Literotica Cemetary

[Beco]

Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin dies at 85

WASHINGTON — Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin has died. He was 85.

His death was announced by his company, Washington Sports&Entertainment. He died Tuesday but no details were disclosed.

Pollin, the NBA's longest-tenured owner, suffered from a rare brain disorder that impairs movement and balance. He had heart bypass surgery in 2005.

Pollin tried to run his pro sports teams like a family business. He bemoaned the runaway salaries of free agency and said it would have been difficult for him to keep the Wizards if it weren't for the NBA's salary cap.

His Washington-area sports empire began when he purchased the Baltimore Bullets in 1964. The Bullets, since renamed the Wizards,won the 1978 NBA title.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actor Dennis Cole dead at 69

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From wire service reports
Posted: 11/17/2009 07:29:28 AM PST

Funeral services were pending today for Dennis Cole, a former stuntman and actor who was once married to "Charlie's Angels" star Jaclyn Smith.

Cole died Sunday at a Florida hospital at age 69, according to his Los Angeles-based publicist, Edward Lozzi.

The cause of death was not immediately released.

Cole lived in Ft. Lauderdale, where he had worked as a real estate broker in recent years, Lozzi said.

Along with stunt work, Cole is best known for athletic guest appearances in such 1970s television series as "The Love Boat," "Charlie's Angels," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Baywatch."

It was a cameo on "Charlie's Angels" that led to Cole meeting and marrying Smith in 1978. The couple were the subject of intense media scrutiny until their breakup and divorce in 1981.

Later, Cole performed his own musical review at showrooms in Hollywood and Las Vegas, and appeared in theatrical productions of "Victor/Victoria" and "Blood Brothers," according to his Web site.

Cole's only child was shot and killed in 1991 at the age of 30. Joe Cole was working as a roadie for the rock band Black Flag and was the victim of a robbery as he and singer Henry Rollins returned to the Venice-area house they shared.

As a result of his son's still-unsolved murder, Cole thereafter refused to appear in any project that contained violence -- a decision that "was the kiss of death for his career," Lozzi said.

Cole teamed with the family of murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson on a foundation to increase awareness for crime victims, Lozzi said.
He moved to Florida about nine years ago, where he married and recently divorced Ree Cole, who survives him, as does a brother, Richard.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Canadian Soul Singer Haydain Neale of Jacksoul Dies of Lung Cancer

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Juno Award-winning jacksoul singer Haydain Neale passed away Sunday in Toronto's Mount Sinai hospital, following a private battle with lung cancer, surrounded by family and friends.

The 39-year-old had spent the last two years in rehabilitation from severe head injuries after being struck by a car while riding his Vespa scooter in August 2007. Though not publicly disclosed, Neale had also been struggling with lung cancer over the past seven months.

"Through all these challenges, Haydain's sense of humour and love of music were ever-present. He constantly brightened the room with his singing and his smile. His joyful presence and beautiful voice will be missed by us all," said his wife Michaela in a statement.

Still, Neale's death comes as a shock to his fans as the singer had recently been able to complete the recording of songs he'd begun prior to his accident. "It takes me more time now," he said in a recent record label statement, "but I still orchestrate the room." Earlier this month, jacksoul released their long-awaited new single, 'Lonesome Highway,' and the group's 5th album, 'SOULmate,' was scheduled for release Dec. 1.

Previous jacksoul albums 'Sleepless' and 'mySoul' won R&B/Soul Recording of the Year Junos in 2001 and 2007, among other awards. The band's biggest hits included 'Can't Stop' and 'Still Believe in Love' and they were also known for recording soul covers of alternative tracks by the likes of Radiohead, Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins.

"That guy just exuded what it is to be a really cool, down to earth, just amazing individual," Toronto rapper Kardinal Offishall told The Canadian Press in reaction to the news. "Wow. Canada really lost something special."

An internment and private family gathering will take place later this week and proceeds from the sale of 'SOULmate' will go to the Haydain Neale Family Trust.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Henrich, oldest living Yankee, passes away

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NEW YORK -- The oldest living Yankee, outfielder Tommy Henrich, died early Tuesday morning in Dayton, Ohio. He was 96.

Henrich, a five-time All-Star and seven-time World Series champion, hit .282 with 183 home runs over an 11-year career with the Yankees. If not for the parts of four years he spent serving for the U.S. Coast Guard in World War II, Henrich, known as "Old Reliable," may have won even more than his seven titles.

"Tommy was a darn good ballplayer and teammate," Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, Henrich's teammate for five seasons, said in a statement. "He always took being a Yankee to heart. He won a lot of championships and did whatever he could to help us win. When I came up in 1947, he taught me little nuances about playing the outfield.

"Being around Tommy made you feel good, whether playing cards or listening to him sing with that great voice. He was a proud man, and if you knew him, he made you proud too."

Henrich, as Berra alluded, was best known for his exploits in October. In 1949, Henrich hit the first walk-off home run in World Series history off Brooklyn's Don Newcombe, accounting for the only run in a 1-0 victory over the Dodgers.

"Tommy was a terrific player," Bobby Brown, also Henrich's teammate for five seasons, said in a statement. "What made him so special was that he always played well in big games. You get him in a close or important game and he would always show up ready to play. It seemed like he never made any mistakes in the outfield. He was a true professional and an ultimate Yankee."

Henrich twice led the American League in triples, four times scored more than 100 runs and twice finished in the top six in MVP voting.

"They called him 'Old Reliable,' and he was just that," teammate Jerry Coleman said in a statement. "My first year with him was 1949, and it seemed like every home run he hit won the game. His career stats might not show it, but he was a great clutch player. When he hit, it counted. He was also a fine defensive player in the outfield."

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Virgil Trucks is now believed to be the oldest living Yankee. Trucks, 92, played in just 25 games for New York, all in 1958.

Henrich's family will hold a private memorial service on Saturday. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that a donation be made in Henrich's name to the Baseball Assistance Team, which aims to aid those members of the baseball community in need of financial, psychological and physical support.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Scranton native credited with writing famed "Hokey Pokey" dies at 104

A Scranton native credited with having his right hand in -- penning the famed "Hokey Pokey" -- died last week at the age of 104.

Robert Degen died at St. Joseph Hospital in Lexington, Ky., where he had lived for many years. According to his obituary, he wrote the song in 1944 with the late Joe Briar.

"He was very proud that he wrote that song," Mr. Degen's son, jazz pianist Bob Degen, told The Times-Tribune in a phone interview from his home in Frankfurt, Germany.

The origins of the popular tune -- and its namesake dance -- are surrounded by a bit of mystery and controversy.

