Literotica Cemetary

[ELisabeth85]

Man who survived both automic bomb dies at 93

Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- The only man recognized as a survivor of both atom bombs dropped in Japan at the end of World War II has died.

Tsutomu Yamaguchi died Monday after a battle with stomach cancer. He was 93.

He had long been a certified "hibakusha," or radiation survivor, of the August 9, 1945, atomic bombing in Nagasaki. In March 2009, the Japanese government confirmed that he had also survived Hiroshima three days earlier.

On that day, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy," which exploded over Hiroshima at 8:15 in the morning.

Yamaguchi happened to be in the city on a business trip for his employer, Mitsubishi Shipyard.

Many years later, he recalled the bombing in a story that appeared in the British newspaper The Times.

"It was very clear, a really fine day, nothing unusual about it at all. I was in good spirits," he said. "As I was walking along, I heard the sound of a plane, just one. I looked up into they sky and saw the B-29, and it dropped two parachutes. I was looking up into the sky at them, and suddenly ... it was like a flash of magnesium, a great flash in the sky, and I was blown over."

Badly burned, Yamaguchi returned home to Nagasaki only to experience horror again.

"My double radiation exposure is now an official government record," Yamaguchi told reporters last year after his official recognition. "It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die."

About 140,000 people perished in Hiroshima and an additional 70,000 in Nagasaki. Many of those who survived suffered a lifetime of radiation-related health problems, including cancers. Yamaguchi lost his hearing in his left ear in the blasts, and suffered from acute leukemia, cataracts and other bomb-related illnesses in subsequent years.

Yamaguchi spoke publicly about his experiences and appealed for the abolition of nuclear weapons at venues such as the United Nations.

He was visited in his hospital room in Nagasaki last month by filmmaker James Cameron, who wanted to discuss ideas for a film about nuclear weapons, the Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

New York Review caricaturist David Levine dies

NEW YORK (AP) - David Levine, an artist whose witty caricatures illustrated The New York Review of Books for more than 40 years, has died. He was 83.

Levine died at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan of prostate cancer and complications from other ailments. His death was confirmed by Robert Silvers, editor of The New York Review, who called Levine "the greatest caricaturist of his time."

Levine's drawings of politicians, celebrities, writers and historical figures typically had large heads and exaggerated features - Albert Einstein with a nimbus of hair, Richard Nixon all 5 o'clock shadow and ski-slope nose. In one well-known image from 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson pulls up his shirt to reveal a gallbladder-operation scar shaped like the map of Vietnam.

The drawings defined the look of The New York Review, which sold them on calendars and T-shirts. From a few months after it began publishing in 1963 until he was diagnosed with the eye disease macular degeneration in 2006, Levine contributed more than 3,800 drawings to the Review, which has continued to illustrate its articles with old Levine drawings.

Levine's work also appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker, among other publications.

Silvers said Levine would read the article he was illustrating with great attention and then "a drawing would emerge."

"He brought to the caricature a brilliance and a depth and an insight into character that was unmatched," Silvers said.

Levine also exhibited paintings, many depicting New York scenes such as Coney Island.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and England's National Portrait Gallery, among other institutions.

Levine was born in Brooklyn in 1926 and studied at the Brooklyn Museum of Art School, the Pratt Institute, Temple University's Tyler School of Art and the Eighth Street School of New York.

He is survived by his wife, Kathy Hayes; two children from a previous marriage, Matthew, of Westport, Conn., and Eve, of Manhattan; two stepchildren, Nancy Rommelmann, of Portland, Ore., and Christopher Rommelmann, of Brooklyn; a grandson; and a stepgranddaughter.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Vice President Biden's Mother Passes Away at 92

AP WILMINGTON, Del. (Jan. 8) - Jean Biden, who raised her son Vice President Joe Biden to believe in what he called "America's creed ... everyone is your equal," died Friday after falling seriously ill in recent days. She was 92.

In a statement, the vice president said she died in Wilmington surrounded by her family and loved ones. She had suffered a broken hip in a fall in March 2009.

"Together with my father, her husband of 61 years who passed away in 2002, we learned the dignity of hard work and that you are defined by your sense of honor," he said in the statement. "Her strength, which was immeasurable, will live on in all of us."

Joe Biden Jr. was first elected to the Senate in 1972, shortly before his 30th birthday. His mother helped out by organizing coffee klatches - part of a family effort that also included Biden's father, sister and brothers.

The former Catherine Eugenia Finnegan was born July 7, 1917, in Scranton, Pa. In 1941, she married businessman Joseph Biden Sr., with whom she had four children. The couple moved from Scranton to Claymont, Del., in 1953, when their eldest son, Joe, was 10 years old. Joseph Biden Sr. died in 2002 at age 86.

Biden was elected vice president as Barack Obama's running mate. In his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August 2008, he paid tribute to his mother, who was in the audience.

"My mother's creed is the American creed: No one is better than you," he said. "Everyone is your equal, and everyone is equal to you. My parents taught us to live our faith, and to treasure our families. We learned the dignity of work, and we were told that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough."

Biden said he also learned honor and loyalty from his mother.

"When I got knocked down by guys bigger than me, and this is the God's truth, she sent me back out the street and told me, 'Bloody their nose so you can walk down the street the next day.' And that's what I did."

Raised in a family with a strong Irish Catholic tradition, Jean Biden leaned on her faith in comforting her eldest son after his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash in December 1972, the month after he was elected to the Senate. His two sons were seriously injured.

"After the accident, she told me, 'Joey, God sends no cross that you cannot bear,'" Biden recalled.

In his autobiography, Joe Biden recalled being mocked by a seventh-grade nun for his stuttering, an incident that sent his mother to his school in a fury, her children in tow.

"If you ever speak to my son like that again, I'll come back and rip that bonnet off your head. Do you understand me?" she told the nun.

Joe Biden also recalled how when his mother couldn't find a pair of cufflinks for him to wear to an eighth-grade dance, she fashioned a pair from nuts and bolts, which left him mortified.

"Now look, Joey, if anybody says anything to you about these nuts and bolts, you just look them right in the eye and say 'Don't you have a pair of these?'" she told him.

 

[Beco]

Art Clokey dies at 88; creator of Gumby

Art Clokey, the creator of the whimsical clay figure Gumby, died in his sleep Friday at his home in Los Osos, Calif., after battling repeated bladder infections, his son Joseph said. He was 88.

Clokey and his wife, Ruth, invented Gumby in the early 1950s at their Covina home shortly after Art had finished film school at USC. After a successful debut on "The Howdy Doody Show," Gumby soon became the star of its own hit television show, "The Adventures of Gumby," the first to use clay animation on television.

After an initial run in the 1950s, Gumby enjoyed comebacks in the 1960s as a bendable children's toy, in the 1980s after comedian Eddie Murphy parodied the kindly Gumby as a crass, cigar-in-the-mouth character in a skit for "Saturday Night Live" and again in the '90s with the release of "Gumby the Movie."

Today, Gumby is a cultural icon recognized around the world. It has more than 134,000 fans on Facebook.

As successive generations discovered the curious green character, Gumby’s success came to define Clokey's life, with its theme song reflecting Clokey's simple message of love: "If you've got a heart, then Gumby's a part of you."

"The fact is that most people don't know his name, but everybody knows Gumby," said friend and animator David Scheve. "To have your life work touch so many people around the world is an amazing thing."

Clokey was born Arthur Farrington in Detroit in October 1921 and grew up making mud figures on his grandparents' Michigan farm. "He always had this in him," his son, Joseph, recalled Friday.

