Literotica Cemetary

[JennyOHill2]

Johnny Sheffield, ‘Boy’ in Tarzan Movies, Dies at 79

CHULA VISTA, Calif. (AP) — Johnny Sheffield, who played the character Boy in the Tarzan movies of the 1930s and ’40s, died at his home here. He was 79.

The cause was a heart attack several hours after he fell off a ladder while pruning a palm tree, his wife, Patty, told The Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Sheffield beat out more than 300 youngsters for the role of Boy in the 1939 movie “Tarzan Finds a Son!” and went on to co-star with Johnny Weissmuller in seven more Tarzan films.

He later played another jungle boy, Bomba, in a dozen low-budget movies but quit the business after the last one 1955. He went on to earn a business degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and worked for various companies and in contracting and real estate.

Mr. Sheffield was born on April 11, 1931, in Pasadena, Calif. His father, Reginald Sheffield, was an actor.

Besides his wife, The Los Angeles Times reported, Mr. Sheffield is survived by two sons, Patrick and Stewart; a daughter, Regina; a brother, William; and a grandson.

 

[Johnny_Ray_Wilson]

Jill Clayburgh dies at 66

Oscar-nominated actress Jill Clayburgh dead at 66



Associated Press – Sat Nov 6, 4:00 am ET

Jill Clayburgh, the sophisticated Hollywood and Broadway actress known for portrayals of empowered women in a career spanning five decades, highlighted by her Oscar-nominated role of a divorcee exploring life after marriage in the 1978 film "An Unmarried Woman," has died. She was 66.

Her husband, Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe, said Clayburgh died Friday surrounded by her family at her home in Lakeville, Conn., after a 21-year battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He said she dealt with the disease courageously, quietly and privately, "and made it into an opportunity for her children to grow and be human."


Clayburgh, alongside such peers as Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine and Jane Fonda, helped to usher in a new era for actresses in Hollywood by playing women who were confident and capable yet not completely flawless. Her dramatic turn as a divorcee exploring her sexuality after 16 years of marriage in "An Unmarried Woman" earned Clayburgh her first Oscar nod.

"There was practically nothing for women to do on the screen in the 1950s and 1960s," Clayburgh said in an interview with The Associated Press while promoting "An Unmarried Woman" in 1978. "Sure, Marilyn Monroe was great, but she had to play a one-sided character, a vulnerable sex object. It was a real fantasy."

The next year, Clayburgh was again nominated for an Academy Award for "Starting Over," a comedy about a divorced man, played by Burt Reynolds, who falls in love but can't get over his ex-wife. For the next 30 years, Clayburgh steadily appeared in films and on stage and television, often effortlessly moving between comedic and dramatic roles.

Besides appearing in such movies as "I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can," "Silver Streak" and "Running With Scissors," Clayburgh's Broadway credits included Noel Coward's "Design for Living," the original production of Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," and the Tony Award-winning musicals "Pippin" and "The Rothschilds."

Clayburgh's work also stretched across TV. She had a recurring role on Fox's "Ally McBeal" as McBeal's mother and most recently played the matriarch of the spoiled Darling family on ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money." She earned two Emmy nods: for best actress in 1975 for portraying a tell-it-like-it-is prostitute in the ABC TV film "Hustling" and for her guest turn in 2005 as a vengeful plastic surgery patient on FX's "Nip/Tuck."

Clayburgh came from a privileged New York family. Her father was vice president of two large companies, and her mother was a secretary for Broadway producer David Merrick. Her grandmother, Alma Clayburgh, was an opera singer and New York socialite.

Growing up in a such a rich cultural mix, she could easily have been overwhelmed. Instead, as she said in interviews, she asserted herself with willful and destructive behavior — so much so that her parents took her to a psychiatrist when she was 9.

She escaped into a fantasy world of her own devising. She was entranced by seeing Jean Arthur play "Peter Pan" on Broadway, and she and a school chum concocted their own dramatics every day at home. She became serious-minded at Sarah Lawrence College, concentrating on religion, philosophy and literature.

Clayburgh also took drama classes at Sarah Lawrence. She and her friend Robert De Niro acted in a film, "The Wedding Party," directed by a Sarah Lawrence graduate, Brian DePalma. After graduating with a bachelor of arts degree, she began performing in repertory and in Broadway musicals such as "The Rothschilds" and "Pippin."

Alongside Richard Thomas, she headed the 2005 Broadway cast of "A Naked Girl on the Appian Way," Richard Greenberg's comedy about one family's unusual domestic tribulations.

Director Doug Hughes, who directed her in a production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" at the Westport Country Playhouse in 2003, called her for "Naked Girl."
"That she has the time to do a run of a play is just an extraordinary boon because I've had the pleasure of seeing her play a bona fide tragic American role beautifully, and I have had the pleasure of directing her in a very, very smart light comedy and be utterly brilliant in that," he said in 2005.
During an interview that year, Clayburgh explained the unglamorous side of acting.

"One of the funny things about actors is that people look at their careers in retrospect, as if they have a plan," she said.

"Mostly, you just get a call. You're just sitting there going, 'Oh, my God. I'm never going to work again. Oh, God. I'm too old. Maybe I should go and work for Howard Dean.' And then it changes."

Clayburgh will next be seen playing the mother of Jake Gyllenhaal's character in the upcoming film "Love and Other Drugs."

She is survived by three children, including actress Lily Rabe, Michael Rabe and stepson Jason Rabe.

There will be no funeral, Rabe said. The family will have a memorial in about six months, though plans have not been finalized.

 

[JennyOHill2]

'Rocky and Bullwinkle' Creator Alexander Anderson Jr. Dies

Alexander Anderson Jr., creator of the classic cartoon 'Rocky and Bullwinkle,' has passed away at age 90, The Washington Post reports.

Anderson, a famed cartoonist and nephew of 'Mighty Mouse' creator Paul Terry, is also responsible for the creation of iconic characters Dudley Do-Right and Crusader Rabbit.

According to Anderson's son, Terry, his father died from complications associated with Alzheimer's disease in the Carmel, California, nursing home where he had been living.

Alexander Anderson Jr. is survived by his wife, two sons, three step-children, fourteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

 

[phrodeau]

Polish composer Henryk Górecki dies, aged 76

Classical musician achieved unlikely fame with Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Maev Kennedy
guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 November 2010 13.19 GMT

The Polish composer Henryk Górecki, whose desolate Symphony of Sorrowful Songs became an unlikely crossover hit, has died in Katowice, aged 76.

He had been ill for some time, but lived long enough to be awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the highest honour of his country, which was presented last month. He was due to attend a performance in London earlier this year of his fourth symphony, but it was cancelled owing to ill-health.

Górecki's international reputation grew through his work with orchestras like the London Sinfonietta and the Kronos Quartet, in the years after he resigned his post as professor of composition in Katowice, in protest against the communist authorities' refusal to welcome a visit by the Polish pope John Paul II.

He had been regarded as a pioneer of modernism in his own country, though later adopted a more pared-down, minimalist style and became noted for religious music. In 1992, a recording of his then 15-year-old third symphony, also known under the title of the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, was released to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust: it became a worldwide critical and popular success. The material he incorporated included a 15th-century lament, a Silesian folk song, and words written by a teenage girl on the wall of her Gestapo prison cell. At one point, the disc reached number 6 in the general album charts, and it became a staple at funerals. It has since sold more than a million copies.

