his eventual demise as chief executive.

Mr. Karcher was working as a bread-truck driver in South Los Angeles when he noticed the large number of hot dog stands in the neighborhood and saw a business opportunity.

He borrowed $311 on the 1941 Plymouth Super Deluxe he owned with his new wife, Margaret, added the rest in cash and bought his first pushcart hot dog stand.

One cart soon became four, and by the end of World War II Mr. Karcher had opened his first restaurant, Carl’s Drive-In Barbecue, in Anaheim.

He opened the first Carl’s Jr. — named “Jr.” to distinguish it from his full-service eatery — in 1956.

“With the help and support of my wife and children, my faith in God, my good health, my belief in the free enterprise system, and my willingness to work hard, there was no way I could have failed,” he wrote in his 1991 autobiography, “Never Stop Dreaming.”

Mr. Karcher’s initial success began to show cracks in the 1980s when he took the company public. Carl’s Jr. locations in Texas and Arizona failed, ending his dream of turning the company into a national chain.

In 1989, Mr. Karcher and his family agreed to a $664,000 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the agency accused Mr. Karcher of having told six family members to sell stock ahead of an announcement that company profit would plummet by 50 percent.

In 1993, after increasingly bitter feuds with his board and crippling personal financial losses, Mr. Karcher, then 76, was ousted as the company’s chief executive.

Today, Carl’s Jr. has more than 1,000 locations across the West; its parent company, CKE Restaurants, based in Carpinteria, Calif., made $1.52 billion in sales in 2006 and had 29,000 employees.

CKE also owns the Hardee’s, La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grill and Green Burrito chains.

Mr. Karcher is survived by 11 children, 51 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren.

 

[Faneros]

All Californians mourn this day, for Carl N. Karcher

 

[mcopado]

Suzanne Pleshette Dies in Los Angeles

http://www.classic-tv.com/shows/images/bob.gif

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/08/12/Suzanne_Pleshette_narrowweb__300x507,0.jpg


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Suzanne Pleshette, the husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died at age 70.

Pleshette, whose career included roles in such films as Hitchcock's "The Birds" and in Broadway plays including "The Miracle Worker," died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said her attorney Robert Finkelstein, also a family friend.

Pleshette underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006.

"The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette provided the voice of reason.

Four years after the show ended in 1978, Newhart went on to the equally successful "Newhart" series in which he was the proprietor of a New England inn populated by more eccentrics. When that show ended in 1990, Pleshette reprised her role — from the first show — in one of the most clever final episodes in TV history.

It had Newhart waking up in the bedroom of his "The Bob Newhart Show" home with Pleshette at his side. He went on to tell her of the crazy dream he'd just had of running an inn filled with eccentrics.

"If I'm in Timbuktu, I'll fly home to do that," Pleshette said of her reaction when Newhart told her how he was thinking of ending the show.

Born Jan. 31, 1937, in New York City, Pleshette began her career as a stage actress after attending the city's High School of the Performing Arts and studying at its Neighborhood Playhouse. She was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice.

"When I was 4," she told an interviewer in 1994, "I was answering the phone, and (the callers) thought I was my father. So I often got quirky roles because I was never the conventional ingenue."

She met her future husband, Tom Poston, when they appeared together in the 1959 Broadway comedy "The Golden Fleecing," but didn't marry him until more than 40 years later.

Although the two had a brief fling, they went on to marry others. By 2000 both were widowed and they got back together, marrying the following year.

"He was such a wonderful man. He had fun every day of his life," Pleshette said after Poston died in April 2007.

Among her other Broadway roles was replacing Anne Bancroft in "The Miracle Worker," the 1959 drama about Helen Keller, in New York and on the road.

Meanwhile, she had launched her film career with Jerry Lewis in 1958 in "The Geisha Boy." She went on to appear in numerous television shows, including "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Playhouse 90" and "Naked City."

By the early 1960s, Pleshette attracted a teenage following with her youthful roles in such films as "Rome Adventure," "Fate Is the Hunter," "Youngblood Hawke" and "A Distant Trumpet."

She married fellow teen favorite Troy Donahue, her co-star in "Rome Adventure," in 1964 but the union lasted less than a year. She was married to Texas oilman Tim Gallagher from 1968 until his death in 2000.

Pleshette matured in such films as Hitchcock's "The Birds" and the Disney comedies "The Ugly Dachshund," "Blackbeard's Ghost" and "The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin." Over the years, she also had a busy career in TV movies, including playing the title role in 1990's "Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean."

