Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOmanHill]

'My Three Sons' actress Beverly Garland dies at 82

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Beverly Garland, the B-movie actress who starred in 1950s cult hits like "Swamp Women" and "Not of This Earth" and who went on to play Fred MacMurray's TV wife on "My Three Sons," has died. She was 82.

Garland died at her Hollywood Hills home after a lengthy illness, her son-in-law Packy Smith told the Los Angeles Times.

Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic "D.O.A.," launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of television shows.

She gained cult status for playing gutsy women in low-budget exploitation films such as "The Alligator People" and a number of Roger Corman movies including "Gunslinger,""It Conquered the World" and "Naked Paradise."

Garland showed her comedic chops as Bing Crosby's wife in the short-lived sitcom "The Bing Crosby Show" in the mid-'60s.

She went on to be cast in "My Three Sons" as the second wife of MacMurray's widower Steve Douglas during the last three seasons of the popular series that aired from 1960 to 1972.

Her television credits also include "Remington Steele,""Scarecrow and Mrs. King,""Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,""Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and "7th Heaven."

Garland was born Beverly Fessenden in Santa Cruz, Calif., in 1926, and grew up in Glendale. She became Beverly Garland when she married actor Richard Garland. They were divorced in 1953 after less than four years of marriage.

In 1960, she married real estate developer Fillmore Crank, and the couple built a mission-style hotel in North Hollywood, now called Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn. Garland, whose husband died in 1999, remained involved in running the North Hollywood hotel.

She was the honorary mayor of North Hollywood and served on the boards of the California Tourism Corp. and the Greater Los Angeles Visitors and Convention Bureau.

 

[KindaKinky]

1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies in LA at 85
By BOB THOMAS

LOS ANGELES – Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controverisal photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty."

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She was a very dear person."

Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.

"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."

The 21st century indeed had people remembering her just as she was. She became the subject of songs, biographies, Web sites, comic books, movies and documentaries. A new generation of fans bought thousands of copies of her photos, and some feminists hailed her as a pioneer of women's liberation.

Gretchen Mol portrayed her in 2005's "The Notorious Bettie Page" and Paige Richards had the role in 2004's "Bettie Page: Dark Angel." Page herself took part in the 1998 documentary "Betty Page: Pinup Queen."

Hefner said he last saw Page when he held a screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page" at the Playboy Mansion. He said she objected to the fact that the film referred to her as "notorious," but "we explained to her that it referred to the troubled times she had and was a good way to sell a movie."

Page's career began one day in October 1950 when she took a respite from her job as a secretary in a New York office for a walk along the beach at Coney Island. An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the 27-year-old's firm, curvy body and asked her to pose.

Looking back on the career that followed, she told Playboy in 1998: "I never thought it was shameful. I felt normal. It's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous."

Nudity didn't bother her, she said, explaining: "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."

In 1951, Page fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who specialized in S&M. They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else. She was photographed with a whip in her hand, and in one session she was spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling.

"I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets," she said later.

Moralists denounced the photos as perversion, and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Page's home state, launched a congressional investigation.

Page quickly retreated from public view, later saying she was hounded by federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face. She also said she believed that, at age 34, her days as "the girl with the perfect figure" were nearly over.

She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man, as an early marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce.

Her second marriage also failed, as did a third, and she suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1959, she was lying on a sea wall in Key West when she saw a church with a white neon cross on top. She walked inside and became a born-again Christian.

After attending Bible school, she wanted to serve as a missionary but was turned down because she had been divorced. Instead, she worked full-time for evangelist Billy Graham's ministry.

A move to Southern California in 1979 brought more troubles.

She was arrested after an altercation with her landlady, and doctors who examined her determined she had acute schizophrenia. She spent 20 months in a state mental hospital in San Bernardino.

A fight with another landlord resulted in her arrest, but she was found not guilty because of insanity. She was placed under state supervision for eight years.

"She had a very turbulent life," Todd Mueller, a family friend and autograph seller, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She had a temper to her."

Mueller said he first met Page after tracking her down in the 1990s and persuaded her to do an autograph signing event.

He said she was a hit and sold about 3,000 autographs, usually for $200 to $300 each.

"Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40 to $50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all," he told The AP last week.

Born April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tenn., Page said she grew up in a family so poor "we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings."

The family included three boys and three girls, and Page said her father molested all of the girls.

After the Pages moved to Houston, her father decided to return to Tennessee and stole a police car for the trip. He was sent to prison, and for a time Betty lived in an orphanage.

In her teens she acted in high school plays, going on to study drama in New York and win a screen test from 20th Century Fox before her modeling career took off.

___

Associated Press writers Denise Petski and Raquel Maria Dillon contributed to this report.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Nina Foch; 'Executive Suite' Role Earned Actress Oscar Nomination

Nina Foch, 84, a Hollywood supporting actress best remembered as the cool sophisticate she played in the musical "An American in Paris" and for her Oscar-nominated performance as a secretary mourning her dead boss in "Executive Suite," died Dec. 5 at a Los Angeles hospital of the blood disorder myelodysplasia.

In more than 30 movie appearances, Ms. Foch was rarely a front-ranked star. But in several key roles, the tall blond actress showed great skill, projecting regal bearing with moments of vulnerability.

She was ideally cast as Milo Roberts ("as in Venus de") in "An American in Paris" (1951), directed by Vincente Minnelli and featuring the music of the Gershwin brothers. She portrayed a wealthy American arts patron with a tendency to fall in love with her proteges.

When she appears in a provocative evening grown, a painter played by Gene Kelly asks her, "What holds it up?" Ms. Foch replies in character, "Modesty."

The next year, she played Marie Antoinette in "Scaramouche" (1952) and then achieved greater attention with her role in the all-star drama "Executive Suite" (1954).

After her Oscar nomination, Ms. Foch appeared in minor roles in major productions. She was Bithiah, who finds the baby Moses, in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and played the manipulative Helena Glabrus in Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus" (1960).

The Dutch-born actress was an associate director and language consultant to George Stevens on "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959). She also established herself as a widely respected drama coach at University of Southern California and the American Film Institute.

Nina Consuelo Maud Fock was born April 20, 1924, in the Dutch town of Leyden. Her parents had a brief and tempestuous marriage that made international gossip headlines.