He was born in 1933 in Silesia, in south west Poland, to two talented amateur musicians, and first studied violin. He studied composition and then joined the staff of the state academy of music in Katowice, where his students regarded him as brilliant but extremely demanding. When they asked him what and how to write, he later recalled, his reply invariably was: "If you can live without music for two or three days, then don't write – it might be better to spend the time with a girl or with a beer."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/12/polish-composer-henryk-gorecki-dies

 

[JennyOHill2]

Italian cinema legend De Laurentiis dies

ROME (AFP) – Italy's Oscar-winning film producer Dino De Laurentiis, who brought larger than life characters ranging from King Kong to Hannibal Lecter to the big screen, has died aged 91.

De Laurentiis, who worked with some of Italy's best-known directors such as Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini before breaking into Hollywood, died in Los Angeles after being gravely ill for two weeks.

"Cinema has lost one of its greats," said Walter Veltroni, an Italian lawmaker and former mayor of Rome who founded the Rome Film Festival.

"The name of Dino De Laurentiis is tied to the history of cinema," he said.

His nephew, Aurelio De Laurentiis, also a well-known producer, confirmed his uncle's death as he spoke to reporters in Rome ahead of his departure for the funeral in the United States.

De Laurentiis described his uncle as an "intellectual" who used cinema as "a way of embracing and understanding life."

He said his uncle's passion for film began when Dino was a young boy and flourished in the "magic climate" of the 1950s.

"There wasn't a fascination with television at the time, but a great fascination with cinema," he said.

"When you talked about work with Dino one thing was sure: it was fun, you would toss ideas back and forth," he said.

Dino De Laurentiis produced more than 500 films over his entire career, working with some of the biggest names in European film as well as Hollywood.

Starting out in film aged just 20, he became one of the leading producers of Italy's post-war cinema boom and the neo-realist genre.

One of the first films he produced was "Riso Amaro" ("Bitter Rice") by Giuseppe De Santis, a 1949 classic and one of the best examples of neo-realism.

He won an Oscar in 1956 for Fellini's "La Strada" and was nominated 38 times. In 2001, he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the Oscars for demonstrating "a consistently high quality of motion picture production."

In 2003, he won a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival.

De Laurentiis worked closely with the legendary Italian comic actor Toto and Alberto Sordi, one of Italy's best-loved stars whose portrayals of middle-class Romans struggling to get by became national classics.

In the 1960s, De Laurentiis built a film studio near Rome known as "Dinocitta" -- after the famous "Cinecitta" -- that was inaugurated by US director John Huston.

His work became increasingly in demand in Hollywood, enjoying box office success with "Serpico" starring Al Pacino in 1973, "Three Days of the Condor" with Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway in 1975, "King Kong" in 1976 and Ridley Scott's "Hannibal" in 2001.

However not all of his movies were hits.

His 1984 science fiction film "Dune," written and directed by David Lynch, was a commercial flop and was slammed by critics.

De Laurentiis was born on August 8, 1919 in Torre Annunziata near Naples and moved to the United States in the early 1970s. His parents were pasta makers.

He married Silvana Mangano, the star of "Riso Amaro" and one of the beauties of her day. They had four children together and later divorced.

In 1981, his son died in an airplane accident in Alaska.

His granddaughter, Giada, is a well-known US chef and hosts a programme on the Food Network.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Former NHL coach Pat Burns

MONTREAL - Pat Burns was laid to rest with a Stanley Cup.

A funeral for the old coach was held with hockey royalty coming out to pay tribute to a man they remembered as a master motivator who was tough but kind.

Burns' ashes were carried into the church for the funeral and, afterward, back out in an urn that is actually a miniature replica of hockey's Holy Grail.

After the mass, his loved ones paused by the hearse to kiss the small Cup, which had sat near the altar with a flame flickering over it during the ceremony.

The coach's cousin, Robin Burns, drew chuckles from the congregation during his eulogy by making refence to the unusual urn.

He listed some of Burns' achievements—inside and outside of hockey—and at one point he addressed his late cousin directly.

"Look at you, all cropped up in Lord Stanley," Robin Burns said.

"Not bad for a tete-carree (square head) from St-Henri."

A number of current and former NHLers, along with league commissioner Gary Bettman, were among more than 1,000 guests who attended the service.

The dozens of prominent hockey figures present included the entire roster of the New Jersey Devils, as well as Raymond Bourque, Patrick Roy, Tie Domi, Mike Gartner, Luc Robitaille, and Toronto Maple Leafs executives Brian Burke and Cliff Fletcher.

On their way into the church, many of the guests shared their memories of Burns, who died earlier this month at age 58 after a long battle with cancer.

There was a common theme to the descriptions—that of a man with a booming voice, an equally big heart, and a knack for winning.

"His bark sometimes was a little louder than his bite, but he could actually bark pretty loud,'' said Bourque, the legendary Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche defenceman.

''But he could also have the other side, that was understanding and supportive. He was fun to play for. I really loved him and he was the best defensive coach I've ever had."

Bourque also addressed what many in the hockey world consider a historic slight: "(He's) a guy that probably should have been in the Hall of Fame this past year and will be in the Hall of Fame someday."

The bilingual service was held at Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, a scaled-down replica of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

The cardinal who presided over the mass, Jean-Claude Turcotte, acknowledged he is an avid Canadiens fan.

The pews were also filled by members of the police brotherhood and leather-clad members of Burns' old Road Dawgs motorcycle club.

Burns' wife, Line, and children, Jason and Maureen, received condolences before and after the ceremony.

Roy reminisced not only about the fiery intensity of his old Canadiens' coach, but also his ability to motivate players.

"He always found a way to make players feel important on his team and I think that's a great quality," said the Hall of Fame goalie, who is now himself a coach in the minor leagues.

"Sometimes in the morning skate he would come and say, 'Casseau (Roy's nickname in French), I need you tonight. I don't feel the guys are ready for a strong start.' "

In his eulogy, Robin Burns had some gentle fun at his cousin's expense.

He told the congregation how Pat Burns was so scared of thunderstorms as a little kid that he would jump into his sister's bed.

He also recalled how his cousin, who later became a police officer in Gatineau, Que., was at one time afraid of cops.

Burns ended his promising career on the police force in the 1980s to focus on coaching minor-league hockey full-time.

He was the youngest of six children born into a working-class family in the St-Henri district near the old Montreal Forum.

A burly man in his heyday, Burns had a love for Harley-Davidson motorcycles and an affinity for strumming country tunes on his guitar.

But it was his thundering voice from behind the bench that demanded the attention of NHL referees and players.

His gruff, no-nonsense approach intimidated his players, but many say it brought out the best in them.

In 1,019 games as an NHL head coach, his teams won 501 games, lost 353, tied 151 and lost 14 in overtime. In 149 playoff games, they won 78 and lost 71.

He was the only bench boss to win the Adams Trophy as the NHL's top coach with three different teams—Toronto, Montreal and Boston.

But it wasn't until 2003, as head coach of the Devils, when the former Gatineau cop finally got to sip from the Stanley Cup.

New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello also gave a eulogy on Monday, calling Burns "one of the great names in hockey."