More recently, she appeared in several episodes of the TV sitcoms "Will & Grace" and "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter."

In a 1999 interview, Pleshette observed that being an actress was more important than being a star.

"I'm an actress, and that's why I'm still here," she said. "Anybody who has the illusion that you can have a career as long as I have and be a star is kidding themselves."

 

[HB1965]

I just saw that about her earlier. I know she struggled a lot with her health in recent years so it's probably a relief for her.

 

[mcopado]

I know I'm dating myself, but I used to have the biggest crush on her as a gawky adolescent.

 

[Denae]

Heath Ledger

Actor Heath Ledger found dead
Associated Press
Jan. 22, 2008 02:48 PM

NEW YORK -- Heath Ledger, the talented 28-year-old actor who gravitated toward dark, brooding roles that defied his leading-man looks, was found dead Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment, facedown at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.

There was no obvious indication that the Australian-born Ledger had committed suicide, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Ledger had an appointment for a massage at the SoHo apartment that is believed to be the home of the "Brokeback Mountain" actor, Browne said. The massage therapist and a housekeeper found his naked body at about 3:30 p.m. They tried to revive him, but he was already dead.

"I had such great hope for him," said Mel Gibson, who played Ledger's vengeful father in "The Patriot," in a statement. "He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss."

Outside the Manhattan building on an upscale street, paparazzi and gawkers gathered, and several police officers put up barricades to control the crowd of about 300. Onlookers craned their necks as officers brought out a black bodybag on a gurney, took it across the sidewalk and put it into a medical examiner's office van.

As the door opened, bystanders snapped pictures with camera phones, rolled video and said, "He's coming out!"

An autopsy was planned for Wednesday, medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

While not a marquee movie star, Ledger was an award-winning actor who chose his roles carefully rather than cashing in on big-money parts. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain." During filming, he met Michelle Williams, who played his wife in the film. The two had a daughter, now 2-year-old Matilda, and lived together in Brooklyn until they split up last year.

It was a shocking and unforeseen conclusion for one of Hollywood's bright young stars. Though his leading man looks propelled him to early stardom in films like "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale," his career took a notable turn toward dramatic and brooding roles with 2001's "Monster's Ball."

Ledger's publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement: "We are all deeply saddened and shocked by this accident. This is an extremely difficult time for his loved ones and we are asking the media to please respect the family's privacy and avoid speculation until the facts are known."

In the Australian city of Perth, where Ledger was born and raised, his father called the actor's death "tragic, untimely and accidental."

"He was (a) down-to-earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual, extremely inspirational to many," Kim Ledger said, reading from a prepared statement. "Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life."

Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he became one of the borough's most famous residents. "Brokeback" would be his breakthrough role, establishing him as one of his generation's finest talents and an actor willing to take risks.

Ledger began to gravitate more toward independent fare, including Lasse Hallstrom's "Casanova" and Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," both released in 2005. His 2006 film "Candy" now seems destined to have an especially haunting quality: In a particularly realistic performance, Ledger played a poet wrestling with a heroin addiction along with his girlfriend, played by Abbie Cornish.

But Ledger's most recent choices were arguably the boldest yet: He costarred in "I'm Not There," in which he played one of the many incarnations of Bob Dylan - as did Cate Blanchett, whose performance in that film earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday for best supporting actress.

And in what may be his final finished performance, Ledger proved that he wouldn't be intimidated by taking on a character as iconic as Jack Nicholson's Joker. Ledger's version of the "Batman" villain, glimpsed in early teaser trailers, made it clear that his Joker would be more depraved and dark.

Curiosity about Ledger's final performance will likely stoke further interest in the summer blockbuster. "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan said this month that Ledger's Joker would be wildly different from Nicholson's.

"It was a very great challenge for Heath," Nolan said. "He's extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic."

Ledger told The New York Times in a November interview that he "stressed out a little too much" during the Dylan film and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."

"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told the newspaper. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." He said he took two Ambien pills, which worked for only an hour, the paper said.

Ledger was a widely recognized figure in his Manhattan neighborhood, where he used to shop at a home and children's store. Michelle Vella, an employee there, said she had frequently seen Ledger with his daughter - carrying the toddler on his shoulders, or having ice cream with her.

"It's so sad. They were really close," Vella said. "He's a very down-to-earth guy and an amazing father."