Her father was a Dutch orchestra conductor and her American-born mother, Consuelo Flowerton, modeled for war-bond posters and acted in a few silent films.

Raised in New York, Nina was pushed by her mother into drama school to improve her poise. Her mother's connections also helped smooth her path into Hollywood.

Ms. Foch entered the film industry as a teenager in the mid-1940s in what she later called "crappy B-movies" at Columbia Studios: a series of low-budget scare flicks and dramas.

Her neck was pursued by Bela Lugosi in "The Return of the Vampire" (1944), a Dracula-themed picture set in World War II London, and she played a gangster's moll in "The Dark Past" (1948).

She played the title role of a secretary imprisoned at a creepy family's mansion in "My Name Is Julia Ross" (1945), a melodrama that made little impression at the time but has enjoyed a revival because of film noir enthusiasts.

Ms. Foch was a panelist and moderator on TV shows in the 1950s and continued appearing for many more decades in sitcoms and miniseries such as "War and Remembrance" (1988).

On Broadway, she had a leading role in Norman Krasna's romantic comedy "John Loves Mary" (1947), which ran a year. In the early 1950s, she appeared in Broadway revivals of Shakespeare dramas produced by Roger L. Stevens and John Houseman.

Ms. Foch was married and divorced three times. Her first husband was actor and writer James Lipton, the host of Bravo's "Inside the Actors Studio" series. Her subsequent husbands were Dennis de Brito and Michael Dewell. Survivors include a son from her second marriage.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

1940s Film Star Van Johnson Dies at 92

Van Johnson, a '40s and '50s Hollywood heartthrob whose film career spanned six decades, has died. He was 92.

Johnson passed away Friday of natural causes at the Tappan Zee Manor, an assisted living facility, in Nyack, N.Y., his friend, Wendy Bleisweis, said.

Armed with all-American looks and oozing charm, Johnson was dubbed "the non-singing Sinatra" in his heyday, but he was much more than just a pretty face. Proving to be a versatile talent, Johnson flexed his skills across a plethora of genres, starring in comedies, dramas, musicals, including Thrill of a Romance and Brigadoon, and war films, such as The Caine Mutiny and 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, in which he played a real-life amputee who lost his leg in a crash.

Born Charles Van Dell Johnson on Aug. 25, 1916, in Newport, R.I., Johnson left his home state in 1934 for New York City to pursue acting. Following a gig on Broadway, he headed to L.A. for his first film role in Too Many Girls and was signed to a Warner Bros. contract. After Warner Bros. dropped him, Johnson was picked up by MGM with help from friend, Lucille Ball, and would stay with the studio for two decades, earning parts opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor.

In 1943, Johnson was in a car wreck that left him with a metal disc in his forehead. The accident delayed production on the World War II drama, A Guy Named Joe, which also starred Spencer Tracy.

Other film credits include Two Girls and a Sailor, Week-End at the Waldorf, The White Cliffs of Dover and Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo.

In addition to stage productions of Damn Yankees and The Music Man, Johnson also graced the small screen with guest spots on The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and I Love Lucy. His last acting appearance was in 1992's Clowning Around.

Married once, Johnson eloped to Mexico in 1947 with Eve Wynn, whose divorce to Johnson's friend Keenan Wynn was finalized four hours prior. The two had a daughter, Schuyler, in 1948, and divorced in 1968.

 

[linuxgeek]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/ap_en_ot/obit_roddenberry_1

Majel Roddenberry, widow of 'Trek' creator, dies
Dec 18, 2008

LOS ANGELES – Majel Barrett Roddenberry, "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry's widow who nurtured the legacy of the seminal science fiction TV series after his death, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry died of leukemia Thursday morning at her home in Bel-Air, said Sean Rossall, a family spokesman.

At Roddenberry's side were family friends and her son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr.

Roddenberry was involved in the "Star Trek" universe for more than four decades. She played the dark-haired Number One in the original pilot but metamorphosed into the blond, miniskirted Nurse Christine Chapel in the original 1966-69 show. She had smaller roles in all five of its television successors and many of the "Star Trek" movie incarnations, although she had little involvement in the productions.

She frequently was the voice of the ship's computer, and about two weeks ago she completed the same role for the upcoming J.J. Abrams movie "Star Trek," Rossall said.

Roddenberry also helped keep the franchise alive by inspiring fans and attended a major "Star Trek" convention each year, Rossall said.

"I think `Star Trek' will always be her legacy," Rossall said.

"Star Trek" and its successors often focused on political and philosophical issues of the day. Roddenberry and her husband, who died in 1991, believed in creating "thoughtful entertainment" and were proud of the show and the passionate devotion of its fans, Rossall said.

"My mother truly acknowledged and appreciated the fact that `Star Trek' fans played a vital role in keeping the Roddenberry dream alive for the past 42 years. It was her love for the fans, and their love in return, that kept her going for so long after my father passed away," her son said in a statement on the official Roddenberry Web site.

Born Majel Lee Hudec on Feb. 23, 1932, in Cleveland, she began taking acting classes as a child. She had some stage roles, then in the late 1950s and 1960s had bit parts in a few movies and small roles in TV series, including "Leave It to Beaver" and "Bonanza."

She met her husband in 1964 during a guest role for a Marine Corps drama he produced called "The Lieutenant." That same year, she was cast in the pilot for the "Star Trek" series as the no-nonsense second-in-command. The pilot did not appeal to NBC executives and a second pilot was made, although parts of the original later showed up in a two-part episode called "The Menagerie."

The couple married in Japan in 1969 after "Star Trek" was canceled. After her husband's death, Roddenberry continued her involvement with the "Star Trek" franchise.

She also was the executive producer for two other TV science fiction series, "Andromeda" and "Earth: Final Conflict."

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat", dies at 95

Mark Felt, Watergate's `Deep Throat,' dies at 95


W. Mark Felt, the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as "Deep Throat" 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president, has died. He was 95.

Felt died Thursday in Santa Rosa after suffering from congestive heart failure for several months, said family friend John D. O'Connor, who wrote the 2005 Vanity Fair article uncovering Felt's secret.

The shadowy central figure in the one of the most gripping political dramas of the 20th century, Felt insisted his alter ego be kept secret when he leaked damaging information about President Richard Nixon and his aides to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

While some — including Nixon and his aides — speculated that Felt was the source who connected the White House to the June 1972 break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, he steadfastly denied the accusations until finally coming forward in May 2005.