"There was something genuine about him . . . what he said, you believed," said Lamoriello, who phoned Burns a couple of weeks ago to ask him how he was feeling.

Lamoriello said Burns replied: "The hell with how I'm doing, I just watched you (the struggling Devils) play."

Burns battled colon and liver cancer in 2004 and 2005, and hoped he had beaten the disease, but in January 2009 doctors discovered it had spread to his lungs.

The third time, he initially opted to forgo any further treatment, but then decided to go with chemotherapy to try to extend his life as long as possible.

He made his last official public appearance in early October, when he attended the groundbreaking ceremony for an arena to be named in his honour in Stanstead, Que.

The frail, yet wise-cracking Burns couldn't resist taking a shot at the media, some of whom had reported a few weeks earlier that he had died.

"I'm not dead yet," he told journalists in a hushed tone, his thin body and sunken cheeks showing the physical toll the lengthy battle had taken.

"I'm still alive."

 

[Denae]

Turn out the lights, the party's over

December 06, 2010

DALLAS (AP) — Don Meredith was the happiest, most fun-loving guy wherever he went, whether crooning country tunes in the huddle as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys or jawing with Howard Cosell in the broadcast booth as analyst on the groundbreaking "Monday Night Football."

His irreverent personality made him one of the most beloved figures in sports and entertainment in the 1970s and 1980s, helping turn the Cowboys and "Monday Night Football" into national sensations.

"Dandy Don" died Sunday after suffering a brain hemorrhage and lapsing into a coma in Santa Fe, N.M., where he lived out of the limelight with his wife, Susan, for the last 25 years. He was 72.

A folksy foil to Cosell's tell-it-like-it-is pomposity, Meredith was at his best with unscripted one-liners — often aimed at his broadcast partners. His trademark, though, came when one team had the game locked up. Meredith would warble, "Turn out the lights, the party's over" — from a song by his pal Willie Nelson.

Meredith played for the Cowboys from 1960-68, taking them from winless expansion team to the brink of a championship. He was only 31 when he retired before training camp in 1969, and a year later wound up alongside Cosell in the broadcast booth for the oddity of a prime-time, weeknight NFL game.

The league pitched the idea to ABC, the lowest-rated network, after CBS and NBC tried occasional games on Monday nights and didn't think it would click. It became a hit largely because of how much viewers enjoyed the contrast of Meredith's Texas flair and Cosell's East Coast braggadocio.

Friends in real life, they took opposite stances to liven up broadcasts with their bickering. Meredith usually took the majority opinion, Cosell the minority. Cosell was playing a role, while Meredith was just being himself.

"Watching him on TV was like being in the huddle with Don again," former teammate Dan Reeves said. "He just made the game fun."

Blowouts were their playground. Folks kept watching because of them.

In a 1970 game from Dallas, the Cowboys were headed to a 38-0 loss to St. Louis when fans chanted, "We Want Meredith!" Said Meredith, "No way you're getting me down there."

The Houston Oilers were on their way to a 34-0 loss to the Oakland Raiders in 1972 when a camera zoomed in on a disgruntled fan at the Astrodome. He made a one-finger salute and Meredith quipped, "He thinks they're No. 1."

Meredith was the life of the party in the "Monday Night" booth from 1970 through 1984, except for a three-year stint playing a detective on NBC's "Police Story." He spent 11 of those years teamed with another former star player, Frank Gifford, a friend before they became broadcast partners.

"To say that Don was an instant success would be a gross understatement," Gifford said in a statement. "For millions of football fans, he would always be the one who topped Howard Cosell with one-liners or a simple 'Come on, Howard.'"

Current "Monday Night" announcer Jon Gruden spoke for many who grew up during Meredith's time in the booth by recalling how he would "sneak downstairs and watch Don and 'Monday Night Football' when I was supposed to be asleep."

Meredith also appeared in more than a dozen made-for-TV movies, specials or dramas. He once filled in for Johnny Carson on the "Tonight Show," and was a popular pitchman for Lipton tea.

During his playing days, Meredith recorded his own country music single. Former teammate Walt Garrison pulled it out Monday and proudly read the names of the songs: "Travelin' Man" on one side, "Them That Ain't Got It Can't Lose" on the other.

He was the inspiration for the carousing quarterback in the book and movie "North Dallas Forty," written by Pete Gent, a former Cowboys teammate and good friend.

"He loved life, he loved people, God bless him," Garrison said. "When he walked into a room, he took it over. ... You couldn't be sad around Joe Don very long. When you left, you'd come away laughing."

Meredith left "Monday Night Football" a year after Cosell and soon retired from the spotlight altogether. He just didn't want to be famous any more. His absence meant younger generations have only heard "Dandy Don" stories — including current Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, who wore Meredith's No. 17 when he was a Dallas quarterback.

"It was a coincidence, but I always made the connection," Garrett said.

Joseph Donald Meredith was born April 10, 1938, and grew up in the Northeast Texas town of Mount Vernon.

He was a natural athlete. He scored a record 52 points in a high school basketball tournament. At Southern Methodist University, he was All-America quarterback in 1958 and 1959. His popularity in Dallas was part of why the Cowboys signed him to a five-year personal services contract before formally getting an NFL franchise.

Meredith's second career in entertainment obscures what a great quarterback he was, taking a team from 0-11-1 in 1960 to within minutes of reaching each of the first two Super Bowls.

"You look at all the expansion quarterbacks and most of them have been forgotten about, but he was able to take us to the championship game," said Reeves, an NFL head coach for 23 seasons. "I've been around some outstanding quarterbacks: (Roger) Staubach, (Craig) Morton, (John) Elway, Phil Simms. All those guys had some of the same traits as Don, but you'd never get all the traits Don had in one package."

He took his lumps until surrounded by better players.

"Broken noses and collarbones and ribs, everything you can think of, Don had it," said Lee Roy Jordan, his roommate for many years.

Meredith's free spirit never meshed with coach Tom Landry, which led to a love-hate relationship with fans. But the coach and quarterback realized they needed each other.

The turning point in their relationship came midway through 1965, when Landry cried in front of the team after a loss that dropped them to 2-5. He recommitted to Meredith and the Cowboys finished 7-7, their first non-losing season.

They went to the Playoff Bowl, a meaningless matchup of runners-up, then advanced to the NFL championship game the next two seasons.

Dallas narrowly lost to Green Bay both times. Meredith threw a late interception in the first one. The second was the "Ice Bowl," one of the most memorable games in NFL history, won by the Packers on a quarterback sneak in the closing seconds.

Meredith showed up for the 1966 title game with his face covered in stitches. He told everyone he'd been shopping with his wife, got tripped and went through a plate-glass window. He couldn't play.

"You could've heard a pin drop," Reeves said. "Then coach Landry walked in and he peeled it off. It looked so real! He had a makeup artist put it on. We all wanted to choke him to death for scaring us like that. But we all just cracked up."

Dallas lost in the first round of the playoffs in 1968, with Meredith throwing three interceptions and getting replaced by Morton. It turned out to be his last game.

Susan Meredith said she and her daughter were at Meredith's side when he died. A private graveside service was planned.

