Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

Music Industry Veteran Gary Kurfirst Passes

Longtime artist manager and label exec Gary Kurfirst passed away on Tuesday, January 13 at the age of 61, while on vacation in the Bahamas. Kurfirst had a long and varied career in the music industry, most notably as a manager of acts such as Talking Heads, the Ramones, Live, Jane's Addiction, Blondie, The Eurythmics and The B-52's.

Kurfirst got his start in the music world at the age of 20, staging the New York Rock Festival, headlined by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who and Janis Joplin. He was also involved with Island's Chris Blackwell's efforts to bring Reggae acts to the States, including Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.

Kurirst helped produce films with Talking Heads, including their seminal concert film Stop Making Sense and David Byrne's True Stories. In 1990, he launched Radioactive Records at MCA with Live, helping launch their career. He also signed Shirley Manson in her pre-Garbage days.

A number of artists have written tributes to Kurfirst. Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club wrote, "Gary Kurfirst has been our manager since 1977. He never failed to take care of business for us. He protected us. He allowed Talking Heads to be Talking Heads while he took the blows that the music business dealt us. Together we suffered heartbreaks and celebrated great triumphs. Gary truly was the fifth Talking Head. We were very close friends and we will miss him terribly."

The legendary Seymour Stein wrote, "Gary was brilliant in his ability to spot changes in music ahead of most people and had the courage to act on his instincts. Gary was tough, but not cut-throat in business. He could fight hard, but fair and never held grudges. Gary had great style. Certainly one of the best and most successful relationships I ever enjoyed with a manager, working together on Talking Heads, The Ramones or Deborah Harry. Can honestly say he will be surely missed."

Ed Kowalczyk, Live frontman, said, "In my view, Gary's greatest strength and the thing I will remember most about him was his unwavering loyalty. When he fell in love, whether it was an artist, a song, a painting or a grandchild, he did it totally and joined with what he loved completely. He literally became one with the things he loved. I used to joke with him that when I got kicked, he screamed out in pain. To say that I will miss his guidance, his wisdom and his love is an understatement to the maximum degree."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Ricardo Montalban is dead too.

Ricardo Montalban, the suave leading man who was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood and who was best known for his roles as Mr. Roarke on ABC's "Fantasy Island" and the villainous Khan of the "Star Trek" franchise, died Wednesday. He was 88.

Mr. Montalban died Wednesday morning at his Los Angeles home of complications related to old age, said his son-in-law, Gilbert Smith.

Beginning in the 1940s, Mr. Montalban starred in dozens of films with some of the greatest names in movies, including Clark Gable and Lana Turner. When major film roles dried up for him in the 1970s, he turned to stage and eventually TV, where he became familiar to millions as the mysterious host whose signature line, "Welcome to Fantasy Island," opened the hit show that ran from 1978 to 1984.

From the 1950s and decades on, Mr. Montalban appeared in several films. In the late 1970s, he won an Emmy for his performance as Chief Satangkai in the television miniseries "How the West Was Won."

In the 1970s and '80s, he became a commercial spokesman for Chrysler. He was particularly known - and later widely spoofed - for his silky allusion to the "soft Corinthian leather" of the Chrysler Cordoba, although no such leather actually existed.

While making "Fantasy Island," Mr. Montalban also gave one of his best movie performances - as Khan Noonien Singh in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," a follow-up to a beloved 1967 "Star Trek" television episode that also featured Mr. Montalban.

As Khan, Mr. Montalban was deliciously over the top, vowing to wreak revenge on Starfleet Adm. James T. Kirk: "I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nivea, and 'round the Antares maelstrom, and 'round perdition's flames before I give him up."

Born Nov. 25, 1920, Mr. Montalban was the youngest of four children of Castilian Spaniards who had immigrated in 1906 to Mexico City, where Mr. Montalban's father owned a dry goods store. When he was 5, the family moved to the arid northern city of Torreon.

After graduating from high school, Mr. Montalban was taken to Los Angeles by his oldest brother, Carlos, who had lived here and had gotten work in the Hollywood studios.

Mr. Montalban studied English at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, where an MGM talent scout noticed him in a student play.

In 1944, he married Georgiana Belzer, a model and Loretta Young's sister.

MGM tapped him to play a bullfighter in the Esther Williams' film "Fiesta," much of which was shot in Mexico. He is remembered best in that 1947 film for a dance scene with the young Cyd Charisse. That film led to a contract at MGM, where he remained for eight years.

He had a friendly rivalry with Fernando Lamas - later Williams' real-life husband - as the resident "Latin lovers" for the studio. Indeed, Billy Crystal immortalized this duel between the two men with his classic "Saturday Night Live" skit, "Quien es mas macho, Fernando Lamas or Ricardo Montalban?"

Other films in which he appeared include "Latin Lovers," "On an Island With You," "Border Incident" and "Battleground."

Director John Sturges gave him the leading role of Lt. Peter Morales in "Mystery Street" in 1950 and, that same year, a starring role with June Allyson and Dick Powell in "Right Cross." Also in 1950, Mr. Montalban was Jane Powell's Cuban love interest in "Two Weeks With Love." The following year, Mr. Montalban co-starred with Gable in William Wellman's "Across the Wide Missouri."

But, as he wrote in his autobiography, he never was cast in the dramatic role at MGM that would have made him a major movie star.

After MGM dropped him in 1953, Mr. Montalban went on the road with Agnes Moorehead and others in "Don Juan in Hell," which was later revived on Broadway with him in the lead.

In 1955, he appeared on Broadway in the short-lived "Seventh Heaven" and in the late 1950s starred with Lena Horne in "Jamaica," which ran for 555 performances and earned him a Tony nomination for best actor in a musical.

He played a Kabuki theater actor in "Sayonara" (1957) and co-starred with Debbie Reynolds in the 1966 film "The Singing Nun."

In more recent years, he appeared as the evil tycoon in the 1988 box-office comedy smash "Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad" and had a prominent role as the grandfather in 2003's "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over."

From 1965 to 1970, Mr. Montalban was vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, which gave him a life achievement award in 1993.

He is survived by two daughters, Laura Montalban and Anita Smith; two sons, Mark Montalban and Victor Montalban; and six grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Patrick McGoohan died today to. His series The Prisoner is amazing.

(CBS/AP) Patrick McGoohan, an actor who created and starred in the cult classic TV show "The Prisoner," died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness. He was 80.

His son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, announced the news Wednesday.

McGoohan starred in the 1960s CBS series "Secret Agent," and won two Emmys for his guest appearances on the detective drama "Columbo." Most recently he appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson Academy Award-winning film "Braveheart."

But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in "The Prisoner," a 1968 British series about a spy who resigns from the intelligence service, only to be abducted and held captive in a mysterious haven known as The Village. There his overseers strip him of his identity in their attempts to glean information, while thwarting his attempts to escape.