"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," Felt told O'Connor for the Vanity Fair article, creating a whirlwind of media attention.

Weakened by a stroke, the man who had kept his secret for decades wasn't doing much talking — he merely waved to the media from the front door of his daughter's Santa Rosa home.

Critics, including those who went to prison for the Watergate scandal, called him a traitor for betraying the commander in chief. Supporters hailed him as a hero for blowing the whistle on a corrupt administration trying to cover up attempts to sabotage opponents.

Felt grappled with his place in history, arguing with his children over whether to reveal his identity or to take his secret to the grave, O'Connor said. He agonized about what revealing his identity would do to his reputation. Would he be seen as a turncoat or a man of honor?

"People will debate for a long time whether I did the right thing by helping Woodward," Felt wrote in his 2006 memoir, "A G-Man's Life: The FBI, `Deep Throat' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington." "The bottom line is that we did get the whole truth out, and isn't that what the FBI is supposed to do?"

Ultimately, his daughter, Joan, persuaded him to go public; after all, Woodward was sure to profit by revealing the secret after Felt died. "We could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education," she told her father, according to the Vanity Fair article. "Let's do it for the family."

The revelation capped a Washington whodunnit that spanned more than three decades and seven presidents. It was the final mystery of Watergate, the subject of the best-selling book and hit movie "All the President's Men," which inspired a generation of college students to pursue journalism.

It was by chance that Felt came to play a pivotal role in the drama.

Back in 1970, Woodward struck up a conversation with Felt while both were waiting in a White House hallway. Felt apparently took a liking to the young Woodward, then a Navy courier, and Woodward kept the relationship going, treating Felt as a mentor as he tried to figure out the ways of Washington.

Later, while Woodward and partner Carl Bernstein relied on various unnamed sources in reporting on Watergate, the man their editor dubbed "Deep Throat" helped to keep them on track and confirm vital information. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its Watergate coverage.

Within days of the burglary at Watergate that launched the Post's investigative series, Woodward phoned Felt.

"He reminded me how he disliked phone calls at the office but said that the Watergate burglary case was going to `heat up' for reasons he could not explain," Woodward wrote after Felt was named. "He then hung up abruptly."

Felt helped Woodward link former CIA man Howard Hunt to the break-in. He said the reporter could accurately write that Hunt, whose name was found in the address book of one of the burglars, was a suspect. But Felt told him off the record, insisting that their relationship and Felt's identity remain secret.

Worried that phones were being tapped, Felt arranged clandestine meetings worthy of a spy novel. Woodward would move a flower pot with a red flag on his balcony if he needed to meet Felt. The G-man would scrawl a time to meet on page 20 of Woodward's copy of The New York Times and they would rendezvous in a suburban Virginia parking garage in the dead of night.

In the movie, the enduring image of Deep Throat — a name borrowed from a 1972 porn movie — is of a testy, chain-smoking Hal Holbrook telling Woodward, played by Robert Redford, to "follow the money."

In a memoir published in April 2006, Felt said he saw himself as a "Lone Ranger" who could help derail a White House cover-up.

Felt wrote that he was upset by the slow pace of the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in and believed the press could pressure the administration to cooperate.

"From the start, it was clear that senior administration officials were up to their necks in this mess, and that they would stop at nothing to sabotage our investigation," Felt wrote in his memoir.

Some critics said Felt, a J. Edgar Hoover loyalist, was bitter at being passed over when Nixon appointed an FBI outsider and confidante, L. Patrick Gray, to lead the FBI after Hoover's death. Gray was later implicated in Watergate abuses.

"We had no idea of his motivations, and even now some of his motivations are unclear," Bernstein said.

Felt wrote that he wasn't motivated by anger. "It is true that I would have welcomed an appointment as FBI director when Hoover died. It is not true that I was jealous of Gray," he wrote.

Felt was born in Twin Falls, Idaho, and worked for an Idaho senator during graduate school. After law school at George Washington University he spent a year at the Federal Trade Commission. Felt joined the FBI in 1942 and worked as a Nazi hunter during World War II.

Ironically, while providing crucial information to the Post, Felt also was assigned to ferret out the newspaper's source. The investigation never went anywhere, but plenty of people, including those in the White House at the time, guessed that Felt, who was leading the investigation into Watergate, may have been acting as a double agent.

The Watergate tapes captured White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman telling Nixon that Felt was the source, but they were afraid to stop him.

Nixon asks: "Somebody in the FBI?"

Haldeman: "Yes, sir. Mark Felt ... If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything. He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI."

Felt left the FBI in 1973 for the lecture circuit. Five years later he was indicted on charges of authorizing FBI break-ins at homes associated with suspected bombers from the 1960s radical group the Weather Underground. President Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt in 1981 while the case was on appeal — a move applauded by Nixon.

Woodward and Bernstein said they wouldn't reveal the source's identity until he or she died, and finally confirmed Felt's role only after he came forward.

O'Connor said Thursday his friend appeared to be at peace since the revelation.

"What I saw was a person that went from a divided personality that carried around this heavy secret to a completely integrated and glowing personality over these past few years once he let the secret out," he said.

Felt is survived by two children, Joan Felt and Mark Felt Jr., and four grandchildren. His wife, Audrey Felt, died in 1984.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Sam Bottoms, Film and TV Actor, Dies at 53

Sam Bottoms, a film and television actor who was the third in a family of four acting brothers, died at his home in Los Angeles. He was 53.

The cause was a brain tumor, his sister-in-law Emily Lansbury said.

With his older brothers Timothy and Joseph and his younger brother, Ben, Mr. Bottoms was a regular presence on the large and small screens in the 1970s and afterward. He was perhaps best known for his performance as Lance Johnson, the surfer turned Vietnam patrol-boat gunner in “Apocalypse Now” (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Mr. Bottoms’s other films include “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (1976) and “Bronco Billy” (1980), both directed by Clint Eastwood; “Gardens of Stone” (1987), directed by Mr. Coppola; and “Seabiscuit” (2003), directed by Gary Ross, in which he played an assistant trainer. He also appeared on television in the mini-series “East of Eden” (1981) and in numerous shows and commercials.