Some sources suggest the dance was born in Great Britain. Often dubbed "The Hokey Cokey" there, its dance motions have been criticized in recent years as deriving from a Protestant "hocus pocus" parody of the Roman Catholic Mass in the 17th or 18th century.

Critics of that theory point out that the popularity of the combined song and dance is clearly a 20th century phenomenon, and they seem to have been a hit with Allied soldiers in England during World War II -- though historians still debate whether the fad started over here or over there. Either way, it took off in the postwar years and the tune was recorded by several artists.

At least two other musicians claimed authorship of the music. One was Anglo-Irishman Jimmy Kennedy; the other was Detroit-born Larry LaPrise, both now deceased.

But Mr. Degen held a 1944 copyright for "The Hokey-Pokey Dance," issued five years before Mr. LaPrise recorded the song. Reports indicate Mr. Degen filed suit against Mr. LaPrise in the 1950s and settled out of court.

Whatever its origins, "The Hokey Pokey" took on a life of its own, and not just in English-speaking countries.

"A lot of people here in Europe know it and were influenced by it," said the younger Mr. Degen, who went on to become a noted name on the Frankfurt jazz scene.

A 1957 Scranton Times feature story and photo showed 13-year-old "Bobby Degen of South Scranton" posed at the keyboard, noting that "veteran musicians consider him a pianist of unusual promise," and that he already was a dues-paying member of the American Federation of Musicians. Having played the piano since age 4, the Prospect Avenue youth also composed his own arrangement of his father's famous song, the story added.

Speaking from Germany, the younger Mr. Degen said his father had been a musician since the 1920s and continued until he was in his 60s. "As far as I know he played up until about 1969," Bob Degen said.

Mr. Degen met his wife of 74 years, Vivian Elaine Gibson Degen, when the two were touring with a Country and Western band, their son said. Mrs. Degen, an Arkansas native, still lives in Kentucky, as does their younger son, Bill.

Bob Degen -- who has lived in Germany since 1965 but has made frequent return visits to the U.S. -- said he started playing gigs with his father as early as age 10, recalling jobs in Scranton and Carbondale, and later, to visit the jazz clubs of New York.

"He was wonderful to me," Bob Degen said. "He was just a great dad.

That's what it's all about.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

WRESTLING superstar Umaga has died

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WRESTLING superstar Umaga has died, aged just 36.

The former WWE intercontinental champion was killed by a heart attack, his family have confirmed.

The Wrestling Observer reported that the Samoan-American star, real name Edward Fatu, fell asleep while watching television in his Houston home.

He was found several hours later by his wife, not breathing and with blood coming out of his nose. He was immediately rushed to a local hospital.

There he was put on life support and his family told to come to Texas as quickly as possible.

Tributes have poured in from around the wrestling world for the man who headlined WrestleMania 23 in 2007 - the biggest selling PPV event in the history of the sport.

On that night he lost to Bobby Lashley, a result that meant billionaire reality TV star Donald Trump got to shave WWE boss Vince McMahon's head.

Lashley has posted a message on his Facebook saying: "Very sad day today. A good friend is gone."

WWE released a statement reading: "WWE would like to express its deepest condolences to Mr Fatu's family, friends and fans on his tragic passing.

"Mr Fatu was under contract with WWE at various time periods and most recently performed under the name Umaga. Mr Fatu's contract was terminated on June 11, 2009."

Former ECW owner and SunSport columnist Paul Heyman said: "The world is minus one very cool Samoan tonight. We offer our most profound condolences to the Fatu Family."

Fatu - trained by his famous uncles, the Wild Samoans Afa and Sika - first wrestled for WWE between 2002 and 2003 under the name of Jamal as part of the 3-Minute Warning tag team with his cousin Matt Anoa'i, aka Rosey.

After being released from his contract, reportedly as a result of getting into a bar fight, he had stints in rival groups TNA and All Japan before returning to the WWE in 2005.

During that time he won the IC title twice and enjoyed memorable feuds with Lashley, Jeff Hardy and John Cena, who he challenged for the company's world championship.

He was fired again by the WWE this June after violating their drug-testing policy for a second time and then refusing to go to rehab.

Umaga most recently competed on the Hulkamania tour of Australia, where he was said to be happy and healthy, amid rumours he was set to return to WWE.

Ken Anderson, better known as Mr Kennedy, was his opponent Down Under and Tweeted: "I'm very thankful to have had a private closed-door conversation with Ecki prior to our match a few days ago in Sydney.

"He insisted that we go out and tear the house down. We both had something to prove that night and in my opinion: Mission Accomplished!

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Fatu family. Ecki absolutely adored his wife and was extremely proud of his children.

"I have so many amazing, funny, and heartwarming (sometimes gut wrenching belly-laughing) memories."

Fatu is the latest in a long line of wrestlers to pass away at a young age

 

[JennyOmanHill]

TV Star Gene Barry Dies at 90

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Gene Barry, who for three decades played the tall, well-dressed tough guy in TV shows like 'Bat Masterson,' 'Burke's Law' and 'The Name of the Game,' has died at age 90. The cause of his death was not stated.

Fredric James Barry, the actor's son, said his father died Wednesday at a rest home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills.

Gene Barry essentially played the same character in all three series, which spanned the 1950s to the 1970s. Always fashionably dressed, the tall, handsome actor with the commanding voice dominated his scenes as he bested the bad guys in each show.

In the first of the three, the Western "Bat Masterson," he was a frontier dandy who rarely resorted to gunplay, choosing instead to beat his rivals senseless with a gold-handled cane.

Before he landed the role in 1958, Barry's movie career appeared to be on the rise, and he was at first reluctant to play Bat Masterson. He had starred in the science-fiction classic "War of the Worlds" in 1953 and opposite Clark Gable in "Soldier of Fortune" in 1955.

He said he was won over to TV when he learned that lawman Masterson had worn a derby and carried a gold-handled cane in real life.

"I went over to the wardrobe department, picked out a brocaded vest, looked in the mirror, and there was this elegant gentleman," he recalled in 1999. "I said, 'Hey, that's Bat! That's me!"'After two decades as a TV star, Barry found himself typecast as a television actor and never returned to prominence in films. Instead, he stayed active with stage appearances and dozens of TV guest appearances.

He sang in such musicals as "Kismet" and "Destry Rides Again," and created the Broadway role of Georges, the gay night club owner in Jerry Herman's hit musical "La Cage aux Folles." That role brought him a Tony nomination in 1984.

Barry appeared in the last season of Eve Arden's hit sitcom "Our Miss Brooks" - as a P.E. teacher who pines for Miss Brooks - before landing "Bat Masterson" in 1958.