Prior to "The Prisoner," McGoohan starred in "Secret Agent" (also known as "Danger Man"), which debuted in 1964, and whose memorable theme song seemed to speak of the hazards facing the characters in both series ("They've given you a number, and taken away your name").

McGoohan's agent, Sharif Ali, said Wednesday that the actor was still active in Hollywood, with two offers for wide-release films on the table when he died. "The man was just cool," Ali said. "It was an honor to have him here and work with him. ... He was one of those actors, a real actor. He didn't have a lie."

Born in New York on March 19, 1928, McGoohan was raised in England and Ireland, where his family moved shortly after his birth. He had a busy stage career before moving to television, and won a London Drama Critics Award for playing the title role in the Henrik Ibsen play "Brand."

He married stage actress Joan Drummond in 1951. The oldest of their three daughters, Catherine, is also an actress.

After "Secret Agent"'s success," McGoohan pitched to producers the surreal and cerebral "The Prisoner" to give himself a challenge. McGoohan also wrote and directed several episodes of the series.

Although only 17 episodes were made, it became a cult favorite, and its cultural impact continues, as evident by his guest appearance playing Number Six in a 2000 episode of "The Simpsons."

The show is being remade as a series for AMC to premiere later this year.

Later came smaller roles in film and television. McGoohan won Emmys for guest spots on "Columbo" 16 years apart, in 1974 and 1990.

His film credits include "Ice Station Zebra," the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz," the John Grisham courtroom drama "A Time To Kill," "Silver Streak," and "Scanners." He also starred in the 1963 Disney TV film "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh," playing an 18th century English country priest who thwarts the king's minions as a disguised avenger.

His last major role was in "Braveheart," in what The Associated Press called a "standout" performance as the brutal king who battles Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, played by Gibson.

McGoohan is survived by his wife and three daughters.

 

[HB1965]

McGoohan should have gotten an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Longshanks. He was gypped

 

[KindaKinky]

American painter Andrew Wyeth dies at 91
By PATRICK WALTERS, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA – Artist Andrew Wyeth, who portrayed the hidden melancholy of the people and landscapes of Pennsylvania's Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine in works such as "Christina's World," died early Friday. He was 91.

Wyeth died in his sleep at his home in the Philadelphia suburb of Chadds Ford, according to Hillary Holland, a spokeswoman for the Brandywine River Museum.

The son of famed painter and book illustrator N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth gained wealth, acclaim and tremendous popularity. But he chafed under criticism from some experts who regarded him as a facile realist, not an artist but merely an illustrator.

"The world has lost one of the greatest artists of all time," George A. Weymouth, a friend of Wyeth's who is chairman of the board of the Brandywine Conservancy, said in a statement.

A Wyeth retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2006 drew more than 175,000 visitors in 15 1/2 weeks, the highest-ever attendance at the museum for a living artist. The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, a converted 19th-century grist mill, includes hundreds of works by three generations of Wyeths.

It was in Maine that Wyeth found the subject for "Christina's World," his best-known painting. And it was in Pennsylvania that he met Helga Testorf, a neighbor in his native Chadds Ford who became the subject of the intimate portraits that brought him millions of dollars and a wave of public attention in 1986.

The "Helga" paintings, many of them full-figure nudes, came with a whiff of scandal: Wyeth said he had not even told his wife, Betsy, about the more than 200 paintings and sketches until he had completed them in 1985.

Wyeth's world was as limited in scale, and as rich in associations, as "Christina's World," which shows a disabled woman looking up a grassy rise toward her farm home, her face tantalizingly unseen.

"Really, I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as your love goes," Wyeth said in a Life magazine interview in 1965.

"I don't paint these hills around Chadds Ford because they're better than the hills somewhere else. It's that I was born here, lived here — things have a meaning for me."

Paradoxically, he said, he loved Maine "in spite of its scenery. There's a lot of cornball in that state you have to go through — boats at docks, old fishermen, and shacks with swayback roofs. I hate all that."

Wyeth was a secretive man who spent hours tramping the countryside alone. He painted many portraits, working several times with favorite subjects, but said he disliked having someone else watching him paint.

Much of Wyeth's work had a melancholy feel — aging people and brown, dead plants — but he chose to describe his work as "thoughtful."

"I do an awful lot of thinking and dreaming about things in the past and the future — the timelessness of the rocks and the hills — all the people who have existed there," he once said. "I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape — the loneliness of it — the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show.

"I think anything like that — which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone — people always feel is sad. Is it because we've lost the art of being alone?"

Wyeth remained active in recent years and President George W. Bush presented him with a National Medal of the Arts in 2007.

Wyeth remained active in his 90s, but his granddaughter, Victoria Wyeth, told The Associated Press in 2008 that he no longer gave interviews. "He says, 'Vic, everything I have to say is on the walls,'" she said.

Wyeth was born July 12, 1917, in Chadds Ford, the youngest of N.C. Wyeth's five children. One of his sisters, Henriette, who died in 1997, also became an artist of some note, and one of his two sons, Jamie, became a noted painter in his own right. His other son, Nicholas, became an art dealer.

N.C. Wyeth, the only art teacher Wyeth ever had, didn't always agree with his son's taste.

In a 1986 interview with the AP, Wyeth recalled one of the last paintings he showed to his father, who died in 1945. It was a picture of a young friend walking across a barren field.

"He said, `Andy, that has a nice feel, of a crisp fall morning in New England.' He said, `You've got to do something to make this thing appeal. If you put a dog in it, or maybe have a gun in his hand,'" Wyeth recalled.

"Invariably my father talked about my lack of color."

The low-key colors of Wyeth's work stem partly from his frequent use of tempera, a technique he began using in 1942. Unlike the oil paint used by most artists today, tempera produces a matte effect.

Wyeth had his first success at age 20, with an exhibition of Maine landscapes at a gallery in New York. Two years later he met his future wife, Betsy James.

Betsy Wyeth was a strong influence on her husband's career, serving as his business agent, keeping the world at bay and guiding his career choices.

It was Betsy who introduced Wyeth to Christina Olson. Wyeth befriended the disabled elderly woman and her brother, and practically moved in with them for a series of studies of the house, its environs and its occupants.

The acme of that series was "Christina's World," painted in 1948. It was Olson's house, but the figure was Betsy Wyeth.

Another well-known Wyeth series was made at the home of Karl Kuerner, whose Pennsylvania farm bordered the spot where Wyeth's father was killed in a car-train accident.

Before his father died, Wyeth once said, "I was just a clever watercolorist — lots of swish and swash. ... (Afterward), for the first time in my life I was painting with a real reason to do it." The Kuerner paintings often have an undertone of menace, a heavy ceiling hook or the jagged edge of a log outside a sun-warmed room.

It was at Kuerner's farm that Wyeth met Testorf, a German emigre who cleaned and cooked for Kuerner.