Samuel John Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Oct. 17, 1955. At 15 he was cast in his first film, “The Last Picture Show” (1971), after he visited his brother Timothy on the set and was spotted by the director, Peter Bogdanovich. Mr. Bogdanovich gave him the role of Billy, the retarded boy who sweeps the streets of his dusty Texas town.

Mr. Bottoms’s first marriage, to Susan Arnold, ended in divorce. Besides his brothers, he is survived by his parents, James and Elizabeth Chapman Bottoms; his second wife, Laura Condé Bickford, a film producer; and two daughters from his first marriage, Clara and Io.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Sopranos Actor Dead in Apparent Suicide

http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2009/news/090105/john_costelloe240.jpg

An actor from HBO's The Sopranos has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

John Costelloe, who played short-order cook Jim "Johnny Cakes" Witowski on the hit HBO series in 2006, was found dead in an apparent suicide on Dec. 18 at his Brooklyn, N.Y., home, Police spokesman Lt. John Grimpel confirms to the Associated Press.

Costelloe's character was the gay lover of mobster Vito Spotafore, portrayed by Joseph Gannascoli.

Police discovered his body after being called to the actor's residence when family members were unable to reach him.

Costelloe also stars as Warren Hurley opposite Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt, which is currently in theaters.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Eartha Kitt dies at 81

http://www.musicweb-international.com/jazz/2002/Apr02/Eartha_Kitt.jpg

NEW YORK, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Eartha Kitt, the U.S. singer-actress who learned to pick cotton before the age of 8, died in New York with her daughter at her side, her publicist said.

She was 81.

Kitt was being treated for colon cancer, publicist Patty Freedman told CNN Thursday.

Kitt said she got her unusual first name because she was born on a small farm in South Carolina during an abundant harvest.

"I was named Eartha to thank the earth for that fine crop," the tawny singer-actress said during an interview with UPI in 1981.

The singer was born Jan. 16, 1928, the daughter of John and Anna Kitt, and she was in the fields picking cotton before she was 8 years old.

She and her mother moved to New York after her father died, but her mother died shortly thereafter and Kitt was placed in custody of an aunt.

Honesty became almost a mania with the young woman and her outspoken manner often startled people around her. It even followed her into the White House in later years when, as a guest at the White House, she angrily told the first lady at that time, Lady Bird Johnson, that American youth was in rebellion because of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

Kitt became a member of the Dunham dancers and toured the world for almost five years before she struck out on her own as a nightclub chanteuse in Paris, where she wore slit-to-the-hip gowns and sang with a purr in her voice.

Kitt appeared in a number of films including "New Faces" (1953), "St. Louis Blues" (1957), "Anna Lucasta" (1958) and "The Saint of Devil's Island" (1961).

Kitt told her life story in a book, "Thursday's Child," published in 1956.

She married William O. McDonald in 1960. They separated in 1963 and later divorced. They had one child, a girl, Kitt.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMmSbxB_Sg

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Sir Harold Pinter Dies at 78

Dec 25, 2008 · New York

Sir Harold Pinter, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, has died after a long battle with cancer, according to the Associated Press. He was 78.

Pinter wrote over 30 plays in his long career; his best known works included The Homecoming, which won the Tony Award for Best Play, as well as The Caretaker, The Birthday Party, No Man's Land, Old Times, The Room, Celebration, and Betrayal. He also directed the original Broadway productions of two shows he did not write: The Man in the Glass Booth and Butley.

He also wrote one novel, Dwarfs, and over 20 screenplays. He received Oscar nominations for his adaptations of The French Lieutenant's Woman and Betrayal; his other credits included The Servant, Accident, The Last Tycoon, and the 2007 remake of Sleuth.

The playwright made headlines in 2005 in his recorded acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, when he attacked President George W. Bush. "The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," he said.

Pinter is survived by his second wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, and a son, Daniel, from his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Delaney Bramlett dies in L.A.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock guitarist Delaney Bramlett, who collaborated with such artists as George Harrison and Eric Clapton, died in a Los Angeles hospital following gallbladder surgery. He was 69.

His wife, Susan Lanier-Bramlett, said he died on Saturday after "seven hard months" of ill health.

"I held him and he held on up until the last breath with which he went in peace to the light and on into eternity," she said in a statement.

The Mississippi native first gained renown in the late 1960s as part of the southern-fried rhythm and blues combo Delaney & Bonnie, which he formed with his first wife, Bonnie Lynn. The gifted duo were often overshadowed by their "Friends," as their backing group was known. Among them was Clapton, who regularly performed as a low-key sideman.

Bramlett, in turn, produced Clapton's self-titled debut solo album in 1970, and co-wrote most of the songs, including the gospel-tinged hit single "Let It Rain."

Clapton brought Delaney & Bonnie to England, and recruited such musicians as Harrison and Dave Mason to perform at their shows. According to Bramlett's biography, he taught Harrison how to play slide guitar and to write a gospel song, which led to the recording of the former Beatle's hit single "My Sweet Lord."

Delaney & Bonnie enjoyed a few hits of their own, including the 1971 tune "Never Ending Song Of Love," but their popularity faded after Clapton moved on. The couple divorced after releasing their last album together, 1972's "Together."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Author of 'Man of La Mancha,' dies at 94

PHOENIX (AP) — Dale Wasserman, author of the book for the Tony-winning musical "Man of La Mancha" as well as the stage adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," has died. He was 94.

Wasserman died Dec. 21 of congestive heart failure at his home in the Phoenix suburb of Paradise Valley, his wife, Martha, said Saturday.

"Man of La Mancha," the tale of the intrepid, ever idealistic Don Quixote, was one of Broadway's biggest hits in the 1960s. The show, which starred Richard Kiley and Joan Diener, opened in 1965 and won the Tony for best musical. It ran for more than 2,300 performances.

Its best known song, "The Impossible Dream," written by composer Mitch Leigh and lyricist Joe Darion, became a popular hit, particularly in a version by Jack Jones. The show has had several Broadway revivals since the '60s, with the latest in 2002 starring Brian Stokes Mitchell and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

Wasserman's adaptation of "Cuckoo's Nest," Kesey's novel about a renegade mental hospital inmate, opened on Broadway in 1963. The production, which starred Kirk Douglas and Joan Tetzel, only ran for a little over two months but later became a fixture in community theaters. It was revived on Broadway in 2001 with Gary Sinise and Amy Morton in the lead roles.