Before settling down with Williams, Ledger had relationships with actresses Heather Graham and Naomi Watts. He met Watts while working on "The Lords of Dogtown," a fictionalized version of a cult classic skateboarding documentary, in 2004.

Ledger was born in 1979 to a mining engineer and a French teacher and got his first acting role playing Peter Pan at age 10 in a local theater company. He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an Olympic team in a 1996 television show, "Seat."

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and starred opposite Julia Stiles in "10 Things I Hate About You." Offers for other teen flicks soon came his way, but Ledger turned them down, preferring to remain idle than sign on for projects he didn't like.

"It wasn't a hard decision for me," Ledger told the Associated Press in 2001. "It was hard for everyone else around me to understand. Agents were like, `You're crazy,' my parents were like, 'Come on, you have to eat.'"
---
Associated Press writer Sara Kugler contributed to this report.

R.I.P.

 

[KindaKinky]

Dear Mr. Death:

You've been a little too busy for my taste.
Fuck off for a while and take a vacation.

Thanks!

 

[JennyOmanHill]

World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer Dies

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - Bobby Fischer, the reclusive American chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died. He was 64.

Fischer died January 17th in a Reykjavik hospital, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said. There was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, Fischer was a U.S. chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15. He beat Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik to claim America's first world chess championship in more than a century.

But his reputation as a genius of chess soon was eclipsed by his idiosyncrasies.

A few years after the Spassky match, he forfeited the title to another Soviet, Anatoly Karpov, when he refused to defend it.

He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments.

Fischer, whose mother was Jewish, once accused "the Jew-controlled U.S. government" of ruining his life.

He fell into obscurity before resurfacing to win a 1992 exhibition rematch against Spassky on the Yugoslav resort island of Sveti Stefan in violation of sanctions imposed to punish then-President Slobodan Milosevic.

A fierce critic of his homeland, Fischer became wanted in the United States for violating the sanctions.

He renounced his American citizenship and moved to Iceland in 2005.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

John Stewart dies - member of Kingston Trio

John Stewart, a member of the Kingston Trio who wrote "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees and recorded more than 40 albums of his own, died January 19th from a stroke surrounded by his family in the same San Diego hospital where he was born. He was 68 years old.

Stewart, who spent most of his adult life living in Marin County, had a Top 10 hit in 1979 with "Gold," featuring guest artists Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac.

He first emerged as a songwriter when the original Kingston Trio recorded a couple of his songs. Stewart had formed a similarly styled folk group, the Cumberland Three. He joined the Kingston Trio in 1961, at the time one of the biggest selling acts in the world, to replace founding member Dave Guard. He quit the group in 1967.

With folk singing partner Buffy Ford, whom he would marry in 1975, Stewart hit the 1968 campaign trail for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, appearing with him at campaign rallies up until the night of his assassination in Los Angeles.

He released his classic "California Bloodlines" album in 1969, the first of seven solo albums to make the charts through 1980. His biggest solo hit was "Gold," from the "Bombs Away Dream Babies" album, which also produced lesser hits "Midnight Wind" and "Lost Her in the Sun." His songs were recorded by a number of artists, including Rosanne Cash, who scored a 1988 country hit with his "Runaway Train."

He continued to record over the years, releasing a number of recent albums on his own label and selling them through the Internet. He was working on a new album at the time of his death, with Buckingham playing guitar on the record. Recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, Stewart wrote a song for the new album titled "I Can't Drive Anymore."

Since 2000, Stewart and fellow former Kingston Trio member Nick Reynolds have held the Trio Fantasy Camp, where campers practice their favorite Kingston Trio song and perform the number with the two former group members. Stewart was visiting Reynolds in San Diego when he was stricken last Thursday in his hotel room.

Friends and family came from across the country to hold a hospital room vigil. Stewart is survived by his wife, Buffy; three children from his first marriage, Mikael of Camarillo (Ventura County), Jeremy of Mission Viejo (Orange County) and Amy of Alisa Viejo (Orange County); a son, Luke, of San Francisco, from his second marriage; and six grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Allan Melvin, 84; popular character actor

Allan Melvin, a popular character actor who played Cpl. Henshaw on the classic 1950s sitcom "The Phil Silvers Show" and later portrayed Archie Bunker's neighbor and friend Barney on "All in the Family," has died. He was 84.

Melvin, who was in the original Broadway cast of "Stalag 17" in the early 1950s, died of cancer at his home in Brentwood, said his wife of 64 years, Amalia.