At age 8, Clokey's life took a tragic turn when his father was killed in a car accident soon after his parents divorced. The unusual shape of Gumby's head would eventually be modeled after one of the few surviving photos of Clokey's father, which shows him with a large wave of hair protruding from the right side of his head.

After moving to California, Clokey was abandoned by his mother and her new husband and lived in a halfway house near Hollywood until age 11, when he was adopted by Joseph W. Clokey. The renowned music teacher and composer at Pomona College taught him to draw, paint and shoot film and took him on journeys to Mexico and Canada.

Art Clokey attended the Webb School in Claremont, whose annual fossil hunting expeditions also inspired a taste for adventure that stayed with him. "That's why 'The Adventures of Gumby' were so adventurous," his son said.

Clokey served in World War II, conducting photo reconnaissance over North Africa and France. Back in Hartford, Conn., after the war, he was studying to be an Episcopal minister when he met Ruth Parkander, the daughter of a minister. The two married and moved to California to pursue their true passion: filmmaking.

During the day, the Clokeys taught at the Harvard School for Boys in Studio City, now Harvard-Westlake. At night, Art Clokey studied film at USC under Slavko Vorkapich, a pioneer of modern montage techniques.

Clokey's 1953 experimental film, "Gumbasia," used stop-motion clay animation set to a lively jazz tempo. It became the inspiration for the subsequent Gumby TV show when Sam Engel, the president of 20th Century Fox and father of one of Clokey's students, saw the film and asked Clokey to produce a children's television show based on the idea.

In the 1960s, Clokey created and produced the Christian TV series "Davey and Goliath" and the credits for several feature films, including "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini."

Gumby's ability to enchant generations of children and adults had a mystical quality to it, said his son, and reflected his father's spiritual quest. In the 1970s, Clokey studied Zen Buddhism, traveled to India to study with gurus and experimented with LSD and other drugs, though all of that came long after the creation of Gumby, his son said.

His second wife, Gloria, whom he married in 1976, was art director on Gumby projects in the 1980s and '90s. She died in 1998.

Besides his son Joseph, Clokey is survived by his stepdaughter, Holly Harman of Mendocino County; three grandchildren, Shasta, Sequoia and Sage Clokey; his sister, Arlene Cline of Phoenix; and his half-sister, Patricia Anderson of Atlanta.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests contributions in Gumby's name to the Natural Resources Defense Council, of which Art Clokey was a longtime member.

"Gumby was green because my dad cared about the environment," his son said.

jason.felch@latimes.com

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Edward Linde, Boston Properties CEO, Dies at 67

Edward H. Linde, CEO and co-founder of Boston Properties (BXP), died from complications related to pneumonia on Sunday. He was 67.

Boston Properties, which Linde and partner Mortimer Zuckerman founded in 1970, specializes in high-profile "Class A" properties in Washington D.C., Boston, New York and San Francisco. The buildings that the company buys tend to be well-known "name" buildings that attract prominent tenants, including Boston's Prudential Tower and Atlantic Wharf, New York's Times Square Tower, and San Francisco's Embarcadero Center.

But perhaps the company's most famous holding is New York's General Motors Building, which the company bought in a joint venture for $2.8 billion in 2008. The highest price ever paid for an office building in the U.S., the deal was also, according to some sources, the largest single asset transaction of 2008.

Linde received an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Harvard. He began his career in real estate as Vice President at Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, a venerable Boston-area real estate firm. After five years, he struck out on his own, forming Boston Properties with Zuckerman.

For several years, Linde has been a fixture on Forbes' list of highest-compensated CEOs. Linde was also president of the company until 2007, when he was replaced by his son, Douglas. Upon Linde's death, Zuckerman, who is chairman of the board for the company, is stepping in as CEO.

Beyond his work in real estate, Linde was also a prominent political contributor, supporting the presidential campaigns of Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton, and Christopher Dodd. He also gave money to numerous congressional and senate campaigns, as well as the Democratic National Committee and various lobbying groups. Linde's other interests included various cultural and charitable causes, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Beth Israel Hospital, and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

 

[Sean]

French film director Eric Rohmer in 2007
Rohmer made 24 films over a period of 50 years

French film-maker Eric Rohmer has died at the age of 89, his production house has said.

He was the director of the critically acclaimed Tales of Four Seasons and one of the key figures of the post-war New Wave cinema movement.

Rohmer, born Maurice Scherer, made more than 20 feature films over 50 years.

His main works include the cycle of films Six Moral Tales. The third, My Night at Maud's, released in 1969, brought him international recognition.

His films are known for being almost completely devoid of action, featuring lengthy conversations between the usually young protagonists.

Pauline at the Beach, a typical work from 1983, features a 15-year-old girl's summer by the seaside and her observation of adult relationships.

'Master'

Born in 1920, Rohmer was formerly a literature professor, and literary works heavily influenced his film-making.

After the release of his last film, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, at the Venice film festival in 2007, he said he was considering retirement.

Rohmer was awarded the Golden Lion at Venice in 2001 for his career's work.

The New Wave tried to achieve a more improvised style free from the constraints of classical cinema.

Rohmer said he wanted to look at "thoughts rather than actions", dealing "less with what people do than what is going on in their minds while they are doing it".

Reacting to news of Rohmer's death, former French Culture Minister Jack Lang called him "one of the masters of French cinema", hailing his "original and revolutionary stature".

Cannes film festival director Thierry Fremaux said Rohmer's body of work was "unique".

"Under apparent lightness, he put a rigour into his films that places him among the greatest directors in history," he said.

The cause of Rohmer's death was not immediately clear.

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Meip Gies.

Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank, dies at 100

Mon Jan 11, 9:40 pm ET
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary not, has died, the Anne Frank Museum said Tuesday. She was 100.

Gies' Web site reported that she died Monday after a brief illness. The report was confirmed by museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostar, but she gave no details. The British Broadcasting Corp. said she died in a nursing home after suffering a fall last month.

Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II.

After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944.

Gies refused to read the papers, saying even a teenager's privacy was sacred. Later, she said if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated the "helpers."

Anne Frank died of typhus at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Gies gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only survivor, who published it in 1947.

After the diary was published, Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance. She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as more than she deserved — as if, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews of occupied Holland.

"This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press days before her 100th birthday last February.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" was the first popular book about the Holocaust, and has been read by millions of children and adults around the world in some 65 languages.

For her courage, Gies was bestowed with the "Righteous Gentile" title by the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She has also been honored by the German Government, Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.

Nevertheless, Gies resisted being made a character study of heroism for the young.

"I don't want to be considered a hero," she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren.

"Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."

Born Hermine Santrouschitz on Feb. 15, 1909 in Vienna, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages in Austria. She lived with a host family who gave her the nickname Miep.

In 1933, Gies took a job as an office assistant in the spice business of Otto Frank. After refusing to join a Nazi organization in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.

As the Nazis ramped up their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies in July 1942 to help hide his family in the annex above the company's canal-side warehouse on Prinsengracht 263 and to bring them food and supplies.

"I answered, 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn," she said years later.

Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees in the firm to sustain the Franks and four other Jews sharing the annex. Jan secured extra food ration cards from the underground resistance. Miep cycled around the city, alternating grocers to ward off suspicions from this highly dangerous activity.

In her e-mail to the AP last February, Gies remembered her husband, who died in 1993, as one of Holland's unsung war heroes. "He was a resistance man who said nothing but did a lot. During the war he refused to say anything about his work, only that he might not come back one night. People like him existed in thousands but were never heard," she wrote.