After the show ended its run on NBC in 1961, Barry moved to ABC to star as an LA detective in "Burke's Law," which lasted until 1966. The show was revived on CBS nearly 30 years later with Barry again in the lead but lasted only one season.

"The Name of the Game" (1968-1972) offered an innovation: three suave actors - Barry, Robert Stack and Anthony Franciosa -alternating weekly in their own self-contained adventures. The only connective element: All were part of an investigative magazine of which Barry was the flamboyant owner.

When the series folded, Barry filmed a syndicated show, "The Adventurer," in England.

He was born Eugene Klass in New York City in 1919, and he met his wife, Betty Claire Kalb, when both were performing in the city. They were married 58 years, until her death in 2003.

Barry is survived by his three children, Michael, Fredric and Elizabeth, as well as three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies at age 91

double post

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies at age 91

Oral Roberts, the Tulsa, Okla., evangelist who rose from an obscure tent revivalist to become one of the century's most recognized religious figures, died today of complications from pneumonia, his ministry said.

Mr. Roberts' son, Richard, and daughter, Roberta, were at his side when he died in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 91.

Some Americans will remember Mr. Roberts as the itinerant revivalist with the "world's largest tent" who from the '40s to the '60s traveled from town to town with his preaching and faith healing ministry.

Others will recall him as a religious broadcasting pioneer who made the transition from sawdust trail preacher to the highest rated evangelist in prime-time television.

But for many others, Mr. Roberts may well be most remembered for the times he claimed that God appeared to him with specific instructions for conducting his ministry.

In 1977, after his daughter and son-in-law died in a plane crash, Mr. Roberts went on a retreat in a California desert. There, he said, God appeared and commanded him to return to Tulsa to build a medical complex and call it City of Faith.

Over the adamant objections of the city and local medical professionals, the evangelist built his "Mayo Clinic of the Southwest" – a 30-story hospital, diagnostic center and medical school – according to instructions he said he received in conversations with God.

Scoffing at critics, Mr. Roberts recalled that 15 years earlier the skeptics laughed when he set out to build a first-class university.

"But they were wrong," the evangelist said as he pointed with pride to Oral Roberts University, a nationally recognized liberal arts school.

Unlike the university, however, the medical complex was troubled from the start. The evangelist relied on attracting patients from among the followers of his ministry across the nation. That didn't happen.

Faced with a financial crunch in 1980, Mr. Roberts wrote in a fund-raising letter that he had seen a 900-foot-tall image of Jesus standing over his hospital complex. The vision was a sign from God that the medical complex would be completed, he said. During the next few months, his ministry received millions of dollars.

In 1987, Mr. Roberts stunned the nation when he reported that he needed $8 million for his medical school by April 1 or God would take him "home." The money was raised, but financial troubles continued. A few months later it was revealed that donations to the ministry had plunged from $5 million a month to $2.7 million.

The pressure of having to raise money to survive began to take its toll. Doctors and other staff members left. The mounting deficit was more than the ministry could bear. In 1989, Mr. Roberts announced that he was abandoning his fight to save his City of Faith Hospital and medical school. His Tulsa ministry was $25 million in debt.

Granville Oral Roberts, the son of an alcoholic Pentecostal Holiness minister, grew up in poverty in Oklahoma. As a child, he overcame a debilitating disease and a severe stutter.

He was licensed in 1935 to preach as a Pentecostal Holiness minister, and he took a few college courses. In 1947, he was a pastor in Enid, Okla., where he rented an auditorium and conducted a crusade. A year later, he held his first tent revival.

His first television program was broadcast from his tent in 1954. Thirteen years later he folded the tent and returned to television with a more sophisticated style.

In 1968, hoping to shed his Pentecostal image and attract mainline acceptance, he joined the United Methodist Church. He never advanced through the denomination's ministerial ranks, but his television ministry flourished.

In television evangelism, Mr. Roberts' top-rated series was second only to Billy Graham specials in ratings.

According to the release from his church, Mr. Roberts wrote more than 130 books, and more than 8 million copies are in circulation.

 

[APhil]

Roy Disney dies at 79 after cancer bout

Roy Edward Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, died Wednesday after a yearlong battle with stomach cancer, according to a Walt Disney Co. spokesman.

Disney "played a key role in the revitalization of the Walt Disney Co. and Disney's animation legacy," the company said.

He died in a Newport Beach, California, hospital at the age of 79.

His father -- Roy O. Disney -- co-founded the Disney entertainment business with Walt Disney in 1923.

Roy E. Disney's 56-year association with the company culminated in 2003 when he stepped down as vice chairman of Disney's board and chairman of the Disney Studio's Animation Department. He kept the title director emeritus and consultant in recent years, the company said.

"As head of Disney Animation, Disney helped to guide the studio to a new golden age of animation with an unprecedented string of artistic and box office successes that included 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Beauty and the Beast,' 'Aladdin' and 'The Lion King,' " the company said.

A private funeral service and cremation are planned, the company said. His ashes will be scattered at sea, it said.

(via cnn.com)

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Jennifer Jones, Postwar Actress, Dies at 90

Jennifer Jones, who achieved Hollywood stardom in “The Song of Bernadette” and other films of the 1940s and ’50s while gaining almost as much attention for a tumultuous personal life, died Thursday at her home in Malibu, Calif. She was 90.

Ms. Jones, who was the chairwoman of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., died of natural causes, said Leslie Denk, a museum spokeswoman. Ms. Jones was the widow of the industrialist and art patron Norton Simon.

After winning an Academy Award in 1944 for her performance in “The Song of Bernadette,” Ms. Jones went on to star in successful films like “Duel in the Sun” and “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.” She was nominated for Oscars five times.

She was also known for an off-screen life that included bouts of emotional instability; a second marriage to the Svengali-like David O. Selznick, the producer of “Gone With the Wind”; the suicide of their daughter; and a later marriage to another larger-than-life figure, Mr. Simon.

It was Selznick who got Ms. Jones the role of Bernadette Soubirous, the young French peasant girl whose visions at Lourdes created a sensation in 1858. “The Song of Bernadette,” based on Franz Werfel’s best-selling novel, was a huge hit, and it brought the little-known Ms. Jones instant fame.

“After that first big role, there was a kind of stage fright,” Ms. Jones said in 1981. She told another interviewer: “When you’re young, you’re full of hope and dreams. Later you begin to wonder. I did ‘The Song of Bernadette’ without knowing what was going on half the time.”