During his five-decade career, Melvin made guest appearances on numerous TV shows, including playing different roles on at least eight episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show" and playing Dick Van Dyke's old Army buddy on "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

He also played Sgt. Charlie Hacker on "Gomer Pyle: U.S.M.C."; portrayed butcher Sam Franklin -- Alice the housekeeper's boyfriend -- on "The Brady Bunch"; and continued playing Barney when the hit "All in the Family" became "Archie Bunker's Place."

Melvin, who appeared in only one movie -- the 1968 Doris Day comedy "With Six You Get Eggroll" -- also did voice-over work in cartoons, including providing the voices of Magilla Gorilla and Bluto on "Popeye."

He worked on numerous TV commercials as well, including playing Al the Plumber in the Liquid-Plumr commercials for 15 years.

After launching his show business career in the sound effects department of NBC radio in New York in 1944, Melvin began acting on radio soap operas and then moved into live television.

At the same time, he did movie star impressions in Manhattan in a nightclub act written by his friend Richard Condon, who later wrote "The Manchurian Candidate."

"The Phil Silvers Show," originally titled "You'll Never Get Rich," was set on an Army base in Kansas and ran from 1955 to 1959.

As Cpl. Henshaw, Melvin was the right-hand man to Silvers' con-man extraordinaire, Sgt. Ernie Bilko.

Melvin was born Feb. 18, 1923, in Kansas City, Mo. His family soon moved to New York City, where he graduated from Columbia University as a journalism major.

Melvin retired from acting about 10 years ago -- long after becoming a household face who was used to people spotting him in public and saying, "Hey, Henshaw" or "Hey, Sam the Butcher."

"I've enjoyed the stuff I've done," he told People magazine in 1996, "but the one you're getting paid for, that's what you enjoy most."

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Jennifer Hanson; and a grandson.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Lois Nettleton, 80; actress had roles on stage, film, television

LOS ANGELES - Lois Nettleton, an actress who went from Broadway plays to roles in movies and on popular television series, has died. She was 80.

Nettleton died of complications from lung cancer at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital, publicist Dale Olson said.

She made her Broadway debut in a 1949 production of The Biggest Thief in Town, a comedy by Dalton Trumbo.

She appeared in more than a dozen other plays, on and off Broadway, over the next decade. As Blanche DuBois in a 1973 production of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Nettleton avoided the typical portrayal of a faded beauty turned boozy manipulator.

"This is a Blanche ... who has been to hell and back and yet retains her innocence," wrote critic Clive Barnes in a review for the New York Times. "Miss Nettleton plays Blanche as a woman of nearly unshatterable courage."

Nettleton said in interviews that theater was her first love, but she moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her ailing mother. In Hollywood, starting in the 1950s, she was a guest actress on dozens of leading television series.

She had roles on Kraft Television Theatre and Studio One in the 1950s and appeared on The Twilight Zone in a 1961 episode titled The Midnight Sun. She played a woman coping with the radically shifting climate after the Earth falls out of orbit.

Nettleton also had roles on Bonanza and The Fugitive in the 1960s and The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the '70s, among other series. For two years in the late 1980s she was a regular on the police drama In the Heat of the Night. She also appeared on The Golden Girls, Murder, She Wrote and Cagney & Lacey.

For three years in the 1990s, she had a role as Virginia Benson on the soap opera General Hospital.

She won Emmy Awards for daytime television for her role as suffragette Susan B. Anthony in The American Woman: Portraits in Courage in 1976 and her performance in an episode of the religious program Insight in 1983.

She made her movie debut in 1962 in Period of Adjustment, based on a play by Williams about two couples in rocky marriages. She also had roles in Mail Order Bride in 1964, The Man in the Glass Booth in 1975 and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1982.

"It takes courage to be ... a gypsy actor like I am," Nettleton told the Los Angeles Times in 1985, adding that she liked playing a variety of roles. "I'm a character actress. I always wanted to be as different in everything as possible," she said.

Nettleton was born Aug. 16, 1927, in Oak Park, Ill. At 21 she was named Miss Chicago.

She studied acting at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and moved to New York City, where she joined the Actors Studio. She married Jean Shepherd, a writer and actor, in 1960. They divorced seven years later.

 

[Buttah]

Christian Brando, 1958-2008

Christian Brando, the troubled son of a Hollywood icon who killed his half-sister’s boyfriend in 1990, died of pneumonia at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center early Saturday. He was 49.