~~

Thanks for the memories Mr. Meredith

 

[JennyOHill2]

Leslie Nielsen, "Naked Gun" Star, Dead at 84

Didn't want to leave him out of our listings

Leslie Nielsen, who traded in his dramatic persona for inspired bumbling as a hapless doctor in "Airplane!" and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in "The Naked Gun" comedies, died in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 84.

The Canadian-born actor died from complications from pneumonia at a hospital near his home, surrounded by his wife, Barbaree, and friends, his agent John S. Kelly said in a statement.

"We are saddened by the passing of beloved actor Leslie Nielsen, probably best remembered as Lt. Frank Drebin in 'The Naked Gun' series of pictures, but who enjoyed a more than 60-year career in motion pictures and television," said Kelly.

Speaking to Manitoba radio station CJOB68, Nielsen's nephew Doug Nielsen said that the actor had been in the hospital with pneumonia for about 12 days and that the infection had taken an increasing toll in recent days.

Nielsen came to Hollywood in the mid-1950s after performing in 150 live television dramas in New York. With a craggily handsome face, blond hair and 6-foot-2 height, he seemed ideal for a movie leading man.

Nielsen first performed as the king of France in the Paramount operetta "The Vagabond King" with Kathryn Grayson.

The film - he called it "The Vagabond Turkey" - flopped, but MGM signed him to a seven-year contract.

His first film for that studio was auspicious - as the space ship commander in the science fiction classic "Forbidden Planet." He found his best dramatic role as the captain of an overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, "The Poseidon Adventure."

He became known as a serious actor, although behind the camera he was a prankster.

On "The Early Show," co-anchor Harry Smith noted Nielsen often brought a whoopie cushion along when he visited the show, pranking people on the set.

His prankster personality never exploited, however, until "Airplane!" was released in 1980 and became a huge hit.

As the doctor aboard a plane in which the pilots, and some of the passengers, become violently ill, Nielsen says they must get to a hospital right away.

"A hospital? What is it?" a flight attendant asks, inquiring about the illness.

"It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now," Nielsen deadpans.

When he asks a passenger if he can fly the plane, the man replies, "Surely you can't be serious."

Nielsen responds: "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley."

Critics argued he was being cast against type, but Nielsen disagreed.

"I've always been cast against type before," he said, adding comedy was what he'd really always wanted to do.

It was what he would do for most of the rest of his career, appearing in such comedies as "Repossessed" (a takeoff on the demonic possession movies like "The Exorcist") and "Mr. Magoo," in which he played the title role of the good-natured bumbler.

Nielsen did play Debbie Reynolds' sweetheart in the popular "Tammy and the Bachelor," a loanout to Universal, and he became well known to baby boomers for his role as the Revolutionary War fighter Francis Marion in the Disney TV adventure series "The Swamp Fox."

Unhappy with his roles at MGM, he asked to be released from his contract. As a freelancer, he appeared in a series of undistinguished movies.

"I played a lot of leaders, autocratic sorts; perhaps it was my Canadian accent," he reasoned.

Meanwhile, he remained active in television in guest roles. He also starred in his own series, "The New Breed," "The Protectors" and "Bracken's World," but all were short-lived.

Then "Airplane!" captivated audiences and changed everything.

Producers-directors-writers Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker had hired Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and Nielsen to spoof their heroic TV images in a satire of flight-in-jeopardy movies.

After the movie's success, the filmmaking trio cast their newfound comic star as Detective Drebin in a TV series, "Police Squad," which trashed the cliches of "Dragnet" and other cop shows. Despite good reviews, NBC canceled it after only four episodes.

"It didn't belong on TV," Nielsen later commented. "It had the kind of humor you had to pay attention to."

The Zuckers and Abraham converted the series into a feature film, "The Naked Gun," with George Kennedy, O.J. Simpson and Priscilla Presley as Nielsen's co-stars. Its huge success led to sequels "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" and "The Naked Gun 33 1/3."

His later movies included "All I Want for Christmas," "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" and "Spy Hard."

Between films he often turned serious, touring with his one-man show on the life of the great defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow.

Nielsen was born Feb. 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan.

He grew up 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle at Fort Norman, where his father was an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The parents had three sons, and Nielsen once recalled, "There were 15 people in the village, including five of us. If my father arrested somebody in the winter, he'd have to wait until the thaw to turn him in."

The elder Nielsen was a troubled man who beat his wife and sons, and Leslie longed to escape. As soon as he graduated from high school at 17, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though he was legally deaf (he wore hearing aids most of his life.)

After the war, Nielsen worked as a disc jockey at a Calgary radio station, then studied at a Toronto radio school operated by Lorne Greene, who would go on to star on the hit TV series "Bonanza." A scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse brought him to New York, where he immersed himself in live television.

CBS News correspondent Betty Nguyen reported on "The Early Show" Nielsen's final projects included "Lipshitz Saves the World," released in 2007, and the yet-to-be-released "Scary Movie 5."

Nielsen also was married to: Monica Boyer, 1950-1955; Sandy Ullman, 1958-74; and Brooks Oliver, 1981-85.

Nielsen and his second wife had two daughters, Thea and Maura.

 

[JennyOHill2]

German tenor Peter Hofmann dies at 66

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/ap/Germany_Obit_Hofmann.sff_MFRA121_20101130103151.jpg

BERLIN (AP) - German tenor Peter Hofmann, who became famous for his performances of Richard Wagner operas, died. He was 66.

The Rheinische Post newspaper quoted his brother Fritz Hofmann saying he died at a hospital in Wunsiedel in Bavaria. The mass-circulation newspaper Bild also reported Hofmann's death after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.

"Peter Hofmann, unlike few others, bridged the gap between entertainment and serious music," Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said in a statement. "His accomplishments as rock singer in the Phantom of the Opera, but even more his exceptionally gifted interpretations of Wagner, are unforgettable."

Hofmann made his name performing at the annual Bayreuth festival celebrating the music of Richard Wagner. He toured stages across the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and performed as the main character of the Phantom of the Opera musical in Hamburg.

His international breakthrough came in 1976, when he played Siegmund in Wagner's "Ring" cycle at Bayreuth.

Starting in 1990, he starred 300 times in the German version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Phantom of the Opera, performed in Hamburg. He also hosted a TV show in Germany and performed Elvis Presley songs on a tour across Europe.

Hofmann had Parkinson's for several years and stopped performing in 1999. He is survived by his wife and three children.

 

[LiFeNdEaTh]

rest in piece

 

[JennyOHill2]

Ron Santo dies at 70; legendary Chicago Cubs third baseman

Chicago Tribune
December 4, 2010

Ron Santo, who was beloved in Chicago as a Cubs third baseman and broadcaster but was never able to gain entry to baseball's Hall of Fame, died at an Arizona hospital of complications from bladder cancer. He was 70.

Santo had overcome several debilitating injuries, including the amputation of both legs, and a lifelong battle with diabetes to continue to work as a Cubs analyst on the team's flagship radio broadcast on WGN-AM.

On the air since 1990, Santo epitomized the long-suffering Cubs fan, frequently grousing about the play on the field when things went bad, and made no apologies for his on-air cheerleading or his utter frustration over a Cubs misplay.

"I'm a fan," he explained last summer. "I can't plan what I do. I get embarrassed sometimes when I hear what I said, like, 'Oh, no, what's going on?' But it's an emotion. This is being a Cub fan."