Touched by Anne's precocious intelligence and loneliness, Miep also brought Anne books and newspapers while remembering everybody's birthdays and special days with gifts.

"It seems as if we are never far from Miep's thoughts," Anne wrote.

In her own book, "Anne Frank Remembered," Gies recalled being in the office when the German police, acting on a tip that historians have failed to trace, raided the hide-out in August 1944.

A policeman opened the door to the main office and pointed a revolver at the three employees, telling them to sit quietly. "Bep, we've had it," Gies whispered to Bep Voskuijl.

After the arrests, she went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks' release, but it was too late. On Aug. 8, they were sent to Westerbork, a concentration camp in eastern Holland from where they were later packed into cattle cars and deported to Auschwitz. A few months later, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen.

Two of the helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, were sent to labor camps, but survived the war.

Around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived. Some 24,000 Jews went into hiding, of which 8,000 were hunted down or turned in.

After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam and lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952. Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the diary and answering piles of letters with questions from around the world.

After Otto Frank's death in 1980, Gies continued to campaign against Holocaust-deniers and to refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.

She suffered a stroke in 1997 which slightly affected her speech, but she remained generally in good health as she approached her 100th birthday.

Her son Paul Gies said last year she was still receiving "a sizable amount of mail" which she handled with the help of a family friend. She spent her days at the apartment where she lived since 2000 reading two daily newspapers and following television news and talk shows.

Her husband died in 1993. She is survived by her son and three grandchildren.

 

[CaptainKirk]

Porn legend Aunt Peg

BERKELEY- 1-11-10—The body of Juliet Carr, better known by her adult career name Juliet Anderson, and even more frequently recognized as one of the characters she portrayed, "Aunt Peg," was discovered this morning in her residence in Berkeley by a friend. The cause of death is not yet known, but the actress suffered for many years with Crohn's disease, which had only recently been diagnosed, though she had suffered from it for most of her life. She was 71.

"I found her in her bed," said her friend Kevin Fong, who became close to the actress over the last 18 months. "She looked like she was just asleep. There were no empty pill bottles, nothing out of the ordinary. There wasn't any alcohol; her wrists weren't slit; nothing."

Fong had arrived to take the former actress to a doctor's appointment for a colonoscopy that morning to help in the treatment of her Crohn's.

"She had chronic Crohn's disease, and you can only control so much of that with diet," Fong said. "She was a health nut, she was in great shape, and this was a total shock. ... In her case, it was congenital; she had it since she was a little kid, and it stopped her from even going to regular school as a child. it's something she had forever, probably all her life."

Carr's adult career was unusual, to say the least. Born in Burbank in 1938, the diminuitive blonde began acting in adult at the age of 39, when, as an employee at an advertising and engineering firm, she was discovered by famed director Alex DeRenzy, who cast her in his 1978 blockbuster hit Pretty Peaches. Her career took off quickly, and she performed in more than 80 movies over the following 10 years.

Her best-known role, however, was as "Aunt Peg," her character in the movie of the same name. "Aunt Peg" was a Hollywood agent who had an unusual method of choosing her clients and of getting them work, as displayed in Aunt Peg Goes Hollywood and Aunt Peg's Fulfillment. She also appeared in such top hits as Tangerine, Vista Valley PTA, Dixie Ray Hollywood Star, Outlaw Ladies, Taboo 1 & 2, Hustler Video Magazine 1, and in half of the first 24 volumes of the Swedish Erotica series.

Carr also took credit for discovering world-famous star Nina Hartley, having cast her in 1984 in Educating Nina, which Carr directed. However, when she was unable to find distribution for the movie, which she had financed herself, she quit the industry altogether.

"It was a huge undertaking with a strong story, talented actors and superb production values," Carr wrote. "However, this gem was a financial and emotional disaster for me. As the first woman producer of X-rated films, the men who ran that industry were intimidated by me and retaliated by never releasing Educating Nina. Devastated, I quit the adult entertainment industry."

"This is really sad news," reflected Hartley. "Juliet did put me in the movies all those years ago and was a mentor for several years. I saw her in November up in Berkeley when I did a personal appearance there. She was in fine health; she was happy. We took a couple of pictures together, she flashed her boobs—they were still lovely—and since it has to happen to all of us, I'm grateful that it seemed to happen peacefully without other incident."

"She was the original cougar before 'cougar' was hot," Hartley added.

Carr's life was, for want of a better term, eclectic. According to her website, she followed her American lover to Japan in 1960, married him briefly, became fluent in the Japanese language and even attended the university there. In 1965, she lived in Mexico City and taught English to IBM executives there, and two years later did similar teaching in Athens, Greece. In 1971, she was a "top-ranking" radio producer in Finland, creating programs in English about Finland. Between those jobs, she worked as a secretary to a nudie film producer, an Avis Rent-A-Car employee, a cocktail waitress, a fashion model and a receptionist for the home offices of Burger King, all in Miami, Fla. Later, she managed a bed-and-breakfast in Northern California, and eventually became a massage therapist, a profession which she practiced until her death.

In 1996, Carr, already an AVN Hall of Famer, was inducted into the Legends of Erotica Hall of Fame; the XRCO Hall of Fame in 1999; and she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Free Speech Coalition in 2001. She also received an honorary Doctor of the Arts degree from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in 2007.

"She was just a wonderful woman," recalled director Wesley Emerson. "She started late in the industry, and I interviewed her about a month ago because several of her films are about to be rereleased in France—Coed Fever, Inside Desiree Cousteau and Talk Dirty To Me—and they wanted some commentaries from different people. I also talked to her about how she got started in the eight-millimeter business. She was one of the big stars of the Swedish Erotica series, and she worked with practically everybody. We talked about how she got started and all the things she did in the industry. She was talking about that film she did about older couples having sex [Ageless Desire, 1998]. I had worked with her many years ago on a film I don't remember the name of; it was one of those one-day wonders that you shot in 35mm in those days, and she was great, she was just an amazing person. She was always there on time, always ready with her lines, and I thought she was just a wonderful person."

"I heard on the grapevine about a hot new 'older' woman in the biz and was soon in her apartment interviewing her," remembered photographer Paul Johnson. "Her name was Judy Carr, later to become Juliet Anderson. We did a great shoot in a hot tub and patio that became the Connoisseur Series mag The First Time. [Juliet] was my sexy assistant the last few years I worked in the biz. Juliet had a great eye and after I taught her to use a Hasselblad she did great work when I was modeling POVs or fill-ins. I joked with Juliet that she could learn to use a Hasselblad but never could learn to flick a Bic. When Juliet and I worked together we would say that we will always be friends, seems to be true, we had breakfast together 3 weeks before her death."

"Juliet was a great assistant," he continued. "She had a great eye for dressing the set, did make-up when needed, and could crack the whip to keep the rest of us moving. And sometimes when a male was having trouble keeping it up, Juliet would lend a hand or whatever it took. Away from the biz I probably spent more time with her than anyone else."

"She was very health-conscious," Emerson noted. "When I saw her last month, her body was still pretty doggone toned and healthy."

"She was doing an essential kind of massage," said another acquaintance. "She had an amazing touch with her fingers; it would melt you. If she would just run her nails down your arm, it felt great."

"Her mom is still alive, and she spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with her mom and her family," Fong noted.