When she made “Bernadette,” Ms. Jones was the wife of the young actor Robert Walker and the mother of two small boys. She and her husband had met as students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1938 and married a year later. They had struggled together until Selznick put Ms. Jones under personal contract in 1941. A year later, Mr. Walker was signed by MGM and had a star-making debut in 1943 as a young sailor in “Bataan.”

But the marriage didn’t last; they separated in the fall of 1943, and by then Ms. Jones was deeply involved with Selznick. Seventeen years her senior, he would be the mastermind of her career.

Selznick’s wife, Irene, the daughter of the movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, left him in 1945, in part over his affair with Ms. Jones, who divorced Mr. Walker that year. David Thomson, in his biography of Selznick, “Showman,” said Selznick had found something special in Ms. Jones. “She was so meek, so young, so lovely, so entirely ready to be David’s creation that she left all the responsibility with him,” Mr. Thomson wrote.

Ms. Jones and Selznick were married in 1949 on a yacht off the coast of Italy. Until his death in 1965, he made virtually all the decisions in his wife’s career. He supervised her dramatic training and produced many of her early movies, including “Since You Went Away” (1944), “Duel in the Sun” (1946), “Portrait of Jennie” (1948) and a lavish version, the second, of Ernest Hemingway’s “Farewell to Arms” (1957). The film, which also starred Rock Hudson, was a critical and box-office failure and the last movie Selznick made.

When Selznick lent his wife out to other producers, he often chose badly — turning down the classic film noir “Laura,” for example, or insisting that she star as the mentally ill Nicole Diver in the film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender Is the Night” when she was both too old for the role and in precarious mental health herself.

Ms. Jones never set her own course. Though her roles expanded — from the country girl Bernadette to the passionate half-caste young woman lusting after Gregory Peck in “Duel in the Sun” to the wealthy adulteress of Vittorio De Sica’s “Indiscretion of an American Wife” (1954) — the screen image was always as molded by Selznick.

But her acting was admired. She received Oscar nominations as best actress for her performances as an amnesiac cured by Joseph Cotten’s love in “Love Letters” (1945), as the wanton Pearl Chavez in “Duel in the Sun” and as a Eurasian doctor in love with a Korean War correspondent (William Holden) in “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” (1955).

Ms. Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley in Tulsa, Okla., on March 2, 1919, the only child of Philip and Flora Mae Isley. Her parents owned and starred in the Isley Stock Company, a tent-show theatrical troupe that toured the rural Midwest. As a child she spent her summers taking tickets, selling candy and acting in the company.

After a year at Northwestern University, she moved to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she was cast as Elizabeth Barrett opposite Robert Walker’s Robert Browning in “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.” The two soon married, and on their honeymoon in 1939 they went to Hollywood, where they found bit roles.

Retreating to New York, the couple had a son, Robert Jr., in 1940, and another, Michael, less than a year later. Michael died in 2007. Robert survives her, as do eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Ms. Jones met Selznick in New York when she went to his office there to read for the lead in “Claudia,” Rose Franken’s hit stage play, which Selznick was turning into a movie. The title role went to Dorothy McGuire, who had starred in the play, but Selznick was taken by the lithe, dark-haired Ms. Jones and saw a future for her in Hollywood. (He came up with the name Jennifer Jones during that first encounter.)

Ambitious but emotionally fragile, Ms. Jones placed herself in Selznick’s hands. He cast her in a William Saroyan play, “Hello Out There,” in a theater season he was presenting in Santa Barbara, Calif., and she received rave reviews. He was already planning to lend her to his brother-in-law, the producer Bill Goetz, at 20th Century Fox, for “Song of Bernadette.”

After “Bernadette,” Selznick cast her as Claudette Colbert’s daughter in “Since You Went Away,” his bid to make a “Gone With the Wind” about the World War II home front. Ms. Jones was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar as the girl whose first love is a young soldier.

Though Ms. Jones and Mr. Walker were by then estranged, Selznick cast Mr. Walker as the soldier who is strengthened by Ms. Jones’s love. Mr. Walker, who later scored a success as the villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” died at 32 in 1951 after years of emotional problems and drinking, which he attributed to his loss of Ms. Jones.

Among Ms. Jones’s other movies were the comedy “Cluny Brown” (1946), directed by Ernst Lubisch; “Carrie” (1952), a film version of Theodore Dreiser’s novel “Sister Carrie” co-starring Laurence Olivier; John Huston’s “Beat the Devil” (1954) co-starring Humphrey Bogart; “Madame Bovary” (1949), co-starring James Mason; and “Ruby Gentry” (1952), a King Vidor film with Charlton Heston about destructive passions reminiscent of “Duel in the Sun.”

After Selznick’s death in 1965, Ms. Jones’s film career petered out in “The Idol” (1966), about a young man sleeping with the mother of his girlfriend; the low- budget “Angel, Angel, Down We Go” (1969); and the ensemble disaster movie “The Towering Inferno” (1974). In 1966 she made a rare stage appearance, in a revival of Clifford Odets’s “Country Girl” at New York City Center.

In 1967, Ms. Jones made headlines when she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills and was discovered, near death, lying in the surf at Malibu. In 1976, Ms. Jones’s 21- year-old daughter, Mary Jennifer Selznick, jumped to her death from a building in West Los Angeles.

Ms. Jones married Norton Simon, in 1971, in a ceremony on a yacht in the English Channel after a courtship of three weeks. Mr. Simon, a multimillionaire industrialist who had turned a bankrupt orange juice bottling plant into a conglomerate that included Hunt Foods and Canada Dry, had retired in 1969 at 62 to concentrate on collecting art.

He spent more than $100 million on his collection, one of the country’s greatest private art collections, housed at the Norton Simon Museum.

After being stricken by the paralyzing neurological disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome, Mr. Simon resigned as president of the museum and was succeeded by Ms. Jones, who also took the title of chairwoman. She oversaw a gallery renovation by the architect Frank Gehry. Mr. Simon died in 1993 at age 86.

Throughout her life Ms. Jones appeared shy and aloof in public, and she rarely gave interviews. She explained why in one of the few she did give, in 1957.

“Most interviewers probe and pry into your personal life, and I just don’t like it,” she said. “I respect everyone’s right to privacy, and I feel mine should be respected, too.”

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Actress Brittany Murphy dies at age 32

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LOS ANGELES — Brittany Murphy, the actress who got her start in the sleeper hit "Clueless" and rose to stardom in "8 Mile," has died in Los Angeles. She was 32.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Spokeswoman Sally Stewart said Murphy died at 10:04 a.m. Sunday. She would not provide a cause of death, or any other information.