"I could not get out of my mind the image of this Prussian face with its broad jaw, wide-set eyes, blond hair," Wyeth said.

Wyeth painted Testorf from 1970 to 1985, but said didn't show his wife any of the pictures until 1981. In 1985, he revealed the full series to her, and declared he wanted them sold. The buyer, Leonard Andrews, reportedly paid $6 million to $10 million for them.

The Helga paintings created a sensation when their existence was revealed in 1986, in part because many were nudes and because of Betsy Wyeth's provocative answer when asked what the works were about. "Love," she said.

"He's a very secret person. He doesn't pry in my life and I don't pry in his. And it's worth it," she said.

After 1985, Wyeth painted Testorf at least three more times.

The exhibition of the Helga paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington drew tens of thousands, but it renewed the dispute between Wyeth's admirers and his equally passionate detractors.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York pointedly refused to accept the exhibition. And it turned out that the original stories about the collection overstated things, since some of the Helga paintings had been exhibited earlier and Betsy Wyeth had been aware of some of them.

Andrews sold the Helga collection in 1990 to a Japanese industrialist for some "40 to 50 million dollars," dealer Warren Adelson said in 2006, when he was handling the private sale of some 200 of the works. Adelson didn't identify the industrialist.

"When people want to bring sex into these images, OK, let 'em," Wyeth was quoted in the catalog to an exhibition Adelson organized. "The heart of the Helga series is that I was trying to unlock my emotions in capturing her essence, in getting her humanity down."

Some critics dismissed Wyeth's art as that of a mere "regionalist." Art critic Hilton Kramer was even more direct, once saying, "In my opinion, he can't paint."

The late J. Carter Brown, who was for many years director of the National Gallery, called such talk "a knee-jerk reaction among intellectuals in this country that if it's popular, it can't be good."

"I think the man's mastery of a variety of techniques is dazzling, and I think the content is in many cases moving," Brown said.

___

Associated Press Writer JoAnn Loviglio contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Brandywine River Museum: http://www.brandywinemuseum.org

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Lost in Space' Actor Bob May Dies

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 19) - The man behind the 'Lost in Space' robot died Sunday of congestive heart failure. Bob May, who donned The Robot's suit in the hit 1960s television show, was 69. May is survived by his wife Judith; his daughter; his son, Martin; and four grandchildren.

Before 'Lost in Space' creator Irwin Allen recruited May to play the Robinson family's robot sidekick in the series, May had a long career in film, TV, and on the vaudeville stage.

"He always said he got the job because he fit in the robot suit," said June Lockhart, who played family matriarch Maureen Robinson. "It was one of those wonderful Hollywood stories. He just happened to be on the studio lot when someone saw him and sent him to see Irwin Allen about the part. Allen said, 'If you can fit in the suit, you've got the job.'"

May once claimed the suit felt like a "home away from home."

Lockhart said May wore the suit for hours at a time and learned the lines of every actor in the show so he would know when to respond to their cues. Because it wasn't easy to get in and out of the suit, he kept it on during breaks. "He was a smoker," Lockhart remembered. "From time to time (when he was on a break), we'd see smoke coming out of the robot. That always amused us."

Although May didn't provide the robot's distinctive voice (that was done by announcer Dick Tufeld), he developed a following of fans who sought him out at memorabilia shows. The character shared by May and Tufield is still famous for his line, "Danger, Will Robinson," which became a national catch phrase.

"Lost in Space" was a space-age retelling of "The Swiss Family Robinson" story in which professor John Robinson, his wife and their children were on a space mission when their craft was knocked hopelessly off course by the evil Dr. Zachary Smith, who became trapped in space with them.

May appeared in films with Jerry Lewis and in TV shows as 'The Time Tunnel,' 'McHale's Navy' and 'The Red Skelton Show.' He was also a stuntman in many 1950s and '60s TV shows.

 

[Denae]

Kay Yow-Hall of Fame Women's Basketball Coach

Longtime NC State women's coach Kay Yow dies at 66
January 24, 2009 11:30 AM EST

RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina State's Kay Yow, the Hall of Fame women's basketball coach who won more than 700 games while earning fans with her decades-long fight against breast cancer, died on Saturday. She was 66.

Yow, first diagnosed with the disease in 1987, died Saturday morning at WakeMed Cary Hospital after being admitted there last week, university spokeswoman Annabelle Myers said.

"I think she understood that keeping going was inspirational to other people who were in the same boat she was in," Dr. Mark Graham, Yow's longtime oncologist, said Saturday.

Yow won more than 700 games in a career filled with milestones. She coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1988, won four Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and reached the Final Four in 1998.

She also was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2002, while the school dedicated "Kay Yow Court" in Reynolds Coliseum in 2007.

But for many fans, Yow was best defined by her unwavering resolve while fighting cancer, from raising awareness and money for research to staying with her team through the debilitating effects of the disease and chemotherapy treatments. In her final months, Yow was on hormonal therapy as the cancer spread to her liver and bone.

She never flinched or complained, relying on her faith as the disease progressed. She commonly noted there were other patients with "harder battles than I'm fighting" and said it was inspiring for her to stay with her team.

"Almost everybody is dealing with something," Yow said in a 2006 interview.

"We're all faced with a lot of tough issues that we're dealing with," she said. "We know we need to just come to the court and let that be our catharsis in a way. You can't bring it on the court with you, but we can all just think of basketball as an escape for a few hours."

Yow announced earlier this month that she would not return to the team this season after she missed four games because of what was described as an extremely low energy level.

The team visited Yow in the hospital before leaving Wednesday for a game at Miami. Associate head coach Stephanie Glance - who led the team in Yow's absences - met with the team Saturday morning to inform them Yow had died, Myers said.

Graham remembered how Yow always took time to talk to other patients when she came in for treatments in recent years.

"She could have tried to come into the clinic and be completely anonymous," he said. "She just wanted to be another patient. She was very open to sharing her experiences with others and being encouraging to others.

Yow's fight was never more public than when she took a 16-game leave to focus on her treatments during the 2006-07 season. After her return, her inspired Wolfpack won 12 of its final 15 games with wins against highly ranked rivals Duke and North Carolina in a run that attracted plenty of fans wearing pink - the color of breast-cancer awareness.

Her players also wore pink shoelaces for their coach.

"There were so many times I felt like giving up," forward Khadijah Whittington said after the Wolfpack's loss to Connecticut in the 2007 NCAA tournament's round of 16, "and then I see Coach Yow and she never gives up."

Yow always found ways to keep coaching even as she fought the disease. She spent most of games during that emotional 2007 run sitting on the bench while Glance stood to shout instructions at players or to help a weakened Yow to her feet.

"She's the Iron Woman, with the Lord's help," Glance said.

Yow was quick to embrace her role as an example for others battling the disease. She often found herself going about her daily activities in Raleigh only to have someone stop her and say they were praying for her or that she was an inspiration to them.