"Juliet and I talked, just in passing, about what she would want done if she died," Fong said. "She said she wanted to be cremated, and I've talked to her family a little bit, and we talked about donations to the Humane Society in lieu of flowers or any of that."

 

[KindaKinky]

Soul singer Teddy Pendergrass dies in Pa. at 59

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20100114/capt.fc863438d0184dcd8b7859862b89f415.obit_pendergrass_ny108.jpg

By PATRICK WALTERS, Associated Press Writer Patrick Walters, Associated Press Writer – 1 min ago

PHILADELPHIA – Teddy Pendergrass, who became R&B's reigning sex symbol in the 1970s and '80s with his forceful, masculine voice and passionate love ballads and later became an inspirational figure after suffering a devastating car accident that left him paralyzed, died Wednesday at age 59.

The singer's son, Teddy Pendergrass II, said his father died at a hospital in suburban Philadelphia. The singer underwent colon cancer surgery eight months ago and had "a difficult recovery," his son said.

"To all his fans who loved his music, thank you," his son said. "He will live on through his music."

Pendergrass suffered a spinal cord injury and was paralyzed from the waist down in the 1982 car accident. He spent six months in a hospital but returned to recording the next year with the album "Love Language."

He briefly returned to the stage at the Live Aid concert in 1985, performing from his wheelchair.

Pendergrass later founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, an organization whose mission is to encourage and help people with spinal cord injuries achieve their maximum potential in education, employment, housing, productivity and independence, according to its Web site.

Pendergrass, who was born in Philadelphia on March 26, 1950, gained popularity first as a member of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.

In 1971, the group signed a record deal with the legendary writer/producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. The group released its first single, "I Miss You," in 1972 and then released "If You Don't Know Me by Now," which was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Gamble remembered Pendergrass fondly and lauded him.

"I think Teddy Pendergrass was really one of a kind of an artist, and his music kind of speaks for him," Gamble said in an interview early Thursday. "He had such a powerful voice, and he had a great magnetism."

Pendergrass quit the group in 1975 and embarked on a solo career in 1976. It was his solo hits that brought him his greatest fame. With songs such as "Love T.K.O.," "Close the Door" and "I Don't Love You Anymore," he came to define a new era of black male singers with his powerful, aggressive vocals that spoke to virility, not vulnerability.

His lyrics were never coarse, as those of later male R&B stars would be, but they had a sensual nature that bordered on erotic without being explicit.

"Turn Off the Lights" was a tune that perhaps best represented the many moods of Pendergrass — tender and coaxing yet strong as the song reached its climax.

Pendergrass, the first black male singer to record five consecutive multi-platinum albums, made women swoon with each note, and his concerts were a testament to that adulation, with infamous stories of women throwing their underwear on stage for his affection.

But his career was derailed by the car accident, Gamble said.

"He had a tremendous career ahead of him, and the accident sort of got in the way of many of those plans," Gamble said.

However, Pendergrass' career did not end. He continued to sing and recorded several albums, receiving Grammy nominations; perhaps his best-known hit after his crash was the inspirational song "Life is a Song Worth Singing."

It was 19 years before Pendergrass resumed performing at his own concerts. He made his return on Memorial Day weekend in 2001, with two sold-out shows in Atlantic City, N.J.

Pendergrass is survived by his son, two daughters, his wife, his mother and nine grandchildren.

___

Associated Press Music Writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, in New York, and AP writer Bob Lentz, in Philadelphia, contributed to this report.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Donal Donnelly, Actor Who Nurtured Irish Roles, Dies at 78

Donal Donnelly, an Irish actor who embodied a variety of Irish characters on the American stage and in American movies, notably in the plays of Brian Friel and in John Huston’s adaptation of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead,” died January 4th in Chicago, where he had been living for the past two years. He was 78.

The cause was cancer, said his son Jonathan.

Mr. Donnelly, a handsome, spindle-framed performer who gave off the energy and aura of youth long after he had lost his own, was, in his own words, “an itinerant Irish actor.”

A veteran of stages in Dublin and the West End of London, he made his first impression on American audiences in an antic 1965 British film comedy, “The Knack...and How to Get It.” The following year he came to Broadway in Mr. Friel’s “Philadelphia, Here I Come!,” in which he earned a Tony Award nomination playing the private self of the protagonist, a young man who is about to cast off his rural Irish upbringing and move across the ocean to the title city.

Thus began a career of regular appearances on Broadway, usually as an Irishman, though his next play was about an English family, “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” in which he replaced Albert Finney in the role of Bri, a father undone by his severely handicapped child.

The character “retreats from the situation and takes shelter behind a cover of antic humor masking despair,” the critic Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times. “It is a weak man’s defense, and it is just this frantic, almost hysterical weakness that Mr. Donnelly so skillfully exploits.”

Mr. Donnelly also took replacement roles in the plays “Sleuth” and “The Elephant Man,” but he became known mainly as a regular member of Mr. Friel’s casts, appearing in “Faith Healer” (1979), “Dancing at Lughnasa” (1991) and “Translations” (1995).

In movies and television, Mr. Donnelly was busy but cast so as to be often overlooked. He had small roles in blockbusters like “Twister” and “Godfather Part III,” and appeared in “Law and Order” and “Spenser: For Hire,” among other television series.

His most celebrated film performance was as Freddy Malins, the amiable and sentimental sot who attends the dinner party in John Huston’s widely praised adaptation of Joyce’s “The Dead.”

Donal Donnelly — his first name is pronounced DOE-nul — was born on July 6, 1931, in Bradford, just west of Leeds, in north central England, where his father, James, who was from Northern Ireland, was working as a doctor. His mother, Nora, was Irish, and the family moved to Dublin when Donal was very young.

He would eventually have seven brothers and sisters, six of whom survive and are still in Ireland, among them his youngest brother, Michael, formerly the mayor of Dublin.

His survivors include his wife of 45 years, the former Patricia Porter, a former dancer who is known as Patsy and whom he met on a production of “Finian’s Rainbow” in London; and two sons, Jonathan and Damian, both of Chicago.

Early in his career, Mr. Donnelly worked at the Gate Theater in Dublin and was a member of a theater company founded by Cyril Cusack.

Before coming to the United States to work in the 1960s — he and his family moved to Westport, Conn., in 1979 — Mr. Donnelly appeared in London in J. M. Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World” and Sean O’Casey’s “Shadow of a Gunman,” and in British television productions of “Playboy” and O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock” and “The Plough and the Stars,” among other plays.

To round out his personal history of the Irish theater, in the late 1970s he toured in a one-man show called “My Astonishing Self,” based on the notebooks and letters of George Bernard Shaw, in which he played Shaw as both a young and old man.

All of this was quite possibly foretold in his youth. As a boy Mr. Donnelly attended the Synge Street Christian Brothers School in Dublin, an academy known for turning out actors. Synge Street was not named for the playwright, though oddly enough, Shaw was born there. Synge, it turns out, was born on Shaw Street.

“If you open yourself to Sam Beckett and ‘Godot,’ if you open yourself to Brian Friel and ‘Faith Healer,’ ” Mr. Donnelly once said in a discussion of Irish playwrights, “you benefit from it.”



On a personal note: Mr. Donnelly was one of the most gracious, genuine and talented men I had ever met. His love of the theatre showed in the many performances I witnessed on the Broadway stage. I miss him.