The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call at 8 a.m. Sunday from a home that is listed as belonging to British screenwriter Simon Monjack, who is married to Murphy, spokesman Devon Gale said. Gale said one person was transported to a hospital.

Messages left for Murphy's manager, agent and publicist by The Associated Press weren't immediately returned.

Born Nov. 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Murphy grew up in New Jersey and later moved with her mother to Los Angeles to pursue acting.

Her career started in the early 1990s with small roles in television series, commercials and movies. She is best known for parts in "Girl, Interrupted," "Clueless" and "8 Mile."

Her on-screen roles declined in recent years, but Murphy's voice gave life to numerous animated characters, including Luanne Platter on more than 200 episodes of Fox's "King of the Hill" and Gloria the penguin in "Happy Feet."

She is due to appear in Sylvester Stallone's upcoming film, "The Expendables," set for release next year.

Her role in "8 Mile" led to more recognition, Murphy told The Associated Press in 2003. "That changed a lot," she said. "That was the difference between people knowing my first and last name as opposed to not."

Murphy credited her mother, Sharon, with being a key to her success.

"When I asked my mom to move to California, she sold everything and moved out here for me," Murphy told the AP in 2003. "I was really grateful to have grown up in an environment that was conducive to creating and didn't stifle any of that. She always believed in me."

She dated Ashton Kutcher, who costarred with Murphy in 2003's romantic comedy "Just Married."

Kutcher tweeted Sunday morning about Murphy's death: "2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine," Kutcher wrote. "My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon."

 

[Igor_1066]

Brittany Murphy, Actress, Dies at 32

Brittany Murphy, Actress, Dies at 32
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:11 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Brittany Murphy, the actress who got her start in the sleeper hit ''Clueless'' and rose to stardom in ''8 Mile,'' died Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 32.

Murphy was pronounced dead at 10:04 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Sally Stewart said. Stewart would not provide a cause of death or any other information.

Murphy was transported to the hospital after the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call at 8 a.m. at the home she shared with her husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, in the Hollywood Hills.

Los Angeles police have opened an investigation into Murphy's death, Officer Norma Eisenman said. Detectives and coroner's officials were at Murphy and Monjack's home above the Sunset Strip on Sunday afternoon but did not talk to reporters. Paparazzi were camped outside.

Messages left for Murphy's manager, agent and publicist by The Associated Press were not immediately returned.

Neighbor Clare Staples said she saw firefighters working to resuscitate the actress Sunday morning. She said Murphy was on a stretcher and ''looked as though she was dead at the scene.''

Murphy's husband, wearing pajama bottoms and no shoes, appeared ''dazed'' as firefighters tried to save her, Staples said. ''It's just tragic,'' she added.

TMZ.com first reported Murphy's death Sunday morning.

Murphy's father, Angelo Bertolotti, said he learned of her death from his son, the actress's brother, and was stunned.

''She was just an absolute doll since she was born,'' Bertolotti said from his Branford, Fla., home. ''Her personality was always outward. Everybody loved her -- people that made movies with her, people on a cruise -- they all loved her. She was just a regular gal.''

He said he hadn't heard much about the circumstances of Murphy's death. Bertolotti divorced her mother when Murphy was young and hadn't seen Murphy in the past few years. He said he used to be in the mob and served prison time on federal drug charges.

''She was just talented,'' Bertolotti said. ''And I loved her very much.''

Born Nov. 10, 1977, in Atlanta, Murphy grew up in New Jersey and later moved with her mother to Los Angeles to pursue acting.

Her career started in the early 1990s with small roles in television series, commercials and movies. She is best known for parts in ''Girl, Interrupted,'' ''Clueless'' and ''8 Mile.''

Her on-screen roles declined in recent years, but Murphy's voice gave life to numerous animated characters, including Luanne Platter on more than 200 episodes of Fox's ''King of the Hill'' and Gloria the penguin in the 2006 feature ''Happy Feet.''

She is due to appear in Sylvester Stallone's upcoming film, ''The Expendables,'' set for release next year.

Her role in ''8 Mile'' led to more recognition, Murphy told AP in 2003. ''That changed a lot,'' she said. ''That was the difference between people knowing my first and last name as opposed to not.''

Murphy credited her mother, Sharon, with being a key to her success.

''When I asked my mom to move to California, she sold everything and moved out here for me,'' Murphy said. ''I was really grateful to have grown up in an environment that was conducive to creating and didn't stifle any of that. She always believed in me.''

She dated Ashton Kutcher, who costarred with Murphy in 2003's romantic comedy ''Just Married.''

Kutcher sent a message on Twitter Sunday morning about Murphy's death: ''2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine,'' Kutcher wrote. ''My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/200...it-Brittany-Murphy.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

 

[Igor_1066]

Jennifer Jones, Oscar-winning actress, dies at 90

Jennifer Jones, Oscar-winning actress, dies at 90
Discovered by future husband David O. Selznick, Jones won the Academy Award for 1943's 'The Song of Bernadette.' She also was married to industrialist and art collector Norton Simon.

By Claudia Luther

December 18, 2009

Jennifer Jones, the actress who won an Academy Award for her luminous performance in the 1943 film "The Song of Bernadette" and who was married to two legendary men -- producer David O. Selznick and industrialist and art collector Norton Simon -- has died. She was 90.

Jones died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Malibu, according to Leslie C. Denk, a spokeswoman for the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

Jones had an influential role at the art museum, becoming chairwoman of the Norton Simon Foundation Board after her husband's death in 1993 and overseeing a $3-million renovation of the museum's interior and gardens that was completed in 1999.

But she was best known for her movie career. In all, she starred in more than two dozen films, playing opposite such A-list actors as William Holden, Joseph Cotten and Gregory Peck.

In addition to her best-actress win for "Bernadette," Jones was nominated for an Academy Award for leading roles in three other films: "Love Letters" (1945), a melodrama in which an amnesiac is cured through the love of a man, played by Cotten; the western epic "Duel in the Sun" (1946), with Peck; and "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955), in which she played Dr. Han Suyin opposite Holden. She was also nominated as best supporting actress for "Since You Went Away" (1944), in which she starred with her first husband, Robert Walker.

The tall, sensitive Jones might never have risen to stardom but for Selznick, who was the first to see something special in the beautiful "big-eyed girl" named Phylis Isley who showed up in his New York office to test -- although not very well -- for the part of Claudia in the 1943 film of the same name. (Dorothy McGuire won the role.) After seeing her second test, he decided she was "the best sure-fire female star to come along since Leigh and Bergman" --referring to Vivien Leigh and Ingrid Bergman, both then under contract to the producer.