"When they say that, it really gives me a lift because it's at that time I know for sure that I'm not going through it for nothing," Yow said in 2007. "That means a lot to me. I have to go through it. I accept that, and I'm not panicked about it because the Lord is in control. But it just would be so saddening if I had to go through it and I couldn't help people.

Born March 14, 1942, Sandra Kay Yow originally took up coaching to secure a job teaching high school English at Allen Jay High School in High Point in the 1960s. Her boss, along with the boys' coach, agreed to help her plan practices and to sit on the bench with her during games. Midway through the season, Yow was on her own.

"Really, it was like love at first sight," she said in 2004.

She spent four years there followed by another year in her hometown at Gibsonville High, compiling a 92-27 record. She moved on to Elon, going 57-19 in four seasons before being hired at N.C. State in 1975.

Her original cancer diagnosis came the year before coaching the United States to the gold in the Seoul Olympics. She had a mastectomy as part of her treatment, then discovered a lump in November 2004 close to where cancer was first discovered. She had surgery that December and started on a regimen of radiation and daily hormone therapy. Still, the cancer came back again and again.

She missed two games of the 2004-05 season while attending an eight-day nutritional modification program, which called on her to eat an organic-food diet free of meat, dairy products and sugar. She stayed on the diet for eight months, losing 40 pounds by keeping junk food and Southern favorites like biscuits and gravy off her menu.

Still, she cheated on her organic diet during home recruiting visits because she didn't want to offend anyone by passing on a home-cooked meal.

Over the years, Yow never lost her folksy, easygoing manner and refused to dwell on her health issues, though they colored everything she did almost as much as basketball. Ultimately, her philosophy on both were the same.

"If you start to dwell on the wrong things, it'll take you down fast," Yow said in '07. "Every morning, I wake up and the first thing I think of is I'm thankful. I'm thankful for another day."


Thank you Ms. Yow for inspiring many along the way.

 

[KindaKinky]

John Updike, prize-winning writer, dead at age 76

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Tue Jan 27, 3:42 pm ET

NEW YORK – John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.

Updike, best known for his four "Rabbit" novels, died of lung cancer at a hospice near his home in Beverly Farms, Mass., according to his longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.

A literary writer who frequently appeared on best-seller lists, the tall, hawk-nosed Updike wrote novels, short stories, poems, criticism, the memoir "Self-Consciousness" and even a famous essay about baseball great Ted Williams.

He released more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s, winning virtually every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest," and two National Book Awards.

Although himself deprived of a Nobel, he did bestow it upon one of his fictional characters, Henry Bech, the womanizing, egotistical Jewish novelist who collected the literature prize in 1999.

His settings ranged from the court of "Hamlet" to postcolonial Africa, but his literary home was the American suburb, the great new territory of mid-century fiction.

Born in 1932, Updike spoke for millions of Depression-era readers raised by "penny-pinching parents," united by "the patriotic cohesion of World War II" and blessed by a "disproportionate share of the world's resources," the postwar, suburban boom of "idealistic careers and early marriages."

He captured, and sometimes embodied, a generation's confusion over the civil rights and women's movements, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Updike was called a misogynist, a racist and an apologist for the establishment.

On purely literary grounds, he was attacked by Norman Mailer as the kind of author appreciated by readers who knew nothing about writing. Last year, judges of Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction Prize voted Updike lifetime achievement honors.

But more often he was praised for his flowing, poetic writing style. Describing a man's interrupted quest to make love, Updike likened it "to a small angel to which all afternoon tiny lead weights are attached."

Nothing was too great or too small for Updike to poeticize. He might rhapsodize over the film projector's "chuckling whir" or look to the stars and observe that "the universe is perfectly transparent: we exist as flaws in ancient glass."

Author Joyce Carol Oates, a friend of Updike's, said there was a "luminosity in John's style that was just extraordinary. He also had a wonderful, warm, sympathetic sense of humor which people didn't always notice."

In the richest detail, his books recorded the extremes of earthly desire and spiritual zealotry, whether the comic philandering of the preacher in "A Month of Sundays" or the steady rage of the young Muslim in "Terrorist."

Raised in the Protestant community of Shillington, Pa., where the Lord's Prayer was recited daily at school, Updike was a lifelong churchgoer influenced by his faith, but not immune to doubts.

"I remember the times when I was wrestling with these issues that I would feel crushed. I was crushed by the purely materialistic, atheistic account of the universe," Updike told The Associated Press during a 2006 interview.

"I am very prone to accept all that the scientists tell us, the truth of it, the authority of the efforts of all the men and woman spent trying to understand more about atoms and molecules. But I can't quite make the leap of unfaith, as it were, and say, `This is it. Carpe diem (seize the day), and tough luck.'"

He received his greatest acclaim for the "Rabbit" series, a quartet of novels published over a 30-year span that featured ex-high school basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom and his restless adjustment to adulthood and the constraints of work and family. To the very end, Harry was in motion, an innocent in his belief that any door could be opened, a believer in God even as he bedded women other than his wife.

The series "to me is the tale of a life, a life led by an American citizen who shares the national passion for youth, freedom, and sex, the national openness and willingness to learn, the national habit of improvisation," Updike would later write. "He is furthermore a Protestant, haunted by a God whose manifestations are elusive, yet all-important."

Other notable books included "Couples," a sexually explicit tale of suburban mating that sold millions of copies; "In the Beauty of the Lilies," an epic of American faith and fantasy; and "Too Far to Go," which followed the courtship, marriage and divorce of the Maples, a suburban couple with parallels to Updike's own first marriage.

Updike's "The Witches of Eastwick," released in 1984, was later made into a film of the same name starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon.

Plagued from an early age by asthma, psoriasis and a stammer, he found creative outlets in drawing and writing. Updike was born in Reading, Pa., his mother a department store worker who longed to write, his father a high school teacher remembered with sadness and affection in "The Centaur," a novel published in 1964. The author brooded over his father's low pay and mocking students, but also wrote of a childhood of "warm and action-packed houses that accommodated the presence of a stranger, my strange ambition to be glamorous."

For Updike, the high life meant books, such as the volumes of P.G. Wodehouse and Robert Benchley he borrowed from the library as a child, or, as he later recalled, the "chastely severe, time-honored classics" he read in his dorm room at Harvard University, leaning back in his "wooden Harvard chair," cigarette in hand.

While studying on full scholarship at Harvard, he headed the staff of the Harvard Lampoon and met the woman who became his first wife, Mary Entwistle Pennington, whom he married in June 1953, a year before he earned his A.B. degree summa cum laude. (Updike divorced Pennington in 1975 and was remarried two years later, to Martha Bernhard. He had four children).

After graduating, he accepted a one-year fellowship to study painting at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts at Oxford University. During his stay in England, a literary idol, E.B. White, offered him a position at The New Yorker, where he served briefly as foreign books reviewer. Many of Updike's reviews and short stories were published in The New Yorker, often edited by White's stepson, Roger Angell.