 

[KindaKinky]

Memphis musician Jay Reatard runs 'out of time'; dies at 29
For rocker, whose real name was Jimmy Lee Lindsey, potential was on rise

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* By Jody Callahan
* Posted January 13, 2010 at 3:05 p.m. , updated January 13, 2010 at 11:39 p.m.
In an interview with The New York Times last August, Memphis punk artist Jay Reatard uttered what, in retrospect, was a haunting phrase:

"Everything I do," Reatard said, "is motivated by the fear of running out of time."

That statement rang terribly true early Wednesday as the 29-year-old musician was found dead in his bed in the Cooper-Young home he'd bought just a few months ago.
Jay Reatard

* Jay Lindsey, 29, better known by the stage name Jay Reatard, started playing Memphis clubs in punk bands when he was only 15 years old. Since then he has released more than 70 records, some of which routinely fetch hundreds of dollars from collectors on eBay. Lindsey's ability to get industry executives to play into his hand is as impressive as his musical output. He recently signed a lucrative multi-album contract with Matador Records after being courted by Universal and Columbia.
* Jay Reatard; 'Matador Singles 08' album cover
* Jay Reatard playing at the Vice night club for the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
* Jay Lindsey, better known as Jay Reatard, rehearses in the living room of his Midtown home prior to leaving town for shows in Spain and Brazil in May, 2009. Reatard has new album due out on Matador Records in August and will be tour through mid-July.

The news that Reatard, whose real name was Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., was gone stunned the music community in Memphis -- many of whom found out at the memorial for soul legend Willie Mitchell -- and around the world.

"Jay was so much more talented than people even realize. Brilliant songwriting, and his ability as a producer, engineer and musician were sometimes overshadowed by his persona," said friend and fellow musician Scott Bomar. "It's a major loss for me as someone who really loved Jay as a person and as an artist."

It was not known what caused Lindsey's death. His roommate found him in bed at about 3:30 a.m., then called Memphis police.

An investigation into Lindsey's death is under way, Memphis police spokeswoman Jennifer Robinson said, although foul play isn't necessarily suspected.

Friends say Lindsey had been complaining of flulike symptoms lately. An autopsy was performed Wednesday, with the results pending.

Goner Records co-owner Zac Ives first met a 15-year-old Lindsey in the crowd at an Oblivians show. Soon, Ives was ferrying Lindsey to shows all over town and eventually released some of Lindsey's early records on his label.

"It's devastating to a lot of people," Ives said. "He loved music. ... He's been playing music in his bedroom since he was 14."

Lindsey first gained local renown as the leader of late '90s punk outfit the Reatards. From there, he was a member of the cult-favorite synth-punk act Lost Sounds.

It was in recent months, though, that Lindsey and his music really began to reverberate beyond Memphis, particularly with the release of "Watch Me Fall" on Matador Records last year.

That record, coupled with memorable appearances at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, led to worldwide acclaim.

"I was always impressed by the fact that he was making it on his own terms," said Jon Hornyak, head of the local Grammy organization. "One of the things that Memphis always had was an independent spirit, and he was the new era of that."

Lindsey's loss was particularly frustrating for those who watched him struggle for years to become an "overnight" sensation.

"(I'm) frustrated that so many great things were happening for him, and he's not going to get to realize them," said Andria Lisle, a longtime friend and local music journalist.

Goner Records, which released some of Lindsey's records, posted this statement on its Web site Wednesday afternoon: "It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public."

His current label, Matador Records, posted this statement: "We are devastated by the death of Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., aka Jay Reatard. Jay was as full of life as anyone we’ve ever met, and responsible for so many memorable moments as a person and artist. We’re honored to have known and worked with him, and we will miss him terribly."

During his career, Lindsey put out dozens of singles and albums, but it was the realization that they wouldn't hear any more that left friends and fans so devastated Wednesday.

"He had songs inside him that we're never going to hear now," Bomar said. "It's just sad to think about."

-- Jody Callahan

 

[Beco]

Taco Bell founder dead at 86

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. (AP) — Glen Bell Jr., an entrepreneur best known as the founder of the Taco Bell chain, has died. He was 86.
Bell died Sunday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, according to a statement posted Monday on the Taco Bell website.

The company did not release a cause of death.

"Glen Bell was a visionary and innovator in the restaurant industry, as well as a dedicated family man," Greg Creed, president of Taco Bell, said in the statement.

Bell launched his first restaurant, called Bell's Drive-In, in 1948 in San Bernardino after seeing the success of McDonald's. His restaurant sought to take advantage of Southern California's car culture by serving hamburgers and hot dogs through drive-in windows.

The World War II veteran next helped establish Taco Tias in Los Angeles, El Tacos in the Long Beach area, and Der Wienerschnitzel, a national hot dog chain.

Bell launched Taco Bell in 1962 in Downey after cutting ties with his business partners and quickly expanding around Los Angeles.

He sold the first Taco Bell franchise in 1964. In 1978, Bell sold his 868 Taco Bell restaurants to PepsiCo for $125 million in stock.

Taco Bell is now owned by Yum Brands and is the largest Mexican fast-food chain in the nation, serving more than 36.8 million consumers each week in more than 5,600 U.S. locations.

Bell is survived by his wife, Martha, three sisters, two sons and four grandchildren.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Carl Smith, 'The Country Gentleman,' Dies at 82

Carl Smith, one of the most successful and distinctive country artists to emerge in the 1950's, died Saturday (Jan. 16) at his home in Franklin, Tenn., south of Nashville. He was 82.

A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame (inducted in 2003), from 1951 to 1955 he placed a uninterrupted string of 21 singles in the Top 10, including five No. 1 hits -- among them 'Loose Talk' and 'Hey Joe!' In all, he scored nearly 100 charted singles throughout his recording career, right up until he retired from music in 1978. At that time, he retreated to his 500-acre Tennessee ranch to breed champion cutting horses.

The singer, whose easy-going singing style earned him the nickname "The Country Gentleman," married June Carter in 1952. They divorced four years later, just after their daughter, Carlene Carter, was born. In 1995, Carlene coerced her dad out of retirement briefly, to duet on a version of his hit, 'Loose Talk.' He married singer Goldie Hill in 1957.

Carl was born in 1927 in Maynardville, the small eastern Tennessee town which was also the birthplace of another country music legend, Roy Acuff. In 1944, while he was still in high school, he began singing on WROL radio. After serving in the Navy and guesting on many other radio stations, he appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, as a guest of Hank Williams. In 1950, he signed with Columbia Records and also with WSM radio.

"My first job at WSM was six or seven days a week at 5:15 in the morning," he told Nashville's Tennessean newspaper in 2003. "The announcer would put me on and then just leave. I started being on the Opry pretty regularly. They didn't say you were a 'member' of the Opry back then. You just were on it or you weren't."

"He was on shows when I was real, real young," recalled Hank Williams Jr. "The guy was real striking to the ladies. I remember their reaction when he went on stage."

In 1954, Carl also became one of the four founders of Cedarwood/Driftwood, a powerhouse Nashville music publishing company. After leaving the Opry in 1956, he was part of the first live television broadcast from Nashville, on WSM Channel 4. In Canada, the 'Carl Smith Country Music Hall' show ran for five years.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced. He is expected to be buried at Franklin's Williamson Memorial Gardens, alongside Goldie Hill, his wife of 48 years, who died in 2005.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Robert B. Parker is Dead

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At the age of 77, "just sitting at his desk" at his home in Cambridge, Mass., according to an email sent out by a representative of his U.K. publisher Quercus, Robert B. Parker is dead. The news of Parker's death on Monday was confirmed by Parker's U.S publisher, Putnam; on Twitter, a representative wrote: "R.I.P beloved author Robert B. Parker. You were indeed a Grand Master, your legacy lives on, and you will be missed by us all."