He found the young actress a new name and began grooming her for stardom, finding Jones her first big role in "Bernadette" and, afterward, producing or choosing most of her films. He endlessly pestered Hollywood with his memos about her makeup, her camera angles, her costumes. She was his protege, his obsession, his crusade, eventually his lover and, finally, his wife.

His adoration of her, said film critic David Thomson, shaped the rest of his life and fueled "one of the great gossip-column melodramas of the time."

"She was an ardent young actress before she met Selznick," Thomson wrote in "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film." "But it is hard now to be sure whether we would know her if his great wind had not picked her up like a leaf."

Jones was born in Tulsa, Okla., on March 2, 1919, the daughter of the owners and stars of Isley Stock Co., a tent show that toured the Midwest. She became interested in acting during her school years and eventually studied at Northwestern University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

It was at the academy that she met Walker, whom she married in 1939 and with whom she had two sons, Robert Walker Jr. and Michael Walker.

After several failed attempts to break into Hollywood, the two actors settled in New York City, and Jones finally got her chance for a screen test with Selznick.

By that time, Selznick was almost 40 and had already produced the epic "Gone With the Wind" and a string of popular and important films, including "David Copperfield," "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Rebecca." He was looking for another "GWTW" -- and another star to discover.

"The Song of Bernadette," a 20th Century Fox film directed by Henry King, was the vehicle Selznick picked to introduce Jones to the American public.

It was, everyone agreed, perfect casting. Jones, who was Catholic and had gone to a convent school, had the kind of wide-eyed innocence that made her believable as Bernadette Soubirous, the French peasant girl who saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in a grotto.

"I cried all the way through 'Bernadette' because Jennifer was so moving and because I realized then I had lost the award," said Ingrid Bergman, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" the same year Jones won.

At the time, Jones was a wife and mother, but even that tame image was not what the studio wanted for the actress it had playing a virginal mystic. For months, Jones was asked to hide her family life and present herself as a real-life Bernadette.

That changed after Selznick arranged for Jones and Walker to play opposite each other in Jones' second starring film, the World War II tear-jerker "Since You Went Away" from 1944. To promote that film, publicity stories were churned out about "Mr. and Mrs. Cinderella" and their contented home life with their children.

By then, however, the relationship was frayed, and the couple divorced in 1945. Walker, who had starred in "See Here, Private Hargrove," "Strangers on a Train" and opposite Judy Garland in "The Clock," died in 1951.

In 1948, Selznick divorced his wife, Irene Mayer, daughter of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer. Selznick, 47, and Jones, 30, were married in 1949 on a yacht off the Italian Riviera.

More than 30 years later, Jones told the Washington Post of her relationship with Selznick: "I felt appreciated right from the beginning. I felt totally at ease. I don't know whether that's love at first sight."

But she said the stories of Selznick's domination were overblown.

"I had good roles, and I had David to guide me," Jones said.

Selznick's "Duel in the Sun" a 1946 western, earned Jones one of her best-actress Oscar nominations.

Selznick intended "Duel" as a sweeping epic in the tradition of his greatest triumph, "Gone With the Wind."

But the film, in which Jones played a woman of mixed race caught between two brothers (Peck and Cotten), ran into publicity problems when the Catholic Church issued a statement saying the story "tends to throw audience sympathy on the side of sin" and that Jones "is unduly, if not indecently, exposed." The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood removed posters of her that showed cleavage, and much was made of the difference between Jones' role in "Duel" and her role as the innocent in "Bernadette."

"Duel," although a box-office hit, today is remembered with some humor by critics. Leonard Maltin, writing in his movie guide, called "Duel" a "big, brawling, engrossing, often stupid sex-western."

Among Jones' other major roles were "Portrait of Jennie" (1948), "Madame Bovary" (1949) and, in the 1950s, "Carrie," "Beat the Devil," "Ruby Gentry," "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," "Good Morning, Miss Dove," "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and "A Farewell to Arms." She played Nicole Diver in 1962's "Tender Is the Night."

Starting in the mid-1960s, Jones went through a bleak period. Her film career was on the wane and, in 1965, Selznick died. Two years later, on the day her good friend Charles Bickford died at the age of 78, Jones attempted suicide. She was found by sheriff's deputies in the surf in Malibu, where she had collapsed after taking sleeping pills and, it appeared from evidence at the scene, drinking wine.

"I don't think I wanted to die," she told the Washington Post several years later. "These accidents happen."

Jones' penultimate film, "Angel, Angel, Down We Go" (1969), was so bad that film historian Edward Margulies, co-author of "Bad Movies We Love," referred to the film in labeling Jones "the true standout" among former Oscar winners who "slid into grade-Z trash" in their later careers.

Jones' final film role was a supporting role as Fred Astaire's love interest in the 1974 film "The Towering Inferno." But by then, Jones' life had taken a turn for the better after having met Norton Simon.

He was recently divorced when they met in May 1971 at a reception in Los Angeles for a New York magazine editor. Simon was 64, and Jones was 52.

At that time, Jones had retreated from Hollywood and was raising her daughter by Selznick, Mary Jennifer.

Active for many years with mental-health and charity organizations, Jones was working with the Manhattan Project, a group of Salvation Army residential treatment facilities for young people addicted to narcotics. Simon said later that, of course, he found Jones beautiful but that they connected because of her activism.

Simon by that time had severed his last managerial ties to his business empire and was one of the world's leading art collectors, mostly of old masters. By the end of May, the couple had embarked on a trip to Paris, stopping over in London, where they decided to get married.

Jones said that she had considered museums boring until she met Simon. She changed her mind on a trip to Siena, Italy, with her husband.

Jones, in turn, opened Simon's mind to other cultures. According to Times arts reporter Suzanne Muchnic's 1998 biography of Simon, "Odd Man In," it was Jones, a longtime yoga practitioner, who persuaded Simon to take his first trip to India, where he was "smitten by the art of regions he had scarcely considered before." Simon became a major force in the Indian and Southeast Asian art market.

Jones eventually became an important part of Simon's art empire. When he became incapacitated by Guillain-Barré syndrome, he named his wife president of the Norton Simon Museum. As chairwoman of the Norton Simon Foundation Board, she oversaw the renovation in the late '90s of the museum's interior, designed by museum trustee Frank Gehry, and the gardens, by landscape designer Nancy Goslee Power. She was given emeritus status in 2003.

Jones herself was surprised at the many turns her life had taken.

"Actually," she told the Washington Post in 1977, "every time I stop to think about it, I'm really amazed. I think I've had an extraordinary life. And lots of times I can hardly believe it's me."