Santo never witnessed his longtime goal of election to baseball's Hall of Fame despite career numbers that mark him as one of the game's all-time great third basemen. He had a .277 batting average over 15 major league seasons, with 342 home runs and 1,331 runs batted in.

Though Santo came close to Cooperstown enshrinement in the last decade in voting by the Veterans Committee, he always fell short.

"I'm just kind of fed up with it," Santo said after missing the cut again in 2007. "I figure, 'Hey, it's not in the cards.' "

Santo was born Feb. 25, 1940, in Seattle. He was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when he was 18 but did not reveal his condition until years later.

He began his major league career with the Cubs in 1960, and spent one season with the cross-town White Sox in 1974.

He earned National League Gold Glove awards five straight seasons from 1964 to 1968 and was a nine-time National League All-Star. He was one of the leaders of the 1969 team that blew the division lead to the New York Mets, a season indelibly etched in Cubs' history.

Though Santo never made the Hall of Fame, his number was retired by the Cubs. He said that was equivalent to being inducted in Cooperstown. Being a Cub, and playing at Wrigley Field, meant the world to Santo.

"When I got here, two years after my senior year, I'm walking out of the corner clubhouse with Ernie Banks and there's nobody in the stands, and the feeling I had was unbelievable — walking with Ernie and walking on that grass," he said. "I felt like I was walking on air. There was an electricity and an atmosphere that I'd never experienced in my life. Any ballplayer that's ever played here can tell you about that great atmosphere, and anybody who's come here to watch a game feels the exact same way."

 

[JennyOHill2]

Ingrid Pitt

In the late 1960s, when audiences were increasingly able to tolerate and even demand more graphic violence and sexuality from mainstream Hollywood films, the British company Hammer Film Productions, known as the "House of Horror", decided to compete by playing up the erotic and gory content of their baroque films. During the scream factory's last gasp period, the erupting female sexuality of young, curvaceous victims of predatory males was common. The voluptuous Ingrid Pitt, who has died aged 73, was fortunate enough to be cast as a perpetrator rather than a victim.

Pitt's reputation, which has been somewhat inflated by horror-movie freaks and camp followers, is largely based on two Hammer movies, The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Countess Dracula (1971). She was able to imbue these vampire characters with every possible ounce of human feeling, as well as displaying a lustiness rare in British pictures, and a revealing cleavage. To paraphrase Howard Hughes's words about Jane Russell, there were always two good reasons to see a film starring Ingrid Pitt.

She was born Ingoushka Petrov in Poland to a Jewish mother and a German father who was a scientist and refused to work on the Nazis' programme to develop rockets. Pitt was five when she and her mother were sent to the Stutthof concentration camp, where they remained for three years. "I think I first knew I wanted to act in the camp," she said. "I used to lie on the straw and try and believe I was somewhere else."

When they were taken into a forest to be shot, Pitt and her mother managed to escape and were rescued by partisans. They spent the last year of the war living rough with the partisans, before making their way to Berlin. "I was born into the biggest horror show of the century, the brutalities of the Nazi regime," said Pitt. "I think it's very amazing that I do horror films when I had this awful childhood. But maybe that's why I'm good at it."

After a brief spell as a medical student, Pitt became a member of Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble theatre company. When she got into trouble for criticising the communist authorities, she made her escape to the west, aided by a US marine officer, Roland Pitt, whom she soon married. After living for a period on a military base in Colorado, she got a divorce and returned to Europe with her daughter, Steffanie.

During a few years in Spain, she appeared uncredited in several Spanish films and got work as an extra on David Lean's Doctor Zhivago and Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (both in 1965). She was eventually given a leading role in the wretched low-budget sci-fi film The Omegans (1968), shot in the Philippines and directed by W Lee Wilder, the brother of Billy Wilder.

In the same year, Pitt landed the part of a German double agent posing as a cafe waitress in the popular second world war yarn, Where Eagles Dare. ("And who might you be, my pretty alpine rose?", asks Richard Burton, dressed in a Nazi uniform in the film.) "I had to say I was German to get the role and I didn't like that," Pitt said. Most of the film's interiors were shot at the MGM-British studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, and it was then that Pitt began her love affair with England. She later married the British former racing driver Tony Rudlin, with whom she settled in London. It was "the longest Pitt-stop of his career", she once quipped.

Pitt's breakthrough came when James Carreras, one of the founders of Hammer, cast her in The Vampire Lovers, based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla. Pitt, wearing low-cut, transparent gowns, played Mircalla Karnstein, a 200-year-old lesbian vampire who seduces her female victims before sucking their blood.

This was followed by the title role of Countess Dracula, loosely based on the life of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian who was accused of murdering female victims. Pitt's character remains youthful by bathing in the blood of virgins, and Pitt provides a certain poignancy as the ugly, old crone grasping at beauty. One minute she is hideous but then, after her blood bath, she looks like a Playboy centrefold.

The House That Dripped Blood (1971), produced by Hammer's rival studio, Amicus, was a portmanteau horror movie. Pitt appeared in the amusing final episode, The Cloak, as a film star in tacky horror movies who really becomes a vampire. Pitt's status was increased further by her part in The Wicker Man (1973), a horror-thriller always labelled a "cult classic". She had a smallish role, as the relatively normal character of a librarian on the remote island of Summerisle, although time was found for a shot of her lying naked in a bath.

After The Wicker Man, she appeared in Who Dares Wins (1982), the TV series Smiley's People (1982), and as Dr Solow in three episodes of Doctor Who in 1984. Pitt later wrote several books, including her autobiography, Life's a Scream (1999), and The Ingrid Pitt Book of Murder, Torture and Depravity (2000), and often attended horror conventions and fan gatherings.

She is survived by Tony, Steffanie and a granddaughter, Sofia.

 

[phrodeau]

U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke died Monday at the age of 69 – following surgery for a ruptured aorta – while serving as special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Holbrooke's government career began in 1962 with a foreign service assignment in Vietnam. He served under every Democratic president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama praised Holbrooke at a State Department function Monday evening, just hours before he died.

"From a young foreign service officer in Vietnam to the architect of the accords that ended the slaughter in the Balkans, to advancing our regional efforts as our special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and countless crises and hot spots in between," said President Obama. "He is simply one of the giants of American foreign policy."

In perhaps his most celebrated achievement, Holbrooke brokered the Dayton peace accord in 1995, which ended the war in Bosnia.

"On paper we have peace," Holbrooke said. "To make it work is our next and greatest challenge."

Haris Silajdzic, a member of Bosnia's three-member presidency, took part in the Dayton talks. On Tuesday, he praised Holbrooke's diplomatic skill.

"The world has lost a very able diplomat," said Silajdzic. "We need good people all over the world to prevent wars and to make peace. He was one of the best."

In recent years, Holbrooke had been serving as President Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. In that role, his plain-spoken, hard-charging style sometimes put him at odds with U.S. military leaders and foreign officials.

"The people who demand that the foreign troops leave Afghanistan before they talk about peace are actually asking for surrender. Let us not be naive about this," said Holbrooke.

Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Ahmad Zahir Faqiri said Holbrooke's death is cause for sorrow.