Wasserman began writing television dramas in the 1950s, then went on to pen screenplays, including 1958's "The Vikings" starring Douglas and Tony Curtis, and "Mister Buddwing" starring James Garner in 1966.

Born in Rhinelander, Wis., as one of 14 children of Russian immigrants, he was orphaned at age 10 and sent to live with uncles and aunts. Wasserman wrote on his Web site that he left home and spent years "jumping freight trains, graduating as a Hobo cum laude," eventually ending up with a career in theater.

Author of more than 75 scripts, Wasserman continued to work until his death, making revisions to a play based on his early hobo life called "Burning in the Night," his wife said. His latest finished play, "Premiere!" is set to open in a suburban Phoenix theater next month.

Ever the forward-thinking writer, he gave his wife instructions for his obituary months ago: "'The only thing I would want the newspaper to say is this: He invented the phrase 'The Impossible Dream' — and lived it,'" Martha Wasserman recalled.

Wasserman is survived by his wife.

 

[KindaKinky]

John Travolta's 16-year-old son dies in Bahamas

Print By JUAN McCARTNEY, Associated Press Writer Juan Mccartney, Associated Press Writer – 19 mins ago

NASSAU, Bahamas – John Travolta's teenage son, Jett, died in the Bahamas after apparently suffering a seizure and hitting his head at his family's vacation home, authorities said Friday.

A house caretaker found Jett, 16, unconscious in a bathroom late Friday morning. He was taken by ambulance to a Freeport hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Police Superintendent Basil Rahming said in a statement.

The teenager had last been seen entering the bathroom on Thursday and had a history of seizures, according to the statement. An autopsy is planned.

Jett apparently hit his head on the bathtub, said a police officer who declined to be named because she was not authorized to speak on the matter.

Family attorney Michael Ossi said in a statement that Jett died suddenly on Friday. Publicists Samantha Mast and Paul Bloch released the statement but could not be reached for additional comment.

Jett was the oldest child of Travolta, 54, and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, 46, who also have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu.

Preston and Travolta have said that Jett became very sick when he was 2 years old and was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease, an illness that leads to inflammation of the blood vessels in young children. She blamed household cleaners and fertilizers, and said that a detoxification program based on teachings from the Church of Scientology helped improve his health, according to People magazine. Both Travolta and Preston are practicing Scientologists.

"I was obsessive about his space being cleaned. We constantly had the carpets cleaned," Travolta said in a 2001 interview with CNN's Larry King, a portion of which was rebroadcast on the "Larry King Live" show Friday night. During that interview, when Jett was 9, Travolta spoke of how his son nearly died when he was 2.

It is unclear whether Jett was taking any medications for his seizures.

The Scientology Celebrity Center in Los Angeles declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport said she could not release any information because of privacy concerns.

The family had arrived in the Bahamas on a private plane Tuesday and was vacationing at their home in the Old Bahama Bay resort community.

"The Travolta family has become like family to us at Old Bahama Bay and we extend our deepest sympathies to them," said Robert Gidel, president of Ginn Resorts, the property's owner.

Travolta's corporate and commercial attorney, Michael McDermott, said the actor had a very strong relationship with his son.

"There was unspoken communication between the two. ... It's just so hard," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "Kelly is very quiet and both are grieving."

McDermott said his family and other friends are with the couple in the Bahamas. The group came for a two-day New Year's celebration and had planned to return to Florida on Sunday.

"We're are all here and trying to help in any way we can," McDermott said. "Their pain is so evident."

Obie Wilchcombe, a parliament member and former tourism minister in the Bahamas, said Travolta "spent a tremendous amount of time with Jett."

"He always brought him along. There was a close affectionate relationship and lots of love," Wilchcombe told "Larry King Live" in a live telephone interview. "People in the old Bahama community today are in shock."

Wilchcombe said that an autopsy is planned for Monday, and "we expect a quick resolution."

"John spoke with the minister of health and the doctors and police are at the hospital. They're very, very quick to resolve things," he said.

Travolta, who gained fame as Vinnie Barbarino on the 1970s television show "Welcome Back, Kotter" and the 1977 film "Saturday Night Fever," went on to become one of Hollywood's biggest names. He married Preston in 1991.

A television actress, Preston appeared with Travolta in the 2000 film "Battlefield Earth," based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Wilchcombe said the Travoltas had invited 60 friends for the New Year's holiday weekend.

"They're needed today more than ever before," he said.

_____

Associated Press Writers Josh Dickey in Los Angeles, Lisa Orkin Emmanuel in Miami and Kathy Corcoran in Mexico City contributed to this report.

(This version corrects last name to Bloch sted Block in 5th paragraf and fixes style on 'Larry King Live' thruout.)

 

[blueyz22]

'Starsky and Hutch' Captain Dies

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 2) -- Bernie Hamilton, who made a name for himself as the no-guff-taking captain on the hit '70s television series 'Starsky and Hutch' has died at the age of 80.
Hamilton's son says the actor died on Dec. 30 of cardiac arrest.
TV Legends LostYouTube32 photos Bernie Hamilton, Dec. 30: The actor known mostly for his role as Captain Harold Dobey on the '70s TV show 'Starsky and Hutch' died at the age of 80 due to cardiac arrest.(Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker)

Born in Los Angeles in 1928, Hamilton ran away from home as a teenager and wound up staying in someone's garage and attending Oakland Technical High School, where he played football and got involved in acting.
Hamilton appeared in more than 20 films, including "The Young One," "The Devil at 4 O'Clock," "Synanon," "The Swimmer," "Walk the Walk" and "The Organization."
He also had guest appearances on television series before becoming a regular on "Starsky and Hutch," the ABC police drama starring Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul. Hamilton played the brusque, by-the-book Capt. Harold Dobey, a role that gave him wide recognition to this day, his son said.
After "Starsky and Hutch," Hamilton spent the next 20 years in the music business producing R&B and gospel records under the record label Chocolate Snowman.

http://www.popeater.com/television/article/starsky-and-hutch-captain-dies/291511

 

[JennyOmanHill]

My Winnipeg star Ann Savage dies

http://www.moderntimes.com/palace/film_noir/image/past.jpg

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

Ann Savage, who earned a cult following as a '40s femme fatale before being coaxed out of retirement to play Guy Maddin's mother in My Winnipeg, has died at 87.