"No writer was more important to the soul of The New Yorker than John," New Yorker editor David Remnick said in a statement. "We adored him. He was, for so long, the spirit of The New Yorker and it is very hard to imagine things without him."

By the end of the 1950s, Updike had published a story collection, a book of poetry and his first novel, "The Poorhouse Fair," soon followed by the first of the Rabbit books, "Rabbit, Run." Praise came so early and so often that New York Times critic Arthur Mizener worried that Updike's "natural talent" was exposing him "from an early age to a great deal of head-turning praise."

Updike learned to write about everyday life by, in part, living it. In 1957, he left New York, with its "cultural hassle" and melting pot of "agents and wisenheimers," and settled with his first wife and four kids in Ipswich, Mass, a "rather out-of-the-way town" about 30 miles north of Boston.

"The real America seemed to me 'out there,' too heterogeneous and electrified by now to pose much threat of the provinciality that people used to come to New York to escape," Updike later wrote.

"There were also practical attractions: free parking for my car, public education for my children, a beach to tan my skin on, a church to attend without seeming too strange."

In recent years, his books included "The Widows of Eastwick," a sequel to "The Witches of Eastwick"; and two essay collections, "Still Looking" and "Due Considerations." A book of short fiction, "My Father's Tears and Other Stories," is scheduled to come out later this year.

His standing within the literary community may never have been greater than in 2006 when he delivered a passionate defense of bookstores and words, words on paper, at publishing's annual national convention. Responding to a recent New York Times essay predicting a digital future, he scorned this "pretty grisly scenario" and praised the paper book as the site of an "encounter, in silence, of two minds."

"So, booksellers, defend your lonely forts," he concluded.

His speech was applauded, discussed and widely quoted, far more than the talk given at the same breakfast gathering by then-Sen. Barack Obama.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Ex-pitcher Ellis dies of liver disease

Dock Ellis, the former major league pitcher best remembered for his flamboyance and social activism as a member of the great Pittsburgh Pirates teams of the 1970s, died of a liver ailment in California, his former agent, Tom Reich, confirmed. Ellis was 63.

His wife, Hjordis, told The Assocaited Press he died at the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"It's a tremendous loss to the family," she said. "He's been struggling for about a year with the end stages of liver disease."

In his autobiography, "Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball,'' Ellis revealed that he threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in June 1970 while under the influence of LSD.

In May 1974 -- in an effort to inspire a lifeless Pittsburgh team -- Ellis drilled Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Dan Driessen in the top of the first inning. After walking Tony Perez, Ellis threw a pitch near Johnny Bench's head and was lifted from the game by manager Danny Murtaugh.

Ellis also gave up Reggie Jackson's memorable home run off the Tiger Stadium light tower in the 1971 All-Star Game in Detroit.

Off the field, Ellis spoke freely about racial issues, once telling reporters that he wouldn't start against Oakland's Vida Blue in the All-Star Game because Major League Baseball would never start "two soul brothers'' against each other.

Ellis went 19-9 in 1971 for the Pirates, who beat the Orioles in the World Series."Dock Ellis was my first client in baseball, and he gave me as much joy as anybody outside of my family," Reich said. "He was so unique. He was viewed by some people as an outlaw, but he was far from that. He was so ahead of his time. He was so intuitive and smart and talented and independent. And he wasn't about to roll over for the incredible prejudices that existed at the time.

"He was a very special person and he had an absolute army of fans and friends. He was at the cutting edge of so many issues, and he never backed down. I was proud to be his friend and stand with him."

Ellis suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and was placed on a list to receive a liver transplant in May. The Los Angeles Times wrote that Ellis had no health insurance, but received help paying his medical bills from friends in baseball.

Bill Scaringe, an agent who represented Ellis after he retired, said Ellis worked for years in the California department of corrections helping inmates transition from prison back to the community. He also ran a drug counseling center in Los Angeles.

"It's very disheartening," Scaringe said. "Dock was such a likeable person -- very gregarious, very outgoing. I would set up personal appearances for him, and after like 30 seconds, people were like relatives or neighbors. Dock was very easy to talk to. He was just a pleasure to be around."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell dies

(CNN) -- Billy Powell, keyboardist with the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died of a heart ailment at his condo in the Jacksonville, Florida, suburb of Orange Park, police said. He was 56.

More than 40 fans left messages on a fan Web site.

According to Orange Park Police Lt. Mark Cornett, Powell called 911 around midnight Tuesday from his condo at the Club Continental, complaining about chest pains.

"When paramedics and police arrived, they found him unresponsive on the bed," Cornett said. Powell was pronounced dead at the scene, and his cardiologist signed the death certificate at 1:52 a.m. ET Wednesday.

According to the officer, Powell missed an appointment with the same doctor on Tuesday.

Powell joined the original Skynyrd band in 1972, but he worked for the Jacksonville, Florida-based band for several years before that as a crew member.

Among the Southern rock band's acclaimed songs are "What's Your Name," "Freebird" and "Sweet Home Alabama," all released in the 1970s. "Sweet Home Alabama" reached the top 10 in 1974.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Two years after the plane crash, Powell, Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Leon Wilkeson formed the Rossington-Collins Band. It broke up in 1982.

A new Lynyrd Skynyrd band formed in 1987 and included Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie's brother. It began a tour in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the plane was headed when it crashed. The band's last album, "Vicious Cycle," came out in 2003.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

John Martyn

LONDON (AP) — British singer-songwriter John Martyn, whose soulful songs were covered by the likes of Eric Clapton, died Thursday. He was 60.

Martyn's official Web site said the musician, who lived in Ireland, died, but it did not give a cause of death.

A skilled guitarist and earthy vocalist influenced by folk, blues and jazz, Martyn performed with — and was admired by — musicians including Clapton, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and Phil Collins.

He took up the guitar in his teens, moved to London and released a series of enduring albums, including "The Road to Ruin" and "Solid Air," regarded by some critics as one of the best British albums of the 1970s.

Martyn never became a household name, but his songs were praised by critics and highly regarded by other musicians. One of the best known, "May You Never," was recorded by Clapton and a host of other artists.

Martyn had a reputation as a hell-raiser and acknowledged that alcohol and drugs had sometimes led him into trouble.

Martyn had suffered health problems in recent years, and in 2003 had a leg amputated below the knee because of a burst cyst. He continued to perform, appearing at last year's Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow.

Last month, Martyn was named an OBE — Officer of the Order of the British Empire — by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to music.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'One Life to Live' Actor Clint Ritchie Dies

(Feb. 2) - Soap opera veteran Clint Ritchie, who for two decades starred as a plain-spoken ranch owner on 'One Life to Live,' died on Saturday just hours after getting a pacemaker implanted, a friend of that actor told Radar Online. He was 70.