In a statement released late Monday, Parker's longtime editor at Putnam, Christine Pepe, said: “What mattered most to Bob were his family and his writing, and those were the only things that he needed to be happy. He will be deeply missed by all us at Putnam, and by his fans everywhere.”The thriller writer Joseph Finder also confirmed the news directly with Parker's family, said to be "in shock."And the Bookseller quotes Parker's UK editor, Nick Johnston: "He was a great talent who will be mourned by all his many fans."

Parker is best known for his Spenser private detective novels.

He is survived by his wife, Joan, and his sons, David, a choreographer, and Daniel, an actor. Several more novels will be published in 2010, including SPLIT IMAGE, the newest Jesse Stone novel (out February 23) and BLUE-EYED DEVIL, an Appaloosa novel (out on May 4).

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Love Story' Author Erich Segal Dies

AP LONDON (Jan. 19) - Erich Segal, the author of the hugely popular novel "Love Story," has died of a heart attack, his daughter said Tuesday. He was 72.

Francesca Segal said her father died Sunday at his home in London. She said he had suffered from Parkinson's Disease -a neurological condition that affects movement - for 25 years. His funeral was held in London on Tuesday, she said.

Segal was a Yale classics professor when he gained nationwide fame for the book "Love Story" about a young couple who fall in love, marry and discover she is dying of cancer.

The book was turned into a hit film in 1970, starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw. It gained seven Oscar nominations - including one for Segal for writing the screenplay, as well as for best picture, best director and best actor and actress (O'Neal and MacGraw.) It won one Oscar, for best music.

Its most famous line - "Love means never having to say you're sorry" - became a national catch phrase.

Segal's daughter said that her father fought hard again Parkinson's Disease.

"That he fought to breathe, fought to live, every second of the last thirty years of illness with such mind-blowing obduracy, is a testament to the core of who he was - a blind obsessionality that saw him pursue his teaching, his writing, his running and my mother, with just the same tenacity. He was the most dogged man any of us will ever know," she said in a eulogy she read at his funeral and e-mailed to the AP.

Segal was an honorary fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University.

He is survived by his wife, Karen James, and daughters Francesca, 29, and Miranda, 20.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Ex-Gonzaga Coach Dan Fitzgerald Dies

SPOKANE, Wash.(Jan. 20) - Dan Fitzgerald, the coach who built Gonzaga into a national basketball power but resigned before the school began its current run of NCAA tournaments, has died at the age of 67.

Fitzgerald collapsed Tuesday evening in a restaurant in the suburb of Airway Heights. He was pronounced dead at Deaconness Medical Center in Spokane, according to a nursing supervisor at the hospital.

The cause of death was not immediately released.

Fitzgerald recruited John Stockton to campus, took the Zags to their first NCAA tournament in 1995, and built the coaching staff of Mark Few, Dan Monson and Bill Grier that has put the Zags in every NCAA tournament since the 1999 season.

Fitzgerald was 252-171 as coach from 1978 to 1997, and also served as athletic director.

"He was an unforgettable personality,'' Stockton told The Spokesman-Review. "He was loyal - incredibly loyal - above all. He was there for anything and everything I've ever needed, ever asked for.''

Fitzgerald stepped down in December 1997 after a school investigation determined he had been collecting and spending some athletic department funds without the knowledge of the university controller's office, a possible violation of NCAA rules. Fitzgerald contended that none of the money went to players or into his own pocket.

In recent years he had worked as community relations manager for the Northern Quest Casino.

Fitzgerald took Gonzaga to its first NCAA tournament in 1995, and he recruited the players who went to the Elite Eight in 1999. Only Hank Anderson (291) coached more victories for Gonzaga.

Fitzgerald served as head coach from 1978-1981, and then from 1985-1997. He spent four years concentrating on his duties as athletic director, including renovating the basketball arena that became known as The Kennel.

Known throughout Spokane simply as "Fitz,'' the coach had a big personality and his imprint remains on the Gonzaga program, which is currently ranked No. 15.

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Fitz,'' Few told The Spokesman-Review. Few, who is three victories from passing Fitzgerald on the Gonzaga list of coaching wins, was brought to campus in the early 1990s as a low-paid assistant.

"He's had a huge impact on how we still run the program, how we work, how we prepare,'' Few said. "What we do and what we achieve now has Fitz's imprint all over it.''

Fitzgerald is survived by his wife and daughter.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

'Survivor' Star Jennifer Lyon Dies of Breast Cancer

http://www.survivorfoxes.com/JenniferLyon/J1.jpg

Jennifer Lyon, who earned fourth place on 'Survivor Palau,' died Tuesday at home in Oregon after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. She was 37.

"She had beaten it into remission once, but then it came back and was in her bones," 'Survivor: Micronesia' star Eliza Orlins told TVGuide.com. UsMagazine.com confirmed the sad news.

The former nanny was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer two months after the tenth season of 'Survivor' wrapped in 2005. That year, she told PEOPLE about finding out about the cancer and how she was forced to get a bilateral mastectomy that summer.

"In the summer of 2004, I felt something in my right breast that didn't feel normal," Lyon said. "I thought it was probably scar tissue related to my breast implants. So I let it go -- for a long time."

Lyon, who had become an advocate for other women struggling with the disease, thanked fans on her Web site, which still displays the message.

Thank you so much to everyone for sending their encouragement and prayers. It means so much to me and every single one is appreciated. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Jenn

Austin Carty, another 'Survivor' alum, called Lyon a "genuinely selfless, sweet-natured person."

"She was engaged in the greatest fight of her life, but she had every intention to fight and spread her positive messages," Carty said.

 

[KindaKinky]

Kate McGarrigle RIP

Kate-McGarrigle

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[JennyOmanHill]

Avenged Sevenfold’s Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan Dead at 28

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Avenged Sevenfold drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan was found dead at his home in Huntington Beach, California. He was 28. Preliminary police reports indicate Sullivan died of natural causes, but the Orange County Coroner’s Office is investigating his death, the OC Register reports. Sullivan helped found Avenged Sevenfold in 1999, and featured on all four of the band’s studio albums.

“It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we tell you of the passing today of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan,” Sullivan’s Avenged Sevenfold bandmates wrote on their Website. “Jimmy was not only one of the world’s best drummers, but more importantly he was our best friend and brother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jimmy’s family and we hope that you will respect their privacy during this difficult time. Jimmy you are forever in our hearts.”

After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out Rihanna, Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels and Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song “Bat Country.” Avenged Sevenfold then reached Number Four on the Billboard Top 200 with their self-titled fourth album. The band spent the past two years on a co-headlining tour with Buckcherry. The band was reportedly in the process of recording their fifth album.

 

[KRCummings]

http://i.realone.com/assets/rn/img/1/7/5/7/31547571-31547576-slarge.jpg

Avenged Sevenfold drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan was found dead at his home in Huntington Beach, California. He was 28. Preliminary police reports indicate Sullivan died of natural causes, but the Orange County Coroner’s Office is investigating his death, the OC Register reports. Sullivan helped found Avenged Sevenfold in 1999, and featured on all four of the band’s studio albums.

“It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we tell you of the passing today of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan,” Sullivan’s Avenged Sevenfold bandmates wrote on their Website. “Jimmy was not only one of the world’s best drummers, but more importantly he was our best friend and brother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jimmy’s family and we hope that you will respect their privacy during this difficult time. Jimmy you are forever in our hearts.”