The actress died in her sleep at a nursing home on Christmas Day from complications following a series of strokes, said her manager, Kent Adamson.

Savage's Hollywood career had largely been over since the mid-1950s, but she had a resurgence in 2008 thanks to a starring role in My Winnipeg, in which she played the onscreen version of Maddin's overbearing mother.

"She's the fiercest femme fatale in the history of film noir," Maddin told the Winnipeg Sun weeks prior to the film's release, noting he -- like many film buffs -- was particularly enamored of Savage's toxic performance in the 1945 B-movie Detour, in which she played a woman ruthlessly blackmailing a stranger played by Tom Neal.

Maddin said he had to woo Savage for months by telephone before convincing her to appear in My Winnipeg.

"This feat I likened to tricking (Greta) Garbo herself out in front of a movie camera after her decades in hiding," Maddin told U.K. newspaper The Guardian last summer. "When you think of it, Savage is indeed the Garbo of the modern American independent film world. She has been a woman seen only in fleeting glimpses, a little older and more shrunken with each sighting, but worshipped by generations of directors as the same 24-year-old raw matter of studio pulchitrude she was in Detour, with the same vigour that cult martyrdom bestows upon its unfairly marked-down gods and goddesses.

"Unfairly, I say, because close inspection of Savage's work in Detour reveals a talent of incredible range that transcends cultiness; she plays hard-boiled, vulnerable, gutter sexy and posh, pitiable and psychotic and even (most astonishingly) sympathetic."

After her debut in the 1943 crime story One Dangerous Night, Savage made more than 30 films throughout the 1950s, including westerns (Saddles and Sagebrush, Satan's Cradle), musicals (Dancing in Manhattan, Ever Since Venus) and wartime tales (Passport to Suez, Two-Man Submarine).

She also did some television work in the '50s, including Death Valley Days and The Ford Television Theatre, before leaving Hollywood for New York City, where she appeared in commercials and industrial films.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Donald E. Westlake, Mystery Writer, Is Dead at 75

Donald E. Westlake, a prolific, award-winning mystery novelist who pounded out more than 100 books and 5 screenplays on manual typewriters during a career of nearly 50 years, died on Wednesday night. He was 75.

The cause was a heart attack, she said.

Mr. Westlake, considered one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States, received an Academy Award nomination for a screenplay, three Edgar Awards and the title of Grand Master from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

Since his first novel, “The Mercenaries,” was published by Random House in 1960, Mr. Westlake had written under his own name and several pseudonyms, including Richard Stark, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt and Edwin West. Despite the diversity of pen names, most of his books shared one feature: They were set in New York City, where he was born.

Mr. Westlake used different names in part to combat skepticism over his rapid rate of writing books, sometimes as many as four a year, his friends said.

“In the beginning, people didn’t want to publish more than one book a year by the same author,” said Susan Richman, his publicist at Grand Central Publishing.

Later in his career, Mr. Westlake limited himself to two pen names, each generally focusing on one primary character: He used his own name to write about an unintentionally comical criminal named John Dortmunder, and as Richard Stark wrote a series about an anti-hero and criminal named Parker.

Mr. Westlake’s cinematic style of storytelling, along with his carefully crafted plots and crisp dialogue, translated well on the screen. More than 15 of his books were made into movies. In addition, he wrote a number of screenplays, including “The Grifters,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1991.

Mr. Westlake wrote seven days a week, his friends said. His productiveness was honed in part by an era in which publishing houses churned out books at a relentless pace. During that time, he also wrote erotic literature, science fiction and westerns.

Mr. Westlake resisted computers and typed his manuscripts on manual typewriters. “They came in perfectly typed,” Mr. Kirshbaum said. “You felt like it was almost written by hand.”

Otto Penzler, a longtime friend of Mr. Westlake’s and the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in TriBeCa, said, “He hated the idea of an electric typewriter because, he said, ‘I don’t want to sit there while I am thinking and have something hum at me.’ ”

Mr. Westlake kept four or five typewriters and cannibalized their parts when any one broke, as the typewriter model was no longer manufactured, his friends said.

“He lived in fear that he wouldn’t have his little portable typewriter,” said Mr. Penzler, who once gave him a similar typewriter that he had found in a secondhand store.

Donald Edwin Westlake was born to Lillian and Albert Westlake on July 12, 1933, in Brooklyn, and was raised in Yonkers and Albany. He attended colleges in New York, but did not graduate. He married Abigail Adams in 1979, and the couple settled in Gallatin, N.Y. He was previously married to Nedra Henderson and Sandra Kalb.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Westlake is survived by four sons, Sean Westlake, Steven Westlake, Paul Westlake and Tod Westlake; two stepdaughters, Adrienne Adams and Katherine Adams; a stepson, Patrick Adams; a sister, Virginia VanDermark; and four grandchildren.

Mr. Westlake was productive until his death. His next novel, “Get Real,” is scheduled for release in April.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Pat Hingle, Veteran Character Actor, Dies at 84

http://www.playbill.com/images/photo/p/h/phingle200.jpg

Pat Hingle, the character actor whose career stretched back to the 1940s and whose credits encompassed copious roles in theatre, film and television, died Jan. 3 at his home in Carolina Beach, NC. He was 84. The cause was myelodysplasia, a blood disorder, his wife, Julia, said.

Tall and solid built, with a twang left in his rich, deep voice from his Southern upbringing (he was born in Miami and raised and schooled in Texas), he played everything from gangsters to policemen and every moral station in between. With his wide smile, twinkling deep-set eyes and bushy eyebrows, which seemed imbued with years of homegrown wisdom, he effortlessly drew the viewer in, but — somewhat like his contemporary and fellow Southerner Burl Ives — his folksy charm could turn malevolent just as easily as it could prove virtuous. As Angelica Huston's underworld boss in the film "The Grifters," he spoke to her with paternal warmth while calmly loading a sack full of oranges, with which he planned to beat her.

He was both friendly and boorish as a football player in End as Man, the 1953 Broadway play that made his reputation, following a few years working in regional theatres. The adaptation of Calder Willingham's novel was a coming-of-age story set at a Southern military academy. When it was made into a film called "The Strange One," Mr. Hingle repeated his role.