The star's pal and bookkeeper, Linda Honore, said Ritchie "had been sick for awhile." He suffered a heart attack in late January, and had the pacemaker installed.

Ritchie played Clint Buchanan on the long-running ABC soap. He joined the cast in 1979 and last made an appearance in 2004. The role was recast.

The actor never married and has no children. He lived on a 60-acre ranch near Sacramento.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Carnegie Deli Owner Milton Parker Dies

The owner of New York's iconic Carnegie Deli has died at the age of 90.

Milton Parker, who learned the deli business at an age when many men were retiring, died Friday from a respiratory condition, his son-in-law tells AOL Food.

"He took a little local restaurant and built it into a national [one]," Sandy Levine said Wednesday.

Parker joined the Carnegie Deli at the age of 58, transforming the 1937 delicatessen into a tourist favorite with his business partner, Leo Steiner.

"At the age of 58, he took the night shift -- we call it the graveyard shift -- so he could learn every facet of business," Levine said.

The deli found the limelight; Woody Allen used it as a setting in part of "Broadway Danny Rose."

Today diners flock to the deli to nosh on open-faced sandwiches named Hamalot (Virginia ham with gravy and candied sweets) and Li'l Abner (beef brisket with gravy and fries) as well as traditional favorites with even more fanciful names: Fifty Ways to Love Your Liver (chopped liver, hard-boiled egg, onion, lettuce, tomato), Carnegie Haul (pastrami, tongue and salami with relish) and Bacon Whoopee (chicken salad with bacon, lettuce and tomato).

And no one loved the menu more than Parker.

"His favorite part was eating; his passion was eating," Levine said. "He would start off eating a foot-long frankfurter before he had his meal."

Steiner died in the late 1980s, but Parker pressed on with the deli. Carnegie produces its own meats at a facility in New Jersey. "We eliminated the middleman so we could get a perfect product," Levine said.

Fans of the deli's My Fair Latkes needn't worry. Closing the deli would have been the last thing Parker wanted, his family said.

"His life was the Carnegie Deli," Levine said.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Cramps Frontman Lux Interior, Godfather of Psychobilly, Dies at 62

After spending more than 30 years freaking out the squares, Lux Interior, the flamboyant lead singer of the Cramps, passed away on Wednesday morning due to an existing heart condition. He was 62.

Interior, born Erick Purkhiser outside Akron, Ohio, and his wife, Poison Ivy Rorschach (nee Kristy Wallace), formed the Cramps together in 1976. The legend goes that they met in the early '70s when he picked her up as a hitchhiker in Sacramento, Calif. After a brief spell back in Akron, they moved to New York City to be a part of the punk scene that was bursting out of the legendary dives CBGB's and Max's Kansas City.

However, with their heavy rockabilly influence combined with their love of other 1950s trash culture iconography such as grade-Z horror flicks and lurid EC comics, married with Alice Cooper's antics and the Stooges' bravado, the Cramps somehow turned out to be genuine originals. The band called their unique style "psychobilly," and it had a measurable impact on garage punk, shock rock and the rockabilly revival of the '80s. The Cramps went through personnel almost as fast as they went through record labels, with Interior and Rorschach remaining the only constant.

Interior was as infamous for his onstage antics as much as his howling yelp and was even known on occasion to projectile vomit into an adoring crowd. His memory will be kept alive not only through the Cramps' extensive discography, the throngs of bands they influenced and an entire breed of feral frontmen following in his footsteps but also through a bass drum on display in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his former home state -- customized by Interior when he smashed his head through

 

[KindaKinky]

I was watching Morrissey perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live. At the end of the song he gave a Lux a shout out.

I hoped it wasn't what I thought it meant. But it was. (FYI: Haven't been on Lit all day.)

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Buffalo Springfield Drummer Dewey Martin Dies at 68

Dewey Martin, a first-rate drummer who supplied the attack behind the songs of Stephen Stills and Neil Young in Buffalo Springfield, died on Jan. 31, of unknown causes. He was 68.

Martin, who was born in Canada as Walter Milton Dwayne Midkiff, started off his professional career as a session drummer in Nashville in the early '60s before moving to Los Angeles, where he kept the beat for several local combos. He joined the just-formed Buffalo Springfield in 1966, remaining in the group for the entirety of its brief yet influential two-year existence.

The group, which also included Richie Furay and Bruce Palmer, got its start in Los Angeles and promptly went to work on a sound that meshed rock, country and folk. The band's first single was also their lone top 10 hit. 'For What It's Worth' remains a staple of classic rock radio and a snapshot of the Vietnam era.

Other songs by the band include 'Mr. Soul,' 'Bluebird' and 'Kind Woman.' They called it quits after third album, but it was just the beginning for Young and Stills, who have enjoyed an off-and-on musical partnership for the last 40 years. Furay went on to form Poco. Martin tried in vain to keep the band alive after its split, recruiting members for the New Buffalo Springfield. Lawsuits from Young and Stills put a stop to that. Buffalo Springfield was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997

 

[JennyOmanHill]

James Whitmore

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=638866&highlight=james+whitmore



http://www.washington.org/ComeOutToPlay/Trying.png

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Soap actor Phil Carey dies at age 83 in NYC

http://www.thesoapdispenser.com/images/gallery/phil-carey-pic.jpg


NEW YORK (AP) — Phil Carey, best known for his role as business tycoon Asa Buchanan in the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live," has died. He was 83.

Carey died at his New York City home Friday following a battle with lung cancer, according to ABC network officials.

"His presence will always be a part of 'One Life to Live,'" said Frank Valentini, the show's executive producer. "The best way to describe Phil was bigger than life. Like Asa, he possessed an undeniable quality that drew you to him."

Born Eugene Joseph Carey on July 15, 1925, in Hackensack, N.J., Cary began his film career with a part in "Operation Pacific," starring John Wayne.

This led to contracts with Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures and starring roles with some of Hollywood's legendary actors, including Gary Cooper in "Springfield Rifle," Henry Fonda in "Mister Roberts," Peter Fonda in "Fighting Mad" and Tyrone Power in "The Long Gray Line." He also starred with Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak in "Pushover."

Carey's prime-time television credits include starring roles in "Philip Marlowe," "Laredo" and "The Untamed World." Guest-star appearances include "Gunsmoke," "All in the Family," "Little House on the Prairie," and "Police Woman."

Additionally he toured in such stage plays as Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" and "Cyrano de Bergerac."

Carey originated the role of Asa Buchanan in 1980 and played the billionaire tycoon until the character died in his sleep in August 2007. But Carey was brought back in video wills and was last seen on the show on Dec. 29.

He is survived by his wife, Colleen, and their two children, Shannon and Sean, as well his three children — Lisa, Linda and Jeff — from a previous marriage.