After playing Ozzfest in 2006, Avenged Sevenfold memorably beat out Rihanna, Chris Brown, Panic! at the Disco, Angels and Airwaves and James Blunt for the title of Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, thanks in part to their Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas-inspired song “Bat Country.” Avenged Sevenfold then reached Number Four on the Billboard Top 200 with their self-titled fourth album. The band spent the past two years on a co-headlining tour with Buckcherry. The band was reportedly in the process of recording their fifth album.

With all due respect, that guy looks like a walking advertisement for death.

 

[Denae]

http://www.survivorfoxes.com/JenniferLyon/J1.jpg

Jennifer Lyon, who earned fourth place on 'Survivor Palau,' died Tuesday at home in Oregon after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. She was 37.

"She had beaten it into remission once, but then it came back and was in her bones," 'Survivor: Micronesia' star Eliza Orlins told TVGuide.com. UsMagazine.com confirmed the sad news.

The former nanny was diagnosed with stage-three breast cancer two months after the tenth season of 'Survivor' wrapped in 2005. That year, she told PEOPLE about finding out about the cancer and how she was forced to get a bilateral mastectomy that summer.

"In the summer of 2004, I felt something in my right breast that didn't feel normal," Lyon said. "I thought it was probably scar tissue related to my breast implants. So I let it go -- for a long time."

Lyon, who had become an advocate for other women struggling with the disease, thanked fans on her Web site, which still displays the message.

Thank you so much to everyone for sending their encouragement and prayers. It means so much to me and every single one is appreciated. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Jenn

Austin Carty, another 'Survivor' alum, called Lyon a "genuinely selfless, sweet-natured person."

"She was engaged in the greatest fight of her life, but she had every intention to fight and spread her positive messages," Carty said.

So, so sad. She seemed like a vibrant, young lady. From all that I've read she became an advocate in the fight against breast cancer while she was fighting for her life.

I also read another article today in which she stated that lack of insurance was another reason she hadn't sought earlier treatment when she first detected the lumps.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Paul Quarrington, Canadian Musician and Author, Dead at 56

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Award-winning Canadian author and musician Paul Quarrington has died of lung cancer. He was 56.

"It is comforting to know that he didn't suffer," reads the memorial announcement on Quarrington's website. "He was calm and quiet, holding hands with those who were closest to him."

Quarrington, who lost his struggle with lung cancer in the early hours of January 21, was best known for his 1989 book, 'Whale Music' -- about a reclusive Brian Wilson-esque rock star -- which won the prestigious Governor General's Award for Fiction and was described by Penthouse Magazine as "the best novel written about rock 'n 'roll."

He spent much of his career writing about his three passions: music, hockey and fishing, and infused his novels -- including the award-winning 'King Leary,' 'Galveston,' and 'The Ravine' -- with the same sharp wit and humour that defined the man himself.

Born and raised in Toronto, Quarrington first gained notice as a musician with his 1979 Canadian hit, 'Baby and the Blues,' recorded with partner Martin Worthy.

He began writing novels at age 25 while playing bass for the legendary Toronto rock band Joe Hall and the Continental Drift, and would continue to balance his literary and musical worlds through country-blues ensemble Porkbelly Futures and his lyrical work with the Rheostatics.

A graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, Quarrington also had a successful career as a screenwriter. Adapting his own 'Whale Music' in 1994, which was nominated for several Genie awards -- the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars -- he also wrote the Gemini award-winning screenplay for the 1991 film 'Perfectly Normal,' as well as the screenplay for the Deepa Mehta directed 'Camilla,' and was a writer for several popular television shows, including 'Due South.'

The prolific Quarrington was also an accomplished playwright and journalist, penning several scripts for the stage, including 'The Invention of Poetry' and 'Dying is Easy' and winning three National Magazine Awards.

Diagnosed with lung cancer last spring, Quarrington worked at a fevered pace to squeeze as much as he could into his remaining time. His final months found him hard at work on his first solo CD, a third Porkbelly Futures release, as well as a memoir titled 'Cigar Box Banjo.'

Even as his health deteriorated, Quarrington never lost his trademark good humour and joie de vivre. "I [thought] I was one of the luckiest guys alive. And when I got the diagnosis, I thought, 'Well, my luck has just run out,'" he said in an interview with the CBC last year. "But actually, it hasn't really. You find out how lucky you are in terms of friends and people around you."

He leaves two teenage daughters, Carson and Flannery.

 

[JennyOmanHill]

Rocksteady Legend Lynn Taitt Dead at 70

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Lynn Taitt, the Jamaican guitarist who played with nearly every reggae legend and the man widely credited with creating the very first rocksteady bassline, has died in Canada at the age of 70. A Trinidadian by birth, Taitt had no problem making Jamaica his home, where his musical career eventually came into full bloom. In addition to playing with major ska and early reggae groups like the Skatalites and the Sheikhs, he founded his own group, Lynn Taitt and the Comets, in the mid 1960s.

Though many will certainly remember him for his uniquely virtuosic guitar style and his groundbreaking contribution to rocksteady, Taitt will perhaps best be known for the work he did to help globalize reggae, and spread it beyond Jamaica's borders. As musicologist Roger Steffens told the Jamaica Observer, Taitt "will be remembered by historians as one of the major contributors to the internationalization of reggae, particularly for his work in spreading the music in Canada." Broadcaster Bunny Goodison remembers him more simply, calling him unquestionably "the baddest."

 

[JennyOmanHill]

John Halligan, NHL and Rangers publicist

Friday, January 22, 2010
BY JAY LEVIN
The Record
STAFF WRITER

John Halligan never picked up a hockey stick while growing up in Bergenfield. But don't think for one moment he knew squat about hockey.

The encyclopedic Mr. Halligan, a longtime publicist for the New York Rangers and the National Hockey League, died Wednesday at his home in Franklin Lakes. He was 68.

The cause was arrhythmia, said Janet Halligan, his wife of 41 years.
"John was the greatest historian the Rangers organization ever had," Rangers Hall of Famer Rod Gilbert said Thursday.

"And he was the players' mentor and the players' friend."

Mr. Halligan, who once took high school game scores over the phone at The Record, worshiped the Rangers from the time his older brother took him to his first game at the old Madison Square Garden. He joined the Rangers' publicity staff after graduating from Fordham University in 1963. The NHL had just six teams then — Montreal, Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, Boston and New York — and the Rangers were the bottom of the heap.

Over the next 20 years, the Blueshirts discovered success and Mr. Halligan's role expanded to vice president of communications and business manager, responsible for, among other things, the team's travel arrangements. He took a publicity job with the NHL in 1983, returned to the Rangers in 1986 and went back to the NHL in 1990, retiring in 2006.

He wrote several books, including "100 Ranger Greats: Superstars, Unsung Heroes and Colorful Characters" and "Game of My Life: New York Rangers."
Mr. Halligan worked alongside his wife in the Rangers' publicity office for many years. Janet Halligan, like her husband, was introduced to the Rangers by an older brother.

"A lot of people said it would never work," John Halligan told The Record in 1974. "Announcer Win Elliott was probably the most vociferous. … He said you can't go home at night to the same woman you worked with all day."
But the Halligans' was a marriage made in hockey heaven.

"John Halligan cherished the character of the game as much as the characters of the game," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. "He loved the stories of the game and, over his decades in hockey, told those stories with an abiding respect for the history — and humor — so that future generations of fans could enjoy them as much as he did."