"We express our deep condolences to the government of the United States, to the people of the United States and to the family of the late Holbrooke," Faqiri said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement saying the U.S. has lost one of its fiercest and most dedicated public servants. Clinton said Holbrooke was one of a kind – a true statesman – which, she said, makes his passing all the more painful.

 

[phrodeau]

http://www.rickgrimesfansite.net/images/Captain%20Beefheart.jpg

R.I.P. Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, 1941-2010
By Dan Weiss, Fri., Dec. 17 2010 @ 3:14PM

​Captain Beefheart, the noted experimental musician and painter born Don Van Vliet, died this morning in California following complications from multiple sclerosis. He was 69.

Van Vliet is best known for his 1969 album with the Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica, a work Rolling Stone recently ranked the No. 58 greatest album of all time. The record, and Beefheart's subsequent musical career, fueled the idea that rock music could be experimental and untethered to the limits of rhythm, tempo and key -- despite the fact that the skilled Van Vliet was known for a legendary five-octave vocal range. Born in California, Van Vliet found an educator and muse in Frank Zappa, who encouraged his evolution from visual artist to R&B harmonica/sax player to blues rocker to avant-garde luminary throughout the course of the Magic Band's career.

Beefheart signed to A&M on the strength of his first single, a cover of the blues standard "Diddy Wah Diddy." But the label was less than happy with the demos that went on to be released as the Magic Band's debut album, Safe as Milk. Beefheart and the band rehearsed and recorded the follow-up, Trout Mask Replica, under torrential conditions: grueling practice sessions, little personal space, and verbal abuse. The result was eventually championed by famed rock critic Lester Bangs, who called the album "a total success, a brilliant, stunning enlargement and clarification of his art."

After a long string of critically acclaimed albums throughout the '70s, with titles like Lick My Decals Off, Baby and Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) -- after a quick dip into less successful "commercial" territory with Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams -- Van Vliet finally retired his ever-changing Magic Band lineup and musical guise altogether in 1982. Following a successful career as a painter, Van Vliet was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and retreated from public life altogether. His influence can still be heard across the musical spectrum, most prominently in the avant-garde blues of Tom Waits, but also in the work of recent experimental indie-rock bands such as Man Man.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Elizabeth Edwards

CNN -- Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of 2004 vice presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, died after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was 61.

She died at the family home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, according to a statement released by the family.

"Today we have lost the comfort of Elizabeth's presence but she remains the heart of this family," the statement said. "We love her and will never know anyone more inspiring or full of life."

Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after her husband lost his bid for vice president in November 2004. John Edwards, a one-term Democratic senator, was Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's running mate.

It was later revealed that she knew before the election she might have cancer, but shielded her husband from the news during the campaign. She immediately underwent treatment, and the cancer was believed to be in remission.

In March 2007 -- at the start her husband's 2008 presidential campaign -- Edwards learned that the cancer had returned and spread.

Dr. Lisa Carey, the oncologist treating Edwards, categorized the cancer as metastatic stage four cancer, largely confined to the bones.

The cancer was diagnosed treatable but not curable, Edwards said.

Despite the diagnosis, Edwards said she was ready to go forward with her husband's bid for the White House.

"Either you push forward with the things that you were doing yesterday or you start dying," she said. "If I had given up everything that my life was about ... I'd let cancer win before it needed to."

"Maybe eventually it will win," she said. "But I'd let it win before I needed to."

John Edwards, unable to compete with the attention focused on then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, withdrew from the presidential race in January 2008.

Several months later, he admitted that tabloid claims about an extramarital affair with former campaign videographer Rielle Hunter were true. Eventually, he also admitted to fathering a child with Hunter -- an allegation he initially vociferously denied even after conceding the affair.

John Edwards said the affair happened in 2006 while his wife's cancer was in remission. He claimed he informed his wife at the time and asked for her forgiveness.

The couple was criticized by some activists for not revealing the affair prior to his presidential bid, as the news could have damaged Democratic chances if it became publicly known during a general election campaign in which John Edwards was the party's standard bearer.

"This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well," Elizabeth Edwards said.

The affair appeared to end any future political ambitions the former senator may have had. It also led to the couple's separation.

Elizabeth Edwards was born Mary Elizabeth Anania on July 3, 1949, in Jacksonville, Florida. Her father was a Navy pilot, and in her early years, she attended school in Japan.

She attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and met her future husband while studying at UNC's law school.

They spent their first date dancing at a local Holiday Inn, and it ended with John kissing Elizabeth on the forehead.

"It was just really sweet," she said of the kiss. "I wasn't used to men being sweet."

The couple was married July 30, 1977, the Saturday after they took their state bar exams. They had four children: Wade, Cate, Emma Claire, and Jack. Wade Edwards was killed in a car accident in 1996.

Mrs. Edwards worked as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Calvitt Clarke Jr. in Norfolk, Virginia, and was a bankruptcy lawyer in Raleigh.

In 2006, after her initial cancer diagnosis, she wrote "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers," which chronicled the aftermath of her son's death and her battle with the disease.

When her cancer returned in 2007, the couple held a news conference to publicize the information and declare their intention to continue with John Edwards' campaign.

"You can go cower in the corner and hide or you can go out there and stand up for what you believe in," the former senator said. "We have no intentions of cowering in the corner."

In an interview with the Detroit Free Press after her husband admitted to his affair, Elizabeth Edwards said the incident helped her focus on resuming her role as an advocate for the poor and for health care reform. She also said it pushed her to refocus on her role as a mother.

She also said she did not want her husband's tarnished public image to overshadow his role as an advocate for the poor -- particularly in the eyes of her children.

"I have to prepare for the possibility if I die before they are grown" to make them "able to function without an involved, engaged and admiring parent," she said. "So I need to create the picture for them that I want them to have."

In a September interview on "The Nate Berkus Show," Edwards was asked what she sees when she looks at her estranged husband, John Edwards.

"I see the father of my children, and that's very important to me," she said. "Particularly since I have a terminal disease, this is the person who at some point will take over the primary parenting, and it's important to me that he heals, if he needs too."

Asked about forgiveness, Elizabeth Edwards said that's a difficult topic for her.

"It's really hard to use a word like forgiveness but we found a new of interacting with one another that is healthy -- and I think for the kids -- and really easy for us, which is great," she said.

She said living with stage four cancer "is like dancing with a partner who keeps changing."

"Fortunately with the research, it looks like there may be a new drug for me down the line," she said. "My job is to stay alive until they find a cure. I don't think there's any way to live with this diagnosis than to have that kind of optimism."

On Monday, the Edwards family released a statement saying that further cancer treatment would be unproductive.

In a message posted on her Facebook page, Elizabeth Edwards addressed her family and friends:

"The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And, yes, there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human," she wrote.

"But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful. It isn't possible to put into words the love and gratitude I feel to everyone who has and continues to support and inspire me every day. To you I simply say: you know."



I didn't want to leave her out of this thread.

 

[JennyOHill2]

'Pink Panther' director Blake Edwards dies

Dec 17, 2010 04:59 EST

Oscar-winning director Blake Edwards, who made the "Pink Panther" movies and the 1961 classic "Breakfast at Tiffany's," has died at the age of 88, his agent said.

Edwards, who died Wednesday, worked with cinema legends including Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in a career stretching more than half a century.