A family attorney told The Los Angeles Times that Brando succumbed to complications of pneumonia at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. His ex-wife, Deborah Brando, confirmed it in an interview with People magazine.

Brando served about five years in prison for the May, 16, 1990 shooting death of Dag Drollet. Brando, then 32, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of 26-year-old Drolett, his sister Cheyenne’s lover and the father of her unborn child.

The murder took place at Marlon Brando’s hilltop estate when Brando confronted Drollet after Cheyenne confided that he had been beating her.

“I did not go into that room to kill Dag Drollet,’’ Brando told the Times in 1991. “I just wanted to scare him.’’

Brando said that as he turned to leave, his arm still outstretched, Drollet tried to grab the gun and it went off.

Brando’s legendary actor father used his estate near Coldwater Canyon to secure the $2 million bond for his eldest son, and later testified in an emotional, rambling plea for leniency.

Brando was given a 10-year prison sentence but ended up serving nearly five years at the California Mens Colony at San Luis Obispo. He was also sentenced to three years probation.

Just a few years ago, Brando made headlines when he testified in the civil trial against actor Robert Blake, accused of killing his wife.

The younger Brando was the subject of a tempestuous child custody fight between his father and his first wife, Anna Kashfi. At one point, courts ordered the mother’s custody terminated because of her drug use, but she kidnapped the boy and fled to Baja California.

Christian was returned to his father’s custody, and returned to his mountaintop home off Mulholland Highway. But he reportedly was raised most of his childhood at an Ojai boarding school.

Brando dropped out of school and was using drugs as a teen, and reportedly worked as a tree trimmer and fishing barge pilot in Alaska. But he moved back to the Hollywood Hills in 1990, where the confrontation with Drollet happened.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Truman's Daughter, Noted Author, Dies

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of former President Harry S. Truman, has died.

She was 83.

Daniel died Tuesday following a brief illness, according to a statement from the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence.

"Margaret was an extraordinary individual. Her legacy is as much a part of this presidential library as her parents', and we are extremely grateful for her many contributions," said Michael Devine, director of the Truman Library. "All of us at the Truman Library and Truman Library Institute extend our deepest condolences to her family."

She had been living in an assisted living facility for the past several weeks and was on a respirator.

Daniel, a longtime resident of New York City, was also the author of 23 mystery novels in the Capital Crimes series -- many of them set in Washington D.C.

She also wrote books on the White House and biographies, including books on her father and her mother, Bess W. Truman.

The Truman Library said Daniel was one of the eldest surviving children of an American president, second only to John Eisenhower, the son of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Ex-Oiler Killed in Gun Cleaning Accident

HOUSTON (Feb. 6) - Former Houston Oilers linebacker John Grimsley was found fatally shot in his suburban Houston home Wednesday, the apparent victim of a gun cleaning accident, an official said.

Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace Joel Clouser said that when Grimsley's wife, who was out of town, was not able to reach her husband Wednesday, she had a neighbor check on him. The neighbor found Grimsley's body on the floor in the dining area.

"It appears it may have been an accident," Clouser said. "He was in the process of cleaning his gun. It appears that he had his dinette table covered with newspapers and he had the tools out to clean the gun with."

Clouser ordered an autopsy to confirm the cause of death. Grimsley was 45.

The Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office was set to perform the autopsy on Thursday, said John Florence, the office's chief investigator.

Grimsley played 10 seasons in the NFL.

He was drafted by Houston in 1984 and played with the Oilers until 1990. In 1991, he was traded to the Miami Dolphins and stayed there until he retired in 1993.

He made the Pro Bowl in 1988 and was an All-Pro selection in 1989.

Grimsley was born in Canton, Ohio, and went to the University of Kentucky.

Grimsley is survived by his wife and two college-age sons.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actor-director Barry Morse of TV's 'The Fugitive' dead at 89

TORONTO - British-Canadian actor-director Barry Morse, best known as the police detective in hot pursuit of David Janssen's Dr. Richard Kimble in the TV series "The Fugitive," has died in England at the age of 89.

Morse died at University College hospital in London on Saturday, his son, actor Hayward Morse, told The Canadian Press in an interview from Great Britain Monday.

He said his father was taken there last Wednesday after he began experiencing blackouts and was falling down.

"He was in hospital for three days before he died. So in the long term, he was in his own home up until three days before he died, which I think is pretty good," said Hayward Morse.

"He was 89 years old and that's a good long life. He'd accomplished a lot of things," he said.