Another former Ranger, Dave Maloney, said the genial Mr. Halligan was privy to "all the stuff that went on" by virtue of "his personality and presence."
"You could never tell with John that there was a bad day on the horizon," Maloney said.

Mr. Halligan was so plugged in to the sport, and on a first-name basis with so many of its personalities, that he invariably was quoted in hockey obituaries. Occasionally he penned the article, as he did last year after the death of his friend Bill Chadwick — "the one-eyed referee who made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame."

"But many New Yorkers," Mr. Halligan wrote on NHL.com, "myself most definitely included, will remember Chadwick as 'The Big Whistle,' a beloved broadcaster who often mangled names, yes, but nonetheless delighted thousands of fans with his trademark calls and phrases both on radio and television."

Mr. Halligan received the 2007 Lester Patrick Award for contributions to American hockey. He was honored with former Rangers defenseman Brian Leetch, broadcaster Stan Fischler and women's hockey pioneer and two-time Olympian Cammi Granato.

During the New Jersey Devils' pregame show Wednesday night on MSG Network, Fischler saluted his old friend, saying: "If the game of hockey had a saint, John was it."

 

[sweet soft kiss]

Jean Simmons

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Jean Simmons, a radiant British actress who as a teenager appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in "Hamlet" and emerged a star whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s in such films as "Guys and Dolls, "Elmer Gantry" and "Spartacus," has died. She was 80.

Simmons, who won an Emmy Award for her role in the 1980s miniseries "The Thorn Birds," died Friday evening at her home in Santa Monica, said Judy Page, her agent. She had lung cancer.

"Jean Simmons' jaw-dropping beauty often obscured a formidable acting talent," Alan K. Rode, a writer and film historian, told The Times in an e-mail.

Plucked from a dance class by a talent scout at the age of 14, she had already made several movies before gaining attention for her portrayal of the young Estella in David Lean's film adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations."

Considered one of the greatest British movies ever made, it had lasting impact on the actress, who was 17 the year it was released. Until then, moviemaking had mainly been "fun and games," she later said, but she realized it could be a career.

"That's when I thought, 'Oh, yes, I think this is it,' " Simmons told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 1990.

After Olivier cast her as Ophelia in his 1948 film “Hamlet,” she received the first of two Academy Award nominations. More than 20 years later, she was nominated for her searing portrayal of an alcoholic wife in "The Happy Ending."

Olivier urged the young actress to perfect her craft by acting on stage, but she chose a more romantic path -- and followed her future husband, dashing British screen idol Stewart Granger, to Hollywood.

Howard Hughes bought her film contract from a British company but nearly strangled her fledgling American career. After she became entangled in a contractual lawsuit with Hughes, then head of RKO Studios, he prevented her from appearing in many meaningful roles until the suit was settled.

"An outstanding exception of her time at RKO was 'Angel Face' [1952], a wonderfully dark film noir that had Simmons playing a femme fatale with murderous intentions opposite Robert Mitchum," Rode wrote.

Over a career that spanned more than 60 years, she appeared in about 55 feature films and nearly as many television productions. In the 1950s and 1960s, she made more than 30 movies and displayed her versatility by appearing in costume epics, romances, musicals and dramas.

She co-starred with such notable actors as Richard Burton in "The Robe," Gregory Peck in the western "The Big Country," Marlon Brando in "Desiree," and Brando and Frank Sinatra in “Guys and Dolls.”

While playing the title character in "Desiree," the mistress of Brando's Napoleon, she was so in awe of the actor that "I was sort of forgetting what I was supposed to do," she said in 1990 in the Union-Tribune.

When Brando and Simmons next starred in "Guys and Dolls" in 1955, they were initially supposed to lip-sync their songs.

During rehearsal, "Samuel Goldwyn came on the set one day and he heard us and said, 'I think it's better you do your own singing. . . . Maybe you don't sound so good, but at least it's you,' " she recalled in the Union-Tribune interview.

Among her films, she favored 1953's "The Actress," which she said she "just loved" for the "sheer heaven" of working with Spencer Tracy, who became a good friend, she said in the 1990 interview.

She also enjoyed "The Grass Is Greener," which co-starred Cary Grant, "because it was comedy and I usually play these uptight puddings," she said in 1988 in the Toronto Star.

In 1960, she and Granger divorced after a decade of marriage. The same year, she married Richard Brooks, who had just directed her as the saintly evangelist in "Elmer Gantry."

In 1987, Brooks told People magazine, "Every man I would meet would say to me, 'I have always loved your wife,' " who was considered one of the great screen beauties of her generation.

"For men of a certain age, the memory of seeing Simmons naked from the back in the 1960's 'Spartacus' ranks high among their early carnal thrills," the People article said. She had portrayed Kirk Douglas' love interest in the Roman epic.

Brooks directed her in the 1969 film "The Happy Ending," which he also wrote. He later said that he created the character of the alcoholic wife as a way to tell his real-life wife that she also had a drinking problem.

Of their breakup after about 18 years of marriage, Simmons later said, "It was simply that the mixture of an alcoholic and a workaholic just wasn't working."

In 1986, she underwent treatment for alcoholism at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. "All I can say is thank God for Mrs. Ford," Simmons said in the People interview.

After marrying for the second time, she took a few years off. She had two daughters, one with Granger named Tracy, for her "Actress" co-star, and the other with Brooks, named Kate, for Katharine Hepburn.

Simmons returned to the big screen in 1963 in "All the Way Home," giving an "award-caliber performance" as a recently widowed mother, according to "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide."

But she found good roles harder to come by.

"Every actress has to face the facts there are younger, more beautiful girls right behind you," Simmons said in 1988 in the Toronto Star. "Once you've gone beyond the vanity of the business, you'll take on the tough roles."

Increasingly, she turned to television movies and miniseries.

In the 1980s, she appeared in the ABC historical drama "North and South" and its sequel; in a well-reviewed Disney Channel version of "Great Expectations" as the miserable recluse Miss Havisham; and as the mother, Fiona "Fee" Cleary, in the ABC miniseries “The Thorn Birds.”

"I didn't have a dominant personality. It helped me slip into character parts very easily," she told the Toronto Star in 1988. "I simply had to play the mother in 'The Thorn Birds.' I understood her pain. I badgered the producer until he gave in. He said it wasn't a star part. That's why I wanted it!"

Jean Merilyn Simmons was born Jan. 31, 1929, in London to Charles and Winifred Ada Simmons.

Her father competed as a British gymnast in the 1912 Olympics and later coached the sport. He died when she was 16.

Her mother once described Cricklewood, the north London area where Simmons grew up, as "a place where they make lovely parts for automobiles."

At 15, Simmons appeared in five British films, including a role as a precocious teenager in "Give Us the Moon." She also appeared in such major British productions as "Black Narcissus" (1947) and "The Blue Lagoon" (1949).

In 1956, she became a U.S. citizen and while married to Granger lived on an Arizona ranch.

For years, she lived in a Santa Monica home that she decorated in a style she once described as "early mishmash."

"It was extraordinary for a Cockney kid from Cricklewood to have this happen," she said in a 1989 Times interview as she expressed amazement over the life she had lived. "If I hadn't gone to that dancing school, I would have married and had children like my mum and had a normal life.

"My career has had a lot of ups and downs," she said, "but basically it has been wonderful."

She is survived by her two daughters, Tracy Granger and Kate Brooks.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to the Lange Foundation, a pet rescue organization, at www.langefoundation.com.