The death comes a few weeks after the passing away of another former "One Life to Live" cast member, Clint Ritchie, who originated the role of Clint Buchanan.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez

Cuban bassist who shot to international fame as one of the Buena Vista Social Club players

Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez , the double bass player who has died aged 76, was known as "the heartbeat of the Buena Vista Social Club", and it was with this hugely successful group of Cuban musicians, assembled in 1996 by the UK label World Circuit, that he made his greatest international impact.

Their renown was greatly amplified by Wim Wenders's 1998 film Buena Vista Social Club, in which Cachaito appeared and was interviewed along with other members of the band.

Unlike many of the older members of the multi-generational outfit, however, Cachaito was not brought out of obscurity or retirement – he had been a playing as a professional continuously since the late 1940s.

A quiet, self-effacing man whose trademarks were his keen ability to listen to and interact with other players – in particular pianists – Cachaito was notable for his extraordinary versatility and open-mindedness, marrying technical precision with a keen sense of swing. His diverse professional experience over six decades meant that he was equally at home playing classical music, pop, Afro-Cuban jazz, and son (one of the building blocks of salsa).

Parallel with his performing career, he spent a total of 32 years passing on his skills to younger bass players at the Conservatorio Guillermo Tomas.

His nickname means "Little Cachao", a reference to his uncle, Israel "Cachao" Lopez. It was he who, along with Cachaito's father, Orestes Lopez, introduced the ritmo nuevo ("new rhythm") in the late 1930s, Africanising the somewhat staid danzon style (a European-derived formal salon dance) then popular. This development laid the foundations of the mambo, which swept the US in the early 1950s.

Born in Havana on February 2 1933 into a musical dynasty famous for the large number of bass players it had produced (allegedly more than 30), Cachaito was always surrounded by music. Encouraged to take up bass by his grandfather Pedro, he began to play at the age of nine in the danzon group of his aunt Coralia. He father regularly took him along to classical radio sessions as well as rehearsals with the danzon orchestra Arcano y sus Maravillas, with whom Orestes played cello and Israel played bass.

At 13, Cachaito composed his first piece, Isora Infantil, and formed his own charanga (flute and strings) group. By the time he was 17, he had taken over from his uncle as Arcano's bassist, and there followed stints in the cabaret orchestra Bamboo from 1952 and then with the big band Riverside from 1957. He also took a keen interest in American jazz, and would later cite Charlie Mingus and Ray Brown as key influences.

It was also from this time onwards that he began to meet many of the musicians who would subsequently join the Buena Vista Social Club – moonlighting with the likes of "Buena Vista Sister" Omara Portuondo at the famed Tropicana club, and the pianist Ruben Gonzalez.

During the 1960s, he played with various symphonic orquestras and also guested with the vocal group Los Zafiros, who included the guitarist Manuel Galban. In 1963, he formed the jazz quintet Grupo Los Amigos (with Tata Guines) and from 1967, he was part of Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, with trumpeter Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal and Chucho Valdes. The latter founded Afro-Cuban jazz luminaries Irakere in 1973, with whom Cachaito also worked regularly in subsequent decades.

Cachaito was unique in being the only musician to play on every track of every album in the Buena Vista Social Club series of albums, which began with the simultaneous 1997 release of Introducing Ruben Gonzalez, A Toda Cuba le Gusta and Buena Vista Social Club.

Together, these three seminal works kick-started a renaissance in Cuban music and have now sold around 10 million copies. Cachaito was also a regular fixture on the extensive tours with the groups of Ruben González and Ibrahim Ferrer in subsequent years.

Orlando Cachaito Lopez, who died on February 9, is survived by his wife Anaïs and two daughters.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

X Games Gold Medalist Dies at 24

Jeremy Lusk, an American freestyle motocross racer, died of head injuries on Tuesday after crashing while trying to land a backflip in competition. He was 24.

Jorge Ramirez, chief of the intensive care unit at Calderon Hospital where Lusk was put into a medicine-induced coma, said the motocross racer suffered severe brain damage and a possible spinal cord injury.

Lusk won a gold medal at the 2008 X Games. He was injured on Saturday when he failed to complete a full rotation while attempting a Hart Attack backflip and slammed headfirst into the dirt. Lusk crashed in almost identical fashion in the freestyle semifinals at the 2007 X Games but was not hurt.

He had a successful 2008 season, winning freestyle gold at the X Games and silver in best trick when he landed the first double-grab Hart Attack backflip. He won a bronze helmet in freestyle at the Moto X World Championships in his hometown of San Diego.

Ramirez said Lusk died with his parents and his wife, Lauren, at his side.
Lusk lived in Temecula, California.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Former teen country star Molly Bee dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Molly Bee, the country singer who shot to fame at age 13 with the 1952 novelty hit "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," has died of complications following a stroke. She was 69.

Bee died Saturday at a hospital in Oceanside, her manager, Rick Saphire, told The Associated Press. She had been in failing health for several months, Saphire said Wednesday.

Bee was just 10 when she started her music career, singing the Hank Williams classic "Lovesick Blues" on country star Rex Allen's radio show. He had met her and her mother at one of his concerts and was impressed when she sang a song for him.

Three years later, the blond girl with the sweet-honey voice was a star herself, with a hit song and a regular role on "Hometown Jamboree," a popular Los Angeles country-western TV show.

She made her movie debut in 1954 in "Corral Cuties," opposite country star Tennessee Ernie Ford, with whom she had recorded the duet "Don't Go Courtin' in a Hot Rod Ford" the year before.

She also appeared in the films "Going Steady," "Chartroose Caboose" and "The Young Swingers," and recorded such songs as "Young Romance," "5 Points of a Star" and "Don't Look Back."

She also had a regular role on Ford's TV variety show and played Pinky Lee's sidekick on "The Pinky Lee Show," one of the most popular children's programs of the 1950s.

"She just had this kind of down-home quality about her. There was nothing phony about her, it was all real, and everyone loved her," actress Beverly Washburn told the AP. The two had appeared as sisters in the 1958 teen musical comedy "Summer Love."

Bee's career began to fade by the late 1960s, however, and in later years she was candid in saying a period of drug abuse was one of the reasons.

Her personal life also was at times tumultuous. She was married five times.

She made a comeback in the 1970s, playing small country bars that were very different from the large concert audiences she had once attracted. Slowly she rebuilt her audience, releasing the albums "Good Golly Ms. Molly" in 1975 and "Sounds Fine to Me" in 1982. More recently she appeared from time to time at autograph shows.

Molly Gene Beachboard was born on Aug. 18, 1939, in Oklahoma City and raised in Tennessee and Arizona before moving to Los Angeles with her family at age 11.

She is survived by daughters Lia Genn and Bobbi Carey; a son, Michael Allen; a brother, Robert Beachboard; and four grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Estelle Bennett, member of The Ronettes, dies

NEW YORK (AP) — Estelle Bennett, one of the Ronettes, the singing trio whose 1963 hit "Be My Baby" epitomized the famed "wall of sound" technique of its producer, Phil Spector, has died at her home in Englewood, N.J. She was 67.