Morse had been living in London for a number of years, but had travelled to Canada and the United States to work, where his list of credits was impressive. The versatile actor, who had played everyone from "Macbeth" to Hollywood gangsters, had worked until a few years ago, but was still active in the (George Bernard) Shaw Society of England, which he was president of, and chaired society meetings as recently last week.

Morse's career spanned seven decades and his website estimates he played more than 3,000 roles on radio, television, stage and in film. It was a long way from the two-dollars-a-week messenger boy that he started out as a young teen - and Bethnal Green, a slum district of London where he was born 100 per cent Cockney.

His son said his father didn't really have a preference between film or stage or television.

Morse, who was the youngest candidate to be accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, appeared on Broadway in "Hide and Seek," "Salad Days" and the lead of Frederick William Rolfe in "Hadrian VII" among his numerous stage credits. He was also briefly an artistic director at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. in 1966.

In 1963, Morse was hired by producer Quinn Martin to play Lieut. Philip Gerard on "The Fugitive" - a series that ran four seasons and 120 episodes.

He appeared in about one of every three episodes, which allowed him to work on other projects, but he admitted at the time the commute between Hollywood and Toronto was a "bit of a bore" especially when he met people "who really seem to believe that one is a real cop hounding that nice Dr. Kimble."

Other television roles included several miniseries such as "The Martian Chronicles," "The Winds of War," "Master of the Game," "War and Remembrance" and "Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story." His website said he was a five-time winner of Canada's Best Television Actor award. He was also a founding member of Theatre Compact, a troupe of Canadian stars who performed in Toronto from 1976-78.

Morse is survived by his son, two granddaughters and two grandsons and several great-grandchildren

 

[JennyOmanHill]

General Hospital: Shell Kepler Dies of Kidney Failure

Shell Kepler, who is best known for her work on General Hospital as Nurse Amy Vining, passed away on February 1 after being admitted to the hospital at Oregon Health & Sciences University on the same day. According to reports, the 49-year-old actress succumbed to renal failure, a situation in the body in which the kidney fails to function adequately.

"She was a sweet woman with a big heart. She couldn't have been lovelier to me and was very welcoming when I joined GH [General Hospital]," former co-star Nancy Lee Grahn, who is known for her role as Alexis, told Soap Opera Digest.

Kepler joined General Hospital in 1979, taking over the role of the gossipy nurse from Cari Ann Warder, who portrayed the character in 1975. She beat out over 205 people during the audition and was considered as a fan favorite, enjoying more than two decades of exposure on the long-running soap.

Additionally, Kepler was also credited for the 1982 Joan Collins film, Homework, the soap opera Port Charles, and a couple of episodes of the sitcom Three's Company.

Apart from being an actress, Kepler was also a business woman, marketing her clothing line, Lacy Afternoon, on the former Home Shopping Club with sales over $20 million in one year alone. Following her entertainment career, she dedicated herself to helping others and got involved with several charities and fundraising events.

Shell Kepler was married and divorced twice and was only survived by her younger brother, Jeff.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Beatles Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Dies

February 9, 2008 · Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced transcendentalist meditation to the West, died Tuesday at his headquarters in the Netherlands. He was believed to be in his early 90s.

Among the best-known seekers of his wisdom were The Beatles.

He also was an entrepreneur of enlightenment, who built an enterprise of spiritual centers and schools that today is estimated to have assets of about $300 million.

He was often known as The Giggling Guru for the high-pitched laugh he often used to emphasize his observations.

The Beatles visited him first in 1968 and returned with some well-known friends. But controversy broke out. The Maharishi, an avowed celibate, was accused of laying hands on some women who came to his ashram.

The Maharishi retired from public life just last month and said he would devote his remaining time to completing a long series of commentaries on the Vedas, the sacred Hindu texts.

 

[Buttah]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Roy Scheider, the actor best known for his role as a police chief in the blockbuster movie "Jaws," has died. He was 75.


Scheider died Sunday at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, hospital spokesman David Robinson said. The hospital did not release his cause of death.

However, hospital spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said Scheider had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital's Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy for the past two years.

Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss starred in the 1975 movie, "Jaws," which was widely hailed as the film that launched the era of the Hollywood blockbuster. It was the first film to earn $100 million at the box office.

In 2005, one of Scheider's most famous lines in the movie — "You're gonna need a bigger boat" — was voted No. 35 on the American Film Institute's list of best quotes from U.S. movies.