Jones is survived by her son Robert Walker Jr., eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her son Michael Walker died in 2007. In 1975, her daughter with Selznick, Mary Jennifer, committed suicide. Services will be private.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-jennifer-jones18-2009dec18,0,3105736,print.story

 

[KindaKinky]

US actress Brittany Murphy dies aged 32

Actress Brittany Murphy, star of Hollywood films such as Clueless and 8 Mile, has died at the age of 32 after collapsing at home in Los Angeles.

Coroners said that Murphy, who was pronounced dead in hospital, appeared to have died of natural causes.

The Reuters news agency is reporting that the actress died of a cardiac arrest.

Ashton Kutcher, co-star of the 2003 comedy Just Married, paid tribute to her as a "little piece of sunshine".

The official cause of death may not be determined for some time as toxicology tests are required.

Murphy was pronounced dead at 1004 (1804 GMT) on Sunday at a hospital near Beverly Hills.

She had been taken there after the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call at the Hollywood Hills home she shared with her husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack.

She is reported to have been found unconscious in the shower.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said the authorities were looking into her medical history.

"It appears to be natural," he added.

Los Angeles police have opened an investigation into the death.

'An absolute doll'

A neighbour, Clare Staples, said she had seen firefighters working to resuscitate the actress on Sunday morning, The Associated Press reports.

The actress's husband, wearing pyjama bottoms and no shoes, appeared "dazed" as the firefighters tried to save her, Ms Staples added.

Murphy's father, Angelo Bertolotti, said: "She was just an absolute doll since she was born.

"Her personality was always outward. Everybody loved her - people that made movies with her, people on a cruise - they all loved her."

Murphy's publicist released a statement on behalf of her family.

"The sudden loss of our beloved Brittany is a terrible tragedy. She was our daughter, our wife, our love and a shining star. We ask you to respect our privacy at this time."

Kutcher, who once dated the actress, paid tribute to her on Twitter: "2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine."

"My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany's family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon," he added.

Murphy left the production of indie film The Caller earlier this month. Her agent said she had quit because of "creative differences".

Going to California

Born in Atlanta, Murphy grew up in New Jersey but moved to Los Angeles with her mother to pursue acting.

"When I asked my mom to move to California, she sold everything and moved out here for me," Murphy once said.

"I was really grateful to have grown up in an environment that was conducive to creating and didn't stifle any of that."

The actress got her start in the sleeper hit Clueless and rose to stardom in 8 Mile alongside rapper Eminem.

Speaking to the BBC about 8 Mile, she said: "What I love is the way it explores the willingness to get out of where you are, and the fact that you actually can make it, no matter what."

Her on-screen roles declined in recent years but Murphy voiced characters for the hit US television series King of the Hill and animated movie Happy Feet.

She is due to appear in Sylvester Stallone's film, The Expendables, set for release next year.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.

(Editorial note: Some die young and it isn't always expected. There are those who would have expected Lohan to OD or drop dead… instead… )

 

[KindaKinky]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to apologize on the multiple Jones-Murphy posts. Occassionally, obits will overlap.

 

[JustSkye]

Alaina Reed Hall, a singer and actress who played Olivia Robinson on "Sesame Street" for a dozen years beginning in the mid-1970s and later played Rose Holloway on the situation comedy "227," has died. She was 63.

Reed Hall, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, died Thursday at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica,said her husband, Tamim Amini.

One of the original cast members of the 1974 off-Broadway production of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road," Reed Hall joined "Sesame Street" in 1976 and played Olivia -- a professional photographer and sister to the character Gordon -- until 1988.

In a 2004 interview with the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, Reed Hall described "Sesame Street" as "the best job I ever had."

When she heard her name called out by fans while riding in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, she said, "It dawned on me. I have a big responsibility. I was in their house every day."

On "227," the 1985-90 NBC sitcom, she played the apartment landlady and best friend to star Marla Gibbs' Mary Jenkins character.

In the show's final season, Reed Hall's character falls in love with Warren Merriwether, played by Kevin Peter Hall, and the two characters wed. In real life, the two actors were already married.

"It was a wonderful segment because we had [guest star] Luther Vandross, who was also a friend of Alaina's, sing; and we had the same minister who performed the actual wedding," Gibbs told The Times on Monday.

Gibbs, who had attended the couple's real wedding, first met Reed Hall when she auditioned for the TV series.

"She was very good in the role, and some episodes were written around her," said Gibbs, adding that Reed Hall "was a wonderful singer. As a matter of fact, she and I did a nightclub act together at my club, Marla's Memory Lane," while doing the series.

"She worked on Broadway, she did stuff in New York; she was a very well-known singer in New York for awhile before she did the show," Gibbs said. "After we finished the show, she did quite a few commercials, so I was calling her the 'Commercial Queen.'

"She was just a wonderful friend. She will be sorely missed; she fought the good fight."

Born Bernice Reed in Springfield, Ohio, on Nov. 10, 1946, she appeared in stage productions of "Hair," "Chicago" and "Eubie."

She also made guest appearances on TV series such as "ER," "NYPD Blue," "Friends" and "Ally McBeal," and appeared in a number of films, including "Death Becomes Her," "Cruel Intentions" and "I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks)."

Reed Hall's first marriage ended in divorce. Her marriage to the 7-foot-2 Hall, who played the Bigfoot character Harry in the film and television series "Harry and the Hendersons," ended with his death in 1991. Reed Hall married Amini in 2008.

A list of surviving family members was not provided.

No funeral service will be held. A celebration of Reed Hall's life is being planned for early next year.

 

[Redatlit]

I really liked Jennifer Jones movies.

Olivia is dead?!?!?! Oh, Alaina Hall was wonderful on Sesame Street.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

About the Character
Gordon’s little sister, Olivia, first came to the Street in 1976. Her relationship with Gordon was a positive example of the way siblings can interact as adults. She worked as a photographer on Sesame Street until she left in 1988.

About the Actor
After leaving Sesame Street, actress and singer Alaina Reed joined the cast of 227, which used the same set as Sesame Street. In fact, the front steps of the 227 apartment building were the stairs next to Oscar the Grouch’s trash can! Reed has appeared in many stage productions, both on and off Broadway, and her film credits include Death Becomes Her, Me and the Kid, and Cruel Intentions.

Thank you PBS

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Connie Hines of 'Mr. Ed' show

http://images.zap2it.com/programs/184212/p184212_ce_h1_aa.jpg

Connie Hines, an actress in the 1960s TV show "Mr. Ed," has died. She portrayed Carol Post, whose husband, Wilbur, was the only person who could converse with Mr. Ed, the eponymous taking horse. She was 79.