Married to actress Julie Andrews, he also famously rated actress Bo Derek a perfect "10" in the 1979 film of that name with Dudley Moore, and won a honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2004.

But he is probably best known for the "Pink Panther" series starting in 1963, in which bumbling Inspector Clouseau played by British actor Peter Sellers hunts David Niven's aristocratic jewel thief Sir Charles Lytton.

"He was the most unique man I have ever known -- and he was my mate. He will be missed beyond words and will forever be in my heart," his wife said in a statement.

He died in Santa Monica Wednesday night "surrounded by his family, including his adoring wife of 41 years, Julie Andrews," from complications of pneumonia, said Edward's agent Lou Pitt.

Born William Blake Crump in Tulsa, Oklahoma on July 26, 1922, Edwards was a stepson of stage director Jack McEdwards. He grew up in the film business, went to school with children of Hollywood stars and roomed with actor Mickey Rooney.

After a brief stint as an actor, Edwards mastered behind-the-camera crafts including screenwriting, directing and producing. He began as a script writer for a radio detective show where the first glimmers of his humor appeared.

The "Pink Panther" movies -- with their infectious theme music scored by Henri Mancini -- were immediate blockbusters, although Edwards did not always see eye to eye with Sellers.

The men clashed on the set, but Edwards allowed Sellers to make a bumbler out of Clouseau and move the character to the center of the plot. It worked.

They made seven films altogether between 1964 and 1978. But the relationship between the two men soured, and at the time of Sellers' death in 1980, Edwards was working on a new Clouseau movie without him.

"Peter Sellers became a monster. He just got bored with the part and became angry, sullen and unprofessional," Edwards said in remarks on the industry website imbd.

In the end, Edwards was to work closest with Andrews, who ditched her most holy image as the nun Maria in the "Sound of Music" to play a cross-dresser in his 1992 film and 1995 stage production of "Victor/Victoria."

She even famously bared her breasts in his 1981 film, "S.O.B."

Art imitating life became a natural and recurring theme for Edwards, and he was accused of doing just that in "S.O.B.," about a director whose wholesome film starring his wife bombs.

To save the movie, the director decides to make it steamier and win a Restricted rating by adding nude shots of his wife, but Edwards was accused of manipulating Andrews.

Edwards named Jack Lemmon as his favorite actor to work with. He played Jack Clay, who slides into alcoholism with his wife, played by Lee Remick, in the 1962 film "Days of Wine and Roses.".

Edwards' films range widely in subject, including the coming-out story of "Breakfast at Tiffany's," adapted from the Truman Capote novel, earning Oscars for Hepburn, Mancini and Johnny Mercer, who wrote the lyrics to "Moon River."

Edwards is survived by Andrews, his second wife whom he married in 1969, along with their five children, seven grandchildren

 

[JennyOHill2]

Steve Landesberg - 'Barney Miller' co-star

http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2010/12/21/ba-landesberg22__0502730023.jpg

Steve Landesberg, an actor and comedian with a friendly and often deadpan manner who appeared on television and in movies, including "Barney Miller," "The Golden Girls," "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Head Case," died, his agent said Monday. He was 65.

The agent, Jeffrey Leavitt, confirmed the death but said he did not have details of the location and time of Mr. Landesberg's death.

Mr. Landesberg is probably best known for the role of Detective Sgt. Arthur P. Dietrich in the '70s sitcom "Barney Miller." The show, which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1982, featured Mr. Landesberg as an intellectual detective with a quiet manner who seemed to have an unrivaled knowledge of practically any topic that arose.

The sitcom, set in a New York City police station, portrayed a group of wisecracking detectives who dealt with the oddball characters who would end up there. With most of the action in the squad room rather than on the street, some police officers have said that the show often better represented the real life of rank-and-file officers than many detective dramas on television.

Mr. Landesberg appeared occasionally during the first few seasons of the show and became a full cast member in the fourth season.

After "Barney Miller" left the air, Mr. Landesberg appeared on several other television shows, including "The Golden Girls," "Harry and the Hendersons," "That '70s Show" and "Everybody Hates Chris." In 2008, he played Dr. Rosenbaum in the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

Most recently, Mr. Landesberg played Dr. Myron Finkelstein, a Freudian therapist, in "Head Case" a comedy on the Starz cable channel.

Born Nov. 23, 1945, in New York City, Mr. Landesberg began working in New York comedy clubs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he was a contemporary of such comedians as Freddie Prinze and Jimmy Walker. He appeared on "The Tonight Show" for the first time in 1971 and several times on "The Dean Martin Show" before landing his first recurring role as Fred Meyerbach in "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" in 1974 and 1975.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy Ross Landesberg, and a daughter, Elizabeth.

 

[KindaKinky]

I've been away for a while, but I would like to thank everyone (Especially JOH2) for noting the passings of people who were notable to certain degrees.

I know death won't take a holiday, but Merry Christmas to the living.

(If you happen to read this thread for the first time, I know I mispelled Cemetery. If I could edit the title properly, I would. The critique has been noted. Provide a remedy, or the only 'bits' you should post is an 'Obit'.

There's an idea OBITS or LTFO. (as in Log the "F' out)

 

[cubbies]

I've been away for a while, but I would like to thank everyone (Especially JOH2) for noting the passings of people who were notable to certain degrees.

I know death won't take a holiday, but Merry Christmas to the living.

(If you happen to read this thread for the first time, I know I mispelled Cemetery. If I could edit the title properly, I would. The critique has been noted. Provide a remedy, or the only 'bits' you should post is an 'Obit'.

There's an idea OBITS or LTFO. (as in Log the "F' out)

Fuck the living. Their number just hasn't come up yet.

 

[KindaKinky]

Fuck the living. Their number just hasn't come up yet.

Neither has yours or mine.

But if you despise the living, piss on them instead. Fucking's too good for some of them.

Merry Christmas to you too cubbies.

 

[cubbies]

Neither has yours or mine.

But if you despise the living, piss on them instead. Fucking's too good for some of them.

Merry Christmas to you too cubbies.

Bah fuck my bug.

But I dig your comeback.

 

[JennyOHill2]

Fred Foy, famous for Lone Ranger intro, dies at 89

BOSTON (AP) - Fred Foy, the announcer best known for his passionate lead-in to "The Lone Ranger," has died at his Massachusetts home.

His daughter says he died Wednesday of natural causes. He was 89.

Nancy Foy says her father landed the job as the announcer on "The Lone Ranger" radio program in 1948. Radio historian Jim Harmon says Foy's introduction and narration was so good it "made many people forget there were others before him."

Foy's son, Fritz, says the signature opening, "Hi-Yo, Silver!" was done by an actor for the radio, but his father boomed it out for the TV series along with the rest of the famous introduction.

Nancy Foy says that to the end of his life, her father never tired of repeating the intro to anyone who would ask.

Fred Foy is survived by his wife of 63 years, Frances, and their three children.



Please click link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oFSzPR56Pk

 

[JennyOHill2]

I've been away for a while, but I would like to thank everyone (Especially JOH2) for noting the passings of people who were notable to certain degrees.

I know death won't take a holiday, but Merry Christmas to the living.

(If you happen to read this thread for the first time, I know I mispelled Cemetery. If I could edit the title properly, I would. The critique has been noted. Provide a remedy, or the only 'bits' you should post is an 'Obit'.