That year, some 30 years after "Jaws" premiered, hundreds of movie buffs flocked to Martha's Vineyard, off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts, to celebrate the great white shark that terrified millions of moviegoers.

The island's JawsFest '05 also brought back some of the cast and crew, including screenwriter Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel that inspired Steven Spielberg's enduring classic.

Spielberg, Scheider, who played a police chief, and Dreyfuss, who played an oceanographer, were absent from Jawsfest '05. Co-star Robert Shaw, who played Quint, died in 1978.

Scheider also participated in rallies protesting U.S. military action in Iraq, including a massive New York demonstration in March 2003 that police said drew 125,000 chanting activists.

 

[HB1965]

Holy shit! That's depressing. Roy Scheider

 

[KindaKinky]

http://synthesismagazine.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/drew-glackin.jpg

drew-glackin-1963-2008

Drew Glackin, instrumentalist and bassist for The Silos passed away suddenly on Saturday, January 5th. According to his band, he was unaware of an overactive thyroid condition that led to severe heart damage. He was surrounded by family and friends during his final days. His bandmates had this to say, “Drew was adored around the world and his larger than life spirit and contagious jovial energy touched everyone he met, everywhere he went. He was a musician of the highest talent and made his mark in countless bands, record albums, and many thousands of live performances. He will be sorely missed and the memories of his music, his great humor, and his magnanimous generosity of spirit and love will be with us forever.”



There are sites where photos and stories about Drew can be posted – please visit drewglackin.com, drewglackin.blogspot.com, and myspace.com/drewglackin.



From Bloodshot Records’ Rob Miller: “The Bloodshot family and the music community in general is poorer, and less fun, with the Drew’s untimely and unexpected death.

Drew liked having a good time and he loved making sure those around him were having a good time, too. I will sorely miss getting caught up in his joyful slipstream whenever and wherever our paths would cross.”

A fund has been set up in Drew’s name to help with funeral costs. Send a Paypal donation to: theandrewglackinmemorialfund@yahoo.com

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Shea Icon Signs Off

KARL EHRHARDT DEAD AT 83

February 10, 2008 -- The sign man of Shea Stadium died Febrary 7th. Karl Ehrhardt was a fixture at Met games from 1964 through 1981, famous for holding up tailored signs after key plays that displayed his pleasure or frustration with the team.

He was 83 and died at his home in Glen Oaks Queens, according to his daughter Bonnie Troester. Ehrhardt had been recovering from vascular surgery.

Ehrhardt's block-lettered signs served as color commentary for both fans in the stands and TV viewers at home. He carried dozens to each game, some witty, some biting.

"Jose, Can You See?" was a regular when Met outfielder Jose Cardenal struck out. "It's Alive!" was for hitters who broke out of a slump.

"Just Great!" was for more spectacular moments.

Only the New York Mets ' 1969 World Series victory left him speechless. The sign he raised high after the last out read, "There Are No Words."

At one point he had about 1,200 signs.

"I just called them the way I saw them," Ehrhardt once said.

"Before I went to the ballpark, I would try to crystal-ball what might happen that particular day. I would read all the newspapers to learn who was hot and who was in a slump, stuff like that, and create my signs accordingly."

Ehrhardt wasn't always a Met fan. He grew up rooting for the Dodgers in Brooklyn before switching to the Mets in the early 1960s.

"He was part of the happening that Shea became," said Bob Mandt, former Mets VP.

Ehrhardt was born in Unterweissbach, Germany. He moved to the United States when he was 6 and later served as a translator for U.S. forces during World War II.

He graduated from the Pratt Institute with a design art degree after the war and worked for American Home Foods.

His wife, Lucille Schneyer, died in 1997. He is survived by a daughter, a son and two grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Rhoda' Star David Groh Dies, 68

(Feb. 14) - David Groh, the handsome, hardworking character actor who was best known to television viewers as the easygoing man Rhoda Morgenstern married and divorced during the run of Valerie Harper's hit 1970s sitcom "Rhoda," has died. He was 68.

Groh died Tuesday of kidney cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his sister-in-law Catherine Mullally told The Associated Press on Thursday. Groh's wife, Kristin Andersen, was by his side.

Divorce was not a subject generally addressed on television in the 1970s, and when Groh's character, Joe Gerard, and Harper's Rhoda Morgenstern split up during the show's third season, viewers were stunned. Their marriage had resulted in one of the show's highest-rated episodes, and when they split people sent them condolence cards.

The show had begun in 1974 as a spinoff from television's hugely popular "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which was set in Minneapolis. "Rhoda" had Harper's character moving back home to New York City, where she met and married Joe.