Hines died Friday at her home in Beverly Hills from complications of heart problems, said Alan Young, her "Mr. Ed" co-star.

"I lost a great friend. She was always joyous," Young said Monday.

In the show, which ran from 1961-1966 on CBS, the Posts moved into a rambling country home only to find a horse in their barn. The center of the show became the banter between Young and Mr. Ed, which left Hines trying to make the most of her opportunities.

The part was "a tough chore," Young said. "She was a girl married to a fellow listening to a horse. Her biggest line was 'lunch is ready.' The rest of it was reacting to it. Connie never complained. How many actors would react that way?"

"Mr. Ed" built a new generation of fans with reruns airing on syndication and cable.

"You know we have a whole new audience," Hines said on "CBS This Morning" in 1991. "I still get letters and now they're from 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds and it's just wonderful. People stop me on the street and they say, you know, 'Thank you for being my baby sitter.'"

She also had a role in the 1960 film "Thunder in Carolina," which Hines called "a forgettable feature ... about stock car racing," and some episodic television appearances in shows such as "Johnny Ringo" and "The Millionaire" in 1959 and "Sea Hunt" and "Riverboat" in 1960, then she got her big break with "Mr. Ed."

After "Mr. Ed" finished, Hines worked on television sporadically in such shows as "Medical Center," "Mod Squad" and "Bonanza."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Economist Samuelson, Nobel laureate, dead at 94

NEW YORK (AP) - Economist Paul Samuelson, who won a Nobel prize for his effort to bring mathematical analysis into economics, helped shape tax policy in the Kennedy administration and wrote a textbook read by millions of college students, died. He was 94.

Samuelson, who taught for decades at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died at his home in Belmont, Mass., the school said in a statement announcing his death.

President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, is his nephew.

In 1970, Samuelson became just the second person, and first American, to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, created in 1968 by the Central Bank of Sweden. The other Nobels have been awarded since 1901.

The award citation said Samuelson "has done more than any other contemporary economist to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory."

Samuelson was a liberal, and like many of his generation a follower of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who proposed that a nation needs an activist government that could foster low unemployment by steering tax and monetary policies, even if it meant deficit spending at times.

"In the old-fashioned laissez-faire economy, prosperity was indeed a fragile blossom," he wrote in a 1970 article for The New York Times. "But for a modern 'mixed economy' in the post-Keyensian era, fiscal and monetary policies can definitely prevent chronic slumps, can offset automation or under-consumption, can insure that resources find paying work opportunities."

He was among a circle of JFK advisers, who also included John Kenneth Galbraith and Walter Heller, who led Kennedy to recommend the historic income tax cut that Congress eventually passed in early 1964, three months after the president was assassinated.

"A temporary reduction in tax rates on individual incomes can be a powerful weapon against recession," Samuelson had written in a report to Kennedy in early 1961.

The cut was widely credited with helping foster the 1960s economic boom. When Heller died in 1987, Samuelson said, "In Kennedy's Camelot, he was chairman of the greatest team ever assembled. He was a great policy economist and a witty, phrase-making economist."

It was Samuelson's work as an educator, both in the classroom and as a textbook author, that may have been his most influential role.

College students have been reading "Economics" since the late 1940s. It had its roots in a short text that Samuelson put together to use in his MIT classes.

It is now in its 19th edition; the more recent editions were co-written by William D. Nordhaus of Yale.

The book has sold more than 4 million copies in more than 40 languages.

Publisher McGraw-Hill paid an unusual tribute in 1997 by reissuing the original 1948 edition, reproducing not just the original text but the illustrations and layout. That same year, in a column by Mark Skousen entitled "Welcome back, Professor," Forbes magazine praised Samuelson for gradually turning away in his textbook from pure Keynesianism toward more traditional economic theory.

For the more casual reader, Samuelson wrote a column for Newsweek magazine from 1966 to 1981. Conservative economist Milton Friedman, a fellow Nobel-winner, also wrote for Newsweek during that period.

Born in Gary, Ind., in 1915, Samuelson graduated from the University of Chicago in 1935 and received master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard. He joined the MIT faculty in 1940.

He gained wide notice in the field in 1947 for his book "Foundations of Economic Analysis" and the same year was awarded the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal for distinguished contributions from an economist under the age of 40.

He married Marion Crawford, a fellow economist, in 1938, and he credited her with helping in his early research. They had six children: Jane, Margaret, William, John, Paul and Robert. (The Robert Samuelson who writes a business column for Newsweek is no relation to the Nobel winner.)

Marion Crawford Samuelson died of cancer in 1978 at age 62. In 1981, Samuelson married Risha Eckaus.

"Paul Samuelson transformed everything he touched: the theoretical foundations of his field, the way economics was taught around the world, the ethos and stature of his department, the investment practices of MIT, and the lives of his colleagues and students," said Susan Hockfield, MIT's president, in a statement.

Sameulson is survived by his wife, six children and 15 grandchildren.

 

[Beco]

Captain of iconic Exodus Jewish immigrant ship dies: Israel

Captain of iconic Exodus Jewish immigrant ship dies: Israel
(AFP) – 6 hours ago

JERUSALEM — The captain of the iconic Jewish immigrant ship Exodus, which in 1947 was not allowed to reach British-controlled Palestine, died on Wednesday aged 86, the Israeli president's office said.

Yitzhak Ike Aharonovitz, who was born in Germany in 1923 and moved to Palestine in 1932, "made a unique contribution to the state which will never be forgotten," President Shimon Peres said in a statement.

Exodus left the port of Sete in France carrying more than 4,500 passengers, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, seeking to settle in Palestine.

The ship was seized by the British navy off the coast of Palestine and after weeks at sea its passengers were forced to disembark in Germany and placed in camps near Lubeck.

After the incident sparked outrage across the world, the British authorities transferred the Jewish refugees to camps in Cyprus, where they remained until after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

"Exodus was also his creation, he was not only its captain but a leader that gave the voyage character and determination," Peres said.

 

[clutch1]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/14/obit.albano/art.obit.lou.albano.jpg

I was just going through this thread, and realized that Danny DeVito's wife died.
I didn't even hear about it.
How sad.

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I was just going through this thread, and realized that Danny DeVito's wife died.
I didn't even hear about it.
How sad.

I just googled Rhea Perlman (DeVito's wife), and there is no mention of her death. Who are you thinking of?

 

[clutch1]

I just googled Rhea Perlman (DeVito's wife), and there is no mention of her death. Who are you thinking of?

Isn't that her in the picture?