There's an idea OBITS or LTFO. (as in Log the "F' out)

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Jenny

 

[JennyOHill2]

Hall of Famer Bob Feller dies at 92

CLEVELAND -- Bob Feller, the Iowa farm boy whose powerful right arm earned him the nickname "Rapid Robert" and made him one of baseball's greatest pitchers during a Hall of Fame career with the Cleveland Indians, has died. He was 92.

Feller, who won 266 games in 18 seasons -- all with the Indians -- died of acute leukemia at a hospice, said Bob DiBiasio, the Indians vice president of public relations.

Remarkably fit until late in life, Feller had suffered serious health setbacks in recent months. He was diagnosed with a form of leukemia in August, and while undergoing chemotherapy, he fainted and his heart briefly stopped. Eventually, he underwent surgery to have a pacemaker implanted.

In November, he was hospitalized with pneumonia and Feller was recently released into hospice care.

Even as his health deteriorated, Feller continued doing what he loved most -- attending Indians games deep into last season.

"Nobody lives forever and I've had a blessed life," Feller said in September. "I'd like to stay on this side of the grass for as long as I can, though. I'd really like to see the Indians win a World Series."

Feller, in fact, was part of the rotation the last time the Indians won it all -- in 1948.

Fiercely proud and patriotic, Feller was an American original. Blessed with a fastball that could make any hitter look silly, Feller began his major league career at the tender age
of 17. His win total remains a Cleveland team record, one that seems almost untouchable in today's free-agent era.

Feller was part of a vaunted Indians' rotation in the 1940s and '50s with fellow Hall of Famers Bob Lemon and Early Wynn. He finished with 2,581 career strikeouts, led the American League in strikeouts seven times, pitched three no-hitters -- including the only one on opening day -- and recorded a jaw-dropping 12 one-hitters.

His numbers would no doubt have been even greater had his career not been interrupted by World War II.

The first pitcher to win 20 games before he was 21, Feller was enshrined in Cooperstown in 1962, his first year of eligibility.

The Indians retired his No. 19 jersey in 1957 and immortalized the greatest player in franchise history with a statue when they opened their downtown stadium in 1994. The sculpture is vintage Feller, captured forever in the middle of his patented windmill windup, rearing back to fire another pitch.

"When you think Cleveland Indians, you think Bob Feller and vice versa," Indians manager Manny Acta said. "He was a genuine patriot and a big-time Hall of Famer. Boy, he loved the Indians and we all loved him back."

Baseball was only a part of Feller's remarkable story.

Stirred by Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Feller enlisted in the Navy the following day -- the first major league player to do so. He served as a gun captain on the USS Alabama, earning several battle commendations and medals.

Never afraid to offer a strong opinion on any subject, Feller remained physically active in his later years. At the end of every winter, he attended the Indians' fantasy camp in either Florida or Arizona. One of the highlights of the weeklong event was always Feller, in uniform, taking the mound and striking out campers, some of whom were 50 years younger.

Another rite of spring for Cleveland fans was seeing Feller at the Indians' training camp. Before home exhibition games in Winter Haven, Fla., or more recently in Goodyear, Ariz., Feller would throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Introduced to a rousing ovation every time, Feller delivered the throw with the same high leg kick he used while blazing fastballs past overmatched hitters.

An eight-time All-Star, Feller compiled statistics from 1936 through 1956 that guaranteed his Hall of Fame enshrinement. He led the AL in victories six times and is still the Indians' career leader in shutouts (46), innings pitched (3,827), walks (1,764), complete games (279), wins and strikeouts.

Despite losing his two starts, Feller won a World Series title with the Indians in 1948.

When he returned from military duty in 1946, Feller arguably had his finest season, going 26-15 with a 2.18 ERA and pitching 36 complete games and 10 shutouts. For comparison's sake, the Indians' entire pitching staff had 10 complete games and four shutouts last season.

Born Nov. 3, 1918, near Van Meter, Iowa, Robert Andrew William Feller was 16 when he caught the eye of Indians scout Cy Slapnicka.

Feller made his first major league start on Aug. 23, 1936, two months shy of turning 18. He never pitched in the minors, and when the Indians decided to use him in a relief role on July 19, 1936, he was the youngest player ever to pitch in a major league game. Many wondered if the kid -- who would later credit his arm strength to milking cows, picking corn, and baling hay -- was in over his head.

Hardly.

Using a fastball later dubbed "the Van Meter heater," Feller struck out 15 -- two shy of the major league record in his first game, beating the St. Louis Browns 4-1 -- a star was born. Later that season, Feller established the AL record by striking out 17 Philadelphia Athletics.

In 1938, Feller set the major league record by striking out 18 against the Detroit Tigers. The record stood for 36 years before being broken by Nolan Ryan in 1974. By the time he joined the military at 23, Feller had won 109 games and was well on the way to baseball fame.

In his day, nobody threw harder than Feller, who sometimes had trouble with his control. Because speed devices weren't as advanced as they are today, it's impossible to gauge precisely how fast Feller threw in his prime. There is famous black-and-white film footage of Feller's fastball being clocked as it races against a motorcycle said to be traveling at 100 mph.

He always credited his father, Bill, with encouraging his baseball ambitions.

"My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid," Feller said. "When I wasn't pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn. I couldn't repay my debt to him, but I wanted to pass along the thought that if all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year's time."

Feller said the greatest hitter he ever faced, without question, was Williams, although Williams had only a .270 average against him.

"I was a little luckier against him than the others," Feller said. "But he beat me in more games than I care to remember. Joe DiMaggio was the only right-hander who hit me consistently. The fellow who hit me best, though, was Tommy Henrich, the Yankees' old reliable.

"Funny thing, I've run across a lot of former ballplayers who said to me, 'You know, Bob, I wasn't a great hitter, but I've always had pretty good success against you.' I must have kept a lot of .250 hitters in the game."

After retiring from baseball, Feller worked in the insurance business, but he never got completely away from baseball. In 1981, he returned to work for the Indians as a spring training pitching coach and in the team's public relations office.

As recently as last season, Feller was a fixture in the press box at Progressive Field. Sitting in the media dining area before games or in the same seat during them, he would offer his thoughts on any current event and, of course, give his assessment on how the Indians were playing.

Feller was critical of contemporary ballplayers. He viewed them as spoiled and felt they didn't work as hard at their craft as he and his peers. Feller never softened on his stance that Pete Rose, baseball's hits leader, should remain banned for betting on baseball and he was revolted by the idea that players who cheated by taking steroids could one day join him as a Hall of Famer.

Feller, who lived in Gates Mills, Ohio, is survived by his wife, Anne, and three sons, Steve, Martin and Bruce.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Marcia Lewis, at 72; actress was nominated for Tony Award

New York - Marcia Lewis, an actress and singer known for bringing a comic brassiness
to Broadway revivals of "Grease" and"Chicago," died Dec. 20, 2010, in Nashville.

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l57/Brody675/sc0003c2f904.jpg

Born in Melrose, MA. Grew up in Cincinnati. Moved to New York.

Became an actress and was in many Broadway revivals and on many TV shows.

She was also a cabaret singer and she recorded a solo album, "Nowadays," in 1998.

Obits/ Boston Globe/ Friday December 24, 2010