Groh's stunning good looks and real-life good nature were key to helping him win the part of her TV husband, Harper said Thursday.

"We looked all over and he finally came on the scene," Harper told the AP. "I read every cute guy of a certain age in Hollywood and he was the one. ... I enjoyed very much working with him. He was a lovely, lovely guy."

Groh, who left the series after the divorce episodes, went on to appear in dozens of TV shows and films, as well as on Broadway, over the next 30 years.

He portrayed the nefarious D.L. Brock on the daytime soap opera "General Hospital" from 1983 to 1985 and had recurring roles on "Baywatch," "Law & Order" and other shows.

His film credits included "Get Shorty," "Two Minute Warning" and "Broken Vow," and he appeared on Broadway in Neil Simon's "Chapter Two" and Jon Tolin's "Twilight of the Golds."

Groh was born May 21, 1939, in New York City and attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright scholarship. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he returned to New York to study at the Actors Studio.

He appeared in the television shows "Dark Shadows" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" in the 1960s before landing "Rhoda."

He was written out of the show, Harper said, when the producers decided "Rhoda" worked better with its star as a single woman.

"We all felt very bad about David not continuing," she said, adding the two remained lifelong friends.

In recent years, Groh appeared in independent films and had been developing a film called "Lower East Side Story" with his wife.

Aside from Andersen, he is survived by his son, Spencer Groh, his mother, Mildred, and his sister, Marilyn Mamann.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Former MLB, NFL Executive Howsam Dies

DENVER (AP) — Bob Howsam, the man who gave baseball its Big Red Machine and gave Denver its beloved Broncos, died Tuesday in Sun City, Ariz. He was 89.

Howsam had been having heart problems, said his son, Robert Howsam of Colorado Springs.

Howsam's career bridged two sports and several leagues, and even his short-time jobs produced success: Between co-founding the Broncos in 1959 and joining the Reds in 1967, he was general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals when they won the 1964 World Series over the New York Yankees.

He built a reputation as a visionary who pioneered the use of film to hone a hitter's swing, expanded the use of artificial turf and orchestrated blockbuster trades — such as the one that brought Joe Morgan to the Reds in 1971.

But his guiding principle was that the fans came first, his son said.

"He loved the fans. They made his life," the son said.

A Denver native, Howsam started his sports career in 1947 as owner of the Denver Bears of the Single-A Western League, later taking the team to Triple-A as a New York Yankees affiliate, his son said.

Howsam spearheaded the construction of Bears Stadium, which would later be expanded to become Mile High Stadium, the Broncos' first permanent home.

Howsam helped found the American Football League in 1959 and was principal owner of the Broncos. His co-owners included his brother, Lee.

"Without Bob Howsam, the Broncos would not exist, that's all there is to it," Broncos spokesman Jim Saccomano said.

The new team struggled, going 4-9-1 in the inaugural 1960 season and 3-11 in the next. The Howsams sold the Broncos in 1961, but the franchise went on to become an enormous draw in Denver, routinely selling out home games.

Howsam landed with the Cardinals in 1964 and was instrumental in the trade that brought Orlando Cepeda to St. Louis early in the 1966 season. Howsam had left for Cincinnati when Cepeda helped the Cardinals win the 1967 World Series and the 1968 pennant.

In Cincinnati, Howsam is credited with building the Big Red Machine, one of the most dominating teams in baseball history.

Led by future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Morgan, and spurred by Pete Rose, the Big Red Machine won back-to-back World Series in 1975-76. They also captured four NL pennants and won six division titles in the 1970s.

Howsam had to win over the players union and then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn to install wall-to-wall artificial turf at the new Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

Turf had been introduced in Houston at the Astrodome, but under Howsam's design, the only dirt in the infield was in cutouts around the bases.

Howsam also pioneered the use of film to help hitters improve, his son said. He would film them in hot streaks and in slumps so they could see the difference in their mechanics.

Howsam later was a member of the Colorado Baseball Commission, which helped bring the Rockies and major league baseball to Denver.

Howsam was nominated for the Hall of Fame in the executives/pioneers category last year but fell short of the 75 percent of votes required for admission.

Robert Howsam said his father lived in a retirement home in Sun City with his wife, Janet Howsam. He would have turned 90 later this month.

He was still innovating, his son said, trying to convince the home to install solar panels to turn Phoenix's plentiful sunshine into an emergency backup power supply.