Mr. Hingle cut a prominent figure on the stage in the 1950s, often starring in plays set in the South. He was the original Gooper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (he portrayed Big Daddy in the same play at the Mark Taper Forum in 1983), and was Tony-nominated for his role as a trouble husband in William Inge's partly autobiographical The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, directed by Elia Kazan. He played the title character in J.B., Archibald MacLeish's allegorical take on the Job story. The play, which won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, was a sensation at the time, and the actor was widely praised. Mr. Hingle's time in it was cut short, however, when he fell more than 50 feet down the shaft of a stalled elevator. The near-fatal fall fractured his left hip and a finger had to be amputated. It took a year for him to get back on his feet.

The accident prevented him from accepting the title role in the film, "Elmer Gantry." The part went to Bert Lancaster, who won a best actor Oscar. "I know that if I had played Elmer Gantry, I would have been more of a movie name," Hingle told The New York Times in 1997. "But I'm sure I would not have done as many plays as I've done. I had exactly the kind of career I had hoped for." A workaholic, he was back on stage in 1960 in The Deadly Game.

He began working in television early on, performing in many live dramas. Kazan and Inge used him again when they cast him as Warren Beatty's powerful father in the 1961 film "Splendor in the Grass." He went on to star in "The Ugly American," "All the Way Home," "Invitation to a Gunfighter," "Nevada Smith," "Hang 'Em High," "Sweet, Sweet Rachel" and "Norma Rae." He was Commissioner Gordon in the first four "Batman" films.

During the 1960s, his Broadway work included a 1963 revival of Strange Interlude and a 1965 revival of The Glass Menagerie (as the Gentleman Caller), a stint playing Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple, James Baldwin's Blues for Mister Charlie, the one-performance flop Johnny No-Trump, and the original policeman brother Victor Franz in Arthur Miller's family drama The Price.

He began the 1970s in Child's Play, followed by The Selling of the President, The Championship Season and The Lady From the Season. A chance to play Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman was offered by Buffalo's Studio Theatre in 1976. After 17 years away from Broadway, he played Ben Franklin in a 1997 revival of 1776, a rare musical for the actor. In 1999, he was cast to star in the Huntington Theatre Company production of The Last Hurrah, but exited the production before it began performances. He essayed his final stage roles at smaller theatres in North Carolina, which he made his home after filming "Maximum Overdrive" there in 1986.

Martin Patterson Hingle was born on July 19, 1924, in Miami, according to the New York Times. He went to high school in Weslaco, TX, where he played tuba in the band and attended the University of Texas, but dropped out during World War II to serve in the Navy.

Like many another actor of his generation, he got into the theatre in order to meet girls. "I went back to school [after the war]," he said, "and every time I saw a pretty girl I'd say, 'Who the hell is that?' Well, they were all headed towards the theatre department so I joined the campus Curtain Club. In three years I did 35 plays and in one of those plays I finally realized that I felt more comfortable than I did anywhere and I was where God intended me to be. I always feel that way."

His first marriage, to Alyce Dorsey, ended in divorce. He is survived by three children from that marriage, and his wife since 1979, Julia Wright.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Cheryl Holdridge dies at 64; popular Mouseketeer

January 9, 2009

Cheryl Holdridge, the beautiful blond actress who first gained fame as a Mouseketeer on TV's "The Mickey Mouse Club" in the 1950s, has died. She was 64.

Holdridge died Tuesday at her home in Santa Monica after a two-year battle with lung cancer, said Doreen Tracey, another former Mouseketeer.

"What's amazing is that Cheryl and I have gone through so many things together, I'm glad I could have been there in the end too," Tracey said Thursday.

Holdridge was 11 years old in the spring of 1956 when she auditioned and was hired for "The Mickey Mouse Club," which had debuted on Oct. 3, 1955, with 24 talented youngsters who sang and danced and yet came across as the kids next door.

Holdridge joined the Mouseketeers in the second season of the show, which ran until 1959.

She quickly became part of the core group that appeared on the famous Mouseketeer roll call at the start of each show, along with Tracey, Annette Funicello, Tommy Cole, Cubby O'Brien, Sharon Baird, Bobby Burgess, Karen Pendleton, Lonnie Burr and Darlene Gillespie.

"Her fan mail was quite high, and they need those ratings," Tracey said. "We were trying to win over the American public, which we did.

"Annette had the highest rating, but Cheryl came pretty close."

During her Mouseketeer days, Holdridge appeared in some of the show's episodic serials, including "Boys of the Western Sea" and the "Annette" series.

Unlike some of the other Mouseketeers, Holdridge didn't have trouble finding work in television as a young actress after hanging up her Mouse ears.

She went on to play Wally Cleaver's girlfriend, Julie Foster, for two seasons on "Leave It to Beaver." And she had guest roles on shows such as "The Rifleman," "Bachelor Father," "My Three Sons," "Bewitched" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

"Our reputations as Disney players opened doors," Holdridge told the Chicago Tribune in 2001 during a Mouseketeer autograph session at a Disney memorabilia show in Bloomingdale, Ill., that drew a crowd of more than 1,000.

"Directors knew we understood how to move on camera, how to hit our marks and say lines. Doreen and I went up for many of the same parts. We both did 'Ozzie and Harriet' and 'Bachelor Father.' "

Holdridge left the business in 1964 when she married Lance Reventlow, the son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, "because that's what you did then. You married and stayed home."

Reventlow died in a plane crash in 1972. In 1994, Holdridge married Manning Post, a prominent West Coast Democratic Party fundraiser and advisor, who died in 2000.

Holdridge was born Cheryl Lynn Phelps on June 20, 1944, in New Orleans and moved to Los Angeles when she was 2. Her mother, Julie Austin, was a former Ziegfeld Follies featured dancer and comedian and encouraged her to express herself through dance.

After her mother married Herbert Holdridge, a retired brigadier general, he adopted Cheryl in 1953.

At 9, she was selected by George Balanchine to perform for the New York City Ballet Company in a Los Angeles production of "The Nutcracker Suite." Her first screen appearance was a small role in the 1956 musical "Carousel."

Then came "The Mickey Mouse Club."

"She certainly was a very pretty blond and just had a very winning personality," said Lorraine Santoli, author of "The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book" and a former Disney publicist who worked with the Mouseketeers as adults in the 1980s and '90s.