Bennett's brother-in-law, Jonathan Greenfield, said police found her dead in her apartment on Wednesday after relatives had been unable to contact her. The time and cause of death have not yet been determined. Greenfield is the manager and husband of Bennett's sister, Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector.

The Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007; its Web site hails the group as "the premier act of the girl group era." Among their admirers were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; their exotic hairstyles and makeup are aped by Amy Winehouse.

The Ronettes — sisters Veronica "Ronnie" and Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley — signed with Spector's Philles Records in 1963.

Their recording of "Be My Baby" hit No. 2 on Billboard magazine's pop music chart that year. Among their other hits were "Walkin' in the Rain" and "Baby I Love You."

They also did a memorable version of "Sleigh Ride" that appeared on Spector's "A Christmas Gift for You" album. Their last Philles single was "I Can Hear Music" in 1966.

The songs feature Spector's elaborate arrangements that blend many instruments into a smooth, pulsating "wall."

"They could sing all their way right through a wall of sound," Keith Richards of the Stones said as the Ronettes were inducted into the rock hall. "They didn't need anything. They touched my heart right there and then and they touch it still."

But their string of hits had tailed off by the time they split around 1967.

Ronnie Bennett had married Spector in 1968 but they divorced six years later.

Greenfield said Ronnie Spector was devastated over her sister's death.

"Estelle was Ronnie's sidekick in the Ronettes," Greenfield, of Newbury, Conn., said Thursday from New York. "She was very much into fashion and worked with Ronnie on the whole look and style of the Ronettes."

After the group's breakup, Bennett rarely made public appearances.

For nearly 15 years, the women waged a lengthy, and ultimately unsuccessful, court battle with Spector over royalties.

They sued Spector in the late 1980s, saying he had cheated them out of royalties by using their music in ways not authorized by the their recording contract. For example, "Be My Baby" was played in the opening credits of the smash 1987 movie "Dirty Dancing."

A trial was held in 1998, and in 2000, the judge ordered Spector to pay $2.6 million in past royalties and interest for the use of Ronettes songs as background music in movies, videocassette recordings, and advertising.

But New York State's highest court threw out that ruling on appeal in 2002. The judges noted that the contract did not actually mention secondary rights to the use of music, so-called "synchronization rights," which are a more modern phenomenon in the entertainment industry. But under New York state contract law, the court said, the singers did not control those rights unless their contract specifically said they did.

At the group's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2007, Ronnie Spector did not mention her ex-husband, but he sent a note that was read at the ceremony saying, "I wish them all the happiness and good fortune the world has to offer."

In recent years, Phil Spector has been battling criminal charges in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.

Bennett was born in 1941, her sister in 1943 and Talley in 1945, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Web site.

According to the book "He's a Rebel," a biography of Phil Spector by Mark Ribowsky, the Ronettes first began performing as the Darling Sisters and later worked as dancers at New York's Peppermint Lounge, the epicenter of the early 1960s dance craze, the Twist.

Their first recording contract, with Colpix, went nowhere, but then they were signed by Spector.

In addition to her sister, Bennett is survived by a daughter, Toyin Hunter of Santa Monica, Calif., and three grandsons.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Carolyn George d'Amboise

Carolyn George d'Amboise, Former Dancer Who Helped Inspire Kids With Dance, Has Died

Carolyn George d'Amboise, a former dancer married to New York City Ballet star Jacques d'Amboise, died Feb. 10 at the couple's Manhattan home after a battle with primary lateral sclerosis. She was 81.

A ballet and Broadway dancer who performed as Carolyn George (in On Your Toes in 1954 and Shinbone Alley in 1957), she is the mother of Broadway and ballet dancers Charlotte d'Amboise (A Chorus Line, Chicago) and Christopher d'Amboise (Song and Dance), and son George and daughter Catherine.

The Dallas native danced with the San Francisco Ballet in the late 1940s and in Broadway choruses, as well as at the New York City Ballet. She met Jacques d'Amboise in the NYCB troupe. They married in 1956.

Ms. d'Amboise took up photography (including photographing dance) after she retired from dance, and her work has been published.

In 1976 the d'Amboises created the National Dance Institute, which engages kids and community members in the joy of dance. Another dance exercise group, Carrie's Mob, taken from her nickname, continues today.

She is survived by her husband and four children

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Jazz Drummer Louis Bellson Dies at 84

Jazz drummer Louis Bellson, who appeared on more than 200 albums over 60 years, including those by Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, died Saturday from complications of Parkinson's disease. He was 84.

Born in 1924, Bellson learned to play drums as a child after first hearing the instrument at a parade. Taught by his father, he pioneered the use of a second bass drum in his kit and won the Slingerland National Gene Krupa drumming contest at the age of 17.

As a professional, Bellson wrote over 1,000 songs and arrangements, wrote over a dozen books and played on albums with the aforementioned artists, as well as Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. On top of that, he led many of his own big bands over his career, occasionally having one on each coast simultaneously.

He met his late wife, famed singer Pearl Bailey, through Duke Ellington, and married her in 1952. The couple had one child, a daughter, Deedee, before Bailey died in 1990 at 72.

Bellson has been inducted into both the Modern Drummer and Percussive Arts Society Halls of Fame. In 1994, the National Endowment for the Arts named him a "master of jazz," calling him one of "the foremost big-band drummers of the swing and post-swing eras." His last recording was an album with Clark Terry and his big band, called 'Louie & Clark Expedition 2.'

 

[NaughtyLil1]

ELO bass player Kelly Groucutt dead at 63

LONDON (AP) -- Kelly Groucutt, former bass player with 1970s rock hitmakers ELO, has died at age 63.

Groucutt's management said the musician died Thursday in Worcester, central England, after having a heart attack.

Formed in Birmingham, England, in 1971 by local musicians Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood, ELO — short for Electric Light Orchestra — combined rock 'n' roll with orchestral arrangements replete with string sections, choirs and symphonic sweep.

Groucutt joined ELO in 1974 after leaving his previous band, Sight and Sound. He played bass and sang during ELO's heyday as one of the world's biggest rock acts. ELO had a string of British and U.S. chart hits during the 1970s and early 1980s, including "Livin' Thing," "Mr. Blue Sky" and "Don't Bring Me Down."

Groucutt left the band in 1983 but later toured with several successor acts, including ELO Part II and The Orchestra.

He is survived by his wife Anna and four children.

"It is with great sadness that I have to inform the fans that Kelly Groucutt died on the afternoon of 19th February 2009 of a heart attack," a representative for the artist posted on his official website. "Our hearts and thoughts go out to Anna and Kelly's family. He touched all of our lives with his love, kindness and generosity as well as his talent for music and song. He was a true and wonderful friend who loved every second of life and he will be greatly missed by us all."