As an adult, "Cheryl was the most joyous person, is the best way I can put it," she said. "She saw the positive side of everything."

Holdridge enjoyed joining other former Mouseketeers at shows and appearances at Disneyland, Santoli said.

"She got such joy out of it, she really did, and she was so proud of the fact that she was an original Mouseketeer."

Tommy Cole said Thursday that "Cheryl was one of the loves of my life, especially because we were like family."

"Being one of the prettiest girls on the set, I always considered her Miss Sunshine," he recalled. "She'd walk into the room and this ray of sunshine would happen every time she smiled."

Cole was among the former Mouseketeers who visited with Holdridge on Monday night. And, he said, when he heard that she had died two hours after he left her side, "a little bit of sunshine went out of my life."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Punk pioneer, Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton dies in home

CHICAGO (AFP) — Punk rock pioneer Ron Asheton, the guitarist for the Stooges, was found dead Tuesday in his Michigan home, police said. He was 60.

Asheton was found on his living room couch after a friend who had not heard from him for several days asked police to check on him.

It appeared as though he had been dead for several days and foul play is not suspected, said Ann Arbor police lieutenant Angella Abrams.

"I am in shock. He was my best friend," Stooges lead singer Iggy Pop said in a statement on his website.

Iggy Pop and his band members -- including Asheton's brother Scott -- remembered the guitarist as an "irreplaceable" friend, brother and musician.

"For all that knew him behind the façade of Mr Cool & Quirky, he was a kind-hearted, genuine, warm person who always believed that people meant well even if they did not," they said in the statement.

"As a musician Ron was The Guitar God, idol to follow and inspire others. That is how he will be remembered by people who had a great pleasure to work with him, learn from him and share good and bad times with him."

Asheton was named number 29 among Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists of All Time and the magazine credited him for writing "some of rock's most memorable riffs" including "No Fun," "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "TV Eye."

He formed the Stooges with Iggy Pop, bassist Dave Alexander and his brother Scott on drums in 1967 in Detroit.

The band was known for its wild performances and helped kickstart the punk rock revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

They released two albums -- "The Stooges" and "Fun House" -- before Asheton took over on bass guitar in 1973 for "Raw Power."

Asheton went on to play with a number of different bands after the Stooges split in 1974, including Destroy All Monsters, New Race, Dark Carnival and the Powertrane.

The Stooges reformed in 2003, playing several shows together and releasing a new album "The Weirdness" in 2007.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Former Big League Skipper Gomez Dies

(Jan. 13) - Preston Gomez, who managed the expansion San Diego Padres and later guided the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs during a six-decade career in baseball, died Tuesday. He was 85.

Gomez died in Fullerton, Calif. He never fully recovered from head injuries sustained last March when he was hit by a pickup truck while walking to his car in Blythe, Calif.

Gomez worked for the Angels for more than 25 years, and was on his way back from the team's spring training camp in Tempe, Ariz., when he was struck. The Angels announced his death.

Before the accident, Gomez had been a fixture around the ballpark and had been in the Angels' organization since 1981, most recently as an assistant to the general manager. Angels manager Mike Scioscia annually invited Gomez to instruct in camp.

"Preston had an incredible passion for baseball and was a mentor for all of us who were fortunate to spend time with him," Scioscia said. "He will certainly be missed, but I know his presence will be felt every time we take the field because of the knowledge and wisdom that he imparted to us."

The Cuban-born Gomez played eight games in the major leagues. He played and managed in the minors and served as coach, manager and executive in the big leagues for decades.

Gomez was the third-base coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1965-68, a span when they won two NL pennants and a World Series title.
"The man spent his entire life in baseball," Hall of Fame Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda. "He came from Cuba and got the opportunity to work for the Dodgers.

"He managed three major league teams and was a credit to the game. We are very sorry to see him pass away. He wore the Dodger uniform with pride and dignity. He has helped a lot of people in our game and he will be missed."

Gomez managed seven years in the majors, going 346-529 in a span from 1969 to 1980. He never had a winning season, coming the closest at 81-81 in 1974 in the first of his two seasons with the Astros.

In his first three years as a big league manager, the expansion Padres finished in last place every season. It was a feat that wouldn't be repeated by a manager for 15 years.

Amid those forgettable seasons came some memorable moments.
On July 21, 1970, Gomez pulled pitcher Clay Kirby for a pinch-hitter after eight no-hit innings against the Mets. To this day, the Padres haven't had a pitcher throw a no-hitter. And they lost that game 3-0.

Gomez was fired by the Padres just 11 games into the 1972 season, one of the earliest dismissals in major league history. But he would still find four more seasons of work as a manager, next relieving Leo Durocher in Houston.

Gomez was born Pedro W. Gomez Martinez on April 20, 1923, in Central Preston, Cuba.

At age 21 he played in eight games for the Washington Senators, going 2-for-7 with a double and two RBIs.

He spent a decade after that playing in the minor leagues, then spent another decade as a minor league manager, working in the systems of the Cincinnati Reds, the New York Yankees and the Dodgers.

Four years after becoming a Dodgers coach, Gomez moved to the Padres. He was hired by former Dodgers vice president Buzzie Bavasi, who had become president and part-owner of the newborn Padres. San Diego lost 110 games in Gomez's first season.

Gomez joined the Angels in 1981 as third-base coach and became a special assistant to the GM in 1985.

"The Angels family has lost one of its invaluable members, and one of baseball's truly great ambassadors," Angels general manager Tony Reagins said. "His influence and impact on so many throughout the industry is impossible to measure. Though he will be missed, Preston's legacy will forever remain a part of this organization."

Gomez was inducted into the Hispanic Baseball Heritage Museum Hall of Fame in 2003.

 

[MaidenHeart]

Ricardo Montalban is dead too.

 

[JBCorbell]

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

 

[Alegra_Duncan]

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

I did this earlier, I didn't know there was a special obit. thread.

 

[JBCorbell]

I did this earlier, I didn't know there was a special obit. thread.

That's OK, you're new. You'll find your way around. Just don't trip over the trolls.

 

[Alegra_Duncan]

That's OK, you're new. You'll find your way around. Just don't trip over the trolls.

Thanks. I've watched the trolls in action, I think I can handle them.